Good housekeeping doesn't tickle my tastebuds
Last updated 10:38, Saturday, 24 May 2008
THIS WEEK I have been reading a fascinating little book which was a gift to my mother way back in 1942.
Entitled Emelie Waller’s Cookery and Kitchen Book for Slender Purses, it’s crammed with recipes and household hints to help the housewife keep herself, husband and three children on 27s 6d (about £1.35) per week.
The book was published in 1935 and fortunately there aren’t any illustrations, because all the meals sound so vile that you couldn’t fancy any of them.
Food must have been very dull without colourful peppers, lovely olive oil, asparagus, garlic, broccoli or any of the other ingredients and flavourings we use to tart up our food 70 years on. It would be difficult to yearn for a supper of Poor Man’s Goose, a sort of casserole featuring onions, carrots and potatoes, the star ingredient for which is 1lb pig’s fry, apparently the sweetbreads, heart, liver, lights and melts of a pig. Yummy.
Or, if you don’t fancy that, what about prunes and barley, a dish made of - yes, prunes and barley - or something called Potato Pie with Remains of Meat. The recipe goes like this - ingredients: cooked potatoes, remains of meat. Method: Chop meat and put in bottom of dish. Cover with cooked potatoes and bake.
It is no wonder there wasn’t an obesity problem in those days, people probably didn’t want to eat anything.
Cooking instructions for spinach instruct the housewife to boil the vegetable for five minutes, drain, press out the water, chop it finely and then return to the pan to simmer for half an hour. There can’t have been much left of it.
So I won’t be following any of those recipes, or those suggested for ‘invalids’ such as calves’ foot jelly (put two split calves’ feet in a stone jar with salt and water) or albumen water (one egg while mixed with cold water). I’ll stick to chicken soup.
Jamie and Gordon, eat your hearts out - as long as they’re not served up with cabbage simmered for the hour-and-a-half suggested by Emilie.
