During the war, I lived in a small cottage in a clearing at the edge of a large forest. The forest (near Leith Hill in Surrey) held a large ammunition dump and my father was in charge for a while.
Some food-related anecdotes:
In order to supplement the meagre official ration, my mother set up a
rabbit farm (she bought 1 pregnant rabbit and let nature take its
course). The rabbits were in an area of an orchard and we spent a lot
of time grabbing food for them from the hedgerows. At least one rabbit
was albino: Daddy Whitey. We tended to know the name of what we were
eating... Since we ate mainly rabbit meat, it was a surprise when I
first came across meat that didn't have rabbit shoulder blades.
As we walked around, I would pick up what looked edible and put it
in my mouth: not always distinguishing rabbit's droppings from
whinberries. The war-time habit of looking for free food stayed with
the family: blackberries were collected to make bramble jelly. The
owner of the farm building adjoining the cottage was originally from a
Central European family and knew about edible fungi which information
he passed on. I believe that one of the first words I spoke was
"bleetus" (for boletus mushrooms). We were especially keen on
puff-balls since you get a lot of flesh on one.
With sugar under ration, I was not used to sweets or to having sugar in tea. I remember when rationing was ended: but it made little difference to me. Because of rationing, my great aunt in South Africa used to send a box of crystallised fruit every year: I was not overly keen on it, but the thought was nice.
I remember that on a summer holiday in Paignton, there was a queue right around the block to buy soft icecream -- which was not available previously.
My parents had travelled in France and were reasonably aware of foreign food, but we ate very much traditional food. I would eat almost anything, although I was not happy with boxed peas.
My maternal grandmother liked to bake: Welsh cakes, scones and home-made toffee (consistency of glass). My paternal grandmother was a truly awful cook: she never got the meat, potatoes and vegetables ready at the same time so you would eat parts of the meal long before other parts. She liked to offer hospitality, so on Sunday would butter slices of bread and put them under a cloth in the best room. If you called on a Saturday, you got rather stale bread curling up at the edges. If nobody called, bread and butter pudding got made..
As the post war period ended, more adventurous food became available; Chinese, Indian, Italian,... By the time I graduated, I had visited most of the countries of Europe and had eaten widely. I couldn't afford "gourmet" food but had been exposed to a lot of different cuisines.
When we moved to the Geneva area (to work at CERN), we started to have the availability of funds and restaurants to eat more sophisticated food. I remember a trip with the Halzens to the Auberge de Père Bise on the Lac d'Annecy. This was then a three Michelin starred restaurant. The "souffle de truite aux queues d'ecrivisses" was memorable. As was the Gevry-Chambertin wine.
After coming to Merseyside, we have done our bit to support local restaurants. Harden's guide reprinted my comment that Fraîche (Mark Wilkinson's restaurant in Oxton) was "the best restaurant in England north of Ludlow". He later got a Michelin Star which he has retained.