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Retro food

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Re: Retro food

Postby Pepper Pig » Wed Oct 27, 2021 1:42 pm

And the terrifying bacon slicer!

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Re: Retro food

Postby Pampy » Wed Oct 27, 2021 1:48 pm

When I was young, our next door neighbour had a grocer's shop and we often used to go there. It was a true "old-fashioned" place. Hardly anything was in packets - he bought tea, cheese, butter, dried fruit (even glace cherries!) etc in huge barrels and weighed everything from them. He made his own bacon and cooked all the deli-type meats at home, before taking them to the shop. For things that he did buy pre-packaged, there was a store room upstairs where the tins and bottles were kept. Even as a youngster, I was fascinated by the place.

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Re: Retro food

Postby herbidacious » Wed Oct 27, 2021 2:11 pm

These had all gone by the time I was old enough to remember such things ('70s) but I do remember a grocery van coming round.

Sorry slipping into nostalgia now!

Luncheon meat fritters at school. I used to like those. They were fried in fish batter. The unfried cold version was acceptable too (and you could cut eyes and mouths out of the rounds.) Do they still sell it? Did it come in a tin? We didn't have it at home.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Pepper Pig » Wed Oct 27, 2021 3:05 pm

Spam fritters! Yum!!! Used to try and get mum to make them at home because they were my favourite school dinner but she wouldn’t because they were “common”.

You know, one of the great things about my mum is that my sister and I have collectively knocked nearly all of the snobbery out of her. :D

(At 93 she’s still a bit of a racist though). :oops:

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Re: Retro food

Postby Stokey Sue » Wed Oct 27, 2021 3:52 pm

Pepper Pig wrote:And the terrifying bacon slicer!

Brig it back I say, it's very difficult to buy bacon sliced to the correct thickness, but you could ask for the thickness you preferred and Arkwright (or Granville!) just turned a knob

herbidacious wrote:Luncheon meat fritters at school. I used to like those. They were fried in fish batter. The unfried cold version was acceptable too (and you could cut eyes and mouths out of the rounds.) Do they still sell it? Did it come in a tin? We didn't have it at home.


Various forms of Spam, chopped ham with pork, and luncheon meat are still sold and eaten, school stuff probably cam in huge catering cans to be run through a bacon slicer, but you can buy something similar product (Billy Bear) with the face already in it :o
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Re: Retro food

Postby Pepper Pig » Wed Oct 27, 2021 5:13 pm

My recollection of Spam fritters is that they were enormous round, thick things a bit like discusses! I dare say my memory is playing tricks again.

One of mine refused to eat Billy Bear and became a vegetarian until I stopped buying it! :lol: His idea of vegetarianism was to live on Coco Pops and Cheese and Onion pizza.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Suelle » Wed Oct 27, 2021 5:34 pm

If you search for Spam fritters, you'll find you can actually buy them - you don't even have to batter slices of Spam yourself! As I thought I remembered, they are shaped like the Spam tin - a rectangle with rounded corners.

https://www.iceland.co.uk/p/spam-fritte ... 81243.html
Traditional home baking, and more:
http://mainlybaking.blogspot.co.uk/

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Re: Retro food

Postby aero280 » Wed Oct 27, 2021 6:56 pm

I think that the last Choc Ice I had came in a pack from Iceland. I haven't seen one for ages. Are they still available or are they just put on a stick and called Magnum?

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Re: Retro food

Postby Amyw » Wed Oct 27, 2021 7:00 pm

Ah Magnums are 100 times better than a choc ice . I’ve had the odd choc ice over the last few years and they’ve been a lot smaller and much nastier too than I remember . Also that Neapolitan ice cream that was mainly ice crystals and every flavour tasted the same

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Re: Retro food

Postby Stokey Sue » Wed Oct 27, 2021 7:34 pm

I think choc ices always varied, the quality of the ice cream and the chocolate, there were premium ones as well as cheap & nasty multi packs

Much easier to eat on a stick, Roger Moore was right!

Iceland briefly did some Italian mini-magnum type ice creams in adult flavours, limoncello, a hazelnut & something and I think a minty one, lovely, just enough for a little dessert treat

When I was a child in the 60s i did think the flavours of the Neapolitan were different, left me with a lifelong dislike of chocolate flavoured ice cream, and there was fierce debate over the intended flavour of the green stripe, obviously not mint; we'd never met pistachio in any form which is what I suspect it represented, mimicked by very week synthetic almond flavouring I think

Bring back Loseley acacia honey & stem ginger ice cream! :yum:

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Re: Retro food

Postby aero280 » Wed Oct 27, 2021 7:58 pm

Who can go back to the Wall's Polo ice cream? The one that took the form of a short cylinder, served in a stubby flat bottomed cornet.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Stokey Sue » Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:08 pm

I suppose the ultimate retro ice cream dessert is Viennetta
yuk, in order to get the effect they do something to the texture of the ice cream I think, it leaves a coating on your tongue, or maybe it's the weird "compound chocolate"

The original Viennetta consists of several rippled layers of ice cream separated by thin layers of sprayed-on compound chocolate. It is now available in many flavours, including vanilla and mint

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Re: Retro food

Postby Pepper Pig » Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:10 pm

Or Arctic Roll.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Stokey Sue » Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:15 pm

Pepper Pig wrote:Or Arctic Roll.

Yep

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Re: Retro food

Postby herbidacious » Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:16 pm

Pepper Pig wrote:My recollection of Spam fritters is that they were enormous round, thick things a bit like discusses! I dare say my memory is playing tricks again.

One of mine refused to eat Billy Bear and became a vegetarian until I stopped buying it! :lol: His idea of vegetarianism was to live on Coco Pops and Cheese and Onion pizza.



I suspect that was luncheon meat. Sounds like the same thing we had in 1970s Sheffield.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Amyw » Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:25 pm

I used to love artic roll and Vienietta. As I hated Xmas pudding, every Xmas, my nan used to buy a Vienietta so I could have something she deemed “suitably posh” as a pudding at Xmas

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Re: Retro food

Postby Busybee » Wed Oct 27, 2021 10:38 pm

I spent six very happy years living in Gloucester, home of the largest ice cream factory in Europe (Walls) and home of the Vienetta.

It was a huge complex, had a roundabout named after it, that I drove past to get to/from work. Coming from York that was dominated by Rowntrees I expected it to be similar in that you knew multiple people who worked there……….not this factory. I was convinced it was staffed by Oompa Lumpas, never did I meet anyone who worked there, see a car driving in or out etc the only spotted movement were lorries coming out.

To this day I’m not 100% sure it wasn’t some elaborate ruse.

BB

Sorry but I think both Vienetta and arctic rolls were horrid, but I have a strange relationship with ice cream, it’s the one thing I’m fussy about, don’t like any with bits in, don’t like any of the mass produced premium stuff like Hagen Daaz, Ben & Jerry’s or magnums etc.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Earthmaiden » Wed Oct 27, 2021 11:09 pm

Spam - vile hot or cold. Luncheon meat and other similar meats ok cold but vile fried.

Neapolitan with green instead of chocolate was Lyons Maid and supposed to be pistachio (I discovered later). I loved it and am always disappointed to find it is usually replaced by chocolate these days. Chocolate ice cream is low on my list of favourite ice cream flavours.

Vienetta - yum. Arctic Roll - I have never liked much, sponge doesn't belong with ice cream. DD adores it.

Magnums - drool!

aero280 wrote:Who can go back to the Wall's Polo ice cream? The one that took the form of a short cylinder, served in a stubby flat bottomed cornet.

I don't remember that but remember short cylindrical shaped ice creams sold in similar cornets. They were usually Lyons Maid whereas ice cream vans and Walls had the more traditional shape. Lyons Corner Houses sold the cylindrical ice creams in little rectangular bowls too - always a treat if we met my father at lunch or tea time. I inherited two very similar rectangular dishes from my grandmother and think of those ice creams every time I use one (I don't think she stole them!).

The other ice cream I loved was the sort served in stainless steel dishes in some cafes and had little crunchy pieces of ice.

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Re: Retro food

Postby Badger's Mate » Wed Oct 27, 2021 11:47 pm

On the subject of ice creams but not at all retro, I'd like to put in a word for Ronaldo's of Norwich. Particularly their gooseberry and their blackcurrant swirl.

We used to get a Rossi's van coming round in the 60s. I liked the oyster wafers, which I understand are still sold.

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Re: Retro food

Postby herbidacious » Wed Oct 27, 2021 11:51 pm

My mother has a Magnum or similar every single day!

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