Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Crinkle cut chips


Have you been watching Supersizers Go...?

I always thought Giles Coren was a knob and Sue Perkins tried too hard before watching this, but they really do make a most entertaining team.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about it, it's a BBC2 series in which two foodies live on the cuisine of a particular era for one week, and see if diets then were any better or worse than they are today. Last week was Victorian, but last night was the Seventies.

I found this utterly fascinating, not really realising what crap we actually did eat back then. I remember the Seventies like they were last week, however I had put to the back of my mind some of the ghastly foodstuffs. Luckily, my mum was (is) a great cook, so we ate well, with lots of fresh veg - well, as much as you could get back then. There were no fresh herbs or much garlic to be found, and parmesan only came in a tub smelling of coach sick. But there was much experimentation. Think Butterflies with good food.

The basket-load of typical shopping they showed on the programme contained things like Crispy Pancakes (which Mrs F-C and I had only recently and declared them to be like cheesy cardboard), fish fingers, Angel Delight, frozen everything and lots of sugar and fat. They tried school dinners (who remembers the playground spotted with pink custard sick?), plane meals, restaurant lunches, Fanny Cradock recipes and tried them out on the likes of Sailor's Henry Marsh, Pan's People's Dee Dee Wilde and a chef I'd completely forgotten about Glyn Christian. It was great. It was like my mum and dad's dinner parties. I could almost hear strains of the Carpenters and sense the swinging from my sofa.

Some of the food actually looked really good - I could go a plate of crinkle-cut chips right now, and as for that baked alaska, I'm right there. And the amount of booze quaffed made our house look like the Temperance Society. But was it really bad for you?

At the end of the week, Giles was told the food had actually done him some good. I think we moved about a bit more back then.

And I'm still here, so it can't have been all bad. I'm off to find me some boil-in-the-bag fish. Care to join?

11 comments:

Chris Hughes said...

I really would like to eat something out of a basket again. Maybe an idea for your bistro, F-C?

Jon Peake said...

Lots of bistro ideas last night, Chris. I'm doing the wine cup on arrival.

Helen said...

I agree with you about those two, found them quite hilarious last night, but I was also drinking a fair amount, too. Did I miss mention of Arctic Roll (always a Friday night treat in our house)? Wine cup looked great, not sure about the fish layer cake thingy....

Suzy Norman said...

We didn't have crinkle cut chips in our house until the mid eighties dammit. We were too busy eating sausage, mash and onion gravy or Irish stew (with corned beef from the tin). I still make the latter regularly. Mr Norman's a fan. Come to think of it, we really are very 70s in our house anyway. Occasionally we'll have pasta.

Miggins said...

Sadly, no crinkle cut chips in our house (unless my mum used her gadget that made crinkle cut chips out of a real actual potato), but I remember butterscotch Angel Delight with great fondness. It was always served up in sundae dishes (which were from Tupperware and therefore made of plastic - very classy) and "jazzed up" with the addition of a handful of raisins.

Jon Peake said...

Raisins - things were a bit posh at your gaffe, Miggins.

We sometimes had it with banana in it, but it went all soggy. I was never a fan of banana custard.

Miggins said...

Sometimes, there were sultanas as well. We knew how to live in our house.

Anonymous said...

Hi FC -- re your comment on my blog:

FIVE CENTRES: "PS I'm sorry to see you've removed me from your blogroll"

No offence, FC, you can probably see I am a newbie blogger and am changing my layout around every few days!

You may well re-appear soon, especially now that you've asked (the cheek!).

"soon" means tonight when I get home and have time to fiddle with my new fandangled permalink rolling blogroll!

Best wishes,
Sharon


P.S. Yes I did watch the Supersizers prog with Giles Coren and Sue Perkins ... in fact I thought at one point they were so convincingly playing a married couple that perhaps they are an item in real life ... then I wiki'd Sue Perkins info and realised my mistake.

Suzy Norman said...

Is that Sue Perkins' husband? Girl done well, he's hawt.

Louis Barfe said...

I think Giles Coren is a knob, but he's good at telly, the bastard.

A Kitten in a Brandy Glass said...

I finally managed to watch this show last night, but it was worth the wait. I particularly liked Sue's observation that she recalls the 1970s as seen through banisters, due to peering through them at the grown-ups doing mysterious grown-up things, because I feel exactly the same way.

Len Deighton's Action Cookbook looked pretty special too. In fact, any of these books would be packed with top ideas for your bistro blackboard...

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