Egg & Chips on Brownie Nights

[Kath]

240619-Egg and Chips For Brownie Night by Kath Polley, on Flickr

I've come over all nostalgic this week as the theme for my local photography club is Childhood Memories.  I distinctly remember there was a period in the 70s before my mother discovered 'health food' when we ate a lot of white bread, Bernard Matthew's Turkey Burgers and on Tuesday nights, in the rush to get out for Brownies, egg and chips.  Always presented as if it were something much fancier.  This was in the era when a meal out very often meant the Berni Inn and a glass of 'fresh orange' or 'grapefruit juice' was considered acceptable as a starter, so we would have been drinking orange squash or some reconstituted orange flavoured powder.  

I wasn't a very good Brownie - we were supposed to have a number of things in our pockets so we'd always be ready to 'lend a hand' but I invariably lost something important between home and the church hall.  I do recall that one of the items was a 2p coin in case you needed to use a public telephone box to call home. I resented having to keep it for Brownies; it would have purchased a handful of sweets from the post office if you didn't mind the ha'penny mixes.

[kate]

Ah memories. Some sweet some not so.
I was a Brownie for a while. My mum was Brown Owl so I didn't get away with anything - well nearly. I remember my best friend and I rolling about laughing when a definitely non-musical girl was given her music badge. My best friend and I were good musicians and deserved ours, but Eunice? Never! So... my mum publicly stripped us of our music badges as a punishment. I don't remember feeling humiliated at all and felt it was really unfair. Most times when we got to the hall, the others would badger me to play the piano - my forte (ha!) being doing it all from underneath the keyboard.
I like your pre-Brownie dinner.

[dreampolice]

I love a crispy fried egg.

Were you not treated to beans too?

[Kath]

Jun 20, 2024 8:59:44 GMT dreampolice said:

I love a crispy fried egg.

Were you not treated to beans too?

I think beans were more of a Saturday thing.  We used to make a weekly trip out to Barhill where the first 'big' Tesco appeared (or at least, the first big Tesco near us) and come home to a slightly confused meal of bacon, egg, beans and thickly buttered 'french stick'.  Tres cosmopolitan!

[JohnY]

The egg reminds me of my Father's efforts of cooking Sunday morning breakfast. I remember very clearly a Sunday morning about 68 years ago (calculated from my approximate age at the time) when Dad said "If you can do it better then flipping do it." The following week and thereafter I did do it.
A year or too later I also took over Sunday lunch after becoming atheist. No longer was a Sunday joint put into the oven before going to church and overcooking to a burnt offering while our vicar Canon Purcell droned on in his sermon.

[Kath]

Jun 25, 2024 18:03:39 GMT JohnY said:

The egg reminds me of my Father's efforts of cooking Sunday morning breakfast. I remember very clearly a Sunday morning about 68 years ago (calculated from my approximate age at the time) when Dad said "If you can do it better then flipping do it." The following week and thereafter I did do it.
A year or too later I also took over Sunday lunch after becoming atheist. No longer was a Sunday joint put into the oven before going to church and overcooking to a burnt offering while our vicar Canon Purcell droned on in his sermon.

I'll have you know, that egg was flipping delicious - crispy edges, runny yolk, bit of pepper.  Food of the gods.

[dans]

Grapefruit for starters, that was a common one for us too.

I love the table!!

[Kath]

Jul 1, 2024 13:59:16 GMT dans said:

Grapefruit for starters, that was a common one for us too.

I love the table!!

It's very reminicsent of the one we had while I was growing up but ours was yellow.  This is of course just a vinyl backdrop - it was in a bundle of cheap 'seconds' with my last order.  I still can't find the printing error on it but equally it's not something I would have ordered myself as it feels a bit niche.  It was perfect for this though!

[mick]

Jun 20, 2024 8:37:19 GMT Kath said:

240619-Egg and Chips For Brownie Night by Kath Polley, on Flickr

I've come over all nostalgic this week as the theme for my local photography club is Childhood Memories.  I distinctly remember there was a period in the 70s before my mother discovered 'health food' when we ate a lot of white bread, Bernard Matthew's Turkey Burgers and on Tuesday nights, in the rush to get out for Brownies, egg and chips.  Always presented as if it were something much fancier.  This was in the era when a meal out very often meant the Berni Inn and a glass of 'fresh orange' or 'grapefruit juice' was considered acceptable as a starter, so we would have been drinking orange squash or some reconstituted orange flavoured powder.  

I wasn't a very good Brownie - we were supposed to have a number of things in our pockets so we'd always be ready to 'lend a hand' but I invariably lost something important between home and the church hall.  I do recall that one of the items was a 2p coin in case you needed to use a public telephone box to call home. I resented having to keep it for Brownies; it would have purchased a handful of sweets from the post office if you didn't mind the ha'penny mixes.

Childhood? I ate just such a meal last night. Egg and chips is a perennial favourite and that egg is about perfect. I'd lose the green thing though!!

When I was a kid my mother would add baked beans but I would only eat the HP variety. She would even serve other makes and leave an empty HP tin in the kitchen to try to fool me. I could always tell the difference.

Mick