War time recipes

herebeme

The government seems to have had a panel of experts coming up with recipe ideas to make snoek more appealing! 

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/attlees-britain/snoek-tests/

Brambling

Several years ago my sister replaced her dinner plates with horrid large square things (sorry sis 😬 but she did let my BIL choose) first time she served me a roast dinner she complained I left a lot and wouldn't believe me when I said she had given me a lot more than usual so I got her to plate up some LOs on one of her old plates and then transferred it to a new one and she was horrified at how much she had been dishing up and said it explained her weight gain 🙄 her teenage boys hadn't complained as they had hollow legs.  

The new plates didn't last long  

RAS

I found a book about the Ministry for Food and Woolton. He was revolutionary in some ways, and must have had nerves of steel to cope with the repeated loss of ships and crew in transit.

He also had some sort of digestive disorder which meant he could only cope with the blandest of diets, a banquet would incapacitate him for days. Which may explain why his expectations of food didn't always match those of the general public.

And let's not forget that some items were not on ration, including almost anything that could be shot for sport or caught on a fishing line.

cbsexec

I definitely remember a very small joint of beef feeding a family of 6 and having leftovers for cottage pie.   Don’t forget most people would have a pudding as well.  As children we wouldn’t have school dinners and a dinner at home in the evening.  It was just school dinners and a tea eg sandwich or something on toast.  Not many in between meal snacks either or fizzy drinks.   We eat a lot lot more now a days and our food portions are way bigger.  

bouicca21

So what sort of portion size do we actually eat nowadays?  A dietitian told me that fruit and veg should be 80g and meat no more than 125g.

He also echoed what posters have been saying - use smaller plates!

RobM99

Potato slices in a meat dish - nothing new. Isn't that a feature of moussaka?
I've got square plates...oh.

On a slight tangent. who was the first known person to suggest - less red meat, more f&v? (fruit'n'veg)? It was...



Leonardo Da Vinci.

Longwalker

I serve up mine and mums meals on whats known as salad plates as we dont eat too much and our dinner plates are huge. If I serve on those, I serve wayyyyy too much and the dog gets fatter 

A rare treat would be a Chinese take away, a set meal for one sold in those polystyrene chip boxes - not burger size - and I found if I ate from that, I would eat the whole lot. If I put it on a plate -I eat half the amount and be perfectly full.

As a child we would 3 meals a day. all eaten at home, and that was it. Sweets were weekend treats, biscuits were rationed - 2 at a time. it was a slice of cake for supper. We weren't allowed to go to the fridge or larder and help ourselves to food, totally unheard of. We ate at meal times 

Our plate was full of potatoes - mash and roast, and vegetables , it was always hunt the meat. Yorkshire pudding was usual, no matter what the roast was, I always thought there was more meat on that ( having been cooked in the meat fat ) then there was on my plate Bread and marge were also on the table to fill us up and pudding was always served, milk puddings usually - rice, semolina , tapioca 

Cheap cuts were the norm and the pressure cooker was the way it was cooked. I still love oxtail, lambs hearts, liver, lamb shank - none of which are cheap anymore. I even loved ox tongue.

Nan used to make the most delicious suet puddings - both sweet and savoury. Always had a full belly when staying at hers

Katiehound

RobM99 said:

Potato slices in a meat dish - nothing new. Isn't that a feature of moussaka?
 

we are talking 1914-1918  so probably well before moussaka was ever even heard about in UK!

RobM99

Katiehound said:

RobM99 said:

Potato slices in a meat dish - nothing new. Isn't that a feature of moussaka?
 

we are talking 1914-1918  so probably well before moussaka was ever even heard about in UK!

Good point!

-taff

Not in Greece though  But seriously, every culture has a fill you up version of something, things with potatoes, things with bread,soups or stews, you can find a version of  every type of dish in most countries. The flavours won#t be the same but the methods and the ekeing out of ingredients will be..Cheese and onion pies are older than you think, Mrs Beeton has recipes for steak and kidney and oyster pie, when oysters are cheap and cheerful, etc..Ingredients to pad things out change with availability butthey're still there in old recipes..