Chef and passionate food lover Valentine Warner turns back the clock to the Swinging Sixties in the UK premiere of Valentine Warner Eats the Sixties, the brand new two-part historical food special airing Wednesday 12th October & Wednesday 19th October at 9.00pm on Yesterday, Britain’s number one factual channel. In two deliciously indulgent slices of televisual “noshtalgia”, Valentine lifts the lid on our culinary habits of the 1960s and discovers which dishes were being eaten both at home and at the increasing number of restaurants cropping up on high streets across Britain at the time.
Through archive footage and face-to-face interviews with the people who were cooking and eating food at the time – the home cooks, dinner party hostesses, school dinner ladies and restaurateurs – Valentine asks if the food was as bad as everyone remembers, or if the food revolution taking place was in fact sowing the seeds of today’s nation of food lovers. To put his theories to the test, ensconced in a 1960s-style kitchen, our intrepid foodie recreates some of the most iconic and infamous dishes of the decade. From savoury faves such as cheese straws, avocado & prawn cocktail and quiche Lorraine to delectable deserts such as baked Alaska and Black Forest gâteau, it’s in Valentine’s hands to decide whether the food he’s made really has stood the test of time or if it’s best left in the past.
In Episode 1 – Eating In – Valentine sets out to explore the influences that social and economic change in the 1960s had on what we ate at home. He looks at the new ways that we shopped for and cooked our food and how things such as advertising, kitchen design and developments in technology affected the types of everyday foods we cooked. As part of his investigation, Valentine charts the rise of the greengrocer and inspects the ever-increasing range of foods that became available. Consumption of meat and sugar reached record highs in the 1960s and convenience foods such as cake mixes, instant curries, meals in a box and frozen foods gained popularity. Valentine highlights some of the decade’s most popular brands of “convenience” food; from Vesta curry to Smash and Angel Delight, and also looks at how the increasing popularity of breakfast cereals prompted the “Go to Work on an Egg” campaign of 1965 in a bid to revive British eggs as a healthy morning meal.
With a wider range of ingredients available, the 1960s housewives of the nation were hungry for new ideas about what to cook. For inspiration many turned to television and Queen of TV cuisine – Fanny Cradock. Millions tuned in to her shows to be introduced to the delights of haute cuisine for the masses. Valentine recreates one of Fanny’s top recipes – Veau en Papillote (veal in a heart shaped parcel) with Smash and frozen peas, to highlight how in 1960s Britain entertainment and cooking converged to influence the nation’s eating habits.
Around this time, a visit to the Ideal Home Exhibition was also a must. It was an exciting family day out and an opportunity to see demonstrations of the latest kitchen gadgets and a chance to sample new foods. To demonstrate these technological advances in domestic appliances, Valentine uses the ‘new’ Kenwood Chef to make a delicious Black Forest gâteau. He also looks at how home freezing became relevant to the domestic cook and how housewives sold Tupperware from home, which enabled them to make money and extend their social life at the same time.
In Episode 2 – Eating Out – Valentine explores the influences that social and economic change in the 1960s had on what we ate away from the home as well as the new influences on our tastes and how restaurants set out to gain our business. He recreates some of the dishes that gained popularity in the many eateries across the country including: avocado and prawn cocktail in aspic, Chicken al a King and baked Alaska, plus he looks at popular drinks of the decade like Martini cocktails and Irish coffee.
By the 1960s, the food revolution was taking place and home cooks were keen to show off their new-found skills and recipes to impress friends, neighbours and work colleagues. Valentine charts how dinner parties became de rigeur as social climbing swept through suburbia and a growing middleclass attempted to impress others with food. All this was helped along by the availability of new, exotic foods such as pineapples and avocado pears, which were flown in to tempt the inquisitive shopper or curious cook. And while food was being flown in, the British were jetting off, Valentine reveals. Air travel heralded the advent of the package holiday, opening up far-flung destinations and introducing new flavours to the British palate. Val explains how in a culinary cultural exchange, the Spanish gave us paella while we offered them our beloved fish and chips, and he dusts off his fondue set to explain how winter jaunts to Austria introduced the Brits to this exciting, new culinary experience.
While housewives across the country were experimenting with new flavours at home, the way we dined out was also being transformed. The Swinging Sixties spawned a series of outlandish restaurant ideas such as the opening of the Post Office Tower in 1961 (now known as the BT Tower), while our chefs, who had their creativity sapped from them during the war years, now looked to France and Italy for inspiration. Valentine reveals how in the 1960s the Milk Marketing Board promoted the ploughman’s lunch to boost sales of cheese and inadvertently kick started a new trend for pub grub, which paved the way for the creation of what we now know as the “gastro pub”.
By the mid-1960s, immigrants from Hong Kong had set up Chinese restaurants in almost every large town in England. Bistros and brasseries became part of the culinary landscape and fast food was the order of the day. Pizza Express opened its first branch in 1965 and Kentucky Fried Chicken landed in 1968. Around this time, rail transport gave way to motorways and service stations complete with their glamorous restaurants. In his culinary crusade, Val will look at the classic dishes that featured on these and many restaurant menus throughout the 1960s; from grilled sole and cold roast beef with potato salad from Britain, to the classic French dish Duck l’Orange as well as spaghetti bolognaise from Italy.
