General Chat

I was born just before WW2 and my experiences were similar to those of Lavender.

When I married in late fifties I carried on in the same way. OH used to watch tv Saturday afternoon and keep an eye on children whilst keeping an eye on the bowls containing marg etc warming near the fire and creaming the butter and sugar.
I filled the tins for the week ahead.

In the summer I knitted their winter woollies whilst during the winter - it was summer cardigans on the needles. I sewed most of their clothes, including coats as well as my own.

I always had satisfaction out of making a meal out of nothing e.g. any leftover dishes containing meat - add a bit of this and a bit of that, make some pastry and heigh ho - pasties (with chips for a treat) making a meal.

Home economy seemed to disappear in early mid seventies. I taught both son and daughter to cook/bake and again g.daug and g.son to bake.

Perhaps free classes on catering for those who wished to learn could be available to those on benefits and help them to stretch the pennies.

no, not at all even though my granny was a chef. One of my parents was a copper and the other a nurse working all hours and in any case term time I was away at school. Sometimes during holidays I stayed with rellies in Islington and Seven Kings where I picked up the institutions of great British cooking and boring tv. Petticoat Lane market on a Sunday though was a good antidote to boredom.

I did like a pie with the football at Highbury on Saturday afternoons. Come to think of it London food was not so bad ... jellied eels, pigs trotters, pies & mash, faggots, pease pudding, black pudding. But I cannot remember anybody cooking it you went to the pie shop etc.

Most of the places of my youth are long gone more's the pity though the old London still lurks here and there in secret pie shops dark bars with wooden floors and pickled eggs and even a few caffs. Ah the pleasure of a full breakfast at 7 am! I liked London better foggy and black. The Russian and Chinese property speculators richly deserve what's coming to them.

I can assure you that the French don't get by on soup for their evening meal! Quelle idee. Unllike the UK French street markets from Paris suburbs to provincial towns are alive and well selling a vast variety of fresh food rarely seen in England. The French don't seem to mind spending a lot of time cooking from scratch while it is rare for a meal to be eaten in less than an hour. Sunday lunch def. 2 hours. zzzzzzzzzz

My OH, a professional patissiere, just laughs when she sees "Great British Bake Off". The first time she thought it was a blag and couldn't be serious.

next year be kind to yr tummy and spend a week in France - all you need is a gite and a recipe book.

<3

Each to their own Rollo - I couldn't afford to send my children away to school - but then again that is not why I had them.

I also in midlife took up a new career of designing cakes anything from christening to wedding (never made two alike) incorporating the bridal theme. I made bouquets in sugar paste to match the bridal one. I am another who does not waste time watching tv baking programmes and as for the American ones - words fail me.

Allotments are much in demand over past 20 years with long waiting list - usually waiting for dead man's shoes.

I never ever saw my father go to a pub. My maternal g.ma was a professional chocolatier. (Amended from confectioner)

The soup was only the starter, Rollo haha! My french grandmother was rarely to be seen unless huddled over a bowl of soup made from a chicken carcass and vegetables, spoon in one hand, a crust in the other. She always said she was unable to eat her soup without a piece of bread.

Many vegetables were grown on a vegetable plot down the side of the garden, we also had a box of vegetables from my grandmother's greengrocery business (I guess it was stuff going over).

How lovely to have been able to knit your children's jumpers and cardigans, Chris!

And sewing coats, too. That must have been a real challenge. I used to love dressmaking, and do lament the passing of time that has made fabrics so expensive that it doesn't pay to sew garments any longer.

My sewing machine is 36 years old, a bit clunky now. I've been moaning about it, thinking it might be nice to do some stitching with my granddaughters soon.

However!! I've absolutely no idea what I might be receiving for Xmas, but I did find an empty cardboard box with the word 'Singer' printed on the side whilst looking for a box to send through the post.

I need to start rehearsing my, 'Ooooooh, how lovely, I could never have guessed'!!! ;-) :-D

My spare freezer is full of thing that I or friends have shot. Rabbits, pheasants, partridges, ducks etc. Mind you, I still prefer a nice piece of steak. My daughter, a vegetarian, went ballistic when she couldn't get in the shower because of a deer hanging in there. Bob

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

priceless

I used to go into M & S/Lewis etc., especially when looking at girls clothes, summer dresses especially and then go straight to the market, bury material and make similar!

My mother had kept many of my dad's poplin shirts and I managed to get a pattern of a tailored shirt for boys. Son was about 3yrs and I was stopped in Salisbury by a lady asking where I had bought his Beatles suit and the proper shirt - she was most upset!

Until he was about six when I ran out of shirts - of dad's shirts clothed his g.son!

I have two my Elna which is about 43 yrs old (just counted back) and another used once. Went to Singers for a new pair of scissors OH with me and he coaxed me into buying a rather expensive new machine I used once.

It is very difficult to shoot wild duck. They are easy enough to get close to for grockles feeding them bread but they get all shy if they see a gun and disappear. The usual method is a duck punt at some ungodly hour of the morning. For sure they taste a whole lot better than farm ducks though nowhere near as much meat. OTOH some people from (deleted) just throw a net ...

A deer takes a while to hang and you need some skill to butcher it. There are all sorts of regulations unless it is for yr own consumption. A whole deer ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OuXDYyqCnA

If we had chicken for Sunday dinner, we had chicken curry for Monday dinner.
I used to pick the scant remains from the (already picked) chicken carcass whilst watching Whacky races. This was thwarted when my elder brothers came home from boarding school - they were bigger than me, and there were two of them.
Mum use to knit our jumpers, and, occasionally (unfortunately) our socks!

Likewise, I sewed my own maternity outfits, knitted outfits for my babies, and jumpers for them when they were older (never socks) - but I didn't go out to work full time then.
Being an agricultural worker (pre children), and my OH being an agricultural engineer at the time, we regularly ate pheasant, shot on the estate, plus the odd goose the gamekeeper had killed, and our own ducks, killed by my own fair hand, out of sight of the 'main brood'.
Personally, I prefer anything fresh, not hung. We also drank unpasteurised milk.

My mum was a very good cook, so good that, when we four children were grown up, she did a cordon bleu course - and passed with flying colours. No-one could make a lemon meringue pie like her. :-D

I eat a lot of venison and wild boar now - there's a stall on the market - based in Butts Ash (edge of the New Forest, near where one of my brothers lives). He saves offal for me, which has always been my favourite. Apparently, I'm the only customer who asks which variety of deer it comes from. This is because I find some Red Deer offal too rich :-S But I'm not a food snob - I just know what I like, and, quite frankly am peed off that it's sooooo difficult to get tripe!!! It's been at least 3 years since I've had some :-(

Oh Maggie - not tripe. My Dad loved it and would often have it for supper - Mum cooked it in milk and onions. I was coaxed regularly but never succumbed.

Chris, we (my sister and I) always thought mum cooked it in milk - with onions and carrots, but it was never as good as mums. We found out, about 3 years ago, that she cooked it in seasoned water - then added cornflour! :-S - so we didn't even gt the benefit of milk!

We desperately want to try this way of cooking it - but haven't been able to find any tripe :-(

http://www.lfbmeats.com/beef.html

excellent family butcher has tripe properly prepared for humans

Tripe and onions French style
Overall timing 1 hour 50 minutes

ingredients to serve 4
1 Large carrot
1 1/2 lb (700 g) Onions
2 Stalks of celery
3 pints (1.7 litres) Cold water
Bay leaf
6 Peppercorns
1 tbsp Lemon juice
1 1/2 lb (700 g) Dressed tripe
3 oz (75 g) Butter
Salt and black pepper
2 tbsp Chopped parsley
2 tbsp White wine vinegar

method

1. Peel and chop carrot and one of the onions. Trim and chop celery. Put into a saucepan with water, bay leaf, peppercorns and lemon juice. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain and return to pan.

2. Cut tripe into pieces. Place in pan with stock and bring to the boil. Skim off any scum, cover and simmer for 1 1/2 hours till tender.

3. Peel and slice remaining onions. Melt butter in a frying pan, add the onions and fry gently till golden.

4. Drain the tripe thoroughly, discarding the stock, and cut into thin strips. Add to the onions with plenty of seasoning and fry over a moderate heat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the parsley and vinegar and mix lightly. Season to taste and pour into a warmed serving dish. Serve immediately with crusty bread.

yummy, cheap

:-)

Thank you for that recipe, Rollo, though not the way we cook it in our family - we tend to just poach and not fry :-D

Also, no 'real' butchers within walking distance of my home.
However, as I said, as soon as either my sister or I find a butcher and remember the tripe, we shall be cooking it using our family recipe

It was a fallow deer that nearly did for me in 2003. I was dragging a heavy beast that I had just shot, to the edge of the field, when I had this terrific pain in my chest. Fortunately my mobile phone had a signal, but the ambulance crew were not too pleased about driving across a farmer's field to get me. I have since given up shooting big stuff, I am getting too old for it. Bob

Why do people just talk about fields any more? There are not many about that do not belong to a farmer.

True, Sharron, but the venison I eat comes from the New Forest.
Lots of space for people/ponies/pigs/cows/deer to walk. :-D

Talking of pigs in the New Forest.

Most years, this being an exception, we go off down to the forest during the Pannage and we have never yet seen a pig there.

Try Fritham way. There's also an excellent pub there - The Royal Oak.
We were there one year when a woman strolled in and announced that a sow was giving birth in the ditch.
Bloke at the bar said s*ddit she's early. Disappeared for half an hour, then retuned to say 'she'd' had 6 piglets. :-D

Have to admit to sometimes going through oak woods during pannage and not seeing one pig. Remind me to let you know next year, were they've been 'spotted' - friend goes out to various parts of the Forest at least 3 times a week.

Aha, that will be why we haven't seen them. We usually go much further south, round Brock and Lyndhurst and Beaulieu where the donkeys and cattle seem to congregate.