Sugar and spice and all things nice
I read an opinion piece in the Irish Times today.
Ignore lunatic lifestyle gurus. Sugar’s not the new heroin.
I was a little surprised that it got past the editor’s desk, to be honest, seeing as it is contrary to the modern Gospel of Good Health. Needless to say the author is being branded by the Ignorati as a heretic and a shill of Big Sugar, but that’s to be expected in these say days of lapping up the latest fad.
What caught my eye though was the mention of sugar sandwiches.
I used to love sugar sandwiches – that lovely crunchy sensation as the grains ground my teeth to a pulp. Sometimes I would make a mixture of mashed banana and sugar and put that in my sandwich.
Another favourite, if a somewhat strange one was to mix sugar and cocoa powder in a cup and then spoon it into my gob. Lovely! Though I suppose it was just a cup of cocoa without the water so maybe not so strange after all?
On winters’ mornings, I used to get a bowl of porridge. This was liberally soaked in cream [i.e. top of the bottle. Oldies will remember that] and lashings of sugar. Actually we used to have a bag of demerera sugar specially set on one side for porridge.
Another sandwich content that I loved was Tate & Lyle’s Golden Syrup. Delicious stuff. We used to our that on porridge too.
You may by this stage be under the impression that I consumed a lot of sugar? I forgot to mention incidentally the quantities of penny toffee bars [anyone remember cough-no-more bars?], penny sherbet dips, bags of Yorkshire toffees and the rest.
So did I consume excessive amounts?
According to the modern religion, of course I did. But then they love to deal in averages and populations, whereas I am neither an average nor a population – I’m just me. I am an individual but the health mob overlook that little fact.
Of course I no longer make sugar sandwiches and I don’t have any cocoa powder in the house.
Now my passion is Mars Bars and chocolate coated polo biscuits.
And heaped teaspoons of sugar in my tea.
And I’m still well under 12 stone with a 33″ waist.
Hi GD
Re: Sugar sandwiches
In the 1950s and 60s my father used to export to all parts of Europe and a frequent visitor was the factory manager of a Dutch company .His favourite snack was a sugar sandwich , a thick layer of butter liberally sprinkled with sugar.This would be placed on a plate and be daintily consumed with the aid of a knife and fork .
Many years ago. Let me correct that. Many MANY years ago I was staying in a small town in the west of Ireland. I made friends with the butcher’s daughter, who invited me for tea of an afternoon. The menu was always the same, sandwiches of mashed banana with sugar. The old man was clearly underwhelmed by this pimply vision his daughter had dragged in and the teas went off in a stony silence, except for the tremendous noise in my skull from crunching the sugar.
I didn’t realise they were quite so popular. Of course if anyone suggested them now he’d be dragged out onto the street and stoned to death.
Funny how something that used to be commonplace has become so evil in the minds of a few nutcases.
Here in Lancashire, we called them ‘sugar butties’.
I fry pancakes and fill them with loads of honey and a dash of lemon juice. Yum. Coffee with a teaspoon of honey instead of sugar – yum yum slurp.
When I think back to my final year at school, (1974), all 100 guys in the three sixth years were either fit musclebound rugby types or rackish, rangy thin blokes with a solid frame. There were two fat guys, (2%), who were happily fat and waddled around, keeping up with the rest of us.
In our home at that time, we had Tayto and banana sandwiches with a cup of tea for lunch many days and white bread toasted on one side by the open fire at night for supper. The toast was spectacular when smoothered in fresh butter on the untoasted side because it melted/melded into the hot bread and was to die for! But all technically fattening yet it never was?
In years gone by, thee and me and the rest of our cohort (aka “oldies”) consumed umpteen things that are now deemed ‘verboten’. We not only thrived on it, but remained healthy. Indeed, a significant number of us are still alive and relatively fit. Yet — in our dotage — we’re now supposedly posing a threat to the social security and health services of the Western world. But that increased longevity was, not so long ago, touted as a benefit of medical advances.
For goodness’ sake, make up your mind! We’ve proved your thesis by still being alive. You cannot now castigate us for it.
Let’s not forget that as well as gorging ourselves on sweet stuff (yes, I used to eat sugar sarnies, too) we were also brought up on dripping and lard and crisps and fried foods (although shallow, rather than deep fried in most households, I would imagine). We also all grew up in a fug of tobacco smoke everywhere we went, and many of us smoked ourselves all our lives.
And here we still are. Most of us in better shape than the current generation, who seem to be allergic to everything and constantly having asthma attacks. As well as being much more overweight than we ever were.
I remember grandad introducing us to a treat from his childhood – bowl of sugar on the table, which we dipped cut lettuce leaves into. One way to get one of your five a day?
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We had porridge topped with full-fat sweetened condensed milk (or “porridge milk” as it’s called in our house) sweet enough to make your eyes water. Lovely!
As Nisakiman says – We grew up in an age of sugar, fat, cigarette smoke [everywhere] and God knows what other kinds of smoke. We could buy all sorts of chemicals that are now strictly banned. Basically, we could do whatever the fuck we liked…..
… yet …
… we are living longer than previous generations.
Anyone care to explain that little conundrum?
We used to have sugar butties, treacle butties (the gooey black stuff in a tin) and CONDENSED milk butties. Mmmmmmmmm, if we felt a bit savoury, we’d have brown or red sauce butties.
hehe
Just been sent this by Herself……
Where did she find that old photo of me? I don’t remember uploading it to the internet! Mind you, it was twenty years ago, so I may have forgotten….