Last Saturday morning whilst waiting for my partner to finish getting ready to go out, my attention was drawn to the TV programme that was just about to begin. Called 'Taste of My Life', it’s presented by Nigel Slater, who each week interviews a celebrity guest and takes them back through their younger years with the main emphasis being on food, what they were brought up on, how certain foods remind them of a time in their life (good or bad) and what comforts them in times of stress etc. It gave me the idea to think about my own influences and I thought it would make a feature for The Digest.

I was born in the summer of 1960 to working class parents, and like most other families of the time we ate the same meals on the same days. I don't recall exactly what meal was on what day except for Friday when we always had fish. I don't remember anyone eating meat on a Friday in those days - it was a ritual. Food was very plain and simple and I only ever recall eating the very basic things - mainly meat and traditional vegetables of the day (cabbage, carrots, swede, sprouts, peas), sausage, bacon, tinned beans and tomatoes, hash, and pie and peas. Puddings usually consisted of tinned fruit and carnation milk. I never saw pizzas, pasta, curry, broccoli, courgettes or peppers etc until I was an adult.

My mother couldn't bake to save her life but made the most beautiful dinners; her speciality being proper gravy made with dripping and Burdall's gravy salt for browning. My nan used to do all the baking with recipes straight from the Bero book, a sepia coloured one that I still use myself today! Every Christmas she would bake tins full of tarts, Bakewells, coconut tarts and macaroons for all the family, and the most beautiful coconut cake I've ever tasted. She kept all her baking ingredients in a cupboard in the sideboard and the smell that wafted from that was heavenly. I can still remember it vividly with great fondness, the two main smells being cinnamon and nutmeg. She made a meat and potato pie every week and of course she steeped her own peas overnight to accompany it. My grandad would have thought it a criminal offence for someone to buy a readymade pie at that time.

That's just reminded me that the pie and pea man used to come round in his van every Wednesday teatime when I was a teenager - ringing his hand held bell out of the window as he drove round the corner. The speciality was hot pork pie but I personally was never too keen on that with its runny jelly inside.

The Saturday outing with my parents was always a trip to Doncaster market. There was a very well-known fish market in Doncaster and I was always fascinated by the rows and rows of wet fish for sale. My parents always bought tripe for tea which they used to drench in vinegar and salt, although I never ate it myself. Another favourite at the market was the biscuit stall. The tins were set in rows with see-through lids and you bought biscuits by the pound and took them home in white paper bags. You could buy them mixed or all the same sort. I always remember 'keel fingers' as the ones I enjoyed the most. They were similar to a shortbread and you broke them in half as they were rather large.

Another image I remember with great fondness was that our dining table was always set and the condiments, complete with sauce bottle and sugar basin, always lived in the middle of it. We didn't have cupboards to store the food as the kitchen was dual purpose, serving also as the living room. Food was kept in the pantry and ours was always very well stocked with tins and dried food. I believe that this came about as a knock on effect from the war. I think my mother thought that food could possibly be in short supply once again and always wanted to ensure that we wouldn't run out in a hurry.

Sunday tea was always ham salad with bread and butter. I use the term salad very loosely as this consisted of wet lettuce, half a boiled egg and tomato. When I think of the variety of salads that are available today I shudder at the thought of what we used to call a salad.

My parents always had a cup of tea with every meal, no matter what they were eating. It was such a relief when I moved into my own home to be able to eat a meal without the teapot sitting on the table and being able to enjoy a cup of coffee afterwards instead.

There were no supermarkets, just a local Co-op. People seemed to shop on most days and buy just enough fresh goods to last them until the following day, as there weren't the same facilities for storing food like we have today. If it wasn't available from the Co-op, then it was bought from one of the many vans or lorries which did their daily rounds of the streets. One of the smells that has stayed with me to this day is that of the bread van with its crusty loaves and butterfly buns. Bread was always wrapped in what seemed to be like tissue paper and scrunched together at the corners.

Eating out was something my parents never did. It was a real adventure for me to join my friends on a Saturday afternoon to celebrate someone’s birthday with a trip to the 'Wimpy Bar'. Such luxury!

How I hate all the packaging of today's food and all the pre-cooked readymeals. I long for days gone by when food was only ever wrapped in paper, although when I think back to all the simple, basic, bland meals that I was brought up on, I am very thankful that we now have a much wider choice of ingredients and flavourings from all around the world, thus making seasonal items more readily available all year round.

Sarah Henshaw.