1. Lamb. We had mutton - gamey, delicious fatty roasts and other cuts from the older beast. They used to call the roast 'leg of two-tooth'.
2. Ham. We had strasburg, mortadella and devon, but not ham. Why? I don't know. We just didn't. We had bacon, in crusty glazed steaming egg and bacon pies as thick as your phone book, but never ham.
3. Steak. We had roasts, we had corned beef, we had oxtail, we had every cut off the cow you've ever heard of and a few you haven't - all cooked to within an inch of their lives (if that's an appropriate turn of expression for something that is dead, but you know what I mean), but we never had steak. Well, not fillet, anyway. The first fillet I ate was at Nine Darling Street in 1973 at my cousin's wedding reception. I was seventeen. She was a dark-eyed classic sixties beauty, all mascara and stacked-up raven hair and miniskirts and bikinis and a sexy raspy voice, like a soft drink commercial from 1967. She's still the same except the bob is grey. Where was I? Oh, the steak. It was about five inches thick, the knife slid through it like butter and it ran red in the middle.
4. Avocadoes. I never saw an avocado until one popped up on a bistro menu in the seventies. As far as I was concerned, avocadoes were invented by a chef who had too much vinegar and olive oil on hand. The same chef also had too many cocktail glasses and had to invent prawns and thousand island dressing, although maybe that was the fifties. It just took a while to catch on here.
That's four. It's all I can think of.
Anyone else?
2. Ham. We had strasburg, mortadella and devon, but not ham. Why? I don't know. We just didn't. We had bacon, in crusty glazed steaming egg and bacon pies as thick as your phone book, but never ham.
3. Steak. We had roasts, we had corned beef, we had oxtail, we had every cut off the cow you've ever heard of and a few you haven't - all cooked to within an inch of their lives (if that's an appropriate turn of expression for something that is dead, but you know what I mean), but we never had steak. Well, not fillet, anyway. The first fillet I ate was at Nine Darling Street in 1973 at my cousin's wedding reception. I was seventeen. She was a dark-eyed classic sixties beauty, all mascara and stacked-up raven hair and miniskirts and bikinis and a sexy raspy voice, like a soft drink commercial from 1967. She's still the same except the bob is grey. Where was I? Oh, the steak. It was about five inches thick, the knife slid through it like butter and it ran red in the middle.
4. Avocadoes. I never saw an avocado until one popped up on a bistro menu in the seventies. As far as I was concerned, avocadoes were invented by a chef who had too much vinegar and olive oil on hand. The same chef also had too many cocktail glasses and had to invent prawns and thousand island dressing, although maybe that was the fifties. It just took a while to catch on here.
That's four. It's all I can think of.
Anyone else?
First raw oyster was at S&D Oyster House on Mckinney Avenue in Dallas, Texas, when I was 21.
ReplyDeleteI was with a man I loved, much my senior (not this one), who challenged me to an "oyster-holding" contest.
I found a pearl that evening.
The restaurant still exists, and far as I know, the man is still hale.
Janis
Love two tooth, hard to find today. We never had pasta with anything other than bolognese sauce, our mums must have been friends, mine also believed in cooking meat to near death. On more than one occassion, her slow cooked corn beef was left to cook all night. In the morning would be a cloud of beef smoke and a little piece of charcoal in the pot. Now that's well done.
ReplyDeletePeanut Butter...I don't know why, Mum just never bought it...
ReplyDeleteCanned corn...same again, it was never on Mums shopping list.
Sour Cream...the first time I had it was on a lunch date with a very nice man back in the early 80's...It was on a potato and I warned my companion not to eat it as it tasted "off" ...I soon learned to like it though and now always have it in the fridge
Macaroni cheese, tongue, broad beans (those 2 were an unpleasant surprise when i stayed with a friend).
ReplyDeleteAvocado, mango (not plentiful in NZ at the time).
Pasta, though mum made a mean meatball, tomato sauce and spaghetti baked in the oven - the long strands were broken into sensible 2-3 inch pieces so you could eat it with a knife and fork.
Finally - marmite - horrible stuff, definitely a vegemite family, a source of much debate once i started sharing houses.
Growing up, I never ate lamb or mutton - my father hates it. He was raised on the gamey stuff and never liked it.
ReplyDeleteNever ate liver as my mother hates it and never cooked it.
No presweetened cereal. My mom's father was a dentist and thought that stuff was the spawn of Satan. (I'm not saying he was wrong, but I longed for it as a kid.)
I've a real hankering to try mutton, as far as I know we never ate it. And yeah, we had heaps of oxtail as kids and ox tongue too. I feel that the idea of eating tongue is simply disgusting but unfortunately I got hooked on the taste before I knew what it was!
ReplyDeleteBaked spaghetti--we had that, too. I think my mom thought it was more sensible, less foreign. Also there were certain vegetables that we only had frozen--broccoli and brussel sprouts, for instance; I'm not sure if this was because of availability or because mom thought they were more convenient.
ReplyDelete