Wartime recipes, substitutions and other related austerity hints

[Deleted User]

Zeer pot which is 2 same shaped but different sized terracotta flower pots one inside the other with the gap between and underneath them filled with sand so their rims are both at the same level. Thoroughly wet the sand and keep it wet all the time, stand things that you want to keep cool in the inner pot, cover with a wet cloth and keep that cloth wet too and stand in a place where there is shade and the wind blows through, side alley, passageway, windy garden corner and it acts as an emergency fridge.

PipneyJane

Monnagran, I adore your stories.

euronorris wrote: »

Hopefully this works:


https://ia800704.us.archive.org/11/items/AuntDaisysCookeryBook1953/AuntDaisy%27sCookeryBook%201953.pdf

Thanks Euronorris and thanks D&DD for finding it in the first place. I will read with interest.

Ditto thanks to everyone sharing recipes/cooking tips.

- Pip

monnagran

PJ, you are too kind. I always worry that I am boring the pants off folk.

Primrose, I once read in a newspaper about someone who eased their back pain by rubbing in some of the powdered meat tenderiser you used to be able to get. Perhaps you still can.
Sometime later I met a friend who was complaining of backache. "Ah," says I, picturing her rubbing in this powder and expressing eternal thanks for the relief I offered her, "What you need is to treat it with meat tenderiser."
Her mental picture picture must have been somewhat different, and she stared at me in wide-eyed, open-mouthed horror. "You mean one of those metal hammers with spikes?" she gasped..

unrecordings

monnagran wrote: »

I always worry that I am boring the pants off folk.

Makes a pleasant change to those ubiquitous clickbait 'life hacks':

The crazy trick this woman discovered that cures back pain and now she's a millionaire...

luxor4t

Well_Preserved wrote: »

....

My memories of my grandmother's cooking, she a survivor of both world wars, are mainly her dripping jar in the pantry ......

I'm back in my Nana's kitchen, asking why there was a broken cup on the shelf in the pantry.......

The handle had been broken off or it was chipped *, so it was used for the dripping. There were two or three because she would bring my mother a cup of dripping/jelly whenever they had beef, and Mum would take the cup back later.

The Spong mincer is another happy memory, it was always used with cries of "keep your fingers out of the way!"

* others broken china was used in the bottoms of flower pots, presumably broken down further.

maryb

Love this thread. My mother was a grammar school girl in the 1930s when 'clever' girls didn't do domestic science. Then when the war came, ingredients were too precious to waste on experimenting so she never did learn to cook properly. They still had rationing when I was born but it finished before I was on solid food so I never had a ration book, though we've got my DH's, two years older than me.

But the feeling that ingredients were expensive and precious lingered all through my childhood and that sort of thing casts a long shadow - even now I feel it's extravagant to use lots of eggs.

I have an old Good Housekeeping cookery book from the early 1970s and the recipes are so much simpler than modern ones. A standard Victoria Sponge recipe uses 2 eggs whereas most recipes use 3 eggs these days. That contributes a lot of extra calories

I have always been interested in mid 20th century British history. I know it's received wisdom that people were never healthier than during rationing but I am not convinced that is because the food was an optimum diet. I think it's more that the war eliminated dire poverty by eliminating unemployment. There was a study of local authority elementary school children carried out in London in the late 1930s. Something like 7 out of 10 showed some symptoms of malnutrition. About 3 in 10 were severely malnourished in poorer parts of London. Just getting sufficient calories would have done a lot to improve the health of that part of the population and therefore improve the health standard of the population as a whole

Owain_Moneysaver

maryb wrote: »

I know it's received wisdom that people were never healthier than during rationing but I am not convinced that is because the food was an optimum diet. I think it's more that the war eliminated dire poverty by eliminating unemployment.

Rationing wasn't an optimum diet (the minimum possible would be closer to it) but it was the first time the mass population had had any form of diet considered for nutrition. Not just calories, but mothers and babies got things like cod liver oil, extra milk, orange juice (concentrate) and malt extract. Everyone had "national loaf" instead of pappy refined white, fresh veg, offal meat, and not much sugary cakes and biscuits.

Brambling

For a Victoria sponge I was taught either 4 each of butter, sugar, flour and 2 medium eggs or 6, 6, 6 and 3 eggs I'm told now I should weight the eggs

I read a article which said there are less young British jockeys (they were talking men) as our better diet and nutrition mean we are growing taller. My dad was born in 1913 from a large very poor family the tallest of my uncles was 5.4ft and they had the benefits of living in the country and growing their own veg.

buildersdaughter

maryb - I grew up on the country, hearing tales of the evacuees. I then worked in children's health & midwifery in London, and am sure your analysis is correct, and a big part of the story.

As everyone here knows, I'm a great fan of home-made stock. Making that dates back forever, but remains an excellent way of minimising waste and maximising flavour.
Almost all left-overs get made into soup for lunch.
I use bar soap which lasts longer - I just stick the old sliver on to the new bar, but my 'posh' (not really, just been in service!) grandmother had a little net bag in the scullery for the slivers of soap to be used up.
And I use rag all the time for cleaning.

Primrose

Maryb. Have you read Austerity Britain by David Kynnaston? It,s a rather thick tome but a fascinating read.for anybody who''s interested in mid 20th British history. He,s written a number of other similar books and they are all a fascinating read