CHRISTMAS COOKING
It's 1942 and my mother has the task of somehow managing to give us proper Christmas food. Looking back I realise now what a worry it was for women in those days to adequately feed the family in normal times, let alone the special Christmas treats. You wouldn't believe how small our rations were and how restricted the offering in the shops was. Remember that there was very little imported food because of German submarine warfare and very often even the most common foods would be short. If the word went round that a shop had a consignment of Canadian dried apple rings or dried egg, the word was passed around and an enormous queue formed immediately. The next time you are fretting in the line at the check-out in the Cathedral of Choice give a bit of thought to what it was like then!
I need to come clean about what was then known as the Black Market. This was sources of food that by-passed the rationing system and were sold at inflated prices. Many a nest egg was built up during the war in the top end of this trade and it was totally illegal. However, a hungry belly has little conscience and many ordinary people took advantage of what was available. In our defence, there was a strong element of 'putting one over' on Adolph Hitler and the repressive regime of rationing. On a small scale it was probably very good for our morale. There was another source of extra food which was legal. My father had a business colleague in the United States called Ernie Hommel, his firm made the enamelling frits used by my father's firm, General Gas Appliances. Ernie used to send us occasional food parcels and the main thing I remember was the rich fruit cake. It was so rich that a normal sized slice made us feel sick so we only ate small pieces but even so, they were a welcome treat.
Father had lots of friends and contacts and if an opportunity arose of getting extra food he always took it. Contacts in the countryside were particularly valuable. Many a farmer had a cow or a pig that was never entered on the Ministry of Food returns and this found its way onto the market. Mind you, apart from being illegal it was a risky business because of the dodgy characters involved. I remember father and his friend Harry White, a sign-writer in Stockport, once getting hold of a full side of beef. Harry knew a friendly butcher on Brinksway and arranged with him to hang the beef for them until they could deal with it. When the day came for them to collect their loot the butcher simply said “What side of beef?” They hadn't a leg to stand on and had to walk away empty-handed but wiser.
Mother started long before Christmas, saving what she could from the rations and using all her cooking skills to get round any problems she hit. I remember her making a very good Christmas cake from potatoes, a bit of flour, dried egg, lard, marmalade and dried fruit. Things like rissoles were common and nobody enquired too deeply into what went into them. One thing we forget is that horse meat wasn't rationed. There was a horse meat butcher off Prince's Street in the centre of Stockport called Bert Slack and one of the best steaks I ever tasted came from there. My father had worked with horses and he couldn't eat his. We almost always managed to get a turkey at Christmas. I have an idea it came from a farm at Congleton in Cheshire. It was always sent by rail and I remember one year it didn't turn up in time for Christmas dinner and mother had to concoct something. The turkey eventually arrived after Christmas and it was, to put it mildly, a bit high! This didn't put my dad off. He got hold of a small barrel of vinegar and soaked the bird in it for a couple of days after which mother roasted it and we had a late Christmas dinner. I think it was the best turkey I ever tasted and we suffered no ill-effects. It's things like that which make Crumblies like me so dismissive of sell-by dates on modern food. We know from experience that they are far too conservative and much good food is wasted because of the regulations. I reckon they should put it on reduced price sale at the buyer's risk and let us use our heads and our noses!
Strange things would sometimes appear on the table. I remember once having a breakfast of hard-boiled seagull's eggs, they were a bit fishy but good. Locust bean pods were very sweet and mother sometimes used them to make puddings. At one time whale meat and South African Snoek, a tinned fish, appeared in the shops but never became popular. The bottom line was that mother had to be bold and imaginative and if something went wrong in the cooking we had to eat it anyway! I can still hear her saying “It isn't burnt! It's just well done!” You can always tell someone reared in this era, they don't complain about food and always clear their plate, our generation still hates to waste food. In case you're feeling sorry about the way we were deprived, don't bother. You don't miss what you never had and it is generally recognised now that my generation is perhaps the last healthy one, we were well nourished and didn't suffer from obesity and strange allergies. The sad truth is that there is more bad food about these days than ever there was under rationing, our 'friends' the food processors have a lot to answer for.
So, as you do the last minute shopping for Christmas reflect on 1942 and ask yourself “Do we really need all this?” I'll make a prediction, after Christmas there will be a rash of items about dieting and losing weight in the media. All the people who ate till they were bursting over Christmas will be worrying about the fact that they've put half a stone on. Well, sorry, but it serves you right. As 1942 taught me, you can have a nice Christmas dinner without over-eating and it's much cheaper and better for you. I'll be seen as a kill-joy I know but it makes so much sense! Next week I'll take my life in my hands and enter the minefield of pester-power and Christmas presents. I apologise in advance!
Christmas dinner at Hey Farm in 1977.
