Wartime recipes, substitutions and other related austerity hints

PipneyJane

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.

Isn't it just? And very productive of you, reading and knitting at the same time. Our wartime twins would approve. I don't have a huge amount of knitting time - work and life keep getting in the way - but when I do get downtime, I like to ensure it's productive by digging my knitting out.

What was the name of the book, please? I'm intrigued.

- Pip

mardatha

It's a roaring coal burning stove MrsSD.
And it's "How We Lived Then" by Norman Longmate Pipney xx

thriftwizard

Mrs SD, tell me more about your hand-cranked sewing machines! I may be able to help you find instructions/work out what's wrong; I own several, and two treadles, and use them regularly. OK we do have electric machines in the house, but given a choice I go for the old ones every time!

Datchet

This is indeed an interesting thread! I’ve only just ( late 40’s, early 50’s) become interested in Second World War Dig For Victory / Austerity Food. We are lucky in that we have an allotment and grow a lot ourselves.
I was communicating with a very entertaining and clever young food blogger - she posed the question “ Marmite or Bovril on toast?” And I confess my stomach churned as I recalled my Mums “Egg & Bovril Bread” lunch. Essentially a lard fried egg with white bread with a scrape of Bovril fried to soak of the lard...

This was considered a “Treat” lunch. I hated it.

I now realise ( reading my handwritten Grans Wartime recipe book) that this meal was a Wartime throw-back. It’s dawning on me that many of my Mums food choices & habits were formed in this period.

British 1970s food, by current standards, was fatty, sugary and sometimes nutritionally poor, but in our house it was more so. Fresh veg ( boiled grey) and fruit were at low levels. We were not poor, but struggled with income.

The family diet would probably make a modern Nutrition Expert wince!

My point is that the austerity in Wartime Food probably informed UK food choices for at least another generation and probably the next, in my case.

Toonie

Datchet...I think you're right about the generational food choices. My Dad (born in 1952) grew up with his Mum and two aunties and then joined the RAF. He didn't cook much (but knew how to bake).



When he married my Mum (who he met whilst stationed in Germany) his Mum taught my Mum to cook British food. Which mostly consisted of potatoes and a small bit of meat and very well cooked vegetables. She also learned to bake scones and cake with a small amount of fat and sugar to fill empty stomachs. And that bread has a place beside every evening meal. So when money was tight growing up, we had scones for breakfast. Scones and cake for lunch. And mince and potatoes for supper. With lots of bread.


Years later when I had left home and money was tight I found myself making a batch of scones and portioning out mince and potatoes for supper.

PipneyJane

mardatha wrote: »

It's a roaring coal burning stove MrsSD.
And it's "How We Lived Then" by Norman Longmate Pipney xx

Ooohhhh!!!! I've read that book! It's brilliant!

- Pip

PipneyJane

Toonie wrote: »

Datchet...I think you're right about the generational food choices. My Dad (born in 1952) grew up with his Mum and two aunties and then joined the RAF. He didn't cook much (but knew how to bake).



When he married my Mum (who he met whilst stationed in Germany) his Mum taught my Mum to cook British food. Which mostly consisted of potatoes and a small bit of meat and very well cooked vegetables. She also learned to bake scones and cake with a small amount of fat and sugar to fill empty stomachs. And that bread has a place beside every evening meal. So when money was tight growing up, we had scones for breakfast. Scones and cake for lunch. And mince and potatoes for supper. With lots of bread.


Years later when I had left home and money was tight I found myself making a batch of scones and portioning out mince and potatoes for supper.

Toonie, is your mum German? What are her recollections of the war and just after?

- Pip (ever curious)

PipneyJane

Mrs_Salad_Dodger wrote: »

I never mastered sock knitting

Mrs SD, knitting socks is easy, so long as you aren't a knitter who needs to clamp your needle under your armpit in order to knit. If you are one of those, then you'll need to change your technique entirely.

There are a couple of sock knitting "recipes" in the 2019 Fashion On the Ration thread, if you want to try. You only knit with two needles at once. Use short, double-pointed needles or two small-ish (no more than 30cm long) circular needles and you won't find yourself fighting the points.

- Pip

pattypan4

I don`t like to think of wartime food any more, it was what I learnt to cook for the whole family at a young age, Scrabbling to find a recipe for a couple of ounces of bacon, the end parts of a pig, the rib cage of a sheep, the one egg. No doubt that the food was extremely healthy as we now know but it doesn`t bring back very happy memories, more like the drudgery of an oldest daughter with many younger siblings, while still doing very well at school, homework and later a part time job. It was not glamorous at all. The upside of course is that aspirations came from then, to do well in life, to manage on very little. All of us siblings did very well, appreciating everything to this day. We are all handy and can make do but we don`t have to

WeegieWumman

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.

Mardatha,
I have memories of a very few years back when I would sit close to the central heating radiator making up jumpers etc. on my knitting machine..... No timeless feeling here! :rotfl: