Thriftlady's wartime experiment

thriftlady_2

Sarahsaver wrote: »

bbc2 tomorrow evening at 9pm Sue Perkins and Giles Coren living on wartime rations;)

Did anyone actually enjoy this programme ? I only stuck with it to see if the presenters' health benefitted from the wartime regime - it did although they were pretty fit to begin with. Apart from that I thought it was trivial, flippant, inaccurate (yeah, we really ate grass and snails in the war:rolleyes: )and downright nauseating -I've never seen such appalling table manners in my life. I certainly shan't be watching any more of this series as I couldn't bear to see Giles Coren put anything else in his mouth (which he kept open whilst eating_pale_ ).

I felt they were really unimaginative in their choice of recipes too. You didn't have to eat beige, bland food. When we did it I don't remember any bland meals and nor does OH, who said he didn't notice any difference from our normal diet. Some years ago I read an article about a family living on rations for a week. The father was the cook and he made some wonderfully inventive recipes including a mushroom risotto with pudding rice and a delicious looking herb salad. Why couldn't this programme have been a bit more imaginative?

I've decided that I really can't watch telly anymore, everything seems to be dumbed down and trivialised in order to get a cheap laugh.

Btw, has anyone else heard of toffee carrots I haven't come across them before and I've read pretty extensively on the subject ? I just kept thinking -why don't they use apples?

moanymoany

For a lot of people the rationing made only small differences to the way they ate and cooked. I was mainly fed by my grandma and the food she gave me wasn't far away from a wartime diet. It was mainly vegetables, carbs and a bit of meat.

What is interesting is that we ate more sugar than I do today. This was mainly in the form of puddings. We had meat most days, but it was very much the cheaper cuts and not much of it. It was padded out by pulses and veg. The fat in puddings must have provided part of out protein.

I didn't watch the programme last night, I thought it looked a bit silly - yes the snails and grass! People gathered blackberries, crab apples, sloes and wild damsons. Mushrooms were not so easy if you didn't live in the country. At my aunties we regularly gathered pailsfulls of them before breakfast.

Being a country woman my grandma had links with people who sold her eggs in the summer glut, she preserved these in a large pancheon full of waterglass. Runner beans were preserved in salt. Lots of pickles and chutneys were made and jams. Jam was mainly made with free fruit.

The biggest difference to my mother's family was the allottment. It was compulsory for everyone to help.

I think there were and are people who only cook bland food. My family were not amongst them, we always had well flavoured food.

I don't think our lives are going to go back to the 50's, but I do think we are going to see some big changes because of the world problems that are affecting us. Time to get the 'Tightwad Gazette' out again!

Scarlett25

thriftlady - I totally agree with you about Giles Coren. I'd been looking forward to seeing the programme but he totally ruined it for me with his sarcastic comments and disgusting table manners. I managed to watch half of it then had to switch over cause I couldn't stand seeing him any longer!

Eating with his mouth open (and letting food drop out of it) was disgusting enough but when he spat into a cake tin to grease it....BLEURGH!!!! I'd say he ate like a pig....but pigs have more manners! :rotfl:

Sue, on the other hand, did seem to get into the spirit of it more and took it a little more seriously........but the programme should have been so much better. I'd like to see one with Marguerite Patton cooking her wartime recipes and reminiscing about her wartime experiences and how people used to live then.

Bobbykins

Thriftlady - I couldn't agree more. I had really looked forward to watching the programme (it was the only thing on last night that I felt might be worth watching) and was SO disappointed. It was trivial and facetious, gimmicky, badly researched, lightweight, ooh, I could go on and on!grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I won't be watching the rest of the series!

mary43

I watched it, more out of curiosity than anything else......from what I'd seen it looked like it would be a bit flippant about everything.

As for all the 'mock' dishes.........well can't remember ever having anything like that. I maybe wouldn't remember being born 1943 but I do know times were very hard for some years after the war.
But we always had puddings and cakes which maybe made up for the blandness of Mums suet puddings and overcooked veg. Mum gave up sugar so me and my brother could have it.
They could have shown a bit more on the 'make do and mend' side of things.......darning jumpers and making clothes from anything that was handy.
Mum made our clothes from things Dad had almost worn out but there was enough material for us little ones.
In fact I used the same pattern as her to make romper suits for my boys from old white shirts when my first boys were born.

Austin_Allegro

Last night there was a good programme on BBC about a couple trying to live for a week on wartime rations, called Supersizers Go Wartime.

Jokes about flatulence aside, it was quite funny too. Some interesting things I learned:

Crumble was invented during the war because it didn't require as much fat as proper pastry

Liquid paraffin (urgh) when added to cakes makes them taste better

You could be prosecuted for leaving food on your plate, (and some people were)

There was a book published in WW1 along the lines of Richard Mabey's 'Free Food' about foraging, called something like 'Nature's Harvest'

Housewives were told NOT to tell people what was in meals until they had eaten them

Spam sandwiches were considered a treat

Children were given carrots glazed with sugar as lollypop-substitutes

Alcohol wasn't rationed but was hard to find; one woman made a bottle of sherry last the entire war

Overall the standard of health rocketed during the war due to low meat, fat and sugar consumption.

Next week they're doing the Restoration period.

shelley1977

i really enjoyed watching it ,i also watched the one the 2 of them did about eating in edwardian times.looking forward to next weeks programme

arkonite_babe

I missed that, any ideas if it will be repeated or can I watch it online??

Austin_Allegro

Just noticed this is being discussed on another thread....anyway, I appreciate some found it a bit flippant, but you have to realise for most people WW2 is ancient history and as odd to them as the middle ages. The concept of any kind of rules or boundaries with regards to food or indeed any aspect of our lives really is utterly alien to some people today, (and Ms Perkins touched on this) so to appeal to the broadest audience the programme had to make a bit of a joke about it. If they'd showed people surviving perfectly easily on wartime rations with varied, interesting meals it wouldn't have made 'good tellie'.
Sadly, for most people, 'the past is a foreign country' and its ways are to be laughed and gawped at rather than studied for genuine inspiration. That said, I thought the programme struck a reasonable balance between education and entertainment.

Penelope_Penguin

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

Just noticed this is being discussed on another thread.

I'll link this thread to the Wartime Experiment one later, to keep all WW2 discussion together

Penny. x