What was the first convenience food you or your parents bought?

[redcoat]

Green's Lemon Meringue Pie, but you still had to make the pastry I think. Oh yes, and supply the egg  ???

A bit like packs of batter mix that say 'just add milk and an egg'. ??? ???

[redcoat]

[bridgehouse]

For me frozen sausages, they came in little plasic tubes, I did not read the instructions, that said remove outer covering,  :-[I wondered why they did not brown like other sausage. ;D
    June.

[Deb P]

I too remember the Vesta curries and noodles with crispy fried bits, my mum used to do them as a treat lunch for herself if my dad was away on business!

The first ones I really remember buying myself and mourn the passing of were Birds Eye mousses, which came in a small rectangular waxed paper box....there were only three flavours, strawberry, lemon and chocolate, and I loved them all!They were only sold like that for a year or two then morphed into 'Supermousses' which came in a tub and had a weird red sauce .... ???

[caroline7758]

Vesta meals came in when we were in our teens- remember taking them camping. Chicken supreme was my favourite!

I guess spam and fish fingers were regulars when we were younger, and yes, custard powder (didnt know there was any other way to make custard!)

[lewic]

Angel Delight mmmmm

Ooh yess! When I left home my party special was a 'cheesecake' made with crushed chocolate digestives, 2 packets of butterscotch angel delight made up double-thickness, with Baileys instead of milk, and topped with chocolate and/or mandarin segments :)

[Crystalmoon]

I remember being given really awful dripping with fat battered spam fritters at school when I started & being sick all day long :-X :'( :o
At home we had the Vesta meals, I wouldnt touch one with a barge pole now but they did seem so sophisticated back then,lol. Tinned corned beef mixed into instant mashed potato was another nasty meal & tinned hotdogs :P
I do remember really liking the pre-made sponge flan bases my mum used to fill with tinned fruit & cover with Quick-Gel.....anyone else remember them?

[Paulines7]

I remember the NHS orange juice, Jeannine; it was lovely. 

[Jeannine]

Pauline, here I can get frozen orange juice, I could never find it in the UK, comes in a container about the size of a small tin of peas and it diluted with w times water..but neat it is exactly like the NHS juice.

I remember getting into trouble with the lemon meringue pie, I used to nick the little gelatine capsule that had the lemon flavour in it, stick a pin hole in it and lick it. When Mum came to make the pie there was no flavourings, it took her awhile to catch on though.

I also remember cooking the plastic covered sausages and serving them, never figured out how the plastic didn't melt. Same as cooking a chicken with the bits in a plastic bag inside I guess.. did that too when I was young.

Funny about the custard powder.. When the Pudding Club members meet they will only have Birds custard powder too.. not for them custard cooked the long old fashioned way.

I too remember the Goblin stew, had big potato chunks in it.

Does anyone remember the Birds Eys frozen  fresh cream sponge cakes,, wow where they ever light.

XX Jeannine

[powerspade]

Vesta beef curry  for me
by the way just  two valleys over from me are located the Pot Noddle mines in a place called Newbridge

[Duke Ellington]

When I was a child I  loved KELLOGS RISE N SHINE.  It was a powdered orange juice drink. I remember we got a sample through the letter box. You used to get alot of samples in the 70's . My mum bought it for me after that sample and I remember feeling slightly posh drinking my glass of so called fresh orange juice with my cornflakes. ;D I wonder what I would think of Rise n Shine today.

Duke

[queenbee]

Would powdered egg be considered a convenience food, I remember we had a big tin of it in the pantry and I used to take a teaspoon and scoop it out to eat. It used to clog my mouth but I really liked it. My mum would have killed me if she knew what I was doing as it was a precious commodity in our household when eggs were hard to get.

[valmarg]

Does anyone remember the Birds Eys frozen  fresh cream sponge cakes,, wow where they ever light.
XX Jeannine
/quote]

Oh yes.  And they were really quite nice.  Unlike their counterpart, the Arctic Roll, yeuk.

valmarg

[Emagggie]

Not much in the way of convenience food in our house. Dad was a greengrocer and he grew a lot of his veg.
I do remember the frozen fresh cream sponges though, and tinned fruit and carnation milk on a winter Sunday for tea.

[cambourne7]

Probably birds custard for us we had a take away once a week which was either fish (skate wing or middle) and chips, spice burger and chips or a Chinese :) we ate a mediteranian diet lots of spaghetti bol etc I remember after we moved to the uk going to the geek run grosser to find garlic :)

Remember the frozed cream cake and the rise and shine drink as well as frozen oj ;)

[carrot-cruncher]

Baked beans (not the Heinz variety) and even then only as an occasional treat.

Between Dad's gardening ability and mum's baking/pickling/jamming abilities convenience food barely made it into the house.

CC

[queenbee]

Thanks for the advice goodlife, I will leave the seaweed stuff on the garden centres shelves.

[sawfish]

for mash get SMASH!

[superspud]

Farleys Rusks, and I still eat them by the packet  :o

[campanula]

Birds Instant Whip - my mum wouldn't get Angle Delight because it only made half a pint - never enough to go round 6 of us.
Camp coffee, Fray bentos corned beef, Vimto( Vomito, the entirely fruitless cordial), chicken noodle soup in packets - I still use Maggi, lots of MSG - yum.

[Emagggie]

Ha! Bird's Topping, aka Bird's Dropping in our house.