Wartime recipes, substitutions and other related austerity hints

Kitchenbunny

Seeing this thread from the weekly email reminded me of how much I love hearing about the thrift and clever ways - so much so I felt I had to post and I’ve not been around for ages. It’s so good to read all the recollections. It reminds me of a school project where we were researching how things were in our grandparents’ childhood and remembering very shyly asking. It was lovely getting the stories of trotters, stews, lots of veg and of course the crafting and mending. Grandad and his stuff drawer fascinated me as there were string bean peelers, screws, oddments of string and that kind of thing. I never realised until later why they always had at least 4 bags of sugar in the cupboard but I guess old ways and all what with rationing. Grandad loved his garden and always had beans growing. I remember picking them. Not always the good times though - staying over theirs was some of the coldest nights we’d known as they only had a coal fire in one room and - luxury - a heated blanket.

Thanks for starting the thread and I am subscribing.

KItchenbunny xx

LIzzieM

Hi, can I add a 'thoughtful' one please? I was born in '76 and my 'war' was the break-up and subsequent relocation of my family from my Father. We were living in the most awful accommodation and my Mom was doing the very best she could on Child Benefits and no assistance from Dad (she lives like a 'Queen' now, but that's a story not for here) but one of the things we often had was a 'slice' of 'Lardy' - dripping - cake :eek: I shudder to think of it now but on a cold winters day with a bit of cheap custard it put something in your belly to go to school/do your homework/practice piano and fill you up. I was so grateful of it then.

And still am now.

Primrose

In the days of post war austerity I recall my mother tipping out a blancmange onto a plate in the larder ready for my birthday tea. Remember those famous blancmange moulds with the knobs on ? Many houses probably still have one lurking in a cupboard somewhere!

Before the event my brother sneakily lopped off all the Blancmange knobs with a spoon and ate them. Mum was horrified and had to replace them blobs of strawberry jam. Thereafter the jam addition always became a luxury extra.

unrecordings

Even though I'm only 50 a lot of this is very familiar, as I spent a lot of time in my very early years with my grandparents. So the WI Sponge with two eggs & no cream is something I'm pining for right now, and I too have a bits jar in the kitchen, it just seems the natural thing to do. Maybe I'll have to check the contents but it's likely to have a couple of picture nails, Ikea pencil, bit of string - hmm might have to report back shortly...

mardatha

Going madly OT here - but the best cake ever is a recipe I have for Victorian Nursery Cake.. the old ones definitely are the best!

monnagran

Oh yes Primrose, I remember those knobbly blancmange moulds. I even remember getting a star in school for being the only child in the class to spell blancmange correctly. That was because my mother was a great lover of words and had explained to me that it was made up of the French words for 'white' and 'eating'.

Anyway, those bowls were called 'jelly moulds' and jelly was another thing that disappeared during the war. I don't know why. Perhaps the gelatine was used for something more useful to the war effort.
When it came back into the shops it was in the form of crystals and scarce for a long time. My great Aunt managed to get some when I was staying with her while my brother was being born at home. She decreed that we wouldn't use them at the time, but take them with us when she took me back home so that we could celebrate the birth of said brother.
This incensed me. For one thing I was determined not to go home. Ever.
I had never asked for a brother. I had ordered a sister, Ruth, and could not understand how things had gone so wrong.
I don't even remember eating the precious jelly!

I do remember going home eventually and reluctantly, and walking past the pram with eyes averted. We had a blackberry and apple pudding that day, the first of the blackberries, so it must have been in September. Incredible! My brother was born in June. I must have been one determined and stubborn 6 yearold.

My dear brother and I have been very close all our lives, in case you were wondering.

We are now way off course and this has nothing to do with the subject of this thread. Your own faults, you wind me up and set me off.

I'll do better next time.

PipneyJane

TravellingAbuela wrote: »

My grandma lived next door and I still remember and of course still use lots of the things she taught me to do. eg knitting, crochet, sewing, cooking and baking. The one thing I couldn't grasp was tatting but I still have her silks, shuttle thing etc in a drawer just in case I ever come across anyone who can teach me!

I can tat. My mum taught me as a teenager and I even started to tat a lace collar, in my early 20's. (Never finished. Now I can't remember how to read a tatting pattern.) It's all about transferring the knot-loop from the shuttle thread to the other thread. Once you've mastered that, you can do anything.

Today's email from Piecework magazine contains a link to an article about tatting as well as referencing a video they have for sale (Shuttle Tatting, the basics and more). I'd try YouTube first, but if you can't find anything on there, then their video may be worth buying.

HTH

Pip

PipneyJane

monnagran wrote: »

Oh yes Primrose, I remember those knobbly blancmange moulds. I even remember getting a star in school for being the only child in the class to spell blancmange correctly. That was because my mother was a great lover of words and had explained to me that it was made up of the French words for 'white' and 'eating'.

Anyway, those bowls were called 'jelly moulds' and jelly was another thing that disappeared during the war. I don't know why. Perhaps the gelatine was used for something more useful to the war effort.
When it came back into the shops it was in the form of crystals and scarce for a long time. My great Aunt managed to get some when I was staying with her while my brother was being born at home. She decreed that we wouldn't use them at the time, but take them with us when she took me back home so that we could celebrate the birth of said brother.
This incensed me. For one thing I was determined not to go home. Ever.
I had never asked for a brother. I had ordered a sister, Ruth, and could not understand how things had gone so wrong.
I don't even remember eating the precious jelly!

I do remember going home eventually and reluctantly, and walking past the pram with eyes averted. We had a blackberry and apple pudding that day, the first of the blackberries, so it must have been in September. Incredible! My brother was born in June. I must have been one determined and stubborn 6 yearold.

My dear brother and I have been very close all our lives, in case you were wondering.

We are now way off course and this has nothing to do with the subject of this thread. Your own faults, you wind me up and set me off.

I'll do better next time.

I love your stories, Monnagran. Please keep sharing them.

You make me wish that I'd paid more attention to my mum's stories/asked the right questions, when she was alive. My mum would be turning 101 this month. I was such a late baby that I remember some people asking if she was my grandma. :mad: Sadly, I didn't get interested in the War until after she'd passed away.

- Pip

Primrose

Sadly it always seems to be the case we have unanswered questions we would like to ask our parents after they've died.
Some of us will have been very close to them yet it causes me to wonder how inquisitive our conversations really were or whether they were mostly at a fairly mundane level.

I suspect the parent child relationship has changed and broadened over the decades which is a good thing but a reminder to those who are still lucky enough to still have their parents with them - make time talk to each other on a meaningful basis and express some interest and curiosity in their' early lives . This is social history in the making and you will never have another chance to learn and understand it so vividly once they have passed on. And it will,probably help you better understand why your parents are as they are or behave as they do.

Vanlady

Very wise words Primrose and so true
x.
I recently had a lovely chat with my dm whom I'm lucky to still have, all about the time she and my late df motorcycled off around Europe and scandinavia, so adventurous!! x