Work Cited

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t_C8SyKzZmea6J7JgaSOfTrAqbXLZGsYZ_kONS4CTjs/edit

Post-War Make It Do Or Do Without

"Eat It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do Or Do Without"

It is common knowledge that food during the war was often scarce and unpredictable, especially during times of rationing. But what I was surprised to realise was that I know very little about after the war. Food did not immediately return to its original availability, rationing continued (and is often claimed to have gotten worse.) I had never considered the aftermath of war on food supplies. With troops returning, the population of Britain increased; while food supplies were split between Britain and the British occupied Germany, food was scarcer than ever. In a way, the food situation was worse directly after the war than it would have been during it. In tribute of this overlooked time I have made my Make It Do Or Do Without Cake.

          The recipe is a vintage one sourced from the internet. The concept behind it is simple; carrying on as normal without the usual food supplies. An attitude I deem as completely British in itself. Here is the recipe-

Make It Do Or Do Without Cake.
1 cup water
2 cups raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cloves
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup lard
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp salt
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder

Place water, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, brown sugar, lard, nutmeg, and salt in a saucepan and mix. Place on heat and bring to a boil. Cook 3 minutes. Allow to cool, then sift together the flour, baking soda and baking powder. Stir into cooked mixture. Place in a greased loaf pan and bake at 350F for one hour.

      I can’t deny aesthetically it is no masterpiece, not that I expected one. One thing I have learnt through my experiments in food from Victorian era onward currants were available in mass and were included in everything. I dislike currants. This recipe was just the last in a long list of currant packed foods. I was surprised when, unlike other cake recipes (which I am sure could have knocked someone out), this cake turned out light and spongy.

      As I have mentioned before my gran never believed in salmonella poisoning from raw egg and happily let me lick the bowl when we made cakes. This is a habit, so full of nostalgia, I cannot let it go. Now 21 I still find myself sneaking my finger into whatever I am baking to taste it. In fact, in times of distress I find myself compelled to cravings of raw cake mixture (a calling I am ashamed to say I have answered more than once.) As such it was natural for me to have a taste of the cake mix, as I have with all my other baked experiments in this blog. Usually this has not ended well for me, the unusual combination of ingredients (Mrs Beeton and her obsession with eggs) does not taste good raw. However with this cake mix, I could not stop until I had licked the bowl clean. It tasted like a sloppy gingerbread mix. Once cooked the taste, combined with the warm aroma, was even better.

      My tasters all agreed, and the cake was eagerly demolished within a day or so. “It looks similar to a fruit cake but has a gingery undertone to the taste”. I had to agree with my mums analysis. Though there was no ginger in the cake, which I am still perplexed by. I cannot think what it could be that gives off such a familiar taste.

      I had expected this recipe to be a failure. An illusion of a time when real cake ingredients were readily available. However, the recipe is not just a pretence of having something which was unavailable; the cake is good, really good. Therefore this recipe had, justly, earned its way into my permanent collection. I suggest, if you are also a lover of gingerbread, you give this recipe a go as well.

War-Torn Britain

The message is clear- food will win the war. Back in Blighty the main way the nation was united was through food. Growing gardens, preserving food, feeding our troops are all propaganda used to restore morale. If you can’t physically go to fight for your country, you can help the war effort through food. Through this war effort there is a distinct sense of patriotism, a link the propaganda office promoted. In fact throughout both world wars the link between food and patriotism was evident. So in the spirit of war time Britain I have made two patriotic favourites- Blighty Salad and ‘Over the Top’ Muffins.
         

During WW2 my Gran was only 9 years old. You would imagine that at such a young age the war would be a scary time. However, my gran remembers it being filled with the sentiment of ‘everyone pulling together’. In this spirit the whole of their street was given up to the war effort; the park became allotments and front gardens hosted potato patches. The people who lived next to my gran used to swap their tea rations for my families sugar ones. Clearly none of my family has a sweet tooth and yet all of us ‘gasp’ for a cup of tea, as my mum says. When my gran told me this I couldn’t help but think this is where the ‘cup of tea time’ tradition came from (see Victorian post), my great gran clearly had the same need for tea my gran does. She also told me that their house was always packed with people, and the teapot was never left cold for long. At times they would have family, neighbours and even passing refugees over to share in this tradition. This does not strike me as a time of anguish and disappear (though I don’t doubt it was at times), from the memories of a child this is a time of coming together, supporting people you’ve never met and making do.

The Thrift Cook Book- Marion H.
Blighty Salad
3 raw carrots
1 cup peanuts
¼ stale cheese
2 hard cooked eggs
Crisp lettuce leaves
French dressing

Put carrots, peanuts, cheese and eggs through food chopper. Chill and serve on lettece leaves with French dressing.

The Thrift Cook Book- Marion H.
‘Over the Top’ Muffins.
2 tablespoons butter substitute
3 tablespoons sugar or honey
1 large egg, beaten
¾ cup milk
1 cup soy bean flour
1 cup flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Beat butter substitute with sugar or honey cream, add egg and milk. Sift flours, baking powder and salt and mix thoroughly with egg mixture. Divide into twelve greased and floured pans and bake in hot oven fifteen minutes. They are delicious when served hot with maple sirup honey.
Sufficient for twelve muffins.

For a recipe that was designed specifically for the war I was very impressed with the ‘over the top’ muffin recipe. I really enjoyed it, and actually went on to eat most of them throughout the next few days toasted with butter. My testers were less impress they branded my muffins ‘bland’; which meant one thing more for me! As for the name, I thought it was a tiny bit morose. We now know that going over the top was equivalent of a death sentence that not many men survived. However, during the war it could have been perceived as an honour to directly fight against the enemy? I’m not too sure on that one; I imagine they are named patriotically. Despite this, the name does not take away from the taste.

          The salad also looked nice. Though I was hoping (perhaps rather foolishly) that the ‘Blighty’ salad would incorporate red white and blue! It didn’t. But it was rather nice despite the fact I only soft boiled the eggs. Opps! My dad hated it but my mum loved it and ended up taking most of it to work for lunch. It looks vibrant which makes it more appealing, it is by far the best looking dish I have created so far. However, next time I make this salad I am going to do a twist on the original recipe. This summer my mum is having a ‘jubalympic’ party in our garden, for which I think my salad would be perfect as it pays homage to war time England. I would like it to be a salad which is red white and blue however. I have already decided on peppers for the red, and maybe dying the eggs blue (food colouring). I think it would be interesting to see what it ends up like, maybe my original hopes of a red, white and blue ‘Blighty salad’ will come true. I will post photos of my revamped Blighty salad later.

          I really enjoyed the muffins and will be keeping the recipe for my own collection. They make a delicious breakfast dish. Next time I make them I may try them with jam. I will also be keeping the salad recipe for summer. A great success for a time that was generally supposed to be a time of rationing and food shortages.

The Edwardian Paper Bag Craze

Edwardian England. The height of elegance, and a way to demonstrate your class, was the dinner party. It was a time when the food you served said a lot about your wealth and status. These recipes were often coveted by their owners (such as in Mapp and Lucia the coveted Lobster à la Riseholme). It was during this time that cooking in a paper bag became fashionable. It was clean, easy, economical and it quickly became the fashionable way to dine. Which is why for my elegant Edwardian evening I am making White Plum Pudding cooked in a paper bag.

       I should first point out that I didn't atually use a paper bag. My fear of blowing up my house made me skeptical so I used baking parchment as I will demonstrate below. Here is the recipe;

A White Plum Pudding.

Beat to a cream a half cup of sugar and three-quarters cup of butter. Add four eggs well beaten, a spoonful of salt, two cups milk, a quart of flour mixed with one-half cup shredded citron, one-half cup currants, a teaspoonful grated nutmeg and a teaspoonful vanilla. Just before turning into the mould stir in two even tablespoonfuls pure baking powder. Put in bag, surround with water, steam two hours and serve with any good sauce.

My Makeshift Paper Bag;
I followed the recipe as it was written. I then poured it into my dish (or ‘mould’). Placing the dish onto a large sheet of baking parchment I then gathered the parchment at the top and tied it with string. I then continued with the recipe and cooked it in a steamer for two hours.

When I actually came to making the recipe I realised it gave no mention of plums. I wondered if perhaps it had been left out of the recipe as it was assumed the reader would know that a plum pudding would include plums. After all what kind of plum pudding has no plum? I eventually decided that by this era it would have been mentioned rather than assumed, so I made my plum pudding without them. As you can see in the picture above it looks highly unappetising, like something you might find in a wooded area rather than in your kitchen. It also looks a bit anaemic, as though it could do with a bit longer in the oven. Determined to stick to my Edwardian recipe I resisted the temptation to put it in for longer. I was not a particular fan of my makeshift paper bag; it was messy and got the mixture all over it- so whoever said it was ‘clean and economical’ lied.

          To taste the pudding wasn’t bad, its stodgy texture was familiar and comforting the kind of thing you might want if you’ve had a bad day. The texture was very familiar to me, and reminded me of some dish from my childhood that I can’t put my finger on. Perhaps a cross between dumplings or jam roly poly (oddly there is no suet in this pudding). My mum says it’s reminiscent of bread pudding but I have no recollection of trying that either. It was a really stodgy dish that reminded me of something that might have been popular in war time Britain rather than at a dinner party. The rest of my testers just laughed when I produced it, unwilling to try it. My brother wanted to poke it, and oddly so did I, it looked like the kind of food that would wobble happily if you gave it a good poke. But maybe that’s just my childish side trying to break free.

          Overall, I would say that this reminds me of another era different to the Edwardian one. Worth a try if you like puddings not too sweet, probably not one you would make on a regular basis. I would be very interested to see what it would be like with a base of sliced plums, perhaps one day I will try that. It would certainly add a new dimension to the pudding.

          ONE LAST THING- After making this pudding I have discovered what I made could have been like a Christmas pudding. So there we go- I accidently made a festive pudding in spring which I’m sure is bad luck. On a Christmas pudding scale I defiantly prefer this one to the normal kind we get, but then I’m not a big fan of currents.
Slightly Different Era but Dickens gives such a good spin on plum pudding that I had to add it as a footnote.

"In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but smiling proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top." – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Gruel- A Tribute To Oliver Twist

Is it worth the waiting for? If we live 'til eighty four All we ever get is gru...el! Ev'ry day we say our prayer -- Will they change the bill of fare? Still we get the same old gru...el!

My dad’s favourite musical is Oliver Twist; it is partially because of this that it is now rightly my second favourite Dickens novel(just beaten by David Copperfield). I can hardly finish the Victorian period without paying tribute to the many people who were on the streets during the time. Tea parties are all well and good but with so many children on the street, what did the people in poverty eat? Anyone who is familiar with Oliver or even Dickens himself would know that in the workhouse they were fed primarily on a diet of gruel. I can only assume that this must have been the least nutritious food I have come across throughout my journey.

         So I was faced with the question of how best to pay homage to these starving children? I decided that for a day I would eat gruel for my breakfast, lunch and dinner. I can’t imagine it provides too much energy as it is mostly water. I picked a day when I was busy, it would be a pointless endeavour if I were to do nothing strenuous all day as the children were forced to work all day. On this day I had to work myself, not quite workhouse standards but I find a full day of work exhausting as it is. I used oatmeal boiled in water to create my ‘gruel’, it looked unappetising but that I expected.

         During breakfast I found the taste so offensive that I ended up leaving half the bowl. This was a dire mistake as after a full morning of running around at work I was starved. At 1p.m I had my lunch and eagerly ate the whole thing despite its lack of taste. By the time I came home I was shattered and could have easily eaten twice the portion I had for my dinner- I found myself echoing Oliver ‘please can I have some more.’ By late in the evening I was already hungry again but I slept through the night and when I woke up the following morning I was still tired and my body felt run down.

         I had always been aware that the workhouse conditions were dire. But only one day of eating like a workhouse child has taught me so much more about what their life was like. It would be interesting to see the effects after a week of eating gruel, though I can’t imagine it would be too healthy for the body. I could barely survive after one day. One thing I have learnt is this; if I had been alive in Victorian England there is absolutely no way I would have survived on that kind of diet.

A Victorian Tea Party, Mrs Beeton Style.

When I was a child both my parents were employed full time. My mum terrified that I might become a ‘latch key kid'; refused to let me have a key to the house until I was almost 16. Therefore, I spent almost every day after nursery and eventually after school at my grans house. Some of my most vivid memories come from the food my gran used to cook when I was small. Stew with diddy dumplings, syrup sponge with custard, chicken soup and sausages (obviously not all in one sitting.) I can still remember the smell wafting from the kitchen as my gran cooked and baked. However, if I had to choose the most prominent memory from my childhood (and a tradition she still carries on today) it would be the 3pm ‘cup of tea time’.

"It's a very good English custom
Though the weather be cold or hot
When you need a little pick-up, you'll find a little tea cup
Will always hit the spot

You remember Cleopatra
Had a date to meet Mark Anthony at three
When he came an hour late she said "You'll have to wait"
For everything stops for tea"
Everything Stops For Tea- Jack Buchanan

      This tradition is something I do not believe she could go without, like a ritual it happened every day and in the same manner. But I always wondered why. It became something I hoped was the remains of a forgotten tradition. The remains of the day when women would unite to have elegant tea parties and gossip about their neighbours, filtered down through generations to my gran who simply cannot go past 3 o’clock without drinking tea. Occasionally this ritual would involve cakes, which my gran would make in the morning while I pestered her to let me lick the bowl, and then enjoy with tea (juice in my case) at 3 o’clock. All of this has inspired me to create my own proper Victorian Tea Party.

      When considering creating a Victorian themed tea party, who else would I turn to other than Mrs Beeton. I picked three recipes from her book which I thought would be appropriate for a tea party;

Mrs Beetons Book of Household Management.
Beeton Victorian Sandwiches.

The Victoria sponge is something that has not exactly been ‘lost’ in time. It is still a nation favourite which is available in almost any store. I chose this cake for two reasons; firstly, what would a Victorian tea party be without the staple cake and secondly Mrs Beeton has a rather interesting love for eggs which intrigues me. She uses, for me, an obscene amount of eggs. What interested me most was the interesting directions for weighing the ingredients “4 eggs; their weight in pounded sugar, butter and flour”. It sounds more like a riddle than a recipe to me and I’ve never seen anything similar. My best guess would be that it is to do with the different weights of eggs in the time. However, it was still a relatively simple recipe to make.

Rock Biscuits.

When I think of a ‘Rock’ biscuit it conjures up images of my teeth breaking when I bite into this grey little hard thing. This is probably very naive of me as ‘rock cake’ is still available today. I personally have never had it but I assume this recipe is an ancestor of that favourite. In the recipe she specifies to make the mixture look “as rough as possible” with a fork once it has been put on a tray. Now, other than the fact this makes no sense to me my mixture came out so runny that any attempt at roughing it up was instantly absorbed and replaced with the sleek surface of the mixture. I’m sure Mrs Beeton will excuse the smooth exterior of my rock biscuits.

Everton Toffee.

I chose this recipe purely for my own gluttony. I adore toffee, though my teeth do not. This recipe which only needs a couple of ingredients excited me; if it was a success I would be able to easily make my own batch of toffee whenever I fancied it. Firstly if you are planning on cooking this you should heed my warning first. DO NOT leave the pan unattended to pick up the phone. DO NOT use your parents kitchen; especially if you are messy like me (toffee is really hard to get off the cooker), And most importantly DO NOT stick your finger in it to taste, it will burn you. These are all valuable lessons I learnt while cooking this toffee. Anyhow, I was slightly disappointed with the final result. Once it had cooled it was like crystallised buttery sugar cubes rather than the thick chewy toffee I love.

The Victoria sponge was cut into ‘fingers’ under Mrs Beetons direction, unfortunately when I tried to stack them they kept toppling over so they look slightly less impressive. I served these three dishes with sliced bread and butter and sugar cubes. This was an attempt to practice the “elegant economy” of Cranford. We sat and waited until 3pm exactly to serve the tea, at which point my gran would normally say ‘right I think its cup of tea time’, so we commenced.

         The rock cakes were stickier than I anticipated; they left their mark of currents and crumbs stuck to the plate. But otherwise they were quite enjoyable. The sponge, which I thought was unusually heavy for a cake, was too sweet for my gran. The toffee (or crystallised sugar) was a flop both for my gran and my mum, but I didn’t mind it. Clearly it was incredibly sweet and pretty much like eating a sugar cube; I’m fairly sure I could of put it in my tea if I wanted. Overall the recipes weren’t bad and for people with a sweet tooth it would be a nice addition to a recipe book. However, if like my family you aren’t keen on sweet things I would suggest these recipes aren’t for you.

N.B. I haven’t included the recipes this time but they can all be found in Mrs Beetons Household Management if you are interested.

Mrs Austen's Bread and Butter Pudding.

A bit of a leap forward this time and onto the romantic period. Some of my favourite novels were written during this period which leads me into my fascination with the concept of ‘society’. This idea usually culminates around food having a place in elegant society. It is often depicted as attending dinner dances and afternoon tea. This is why I was so thrilled to find a hidden gem- Mrs Austen’s Bread and Butter Pudding

      Just the prospect of cooking something Jane Austen herself might have once eaten thrills me. This whole blog was designed not only to look at cookbooks from different eras but also to establish what some of the great writers would have been eating on a day to day basis. It is also in poetry form and I have also included a snippet from a book about the Austen family. .

Martha Lloyd’s collection of recipes, 1808.
Mrs Austen’s Bread and Butter Pudding.

“Contributed by Mrs. Cassandra Austen (Jane’s mother) to Martha Lloyd’s collection of recipes, 1808. As this recipe attests, Jane Austen came by her talent honestly. For amusement, her family wrote riddles, charades, poems, and plays for each other. Mrs. Austen excelled at poetry to the extent that one can easily follow her recipe in rhyme.”

If the vicar you treat,
You must give him to eat,
A pudding to hit his affection;
And to make his repast,
By the canon of taste,
Be the present receipt your direction.

First take two pounds of Bread,
Be the crumb only weigh’d,
For the crust the good house-wife refuses;
The proportion you’ll guess,
May be made more or less,
To the size that each family chuses.

Then its sweetness to make
Some currants you take
And Sugar of each half a pound
Be not butter forgot
And the quantity sought
Must the same with your currants be found

Cloves & mace you will want,
With rose water I grant,
And more savory things if well chosen;
Then to bind each ingredient,
You’ll find it expedient,
Of Eggs to put in half a dozen.

Some milk dont refuse it,
But boiled ere you use it,
A proper hint this for its maker;
And the whole when compleat,
In a pan clean and neat,
With care recommend to the baker.

In praise of this pudding,
I vouch it a good one,
Or should you suspect a fond word;
To every Guest,
Perhaps it is best,
Two puddings should smoke on the board.

Two puddings! – yet – no,
For if one will do,
The other comes in out of season;
And these lines but obey,
Nor can anyone say,
That this pudding’s with-out rhyme or reason

I tried to follow this recipe as close to the poem as I could which meant quite a bit of guessing measurements. It also means I have no ‘modern’ recipe to give you this time, Sorry. However, if you were going to make it I suggest doing it straight from Austen’s poem, it’s much more fun and it would be interesting to see if everyone interprets it like I did!

      I am actually not a huge fan of bread and butter pudding, so I haven’t ever made it before which meant a great deal of guesswork involved in assembling the dish. I was actually very proud of my creation when it was done. As I took it out of the oven all I could think was perhaps once a young Jane smelt this same aroma.

      From an aesthetics view it looked appealing and smelt warm and wholesome. If there ever were to be a connoisseur of bread and butter pudding it would be my mum. Hence I know I’m in safe hands with someone who can tell me if it tastes right or not. Good old Austen came through good as the pudding was apparently very nice. Not soggy underneath as many puddings can be, perhaps even a little on the dry side (which I’m sure is just down to my frugality with the milk). So yet another success!

On a final note it was awarded a rating of 7 out of 10. But as the dryness is easily rectified for the next time it will be cooked I think this is a recipe I will be adding to my own collection. Bravo Mrs Austen.