SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

While just eating a lamb hot pot my mind wandered onto food I used to get when I was growing up in the late 1940's and early 1950's. I remember rabbit well and I liked the taste. I did not however like tripe nor polony but you ate what you were given! Which brings me to pigeon. I do not definitely recall ever having that but a vague memory suggests that I might have so I wonder if eating pigeons was fairly common then and so I might have done.

I used to like polony but i have not had it for years something else i liked was soft herring roes dipped in flour and fried you do not see them now.Cod roe was another favorite cooked in water, when cold sliced and eaten with vinegar.

I remember the soft roe fried, and enjoyed them, though not sure if I would now.
As to pigeon, I vividly remember in (it would probably be) the mid 1980s staying at a small hotel ithougi admit that I am not into very gamey dishes, so maybe it was me. Used to like rabbit though

Hi chemimicke I asked about soft roes in the market a few weeks ago i was told they never get them now.Another thing we would eat was oxe tail very tasty and the most important thing was it was cheap. I think i will have eaten horse meat i have been to France quite a few times so unknowingly i could have, not that it would bother me i will eat most things we had to when we were kids i have had snails even roasted locust.

I never fancied Tripe or Cow heel which i remember sold very well in the old Morley market, the lad Wilf only had a tiny stall but he was always busy Thursdays and Fridays he also sold Chitlins and Melts (what ever those are)
As for rabbit i think in the old wartime days we ate what ever we were give given.
The war was still on when my father brought home two live rabbits, one black and one white. Being adventurous i called mine "Blackie" and my brother called his "Whitey" (Just shows what education did for us). One day when we came home from school they had gone
our dad said the council had told him to get rid of them pets were not allowed. Tears were shed and Sunday dinner was eaten in silence. I noticed dads "Pack up" was a little bulkier than usual as he went off to work.
My Saturday job when i was still at school was on a Poultry Stall in Leeds market and at the end of trading i was given a rabbit along with my wages.

When I was a youngster I lived with my grandparents and I can only remember proper meat (lamb, beef) and some mutton, guess we were a little better off than most folks in the area.

Had reindeer on a regular basis when I was in Norway, very nice meat.

When i was a kid my mum would tell us about things that they used to eat sweet breads were one thing they turned out to be sheep testicles. Also sheeps head it would be cooked and the brain scooped out and eaten that is not for me but i suppose needs must.

I agree with you Tilly, though I remember in the early 1970s working with a guy from the Black Country, who said his favourite breakfast was brains on toast, which turned my stomach a bit

Hi chemimike I can eat most things but i think i would draw the line at that i have always said if you put me on Im a Celebrity i would get through the driving force would be the money they come out with. For that type of money i would eat the camera man.

I remember my mother used to good a rabbit stew on the coal fire we had then, always tasted wonderful, a special treat with carrots in the mid 50's. I asked my then partner 20+ years ago to make one, a rabbit bought in a local pub, but it was horrible - I don't know if it was the rabbit, the cooking of it, or simply my sense of taste which had changed.