Today, Soda Shops are somewhat unknown. However, back in the 1950s and up until the 70s, they were prominent inside the local drugstore in a lot of towns we lived in. For children and teens of these eras, it was fun to go in and look around the store, then sit down on one of the silver stools that lined the soda counter for a cherry cola with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

I’ve always associated 50s and 60s aesthetics with puff skirts, pinup pictures, and tiny-waisted girls sitting in diners and drinking milkshakes with cherries on top. And I always wondered, how do they manage to stay so fit with all these milkshakes? It turns out, while fast food meals were a rare treat in the 1950s they had plenty of healthy food recipes as well, such as this lovely dal soup, to stay fit.

If you were a kid growing up in the nineties in the UK, then you most definitely cherished those super cringey school disco days where the tuck shop was the only thing that really mattered. You know, that as well as sliding on your knees and pretending to be an airplane or something.

Fast food menus have become insane these days, with many people associating the entire industry with American-style excess. A typical fast food menu today will have dozens of items on it, most of which will be over 1,000 calories in total.

I have a small postcard of Renoir's 'Le déjeuner des canotiers' in my room. It's not the real thing, but it's an authentic symbol of something very French, a sense of indulgence that can be had by any and all: the luxury improved by the absence of frippery.

When most of us think about retro recipes, we tend to think of those culinary disasters that our grandparents seem to love for no apparent reason. Things like those weird jello salads and mayonnaise-laden artery clogging "salads" are what we assume everyone ate in the 50s. And, for the most part, retro recipes are pretty terrible.

During the Civil War, food shortages were common and soldiers needed to be able to carry food for days. Consequently, the food they ate was meant to keep people alive, with a rare delight mixed in here and there.