Thriftlady's wartime experiment

moanymoany

I used to do reminiscence therapy in nursing homes and I learned a lot about the 'Home Front' from the women who took part.

There was a flourishing black market in clothing coupons and time after time I was told that you could buy them for 3d each. They also told me that the 'whisper' would go round that clothes were available at certain addresses that could be bought without coupons.

Most of the women also said they had occasional sources of extra food. Especially those who came from the East End of London who sometimes got items from bombed warehouses during the blitz.

My mil has a long standing distrust of butchers because they were like 'tin pot gods' and made a stash of money they hid in their mattresses because of their activities.

I'm looking forward to following your adventures spamfritter. I made rhubarb brown betty and I also love fruit charlottes which are very similar.

moanymoany

shetitasatic wrote: »

My Mum was in service before the War, and was always a frugal and inventive cook. She used to make a 'wartime omelette' with breadcrumbs added to beaten eggs and water/milk. This made quite a substantial omelette and I still do this sometimes. She also made a version of bakewell tart using ground rice and almond essence instead of ground almonds.
I was born in 1947 and remember rationing - I had my own card for sweets!
My Nan and Grandad lived in the country and had 1/4 acre garden. They kept chickens and grew everything they needed. I remember Nan making fowl pie when they had to kill an old layer. She boiled the hen first and then let it go cold. She skimmed off the fat on the surface and used this to make the pastry - it was deep yellow and just melted in the mouth! My nan made her own wine - I remember the corks popping on the dandelion and burdock kept in the pantry under the stairs!
I remember getting up at 5am to go mushrooming - the best ones were in the fields where horses had been.
She picked most things that grew wild - little wild strawberries, loads of blackberries for b'berry and apple jam and bramble jelly, crab apples for jelly
elderflowers and berries for wine and stinging nettles to cook, and sloes for sloe gin.
She used to make 'sad cake'( a sort of lardy cake?) and potato cake in the rayburn, I only wish I had the recipes.
This all makes me realise how much I miss my Mum and my Nan, and how hard they worked to give us such a good upbringing in difficult times

A lovely post. I was born in 1948 and share some of your recollections. I spent a lot of my time with my gran and she also used wild food, made wine and cooked well. I remember going out with her to pick dandelion and coltsfoot heads and elderberries for wine, picking crab apples for jelly, blackberries were picked over several weeks - didn't like blackberrying!

My gran made a lot of pastry items, especially jam tarts. She also made mountains of jam, pickles and chutneys which helped the Monday dinners go down as cold meat can be dry.

I remember the preparations for Christmas - pounds of dried fruit washed and drying on huge meat plates. She then made her puddings which were boiled in the gas copper. The cake and the mincemeat. I remember her getting 'lights' - lungs to you and me - and mincing them. These went into the mincemeat. I don't know when she stopped doing this, but she was certainly doing it in the early/mid 50's.

When I was doing the reminiscence I did one near Christmas and I made a Christmas pudding from a wartime recipe. The home was one for people with Alzheimers. I gave it out for people to taste and one lady - getting on for 100 - she spat it out and said 'I didn't like it then and I don't like it now'.

I had an aunty with a farm and I remember mushrooming in wet grass in the early mornings. They were served with fried eggs and fried bread - all fried in lard and SO delicious as a special treat.

I remember the ground rice bakewell tart. In fact I was an adult before I realised the original was made from ground almonds.

I now remember why I started this reply! I have the 'More With Less' cookbook and it has the breadcrumb omelet and it is delish. I bet it is easily made with dried egg.

flourgirl

Just noticed that this is on again tonight on BBC2 at 23.50 for anyone interested who missed it last time

Penelope_Penguin

Thanks for the reminder :beer: I'll add this to thriftlady's wartime thread later

Penny. x

moanymoany

I made suet pastry today, using the Margeurite Patten recipe from the Victory Cookbook.

8 oz SR flour. I used wholemeal flour with 2 teaspoons baking powder
2 oz suet
2 oz (well 4 oz because I wasn't going to waste that half a potato)
Pinch salt
Water to mix

It worked like a charm. I will use it in future, it had the lovely suet pastry taste and only half the fat - yum yum

Anyone else got any low fat tips? Or even recipes from the War. My faves are mock goose and now this suet pastry.

wogglemaker

Moanymoany,

I haven't had suet pastry for years, thank you so much.

Turns round to ferretting the freezer ( I know there's some skirting in here somewhere) ???

thriftlady_2

I've made that pastry Moanymoany. It works well doesn't it? There are other wartime recipes for pastry that use mashed potato to eke out the fat.

A good way to use the suet pastry is in Pathfinder Pudding which I think is in either We'll Eat Again or The Victory Cookbook (both by Marguerite Patten as you probably know). It is a veggie steamed pud filled with parsnips, cheese and other veg.

mardatha

2oz what kind of potato ? and do you just ix it all then dollop it on top of meat ? And can you tell I'm not a cook? LOL

moanymoany

mardatha wrote: »

2oz what kind of potato ? and do you just ix it all then dollop it on top of meat ? And can you tell I'm not a cook? LOL

Put the flour - white I would sieve - I sieved the baking powder into it - mix.

Add the suet

Peel and grate the potato into the flour mix

Add water to make a stiff dough. I use plenty of flour to roll it out.

In fact, I made a round and put in on top of the simmering stuff on top of the stove.

Thriftlady I will try the pathfinder pudding - and the mashed potato pastry. I do love pastry, but the fat content puts me off. We ate masses of it when I was a child - mostly made with lard which was cheaper. There were usually jam tarts made.

The other day I got out my little 'Make Do and Mend' book. It has some weird and wonderful ideas in it and I thought about the reactions to the ideas when they first came out. If a woman was given this book in 1939 she would have laughed at some of the ideas. By 1945 I bet it was a rare woman who hadn't done some of the things in the book.

If people were middle class and could buy good quality clothes - they would have lasted much better through the 'Austerity Years'. It must have been the ordinary working class woman who had more problems as cheap clothes would not last.

I know my family sometimes bought 'shoddy' goods - which was re-used fabric which didn't last. Also with shoes. I remember a pair of sandals I had that melted in the rain - they were made of cardboard!

At the moment many people must look at these threads - or hear about these ways to save money - and think they would never do the things we all talk about. I wonder if a few years down the line they will be like wartime women and have been forced by circumstances to adopt some of the ideas.

Penelope_Penguin

moanymoany wrote: »

I made suet pastry today, using the Margeurite Patten recipe from the Victory Cookbook.

8 oz SR flour. I used wholemeal flour with 2 teaspoons baking powder
2 oz suet
2 oz (well 4 oz because I wasn't going to waste that half a potato)
Pinch salt
Water to mix

It worked like a charm. I will use it in future, it had the lovely suet pastry taste and only half the fat - yum yum

Anyone else got any low fat tips? Or even recipes from the War. My faves are mock goose and now this suet pastry.

That's a great recipe :T I'll add this to thriftlady's Wartime Thread to keep ideas together

Penny. x