Even as relatively recently as the 80s/ early 90s in Ireland there wasnt the predominance of cheap, unhealthy frozen type foods that there is nowadays. “Poor” food usually just entailed cheaper cuts of meat and various offal meats.

I can remember having quite a lot of variants of brown stew made with beef shin, collar , chuck or often with mutton neck. Boiled bacon/bacon ribs with potatoes and cabbage.

We lived with our grandparents, in varying stages there were 14–16 of us across 3 generations in the little 2 up, 2 down terrace. My grandfather having been a boner/carver in a meat processing plant we were exposed to most parts of various beasts. A fun treat sometimes to open the fridge to see what kind of “monster”(a severed animal head) was stored inside for his own dinner.

Having steered away from the weirder items, some that were actually fairly tasty were “chucks” - pigs tails; you had to peel back the thick layer of skin/fat to access the sweet meat around the thin bone, and “crubeens” - pigs feet/knuckles involving pretty much the same eating process. Both were usually boiled to the point of near disintegration.

Boiled meats and vegetables made up most of the diet, mostly pig meats to be honest. Sausages and bacon at the weekend and the best of all; soft boiled duck eggs.

School lunches usually consisted of a blaa(locally produced bread roll) filled with ham/luncheon sausage/corned beef and milk.

In reading other answers it makes you realise that while we didnt really have any money, in a dietary sense we really weren’t doing that badly to be fair.

PS. This reminds of a story my grandmother loves telling to anyone who will listen, so I’m sure she wont mind me sharing;

Christmas in Ireland invariably means there should be a ham on the table, most butchers even to this day will have facility to “pay in” on a ham and turkey to secure it for Christmas. It is also usually customary to boil the ham on Christmas Eve as it takes quite some time to cook by this method.

On one particular Christmas Eve my Grandmother set to the task of boiling the ham only to find it too big to fit in any of the pots in we owned by some margin. Where would you get a new pot on Christnas Eve when all were in use for the same purpose? Even halving the ham wouldnt work in this instance.

The solution is as ingenius as it is mental. There was one appliance in the house although not designed for the task at hand, apparently quite suitable: The top loading twin tub washing machine. So in went the ham (sans detergent…I think) and that year we enjoyed washing machine ham. Hows that for clean eating?