I remember kids at my primary school in the 1970s who had no proper teeth by the age of eight, just a mouth full of metal. It's such a strong memory. I don't remember a stigma because we didn't know why it was so. Little Patricia is often in my mind, 40 years later.
My parents didn't really get the idea of teeth brushing and had terrible teeth themselves. Their own woes put the fear of god into me and I'm a bit obessive about looking after mine.
We didn't really have sweets at home or fizzy drinks. As a family we loved always Chinese, Italian and Indian food and would take visiting guests out to eat at those restaurants. Now, in retrospect, I guess that was partly due to living in London, where these were lots of all those restaurants around in the 1970s. I grew up taking them for granted - plus West Indian food from my dad, who was a great cook. The other half of the family is French and are amazing cooks - so I had good food inspiration everywhere.
Corned beef hash was a regular weekly meal for us. It's about half lard, but I loved it - loads of onions and pepper.
Remember you have to drain the chickpeas it's not 400g of peas but 400g in the tin including water, the one I have here is a 380g pack (yay shrinkflation) with 250g drained weight it costs £1.61 for 250g drained weight or £6.40 per kg
Chicken quarters cost £1.70 per KG Pork is around £4.60 per kg and beef mince is £5.57
On offer you can get all of that cheaper though not the beans they just don't go on offer!
Baked beans 390g £1.15 shops own brand.
If you talk about mince or chicken and don't talk about organic or any other pricier label meat is much cheaper than beans.
Beans are not grown here we have a climate similar to Scotland with slightly warmer summers, i.e cool and wet.
When I lived at home we had a very standard meat and 2 veg potatoes 6 days a week diet, with lots of pastry, dumplings etc. also at least 1 or 2 puddings a week, queen of pudding, or some other stale bread pudding. and I did not get fat, as soon as I moved out and started eating fastfood and living close enough to a shop to buy sweets.. urgh.
SteveTu, back in the 70s, there was plenty of work just filling the teeth that needed it, so no need to go looking for extras! There was, however, a well known and heavily frowned on practice around then ( look away now, Pat E ) known as the Australian Trench, which involved cutting a big long hole the length of all the back teeth, and filling it in one go. As we were paid per filling, that would have counted as three or four fillings. Named as it was supposedly carried out by dentists from down under, who would come here for a year or so to “Bash the Nash” ( Nash-ional Health Service) and make a small fortune to take home.
i remember in 1975 seeing a whole family with no fillings, and it was so rare that all my colleagues came in to take a look, and ask questions. Turned out that the only time they ever ate sweets was when they went to a football match, when they would share a single Mars bar between the four of them!
Fire, the first time I tried Chinese food was in the early 60s, when my best friend’s dad ( a doctor, therefore more money than my family) brought home a takeaway. Didn’t get to taste any again until I met boyfriend (now OH) who although he was a very picky eater and wouldn’t touch it, would stop by the takeaway before dropping me home from a date, and buy me a chicken chow mein! Knew he was a keeper then!
@Skandi I took the prices from Tesco, their own label. Yes, beans or chickpeas are with water but chicken quarters have a lot of bones. Sure, if you buy a whole chicken and make it into three meals for two (breasts, thighs, soup with the rest of the meat), it can be cheap, something like £0.60 per person per portion. Still, more than the £0.30 can of baked beans (but ok, close to fancier types of beans).
I was a kid in the nineties in the Czech Republic. Our typical saving-money food was spaghetti with ketchup. Later, in my early adulthood (student years), I moved to spaghetti with tomato sauce.
...keep going...in a few years you can add some dried herbs... I've got to the point where I throw caution to the wind and add some veggies as well...
Admit it, who never had some Alphabetti Spaghetti as a kid - or even as an adult hasn't had cold baked beans out of the can? No?....just me then and my bad habits...
Always hated any form of tinned spaghetti, just too over cooked and slimy for me! Also cured of eating baked beans, after having them dished up at least three times a week at secondary school. Cheap, watery, catering version, along with the lumpy mashed potatoes and spam with bits of grit in! My favourite comfort food is spaghetti, with an egg cracked into the pan to poach while the spaghetti is cooking. Drain and stir in a couple of spoonfuls of tomato relish plus some grated cheese and some freshly ground pepper. I could eat that every day. When we ate more meat, and usually had some ham in the fridge, I might add a couple of slices cut into strips. Getting hungry just thinking about it!
I wouldn't pay £1.70 per kg for chicken. It's too cheap - must be very low welfare. Apart from the fate of the poor chicken, the nutritional quality of it will be limited. Chicken is a rather rare treat for us at more like £5 or £6 a kg.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Beans won't grow to maturity, I can just about get a few runners to make it some years, but if it's like this year that was cold and damp they don't get far enough along. bush beans just go mouldy on the plant before they get anywhere near ready to dry. we can grow peas and lentils, however I would only grow them as forage for meat animals they are not food in my opinion. As the prices showed that treat price for your chicken is close to what a tin of beans costs per kg here. they are the treat the chicken/pork is the staple. even a tin of baked beans is £3 a kg and half of that is sugary tomato juice.
we can grow peas and lentils, however I would only grow them as forage for meat animals they are not food in my opinion.
Is that because your peas and lentils aren’t very good quality, or do you see veg as an inferior foodstuff to meat? Is this a common view in Denmark? The prices you have been quoting certainly indicate that much of the chicken for sale there must be very low welfare, quantity over quality, mass production? I certainly boycotted Danish bacon many years ago on welfare grounds, and only buy free range meat or eggs. What are egg prices in Denmark like, and are they mainly factory farmed too? Many supermarkets here no longer sell non free range eggs because of public reaction.
Always hated any form of tinned spaghetti, just too over cooked and slimy for me!
My niece and her husband were invited to his father's house for dinner. That comprised frozen chicken Kiev, frozen mashed potato (I didn't even know such a thing existed) and spaghetti hoops! Lovingly prepared by the father's partner presumably in the hope they wouldn't come again. Her wish has certainly been granted.
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Named as it was supposedly carried out by dentists from down under, who would come here for a year or so to “Bash the Nash” ( Nash-ional Health Service) and make a small fortune to take home.
i remember in 1975 seeing a whole family with no fillings, and it was so rare that all my colleagues came in to take a look, and ask questions. Turned out that the only time they ever ate sweets was when they went to a football match, when they would share a single Mars bar between the four of them!
Fire, the first time I tried Chinese food was in the early 60s, when my best friend’s dad ( a doctor, therefore more money than my family) brought home a takeaway. Didn’t get to taste any again until I met boyfriend (now OH) who although he was a very picky eater and wouldn’t touch it, would stop by the takeaway before dropping me home from a date, and buy me a chicken chow mein! Knew he was a keeper then!
Yes, beans or chickpeas are with water but chicken quarters have a lot of bones. Sure, if you buy a whole chicken and make it into three meals for two (breasts, thighs, soup with the rest of the meat), it can be cheap, something like £0.60 per person per portion. Still, more than the £0.30 can of baked beans (but ok, close to fancier types of beans).
I was a kid in the nineties in the Czech Republic. Our typical saving-money food was spaghetti with ketchup. Later, in my early adulthood (student years), I moved to spaghetti with tomato sauce.
My favourite comfort food is spaghetti, with an egg cracked into the pan to poach while the spaghetti is cooking. Drain and stir in a couple of spoonfuls of tomato relish plus some grated cheese and some freshly ground pepper. I could eat that every day. When we ate more meat, and usually had some ham in the fridge, I might add a couple of slices cut into strips. Getting hungry just thinking about it!
I wouldn't pay £1.70 per kg for chicken. It's too cheap - must be very low welfare. Apart from the fate of the poor chicken, the nutritional quality of it will be limited. Chicken is a rather rare treat for us at more like £5 or £6 a kg.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Is this a common view in Denmark? The prices you have been quoting certainly indicate that much of the chicken for sale there must be very low welfare, quantity over quality, mass production? I certainly boycotted Danish bacon many years ago on welfare grounds, and only buy free range meat or eggs.
What are egg prices in Denmark like, and are they mainly factory farmed too? Many supermarkets here no longer sell non free range eggs because of public reaction.