Does anyone remember Locust Beans? (At least I think that's what we called them.)
Just after World War 2, when food was scarce and sweets were on ration, we kids sometimes had them as a treat.
They were shaped like a flattened banana, had a hardish shiny brown skin which you had to break off. Inside was the soft yellow flesh which you ate. The fruit was very sweet but had a disgusting smell.
Since I grew up I've never met anyone who remembers them.
If you're too young, please ask your granddad or aged aunty.
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kevinwilson
Pro - 2008-06-25 @ 22:21:47
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grumpus
Pro - http://bobmblack.blog.co.uk
- 2008-06-25 @ 22:52:13
Don't think so Kev. I remember hearing about black-eyed peas and rice as eaten by people in America's Deep South. A popular slave dish I think.
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- http://joebangles.blog.co.uk
- 2008-06-25 @ 23:36:41
Had forgotten all about them until now. I remember that my dad brought some home one day, possibly about 1948, I remember that we ate them.
Found on google, "Locust beans are made from dried carob pods".
Now used as animal feed in Africa. -
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soyunperdedor
Pro - http://soyunperdedor.blog.co.uk
- 2008-06-26 @ 21:39:08
I know what you mean, purely because I used to buy them in pet shops for my rabbit and hamsters!
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grumpus
Pro
- http://bobmblack.blog.co.uk
- 2008-06-26 @ 21:54:28
OMG I must have been poor as a kid ... eating animal fodder!
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loiswakeman
- http://lois.co.uk
- 2008-06-27 @ 09:03:43
I do indeed. One of the highlights of a farm holiday was being allowed to filch them from the cows' rations. The HSE would have a fit today! I tried one a year or two ago that came in some horse muesli* - and the taste took me straight back to my childhood.
And what about liquorice sticks (the twiggy ones) and tiger nuts?
* actually coarse mix, but only the equiphile would know what I was on about. -
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grumpus
Pro
- http://bobmblack.blog.co.uk
- 2008-06-27 @ 12:34:38
Thanks Lois, you reminded me of two things. My equestrian days when I fell off and decided never to get back on, and liquorice sticks, which I knew as Spanish Wood.
It was another treat you could buy when real sweets were short and on ration. You bought a little bundle of twigs, about 4 inches long, cut from real trees. They either had a natural liquorice taste or were specially impregnated (don't know which), but we used to chew and suck on them until they were reduced to a soggy fibrous mass.
You might also remember what I think was sold as "sherbet". It was ordinary sugar with a squirt of lemon juice. It came in a poke or twist of old newspaper. Another HSE nightmare!
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CassandraofTroy
- 2008-06-28 @ 16:27:48
Yep, chewing wood - I think it was actually roots, maybe even of liqorice.
And sherbert - definitely! it came with a lolly which you dunked into it - then your fingers, when the lolly ran out!
We sometimes used to have bread and butter with sugar sprinkled on for tea
This was in the 60s.-
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grumpus
Pro
- http://bobmblack.blog.co.uk
- 2008-06-28 @ 18:33:58
In the 40s we couldn't afford butter and sugar! We had to make do with bread and dripping. When meat was available and we had a bit of scragg-end for Sunday roast, the leftover juices from the roasting tin were poured into a pudding bowl and left to cool. This was intended to be used to roast the next bit of meat to come our way.
All the family would occasionally take a knife-full of the congealed greasy grey mass everyone called "dripping" and spread it on a "door-step" (thick slice of bread) as a snack, or sometimes in the absense of a proper meal. As I recall, it tasted very salty!-
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CassandraofTroy
- 2008-06-28 @ 19:53:28
Hang on a minute I still do that! Best thing for cooking a roast - and if it's from a duck, for cooking roasties.
Not that we have a roast very often these days.
I'm very partial to toast and dripping - only gave it up because I concluded it wasn't very healthy, not because it wasn't tasty! -
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CassandraofTroy
- 2008-06-28 @ 16:20:45
Also known as carob - and sometimes used as a substitute for chocolate (though a very ersatz one).
They grow round the Mediterranean - I've been presented with them in various places while on holiday.-
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grumpus
Pro
- http://bobmblack.blog.co.uk
- 2008-06-28 @ 18:38:18
Ersatz is polite! As I recall they smelt like poo!
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Flynns
- 2008-06-29 @ 18:15:42
Liquorice root is well known - you can get them in heath food shops, and yes, carob beans look like runner beans growing from trees, I have some pics of them from Turkey - its where the caribbean gets its name
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- http://google
- 2009-01-11 @ 15:03:15
Yes I remember locust beans well (1947 circa) Apparently they are the locusts that John the Baptist lived off whilst in the wilderness. I'd forgotten how vile they smelt. Happy days???
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- http://www.cranchs-sweetshop.co.uk
- 2009-01-15 @ 11:00:38
My Grandmother used to bring us Locust Beans, Tiger nuts and Liquorice root in the early seventies. We used to love them - they seemed really strange and exotic (a bit like my Grandmother - in a good way!) I work in an old fashioned sweetshop and I'd been trying to remember what the shiny black pod things were called for years and a customer came in and bought some Liquorice Root (yes, you can still get it - it's the dried roots of the Liquorice Plant)and started reminiscing about Tiger Nuts and Locust Beans. I could have kissed her! It brought back some amazing memories.
And, talking of sugar sandwiches, did anyone else ever sprinkle sugar on lettuce or was my family just weird?-
- 2009-02-15 @ 12:24:46
"And, talking of sugar sandwiches, did anyone else ever sprinkle sugar on lettuce or was my family just weird?"
My grandmother did that! Until I read your post, I thought she was the only person in the world who liked that sort of thing!
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- 2009-02-16 @ 14:12:03
Glad I found this site. It's been driving me mad, I'm the third youngest of a family of thiteen and none of my siblings can remember locust beans.
On holiday in spain a few years ago the black seed pods on a tree tiggered off memories when I would have been four or five. ( the smell and taste )
An elderly friend of mine living in Spain said the Spanish hold the trees sacred and won't cut themm down because the fruit sustained the peasants during the Spanish civil war -
- 2009-07-02 @ 13:44:39
Locust beans is common in africa, every one knows it especially people from a tribe called 'Yoruba' in Nigeria. Its usually cooked with stew or any kind of soup. its disgusting smell changes after you've had it cooked its actually nice, i'm eating it now with rice.......
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- 2009-07-13 @ 13:18:59
I REMEMBER LOCUST BEANS VERY WELL DURING WARTIME
1939/45
MRS BRYAN HAD A SHOPIN LANSDOWNE ROAD WORCESTER, WHICH SOLD ALL SORTS! PRIDE OF PLACE WENT TO A JAR OF LOCUST BEANS ON HER COUNTER
WE KIDS LOVED THEM.
AND WHEN THE BIBLE SAYSJOHN THE BAPTIST LIVED ON LOCUSTS AND HONEY IN THE WILDERNESS, THESE BEANS ARE OBVIOUSLY WHAT HW ATE!
can't help with that, sorry.
did you ever eat black peas?
i remember eating them as a kid on bonfire night in the north west and no-one else i know has ever heard of them.