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Retro food

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Re: Retro food

Postby Meganthemog » Mon Nov 08, 2021 4:30 pm

My grandfather steadfastly refused to get a tv even though my grandmother really wanted one. He died - she got a telly.

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Re: Retro food

Postby miss mouse » Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:14 pm

There is a joke in there Meganthemog.

Tellys were seen as 'low' and 'common' by some as I recall, probably an excuse for mean-ness or couldn't afford it.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Nov 08, 2021 5:51 pm

Oh, having a parent in academia I knew many people om the 60s who thought they were too posh or clever or something for mass market entertainment

Then they would want to come round for the Boat Race or something!

But going back to retro food, I suddenly thought today of Cooking Sherry, often Cyprus or South African. In the case of the telly snobs it was probably a euphemism for what kept the lady of the house going in secret while keeping up appearances, but it was something many of us kept in the pantry and actually used in cooking, I certainly did, then I took to use Sainsbury's Montilla, a Spanish wine similar to sherry but quite a lot cheaper (also used to drink that well chilled as an aperitif) (o

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Re: Retro food

Postby Uschi » Mon Nov 08, 2021 6:22 pm

Stokey Sue wrote:But going back to retro food, I suddenly thought today of Cooking Sherry, often Cyprus or South African. In the case of the telly snobs it was probably a euphemism for what kept the lady of the house going in secret while keeping up appearances, but it was something many of us kept in the pantry and actually used in cooking, I certainly did, then I took to use Sainsbury's Montilla, a Spanish wine similar to sherry but quite a lot cheaper (also used to drink that well chilled as an aperitif) (o


In Germany you brought "Mutti" a bottle of Frauengold (Women's Gold) if you could not think of anything else, high in alcohol and some aristolochic acid, which was supposed to make a housewife happy, content, agreeable. It was also supposed to help with one's period.

Image

Another thing that would make a wife more agreeable to her husband was Dr Oetker's Pudding-mix (blancmange-type). It seems, back then, if only you made him a pudding or a cake often enough, he would be as happy as a clam.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Nov 08, 2021 7:29 pm

We didn't have Frauengold - trying to think of a product here that used that font - Schwarzkopf hair dye maybe? The equivalent was Wincarnis tonic wine - Freddie Frinton and others used to make jokes about aunties on the Wincarnis, but it was mainly a surreptitious way of consuming alcohol, sold by the chemist, though still available and apparently popular in Jamaica.

But we really did cook with sherry a lot - I see Peg Bracken put 180ml in her "bisque" (probably Californian)

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Re: Retro food

Postby Uschi » Mon Nov 08, 2021 7:57 pm

Yes, the alcohol would be the main attraction to these products. You can still buy Klosterfrau Melissengeist, a lemon balm spirit (with more herbal ingredients, here. At 96 % Alcohol it is fairly potent. It's used as a cure all. My Gran would take two spoonfulls of the stuff and mix them with half a liter of water. She drank this every day and swore by it.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Seatallan » Mon Nov 08, 2021 8:01 pm

Anyone remember Fortisan Fortifies the Over Forties? :D
Food, felines and fells (in no particular order)

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Re: Retro food

Postby miss mouse » Mon Nov 08, 2021 8:09 pm

Seatallan wrote:Anyone remember Fortisan Fortifies the Over Forties? :D



I do. What was in it?

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Re: Retro food

Postby herbidacious » Mon Nov 08, 2021 8:14 pm

Ooh aristolochic acids - "a family of carcinogenic, mutagenic, and nephrotoxic phytochemicals"...!

Always good to keep women agreeable... ;)

The non-prescription 'mother's little helper' of it's time?!?'

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Re: Retro food

Postby miss mouse » Mon Nov 08, 2021 8:20 pm

It was Phyllosan. Watch a grim advertisement.

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/wat ... 951-online

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Re: Retro food

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Nov 08, 2021 9:04 pm

Sanatogen also started out as a purveyor of mucked about wine before moving to mainstream nutritional supplements (now made by Bayer), I think the idea was it topped up your iron levels, it certainly tasted as if it did (no none of my family drank it but I spent some of my youth hanging round in the back rooms of pharmacies, where free samples were occasionally available)
You can still get it, it seems, though it no longer claims any health benefits

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Re: Retro food

Postby herbidacious » Mon Nov 08, 2021 9:36 pm

We used to have Minadex. It was supposed to be orange flavoured, I think. But just tasted sweet and of iron. It was a dark slime green colour?

edit: still available
Last edited by herbidacious on Mon Nov 08, 2021 9:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Earthmaiden » Mon Nov 08, 2021 9:39 pm

We just had liver every week.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Busybee » Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:49 pm

herbidacious wrote:We used to have Minadex. It was supposed to be orange flavoured, I think. But just tasted sweet and of iron. It was a dark slime green colour?

edit: still available



When I had just has my DS the practice nurse suggested I take Minadex, in hindsight I think I had post natal depression, I can confirm that the Minadex didn’t make me feel any better!

It was vile stuff.

BB

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Re: Retro food

Postby Binky » Tue Nov 09, 2021 12:19 am

There was also a bottled tonic called Floradix. Barbara Cartland swore by it and drank it daily (she said). Enough to put anybody off buying the stuff.

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Re: Retro food

Postby aero280 » Tue Nov 09, 2021 12:53 am

Floradix is still being sold in pharmacies!! :)

My grandfather swore by Metatone...

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Re: Retro food

Postby miss mouse » Tue Nov 09, 2021 1:41 am

Binky wrote: Barbara Cartland swore by it and drank it daily (she said). Enough to put anybody off buying the stuff.



More than enough said though the warning is a good thing. Imagine waking up as Barbara Cartland. Frightening.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Stokey Sue » Tue Nov 09, 2021 1:57 am

I once encountered Barbara Cartland face to face

Not a dainty little thing in practice

No Floradix is still around, especially in ads on the Metropolitan line

I had either Adexolin or Abidec vitamin drops in my cocoa as a tot, attempts to give me NHS cod liver oil and sometimes NHS orange resulted in the responsible adult wearing it, my tummy was not in agreement. When I got to puberty my mother decided I might get anaemia and got me Ferromin B, basically iron sulphate in sugar syrup. So foul it is still one of my references for bad tastes. I hid it in the back of the medicine cabinet and dad threw it away not long after.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Wic » Tue Nov 09, 2021 9:48 am

I remember Minadex! I had to have it at my cousin‘s once. My mother used to give us Haliborange, which was lovely, orangey stuff, so I assumed the proffered spoonful of Minadex would be the same. Ghastly. I think I swallowed it, but refused to have any after that, it was a nasty shock to my tastebuds!

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Re: Retro food

Postby Gruney2 » Tue Nov 09, 2021 10:31 am

When we were ill, as children, we were given "calf's foot jelly".

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