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Sugar and spice and all things nice — 14 Comments

  1. 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 .

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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?

  6. 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.

  7. 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? 

    *

  8. 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!

  9. 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?

  10. 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

    • 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….

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