Family
Favourites

What are your family's favourite meals, and what would your great-grandparents have been cooking up in years gone by? Our latest research reveals which meals have endured over the decades.

The survey of 2,000 people looked at how family food trends have changed over the decades and found our palettes still crave many of the same flavours we enjoyed decades ago. Fish fingers, Sunday roast and roast chicken are some of the top family meals which have remained popular over the last 50 years, while other kitchen table staples which have stood the test of time include fish and chips, shepherd's pie, and jacket potato.

Our current favourite family meal is Spaghetti Bolognese, rising from relative obscurity in the 60s to become a family staple.

Whatever's on our plates, we love eating it together - seventy-five per cent of modern parents still believe it is important for their family to eat dinner together each evening, and the average family will manage to get together round the table for a meal four times a week.

The history of British food

Monica Askey, Food Historian, says:

"Food is and has always been subject to fashion. Our food choices are influenced by so many things including social factors, the availability of ingredients, foreign travel, immigration, celebrity chefs, advances in technology, changing health advice, and food scares.

"Food of the 1960s was still much influenced by the 14-year period of rationing during and following WW2.

"The preferred style of eating was very much 'meat and two veg' - traditional British dishes.

"Over the decades our tastes have become much more cosmopolitan, and we have also reduced our meat consumption.

"Belling's research shows that despite the large range of dishes and available ingredients we do tend to stick to a fairly small number of favourite dishes, and that many of these have remained preferred throughout the decades."

What's your favourite family meal, and do you agree with our survey results? Join in the conversation on Twitter using #BellingFamilyFavourites or let us know on Facebook!

learn the recipes

Keep reading to find out how to make some of the UK's favourite family recipes...