The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

wondercollie

RAS said:

I'm remember currency controls which meant that UK residents were unable to take large amounts of foreign currency or much sterling abroad. In 1966, this was £50 foreign currency and £15 sterling. So even if Brits could afford a foreign holiday, they were very restricted as to what they could buy in their holiday location. Probably explains the development of the all-in package holiday, and the apartment/camping break largely catered for by foodstuff brought from home, both limiting the amount of cash needed during the holiday.

And people wouldn't have risked spending their currency on local ingredients they didn't know how to cook and which they didn't know their families would eat happily. So experimentation with foreign ingredients was limited.

A friend's father was asked speak at a conference abroad around that time and managed to get his fee paid into an account in that country. That meant that for two years the family were able to supplement their official allowance with money from the account. They still camped but they could now travel further and afford more than one budget meal out during the holiday. Their mum said it was more of a holiday for her.

By about 1970 however we were experimenting with herbs, some "foreign" vegetables and bolognaise sauce. Macaroni cheese was however regarded as decidedly English. 

Those rules were still in effect when my parents left for Canada.  Can you imagine arriving in a new country to start over and have 100 Sterling between them?

euronorris

Wow Wonder collie, that must have been quite scary for them, and a lot of hard work I'm sure! No online banking back then either!

Floss

Through the late 1970s & 80s my dad used to travel to London once a month with work and would bring back delights such as salami, smoked salmon & European cheeses. We had quite a varied diet, encompassing foods from his occasional international conferences and my mum's Cordon Bleu & Galloping Gourmet cookery books. 

[Deleted User]

Good news that the full relaxation of covid restrictions is being reviewed and will probably be delayed by a few weeks which makes so much sense as the Delta strain numbers are seemingly increasing very quickly.  It's a different ball game with so many of us particularly the older part of the population having been double vaccinated so we're not as much at risk but for the youngsters who have only just been able to access vaccinations and those at school who aren't yet eligible it might just be a literal life saver.  It makes sense although for the economy it's going to mean longer tougher times for a while which is very sad.

ZsaZsa

Nargleblast said:

Zsa Zsa, regarding dehydrated foods, I would think the important thing is not to let air or moisture get to the food in the jar once it's opened. I am not an expert on dehydrating, though, but I am sure one will come along and answer your question.

Thank you, I think I’ve been over thinking it a bit 😊

ZsaZsa

LameWolf said:

@ZsaZsa the important thing is not letting moisture in. I keep a kilner jar of dehydrated banana slices in the cupboard for when we run out of fresh bananas, because I would definitely be in the doghouse if there was no banana at all to go with Mr LW's bran flakes. He just dips into the jar at need, and they keep like that for ages.

Thanks LameWolf, that’s exactly how I wanted to use foods. I’ll stop worrying about it so much 🙂

RAS

wondercollie said:

RAS said:

I'm remember currency controls which meant that UK residents were unable to take large amounts of foreign currency or much sterling abroad. In 1966, this was £50 foreign currency and £15 sterling. So even if Brits could afford a foreign holiday, they were very restricted as to what they could buy in their holiday location.....

Those rules were still in effect when my parents left for Canada.  Can you imagine arriving in a new country to start over and have 100 Sterling between them?

wondercollie
I remain in awe of those who emigrated, particularly in earlier times.  But sometimes I think emigration was regarded as a solution rather than a different set of problems. Amongst my "family tree" are one family who I can trace way back, unusual name and usually less than a handful of men raising children in each generation, in the same small township. By 1840 more children had survived and the population increased. Two brothers emigrated, one to New Zealand and the other (farmer) to Wisconsin where the numerous sons could each get a stake.

New Zealand wasn't a bed of laughs and early writings refer to the Maori Wars but the parents seem to have been adaptable and the children thrived eventually.

The large Wisconsin family seem to have left the eldest son and his wife in New York for a few years, perhaps because they were expecting their second child. But that first winter the farmers had to write home to their siblings and cousins and beg for assistance. They'd simply not understood long and severe the winters were or how short the growing season and needed money to buy enough to survive until they got gardens and harvests in. And the early forties weren't exactly a thriving time in England.

Another cousin followed, to Illinois, amongst the first in the county to settle. Two of the children of his first marriage survived. The daughter married and moved right across the country, bearing children in different states over a decade as the family headed to California. Whether that had been the long term plan, or whether relocating was seen as the answer to whatever problems they had, I don't know. She seems to have divorced him not long after they arrived in California.

It takes a lot of guts to take those risks, even when you are young, fit and unencumbered. I know more recent emigrants have sent one spouse ahead, often with a work offer, and then the rest of the family followed once they'd accommodation and an income. But you can only really do that when communications are fast enough.

Floss

RAS, that reminds me of the Little House on the Prairie books (not the saccharine TV series!) - they gave an indication of how hard the Wisconsin winters were for the settlers.

My family went from Boston Lincs. to Boston Ma. After the Mayflower, but I don't know whether anyone has that level of detail. Although a now deceased distant cousin (Bruce Gilchrist who was Director of Computing at Columbia) published a large red bound volume of our family's history going back to the couple who went to America as his retirement project. I guess if its anywhere it will be in The Book as my family know it!

RAS

John Muir's autobiography is pretty stark as well. And although other young teenagers in 1850's Wisconsin may also have bust tree stumps to make ground, doing so whilst your father stirred only to read the scriptures was unusual.

Karmacat

RAS said:

wondercollie said:

RAS said:

I'm remember currency controls which meant that UK residents were unable to take large amounts of foreign currency or much sterling abroad. In 1966, this was £50 foreign currency and £15 sterling. So even if Brits could afford a foreign holiday, they were very restricted as to what they could buy in their holiday location.....

Those rules were still in effect when my parents left for Canada.  Can you imagine arriving in a new country to start over and have 100 Sterling between them?

wondercollie
It takes a lot of guts to take those risks, even when you are young, fit and unencumbered. I know more recent emigrants have sent one spouse ahead, often with a work offer, and then the rest of the family followed once they'd accommodation and an income. But you can only really do that when communications are fast enough.

I'm sort of Anglo Irish, coming from Liverpool.  My great great grandfather had 8 kids to look after when his wife died of TB in 1890, and he split them between Liverpool and New York.  He worked on the steamers that travelled between the two - some of the kids went to the West Coast, some stayed on the East, others went to South Africa.  And there are two other lines of my family that had kids in this country, then fled to America with one of them.  There was a lot of poverty, a lot of desperation, and a lot of malnutrition ...