I think it only really hit home to me whilst making this video that there's this chasm between 'traditional' and 'new' that simply wouldn't have existed in other circumstances - and thus anyone who does one or the other appears at fault for either what they do, or what they refrain from doing.
And it should also have other recipes tucked in--ones cut out of the newspaper or handwritten in missives from old friends or family. My own favorite cookbooks are like that. They also have weird bits of paper flagging out the top from when I've marked something I like--I can always find my very favorite simple fruitcake recipe because the flag is a plastic strip that came off of raisin packaging.
Books have a personality and I imagine that tablecloth was the equivalent to a Snoezelen room for them. Perhaps even similar to the calming effect I get when I enter an elderly person's abode after a skull splitting bus journey of screaming phones, the roar of condensed traffic and a lot of shouty people. After that, an oak sideboard, a porcelain milkmaid ornament, floral wallpaper, faded linoleum, the smell of pipe tobacco and old books, framed images of ploughshares and steam trains on the walls, it's like a dose of laudanum.
Am I the only one that would TOTALLY buy audio books read by Atomic Shrimp??? This is very interesting to understand what happened to British cuisine and how WWII affected everyone in Europe. I love your videos. Keep up the awesome work!
Honestly, I watched a video guide at the weekend and the sound was so atrocious, I had to give up. I have an audio disorder and English is my second language, but I can understand everything he says almost perfectly, and his comforting voice doesn't hurt my ears ❤
Man, that austerity cookbook talking about not being at war and food in shops being plentiful yet costs are rising ever week. Nearly 50 years old but sounds like it could have been written last week.
Corporate greed is ever present it seems. Supply clearly hasn’t changed in a majority of places nowadays, and at least in America everyone is blaming inflation for what is clearly just corporations being greedy and gouging prices because people can’t just STOP buying food.
@@iceblaster1252The two sides in the US are to busy blaming each other to take a step back and realize the oligarchs control the strings of both sides. Most companies set record profits in 2022 and are on track to break that this year.
I saw this on my subscription page, thought I'll watch that later as it about books, decided to see what it was about by watching a little and ended up reminiscing about my early life, my parents and grandparents, their recipes, cookery and having some of or very similar books around ( and I don't know what became of those books or hand written recipes that were on scraps of paper or written on blank or partially empty pages)
I’m British too, but of partial Italian descent. What you say about the wartime effects of cookery is very true and I have a few observations to add. The first is that British traditions of every kind were already in decline by the world wars due to the fallout of the Industrial Revolution, which uprooted local communities and forced many people who had once been prosperous and educated into extreme poverty. Lots of traditional know how was lost as were the communities that supported them. We see this is music for example, with the loss of traditional forms of music and the ordinary man as musician and its replacement with the passive experience of the music hall and rise of popular international tunes. We also see it in culinary terms, as the British stereotype of over boiling vegetables is a 19th century thing, designed to ensure they were ‘healthy’ due to the high levels of chemicals in the soil. By the time WWI happened and the state began organising food production for the war effort it cemented a process of decline and loss that had been happening for about a century. I’d also contribute something from my Italian background. My ancestors came over in the 50s. When I was born, in the 80s, Italian food was still not very popular in the UK. You couldn’t get a lot of ingredients that you needed, so you adapted. Skills were completely lost and the kind of cooking has stuck in the expectations of the 50s. That has meant I have had to read books, watch RU-vid videos, learn to use tools and techno which are Italian but were never used in my household (though my nonna remembers them when shown to her). Outside, most British people are probably more connected to what is contemporary in Italian cooking than anyone in my family. It’s funny the way traditions fossilise and expand or contract like that.
Marguerite Patten was lovely. They say never meet your heroes I have met a few clebrety cooks mosty i have been distpointed. I met her once in the late 1990's when she spoke at a conference that i had helped organise. I had been quite excited that she was coming, so when i was asked to escort here to her car i was a bit of a fan boy. I thanked her for all her work with the Ministry of Food she looked me up and down a bit as i was in my late 20's at the time ,so i offered "well that was when people most needed to make the most of what they had" and explained that i was the first boy at my school to do "o level" home economics and she seemed happy with what i said. Dad was a milkman so we had a copy of the Dairy Book of home cookery! Irony as i was working for what the MMB's Thames Ditton lab folded into when i met Marguerite Patten!
I had my mum's old copy of a Marguerite Patten cookbook - all the recipes were easy to follow, especially her ones on meat and fish. Eventually, though, through use, it ceased to be a book, and became a set of recipe cards, not all of which were now in the intended order, or missing completely. I gave up in the end, and, saddened by the loss, gave it a Viking funeral.
Google differs a bit between countries, so when I in Sweden searched for almundigoes, I found this in McCONNAUGHEY SOCIETY OF AMERICAs Annual Bulletin : "When she planned the McConnaughey Society of America reunion here last suminer, she included cock-a-leekie soup, fish au gratin. almundigoes (meatballs), stuffed roast pork. colcannon, minted carrot, raisin bread pudding, lemon snow. Hussar salad Ind truffles on the menu. Recipes came from "The Scottish Women's Rural Instiiutes Cookery Book," which reflects the fntegration of dishes from other countries tnto Scottish home cooking. "
Hussar salad! No idea what the ingredients are but I like the name alone. It sounds like proper old fashioned stuff. I'm probably stereotyping here but I automatically thought that Eastern European cavalrymen would have been too tough to contemplate eating salad. Total nonsense of course. There's no reason to presume that salad lacked masculine credentials amongst 18th Century fighting horsemen. A quick search since writing that brings up a lot of recipes for the Dutch 'huzarensalade'., often featuring veal, pot roasted beef or ham. There are a couple of shocked comments about the inclusion of meat in a salad. I'm not about to argue with a bloke in a crazy hat charging towards me and brandishing a sabre atop a mare snorting steam out her nostrils. It sound similar to the (probably heavily Anglicised) 'Russian Salad' I used to make, what with the peas, gherkins and cubed 'taters.
@@NicholasBerry-ku9rd I can actually help you with that too: HUSSAR SALAD Lb. Cold Meat Most of a Beetroot 2 Tablespoonfuls Salad Oil Pickled Onions Pepper & Salt 8 Cold Cooked Potatoes 2 Hardboiled Eggs 2 Tablespoonfuls Vinegar 1 Lettuce Gherkins Mayonnaise Mix the cut-up meat, cut-up Amtatoes, most of beetroot, about of lettuce, with oil & vinegar. Arrange on dish & decorate with different colours in squares (1 with beetroot, 1 egg yolk, 1 pickles, 1 white of egg). Use rest of lettuce to put round dish, & run Mayonnaise over.
I always love looking through 70's cookbooks. It's not a PROPER 70's cookbook unless there's something in there which you decorate with glace cherries!
@@accountnamewithheld Not really that outlandish as my last microwave I had ten years ago was a combi microwave and electric oven. So it was perfectly possible to cook a roast in it, though I never did.
Once again your video is a measure of calm and reasonableness, that seeks to gently educate without admonishment, and celebrate the little things that might otherwise be forgotten. Thank you for being a considerate and kind creator of entertainment
It seems like The Netherlands went through a similar hurdle. Our (yes, I'm Dutch) potato mash based dishes are super simple, and massively rich in energy. Regardless, they are loved by many people, including the youth. Boerenkool is probably the best example, as it's not only mostly potato, but the vegetable part is curly kale - this veg is so hardy and well suited for wartime dishes, because it _has_ to have been through a period frost in order for it to taste well. And after preparing a large pot of boerenkool, you can safely freeze the leftovers, and eat it again another day.
This is very similar to what I know as the recipe from Ireland called colcannon or champ, which doesn’t really specify using kale , just any of the cabbage family of green vegetables and mixed with basic mashed potatoes, sometimes with an amount of diced onions as well. This mixture can be made either as small individual portions or turned all together into a large frying pan and smoothed out into a single uniform patty. We cook this preferably in rendered animal fat until it forms a tight crust on the bottom then turn it over if possible to cook the other side, sometimes it will break apart when turning it over but just carry on and try to give it a good thick crust on both sides don’t worry if some of the crust finds its way into the inside of the dish it’s all good. To serve it you can cut it into portions or if you have made the smaller pieces and then add a piece of cooked bacon and a fried or poached egg on top. When you cut into the egg the yolk will spread across and down the sides of your dish. I would also recommend adding a slice or two of black pudding to the final dish if you like it and I have heard that some families will make this from the leftover potato and other vegetables from their Sunday dinner so they will have if available chunks of roasted potato and parsnip, pieces of carrots and green beans and broccoli can be added if so desired, but if you are adding all of the Sunday lunch ingredients then you might wish to omit the eggs and bacon elements and serve it with some of the remaining roasted meat with some thick onion gravy.
Always believed parsnips that had been through the frost tasted better than those that had not. Also we break up the crust and mix it in then let another crust form, repeat several times for a more caramelised flavour.
Your comments on the effect of rationing etc on British cuisine was very interesting. I'm in Ireland and it made me reflect on the state of our own cuisine. Most people don't realise that Ireland also had rationing, and throw in the famines etc and it feels very much as if we, like Britain, are in a period of exploration and reinvention. It's both sad and exciting. I own a lot of historical cookbooks and you made me re-read them in an entirely new light. I'd love to hear you talk more about this subject.
This was actually really fascinating, and I'd love to see more recipes tested our if that's something you'd be interested in sharing with us any time. I really never have too much to worry about when it comes to your videos because I almost always find something interesting and useful to know.
I love the 'Dairy Book Of Home Management'. A great 'dip in' book. (I particularly enjoyed the cheese section) Another fun thing about it, is that it's general editor, was Neil Tennant, now better known as one half of the Pet Shop Boys. He went from this, to being a writer, interviewer, and record reviewer on 1980's pop magazine, Smash Hits. Lovely video, Mike - my late mum had several of these books. Made me very happy to see them again. Thank you.👍👍👍
I had completely forgotten about the Dairy Book of Home Management until I read your comment and now I’m overwhelmed with nostalgia. My mum gave me her copy when I moved out, the one with the beige cover and I kept it until it fell apart. That book taught me how to be an adult (or at least pass for one) and I can’t remember if I ever told Mum how much it meant to me. Isn’t it funny how one little thing can trigger an avalanche of emotions and memories? Thanks for the reminder, I’m going to spend today searching for another copy online.
@@kitm141 - What a lovely reply. Yes, it's exactly how I feel about it. My copy fell to bits, too. Another cook book I hold in high regard, is one my mum gave me when I left home - it was by Graham Kerr, and was brilliant. Idiot proof doesn't come close. The other thing about it was the text was, in a great many places, laugh out loud funny. It was a joyous book, by someone loving what they were doing. Hope you find another copy of TDBOHM. I might have to get another copy, now, I think.
I had heard that Niel Tenent was part of a team that interviewed musical groups until they decided to become a band. I had no idea that he a cookbook editor too. Cool. Their version of Always on My Mind is one of the best songs ever.
I can't believe that these cook books are on my bookcase, I have collected them from the age of 13, my mums cookbooks were my starting point and some of these date back to the beginning of 1900s and there's some very good recipes, some developed during the wars and we're working hard to create healthy nutritious meals. Great video, thank you 😊
In my area there’s a large resurgence of independent dairies popping up with milk vending machines and I’m totally here for it. Cannot get enough of nipping to the farm the milk comes from and bringing my bottle with me (a litre bottle as sold by the dairy) and getting proper fresh milk from local North Walian cows. If we want to support local business over supermarkets it seems like a great place to start IMO, the milk is only a few pence dearer and a whole lot better so for as long as I can justify the cost I’ll be there.
Japan's now famous Katsu Curry was actually based on British curries not Indian curries, the Japanese navy started serving it because the British Navy served their men curry. It then got popular with the rest of the population and is why it's sometimes called Navy Curry in Japan.
lol, funny how things propagate. You'd figure that the Japanese would adopt curry from India given the proximity, but no. Probably because of how isolationist Japan has been historically, and that that policy only really ended _because_ the British forced its end.
I just wanted to say that I love your channel. Its a variety slice of life, from scams, to tools, building, gardening, food, science, plants and so much more.
Not many people can make milk this interesting, great video and honestly, my favourite milk flavour is probably vanilla, from the rare and coveted yellow cow. Thanks for making my evening better!
Oof! I was put off steamed puddings by my experience of school dinners. I am 62 and so was at school in the late 1960's. School dinners (at least at MY school) were pretty disgusting. It is definitely what made me become a vegetarian as all meat dishes were the absolute cheapest cuts which were largely fat and gristle. I digress, steamed puddings were always grey in colour ( I do not know how they achieved this!) lacking in sugar and came with a compulsory dollop of lumpy, floury tasting custard which again lacked any discernable sweetness...I can feel my stomach turning at the thought of those school dinners...!
It was only when I was in my thirties that a gamble in a BBC canteen showed me how a steamed sponge pudding SHOULD taste: which was not remotely like the stodgy nightmares of my schooldays. .
When I was in school here in America we still had lunches that were made in the school kitchen instead of the fast food they serve now. Casseroles made of mostly tomatoes and some meat (they really turned me off of tomatoes for the rest of my life,except for fresh tomatoes) and fish on Friday that was the cheapest fish sticks ever made. The taste was so bad the only way we could choke them down was with lots of catsup. One school's food was so bad it was not edible. Tomato and eggplant casserole that was actually rotten, maggots in some food and a hot cereal we had occasionally which I'm not sure what it was made from but it was gritty and bitter. And jello with dark curly hair in it. Our drinking water was sulphur water. Our bath water was sulphur water. We came out of the bath smelling worse than when we went in!
The "Ploughman's lunch" was another invention of the milk marketing board in the 1960s, it was so effective that it was hard to buy any other food with my lunchtime pint as an 18yo in the early 1980s, and I really thought it was a traditional pub meal 🙂 (a bit like my presumption that ciabatta was a traditional Italian bread when I first tried some in around 1985-- I was quite surprised around 15yrs ago when I discovered that it was invented in 1982!)
The 'Lymeswold' cheese that Mike mentions, was created solely to make use of excess milk production. It was known by some as 'Slymeswold', and didn't remain on the market for long. My late father liked it, and I tried it - it wasn't bad, just a bit half hearted, if I'm honest.
'The "Ploughman's lunch" was another invention of the milk marketing board in the 1960s' According to Wikipedia that's a debatable claim, and they site much earlier references to Ploughman's lunch. Interesting subject. I rather liked the typical Ploughman's lunch you could get in pubs in the 1980s.
@@urbanimage the wikipedia page cites one reference from the 19th Century then a flurry in the 1950s spurred by the Cheese Bureau, which the Milk Marketing Board ran with in the 60s.
@@urbanimage - You might like to read 'A Cheesemonger's History Of The British Isles', by Ned Palmer. That will tell you all you need to know about the MMB and the Ploughman's Lunch. A fascinating book.
My dad was one of those who used to go on about "foreign muck", his generation grew up with very plain and simple food. I am thankful that I am of the generation who got to try new food from other countries, and I love it. I remember some of the old cookery books, my favourite was the BeRo book, do you have one of those? Going back to the 70s I remember some of the cookery shows on tv. I am a bit young to remember Fanny and Johnny Craddock, but I do recall the "Galloping Gourmet" Graham Kerr, and a series called Farmhouse Kitchen, where Dorothy Sleightholme used to go from one end of the kitchen to the other leaving a trail of debris behind her. There were several books that were made available from that series. I would love to see more from these old cookery books please.
We had the Be-Ro with Fred the bowler hatted flour grader and his mates on the cover. I don’t know what happened to the book, but I still have the torn off back cover with hand written recipes for such delights as Hard Times Buns, Christine’s Sponge, Nottingham Goose Fair Gingerbreads and best of all, Welsh Cakes, though I can tell the latter was my mum’s choice of recipe cos no spice 🙄 The other, complete book is the one that came with our ‘Main’ gas cooker in the late 50s/early 60s, and which is very comprehensive even down to such basics as ‘How to make a Good Cup of Tea’! This also acts as a folder for all the other hand written recipes, ones cut from newspapers and magazines and ones given by friends and relatives.
The great Vincent Price, of horror movie fame, had a cookery show on ITV in the early 1970's - 'Cooking Price Wise' - he was a formally trained Cordon Bleu Chef, amongst many other things. For his show, he stipulated that all the ingredients used should be easily available by the general public, and so, he, and the production crew rang up dozens of supermarkets in all areas of the UK asking if they sold various items. This, remember, was a time when olive oil came in tiny bottles, from the chemist, for the sole purpose of loosening up earwax. A modern reprint of the show's accompanying book is still available. It's really nice.
I've watched well over 100 of your videos, many more than once and I think this is your best video. Great story arc, informative, entertaining. In a way it was a typical video, but this was another level. Enjoyed every single minute!
The Dairy Book of Home Management was one of my special interests as a kid - I was a weird kid. And I read & re-read that book over & over. I especially loved the illustrated images of fruit, veg & meat & the tables of seasonal availability. I found a copy at a car boot sale a couple of years ago & it has pride of place on my kitchen bookshelf!
My nan used to make the most heavenly suet puddings. All the fresh fruit came from the garden, usually blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, strawberries and raspberries. Cutting into the pudding all the fruity goodness would spill out, ready for the thick golden homemade custard on top!! This video has inspired me to seek out some ATORA and recreate this wonderful childhood nostalgia.
I made watching your videos my habit. Hearing the intro song feels so good on a Friday evening. Thank you for making all these creative videos! I'd like to ask you: who taught you to cook so well and understand all the replacements you can use when cooking? I wish you a great weekend!
The steamed pudding reminds me of when I used to make Pond Pudding for Christmas as we didn't like Christmas pudding. The filling is equal amounts of sultanas or raisins, and brown sugar. Mixed in with that is dollops of unsalted butter. A lemon with skewered holes is placed in the middle. It's so delicious with cream. I've seen versions on the Internet without sultanas, but they soak up the liquid and take on the lemon flavour. We love it.
when I was about 14 years old I met this girl who's Mother was English and her dad Dad American but she was born in the US one night she invited me to come for supper which was what the locald called the nighttime meal. She told me that we were going to have beef stew. When we got to her house I couldn't smell the aroma of beef stew cooking .When got to the kitchen to eat her mother was warming up canned beef stew I was shock .She didn't evened try to hide the can it was sitting on the counter! We lived in a farming area in New England and women in are area didn't buy prepared food from the store.I don't think she really knew how to cook . My mother called her a War Bride and stated that we have no idea how hard her life had been before coming here. The other thing my Mother said was its hard to learn to cook when bombs are dropping around your head. I did enjoy your video and Thank for a trip down memory lane
What a wonderful video essay. A truly informative recipe of a dollop of history, a tsp economics, a pinch of politics and a juicy slice of apple pudding. Mike, with this masterpiece you are truly spoiling us 😉
I think cooking during a war, with all the stress and rationing, would take a lot of ingenuity. My mom made quite a few "depression" recipes, as she called them; I still make some of them, comfort food for me. I like this series, thanks. Take care, be well
I like seeing in those older cookbooks that the imperial and metric measurements are scaled to be reasonable, not exact conversions. Metric measures there are nice round numbers (200g, 500g etc.) and likewise imperial. Far too many modern recipe/chefy youtubers based in the US just show a direct conversion into metric and as a result, give instructions like "use 453g of beef" or "bake for 25 min at 204 degrees C"... Who in their right mind will measure 453 grams.
I like that bean recipe and I'm going to try it with a few alterations. About that mustard usage: here in the US, it's typical to use mustard in cooking beans. As it happens, in the book you've shown 20:10 the recipe above is for Boston Baked Beans which is, without a doubt, an American favorite and as you will notice it also contains mustard. Unfortunately, as someone who regularly makes homemade Boston Baked Beans in a proper stoneware beanpot, I regret to tell you that the recipe is woefully wrong! Don't try that one; you'd be disappointed. It should contain dry Colman's mustard and a whole onion, and it requires rather a lot more molasses.
I can remember my step father using the term foreign muck for pasta on a regular basis. Spaghetti bolognese for us and he would have pilchards on the toast.
In Romania we used to eat spaghetti with tomato and salami sauce, with bread. Then I discovered people in other countries didn't eat pasta with bread, and then I discovered that Americans eat pasta with garlic bread 😂😂😂
In india we get double-toned (1.5% fat), toned (3% fat), standardized (4.5% fat), and full-cream (6% fat). They're all homogenized, and none of them separate into cream and skim layers. Of course, indian milk is (unless specified) always a mixture of Jersey or A2 cow milk and water-buffalo milk, and water-buffalo milk is much higher in fat percentage naturally, making it easier to homogenize even in high-cream formulations.
Regarding the birds stealing the cream, a similar phenomenon is happening here in Australia. The cockatoos have learnt how to open residential bins, and routinely figure out how to overcome improvised deterrents. The number of cockatoos capable of opening bins was localised to Wollongong, but growing populations in surrounding areas are learning to do the same.
"Smells like wallpaper paste..."😂😂 So you can use it for decorating if the pie failed😂 very interesting video.. I have the Dairy book.. same edition, together with the cookbook which I use a lot! I also have a set of recipe books published by Stork margarine, the Stork Wives Club put them out in a series which my mother collected... some really odd recipes but very tasty! Little trick for pud lining... cut a quarter out of the pastry, then bring it to a shallow cone and ease into the basin, then use the quarter for the lid. My nan used to do it... worked every time.😊
I watched this and its earlier companion video today, and it sparked quite a nice discussion with my wife about the austerity that the UK would have experienced for those forty or so years. It also gave new perspective to the sheer joy it must have been to be a twenty-something in the sixties, and I think this must have been part of the reason there was so much rejection of older social norms - leading to rock and roll and other such "excesses" (as their parents might have called them) of the time. Thank you, this was a really enlightening video to watch.
On a mute point from olden days of cooking, fast food was not common and people were't erm fat, or at least as fat as humanity is today. It's all junk unless you buy the basic ingredients and cook meals from scratch to ensure they're free from additives E numbers and so on.
I only know the milk delivery from TV shows, not sure if it were even a thing in Germany. One question came to my mind though. How do you close those bottles to avoid the milk going bad when you're going to store them for several days. Love your content by the way, every video is a joy to watch! Cheers from Germany ❤
The idea is that you only ask for the amount of milk you need for that day (or two). You'd get fresh milk delivered in the morning for the next day. And those foil caps can be reshaped and form a good enough seal for this length of time.
The foil cap goes back on the bottle. It isn't secure enough to keep the milk in the bottle if it was tipped up, but it's airtight enough to keep the milk fresh standing up in the fridge door
Those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s had parents who were still in the austerity mindset. Mine grew their own fruit & veg, baked bread, cakes etc, brewed beer & wine from stuff they grew or foraged. What a nostalgia trip, thank you!
Born in 1959 I too remember fighting over getting the cream from on top of the milk. We also had birds peck holes in the bottle tops here in Australia, but our birds were magpies. I remember Mum getting very annoyed for quite a few weeks that "someone" was going around poking holes in the top of the milk bottles, until she realised that it was the maggies that were doing it. Can't remember if that made her more annoyed, or less. :) Btw, that steamed apple pudding looked amazing. Takes me back to my Mum's cooking. I really miss her and her cooking.
Nice to see you are keeping it authentic with the cooking bowl my man had a set of those in the 70's and 80's No way would my wife eat that she does'nt use much salt in her cooking I remember the milk being delivered as a child and the bottle tops being pecked open by the birds custard has to be birds
If you remove beans, tomatoes, bacon, lamb and potatoes from the British Cuisine, you only end up with a pint of beer... Just kidding though, It is interesting to see these old recipes, and I am French but the old French recipes are look really fat and unhealthy when you see them now. Thank you for this video.
I learned the hard way that the colours of the tops of milk bottles aren't universal. Red cartons of milk over here in the Netherlands are in fact, buttermilk.
I remember when you replied to me in a comment I made long ago, 'why do you call blood sausage black pudding when it's not actually pudding?' with the exact same text on screen at 35:40. Almost copied verbatim, too. All I can say is I'm glad to have contributed to a video to some degree by having you set me straight xD
@@AtomicShrimp The only thing that could've come off as derisive was you opening up with 'lol', but to me that read like _'you have no idea how deep the pudding rabbit hole runs... this is far greater than I or you or anyone can fathom!' xD_ I said thanks in my reply then, maybe you didn't see it. So here it is again- thank you, Mike! Keep up the awesome work ^^ 👍
The skill of pushing a metal foil milk bottle cap just enough to loosen it, without putting your thumb through it is a muscle memory akin to learning how to crack an egg without smashing it. :D
The Dutch kitchen is in a similar way to that of the UK. It has its upsides as well. The French and Italian kitchens are set in stone with the weight of centuries of history behind them. If you don't make it like Nona made it you are doing it wrong. We however have a chance to fuse and innovate. Because our dishes aren't set in stone we don't offend the senses by doing something different. Maybe in a century or two things will be different.
Back in the early 50s my Dad had a job delivering fresh bread, in the same way as milk is delivered. His first job was to take yesterday's loaves and stack them into the middle of the new, fresh bread .. so that the steam and heat of the fresh bread would liven up yesterdays bread so that could also be sold as fresh. :D
Very enjoyable and interesting. Reminded me of my childhood and how inventive and flexible my Mum was with cooking for a large family. It always seemed to me that she could make something tasty out of a very few ingredients. Thank you.
I've got a Collins Family Cookery book by Elizabeth Craig dated 1957. I really recommend you try to find one - it has some real marvels in it that I think you would just love making/eating. When you started talking milk bottles I immediately had aural memories of clinking bottles - I had a newspaper round as a youth and the milkman did his round at the same time as I did my round. The memory makes me smile.
26:20 I seem to recall some anecdotal story about a Humphrey being an elephant but it was cheaper and safer to mimic the trunk with an elongated straw. I may have dreamt it.
I remember having milk delivered ( late70's...we had Unigate deliver it) and the birds would have pecked the lids for the cream!!! The Milk Marketing Board is no more but probably worthy of doing a video of it....the farmers now get so ripped off with the growth and greed of the supermarkets nowadays.....many Dairy farmers have sadly jacked it in!!! The Milk Marketing Board established a minimum price for the milk and ran great advertising campaigns for milk....we see none of that now!!
I think your theory on the badly transcribed Albondigas is probably correct. I found one reference to Almundigoes online and it also had a recipe on the same page for "Cocky Levy Soup" which was basically chicken and leeks i.e. cock-a-leekie
I love old cookbooks and quite a few of them (U.S. versions) 😁😋. Those British ones look like so much fun! I can’t recall ever hearing about suet pastry before, using lard as the fat, yes, but suet, no 🧐 (and I can’t recall ever seeing that suet product in the stores over here in the U.S.). So that part was very interesting. I was surprised and curious about the thickness of the pastry, so I had to look it up on the internet and wow, the recipe I found was showing a very thick pastry crust for a steamed pudding. Maybe it has to do with needing to hold up while being steamed?🧐 I generally make pastry crusts for fruit pies and quiches and like a very thin crust on those, so it was very interesting and fun to see the differences 🙂. Thanks for a fun video!
One of the other factors often sited for the dim state of UK food as late as the 60s and 70s was that as people were starting to 'think' about food being fun again this coincided with the birth of processed and freezer based wonders like Angel Delight and Fish Fingers, and this became 'the new exciting'.
Have you ever read the short story, possibly poem (idk) by Michael Rosen “Orange Juice”? It’s about milkman deliveries, focussing on the orange juice, and a naughty neighbour who would steal said juice. And then the revenge. One of my favourite tales as a kid. Worth a look up!
I looked it up based on your reply. Loved it and now I have a poet that I really like. The idea of a household running around, spraying orange juice EVERYWHERE😂
Some notes on the Swedish used in these books: At 2:31 smörgårdsbord is misspelled as "smörgasbörd", changing the beaning from "(open-faced) sandwich table" to "butter gas ancestry". 😄 (Let's take a quick detour to marvel at the fact that while smörgås means "(open-faced) sandwich", its literal meaning is smör-gås, "butter-goose". Butter-geese were originally the the first clumps of butter that occurred when churning milk, and those lumps were spread on bread. The bread with butter (and other toppings) then took the name. Actually smörgås was used both about the pieces of butter and the sandwiches from at least the 1500s up to at least the early 1900s.) At 3:18 the Swedish liver sausage is spelled "lefverkorf", which wasn't wrong... before the 1906 spelling reform, that is. In 1963, when 500 Recipes From Abroad was published, it would've been spelled "leverkorv", just like today. I guess Patten could have used some older sources for some of the recipes, but none of the other Swedish recipes are using old spelling. It could be that her contemporary source kept the old spelling for nostalgic reasons. Meta! I also find it funny that Brits looked toward Scandinavia for culinary explorations, since we very similarly look down on our traditional foods as bland, flavourless and often stodgy.
Spaniard living in Scotland here -- very curious about the almundigoes. Whilst I've never heard of such a dish in Scotland, it is closer to the Spanish albóndigas than you might realise, as "almóndigas" is a common mispronunciation of the name. Also worth noting the Portuguese name, almôndegas.
I'm not British ... In fact I never even visited the UK (although I want to go to the Southern part of England some day). Here in the Netherlands those animal fats (lard and suet) are very hard to find. I remember when I was young there was a white fat called 'ossenwit', so maybe that was beef fat. But then came 'margarine'... I prefer real butter. Milk in glass bottles was here too (and is still, but only organic milk is in glass). No pint bottles of course, we have liter bottles!
22:57 Ah, so the morphogenetic field _does_ exist...maybe we should test it by, say, abducting a group of 18 kids (9 pairs of siblings) and splitting them up between two puzzle-filled facilities with (hopefully simulated) danger. Say, 9 hours to get 9 persons through a series of 9 doors involving square roots to reach the number-9 door and 'escape'. Or we could just admire the sheer brilliance that is the funyarinpa. Wait, you've never heard of the funyarinpa? Everyone's heard of the funyarinpa!
Completely fascinating. That Almundigoes recipe is a great find. I've got my own collection of British cookbooks from 1920s onwards, and I've come to these same conclusions of the war depressing ingenuity and availability. I'm currently writing a video on the same topic.
My favourite part of visiting my grandparents was always their glass-bottle delivered milk (one of my aunts was doing it too at the time but these days I don't think she bothers anymore, or perhaps the service isn't available anymore where she lives), for the rest of my relatives it either wasn't available or it was jsut easier to nip down to the corner dairy if you needed any. Something about it just tasted better than even whole milk in a carton now (my mum prefers 0%, everyone else I know/stay with prefers 1-2%, so I just top whatever I get up with a dash of cream... not the same, but good enough). My dad has some of the 80s bottles for personal nostalgia (not sure if NZ had the same taller bottles while he was there, I'll have to look into it as he'd be thrilled to have those too I'm sure), he's very proud to have acquired them (he lives somewhere way too hot for doorstep milk in glass!). I remember the bit about birds getting into milk, might've been in a story I read though (ripped from reality or the headlines, I'm unsure, almost certainly a British children's book though). (And yes, YES, MORE CUSTARD, correct course of action, I approve)
I am a teenager of the 1960s and trying the exotic food 🍱 from China and India, it was so sophisticated and adventurous, yes still love a good curry 🍛👍 Wonderful memories😊 Old cook 📚 books are a fantastic reading.
Since you've mentioned lamb being expensive now, i have a GREAT TIP: lamb neck costs £6 / kg even at London butchers, ask thrm to slice it for you and throw it in the slow cooker with some stock, a few carrots and onions and herbs. Tried it this weekend. Best stew I've ever tasted ❤❤❤
I find this fascinating. My own family hails from the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky and Virginia (USA). My great grandparents were all coal miners and farmers. They were dirt poor. They ate things like soup beans and cornbread, tomato sandwiches, and dandelion salad because it was cheap and easy to stretch. The younger generations eat it not because we can’t afford better, but because it’s comfort food to us. I mean, a meal that feeds 6 people for $2? Yes, please!
I really enjoyed this video, I’ve been waiting for you to release a new video about these cookbooks as I found your previous ones fascinating. Hope you’re able to make a few more videos from the recipes inside these books. Also the chocolate milk brown cow joke was fantastic. Keep up the great work
I have this old cookbook, the "New Doubleday Cookbook", I inherited from my mom along with a bunch of old cookbooks and things. In the forward it talks about how novelty appliances such as microwaves and food processors have exploded since the first print along with such glorious innovations such as dried pasta being available in supermarkets. Really puts into perspective how lucky we are even in these trying times.
Milk home delivery takes me back a few decades, to seeing the "Milk Today" or "No Milk Today" signs people would hang on their mailboxes to let the milkman know where to stop. But I never met any kid who looked like the milkman....
Back in the 70s in Sydney, Australia, small foil-topped bottles of milk were delivered to schools each morning ... and then left out in the hot Australian sun till lunchtime. Makes me gag just remembering the hard plug of milk in the top of the bottle.
Oh I'd forgotten all about the birds pinching the cream - what a great reminder. My Mum used to get so cross if the birds had pilfered lol. I also remember the milk marketing board, I was doing a project on dairy products in my first year at high school back in the 70's, I wrote to them asking for some promotional literature and I got loads of stuff back from them. I got an "A" for that project, I was pleased as punch.
One of favourites is the reader’s digest cookery year when I was a child I made a beeline for that book every time I visited my grandmother. Most of the recipes were broken down by month and what was in season. The start of the book had all the different fruit, veg, animals and all of the different cuts of meat and what part of the animal it came from. At the back was baking recipes. The different kitchen equipment needed for a well stocked kitchen.
So the great depression had a very last effect in the southern usa. To this day , we still eat very simple but flavorful meals. Things that people wouldnt think to use like ham hocks, smoked turkey necks, trotters, chicken feet and such. And we serve alot of things with cornbread. But incorporate the ham hocks with pinto beans and some basic salt and pepper, you get a wonderful flavor bean soup. Add cornbread and you have a full meal. Turkey necks cooked with greens(mustard, collar or turnip) will the greens are stewed and you are left with a thick, lush broth. Serve with yet again cornbread and it is a very healthy, flavorful meal. The broth in the south is called pot licker and it is eaten alot when sick. I am only 37 but i cook beans about 2-3 times a month. Different kinds of beans. But back to thought process. The usa didnt bounce back either after the wars. It took time but the south is even slower to change. My great gran was born during the depression and she passed her recipes to her children of frugality but then they passed it to their children or grands if they raised them (me). I remember eating the most simple but delish food when i was with my granny. And i paid attention. I learned to be frugal. I learned to cook these most flavorful foods but save money at the same time. But i know a ton of people who learned as i have and i am passing it down to my son. One pot of beans with cornbread, will make 2 meals for my family.
I heard the expression "foreign muck" so many times growing up! Spaghetti Bolognese shunned as foreign muck in favour of egg and chips by grandparents.
I found your previous video really useful in expressing my thoughts on british food and now actually have a defence of the food i was raised with, so thank you. Loved your previous video and loved this one
45 years ago when i first married i was given The good housekeeping cookbook and a Margarette Patten book on internationalrecipes(not the one you show here but illustrated and organised by country... These two books were my bibles. I cooked many steamed puddings both savoury and sweet. My husbands favourite was steamed treacle pudding (it actually used golden syrup. The apple pudding you show here was less stodgy because you rolled the pastry quite thin.. then cut a quarter triangular slice which would be the lid. The rest was then easier go slip into the pudding bowl. You actually filled the apples to the top and laid the pastry top over pressing the edges together without folding over ( or as you did you would have a this wadge of dough with no filling)when using your greaseproof and foil cover tou would make a fold in order to allow for any rising of the pastry... always worked and was much less stodgy .. but of course these were always filling puddings
Keeping in mind that they just came out of a war, the food would have to be economical....My mum cooked according to the war time...once a week, still, when it was not needed, but tasted so good was onion stew....there were mum/dad and 4 children. So she would do with the onions you did, as many as well, maybe another few added, and 1 pound of chuck steak diced....thickened like you did, we had this every Saturday, as they owned s cake shop which closed at noon, and then had to be totally cleaned, so lunch was mostly around 2pm, or there abouts.....abd we all loved it...( onions are healthy for you too)
Love the old recipe books! But you were born in the same year as I was - don't you remember every household having a bottle of 'cooking sherry' stashed away in a dark cupboard, a mysterious bottle with a peeling, yellowed label and a whiff that smelled like off vinegar? It wasn't seen as an indulgent tipple but rather a common pantry ingredient such as vanilla essence is viewed these days.
Sure there are some traditional British dishes that we forgot about during the war, but I'm not convinced the average Brit was aware of them. Look at Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier and it is clear that most of the population had a very poor diet. Most of us were living in poor conditions and working in badly paid jobs. If you look at the lads recruited into WW1 many had to be fed decent food to get them fit to fight. That's part of the reason for welfare programmes after the Great war.
My dad was born in 1951. He still regards any foreign foods as foreign muck. Even though if he tries any of it, he will usually like it lol but still that label continues. 😮
My mom was a good cook, despite the restrictions of budget, rationing then austerity. She still made some lovely things when she could. Not your mythical rotten British food!
