Wartime recipes, substitutions and other related austerity hints

TravellingAbuela

I still have my hand written recipe book from my domestic science classes at grammar school in the 50's. We didn't use anything as posh as asparagus! I don't think any of us would have known what it was! Most of my recipes are for bread, cakes, biscuits and puddings, with the odd pastry bake like sausage rolls! I remember having to make a half sleeve cover thing to stop the bottom half of our shirt sleeves getting messy. (Why couldn't we just roll them up?!)

Vanlady

"monnagranI think that happens on these threads, we start by discussing wartime recipes and then find ourselves wandering down all sorts of unexpected lanes. New subjects are brought up and people's experiences shared, New friends are made and things are learned, and I think it is lovely."
Here! Here! Fabulous, nostalgic stories.

"Mum used to make clothes for me & my 6 years younger DSis - matching outfits much to my chagrin!!& knitted all our jumpers (for DB & dad as well). I well remember when we had outgrown them they would be unpicked & we were used as wool winders!"

Mrs SD, you've brought back another memory to me here. My DM was a very good machinist and made all mine and my db''s clothes, at least those that weren't handed down from my older cousin! My DM would make me and her matching dresses and outfits, and for my db she would make very smart short trousers with matching waistcoats and dicky bows . My dc find our old family photographs hilarious!! They don't realise that we were probaby SO trendy but also very lucky!
My DM taught me good sewing skills and I enjoyed making several clothes for my dc many years ago....alas no matching dresses or dicky bowes in sight though:p.
This skill has saved me a fortune over the years as I've made all my own curtains, many being altered from cs. , table cloths, pinnys (great for Xmas pressies), alterations etc. Etc

Please, more wonderful stories......

(Ps apologies but my phone won't let me quote properly)

Owain_Moneysaver

Primrose wrote: »

I have the now tattered navy quilted anorak I wore on my honeymoon 53 years ago.

That's what honeymoons were like before central heating. Nowadays people have lingerie but does it make them any happier?

Primrose

Well I never had any hats like that but some people's ideas on dress codes were still pretty entrenched and perhaps a little bizarre by today's standards.

I vividly recall when I became engaged, my oldest aunt asked me what my new surname was going to be. When I told her and she realised my future husband's surname began with the same initial as my own she replied "Oh how convenient dear. You won't have to change the initials on your Pyjama Case ". :rotfl:

I still crease up with laughter every time I remember this. I can,t believe that anybody used such items but I actually recall my mother having a slim leather one which lurked at the bottom of a wardrobe for most of its life.

Don,t most people just throw their nightware under their pillows these days ?

monnagran

My first cookery lessons at school seemed to invariably start with, "Reconstitute the egg." And I applaud you Primrose for attempting to get your soup home on the bus. I remember pouring a rice pudding down the drain behind the bicycle shed rather than try manhandling it home on the bus.

I was fortunate in having a tailoress for a grandmother. All my clothes were made out of something else. She made me a beautiful matching skirt and coat out of my father's cricketing flannels. I never saw his reaction to that when he came back from the war. She also knitted me beautiful patterned socks in some sort of cream cotton yarn. Thinking back they must have been just gorgeous. I hated them, all I wanted were plain grey shop bought socks like my friends. No chance. The first shop bought clothes I ever had was my uniform for the Grammar School. She'd have made them too if she'd been allowed to.

My first sewing project was a science overall and we had to start by making the pattern for it. I had given up science before before I'd finished that overall.

fuddle

My grandma had Nora Batty's anorak. Fetching.

DWhite thanks for the heads up about YouTube. I'll find some time over the weekend to have a watch.

Being 40 I have only 80's nostalgia to offer but my grandma never really progressed. She was wearing real wool skirts, aprons and old tights gathered by the ankles in the house as she worked. She lived in a breeze block house that was so cold. The kitchen was icey. The house had no central heating. They have since knocked those houses down but she only moved out in the mid 90's.

Brambling

My poor dad would bravely eat whatever I cooked at school even after it was walked a couple of miles home and reheated on a plate over a pan of boiling water. No money to waste food in our house.

My granny lived at the end of our road and was never seen out without her hat, held on with a hat pin through her bun I was 8 when she died but there are a lot of family wedding photos my older siblings and cousins of her in that hat and same navy coat

For my 9th birthday one of my older sisters took me shopping to Bournemouth and brought me a summer dress, pale blue with flowers and room to grow it's the first thing I can remember which wasn't handmade or hand me down, I'm the youngest :cool: I wore handmade corduroy pinafore dresses for years two orange and one red :eek: (late 60s early 70s) after three of us were all given them one Christmas

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

Sort of getting us back to war time recipes - has anybody got a good green tomato chutney recipe :rotfl: I would sooner trust you ladies & gentlemen than the internet;)

Getting back to stories - does everybody remember lay away? In her early 20’s my dear mum used to go into the dress shop & pay half a crown (I think) each week for several months to buy the most glorious sleeveless, knee length red dress with a sculpted jacket (fine corduroy if I remember correctly). Only picked it up when the last payment was made & wore it that same night It was so beautiful & in the way of things she kept it for years :T To my great joy before I started to fill out too much & got too tall, I got to wear it for a couple of years. I have absolutely no idea what happened to it - not that I would have a cat in hell’s chance of fitting into it :rotfl:
I really wish I could sew from scratch or cut from a pattern because I would love to recreate it but what is that saying “if wishes were horses, beggars would ride” :rotfl:

I will love & leave you.

More stories please

MrsSD

Well_Preserved

Delia's works well for me - in the Complete Cookery Course, May be on her website. Makes a lot - 8lb or 3.6kg. Uses 1.25 kg green tomatoes. I can list the ingredients if you can't find it.

Wednesday2000

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

That's what honeymoons were like before central heating. Nowadays people have lingerie but does it make them any happier?

fuddle wrote: »

Being 40 I have only 80's nostalgia to offer but my grandma never really progressed. She was wearing real wool skirts, aprons and old tights gathered by the ankles in the house as she worked.

It's funny as I was talking to my friend about this last night. He is almost 50 and he was saying he remembers his grandmother always wearing hats with a matching type of outfit and i said I remember one of my grandmothers dressing the same way.

When I think about it now she dressed like that when I was a kid and she must have only been about 45 years old, so near to my age now!:rotfl: