Chips in the freezer or no chips in the freezer house?

[trabuquera]

Oven chips always in the freezer, but only the thinner french-fry sort. Now I have to buy an air fryer to eat through them...

 

[sojourner]

I was brought up to believe that tinned soup was posh and that packet soup was fine for the likes of us

My mother was a believer in good whole foods - we never had packet anything. No crispy pancakes in our house, no chocolate breakfast cereals, none of that 'convenience muck', we weren't even allowed cordial most of the time, had to drink water. The one exception was tinned Mulligatawny soup.

 

[Sue]

Similar experience in the mid/late 1970s here - The kitchen press or the coal hole. Then my uncle visited from Canada and was absolutely horrified to discover that we didn't have a fridge yet. He promptly went out and bought us one!

It's like Oor Wullie with a rich Canadian rather than a rich American!

 

[Boudicca]

Me mother used to double-dip the chips for maximum flavour, cor.

Yes! Mine too!

 

[pogofish]

It's like Oor Wullie with a rich Canadian rather than a rich American!

Nah - I always hated dungarees..!

 

[Numbers]

We usually have some form of chips in the freezer, but we don't have them regularly. Our local chicken shop do gorgeous chips and mighty portions to boot + there's a cpl of proper chippies close by.

 

[dessiato]

We only have skinny fries, never chips in the freezer. Even then it's only occasionally.

If we want chips we make our own triple cooked chips, and we used to only cook them in olive oil. Now we use either rape or other good vegetable oil. The flavour's not the same though.

 

[pogofish]

I was brought up to believe that tinned soup was posh and that packet soup was fine for the likes of us

Soup was the end-stage of my gran's thriftyness. After any leftovers had been picked-over and made into patties/stovies/minced for sandwiches etc, what else was left, esp the bones were boiled-up for stock, which got jarred-up and kept to be used with any old veg, pulses, oxtail or whatever else for soup.

Apart from the odd special occasion she got a big bone for pot of Skink soup, which was a meal in itself, or the very occasional tin of tomato soup the idea of buying tinned or packet soups was complete anathema because she could always make it better/cheaper herself.

 

[lazythursday]

I don't understand this. Are tinned potatoes supposed to be working or middle class? My mum and dad grew all their own veg, we never had tinned anything.

Thinking back, we also had sacks of potatoes - it wasn't like we generally ate tinned potatoes, they were just part of the diet, especially after my parents divorced as a quick easy option for a time-poor stressed parent. It's just whenever I've mentioned them proper middle class people tend to be absolutely horrified by the concept. There were a lot of households in the 80s that became very dependent on convenience foods.

 

[skyscraper101]

Growing up = no chips in the freezer. They were only ever made from potatoes dipped in hot fat.

Now = always chips in the freezer. I'm scared of deep frying.

This. Also I don't want a deep fat fryer. It would basically sit there 99.9% of the time getting in the way. Oven chips are way more convenient in every regard.

 

[scifisam]

My dad's first wife burnt to death in a chip pan fire. There are some factors that make them not as risky now, but they're still too risky for me.

 

[sojourner]

Thinking back, we also had sacks of potatoes - it wasn't like we generally ate tinned potatoes, they were just part of the diet, especially after my parents divorced as a quick easy option for a time-poor stressed parent. It's just whenever I've mentioned them proper middle class people tend to be absolutely horrified by the concept. There were a lot of households in the 80s that became very dependent on convenience foods.

Yeh, mine never divorced, just argued the shit out of each other for all their lives.

Convenience food cost way more than what we ate, back then. It wasn't a cheap option, and me mother had it proper nailed on. I desperately wanted Angel Delight and all the rest of it, but a) it was 'muck' and b) they were on-their-arsebones-skint during the 80s thanks to Thatcher.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

Usually in the freezer but they can go unused for months and months. Quite often forget they're there.

 

[Cloo]

My parents didn’t get a freezer until after I’d left home, again mid 80s. They did have a fridge though.

My parents were given one for their wedding in 1972, I think we had it until the mid 90s.

 

[Orang Utan]

We had a ‘larder’ in our tiny interwar semidetached, under the stairs in the Harry Potter space, but backing into the kitchen.
Why don’t we have these anymore? You could keep your butter, cheese and fresh groceries in there and have room for a freezer in the kitchen.

 

[Elpenor]

We had a ‘larder’ in our tiny interwar semidetached, under the stairs in the Harry Potter space, but backing into the kitchen.
Why don’t we have these anymore? You could keep your butter, cheese and fresh groceries in there and have room for a freezer in the kitchen.

Houses were a lot colder in those days - certainly when the house was built - would be my guess

 

[sojourner]

We had a ‘larder’ in our tiny interwar semidetached, under the stairs in the Harry Potter space, but backing into the kitchen.
Why don’t we have these anymore? You could keep your butter, cheese and fresh groceries in there and have room for a freezer in the kitchen.

We have a pantry in our house now, under the stairs but off the kitchen. Keeps stuff really chilled!

 

[Epona]

We got tatties by the sack from our relatives on farms - A big sack lasted months and was one of the most valued/appreciated presents my ma/gran would get (along with a sack of neeps or carrots) as it helped eek-out the money for food so well.

Tinned tatties would have been a totally needless/expensive folderol to them..!

Thing is, I think people who have somewhere to store potatoes correctly don't appreciate how quickly they sprout/go soft/turn into a puddle of extremely smelly dark liquid in a warm flat.

Because I cannot store potatoes in my flat, there is absolutely no way of keeping them in an edible condition for longer than a week, and probably anyone in the UK who live in flats in inner cities know that buying a sack of potatoes would just turn to absolute stinking mush before they were half way through it.

My parents can buy a sack of potatoes and have it last - they don't eat any more potatoes than we do, but they live in a small rural house with a lot of external walls, a larder, and a coal shed, so have cooler places to store them in bulk. The downside is that if it is 0 degrees Celsius outside, it is probably less than 10C indoors - I think on the whole I would rather have issues storing potatoes rather than having to have the heating on that much (their heating is costing them a tenner a day at the moment).

 

[nottsgirl]

Chips in the freezer, grew up with chips in the freezer. I’ve got sweet potato fries at the moment because I’m hoping they’re healthier.

I don’t tend to overeat them because I don’t really like oven chips. My favourite are curly fries.

 

[dessiato]

The way I sniff out a working class / middle class childhood (of a middle aged person anyway) is to wax lyrical about the unique flavour of the tinned potato. The looks of horror.

Tinned potatoes do make excellent crushed potato though. I like to crush them (just a bit though), with fine grated garlic, smoked salt, and a lot of olive oil.

 

[bcuster]

The average American eats 29 pounds of french fries each year, and a third of potatoes grown in this country are destined to be hacked to bits and frozen. Compared to homemade, frozen fries are exceedingly easy. And delicious. And it’s fun to stick a couple under your top lip and pretend to be a potato-toothed walrus.

Which Frozen Fries Are Worth Buying? A Blind Taste Test of Ore-Ida, Trader Joe’s, and More

There were a few winners, and one that missed the mark.

getpocket.com

 

[existentialist]

When I first moved out, I did start keeping a pack of oven chips in the freezer. I stopped, because they took up precious space, and were a bit boring. So if I want chips now, I'll cut a spud up into wedges, and bake them.

 

[rubbershoes]

I have a question.

Will it be chips or jacket spuds.Will it be salad or frozen peas. Will it be mushrooms,fried onion rings? you'll have to wait and see.

 

[Sue]

I have a question.

Will it be chips or jacket spuds.Will it be salad or frozen peas. Will it be mushrooms,fried onion rings? you'll have to wait and see.

Hope it's chips, it’s chips
We hope it's chips, it's chips...

 

[Idris2002]

Speaking as the descendant of those who survived on potatoes
..
We usually have chips in the freezer and cook them in the airfryer which does make them a healthier option than deep fried.
As a child we ate chips from the local Italian chipper. They were delicious and many a cold night was warmed up with a belly full of hot chips cooked in lard. I should say we were all skinny kids. There was no central heating so chips were very welcome in winter.
We didnt have a freezer. Just a little compartment in the fridge. It only ever had ice cubes and a block of ice cream. Mam cooked chips from scratch in a big pot of oil. Or shallow fried in a pan but this was not often. Maybe once a month

"survived"

(as kids we used to visit the grandparents in Bandon, where the local chipper was run by an Egyptian family - beat that)

 

[A380]

I have a question.

Will it be chips or jacket spuds.Will it be salad or frozen peas. Will it be mushrooms,fried onion rings? you'll have to wait and see.

Can I refer you to page 2

One could serve them to one's 'old man' with these:

 

[Idris2002]

Hope it's chips, it’s chips
We hope it's chips, it's chips...

Que sera. Sera.

 

[Aladdin]

"survived"

(as kids we used to visit the grandparents in Bandon, where the local chipper was run by an Egyptian family - beat that)

Our local chipper was one of 6 Italian family run chippers locally.
Allegedly they were related to Danny DeVito. he visited a few times.

 

[danny la rouge]

Our local chipper was one of 6 Italian family run chippers locally.
Allegedly they were related to Danny DeVito. he visited a few times.

The majority of chip shops where I grew up were run by families originally from Barga, Italy. I visited a few years ago. They have a fish and chip festival high in the mountains there. We went. It was fantastic. You could have spaghetti Arabiata with chips. So I did. Most of the locals were mixing fish and chips with pasta dishes. There was a band, and kids dancing with their grandparents. Loads of wine. A huge amount of wine. Like the wedding in Godfather I. Then everyone drove back down the mountain on a single track road with hairpin bends and terrifying precipices, in the dark. Drunk.

 

[Aladdin]

The majority of chip shops where I grew up were run by families originally from Barga, Italy. I visited a few years ago. They have a fish and chip festival high in the mountains there. We went. It was fantastic. You could have spaghetti Arabiata with chips. So I did. Most of the locals were mixing fish and chips with pasta dishes. There was a band, and kids dancing with their grandparents. Loads of wine. A huge amount of wine. Like the wedding in Godfather I. Then everyone drove back down the mountain on a single track road with hairpin bends and terrifying precipices, in the dark. Drunk.

Sounds like great fun altogether.

Yes.
Similar here in that the Italian families all came over from the same village...these families were here when my dad was a child so that's going back 75 -80 yrs.