Jon Stewart Takes On Junk Food

[PR4NOW]

This is very short but worth watching. Jon is in top form on this one.

The second window down will play when clicked. PR

foodrevolution.org/blog/jon...

[shaws Administrator]

Quite Brilliant. The pity is it is true.

[gabkad]

Aww, he's retiring......... plastic cheese: probably better than just plastic? What do American kids eat? School lunches that require no cutlery.

I think back to the meals I ate at school in London and weep at what these days kids are told is food. I don't know if I just lucked out, but those school lunches were AWESOME! I loved them all. I don't think I ate a bad meal at school. Gorgeous bangers and mash, there was lamb too and fish and, oh, cake and custard. I even loved the 'greens' whatever the heck those are. Collards? I wish I could remember it all but it's been so long....

[PR4NOW in reply to gabkad]

gabkad, I agree, the meals I had in school back in the 1950s were of a much higher quality than what passes for food now in school lunches. PR

[greygoose in reply to gabkad]

Probably what we call spring greens - we hadn't heard of collard greens in England in the 50s. But, apparently, they're very similar. A green is a green by any other name. So to speak.

I'm glad you had a good experience with school lunches in London during the 50s because just outside London, down the hill from Chrystal Palace, I was going through school lunch hell! The food wasn't cooked on the premises but was shipped in in churns, over-cooked, greasy and full of gristle. Ugh! Even the desserts were awful! It wasn't until the 60s, in a brand new school with a brand new building and their own kitchen, that school lunches finally began to look like food.

Mind you, I've always been difficult where food was concerned, and other children wolfed it down as if it was going out of fashion! I could only conclude that they were starved at home... (big family joke, my aunt - god love her - was such a terrible cook that her kids loved school lunches! lol)

[gabkad in reply to greygoose]

This was during the 60s.

[greygoose in reply to gabkad]

Oh, sorry! I was confused by PR mentioning the 50s. Didn't mean to make you older than you are! lol

[gabkad in reply to greygoose]

Abbey Road, Carnaby Street, The Beatles

[greygoose in reply to gabkad]

Yup, know them well. Also Soho and Chelsea, Oxford Street and Regent Street. I used to know London like the back of my hand. All the best restaurants, clubs and coffee bars. But it's all changed now. Last time I went there, I got so lost!

[nightingale-56 in reply to greygoose]

Not only did we go on holiday to the same place Grey, but we grew up near each other too. I was born just down the hill from you at Sydenham, but I'm with gadkad and PR4NOW on the school dinners. We had much the same as gabkad and I loved them. Roasts, fish and chips on a Friday, Gypsy Tart, Chocolate Flapjack and all cooked on the premises at Bromley Common. No wonder there is so much ill-health around now with what children are given to eat. Feel so sorry for them.

[greygoose in reply to nightingale-56]

OMG! Gypsy tart! If there's one thing Kieth Richards and I have in common, it's that we both hate gypsy tart!!! I Wonder, does it exist anywhere except in school lunches?

Well, anyway, what do you expect in Bromley! Bound to be good, isn't it! Posh, innit! But what age was that? At the age of 14, Beckenham Grammar School for Gels moved to a new building at Langley Park, and it was there that the lunches got good. But the two schools I went to before that, it was rubbish! That would have been in 1960 I went to Langley Park. So, if you're talking about school meals in the 60s, I agree, but not in the 50s.

Did PR go to school in southern England in the 50s? I thought he was American.

I spent all my life - from 2 weeks old until I got married when I was 23 - on the border between Beckenham and Penge. Neither one thing nor the other. lol But I opted for Penge. It was much more exciting than prissy Beckenham!

[helvella Administrator in reply to greygoose]

In the county with untold apples, cherries and other fruit, the schools dish up a disgusting concoction like that! (I had to look it up - we had something not too dissimilar but had an entirely different name for it. And not in Kent.)

[greygoose in reply to helvella]

Disgusting is the word! It was pure sugar and made my teeth ache! Hated it. Would have much prefered a bowl of cherries!

[greygoose in reply to greygoose]

Ha ha! Just looked it up myself! I didn't know it originated in Kent. What a thing to be know for. I understand now why it was so sweet.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy...

Why Gypsy, I Wonder? Why blame them???

[nightingale-56 in reply to greygoose]

What exulted company we are in gg, Keith Richards no less. Bill Wyman was born just down the road to me in Lower Sydenham and of course, Francis Rossi at Catford. Loved Rossi's ice cream (dishy bloke serving as well). I was at Princes Plain, Bromley Common from 1955 - 1960 and all meals were good there, plus teaching. Can't remember school meals in late 50's as only stayed occasionally. But St Georges Primary at Widmore Green, Bromley was a lovely school and David Bowie went there for a short while.

Seem to have read that PR started in UK and went to USA (?).

South East London and Kent much better than where I am now. Feel like a fish out of water. Worked at Penge for a while, insurance company above what was Woolworths.

Definitely think Gypsy Tart comes under the heading of Junk Food, and not sure I would want it now. Think condensed milk has to be boiled in the tin for a very long time to achieve this dish.

[greygoose in reply to nightingale-56]

Well, I Don't actually know Keith Richards, but he said so in his life story. lol

But I can go one better than you with Bill Wyman, when he got married he lived in the road next to mine. Then, when they built the new garage opposite the boys grammar school, he moved to one of the luxury flats above the garage. I used to see him and his wife, baby in the pushchair, shopping in Penge.

Ah, Penge! How it has changed! I found a nice site the other day with some photos of Penge as it used to be in the 50s and 60s, when I knew it. And people's comments about living there. And how I miss Woolworth's!

I didn't know Sydenham or Catford very well. Mum took me there shopping from time to time, but I Don't remember them at all. Wasn't there a Pub called the Tiger's Head in Catford? With a jazz club on a Saturday night? Used to go there. Saw the Animals there.

[nightingale-56 in reply to greygoose]

Later in life my Mum used to go to a pensioners' club with Bill Wyman's Mum. Penge has been quite prominent in my life also. My son had a flat at Penge when he first married and my sister bought her first baby's pram at a lovely baby shop there (just as you got off the 227 bus from Bromley). Think you might be thinking of the Tiger's Head opposite the bottom of Whitefoot Lane, where my son now lives. This pub is no more as they pulled it down about 5 years ago. Not sure what is there now. My sister used to go to Lewisham Gaumont to see quite a few groups in the early 60's.

This nostalgia has turned into a lovely walk down memory lane - thank you.

[greygoose in reply to nightingale-56]

lol I remember the baby shop! I bought my first and third prams there. Trying to remember the name. It's on the tip of my tongue but won't leave my mouth! Irene something... Don't suppose it's there now.

Sad about the Tiger's Head...

[PR4NOW in reply to nightingale-56]

j_bee, I was born and raided in the USA. Didn't make my first trip to the UK until 1978 when I brought my mother with me to visit a close relative in England. I would have loved to have been living in London in the 1960s, from what I have read it was an interesting time, it certainly was here in the US. PR

[nightingale-56 in reply to PR4NOW]

Hi PR, must have read something wrong somewhere, but good to know that school dinners were equally enjoyed in USA too. 1960's were a very good time to be in UK. I know because I was just the right age to enjoy most of it. Either side of the 'Pond' things were changing so rapidly, mostly for the good.

[PR4NOW in reply to nightingale-56]

Forgot to mention, I am also 1/4 Scottish. PR