Surprising recipes that British Tommies lived on in WWI

[bushfighter]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11260112/Surprising-recipes-that-British-Tommies-lived-on-in-WWI.html

[tootrock]

The photograph seems to be WW2.

Martin

[Scalyback]

Western Desert sign would give that away. We called it something else in WW1.

[depaor01]

And...

"There's even a section dedicated to deserts [sic] with entries like jam rolls, bread and butter pudding and treacle tarts."

Oh dear.

Dave

[Wigwhammer]

The Torygraph aint not wot it use'ta be....

Also extracting the meat from the fat to make dripping

Although judging by what was sometimes written about the bacon delivered to the front line and the porkless tins of pork & beans, perhaps they did extract the meat first!?

Cheers Colin

[NigelS]

The Telegraph write up implied - at least to me - that the new book is a complete reprint of an original edition, but the publisher's own write up Click indicates, giving "Drawn from sources published by the War Office before, during and after the Great War (out of copyright), with original content and illustrated throughout with contemporary images.", that it might be a compilation of material from various editions.

I suspect that by saying: "An interesting feature of army cooking highlighted in the book is that the meat from fat was extracted to make dripping, which was used as an aid for frying and in the absence of butter, an example of how important it was to use every aspect of the meagre supplies provided" Hazel Cochrane of the publishers Amberley might be giving away her youth #. Forum members of a certain age will, I'm sure, remember this practise from when it was part of the ritual of using left overs from a joint of meat roasted for the family's Sunday lunch being used as the basis for meals, in a variety of forms, during the rest of the week.

# with the necessary correction to the statement required through Colin's observation above!

Looks as if there might be some other interesting titles to be found in the Amberley catalogue.

NigelS

Edited 29 November , 2014 by NigelS

[John_Hartley]

Wartime food related books seem to be quite popular at the minute. Andy Robertshaw has one out. I've also seen a reprint of a cookbook of the times and I suspect this new one may be a compilation of similar sources.

As for dripping, it was something my mother always used to do. Today, I save the fat from roasting a duck - great for roasting spuds another time.

And, yes, I'll be contributing yet another food book in February, when Pen & Sword publish "Bully Beef & Biscuits"

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=221467

[keithfazzani]

Dripping on toast was a staple at my junior school in the 50's. It was, and is I still believe, used for frying, particularly chips. It was also fat extracted from meat, not meat extracted from fat. It was in fact the fat left in the pan after roasting, it was by no means an alternative to butter. No one, or at least very few, used butter for frying until very recently, not the most effective fat for frying as it easily burns. I suspect few people even today would use it in preparing a stew. The best pastry for meat pies was made, then as now, using suet the fat from around the kidneys of an animal. As John has pointed out duck or goose fat, the latter easily obtained in supermarkets, makes excellent roast potatoes.

I think the rather poor accuracy and the application of modern views of cookery and diet applied to WW1 cookery in this book will mean that it will not feature on my "wish" list.

[Derek Black]

Dripping on toast was a staple at my junior school in the 50's. It was, and is I still believe, used for frying, particularly chips.

All the Fish & Chip shops in my town switched over in the 1980's to vegetable oil.

Folk of a certain age still bemoan this fact!

Derek.

[keithfazzani]

I read somewhere of a chip shop returning to the use of dripping for frying. I know that newspaper reports on medical matters are somewhat misleading, but I have also noticed an increased number of reports saying that animal fats are not necessarily the villains they have been made out to be.

[eairicbloodaxe]

Plenty of chippies up here in Gods Own County still fry in dripping. And lovely it is too...

Regards

Ian

[John_Hartley]

I reckon there are two reasons for the decline in the use of dripping.

BSE is one. Bad for business if, when BSE was around, you were still using a beef product.

And second, the decline in percentage of the population who are meat eaters. Again, bad for business to use dripping when, if you use vegetable oil, you can entice in the pastey faced veggie social workers.

[Steven Broomfield]

And...

"There's even a section dedicated to deserts

Oh dear.

Dave

The picture shows us - the Western Desert being one of them.

[squirrel]

See Field Service Pocket Book 1914 (with amendments 1916) Chap. 2 P 49 for camp cooking with recipes on p 50 and 51.