1950s Kitchen Memories: 52 Ancestors: Week 5.

Kitchens is the theme of this week’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompt - what was your kitchen like at home, growing up  - a small galley style only fit for one person at a time, or the epitome of the  large farmshouse style kitchen as  the busy hub of the family?  

Until I was 10 years old, we lived in a rented end terraced house.  The kitchen was small, basic and cold.    It was also rather dark and gloomy with a small window and a  solid back door so little light getting in.   A pantry with a cupboard with a mesh door was the primitive fridge!   

 

 

 The only photograph I have of the house with the solid back door.

 

Writing about kitchens, inevitably means writing about my mother – for when I was growing up, she was a typical 50s housewife, whose days were spent washing, ironing, shopping, cleaning, cooking and baking.  I cannot recollect seeing my father doing any of those tasks (apart from making occasional cups of tea)  - that was not his role in life!

Our family c.1953

 

Labour saving devices  in the 1950's were scarce. Washing (always on a Monday, and never on a Sunday) were  when my mother donned a cross-over overall and put her hair in a turban), Washing was done by hand and then put through a mangle to dry either outside on the clothes line or on an overhead pulley. The only other alternative was a steaming clothes horse around the only open fire for heating in the living room.

We later moved and my mother had a  Raeburn solid fuel cooker (a bit like an Aga) and this was her pride and joy.  A spin dryer followed to ease wash day and then a twin tub, but it was the 1980s before the luxury of an automatic washing machine. 

Kitchens  were still not large – but square and we were able to have breakfast there at a drop-down table.

The desirable kitchen unit of the day was an Eastham’s  cabinet.  My uncle,  a joiner,  worked for a firm which manufactured them.  So both my mother and aunt had one, and my mother in law who was still using hers in the 1980s.   Freestanding,  it featured often striking coloured doors with a cuboard for utensils,  and glass panel sliding doors to show off china at the top,  with  a drop down feature as a small drop down worktop.  Very retro now.      

Getting a fridge in the late 1950's was another  luxury - we could make ice cubes!   The icebox was tiny - in no way a freezer, but it meant we could buy ice-cream to eat at teatime.

Shopping  had to be done most days with a short walk down to the butchers, bakers, fishmonger, greengrocer, post  office and chemist  - no self service or supermarkets then.

Meals were simple, limited in choice and all home prepared by my mother –  we never ate  out or got "take-aways". 

Breakfast was Weetabix, but as I hated milk over anything I used to spread it with marmalade and eat it dry.  Saturday meant a cooked breakfasts treat of bacon, sausage, fried bread and fried egg.  I loved fried bread, but you never hear of it these days.

Main meals did not vary much - a roast on a Sunday lunch  with the left-overs on Monday either turned into cottage pie (delicious)  or served cold with chips;  sausage and mash, Lancashire Hotpot, (one of my favourites)    corned beef hash and on Friday fish and chips.  For vegetables my only memory is of peas, onions and carrots plus Brussel sprouts (ugh)  at Christmas.

We always sat round the dining table for meals, apart from Sunday tea when it was egg and cress or salmon paste  sandwiches, tinned peaches or jelly and cake from a trolley, whilst we watched the classic children's Sunday serial on the television.

During the week, desserts were puddings, such as spotted dick with custard or golden syrup sauce, baked apples, and rice pudding (which my father loved all his life,  but I hated).  Current pie was one of my favourites - despite its nickname at school of of "fly pie" or "fly cemetery.    Shrove Tuesday meant pancakes served with sugar and lemon.  Ice-cream was a very special treat, reserved for birthdays, 

I have strong memories of my mother pouring over the popular Bero Book and her  collection of recipes,  These were the days of coming home from school to home baking, and biscuit and cake tins full.

 

My mother's Recipe Book 

The Bero Book recipe book promoted Bero flour products.  You  got the recipe book by collecting tokens.  I still have my mother’s original copy (below)  – somewhat food stained -  though I now have a more modern version.

Family favourites were Caribbean  slices, chocolate cake with butter icing, Victoria sponges, chocolate crispies, currant slices,   coconut pyramids, ginger biscuits and Shrewsbury biscuits, flapjacks, fairy cakes, butterfly cakes. Eccles cakes, home made jam and jellies with the muslin bag slung between to two chairs to drip.   I loved home-made marmalade - nothing to beat it. But chopping up the Seville oranges was a tedious task. 

 Image courtesy of Pixabay

Friday was my mother's main baking day to set us up for the weekend and week ahead - cakes and biscuits with fruit pies or crumbles (apple, rhubarb, gooseberry, blackcurrant or blackberry).  Lemon meringue was my favourite Sunday dessert, along with trifle and jelly fluff (whipped up with evaporated milk). I disliked blancmange but liked Angel Delight. 

Snacks were generally unheard of - bread and jam in the afternoon, a very occasional packet of plain crisps where you had to hunt for the little  blue twist of salt,  or in summer a rhubarb stick from the garden to dip into a poke of sugar.

Most of these memories come from my primary school days and the towns we lived in had little cosmopolitan influences.  Nothing sticks particularly in my mind of later meal trends - we had  chicken more often, tinned salmon for Sunday tea and fresh grapefruit for breakfast.  It was years, after I left home,  before I became more adventurous with my tastes and braved pasta and pizzas, Chinese and Indian food!  

 

I am getting hungry just writing this post!  Looking back so much of this food seems stodgy and fattening, yet I cannot remember obesity being an issue.  I suppose we walked everywhere, played outside, got plenty of fresh air and exercise and did not snack as much as we do now. 

My mother's baking, though  continued  apace, and she made sure that the biscuit tin and cake tin remained filled until she  was well into her 80's.

Mum and I  in the 1970s.
 

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