I've always wondered why Brits have such an awful reputation for our food because I've only experienced good culinary things here, but seeing how it was in the decades before my time has made me understand why people think that. God love her, I suppose she's making the best of a bad economic situation. Not a carrot or a drop of red wine in sight!
I remember her and Robert Carrier cooking these dishes on 1970's lunchtime shows remembering how expensive and exotic everything was and totally unfordable for a working class family. That lasagne recipe is quite 'out there' by today's standards. Great stuff
Revolting, but then it was the 70's, in England (a time of extreme economic hardship and making the most was probably more important than anything) - I adore Mary Berry none-the-less !
Britain produced a lot of beef starting in the Victorian era and tended to import corn/wheat and other veggies, maybe it was just cheaper to feed a large family with more meat?
So with this lasagne, the way it's thrown together, all the meat and cheese are either in the middle or sort of off to one side then there are a lot of noodles with nothing. So if you eat one end of the dish it's just a form of fettuccine Alfredo because it's empty.
These days many of us are oh so technically correct when making ethnic foods or at least think you are. However not so in earlier decades. In the UK it was mainly Italian and Indian and in the US mainly Italian and French. You would be surprised what passed for some of these dishes especially Italian. I was a child watching Madeleine Cooks Julia Child 4 hours of morning television on a Saturday usually devoted to cartoons I was watching cooking shows. Our mothers, not so much. They had things to do cleaning shopping and laundry. I gave my mother ideas on cooking and I began to cook and an age I'm not going to disclose because people don't believe. But I sucked it all into my head and kept it there. How to make a proper marinara sauce which contains no herbs red wine or anything that you would use in spaghetti sauce however it makes a beautiful spaghetti sauce as well. It's an all-purpose red sauce that is delicious. Also every country uses what it has and if you're talking about a lasagna with ricotta cheese in it that would only be found in the US that is Italian American food. Everywhere I had lasagna in the UK it was white sauce red sauce and cheese on the top. And this series is devoted to budget cooking and what's on sale that week. Potatoes were too expensive for the lamb shoulder was 38 Pence a pound! Growing up in America I was lucky to have a mother and the brother who loved lamb so we had it fairly often and my father would eat it but it wasn't his favorite. Other kids in America didn't even know what lamb was and if they did they didn't like it. Our mothers did not make meat pies although there's an exception my grandmother and her family came from Quebec so there was pork pie different than the British pie but pork pie on Christmas Eve at least.
Mary's lasagne al forno is legendary, she makes it look terrible on the video but I'm sure that's just because of lack of time, the updated version on the BBC website which still uses the same ingredients (minus the lard) is the best lasagne I've ever cooked
It seems to be mostly the way the food is lit. It used to be very difficult to have food look good on video tape due to the limitations of the technology of the era, so lighting it just right was important, something the production crew dropped the ball on a bit.
Jesus, how much we have moved on since then. Heh, the finished meal looks fucking horrendous. Nutmeg, celery, lard and redcurrant jam in your lasagne? I don't think so love! :o)
The fact that you're expecting a british cooking show from the 70's no less, to produce "authentic" foreign food is actually insane. And no one ever said they were cooking authentic italian lasagne. Actual drooler-level comment.
I find it hard to believe that this was made 30 years after the war ended, it's as if they are still rationing and the country seems to be living in poverty with barely any access to resources!
Mary needed Judith in these early shows as her own presentation and delivery was so starchy. She may have been an accomplished cook but she hadn't learned how to deliver to camera with any sense of ease. She's far far more relaxed now. Also, many people comment on the supposed tension between the 2 ladies. All I see are good manners and the type of formality which was typical of the era. Cooking shows were far more informative then and far less about entertainment.
I'm italian and an original Lasagna alla Bolognese (this is the original name) is made by lasagne (of course) ragù,white sauce and parmesan cheese. In our country ragù is made only with minced beef and pork browned in olive oil ,carrots,onions,celery (finely chopped),colonnata Lard and chicken livers (finely chopped,too),dried mushrooms which you soak in warm water (which is also used in the making of ragù )red wine,peeled tomatoes,salt and pepper (no basil,no parsley),nutmeg is also added,
@TheRenaissanceman65 Hi!You can say ''Lasagna alla bolognese'' o ''Lasagne alla bolognese'' it doesn't make any difference (however they shouldn't be called Lasagne bolognese) ...we call it in both ways... My father is swedish but i was born in italy and i live here in Italy...(sono italiano,te lo posso assicurare) It might be strange for you but the original ragù recipe calls for mushrooms (just a little bit that give a very special taste to the sauce,but some people decide to don't put them into... This is a very old show and i understand that the recipe could be adapted to the canons of that time,i just wanted to give you the original recipe for lasagna which i get from a very famous restaurant in Cesenatico
Absolutely. Only we add more lard and flour these days. We've also done away with using pasta sheets and replaced it with white bread instead. Is that not how it's meant to be done?
Oh it was not only the British. Americans had some pretty foul "interpretations" of international cusine back in the day. I remember my mother used to make this overly rich cheese and beef casserole with a Bisquick crust that was supposed to be pizza in the late 1970s. Years later I joked that this is what pizza would be like had the Germans won World War 2.
They’re still great friends today! Mary berry was terrified of being on tv and took her months of being on to relax and even look at the camera. In her book she says that Judith was the person who taught her how to be relaxed and happy in front of the camera by being so supportive!
What a sad looking lasagne! Burnt with hardly no meat and very little cheese. She didn't even spread the mince and the cheese over the whole dish. So there would be meat and cheese in the middle but not on the sides! The sauce from the mince is grey. Where is the tomato puree and the passata? Things must have been dire in England during the 1970s.
all of tht waste on the celery. use all of it. i wonder if the british still trash it tht way? then flour in the meat wow. tht was a new one and adding the fat. i am supposing tht is the difference in going to a butcher. food was so expensive when i was there. food is getting expensive everywhere tho. why i started growing my own veggies.
Chopping celery is generally just a ritual nowadays. We tend to chop it really fine and toss it over our shoulders for good luck (much like some cultures do with salt).
Mary always seemed nervous and uptight in the these 1970s cooking clips. Judith tries so hard to be congenial and complimentary but Mary doesn't really care for any of it! Her "lasagne" looked revolting.
This is actually a delicious recipe. Have you made it yourself? www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mary_berrys_lasagne_al_16923 so you even know who Mary Berry is ? Idiot
My god, hasn't Mary's presentation style improved since the 70s!? And the food too come to think of it! Blackcurrant jam in your lasagne....WTF!? And her "layering" style is a joke. These two seem like they don't really like each other at all, no rapport whatsoever! Quite awkward actually. An all round mess imo.
You obviously don't understand about how things were filmed back then. Can't you see that Mary is terrified through most of this? The layering is very hurried and botched because they are running out of time. This is confirmed by Judith saying "You've actually got one in the oven Mary, so shall we have a look at that?
Judith and Mary are good friends, but this was Mary’s early time on television, she was scared stiff!! She actually thanks Judith for teaching her how to present in TV
As far as I know, Mary Berry has commented in the past about how nervous she was back then and how Judith Chalmers taught her so much about presentation to camera. Didn't you see Mary's barely concealed panic as she could hear the meat sauce catching on the hob? Cookery programmes were filmed differently than today's slick, well edited productions with an army of kitchen assistants to make the food look effortless. It was filmed in an almost live situation, anything that went wrong had to be improvised around. In the 70's gastronomic television still had a long way to go.
When I see some of these comments here, I think the younger folks have no idea shows used to be one take. So they had a time limit and that was that....which is why sometimes things don't look great or they forget things or there is not a smoothness between people on camera. ONE TAKE. And there wasn't all the promotion within the shows like now...notice how they are not using hardly any gadgets...it is simply cooking!
