I haven't bent your ears about food for a while but I was reminded by Lucy Worsley about Dorothy Hartley when she did a programme on Food in England on BBC4 recently. I have always been a fan of Dorothy, I love her writing style and the pen and ink drawings she uses to illustrate what she is describing, they are beautifully clear and to the point. I first came across her when I read her book 'Made in England' but for some reason I never got wind of the book she wrote after the war, 'Food in England'. After watching Lucy's programme I went out and found a copy and was not disappointed, it is a brilliant tour of cooking through the ages and also good social history.
Before I dive into the reasons why we should take note of history and apply the lessons to the 21st century let me remind you of my opinions about modern attitudes to cooking. I have no time whatever with the excuse that modern people are 'time poor' and haven't got time to cook for themselves. The theory is that the pressures of modern life are too great and workers are forced to buy ready-made meals either at the supermarket or from take-away shops. My problem with this is that I was brought up seventy years ago in a house where, despite the fact that almost all food was rationed, my mother cooked for us and I can assure you she didn't spend hours over a hot stove. She came from the generation that knew how to make nourishing meals from basic ingredients with the minimum amount of effort. Her cooking was learned from women who worked 12 hours a day in the mill and so had to adapt their cooking methods so that they could prepare something quickly in the morning, leave it cooking slowly all day and have a meal waiting for them when they came home from work, all as cheaply as possible. This was not a new skill, as Dorothy shows in her book, this sort of cooking can be traced back to pre-historic days, people were really 'time poor' then as most of their time was spent in simple survival.
Add to this the fact that despite the government telling us that the inflation rate is falling we all know that this is not true as far as the essentials of life like energy, transport and food are concerned. Prices are rising steeply and there is no prospect of any relief, personal disposable incomes are falling and the cost of feeding a family becomes paramount. This where basic cooking comes into its own. For the price of one ready-made meal it is quite possible to feed a family of four with food made from the best ingredients. I can't write you an economy cookbook in one article but I can give you some clues.
The first tip is not to be frightened of going into a butcher's shop and asking for cheap cuts of meat. If you haven't done it before you'll be amazed at the difference in price between a couple of pounds of shin beef, skirt or oxtail compared with meat prices in the supermarket. They can't be bothered with this end of the market and all the good cheap meat goes into food processing. The next thing to recognise is that there is no such thing as tough meat, only improper cooking. The strange thing is that these cheap cuts, cooked properly, have far more flavour than the insipid joints sold in the supermarket. The secret is usually very slow cooking. If meat is cut up and simmered very slowly it breaks down into a broth and once it is tender, a few vegetables and seasoning brought to boiling point for twenty minutes means you have a pan of the best broth you can imagine.
However, if you want to get a bit more adventurous, have a go at one of the oldest methods of cooking there is. Pot cooking. You might say that all cooking is pot cooking but bear with me, this is a bit more specialised. Ideally you need an old-fashioned cast iron pot but any large saucepan with a tight-fitting lid will do. There are no rules, you can put anything you want into the pot.
Start with a layer of finely chopped onion in the bottom. If you fry this in the pot till it is brown, so much the better. Put in a layer of meat, the cheapest you can get and then build up layer on layer of vegetables, anything will do including potatoes and there is no need to cut them up, by the time they are cooked even the largest carrot will fall to pieces. Don't forget the humble swede and remember that parsnips add sweetness to the dish. If the vegetables have clean skins don't bother peeling them and a whole onion or two with skins will cook down and the skin will give the whole a golden brown colour. A few mushrooms packed in the joints won't do any harm. Season lightly with salt and pepper and any herbs you have about as you do the packing.
When you reach about two thirds of the way up the pot put in enough liquid made from a stock cube (or even better made from waste scraps of meat, vegetable peelings, the tops of carrots boiled and strained) to reach about half way up the pot. Remember that the liquid will increase while cooking. Then make a lid of what Dorothy calls 'huff pastry'. Ideally this is made with minced suet from the butcher's, salt and flour mixed with water (or stock) to a firm consistency. I cheat and use self-raising flour. Roll the pastry out to about half an inch thick and using the pan lid, cut a circle out. Put that on one side while you roll the excess pastry into small balls and pack them into the vegetables as well. They'll come out as dumplings. Then put the circle of pastry into the pan as an internal lid, pop the pan lid on and heat slowly till you have a slow boil. At this point you can either cook it slowly (and I mean slow!) all day or simply wrap the hot pan in towels or whatever you have to hand. This preserves the heat and keeps the cooking process going for a surprisingly long time. Old cooks used a box full of hay to insulate the pan.
When you come home from work all it needs is warming up. You'll find you have the tastiest and most nourishing meal you have had for a long time for very little money. The internal crust will have risen, absorbed the flavours of the cooking below and is a meal in itself! There is also a certain pride in having made so much good food so cheaply. All good cooks know how that feels! You can prepare this in the evening and cook it while you are watching TV. It doesn't need to go in the fridge if you haven't opened the lid. Just leave it on the hob to warm up when you come in the next day. This isn't magic, it's just common sense. Find yourself an old-fashioned cook book and search out other dishes. I promise you it's well worth the trouble and far cheaper than ready-meals. (The picture this week is Dorothy's illustration from her book.)
