EATING IN THE UK IN THE FIFTIES

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Curry cannot be far off the menu, especially as both Cardiff and Swansea were international ports, and a lot of army units came from Wales, Curry is probably more Welsh than you think.
Also the pot noodle is produced in the Valleys, and employs a great many former mining families. So Welsh cuisine is more varied than you think...
If you can call Pot Noodle cuisine!

[Leman]

Camp Coffee was chicory essence - it came in a bottle!

[Techno]

If you can call Pot Noodle cuisine!

The weird thing about pot noodles is that every couple of years I have an absolute craving to eat one.......So I do...and then remember why I don't eat them more often, as I chuck it in the bin !
Cheers - Phil.

[Chad]

Ian

Was it Chicken Daibach?

Chad

[Leman]

It's when their feathers fall out, boyo.

[Techno]

I thought Dai bach was 'little Dave'.
Meirion would know. 
Cheers - Phil

[Orcs]

What about those lovely dried Vesta Curries

[Ithoriel]

I preferred the Vesta Chow Mein. Right up there with Pot Noodle in the culinary stakes

[Chad]

My vote is the Vesta Risotto. Loved them.

Did anyone ever try tripe? My mother made me try it once. It was bloody awful.

Chad

[Fenton]

Ah I love traditional meals

Started off with Prawn cocktail ( some defrosted prawns with a damp bit of lettuce drowned in thousand Island dressing)

Main course would be a Vesta Curry , or Scampi and chips, or if being really posh Chicken in a basket

Dessert would be Angel Delight or Baked Alaska

EDIT:...I forgot about sponge and custard which was sometimes served up

[old smokie]

loved the Condensed milk on bread and Camp coffee, hated those bloody French Fancys, always ended up with the pink one at granny's house still can't stand them

[sebigboss79]

My vote is the Vesta Risotto. Loved them.

Did anyone ever try tripe? My mother made me try it once. It was bloody awful.

Chad

Liked it first time, hated it since. No idea why in both cases.
Wife is chinese and they do trip in their 'hot-pot' dishes.

[Steeleye]

I do remember an ad on TV for some sort of tinned meat, the tag line was '...now with added fat!'

Fat was good for you back then.

Curry became widely popular during and after the Great War. Many Regimental cooks from battalions who'd seen service in India used to cook it and send it up to the front like trenches in 'Hay Boxes'. They worked on the principle that even if it was cold by the time it got to the troops it was still 'hot' and would warm the chaps up a bit.

And yes I remember curry as being sort of yellow with odd things in it like KN pepper.

[FierceKitty]

There are lots of surprisingly good 19th century cook books from Raj officers who realised that Indian food was worth taking seriously. Useful reminder that it wasn't all Mrs Beeton! Literate wargamers (there are one of two) should remember Becky Sharpe's painful encounter with Indian food early on in Vanity Fair too.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

  Now we have heard how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a fine curry for her son, just as he liked it, and in the course of dinner a portion of this dish was offered to Rebecca. "What is it?" said she, turning an appealing look to Mr. Joseph.     34
  "Capital," said he. His mouth was full of it; his face quite red with the delightful exercise of gobbling. "Mother, it's as good as my own curries in India."     35
  "Oh, I must try some, if it is an Indian dish," said Miss Rebecca. "I am sure everything must be good that comes from there."     36
  "Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear," said Mr. Sedley, laughing.     37
  Rebecca had never tasted the dish before.     38
  "Do you find it as good as everything else from India?" said Mr. Sedley.     39
  "Oh, excellent!" said Rebecca, who was suffering tortures with the cayenne pepper.     40
  "Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp," said Joseph, really interested.     41
  "A chili," said Rebecca, gasping. "Oh, yes!" She thought a chili was something cool, as its name imported, and was served with some. "How fresh and green they look," she said, and put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no longer. She laid down her fork. "Water, for Heaven's sake, water!" she cried. Mr. Sedley burst out laughing (he was a coarse man, from the Stock Exchange, where they love all sorts of practical jokes). "They are real Indian, I assure you," said he. "Sambo, give Miss Sharp some water."     42
  The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought the joke capital. The ladies only smiled a little. They thought poor Rebecca suffered too much. She would have liked to choke old Sedley, but she swallowed her mortification as well as she had the abominable curry before it, and as soon as she could speak, said, with a comical, good-humoured air—     43
  "I ought to have remembered the pepper which the Princess of Persia puts in the cream-tarts in the Arabian Nights. Do you put cayenne into your cream-tarts in India, sir?"     44
  Old Sedley began to laugh, and thought Rebecca was a good-humoured girl. Joseph simply said—"Cream-tarts, Miss? Our cream is very bad in Bengal. We generally use goats' milk; and, 'gad, do you know, I've got to prefer it!"     45
  "You won't like everything from India now, Miss Sharp," said the old gentleman; but when the ladies had retired after dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son, "Have a care, Joe; that girl is setting her cap at you."