Hertford Memories - The Book

[Jo]

Funnily enough Nina Jones (Pam's sister) and I were having an email exchange about breakfasts a few months ago as she was compiling a nostalgic album for someone. Between us we came up with the following. It was always cereal and then something cooked - can't remember all the cereals but I think we got the cooked right:

Monday – Cornflakes?? & eggs - boiled on Monday and scrambled on Wednesday one week, then reversed the following week.
Tuesday - porridge in winter, and bacon & fried bread
Wed - eggs, see above
Thursday - Shreddies?. Sausages & fried bread
Friday – Bacon & fried bread
Saturday – Fish fingers or smoked haddock.
Sunday - Rice krispies, possibly occasionally shredded wheat. Later on we got muesli. Then either nasty green ham, or occasionally spam. And bread.

Which does leave Weetabix - we probably had that one weekday but I can't remember which. Maybe Tuesdays in summer?

[fra828]

I too remember that horrible ham for Sunday breakfast (and coffee which I think we only had once a week)! Can't remember having cereal that day. Was it weetabix on Saturday mornings? And for some reason rice krispies ring a bell for Tuesdays in the summer. Talking of lunches, I thought the worst day was Friday-inedible fish and rubbery 'stodge' for pudding. I always remember feeling hungry on Friday afternoons. We always seemed to have double Biology then and I couldn't concentrate- no wonder I had a struggle to pass Olevel Bio!

[Fjgrogan]

I don't remember any particular weekly cycle to the menu - perhaps I just wasn't astute enough to notice it? Except of course for fish'n'stodge on Fridays. And I had forgotten the fried bread, which I loved. At school it was a lovely golden colour, whereas at home it was sort of dirty grey with black specks, because we used much-recycled dripping. To this day I cannot make decent fried bread, but my husband can. Given that all my favourite meals were of the refined carbohydrate kind I am amazed that I left school weighing only 7st 12lb - today unfortunately I am almost double that! The difference must be the almost total lack of exercise?

[midget]

We would have thought fried bread the utmost luxury. Bacon was just that, cooked so as to almost inedible (our Jewish girl was told by her mother to eat bacon at school, to make sure she got her full rations. It was as well that bread was not rationed during the war, because one day a week breakfast was cornflakes followed by bread and marmalade. The only other cereal was porridge (one lump or two?) with rice krispies a couple of times a term.
I always hated the boiled eggs, there was a faint whiff of staleness about them.

The fish for dinner on Fridays was always great lumps of soggy baked cod, no sauce.

[Katharine]

I'm with Frances on not remembering a particular cycle of food - apart from fish on Fridays and the Sunday meals of course.

I'm not sure what you are remembering Angela of my weekly menus - when I was doing my DofE, I had to work in the school kitchens every Sunday for six months as my "Service to the Community" While there I did have to copy menus out of Miss Milton's book. I cannot remember quite what happened next - but mine did not come to 6s. I think they were put up near the serving hatch and then copied down by the various house Mons.

As far as I recall, every Sunday Breakfast in my time was rice crispies, and we never had them any other day of the week. As we ate it in the house we could do things like add fruit to it. Did you know you can ask a banana a question? If you cut the end off, not the stalk, there will be a black mark which may be in the form of a Y or a blob. Most Sundays we asked our bananas a yes/no question - haven't done that for years - I must have grown up! (I didn't have a banana very often just looked on as others did it!)

[Fjgrogan]

Yes, I also remember questioning bananas! Another, not related thing which has just come to mind - when I first started in 1956 (in 5's which was then a junior ward) we were taught precisely how to fold things and how to carry things. Carrying the milk container over from the kitchens had to be done in a particular way to prevent the milk from slopping. There was a correct way to hold a tea bowl. In the dorm, cubicle curtains were folded in a particular way and hung over the rails during the day, and of course beds had to be made to perfection, with hospital corners, which later was a useful skill to have when I was on training with the WRNR (and presumably for anyone who went into nursing). We each had a basket which was stored under the bed (wicker in our day, later to be replaced by polythene - I wonder if they came from the Addis factory on the Ware Road?) in which we stored our nighty and dressing gown each folded precisely, with a slipper at each end. I still fold my nighty that way. When the juniors went to bed they were responsible for putting the seniors' baskets out on the landing, presumably so that the seniors could get ready for bed without disturbing the juniors. Then at the end of term juniors would be rewarded with a basket present, often in the form of small china animals, Wade Wimsies for example - I wish I had kept them all; some of them are now worth quite a bit!!

[chaosriddenyears]

It is strange that fish features so vividly on the Forum! I have to admit that I am the same - I loved kedgeree, but Fridays were dreaded - batter wrapped soggily around sad pieces of cod or the very worst - boiled fish! When I think of that grey fish floating in a grey, watery gravy, I wonder that it didn't put me off fish for life.

Custard was a creature of moods - sometimes it was just lovely, but often it was either pale and watery or thick with big, chewy lumps in it.

Treacle pudding was lovely if you got a piece that had lots of the treacly topping on it. The bottoms of all those puddings were shiny and rubbery.

[Fjgrogan]

Do you think perhaps the grey watery gravy was actually intended to be parsely sauce? I particularly remember a strange pinky-orange sauce - I suppose you would call it salmon, but the colour not the fish! I remember looking at a house for sale that had walls of that colour.

[Kim2s70-77]

We definitely had cod in white sauce with greyish lumpy mashed potatoes - which has to be the most anemic unappetizing meal of all time!! Does anyone remember the dessert "Dead Man's Legs"?? It was a long roll of pastry with jam in the middle rolled a la swiss rolls - usually 3 long 'sausages' to a serving dish for each house. How we all managed not to die of diabetes with all those carbs is a tribute to English fresh air and exercise!! Every type of meat or fish was the cheapest possible cut and very full of fat or gristle. The fish fingers were grey and brown inside. ( I quit eating meat in my late teens - i am remembering why!!!)

[chaosriddenyears]

We are also all vegetarian!
The fishfingers were really grey inside. I had forgotten about Dead Man's Legs! The pastry was very heavy stuff I remember. Thames Mud and Barges was a treat though.
Does anyone remember the solid lump of jam we used to get in a big pot for tea? It was completely smooth and solid.

You are right about the diabetes I reckon - it was 2 hours "All Out" every day and just as well too!

[Katharine]

Jam came in several kinds, there was nondescript red muck, nondescript red muck with pips in and a few other colours.

[chaosriddenyears]

That's right, one sort DID have pips in - and it was a slab of jam in a pot.

I remember Weetabix being on Sunday mornings - I associate it with the smell of coffee from the urn which was only Sunday breakfast.

There was hot-pot during the week and watery cabbage also comes to mind.

[Angela Woodford]

I'm not sure what you are remembering Angela of my weekly menus - when I was doing my DofE, I had to work in the school kitchens every Sunday for six months as my "Service to the Community" While there I did have to copy menus out of Miss Milton's book. I cannot remember quite what happened next - but mine did not come to 6s. I think they were put up near the serving hatch and then copied down by the various house Mons.

As far as I recall, every Sunday Breakfast in my time was rice crispies, and we never had them any other day of the week. As we ate it in the house we could do things like add fruit to it. Did you know you can ask a banana a question? If you cut the end off, not the stalk, there will be a black mark which may be in the form of a Y or a blob. Most Sundays we asked our bananas a yes/no question - haven't done that for years - I must have grown up! (I didn't have a banana very often just looked on as others did it!)

That's it, Katharine! The beautifully neat tabulated menu down by the serving hatch was your handiwork!

Now a question for all. As a junior, I performed in my turn that rather ghastly duty known as "bits". Does anyone remember doing this? Could there have been a bits disposal bucket down by the serving hatch, which would have led to my regular visit there? I know I did admire the menu, and also a rather splendid portrait of a big Queenly matronly bosomy female whose identity I have forgotten.

I'm in agony. I can't wait to ask a banana a question. I never realised. Why didn't our seniors tell us?

Our little local greengrocer opens in one hour and three-and-a-half minutes.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

Now a question for all. As a junior, I performed in my turn that rather ghastly duty known as "bits". Does anyone remember doing this?



Yes! But I can't equate it with a handkerchief full of spat out fish mornay.

I envisage a large, pitted metal (aluminium?) bowl with lip.


I'm in agony. I can't wait to ask a banana a question. I never realised. Why didn't our seniors tell us?

]

I'll have to give this a go if I manage to get to a banana before Flissypup eats them all.

xx

[icomefromalanddownunder]

, and of course beds had to be made to perfection, with hospital corners,

Er, um, ahem, wouldn't that be infirmary corners?

I'm sure I remember being reprimanded by Sister for using the h word.

Caroline