Last updated 20:39, Thursday, 17 July 2008

WASTE not, want not! That’s what our politicos have been telling us these past few weeks.

They’ve been wagging their admonitory fingers at us about food waste. What cheek!

Have you been shopping lately? You have. Then you’ll know that the price of food is shooting up.

Chuck food away? I don’t think so. Most people can’t afford to. Indeed, many of us have had, this time from necessity and not from choice, to search out the bargains and special offers.

And when it comes to meat, we’ve found ourselves trying out unaccustomed – and cheaper – cuts. Just as people were encouraged to do back in the hungry Thirties.

But, unless they were on the breadline, housewives were reluctant to go downmarket. False pride, perhaps. Or weren’t they aware of what was available from their butchers. It could be, according to some authorities, that they didn’t know how to cook these less favoured cuts of meat. Some form of public awareness was needed.

Can’t you just hear the clanking of bureaucratic brains at work? All the way from Devon and Wilts.

A piece in the West Cumberland News in 1933 reports on the activities of a body with the grand title of “The Association for the Promotion of Mutual Service.”

It aimed to improve people’s health and support British agriculture.

It wanted people to rediscover cheaper cuts of meat, those which needed boiling or stewing.

It seems that steaks and prime chops, which were fried in the pan, were people’s favourites. For those who could afford them.

So, back in 1933, how many adults could you feed for an old shilling? (5p in decimal.) The Association’s listing makes interesting reading.

Take sheep’s heads. Once hugely popular, in 1933 they “were almost unsaleable,” even in depressed West Cumberland. Quoting a local butcher, the paper observed that “dogs are getting what the children formerly ate.” Good news for dog breeders.

Most expensively, a shilling would buy a half pound of rump steak, enough to feed one. Likewise ½ lb leg or loin of mutton, 1½ lb brisket, clod or middle neck would feed three. 2 lb of either scrag or flank would feed four, while 3 lb of ox heart fed four.

But positively best buys were ox cheek and breast of mutton. Three pounds of either would have set you back just one shilling - and fed six adults.

So the Association organised a competition, for both home and professional cooks.

Their challenge – to cook three pounds of breast of mutton. No mention of ox-cheek recipes, despite quoting an unnamed local housewife, who pronounced ox cheek as “the daintiest bit of meat that comes out of a butcher’s shop.”

It did feature in a prize winning dish on a recent TV series. Tempted to try some? Just one problem. Where can you buy ox cheek locally?

What else was on offer locally in 1933? Scanning the papers of that period, all I could find was an advert put in by J.H. Dewhurst, Senhouse Street, Maryport, plugging his “shilling parcel,” comprising 1 lb sausage, ½ lb best chops and 1/3 lb liver - “Sunday’s breakfast for a shilling.”

Liver was an extravagance. When it was cheap, it wasn’t popular. But when “experts” declared it to be a superfood, especially useful for combating pernicious anaemia - a condition then much talked about, its price shot up to a shilling a pound.

In a 1932 cookbook produced by the Edinburgh College of Domestic Science, I came across a section devoted to cooking liver for anaemics. Or not cooking it.

One recipe was for “raw liver pulp” to be drunk or added, with marmite, to raw liver sandwiches.

And how about “liver soufflé?” Whatever the choice, the author advised that “when serving liver, do not remove the lid of the dish in front of the patient, as the smell is sometimes nauseating.”

Sheep’s Head, now off the menu, was not forgotten. Browned in the oven, it was dished on a bed of mince and garnished with “brain cakes” and fried liver.

Nothing was wasted, as “the tongue may be sliced and used as a garnish.”

Gordon Brown would have been proud.