Which dishes define the decades?
From bread and dripping to prawn cocktail, here are the foods we were eating from the 1950s to the 90s.
BBC2 series Back In Time For Dinner has been on a culinary and cultural journey through time from the 1950s to the present day.
The Robshaw family have been willing guinea pigs in an experiment to recreate a different decade a week in their home, with particular detail paid to what people ate and how they cooked.
So they’ve tried the likes of post-war rationing, the first ready meals and cooking in an early model microwave.
They’ve had to adhere to the social norms of the decade they’ve been living in too, whether that’s Mum cooking all the food in the 50s while Dad waits to eat alone in the dining room or trying to cook everything in the microwave in the 80s.
The series has highlighted the foods and recipes that defined the different decades. How many do you still remember and, more intriguingly, how many do you still make today?
The 50s
In an era dominated by post-war rationing, luxuries were in short supply and it was a case of “making do” with what you had. The ‘National Loaf’, which was bulked out with potato starch, was often eaten at breakfast with dripping from the Sunday roast. And it was an era when liver was a treat.
Cakes were made with dried egg and decorated with blancmange, and Spam continued its post-war popularity.
The 60s
The end of rationing and an increase in restaurants serving foreign food run by families who had emigrated to the UK led to more exotic dishes such as spaghetti Bolognese and curries appearing at the dinner table.
And dinner parties were livened up by cheese and pineapple ‘hedgehogs’.
The 70s
A decade of some unrest with power cuts early on, although the arrival of the freezer later on made life somewhat easier. Food trends included casseroles and one-pot meals, which could be frozen to eat later on, and fondue parties. Puddings included Angel Delight, which delighted mums and kids alike with its speedy creation time and sugary buzz, Black Forest gateau and Arctic Roll.
And going out for a prawn cocktail and steak dinner became more popular with the rise of pub restaurant chains such as Berni Inns. Delia Smith also appeared on our TV screens regularly for the first time.
The 80s
The arrival of the microwave was eagerly seized upon by many, who grabbed the accompanying cookbook and tried to cook pretty much everything in there, especially baked potatoes. As more women went out to work, frozen food also became more popular, with more space in supermarkets devoted to it and the staple meat and two veg often coming out of the freezer.
Other popular convenience foods included ready meals, crispy pancakes, pizza and burgers. And fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s, Burger King and Pizza Hut became omnipresent on our high streets. Meanwhile, high-end restaurants served artful nouvelle cuisine – although the older generation forever complained about the portion sizes.
Meanwhile, desserts such as Viennetta and cheesecake were considered the height of sophistication (where I lived anyway).
The 90s
Cookery programmes began to appear more frequently on TV schedules, with the likes of MasterChef, Ready Steady Cook and Jamie Oliver all debuting on our screens during this decade.
Increasing concerns about diet and provenance lead to more and more people starting to make their own pasta and curry dishes from scratch rather than buying them as ready meals, although that market still boomed.
Pubs started to take food seriously as a means of attracting customers and the rise of the ‘gastropub’ saw standards improve dramatically. And coffee shops started springing up in towns and cities.
What are your food memories of past decades? Do you miss anything? Let us know in the Comments below.
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