Wartime recipes, substitutions and other related austerity hints

bouicca21

I have never considered eggs being seasonal :eek: now you have said it though its got me thinking lots! My mum has pet ducks so I know they lay spring-summer but never considered chicken eggs. Is this why they started to be battery farmed do you think?

My mum was brought up on a smallholding and continued to keep chickens in suburban London well into the 1950s. A left over from rationing I think. We had two enormous crock or terracotta bowls that she had once used for storing eggs - I think the idea was to cover them with isinglass.



I often wonder what happened to those bowls - would be great on the patio now!

Brambling

mummygems wrote: »

My grandparents always grew tomatoes in their greenhouse and they always had a certain smell - I have only ever smelt this same smell once at a greengrocers the rest of the time the tomatoes don't smell (I cant explain the smell lol just that its the smell of fresh tomatoes!).

Not just the smell of homegrown tomatoes but that taste of a sun warm tomato picked from the vine is unabeatable. My dad grew most of our veg and a fair bit of fruit and I would walk along the pea rows and steal the peas from the pods as well as the tomatoes from the greenhouse like most of his generation he was organic althrough he never called himself that he just grew without chemicals using pig manure from a friends pig farm and slave labour from us kids we would pick the caterpillars off the cabbages and pick up larger stones amongst other jobs. We would swap plums and rhubarb for apples etc and sale what wasn't required at the gate

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

How to save money & a marriage :rotfl:

In 1963ish our dear parents were having a few problems so my DB was handed over to our paternal grandparents & I was shipped off to Italy to stay with my maternal family Spent a year on a working farm community in the foothills of the mountains, with a great auntie & uncle & cousins & various other elderly relatives. Do not remember much except that I didn’t seem to mind about being away from mum & dad However I do have a few photos & I was such a pretty child :rotfl: don’t know what went wrong :rotfl: The only thing was that when I returned to England I had only one English word in my vocabulary - ”buttons” (no idea :rotfl:) & was just about to start infants school :eek: Unfortunately didn’t keep up with the Italian speaking - shame really as it is such a beautiful language
Hopefully you will all be pleased to know that my parents marriage survived until my dear dad passed away in 1973

Brambling - sounds idyllic but hard work I had a bash at growing tomatoes this year & you are so right - the taste and smell is wonderful Swapping rhubarb - sacrilege :rotfl:

More stories please

MrsSD

Owain_Moneysaver

Primrose wrote: »

I have to remember this and smile wryly now all these years later I find myself reacting in exactly the same way ! My husband just stands beside me and waits for my inevitable " HOW MUCH?

Or as my mother would say, "Ten Bob for a Loaf Of Bread!"

PipneyJane

VintageLady wrote: »

PipneyJane
We've been doing 1940s re-enactment for about 8 years now but generally my interest spans from the 20s to the late 40s. It seems to have infiltrated every aspect of our lives. We have an allotment and I sew / knit / crochet to be able to make my own vintage reproduction (buying reproduction is more expensive than buying actual vintage). I buy my vintage clothing from a variety of sources but my two best places are a good vintage dealer at an antique centre near me and Facebook. There's a lot of trading groups where you can still get the odd bargain. But I have found the price of vintage clothing has really gone through the roof since I started out (hence making my own).
I hope this helps!

Thanks VintageLady. Are you using original patterns? I know, a decade or so ago, some of the pattern companies produced reproductions of their classic designs from the ‘20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s but I could never find them in the shops (Vogue and Butterick).

Are you a knitter? If so, have a look at the knitting patterns released by Trove. Trove is a project from the Australian National Library, where they are digitising all old Australian newspapers and magazines, and making the pdf’s available to browse/download for free. I’ve sourced a few patterns through Trove and am currently knitting this jumper from 1942.

Re your gingerbread recipe, I made it yesterday. The taste is lovely but I’m wondering whether I did something wrong, because it’s quite tough. Is it meant to be that way? Any suggestions on mitigating the toughness? Many thanks.

- Pip

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

Thanks PipneyJane :T I had a quick look at Trove & found one I really liked but size 12 - 14 I knit quite loosely but not sure 2 or 3 sizes difference :rotfl:
Which reminds me perhaps I should finish the jumper I started knitting for my DH nearly 30 years ago :rotfl::rotfl:

More stories please

MrsSD

PipneyJane

Mrs_Salad_Dodger wrote: »

Thanks PipneyJane :T I had a quick look at Trove & found one I really liked but size 12 - 14 I knit quite loosely but not sure 2 or 3 sizes difference :rotfl:
Which reminds me perhaps I should finish the jumper I started knitting for my DH nearly 30 years ago :rotfl::rotfl:

More stories please

MrsSD

Which Trove jumper did you like? It’s actually quite easy to resize a jumper; I can help you. Here is the crib sheet version:-

Knit a 6 inch swatch in pattern. Wash it. When dry, count the stitches and rows per inch, so that you have your tension. Look at the tension given in the pattern: how many stitches/rows to the inch are they stating? Did you get it? If not, try again with a smaller or larger needle. If you don’t get tension, then all your measurements will be out or you have to do a whole lot more maths.

Say the pattern’s tension is 7 stitches to the inch. How many stitches does the pattern state you need after the ribbed waistband for the back? Say it’s 124 stitches. 124 divided by 7 is 17.7 inches, so that jumper is probably sized for a 34 or 36 inch bust, depending on whether it is worn with negative or standard ease. How many stitches aren’t there in multiples of the lace or cable pattern? Let’s say there are 12 stitches per multiple. Now measure yourself: waist and bust. Say you get 40 inches, which equates to 20 inches per side. 20 x 7 = 140 st but to get a complete multiple of the pattern, you’ll need 144 stitches.

To determine how many stitches to cast on for the ribbed welt: read the pattern. How many fewer stitches does it say to use for your cast on than for the main pattern? 10? 12? None? Say it says to cast on 112 st on the smaller needle and then to rib for 2 inches before increasing by 12 stitches and changing your needle to work the main body of the pattern. Then you’d cast on 12 stitches fewer for your rib (128 st in this example) than you need for the body of the pattern.

Now you can knit your jumper with a wider body than the original. Follow all the increases and decreases stated in your pattern. When you get to divide for the neck and shoulders, you have a choice of keeping to the original shoulder seam and making the neck wider or making the shoulder seam a bit wider +/- modifying the neck width. Just make a note of what you decide to do so that you can ensure the other shoulder seams all match up.

Knit the sleeves and armholes according to the pattern. Job done.

- Pip

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

Thanks PipneyJane.

I have an excuse to not knit for myself :rotfl: - have volunteered to knit scarves for the homeless

I now own not one but two hand crank sewing machines unfortunately neither of them work Once one is working I intend to make some curtains 🤞 well that is the plan at least :rotfl:

Saved my DSis a bit of money today - spare duvet from the top of the wardrobe now on her bed

I need some more stories please

MrsSD

mardatha

I was sitting the other night knitting a sock, reading a wartime book about other women sitting at fires knitting socks. Lovely timeless feeling.

Mrs_Salad_Dodger

mardatha wrote: »

I was sitting the other night knitting a sock, reading a wartime book about other women sitting at fires knitting socks. Lovely timeless feeling.

I never mastered sock knitting Were you sat in front of a roaring log fire