Sheffield meals of days gone by

[skippy_54]

Finny Haddock poached in milk with a knob of butter and a couple of slices of bread to soak it all up,I can smell it cooking now:love:

[buck]

Grits have another name, sometimes the dish is called cream of wheat. Grits/cream of wheat is much finer than porridge, if you follow the instructions on the packet you can then fry the result and then it blends better with bacon and eggs.

My first taste of grits came in a restaurant in Selma, Alabama, they were also the last. On many other visits South I have avoided them like the plague.

[chimay]

There used to be a chip shop just around the corner from Cristal Palace football ground that did real fish cakes, the owner was from Rotherham.

There is another that makes them in Wroxham on the Broads,he is from Walkley.In (I know its not dahn sarf) Workington they have a variation of them,instead of fish its corned beaf they are nice.

My mother used to make egg custards with goose eggs,you did'nt need many of those.A freind of mine used to boil a goose egg for 15 minutes and eat it with half a loaf of Fletchers bread for breakfast,he was and still is about 8 stone soaking wet.

 

Do you have any more details about the chippy in Wroxham?

[buck]

Can you tell us some old fashioned American dishes ?

Here's a few Pattricia: Baby back ribs, smothered in barbeque sauce grilled outdoors, New England clam chowder, Lobster roll, English muffins( can't find them in UK ) knackwurst and sauuerkraut, Italian sausage and peppers, shells and spaghetti sauce, key lime pie, pumpkin pie.

Go to a typical American picnic where everybody byos, and you're likely to sample all or some of these, along with the usual cheeseburgers and weiners.

[Rich Siddall]

I miss my nan's meat and potatoe pie, her pie crust was amazing. I miss steamed fish and her chips, not one person I know can duplicate the taste of her steamed cod or steamed haddock, saturday afternoon at my nans was heaven on earth, Granddad sat in his chair watching the wrestling, nan in the kitchen and me playing with me toy soldiers on the table. My granddad used to have his fish cooked in milk which i thought was weird.

Nan was also a baker, both at home and in the bakery where she worked, so we always had the finest bread and cakes, ah to be young again

[Greybeard]

It's a fact Shane that in the first half of the last century and before that in Victorian times, people used to cook in the range ovens which were adjacent to and heated by their coal fires. Certainly my grandma did up to the 1930's. Maybe that's part of the secret in how food tasted. I'm sure it played a big part.

Today, a few folks swear by Aga stoves but not many are coal fired.

 

My mother cooked on a Yorkshire range until the early 1950s and I seem to remember quite a few of our neighbours did too. The kitchen was so small that to get a gas cooker in, the range and the chimney breast had to be removed.

 

Landord wouldn't pay but I believe eventually the council came up with a grant for the work.

[phantom309]

We had a coal fired Yorkshire range in the house we had at Walkley and it had to be replaced for the smokeless zone this would be late 60s or early 70s

[Plain Talker]

I miss my nan's meat and potatoe pie, her pie crust was amazing. I miss steamed fish and her chips, not one person I know can duplicate the taste of her steamed cod or steamed haddock, saturday afternoon at my nans was heaven on earth, Granddad sat in his chair watching the wrestling, nan in the kitchen and me playing with me toy soldiers on the table. My granddad used to have his fish cooked in milk which i thought was weird.

Nan was also a baker, both at home and in the bakery where she worked, so we always had the finest bread and cakes, ah to be young again

 

My mother used to poach my father's fish in milk, and then she'd use the milk to make the parsley sauce.

[Texas]

I remember the time when we got a gas ring, before that it had been the Yorkshire Range or nothing, and my mother bought a pressure cooker. It must've been one of the first models, and a frightening piece of work it was. Anyhow in that, we had beast's heart. Anybody remember that? When it was cooked it was delicious, solid meat. I suppose it isn't everyones' idea of food nowadays, but in the days of rationing you got anything you could.

[Texas]

Texas, I hadn't realized they were fried cream of wheat. Maybe it's an acquired taste. What I did enjoy when I visited your part of the world, San Antonio, some years ago were the steaks, which I found to have a different flavor from the ones this side of the border. Delicious.

 

Back to the Sheffield dishes of years gone by, I used to enjoy those traditional desserts, sweets, like sponge and custard, treacle tart, etc. Last time I was over I noticed that in many pubs and restaurants, North American type desserts had taken over. Cheesecake? I can eat that here. But an egg custard - that wasn't easy to find.

 

There seems to be a lot of interest in Yorkshire puds and why not? This recipe works for me:

 

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/cuisine/european/english/yorkshire-pudding.html

I've got to put the record straight here. Firstly, my missis has told me that cream of wheat is NOT the same as grits. It's close but not quite. Grits is made from ground corn and cream of wheat from ground (wait for it), wheat. But you can make a batch of grits, let it go cold, and cut it into strips and fry it. Like you say though 'an acquired taste', I like grits myself. Secondly, I hate to disillusion y'all, but I don't come from Texas, the name comes from my nickname at Pyebank infants, and latterly from what it says on my coffee cup.