What were the "beautiful days"?

From the text:

These were the Beautiful Days. When La Inca would recount for Beh her family’s illustrious history while they pounded and wrung dough with bare hands (Your father! Your mother! Your sisters! Your house!) or when the only talk between them was the voices on Carlos Moya’s radio and the sound of the butter being apphed to Beh’s ruined back. Days of mangoes, days of bread. There are not many surviving photos from that period but it’s not hard to imagine them — arrayed in
front of their immaculate house in Los Pescadores.