Continuing this month's Sepia Saturday "Fun" theme, I look back at memories of Eating Out.
Restaurant sign in Chartres, France.
I
cannot remember ever as a child going for a meal to a cafe or
restaurant. I grew up in the 1950's and we simply never ate out. I
don't think we were unusual - people just did not do it, when you could
eat at home.
We lived
then in the north west seaside resort of Blackpool, so there was an
abundance of cafes and fish & chip shops - but they were there for
visitors, not for us. My only memory is of a regular Saturday afternoon
trip with my mother into town to meet my Aunt Edith at a cafe that specialised in icecream from the local Palatine Dairy.
Blackpool with its famous tower.
In my
early teens we moved to York, and again I have no recollections in my teenage years of
eating out. This must have been the time of the coffee bar culture, but
that passed me by, and at weekends I met friends at my home or theirs. There was no "just hanging out".
By
my late teens we were living in Edinburgh and I remember going for a
birthday treat with my mother to the Chocolate House (long since gone)
on Princes Street. (I remain a chocoholic!). There was also the tea
room with my mother at PT's (Patrick Thomson's) department store on the North Bridge,
where it was all very genteel with soft music playing and waitresses in black dresses and lace pinnies serving you.
I suppose my first experience of eating out must have been school dinners - not much fun!
Like
most people I hated them, especially the fatty meat, liver, red
cabbage, sprouts and anything with hot milk such as custard and the milk
puddings - rice, tapioca (nicknamed frog spawn or fish eye pud!) and
semolina where I tried to eke out the miserable spoonful of jam
to disguise the awful taste. Also among my dislikes, soggy bread
& butter pudding and Queen's pudding (apart from the meringue
topping), Menus did not seem to change much over my 13 years of school
life. Fly pie (current slices), was my favourite. The idea of taking a packed lunch, as now was never consideredMoving to Scotland introduced me to haggis neeps & tatties (haggis with turnips and potatoes) and a chip butty, (chips in a buttered roll) and kilted sausages (sausages wrapped in streaky bacon. s an impoverished student, a lived off beans and chips
(1s.6d)
as the cheapest item on the refectory menu. Meeting friends, we would
go to a a Wimpy Bar and make one coca-cola drink last all evening.
Now
eating out is one of our great regular pleasures, not just for special
occasions such as birthdays, wedding anniversaries or family visits,
but to enjoy a relaxing lunch in a pub, bistro or country house hotel.
Burts Hotel in the historic abbey town of Melrose, five miles from my home.
Eating
out on holidays abroad is extra special, especially if it is out of
doors (we don't get much chance of that in Scotland).
A restaurant sign in Poland.
We are
extremely partial in Bavaria and Austria. to visiting "Konditorei" (the equivalent to French patisseries) .
A sign at our hotel in Berchtesgarten. Bavaria.
I was an avid reader in my early teens of the Chalet Scghool stories, set in the Austrian Tyrol where having "Kaffee und Kuchen"
seemed to be a favourite phrase. It was not until I learned German at
school that I realised the correct pronunciation - "und" was "unt" and
the ch in Kuchen was as in "loch" not as in "chips"
By
the time we went to Austria on holiday I could order from the amazing selection of
delicious cakes and pastries at the Cafe/Konditorei Zauner, founded in
1832 in the spa town of Bad Ischl, It more than met my expectations of
an elegant, old fashioned Viennese style cafe.
We indulged!
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I don't recall going out for meals very often when I was growing up, either. I remember walking over to the local drug store with Mom & my siblings when I was young where they had a soda fountain & getting ice cream cones while we waited for Dad to get off the bus coming home from work. Once in a while for birthdays we'd go out for birthday dinners. One of my favorite times when I was in my teens happened after church youth group meetings when we'd piled into cars and go down to Mel's drive-in in Berkeley for hamburgers, fries, & shakes. And later, when I was living in my own apt. & working, I'd get off the bus on my way home & meet my Mom & Dad at a local coffee & donut shop to visit & get caught up on the news from home. Fun times.
ReplyDeleteEating out has definitley become common since I was a child. I love visiting Konditorei in Germany and Austria ;)
ReplyDeleteA fun post about dining out. I also did not eat out until I was away at college, except for the odd hamburger and fries when fast food began in the 1960s. During my childhood, our family ate out once a year when my dad got his raise -- and it was a big deal requiring dress-up clothes and best behavior. Now, I live in NYC and the variety is endless -- as is the possibility of having a really great meal at a reasonable cost. Enjoyed this walk down memory lane.
ReplyDeleteDining out is a nice spin on our theme. My maternal grandparents lived near Washington D.C. in Maryland but like our family were working class and rarely went out. In the late 50s and 60s when chain restaurants became popular their treat was a meal at Howard Johnson's restaurant with their special 28 flavors of ice cream. They also had cocktail shrimp on the menu which seemed very exotic at the time. Sadly most of those chains have closed.
ReplyDeleteOh Mike, I was just thinking of how my mom took me and my sis to Howard Johnsons as a treat...more for ice cream, but I did have a favorite meal, hot roast beef sandwich...which was served open faced and dripping with gravy. I think we could only have shrimp cocktail once...very pricy!
ReplyDelete