Childhood Food

[RayandCarole]

Well talking about food in our younger days and remembered cockling in our younger days at Wells going over to the East hills raking for cockles taking them home and boiling up in a big pan with potatoes and samphire. So that was todays project not cockling ( too old for that malarky ) but buying some raw cockles and cooking at home.

Departed Holt in the trusty Jimbo, quick call at Morrisons for gin and prosecco on offer, then too Wells, no parking so couldnt try Frarys on the quay, along the coast no raw cockles to be had oh well back to Holt, into fishmonger for a bit of fish instead,  and what do we spy a big bowl of raw cockles one kilo bought and healthy bunch of samphire and some raw king prawns.

Cockles into cold water to flush through for few hours.

Cockles, samphire and prawns cooked served with boiled baby potatoes delicious, happy memories  

to busy eating forgot to take pics sorry  but heres the scraps 

Ray & Carole

 

 

 

[ChrisB]

Quite a few locals say the extra dredging to keep the outer harbour clear for the Sheringham Shoal support vessels and the subsequent dumping of the spoil has ruined a number of both cockle and mussel beds.

Certainly the harbour looks much more sandy when dry and I know a bilge keel Westerly owner who says it is much harder when he is onboard as the boat takes the ground.

[riyadhcrew]

When I was young, we would wait until the tide went out and wade out to some rocks for ''buckies''. Would bring them home to my mum in bucket loads and she would boil them for all the neighbour's kids. A bent safety pin and a newspaper bag of buckies and there were smiles all around. 

[BroadScot]

13 minutes ago, riyadhcrew said:

When I was young, we would wait until the tide went out and wade out to some rocks for ''buckies''. Would bring them home to my mum in bucket loads and she would boil them for all the neighbour's kids. A bent safety pin and a newspaper bag of buckies and there were smiles all around. 

Your buckies Eric, sound like whelks we collected along Newton-on-Ayr shore. My father loved them. Not my ieea of food though

[riyadhcrew]

Not exactly whelks Iain, but very similar. We would eat loads of them and you would be chewing for minutes on each one.

[Baitrunner]

Sound like winkles. The little black shelled snail looking creatures. Used to love them in a sandwich.  

Or brown shrimps and top and tail them!! Too fiddly to peel  

Treat was a whole crab and mum let me loose with a hammer to get all the meat out!!

then off course there was brawn. Mum used to get the pigs head and boil it up. I was on the old manual food mangle and then you let it set. Sliced with lots of salt. Oh for healthy living. Or a pigs trotter if we were lucky. 

[imtamping2]

I think you have nailed it there Baitrunner..... Winkles or Peri winkels.

[BroadScot]

26 minutes ago, Baitrunner said:

then off course there was brawn

Oh Mark, now you have me thinking back to the days of my father making potted hough, in steel wash boilers. My old man was a butcher/ hamcurer, and was involved heavily with the Ministry of Foods in WW2.

Anything and everything went into that cauldron of water and I mean everything! It went to show there was absolutely no waste then.

I was a very lucky wee laddie eating the finest butcher meat. As for the potted hough, just the smell of it turns my stomach ! 

Iain

[TheQ]

The last time I had brawn would have been in the early 1980s before my grandmother died, she regularly made some.

Cockles are the only seafood I'll eat, I've gone cockling in Northern Ireland, the outer hebridies, and various places round England. But my back won't take the bending now.

I can remember getting winkles as well as a child, but I didn't think they were worth the effort.

Macaroni pudding that's something I've not had for years, and about the only thing my second primary school produced that was edible.

[JanetAnne]

Toast and dripping....

Sat round the coal fire with a long toasting fork each trying to get that nicely browned toast you get a split second before it's black!

We have an open fire here along with some long forks I made years ago. We quite often still toast on the fire, the grand kids think it's brilliant as did their parents. Of course it's crumpets or muffins with butter and jam now, the dripping is perhaps no longer very pc!

Something else was Farley's Rusks. Loved em. Well into my teens and probably longer. We had a similar conversation to this recently which resulted in a trip to the shop. Rusks duly bought I settled down and took a bite ready to relive the memory. Yuk! They've taken all the sugar out!!! My sweet crisp friend was now hard and bland. How could they!? I'm sure it has nothing to do with protecting kids teeth - not that mine are falling out fast of course....

[Siddy]

Think that's as far as I go back is dripping, my uncle used to get slide pork dripping touch of salt in a butty.

When my dad died and we'd sent him to be fired  (u know the score) in the pub afterwards my sister had arranged for trays of hot bread and dripping well it came out on half breadcakes and the trays never made the table before they were cleared. An hour later they'd been out for more. Good to see the healthy lot show there true colours.

You can't seem to get the proper stuff these days.

[SteveO]

For me, it was bilberries, picked from the hillsides of the West Riding of God's county. If you were unlucky/lazy you got enough for a pie, if you were very lucky and industrious, there was enough for a few jars of jam. Bilberries are the British version of blueberries. Smaller, but lots, lots tastier.

steve

 

[ranworthbreeze]

Picking blackberries from the hedgerows of North East Derbyshire and using them with apples from our tree for making apple and blackberry pies & jam. In those early years we walked for what seemed miles with my Nan, good times well remembered.

Regards

Alan 

[Hylander]

You have reminded me of holidays I spent with my Aunt who lived at Fakenham on a farm (probably now an Asda store) we used to go to Wells (remember the shifting sands signs) and go out miles , it seemed to me, to get these blasted cockles. We used to look for pinpricks in the sand that was the clue.   Then you dig and dig.    We used to bring them home and my Aunt used to boil them up in a huge copper.   Ugg!!  never have liked them or eaten.

 

 

[Baitrunner]

Obviously not allowed to do it now, but as a teenager when we caught eels in the local lakes we had to remove them. Always collected them from my mates and took them home for Mum to boil up (they stink) and then either jelly them or have with liquor (parsley sauce). Never liked them as a kid, but now - yummy.  

I always got the job of dispatching them though and it as a kid it was always weird why they kept moving so much that you still couldn't hold them with no head on!!!

[Mowjo]

OK! a healthy one that would give Jamie Oliver a Heart attack, big slab of bread spread with condensed milk and sprinkled with sugar, or bread and dripping loaded with salt, wish someone would explain why I can't remember many overweight or unhealthy people from my childhood, I can't remember any heart attacks and very few cancers, fry ups every morning, eating the fat off the lamb joints, chips cooked in dripping/lard,  either I have a bad memory or something has changed because were all still here,,

[BroadScot]

1 minute ago, Mowjo said:

I have a bad memory or something has changed because were all still here,,

Nah Frank, its em Dieticians wot make a living of telling us what is and what isn't healthy for us! I think the real word, is..... MODERATION !

Iain

[Baitrunner]

Frank, We were all skinny because we didn't eat that much compared to now, fizzy drink was a luxury, McD's didn't really exist and more to the point we walked/ran everywhere and didn't spend 18hrs a day on our backsides playing on line games or on FaceTwit. 

You would never believe it, but I was a skinny little runt as a kid - wish I could go back there now!!

I always found it funny seeing pictures of my Dad in his army days (1940's) skinny as hell, but division (or whatever they were) fly weight boxing champ - I only ever remember him being a lot on the over weight side from the late 60's. He did have arms like popeye though!!  

 

[Mowjo]

When I got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes about 5 years ago my doctor, who is diabetic himself told me I'd be living like a Rabbit on salads and gave me two leaflets, one for diabetes and one for high cholesterol, both contradicted what I could and couldn't eat so I ended up totaly confused, Judi has a friend that works at our local hospital and she managed to get me a back door appointment with the diabetic nurse who had years of experiance, as soon as I showed him the leaflets he ripped them up and binned them telling me they were years out of date, his advice was eat what you want in moderation, stay away from anything that has diabetic on the label, and don't bother with anything like the fancy spreads the say they lower cholesterol, just eat more porridge, been doing that ever since, even have cakes and biscuits now and then and so far every yearly check up my results have been perfect, needless to say I changed my doctor and now see a real diabetic nurse who has a fit when I tell her what I eat, but agrees I must be doing something right!!

[Hylander]

Mojo your post is a joy to read.   All this stuff and nonsense,  if we all took notice of it all we would never eat or drink anything.   As Broad Scot says everything in moderation.   What gets me is that when I go for a checkup 9 times our of 10 the person giving me a lecture is twice my size.       Chuck all of these tick box forms out of the window and dish up a dose of common sense.

[Gracie]

I think illness and obesity etc is just down to the hand you are dealt, I have always eaten salads, fish, chicken all the things that are supposed to be good for you, hit a ladies gym three times a week, I don't do fizzy drinks unless it's a nice prosecco, even though, contrary to popular belief I do drink in moderation. I have never had dripping (yuk) and I wouldn't/couldn't eat the fat off of anything. My point is that I have tried to live a healthy lifestyle which doesn't seem to have done me much good at the moment, I just reckon a little bit of what you fancy in moderation will do you no harm whatsoever, it's really a matter of fate and what's in your genes in my opinion

Well if you will excuse me I'm just off for a beer and a Big Mac

Grace

 

[charlesa]

Re childhood food my grandmother used to live in Bacton just south of Cromer where we used to spend a month in the summer holidays as children in the late 60s/early 70s. Anyway there was a shack/shed in the village where Colin the crab man used to boil and sell THE most delicious edible crabs. The most stupendous aroma used to hit you about a hundred yards away and then off you would go with a few of the beasties for a fantastic lunch with crusty bread..........

In fact last time I was on Martham's Juliette I drove up to Cromer from the yard to try and recreate those lunches but they weren't as nice.....

Best wishes

Charles

[BroadScot]

25 minutes ago, Gracie said:

Well if you will excuse me I'm just off for a beer and a Big Mac

What! No Choc McFlurry !  Seriously though, Grace, if you had been a war baby or just after, the foods us oldies have mentioned, were to many, a treat. I ate raw carrot when young, also was told leave nothing on the plate or else you may well have at the next meal. I was one of the lucky ones regarding best of butcher meat, with my dad being in that trade. Trust me a bacon dripping sarnie was heaven, but yes quality frying steak was the in thing in the early 50's.

For many a small piece of brisket was the sunday dinner, not topside or silverside as is the norm today. Supermarkets changed many eating habits, some for and many against good eating IMHO.

Would I eat a bacon dripping sarnie now? Nope I prefer a bacon n black pudding roll instead ! 

Iain

[Bound2Please]

58 minutes ago, charlesa said:

Re childhood food my grandmother used to live in Bacton just south of Cromer where we used to spend a month in the summer holidays as children in the late 60s/early 70s. Anyway there was a shack/shed in the village where Colin the crab man used to boil and sell THE most delicious edible crabs. The most stupendous aroma used to hit you about a hundred yards away and then off you would go with a few of the beasties for a fantastic lunch with crusty bread..........

In fact last time I was on Martham's Juliette I drove up to Cromer from the yard to try and recreate those lunches but they weren't as nice.....

Best wishes

Charles

When i was a kid yes i was once before you start......... All shrimps and a lot of cockles were cooked on the boat on the way back to L o S in sea water...... really scrummy. Those cockles that wernt were cooked in sea water in the sheds. Today all are cooked in the sheds in such a sterile way all flavour is lost in the over cooking, to keep health authorities happy and in a job.... . No one ever died from being poisoned there in those days or if they were no one heard about it.

Off soap box now

Charlie

[ranworthbreeze]

 

1 hour ago, Gracie said:

Well if you will excuse me I'm just off for a beer and a Big Mac

Hi Grace you are excused for the beer but McDonalds, you would be better off eating the packaging

Regards

Alan