BURNT RISSOLES AND OTHER COOL FOODs FROM MY SEVENTIES YOUTH

Scoop's Titbits post sent me straight back to my parent's house in the Seventies and for some reason I got to thinking about what we ate back then. Some was delicious and some completely gross!

Breakfast:

1. Toast Toppers - slimy mush of meat and beige material of unknown origin. Oddly I loved it!
2. Pop Tarts - not Pan's People, these were toastable flat oblongs full of fruit or chocolate. Delicious!
3. Rise and Shine - powdered orange drink straight from the chemistry lab. Tasted like medicine. Yuk!
4. Ready Brek - central heating for kids. One of my all time fave foodstuffs and one I'd take to Mars. Yum!
5. Puffa Puffa Rice - the world's greatest cereal. When it was discontinued the Dark Ages began again.
6. Egg bread - slices of white bread dipped in battered eggs and fried. Fried bread wearing sunglasses. Super soldier.Yes!

Lunch/ Dinner:

1. Big Soup - man-sized chunks of muscle in ectoplasm. Big Gloop is a better name. Still available in petrol stations and other man stores.
2. Luncheon Meat - actually constructed for lunchtimes. Pale pressed flesh. Peek Frean, Fray Bentos and Spam became popular forenames as a result. Fry the whole slab and voila, Sunday roast!
3. Crispy Pancakes - another of my faves. Like little sand dunes stuffed with a white hot plasma of goodness. Breadcrumbs for teenagers.

Tea:

1. Vesta Chow Mein/ Chop Suey/ Beef Curry and Paella. The dried food of the Gods and all that would ever be needed for inter-galactic travel. Frying the Chow Mein crispy noodles was character building.
2. Lobster Bisque Canned Soup - utterly disgusting fishy fluid from the soup top-shelf for adults only. Only ever tried once by anyone. Try to go to a happy place straight after if you can!
3. Brains Faggots - easily the best name for a foodstuff ever. Delicious meat balls made of brains and sticks.
4. Rissoles - a distant cousin of the burger and utterly scrumptious. There would have been Rissole King if it weren't for an unfortunate similarity to the word ar*ehole!
5. Marrowfat peas - peas made in a petri dish. Pumped with growth hormones. Never mess with a marrowfat. Shed their skins every two hours.
6. Coronation chicken - the saddest excuse for a curry ever created. Bread laughed when spread with this sh*te.
7. Irish Stew - everything a young man needed in a can. Big Soup grown up. My bro called it the medicine!
8. Tripe and Pickled Onions - My dad's fave and what he'll be scoffing in Heaven right now! Like Kidneys, deviled or otherwise, Offal.
9. Liver Butties - guts of the Gods. The greatest sandwich of all time. Northern caviar. Organ soul.
10. Glasswort - pickled seaweed from the Lancashire coast. Aka samphire. A taste of the Ocean floor.
11. Finny Haddock - jaundiced slab served with aneamic spuds. Aka yellow fish. Punishment on Fridays. Not to be confused with Fanny Craddock, pioneering TV cook who wore scary red lipstick.

Supper:

1. Bread and milk - buttered slices of white bread boiled in milk and doused in sugar. Ambrosia. 'Nuff said. Nothing else for Supper required.

Puddings:

1. Instant Whip - fruit flavoured space blancmange - the best milk pudding since Mars Bonfire. To die for.
2. Arctic Roll - a golden sponge tube lined with jam and filled with vanilla ice cream. Made tubes interesting forever.

Posh food served in Pubs:

1. Chicken in a basket - fried chicken and chips served in a plastic basket. KFC couldn't fail after this!
2. Ploughman's Lunch - bread, cheese and Branston pickle. Never ever saw a single ploughman in a pub.

Posh food served in Bistros [a small posh evening cafe that served Mateus wine from baskets]:

1. Cock au Van - chicken in a van.
2. Chicken Chasseur - chicken in a chasseur,
3. Beef Bourguignon - beef in a bourguignon.
4. Duck a l'Orange - duck in an orange. The bill would often make you choke.

Ah, those were the days! What old foodstuffs do you recall readers?

THUNDERSPACE MODELS

Thunderspace and Thunder 7

from Japan

TITBITS: 1975

Here's an article from Titbits magazine dated July, 1975 and printed several months before Space: 1999 aired on UK television.

In spite of the rather risque cover and title, this popular magazine  was just a smorgasbord of motoring articles, wacky 'real life' stories and the occasional bit of glamour photography that wouldn't make your granny bat an eyelid.

Unsurprisingly, I got this issue at the time which featured a centre page photo spread featuring the up and coming new Gerry Anderson series, and had it pinned up on my bedroom wall.

There's no mention in the short article about Moon Base Alpha  being blown out of orbit. It dealt more with the moon-base being more of an Earth defence outpost if there was ever an alien threat - sound familiar!

This little teaser article was a precious thing when, at a time long before the internet,bits of info on Gerry's latest shows had to be uncovered in all manner of print.

THUNDER AND TIGER CAPTAIN

Thunder and Tiger Captains,

SPV Tanks

from Japan

TO FACE UNAFRAID THE PLANS THAT WE'VE MADE

Earthlight
On The Mountains of the Moon
by
Jack Goggins
1952
Flickr

BERNARD KAY 1928 -2014

I was saddened to learn that the prolific and accomplished  British actor, Bernard Kay passed away on the 29th December.

Doctor Who fans will be very familiar with a small but significant part of the actor's work as he had major roles  in no less than four of the Doctor's television  adventures. In the 1965 historical adventure 'The Crusade' he appeared as Saladin. Prior to that he was part of the resistance fighters in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. He went on to appear with Patrick Troughton's Doctor in The Faceless Ones, and Jon Pertwee's Doctor in Colony in Space.

Although he appeared in many films, for me he will always remain special as  he was one of the stars in the 1967 low budget Amicus sci-fi film, 'They Came From Beyond Space', when he played the man from the Ministry,  Richard Arden.

He also briefly appeared, albeit pretty much unrecognisable,  as a humanoid in the second season Space: 1999 episode, New Adam, New Eve.

Another Gerry Anderson connection was an appearance in The Protectors episode, 'A Pocket Full of Posies', which apart from the main star, Robert Vaughn also featured guest star, the late Eartha Kitt.

Bernard was born  close to my neck of the woods, in Bolton, Lancashire and was married to former actress, the late Patricia Haines, who appeared in another B movie sci-fi favourite of mine, The Night Caller (aka The Blood Beast from Outer Space)

Bernard Kay 1928 -2014

CANDY PREMIUM LP GOLDEN ASTRONAUT FROM ARGENTINA 1965

This is interesting. A small scale LP type astronaut from Argentina. Its 28mm tall [ is that the same scale as Spacex Golden Astronaut?] and looks fairly crudely made although the original paintwork does look to be golden. It came as a premium with a caramel sweet by CANDOMBE during the 1960's. In fact the Ebay listing states its date as 1965. Were there really LP style astronauts around that far back and are there any other candy premium LP spacemen like this?

[pictures: ruloscolo ebay]

SPACE AGE HOVERCRAFT MODEL 1960

[ top photo: pezdudewelch ebay ].

I love this Hovercraft model design in this old photo from 1960. Like something Eric Eden would have designed in TV21. The front end really reminds me of his GK10 Salvage Craft aka the SpaceX Salvage Craft, both pictured below.