Mary, I have never heard the term/expression? brookies. Perhaps you could let us know in what context you came across it.

Frieda, I don't think smooching is heard at all these days. My very large and heavy dictionary says it is used of dancing 'very close together and amorously'. Quite likely it was a popular term when describing the goings-on of young GI's during WWII 'on the pull' (ie picking up) naughty English girls in smokey Dance Halls.
My DH had a couple of Aunts, who during this time would climb out of their bedroom window to pursue American uniforms. One did very well from these encounters the other became a fallen woman.
C'est la Guerre or maybe C'est la Vie

Frieda, no, I don't mind. I hope you will give us a review of the book about The Lost Colony. That mystery has fascinated me for decades, having spent time in the actual area.

Vee, the context is South Africa, English expatriates. ("Don't Lets Go To the Dogs Tonight"). Having finished this book, I now think brookies is slang for underpants. The settlers from England lived side by side with Africaaners originally from Holland, so perhaps it is a Dutch term?

Thanks, Vee, for the current status of smooching in England. I think Americans (after becoming Americans) changed the meaning from 'dirty dancing' to the less lewd, but still aggressive, act of slobbery kissing - fun for the participants but maybe not so much fun for observers. Then I think it got diluted still further to any prolonged kissing of lovers in kiss & cuddle sessions, also called 'necking'. (Snogging, I think, is the current equivalent in England. Right? Was snogging the usual word when you were a girl?) An American husband desirous of a bit of affection from his wife might request of her, "Gimme a smooch, baby," expecting nothing more than a kiss on the mouth. The American G.I.s probably requested of the out-to-have-a-good-time English girls for 'a smooch', as starters.

Frieda, you ask about the word snogging, one, I am afraid to say I find somewhat indelicate (makes me sound a prude which I don't think I am). Certainly not a word I would have heard uttered when young, but then locked in a convent for 8 years there wasn't much call for that or similar expressions. :-( The words used by the nuns to describe such actions were occasions of sin . .. and the S I N word was used frequently!
A couple of years ago I was picking up our younger son from a 'disco'. A US friend was also there meeting her son (both boys are handicapped) and she called loudly to her lad "We must go now J, go snog your girlfriend goodbye." It certainly brought the general conversation to a halt and raised a few eyebrows as it isn't the sort of remark that a parent (in the UK) would use to a child/young person.
I think the suitability or otherwise of certain terms and expression can be a minefield between two very similar languages.
A friend newly arrived in Canada was practically drummed out of the local tennis-club when she suggested to her partner for the afternoon "Shall we go out before the game begins for a quick knock-up." In the English context it just means hit a few balls over the net to get your 'eye' in.

Vee, yes, I recall an Englishman the year I lived in Europe asking if I "wanted him to knock me up in the morning."

Is shagging the same as snogging???

No, no, no! Snogging is kissing on the lips. Shagging is something altogether different.

Mary, shagging is fornication in British slang.

I never thought about snogging being indelicate, Vee, but I'll take your word for it. My upbringing was not as delicate as yours. ;-)

Here's something I've been wondering about: What does AC (air-conditioning) mean in the UK? I've noticed that Aussies may mean cooling or heating when they refer to air-conditioning.

In the U.S., AC nearly always means cooling while heating is central heating, furnace, steam heat (radiators), etc. But thinking logically about it, cooling and heating are both forms of air-conditioning, but I don't think most Americans consider it that way.

In the UK, none of the houses or flats I lived in had AC for cooling, and mostly only the largest buildings I worked in had cooling. Of course every building, house, flat, etc. had heating of some sort, sometimes 'central' but often only a stove, space heater, or 'electric fire'. I don't remember anyone there ever referring to heating as air-conditioning, but maybe I was oblivious back then or it wasn't considered as such until after I no longer lived there. Btw, Annpan instigated this question with a post of hers in another thread and it sparked my memory of hearing my New South Wales hosts discussing their air-conditioning problems.

Airconditioners in Australia these days are usually "reverse cycle" ones that blow out either hot or cold air. They go in separate rooms in the house.There is also ducted airconditioning which has vents all through the house and does the same thing.
As my place is older, I have a gas bayonet, which used to have a gas heater attached, in the main room. The last tenant had the present A/C installed not long before she went into a nursing home and I moved in.
According to the rules, this had to be left in place or removed and the walls rebricked, plastered and painted. Her family preferred to leave it!
Fortunately, because my reverse A/C is well positioned, the air is also blown into the bedroom if I leave the door open. The rest of the place is open plan so the one unit does for the whole space.
I hope this is a helpful explanation.

Annpan, your explanation is very helpful to me. I have ducted air-conditioning (for cooling and dehumidifying) in my house. The same ducts also deliver heat from the 'furnace', but I use the heating so seldom I could do without it. Our temps here hardly ever get below 65F. Our highs don't usually break 80F, but getting the humidity lower makes the indoor air more pleasant so I run the AC for about thirty minutes in the morning and again for thirty minutes in the evening.

My brother who lives in southeast Texas has the same duct set-up, but when he refers to the AC, he means cooling only. When he's talking about the heating, he says 'central heating'. And that's the way most Americans I've heard with that kind of dual system talk about it, although I'm not sure why. Nor am I sure if Americans in the northeast or Great Lakes states use the term AC for cooling only. I think most southerners do -- my late sister-in-law from South Carolina did, as did my Alabama cousins and folk in south Louisiana. (What about you, Mary?) That's why I'm curious about how those in the UK think.

During my return to the UK, 1990-2002, I lived in a London area townhouse with ducted heating, then an old country cottage where there were fireplaces and later in the flat where I had electric water-filled radiators in every room.
For cooling, I bought a pedestal fan for the burst of unbelievable hot weather that came just before I went back to Australia. It got to 100F! I moved the fan into whichever room I was in, not wanting to buy items only to leave them behind. As it was, I left a lot of the contents of my flat for my friends to pick over then donate the rest to a charity.

Central heating is probably not used in Australia because our temperatures are never cold enough for snow in most places, and we don't have to worry about keeping pipes warm, for example. When I was young we had an oil heater which was called a space heater. (see below) Now we have reverse cycle A/C as Ann described. We have one unit in the kitchen/family area, but if we close of the parts of the house we aren't using (study, sitting room) it can cool or heat the rest of the house. We also have excellent insulation in the walls and ceiling which means we don't use the A/C terribly much. The motor for the unit is outside, so it is called a split system.
{{gwi:2117367}}

As I have an end place in a group of six, the outside unit of my split system is placed on the windowless side wall. Some of the inner dwellings have theirs at the front or back entrance. Not so neat!
I have just climbed up to clean the filters in the indoor part. After the dreadful storms we had recently, they were clogged with dirt and so the unit wasn't operating very well. I have an annual checkup done just before summer by the installing company. Having a working A/C is very important to my comfort!

Frieda, yes, AC means cooling only. (Of course, when I was growing up in Atlanta, there was no such thing. All we had were large fans and huge shady oak trees).

When I was traveling in London and in Scotland in the '60's, I recall having to put coins in some sort of heating contraption in order to be warm. Do these still exist?

In the UK AC only refers to a cooling system and those would most likely be found only in large stores and modern office blokes.
I have never been in a private house where AC is fitted . . . but then I don't know any millionaires . .. ordinary mortals have to put up with keeping cool by opening and closing curtains and windows or using fans.
Mary we have slightly moved on in since the early '60's and I don't think there are many 'shilling in the gas meter' heaters still about; the fumes were enough to knock one out.
I think many more homes have central heating these days but much of our 'housing stock' is Victorian and although built 'solidly' has almost no insulation and much heat leaks out from the roof and walls during the winter.

Mary, how did a nicely raised Southern Belle hear the word shagging?
My dictionary describes it as 'taboo' and if one considers 'snogging' to be crude then shagging is much worse and not to be used at vicarage tea-parties . . . or anywhere . . . ever!

And if you google the word, you will see why!

Thanks to everyone for helping me understand the AC situation. It's funny; I think I know what something means only to realize others mean something different!

Kath, the photo of the space heater reminds me of the one my parents had in the walk-out basement 'rumpus room' where my brothers and I played when we were kids and hung out in with our friends as teenagers. We called it a space heater, too. Ours might have been closer to the floor because I backed up to it a couple of times and branded my calves just below the bend of my knees on the metal 'guards'. Some guards! I still have the scars.

Vee, I noted the English propensity for giving body parts and frankly crude acts people's names, euphemistically. That's another of those minefields you spoke about upthread. Americans do it, too, but the euphemisms don't always overlap. I know that Wally, Willy, Roger, and Fanny are names the English will twitter or guffaw over if they are associating them with 'dirty' thoughts. Are there others we Americans need to be aware of?

So many old English words are never said in polite company, but if the same words are translated, say, to French (e.g.,merde) or Spanish (e.g.,caca fuego, the name the English gave a Spanish galleon), one can often get away without giving offense.

The term Wally refers to someone who is a fool (not because of some mental incapacity) but because they are not 'on the ball' or 'slow to catch on' to something. Over here we probably wouldn't name a child Wally because of the connection.
On saying the above I have just 'met' a very lovely looking 3 year old boy with cerebral palsy. His parents named him Woody (officially on his birth certificate). This name conjures up, for me, memories of Woody the rather dim bar-tender in 'Cheers'. It seems this young man will have so many problems to come in his life his name will only add to them.

I learnt the term "shagging" down here in SC because it is the name of a particular sort of dance done in this area. They were selling tee shirts for the dance event and some English bought some of these because they knew an alternate meaning!

Vee, perhaps Woody was named after the Toy Story movie character? Though I thought of the Cheers bartender, too. Still, an unfortunate name.

Yes......and unfortunately,the word also is used to refer to the male organ in a particular state of arousal.

Vee, I have just read a Catherine Aird mystery and she refers to a home as being "Grannified". So descriptive of my bathroom with grab rails and a boosted lavatory seat!
Is this a current term? I haven't heard it before but after an eleven year absence from the UK, no doubt a number of new expressions have cropped up.

Ann, I don't think I have heard Grannified before. To me what immediately comes to mind is an airless, fuggy house full of chintz, knick-knacks, what-nots, stuffed birds under glass domes and yellowing family photos; all hidden under a layer of fine dust. Rather like the word gentrified when the noveau riches filled their houses with faux wood panelling, moth-eaten stags' heads, dubious coats-of arms, and portraits of someone else's ancestors. As you and I know the real gentry have genuine panelling liberally scattered with woodworm holes, no coats-of arms and pictures of their own ancestors.
btw, I know a young man who has been trained to 'manufacture' antiques. He even adds woodworm holes (throwing darts) rubs dust into the corners and 'distresses' table-tops by adding 'ring marks' and gentle bashing with a hammer. It is then sold to rich Texans.
We got to know him when we first moved into our present house which really was 'Grannified'. We gave him several pieces of moth-eaten furniture which he was able to 're-use' in his various restoration projects.
Would anyone like to purchase a case of stuffed birds?

Okay, I'm sure all of you know this, but it's bothered me for a while. When I see the term "high street" what should I think? Is it the "main street"? Is it actually named High Street? Sometimes I have seen it capitalized, most times not. Sometimes it's "the high street". If a Brit gives someone directions would he say "It's on high street", "the high street", or use the name of the street?

This is not keeping me awake at night, but its use has become so common I'd like the offical meaning.

Yes, the term 'High Street' always describes the main street in or through a town/village. It is/was the place where the shops/stores were situated (although these days with 'out of town' stores many UK High Streets are a shadow of their former selves).
High Street will be its actual name.
We live on a High Street which is just part of the main road (which dates back to Roman times) which runs between S Wales via Gloucester to all points further North. The same stretch of road in the next village is knows as 'Main Rd'; confusing isn't it?
Over here I don't think an address will be 'The Highway'. The only time that is used/seen is on lorries/trucks with Highway Maintenance written on the side.

"Highway" is sometimes used in UK English in reference to "highwayman" like eighteenth century's Dick Turpin (and horse Black Bess) who was known to rob carriages of rich travelers as they traveled from place to place.

(The story of Dick Turpin was made infamous by a novel by William Harrison Ainsworth, a Victorian novelist. It did happen, but not quite in the romanticized heroic way that it's sometimes portrayed. Turpin was hung in York for his crimes in 1739.)

Just outside the town where I grew up is a reproduction of a gallows that was reputed to have been used to hang highwaymen in that spot in earlier times. We always drove by it feeling a bit ghoulish. It did add some excitement to the long drive to Grandma and Grandpa's house. :-)

Other road references that I don't hear very much over here in TX are words like "dual carriageway", "lane", "close", "cul-de-sac" (although ref'd as dead-end in my city here) etc. I do miss hearing "lollipop lady", zebra crossings, and Belisha beacons...

"Kerb" (as in street pavement edge) and "curb" (as in verb "to keep under control") are interchangeable for a lot of folks around here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dick Turpin, highwayman

Road names can change when what were two UK villages meet up and the roads to them had different names.
I was asked for directions once and when I told the person which road to take, he said that wasn't right, pointing to the road sign on a wall. I told him to look a little to the left on the wall where the other road name was posted!
I don't know how many times we lost our way in the UK because of poor signage. In one case, a road mender had thrown his coat over a low one!

Liz, I hadn't thought of highway men, probably not nearly as 'romantic' as they were portrayed. Am always reminded of the scene from the film Tom Jones when a highwayman holds up the coach in which an elderly lady is travelling (played by Edith Evans)

Highwayman: Stand and deliver!

Elderly Lady: What do you take me for; a travelling midwife?

Ha ha, Vee. Good one.

I have just remembered another one:

Growing up, we all had to learn The Highway Code about how to cross the street safely and the rules for cars etc. I wonder if kids still need to read that. There was even a Highway Code Man who was green and muscley, a bit like the Hulk (but with nicer clothes). :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: The Highway Code (UK)

I have often heard this saying from English friends and in British films: "He's had more such and such (insert whatever applies) than you've had hot dinners." I've read it in older books too.

I never could decide what the speaker/writer really meant because some seem to mean you've had a lot of hot dinners but others seem to indicate you've NOT had very many hot dinners. I asked two of my Yorkshire mates and they disagreed with each other! They concluded, however, that the meaning depends on the context. Unfortunately, I can't provide examples of context although I've been searching for some.

I did find the interesting history of hot meals in England. Only the well off could afford to have a hot dinner -- or other hot meal -- every day. Most families did not have stoves, much less ovens, -- nor could they afford the fuel -- so they took their food to the local baker's shop to have it made up and cooked in the baker's oven(s) once a week. This was usually reserved for Sundays and the custom was followed well into the twentieth century in some parts of the UK.

Vee, I think you explained to me what the 'hot dinners' saying means to you, but I can't remember what you said. Do you think it depends on context? If so, maybe you can provide me with a couple of opposite examples. Do people still say it? It must be one of those cultural things that makes perfect sense to those accustomed to figuring it out, but it's confusing to those of us who aren't used to it.

I use the expression of "hot dinners" but mainly think it to myself as it isn't an expression I hear much now.
It meant in our family that someone had done something more often than the person it referred to and really had little to do with their living standard!
You are right about the baking in ovens but that wouldn't have stopped people from having a hot meal such as a stew in the weekdays! I can't imagine people in the UK surviving just on cold food.
A recent use for me was when I was in a different library and was a bit lost. A helpful young assistant pointed out the mystery books section and said the books had a genre sticker on the spine. I thanked him but thought "I have stuck more of those on books than you have had hot dinners."

Annpan sums up the hot dinners expression very neatly. ie you may have had very many hot dinners but I have done more/seen more/ put up with more than you.
I would also dispute whoever wrote that (in the UK) hot food was only consumed by the 'better off'. Obviously if you were so poor you didn't even have a roof over your head/lived in the gutter eating anything would have been a problem but for the vast majority of people their means of cooking would have been a pot suspended over a fire so they could have boiled up meat plus bones and veg. Apparently at the same time as the meat was cooking most women were adept at cooking alongside a 'boiled pudding', by wrapping the mixture in a piece of 'pudding cloth' and tying each end, rather like an elongated sausage and adding it to boiling water The pud would have been made with flour and suet with maybe some added jam or raisins, apple etc. This became the forerunner of our 'Spotted Dick' and 'Boiled Baby' or Jam Roly-Poly . . . and very tasty they are too!
Frieda, I think I mentioned that my Grandmother, brought up in London in the 1890's remembered families taking their 'Sunday joint', to the baker's shop where, as the ovens were always kept hot, they would be cooked for about a penny. The meat tin would also contain the spuds which would cook in the hot fat from the meat. You probably will remember reading about Tiny Tim's Christmas dinner of roast goose cooked in the same way.
It is amazing what is/was cooked before ovens or stoves were in general use.
My Father, born in 1911 and brought up in a country Inn remembered the large joints of meat were still being cooked on a spit over the fire, with the juices and fat falling into a huge tray above the ashes, from which the gravy was made. Of course no modern conveniences but all fresh home-produced food and the 'left-overs' turned into cottage and shepherds pies, or eaten cold with bubble and squeak, jacket potatoes or salad in the summer.
I am always amazed how today many people just throw away what is left from a meal. Food waste is a big problem over here.

Lemon...

I fear that the highway code went the way of the dress code.
It seems that anything goes now and everyone appears to do what they wish.

I have become super vigilant when driving due to the texters and phone-users who drive while engaging in these activites.

On the other hand, I have learned to avert my eyes when confronted with the ubiquitous butt crack scenario that seems to be so prevalent due to the popular "low rise" pants. ( what an understatement).
Combine that with the ultra short dresses and you have quite a circus going on around you !
One day we were stopped at a red light and I happened to glance out the passenger window to see a hefty young woman wearing a dress that could not have been more than barely covering the necessities. She was carrying some packages and accidentally dropped one.
As we sat there everyone in the car realized what was going to happen next and we all screamed for the light to change !!
Unfortunately we were "treated" to the vision of her bending over to retrieve her package.
EEEKS.
How does that childhood lyric go?
"I see London , I see France...."
Unfortunately we didn't see her underpants because she wasn't wearing them !

Thank you, Annpan and Vee. It makes sense as you explain it, but for some reason, in the past, it has not stuck in my brain so that I have to rethink it every time I run across the expression. It seems similar to 'been there, done that', which sometimes strikes me as rather dismissive of someone else's experiences and, no doubt, is meant to be dismissive by some speakers. But others say it is merely an expression of recognition that others' experiences are similar to one's own. Context and tone of voice distinguishing which is meant, I guess. I'm glad 'been there, done that' is no longer used as frequently as it was ten to fifteen years ago.

Vee, I don't think you need to dispute that (in the UK) hot food was only consumed by the 'better off' because the emphasis in the sentence I paraphrased should be: Only the well off could afford to have a hot dinner -- or other hot meal -- every day. I should have 'bolded' or highlighted that phrase.

Even people less well off had fireplace hearths with cooking implements: pot hooks, spits, etc. But apparently it was not the habit to 'cook' a meal every day, as opposed to reheating already cooked foods, because of the high fuel consumption this required. Thus, the Sunday meal was taken to the baker's shop, but the family cook (probably the wife/mother in poorer families) might make up a stew on the other 'cooking day' of the week, usually Thursday, and the family would live off that until the next Sunday. Even in relatively better-off families, leftovers were the rule, with 'new' meals cooked only two to three times a week (as described by Judith Flanders in her Inside the Victorian Home). They certainly didn't waste food as is done nowadays in the U.S., and UK, as you say.

Boiled puddings, of the flour and suet variety, seem to have been much beloved. The ships' crews of the British Navy and 'Discovery Service' thought Sundays and Thursdays were special because they were 'flour days' when sweet boiled puddings/duffs were made and eaten with something akin to ecstasy! It's hard to comprehend their pleasure. I have wondered, though, how much flavor was imparted to the pudding by whatever liquid it was boiled in -- besides plain water which was usually not the case, aboard ships anyway. Do you know, Vee?

I should think those puddings at sea were flavored with rum or other spirits.

Frieda, I can't think they would have used any liquid other than water in which to boil a pud. I know it was a 'scarce' commodity especially on long voyages, so maybe the pud was cooked in 'fresh' water which was then used for what? Making tea/coffee? I would have suggested using it for doing the dishes but I don't suppose they bothered; probably just rubbed them with sand or similar.
I have heard/read that when several different dishes were boiled in the same pot the various flavours leaked into each other through the pudding cloth. I suppose if you were hungry enough that wouldn't bother you.
Are you familiar with the Bedfordshire Clanger? A suet crust 'pasty' with meat at one end and something sweet at the other. Two courses wrapped into one and could be eaten by hand while out at work.
We used to know an old farm-worker who usually ate these 'basic' but filling meals (boiled belly of pork was a favourite of his) he always maintained that after such a meal he never needed an overcoat while working in the afternoon.
I've never heard the expression 'flour days', but remember that Fridays were often baking days in the country, when loaves, cakes, buns, tarts, pies etc were prepared for the weekend.

Mary, the seamen certainly enjoyed their rum but I can't imagine the Admiralty supplying enough of it for flavoring puddings or in any way 'cooking off' its alcohol potency.

Vee, I've read that the 'men', the common crew, were expected to swab their plates with their bread and lick their cutlery clean and stow those and their tin-ware mugs in their sea chests between meals. Very hygienic practice, I'm sure. The officers and gentlemen had stewards to serve them and clear away the dishes, but I don't think I've read exactly how the plates, utensils, etc. were cleaned -- whether with water or sand, sand being quite commonly used as a scouring agent. I will have to do more research! :-)

I don't remember hearing Bedfordshire Clanger by name, but I recognize that sort of pasty -- the main meal on one end and the sweet on the other. It's quite an ingenious solution for providing a working person a meal without having to use eating utensils -- even neater than sandwiches, I think.

Yes, the 'leakage' of the pudding cloth was what I was referring to. A pudding that tasted like stew on the outside and spotted dick on the inside. Yum!

The sheer monotony of the food consumed by most classes doesn't really surprise me -- I've read enough about it to realize that -- but the conservatism of most people's palates does surprise me somewhat. When they are really hungry is when they most want familiar food, e.g.; the Jamestown settlers who nearly starved to death because they didn't recognize the native plants and animals as being edible; the seamen who wanted their salt pork and peas when they could have had other things just as tasty and more nutritious; and the Irish who were given cornmeal as a substitute for potatoes but didn't know how to prepare it and didn't like eating it. The reaction to hunger can be peculiar.

When I lived with my grandparents, they kept to the Victorian habit of a set weekly menu of the roast beef/lamb/pork Sunday dinner, cold with leftover fried vegs. on Monday, shepherd's pie using minced meat, Tuesday, stew from the remains, Wednesday.
Thursday was something freshly bought, like sausages, and Friday was fish and chips. I wasn't there for the Saturday dinner. I was given a bag of groceries to take home to spend the weekend with my parents.
There is a joke about the two-purpose "clanger" which has various names, that there was a newspaper put into the middle so the man could have a read between courses!

Annpan, thanks for posting the detail of your grandparents' set pattern of meals. It looks to cover about three weeks if Sunday dinners rotated the three main meats: beef, lamb, pork. Was ham included under pork or was it considered in the separate category of cured meats, as seems to have been the case a lot of times but not always?

I noticed in many of the pre-1950 menu listings in the UK that chicken was seldom mentioned and I wondered why. I think I have a partial answer: At the beginning of WWII hundreds of thousands of chickens were slaughtered to save on the cost of providing chickenfeed. Naturally there was a glut during the slaughtering phase and then chickens disappeared for the duration, mostly in cities and towns.

Rural people (and some town folk) continued to raise chickens but they and their eggs were held so dear that people fed their chicken table scraps and wouldn't give up on a hen until they were certain she would never produce another egg. The poor old thing was then dispatched quietly so that word wouldn't get out to neighbors importuning for a 'share' of the poultry. Norman Longmate in How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War related how some children of that time were so unfamiliar with a roast chicken dinner that when they were eventually offered one after the war, they weren't sure if they liked chicken!

At the same time in the U.S., chicken was considered part of the meat rotation of menus (Americans lumping meats and poultry together), so that chicken usually appeared as roasted in the winter and fried in the summer. My mother's family raised chickens during the Depression (in a small town) and they had chicken so often that mama decided that she would never eat chicken again. And she pretty much hasn't! She's ninety-two and her lip still curls at the mention of eating chicken.

Frieda, we still, more or less, follow the Sunday lunch 'pattern' described by Ann as do many 'older' people over here. And ham/bacon would be part of the mix, but I don't roast/bake it, I do it in the pressure cooker with whatever root veggies are about. Saves much cooking time!
Ann also mentions fish . . . and Friday was always fish day in almost all households and for school lunches. Also it used to be quite normal to have fish for breakfast either kippers, herrings or smoked haddock. You still see it on hotel menus.
Re chicken. Now, that was a luxury when I was growing up. Not because we were 'poor', I had a quite comfortable upbringing, but because there were no chickens about. We kept hens, fed on kitchen scraps and garden waste so had eggs. When the aged birds fell off their perches we ate them boiled. This involved a huge saucepan and hours of cooking as the fowl was always very tough. Often a piece of 'boiling bacon' and a couple of onions were added to the pot to give a bit of flavour. Eventually it was served with veggies and white sauce . .. this sauce was used as a cover/disguise for many items when I was young.
BTW onions were almost unobtainable during WWII and immediately after. They had mostly been grown and imported from France. Even in our Midland town the Onion Johnny used to arrive with his bike loaded with strings of onions.
In all my eight years away at boarding school from the mid 50's I don't remember being served chicken . . . even eggs were an 'extra'; sometimes we had one (hard) boiled for breakfast. But then jam/spreads to cover the bread and marge served at teatime were 'extras' (we had to bring our own) as was fruit; difficult to believe how vitamin deprived we must have been.
Fried chicken before the days of the well-known Colonel S was unknown in the UK. I doubt that it is cooked in any family homes . .. we did have it occasionally (from the '60's when chucks became more available) as my Mother had enjoyed it while visiting US relatives, also 'corn-on-the-cob' which my father thought most strange ;-)

Frieda, to answer and comment on points raised in your and Vee's posts...
The different meat that was bought for the Sunday meal (which you would know is called dinner although served at lunchtime) wasn't on a rotation at my grandparents.
My grandfather had worked for many years at Smithfield meat market and when they retired to Brighton, he and my grandmother bought their Sunday roast from a butcher in the local Brighton Market although we had a butcher's shop opposite! They were very choosy and would select a good cut of whatever carcass looked the freshest.
The pork was sometimes a half pig's head. No shepherd's or cottage pie that week, of course.
Chicken was a Christmas Day treat although we had goose one year which my mother won in a raffle. I don't remember having ham, occasionally a piece of boiled bacon but that wouldn't have been regarded as a Sunday Dinner.
Grandad grew vegetables during the war, part of the Dig for Victory campaign. He had a large back garden with a lawn pre-war and cut a lot of it up. I only saw photos of it as it was.
My memories are of the half-buried outdoor air raid shelter and the vegetables beyond a rose covered trellis that marked the boundary between the flower garden and small lawn area and the "allotment" as it was incorrectly referred to. A real allotment was different, being an area allotted to gardeners who had no garden of their own.
My sister was given a banana after the war and said it tasted like a candle, which she had probably gnawed on in the air raid shelter when we were put to bed there!

My dad loved meat, especially fried chicken. One spring he bought 100 baby chicks, all roosters, just for eating. Mama said she started frying them when it took two to make a meal for the family (parents and four children, and my brothers were still too small to eat a lot). She said she thought this time she would burn Daddy out on chicken, but he ate the last one just as happily as the first. We always had mashed potatoes and chicken gravy with the meal--milk gravy made in the chicken drippings that I imagine is similar to Vee's white sauce.

We went to my grandparents most Sundays, as did her other children with their families. Fortunately, she liked to cook, and we did have a lot of fried chicken dinners. I'm a little like Frieda's mother regarding chicken! Home cured country ham played a big part in her kitchen, too, and the best banana cake ever. And chocolate cream pie. I'm getting a little homesick for those good old days, not to mention hungry.

Carolyn, my heart goes out to your Mother if she was expected to pluck and draw 100 hens (however small). We are often given several brace of pheasants in the Autumn and my fingers are left numb from plucking (DH cleans out the innards)!
I have often read from US recipe books that gravy is made using milk. I don't think that is ever the case over here. These days I expect many people just use 'granules' out of a jar/packet, but oldies like me make proper gravy using the dripping from the roasted meat, a little flour for thickening and either left over veggie water or stock (we keep a 'lump' of it in the freezer) but never milk.
White Sauce is, I suppose technically one of the various French-named sauces such as bechamel. Somehow the English variety was tasteless and was used to cover boiled (to death) veggies . . .carrots, onions, cauliflower, marrow. Often these vegs were grown to a huge size so they became very woody and even half-an-hour of boiling couldn't improve the taste! White sauce with the addition of chopped parsley was/is served with steamed fish.
Question. I understand you eat quite a bit of sea food in the US. Is this fish or shellfish . . . or what?
Regular fish eg plaice, cod, haddock, herring, mackerel etc used to be a mainstay of a UK diet but less so now . . . and much more expensive.

FWIW, before I forget if you go to www.livescience, there is an excellent article on why the Americans and the English have such differing accents. (It was not always so).

Vee, lobster is eaten quite often in the New England states. Down south, we eat shrimp, crawfish, tilapia, salmon, trout, and more. Oyster roasts are quite popular here in the Low Country, and many folks use oysters in a mix to stuff their turkeys at Thanksgiving. When I was growing up, we ate a lot of fresh trout caught by my father, and a decent breakfast was shadroe served with hot grits.

As for chicken, in Georgia, it was almost always fried. Back in the day, in the city of Atlanta, certain neighborhoods were allowed to have poultry in their back yards. Thus, my almost grown Easter chicks were eventually given to our maid to pad out her meals.

Gravy was made from the pan drippings with a little flour added, and a little water, if necessary. Never with milk.

Vee, until I went to live in England, I had never heard of, much less eaten, most of the fish you listed, with the exception of cod. Iowa is about as far from any sea as one could get in North America, so when Iowans had fresh fish when I was a kid it was freshwater kinds caught in local lakes and rivers. Otherwise, we had to depend on either canned fish/seafood or frozen kinds, such as cod.

My Norwegian great-grandmother carried on the tradition of preparing lutefisk from dried cod (or some other whitefish). It was soaked for days in several changes of water to remove the salt, and then soaked in a lye solution for a couple of days, and finally soaked again in water to remove the lye. Only then was it cooked, either steamed or fried. Most of her descendants were less enamored with lutefisk than she was (it stank to high heaven and had a gelatinous texture that most disliked). Still, we ate it, mostly not to hurt her feelings and secondly just to carry on the tradition. I've had lutefisk prepared by other cooks, including Norwegians on a seismic vessel in the Chukchi Sea, that tasted better than great-grandmother's, so perhaps she wasn't very good at making lutefisk, which is not surprising because she wasn't known for good cooking of any sort.

Fridays were 'fish days' in our school cafeteria, too; I guess in respect of Catholic students. You will probably laugh at what we were served: frozen breaded fish sticks, served with ketchup or tartar sauce and, for some reason, macaroni and cheese; tuna-noodle casserole with crushed potato chips (crisps) as topping; tuna salad sandwiches or pimiento cheese as alternative for those who couldn't stomach the tuna; and 'fishburgers', breaded fillets on hamburger buns, dressed with lettuce, mayonnaise and sweet gherkin relish. Garrison Keillor in his Prairie Home Companion radio show poked fun at the ubiquity of tuna-noodle casserole in the American Midwest.

A 'fish dinner' that my family particularly liked was our mother's fried salmon patties or croquettes, always served with 'English peas' and potato chunks creamed together in one of those white sauces you referred to. I recall mama's white roux being very tasty but I know what you mean about the insipid ones and all those overcooked vegetables (not mama's). Another thing about the canned salmon that mama used to make her patties: My brothers and I thought it was disgusting because it was canned with the skin and bones included. Mama had us pick out those things. One day my brother decided to taste a bone and talked me into trying one, too. From that day we were dedicated salmon pickers and bone eaters, because the canning process had rendered the bones soft enough to chew with a very pleasant crunchiness. I'm sure other people have known this for a long time, but it was a revelation to us.

Since adulthood I have loved fish and seafood of all sorts.

Vee, as the oldest daughter, it was mostly my job to pluck the chickens. It was only one (or two of the little ones) at a time, though. Fortunately, I never killed one, and I still don't know how to cut one up into serving pieces. And I certainly don't ever intend to learn.

My dad liked to fish, too, and a lot of what we ate were the catfish and blue gill common to our area.

Thank you all for your fishy tales.
Frieda, I suppose lutefisk was originally salted/prepared as a way of holding off hunger during long Scandinavian winters. Seems as though one would need to be almost starving to enjoy it today.
In this part of England we used to boast the best salmon rivers in the country: the Wye and the Severn. Sadly the salmon stocks have almost disappeared and we have to rely on Scottish farmed salmon; not quite such a subtle flavour but much cheaper.
'Trout farms' have become popular in areas where farmers have had to 'diversify' and if they have a good clean water-supple running through their land. Anglers can either join a 'fishing club' or pay a daily rate to fish.
I find the taste of all these fresh water fish can go vary from excellent to 'muddy'.
Tuna (canned or fresh) was never heard of when I was young. We never got much more exotic than tinned sardines (always eaten on toast) or salmon, which used to be a Sunday teatime treat for many families.
Mary, oysters used to be very popular and cheap in Victorian times but as they became more scarce (caused by polluted waters?) so the price rose. They are considered something of a luxury today.

Sorry - got stuck at work and late to the party...

I saw mention upthread of the Bedfordshire Clangers, the double-ended pasty...

On a recent trip home, bakeries have started to sell these old-fashioned foods... It's on my list for next time I go home to Bedford.

Plus ca change...

Since most Aussies live around the coast, we eat quite a lot of seafood. My husband's family have a holiday house, and when I started going out with him in the mid 70s, we would 'pull the net'. This involved a net which was about 5 ft wide and 70 yds long and was attached at each end to a pole. One or two people took a pole and waded out into the water, the other(s) remaining in the shallows, and the net was taken in an arc then pulled in to the shore. Often dozens of fish were caught in a single pull. This is now illegal.
I remember having white sauce with lamb tongues and corned beef, but not on vegetables.

Speaking of water creatures that people eat, I saw that one of our local groceries had real frog legs for sale. They must be huge frogs as their thighs were enormous.

Astrokath and fellow Aussie who lives on the East Coast.

I just love white sauce, especially on steamed veges, this evening I plan to make a curried white sauce with peeled prawns stirred thru and served on a bed of white rice, yum yum.

BTW I have just learnt to make my white sauce in the microwave, it is a breeze.