Food Trivia

Convenience Food.

Forget Emily Pankhurst. Forget Edith Cowan. No, these ladies didn’t steer the way for our sisters of yesteryear to hang up their aprons. Oh no. It was one Alfred Bird, Chemist, of Birmingham, England who can truly be said to have made the “great leap forward” in the de-enslavement (emmm is there such a word?....Ed) of ladies from the umbilical cord of the kitchen.

Old Alfred Bird was onto a thing or two. He must’ve known about women’s lib, or maybe it was a cunning plan of his wife’s. Who knows? Well it was her allergy to eggs that led to the invention of the world’s first convenience food in 1837- none other than Birds Custard Powder. Trust the Brits to be world leaders at that sort of thing! Well it led to a revolution for our sisters. Who would’ve thought that adding hot milk to a flavoured, coloured, starch would produce the creamy, delicious treat we now enjoy as, simply, “custard”.

It didn’t stop there. Potatoes were next. Why bother lugging heavy bags of spuds back from the market, peeling them and then waiting for ages while they boiled? Some bright spark at Cadbury’s in the UK, came up with instant mashed potatoes, these being a favourite dish among the Brits. Watch the 70’s adverts for Cadbury’s “Smash”, voted as one of the best TV adverts of all time, on U tube.

Convenience continued. America led the way with the introduction of packet cake mixes. Women would be unleashed from the time-consuming task of making a cake. Before “soft” margarine was invented, our European and North American cousins had to wait for warm and sunny days to have soft enough butter to cream with the sugar for stage one of cake making. How she longed to throw it all in and simply whisk! So when cake mixes came along and all you had to do was add water, why were sales less than enthusiastic?

Oh my, you can never please a woman can you???? She craves her convenience but not at the expense of creativity. You see baking a cake is like making a baby (emmmm where is this leading?.....Ed) It’s a mother’s creation. Mum had to be involved. She didn’t want to “adopt” a cake and not go through the labour of a “real” one. She wanted to add something herself…..an egg. Yes, a humble egg. So was born…. “Add two fresh eggs”. Sales rocketed. The cake mix population explosion began. Admit it. Was your last cake a Cadbury’s or a Greens cake mix?

And so the convenience food industry grew and grew. And I did too. Yes, I grew and grew on Bird’s custard and Mr Kipling pies. I grew on instant mashed potato and Bisto gravy powder that had never seen a cow. I grew on orange rectangular fish and peas that grew in a tin can! Oh, those treasures. Yes, I share with you all the true taste of my childhood.

Actually, I think they all taste like cr……(careful!…..Ed)

I never, ever use mixes and I’ll share some of my great recipes with you on this site. Mainly English ones. Yes, surprise surprise, we do make nice treats. And I’ll keep digging out the trivia.

So send in your food trivia, or maybe your food tips. Anything wacky or different or that you just think might entertain our readers.

(hurry up.....Ed)