It's hard to remember that many everyday foods today were luxuries in my childhood. Pineapples were exotic and hardly known as a fresh fruit, chicken was definitely a treat and prawns were a once a year indulgence of a few ounces still with their shells on and eaten during the annual trip to the seaside.
My how things have changed! Pineapple is available at a very reasonable price all year round and chicken is one of the cheapest meats. And prawns, ah prawns are always in my freezer.
So tonight a few prawns came out of my freezer and got combined with rice, peas, sweetcorn and egg and I had a delicious egg fried rice.
And I still haven't spent any money on groceries this month
I was about 25 when I tasted a fresh pineapple - although we’d had tinned at Christmas - chunks with cheese on a cocktail stick. Horrid! Chicken was only at Christmas too (very little meat during the year; things like mince, rabbit and liver though)
ReplyDeleteI was about the same age when I tried prawn cocktail. First eaten at the Ideal Home Exhibition when you used to get lots of free tastings.
As a child, on Sunday afternoons, the cockle man would come round the streets (and don't laugh; but also the muffin man!) Now and then my dad would go out and get a gill of shrimps, measured by a tiny jug. Dad, who had starved as a child, ate them whole and told me off when I pulled off the head, tail and legs along with the crackly skin!
I’ve not been allowed any seafood for 14 years now and the only thing I miss is crab and even that had come out of a tin. Never had fresh.
Wonder what today’s luxuries are? Sadly, many people would just like some ‘food’.
I think that modern luxuries are home cooking - home made cakes and pies, cooked-from-scratch dishes.
DeleteYes, Christmas was definitely a time to be anticipated and savoured.
I have to admit that I've never tried eating the whole prawn or shrimp. I think that the fact that we peeled them meant that it took a long time to eat the gill and the treat lasted longer.
And no, we never had a muffin man. In fact I was an adult before I tried a muffin!