 |
| Author | Post |
|---|
David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1127 |
|
Posted: 25 Sep 2006 02:25 am |
|
I enjoy cooking as much as the next person, which is to say, not much, but I would enjoy it more if there weren't so many divergent tastes in my family.
One won't eat pork.
Another doesn't like chicken.
Both children don't like vegetables, and one won't eat broccoli and neither will eat beans.
And so it goes on.
The upshot is that I will have to cook three green vegetables tonight, with at most two of the four participants favouring any one vegetable. My children would it seems happily dine every day of their lives on the disgusting fish and chips which can be purchased locally, but that is the only meal which unites them (and which certainly divides them from me).
This situation is maddening, but how did it come to pass? Was there a critical moment one day when, instead of insisting that everyone ate the same meal or went hungry, I let my guard down and permitted this culinary diversity to begin to develop? I think I should be told.
But then I wonder whether it would have been any different if uniformity had been enforced. After all, at my boarding school we all had to eat the same (often very horrible) food, and I'm sure that most of the former inmates would rather starve to death than submit to eating that sort of garbage again for years on end.
Up to the 1960s, it would seem, that the service of revolting food was the hallmark of boarding schools all over the British Empire (and possibly beyond). Here is a true wartime story:
First inmate at Changi Prison: "I hear the food here is really bloody awful."
Second inmate: "Oh, the food at Winchester [a leading English public school] was much, much worse."
Food I can remember from boarding school, over a half-century ago
* White toast (Wonderful stuff. You were allowed a slice only when you'd eaten what you had already, so we gobbled our way through, trying for three slices. Toast had to be broken, not cut with a knife; cutting your toast was a caning offence.)
* Quince jam (It came in huge tins, the size of a rugby ball. I loved it.)
* Tripe in white sauce (Tripe, for the uninitiated, is boiled animal's stomach. It is even more ghastly than it sounds. From Wikipedia: "Tripe is a type of edible offal made from the stomach of various domestic animals. Beef tripe is typically made from the first three of a cow's four stomachs, the rumen (blanket/flat/smooth tripe), the reticulum (honeycomb and pocket tripe), and the omasum (book/bible/leaf tripe). Abomasum (reed) tripe is also seen, but with much less frequency, owing to its glandular tissue content. Sheep and pork tripe are also produced.")
* "Scrambled eggs" made from reconstituted powdered eggs. (This was really horrible stuff. If we ever went to war with France this is what should be shown to prisoners to make them talk. But it should be shown to them only; making them eat the stuff would I am sure contravene many clauses of the Geneva Convention relating to the humane treatment of prisoners.)
* Porridge. Not the smooth, tasty Creamoata (with cream and sugar, white or brown) which I had when I was on holiday from boarding school but the lumpy, glutinous "real" stuff beloved of people who believe that if you a really miserable breakfast you will be better able to cope with Scotland for the rest of the day.
* Pot roasts (I think these must have been mutton roasts. They were cooked with stuffing and served with baked potatoes and baked pumpkin, and were surprisingly good.)
* Bacon. For reasons which I cannot unravel at this distance in time, it was served on great tin dishes which were swimming in water and fat, as if it had been poached, not grilled or fried. It still tasted good, you will be astounded to hear.
* Swedes. A vegetable which seems to have vanished from the dinner tables of the nation; a situation which, if true, indelibly stamps this century as one which has progressed beyond the culinary standards of the last.
* Corned beef with white sauce, served with carrots. (I can't face corned beef to this day because of this awful stuff.)
* Black pudding. Not a pudding, but a main course, made from - wait for it - blood. Please throw up outside this thread. (Wikipedia has a photograph of an Englishman's breakfast comprising black pudding, baked beans, fried bread and mushrooms. No, I am not making this up.)
* Chocolate pudding and chocolate sauce. (The most popular dessert every week, until the night when every boy in the school was stricken with food poisoning. Only an artist with the skill and sensibilities of a Hieronymus Bosch could have done justice to the scenes at the toilets at three o'clock the following morning.)
* Tapioca pudding with raisins or sultanas. According to Wikipedia, "during World War II's Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia, many refugees survived on tapioca". I believe it. I also think it highly probable that those who survived on it never wanted to look at the stuff again.
Chicken was a great luxury in the 1950s. We never saw it at boarding school.
I often wonder which of my many food fads can be attributed to boarding school food. I strongly suspect that the answer is: all of them.
What do you remember of the food you ate in childhood?
"Scrambled eggs" (before ingestion):
Attached Image (viewed 150 times):
|
ladypene
Member
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 3 |
|
Posted: 1 Oct 2006 02:24 am |
|
I was a boarder at the Kenya High School for Girls.
I have to say that the food was splendiferous. Excellent even..............
We even had a french breakfast once a month with lovely hot coffee and croissants!!!
The desserts were to die for .......... I have had a great love of rhubarb crumble and custard ever since. The underside of the crumble was moist and tasty with the rhubarb juice, but the top was very crunchy. The custard was smooth and tasty and not a lump to be seen. Needless to say, I have never had a crumble as good since then.
In the winter (rainy season) we were given hot soup at morning tea..........
It was the first time in my life that I put on weight ........... I needed too!!
|
jaybee2003
Member
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 272 |
|
Posted: 1 Oct 2006 11:30 am |
|
"I often wonder which of my many food fads can be attributed to boarding school food. I strongly suspect that the answer is: all of them."
We totally agree with that comment! Foods that are banned in this house thanks to boarding school:
Tapioca, sago, semolina, spanish cream, custard (except in custard squares). steamed puddings (bar christmas pudd)
Sausages cooked in any type of sloppy sauce/gravy, beef stews are 'just' tolerated - just, bubble & squeak - any leftover foods are tossed not recycled, tripe and onions.
Amazingly, at an Old Boys Breakfast a few years back, the most keenly enjoyed dish was tripe and onions. Not surprisingly, conversation drifted around the room along the lines of "my wife refuses to cook this".
Fads/Habits from boarding school - three sons who scoff their meals down in seconds flat (eat fast or have it stolen off your plate, eat fast and there might be seconds). In an attempt to try break the habit at home, the rule was established that whoever finished first had to wash the dishes. Picture three lads sitting around the table, innocently pushing the last piece of food around their plate, trying not to be last. As adults now, they are still fast eaters.
Jamie has the weirdest fad - he loves marmalade with baked or bbq'd sausages. A throw back from when the only condiment on the table was marmalade. Any condiment was a treat. He also loathes cocoa or hot chocolate drinks - again thanks to boarding school. He started boarding school as a 7 year old, and there is no doubt all his food likes/dislikes were moulded by years of boarding school food.
btw..."Mutton is to lamb what a millionaire uncle is to his poverty-stricken nephew." Des Essarts (18th Century French Actor.)
|
Current time is 05:06 am |
|
|
|
|
|
