dragonyphoenix: Blackadder looking at scraps of paper, saying "It could use a beta" (frida and god)
dragonyphoenix ([personal profile] dragonyphoenix) wrote2014-06-20 12:15 pm
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Giles favorite foods when he was a kid?

Hi,

I need more help for my story. So after Giles is brought back to life in his 12 year old body, he and Faith drop in on Giles' mother unannounced. I figure she'd probably want to make Giles' favorite meal but she's going to go with whatever she currently has in the house. Naturally she's not going to want to let him out of her sight. What could she serve?
gillo: (Good Lord)

[personal profile] gillo 2014-06-20 06:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Fish and chips, from the shop, was always my favourite. Cottage pie - minced (ground?) beef and vegetables in onion gravy, in a deep pie dish, covered in mashed potato then oven-baked till it has a crispy crust - was another favourite, but not something you can throw together quickly. Sausages ('bangers') and mash with onion gravy was another popular favourite.

Rice pudding, baked for a long time in the oven, with a thick skin on it, or apple charlotte and custard (that is, apple pie but with a crust of bread slices, buttered and sprinkled in sugar, cooked in the oven, served with Bird's Custard, a yellow custard sauce based on powdered eggs and cornflour, but pretty much the standard custard then and now.)

When Giles was young all meals came with potatoes - boiled, mashed, roast or fried (= chips). Nobody had pasta. If Giles's family was sufficiently upper-crust he might have had occasional curry with rice. (And, inexplicably, raisins and dried coconut on the side.) Otherwise, only ever potatoes as the carbohydrate pat of the meal.

The main meal of the day was always two-course, heavy on the carbs, with some sort of meat content. NO SPICES, or even garlic, though possibly a few herbs (we sound the 'h', BTW).

She might try to update that a little, buy my Mum still regards garlic as devil food, and won't use spices. She might get a cottage pie out of her freezer, one she had cooked a while ago and kept in case of family company. Or she might send out to the 'chippy' to buy fish and chips and focus on making him a pudding (by which term we mean any dessert, especially the hot, cooked type.)

Hope this helps!

[identity profile] dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com 2014-06-20 09:10 pm (UTC)(link)
No garlic! Come on, a Watcher family would have kept garlic around. ;-)

I can make the frozen cottage pie work. Thanks.
gillo: (Default)

[personal profile] gillo 2014-06-20 09:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Garlic as a symbol, of course. But as an ingredient? Never.

Pre-1970 British food was bland.

Glad to be of service.

[identity profile] dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com 2014-06-20 11:42 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't believe the food was quite as bland here but I know when I've made chilli in the past that each of my parents complained it was too hot. I'm not sure why I like spicy when they don't.