Wartime recipes, substitutions and other related austerity hints

mardatha

Nobody in their right mind would ever put a ferret in with a baby. They smell and they BITE. Babies have been killed when left unattended with ferrets. We always kept ferrets and I love them but would never be so daft!

Vanlady

What a fabulous thread!
My 1st ever cook book that I bought was back in the early 80's, 'Marguerite Pattern''s 1,000 favourite recipes'. It has served me so well all these years, so sensible, and everything always turns out good. I like the fact that alternatives are offered; so no need to go out and buy expensive ingredients if you don't have them in. Mine is very dog-eared now but I wouldn't part with it for the world. I recently saw one in a cs in very good condition, but I resisted temptation.
I also picked another one of M Patten''s many moons ago....'500 recipe's for working wives'. Fantastic little book, lays out weekly meal plans and always provides alternatives and uses for left-overs.
And I swear by the be-ro books, in fact I still have the (60s I think, too ragged to find a date) edition that I used when I started baking on Saturday afternoons in the early 70s. Comparing it to more up to date be-ro books, the recipes haven't changed that much, except less lard is used.
Talking of bubble and squeak, I used to love Mondays meal which included the leftovers of Sunday dinner.....we just used to call it 'fry up'.
And I remember my dm buying a pigs head at the beginning of December and storing it in a big brown earthenware pot in brine on the cold stone slab in our pantry, she used to make wonderful braun with it! (I think that's how it's spelt? ).

Teresa_Dunne

Not war related, but undeniable a saving.
I buy the largest tin of tomato pur!e I can find, (from local ethnic shop) put the pur!e in all the ice cube trays I have, freeze, then put the cubes in a blag in the freezer. So much cheaper than buying tubes of tomato paste. Works for harissa paste too, just don’t mix them up!

Teresa_Dunne

I made rissoles recently and they were b*****y horrible.
I think I’m used to a lot more seasoning

Teresa_Dunne

I remember that....we had it in liquid form, tasted foul!

lindadykes

martinthebandit wrote: »

....and yet average life expectancy kept increasing, https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=average+life+length&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari#imgrc=eyWoD8zWBsoYNM:

Average life expectancy is not only influenced by the age at which we die but also my the rate of infant mortality. In the article linked to below it makes the claim that human lifespans have remained static over the last 2000 years and that the increase in statistical average is due to lower rates of Infant Mortality. The article makes the point that if a woman gives birth to two children one of which dies at birth the other which dies age 90 then the average lifespan for that woman's children is 45 years, a figure which does not accurately reflect the actual lifespan of either child. It makes interesting reading.
https://www.livescience.com/10569-human-lifespans-constant-2-000-years.html

monnagran

The definitive book on life during the war is Norman Longmate's The Way We Lived Then. I often dip into it when I fancy a blast of nostalgia.

As regards to the Wartime diet, I think we have to remember that people then were coming from a very different place. During the thirties people were emerging from the great Depression and life was very hard. They were not used to any choice in what they bought. They had what was available and what they could afford, which wasn't always very much.
From a very personal point of view, I came from an ordinary working class family. When I was born my parents had been married for less than a year. My father was a clerk in an office somewhere and my mother, though highly intelligent and grammar school educated, gave up work on marriage and never had a full-time job for the rest of her life.
Unusually for the time, they were buying their own bungalow, although how they managed it, was only the result of much hard work and self sacrifice.
When war broke out my father was sent off to fight leaving a very young wife and a baby.
My grandmother and aunt lived in the bungalow next door, so they took down the fence between the gardens and set about making us as self-sufficient as they could. The three women between them grew every vegetable, fruit and herb that they could think of, salad stuff in the green house and a corner wired off for the hen house.
There was little storage space so I grew up with shelves of Kilner jars where other people would have had books and ornaments. Not that we went without books, the library was our second home.

I don't think that the war made too much difference to their diet apart from the woeful lack of tea, sugar and fats, so I grew up with this healthy diet of fruit and veg and no cakes, biscuits, sweets. In fact I still remember what I thought ice cream would be like. Mum had described to me the ice creams they could get pre-war (that adjective again) so I could just about imagine the icy cold sweetness of it, but thought it would consist of a sort of dry, compressed powder. I sampled my first ice cream aged 8 and was astonished to find that it was wet.

If we were faced with similar conditions today I'm not sure how people would cope. We are spoiled by choice. In fact, I think we all have far too much choice in just about everything. To my old fashioned mind, all this choice adds to the general stress of life. All those decisions to be made every day.
People also have a sense of entitlement that was lacking in previous generations. I know a lot of people are outraged if they can't get exactly what they want.
I think any hint of austerity will leave a lot of the population floundering.

Being on a forum such as this, where hints and tips on how to make do with less is commonplace, I don't think we realise the enormity of how the general public will regard even the suspicion of 'making do.'
I think there is going to have to be a huge change in attitude and expectation.

Who knows? It may make the country a better place if folk start to count their blessings instead of moaning about unsatisfied demands,

That's enough from me for today. If you want more stories about me being raced across a bridge in my pram while German planes advanced down the river dropping bombs as they came, or being hauled under a hedge in my pushchair while a German hedgehopper swooped over the top of us, or me going off to school with my Mickey Mouse gas mask hung over my shoulder, you will have to wait for the next instalment.

It's not often I have a captive audience to reminisce to. You poor souls!

Primrose

Monnagram . Awaiting the next incident with interest! It's bound to be a more interesting read than the contents of the current newspapers!

Incidentally does anybody else remember those AWFUL wartime home made knitted woollen swimming costumes made from somebody else's unpicked woollen sweaters?. The moment you went into the water they became so heavy they sagged down below your knees and took years to dry off, so the next day when you put them on again they were still all wet and horrible.

Wearing one of them was worse than having to wear a Mickey Mouse gas mask !

monnagran

You think so, Primrose? I had both.
Mum knitted all our swimming costumes. My favourite was a navy blue one with a seagull knitted into the front and plaited navy and white shoulder straps.
That is, it was my favourite on dry land. It grew like Topsy once it got wet.

Vanlady

Looking forward to more installments Monnagran.....