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My Mum could not cook she cremated everything. My Dad did the cooking all plain boiled or fried. Grilling was for toast only.

My granny was a brilliant baker and cook, I used to sit at the kitchen table as a child as she gutted a chicken and explaining all the innards. My great grandfather her father owned a bakers shop but he fell from a moving tram and could no longer work so gave the shop up. Well, actually the shop was burnt down in the 1922 troubles.
 
I love these old stories as many remind me of my younger days.

My mum and nan were amazing cooks. Mum worked full time but Saturdays were baking days when she taught me how to cook. I picked up her skills but my father re-married after her death so I never got hold of her books that had her modified recipes in.

I cooked a lot until I got ill but could never match my mum or nan. Some people say your taste blunts as you get older so you remember foods from your childhood tasting better but I could never manage certain dishes exactly the same in my twenties - even if we stood next to each other doing the same meal. I had colder hands than mum, though, so we agreed I'd do all the pastry.

I always think it's a shame that older people go short in order to leave things for their families but it's really sad to hear of cases like Vienna's neighbour. Leave a little but don't go cold yourself. It's surely better to bring your kids up to be able to provide for themselves than wait for parents to die? I can see my sister doing that with her grandson. He's a spoilt and entitled young man that brings her misery but she still thinks he walks on water.

I have a brother like that so it must run in the family as he followed my selfish uncle just as his nephew is now. I remember being so shocked one day not long before her death when my mum actually agreed with me when I'd finished ranting about my brother. I thought she'd been blind to his faults but it turned out she knew all along. Shut me up quick enough!
 
My maternal gran was a hard worker well into her 70’s and lived very frugally herself but was generous to us grandkids buying top quality Sunday clothes (such a waste as we grew out long before they were worn out). But I don’t ever remember her cooking, it was my grandad and it was basic.

my dad could cook but again just basic stuff despite his mother being a cook to an army officer who had been stationed in India and got her to cook curries back home which must have been strange in those days. He said as kids they ate a lot of rabbit.
 
Vienna - did your mum make her custard with sterilised milk? That's what my granny did & her custard was also delicious.
Custard 🤮🤮 Sorry, I can't even look at it. I did make a bread and butter pudding tonight though that went down well with the dog lol (sultanas removed). OK I'm lying, Mr CC scoffed it. I love to try to cook, it's not all nice but Bryan loves it whatever 🐶

CC
 
I love custard, I remember you had to keep stirring or it would stick to the bottom of the pot. I got that job as a child when it was deemed I was ready for it.

My granny who was a Scot made a thing called a Clutty (sp)Dumping well we just called it my granny's dumping. Massive thing boiled in a pot tied up with a large table cloth. Think Xmas pudding but no alcohol and thick white skin around it. My big brother and my uncle used to fight over it and I remember neighbours all coming to get some too.
 
My nan used to say "no good being the richest man in the cemetery"

Vienna's post reminded me of something I'd once heard about.
A friend's husband worked for the local council, one day they were sent to clear out a house after the old lady died. They lifted the mattress off the bed, it had been cut along the side. It was stuffed full of money, some were even the old white fivers from pre war and early 50's I think.
Neighbours said she had kept herself to herself, all help was refused and always had a freezing house if anyone went round to offer help. She dressed herself in little more than rags and was very thin.
All that money and a miserable existence, what was the point.
We heard that the cause of death given was hyperthermia.
 
I love custard, I remember you had to keep stirring or it would stick to the bottom of the pot. I got that job as a child when it was deemed I was ready for it.

My granny who was a Scot made a thing called a Clutty (sp)Dumping well we just called it my granny's dumping. Massive thing boiled in a pot tied up with a large table cloth. Think Xmas pudding but no alcohol and thick white skin around it. My big brother and my uncle used to fight over it and I remember neighbours all coming to get some too.
If you want to have a go at making one yourself :)
 
I love custard in any shape or form as long as it’s not too sweet. Thick, thin, hot, cold, skin, lumpy, anything. Don’t eat it over anything (hate anything soggy) so on its own or in a separate dish so they don’t mix (I’m queen of the separate dishes, don’t liked mixed up food or too much white food on the plate, eg cod, cauliflower and mash no no no)
 
I love custard in any shape or form as long as it’s not too sweet. Thick, thin, hot, cold, skin, lumpy, anything. Don’t eat it over anything (hate anything soggy) so on its own or in a separate dish so they don’t mix (I’m queen of the separate dishes, don’t liked mixed up food or too much white food on the plate, eg cod, cauliflower and mash no no no)
All I can now see is Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally & her liking for sauces 'on the side. Of course, there's another, more famous, clip from the film but I won't go down that road 😉
 
My Nan used to make the most amazing roast dinner and gravy from scratch, there were that many sittings the gravy started off were you could stand your spoon up in it, then of an evening my Nan and Grandad (who was like a big gentle bear he worked every single day of his life) would just have butties and cakes. My Nan passed away 25 years ago and Grandad 27 but looking back now the way she navigated her way through life (ending with dementia) with no luxuries like microwaves, dish washes, fancy hoovers making life easier, she was absolutely amazing........miss you Nan and Grandad 😢
 
Wow, has this thread brought back memories of tastes past! We say here that they don't make shrouds with pockets.
The tastiest meals were at my great aunt's in the Lake District. They lived on an absolute pittance and cooked in a Victorian oven (the type with an arm above the fire for the kettle that swings out when you want to take it off the hook) yet their high teas were magnificent, plate cakes, fruit cakes, sandwiches, bacon and egg pies (never quiches) that wouldn't have been out of place in QVC, if we're talking high end o_O, the house was dropping to bits then but a cream-painted (?why cover beautiful stone?) tarted-up version of it (minus the fire) sold for nearly a million.

Sigh....
 
My granny again. She made porridge in a big double pot(came in two parts boiling water was in the bottom and porridge and water in the top) cooked and the porridge was just reheated each morning as she made enough in one go to last the week. No fridge so just sat on the cooker top. So I just use the ready one add milk or water into the bowl with it and 2 minutes in the microwave. But I have to leave it to sit for like 5 minutes as it has to be thick like my granny's you could paste wallpaper with it! 😂 The idea of watery porridge just turns me.
 
My mum's porridge was hit and miss. Was either runny, or so thick the spoon was stuck in it!
Always Scott's Porridge Oats with a man in a kilt on the front. We used to have it with milk and really dark brown sugar.
Having proper porridge, cooked correctly from steel cut oats was only when we stayed with my great aunt or my any of my cousins when we went north of the border. Cooked slowly overnight on a range.
My mum had cold hands and made all her pastry with lard, whether for sweet or savoury purposes. She made her own version of cornish pasties, savoury mince pie, wonderful fruit pies with fruit she stewed for the purpose. The fruit pies were large ones cut into slices, and I would take a slice as part of my packed lunch...and have to share it out with all my friends who also loved her fruit pies. Apple, rhubarb, plum, gooseberry, blackcurrant, blackberry & apple and apricot are the ones, always with in season fruit. She made flans and quiches and tarts too. On Sundays she would bake cakes... Coffee & walnut, chocolate, orange, lemon, caraway seed, Madeira, Victoria sponge... always perfect and light.
I miss her crisp but slightly chewy pastry to this day. She tried to teach me to make pastry, but I can't bear getting stuff under my fingernails and my hands go from stone cold to red hot anyway.
This time of year the great Christmas prep would be underway. She had an outsized washing up bowl used solely for mixing up the Christmas goodies. Mincemeat, with so much booze in it you would fail a breathalyser test made into the best mincemeat pies I've ever eaten...Christmas puddings boiled and put up: never eaten the year they were made, but sufficient for Christmas, New Year, Easter and her own birthday in February. The Christmas cake was probably the biggest performance, with homemade jam, homemade marzipan and topped with royal icing made into rough peaks, then set (by my brother and I) with the cake decorations we used every year. You could break your teeth on that icing, but it kept the cake perfectly for the 2 months until we cut it.
Mince pies and Christmas puds were always served up with homemade brandy butter and whipped cream...but if you wanted custard, it was Bird's custard powder, castor sugar, and a small tin of evaporated milk plus 2 cans full of water. It was delicious flavour wise, but like the porridge, the texture was a bit hit or miss!
My mum in the kitchen was always hit and miss for other things, but she was matchless for cakes and pastry. Some of my happiest memories are of us working together in the kitchen.
 
My gran also used to say "no point being the richest in the cemetery" also, "no pockets in a shroud" and "can't take it with you". She wasn't rich, far from it but her family were her riches. Miss ya Gran :cry:

CC
Unfortunately having to pay for later years care there is a lot of pressure to hold on to as much money as you can.
 

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