Wartime Kitchen and Garden, Yesterday

[LemonBalm]

A bit late to post this because I think the series has finished, but on Yesterday digital channel this week there was a repeat of the 1993 series 'Wartime Kitchen and Garden' (originally BBC I think).

The series was on Yesterday earlier this year aswell.

WW2 cooking and gardening with two people of the wartime generation. Very interesting. Preserving, hay box cooking, compost heap, keeping chickens, etc, etc.

[fran]

I can't believe the original series was seventeen years ago!! I remember it well, I loved it. The same people also did the Victorian Kitchen/garden series. I have the books too, I don't know if they are still available, but they are really interesting and useful.

[LemonBalm]

'Wartime Kitchen and Garden' book is out of print, but I got a copy out of the library. It is very interesting and covers more topics than the tv series.

I am interested in WW2 Home Front, and it seems there is so much that is relevant and useful.

[indy]

Am also very interested in the home front and all related things including my furniture.. I don't have yesterday at home and was gutted to catch only the end of it the other day..looked for it on dvd on the tinternet but apparently is not available, apparently is repeated twice a year on the uk gardening channel so I will be watching out for it. Am also upset that yesterday has had a whole 1940's season on and I was unable to get it. Am hoping they will repeat it when I have freeview

[indy]

I feel that it is very relevant to the things we face today, I do have the books and dvd of Victorian kitchen garden and find them very useful indeed

[LemonBalm]

Am also very interested in the home front and all related things including my furniture.. ...

Hi, indy,
It's great to hear that someone else is interested in WW2 Home Front.

I am in no way, shape or form, a collector, but I have picked up a few actual WW2 publications. One was the 'Stork Wartime Cookery Book' and the other was a book about growing herbs, the author of which and her herb-farm being mentioned in the 'Wartime Kitchen and Garden' book.

The herb thing is interesting - have you heard of the herb committees? They were regional organisations that organised and undertook the gathering of herbs from the wild. The herbs were for medicinal use - so much medicinal material had been imported into Britain from Europe pre-war. 'Grow your own drugs'? Hey, we've been there before.

On a similar theme was 'hedgerow harvest' - does all this sound like what people now call foraging?

Recycling = salvage; reusing = make-do-and-mend; reducing = utility and "is your journey really necessary?"; etc, etc. But enough already!

Just like to mention an exhibition currently on at the Imperial War Museum in London - the Ministry of Food.
http://london.iwm.org.uk/server/show/conEvent.3167
My friend and I went and really enjoyed it.

[southeast-isher]

not food so a bit of a diversion but on the one show recently which i happened to catch they had a feature on children being asked to collect horse chestnuts for the world war so they could be used in the making of gunpowder instead of importing in.

[indy]

I have over 50 wartime cookbooks that I inherited off my gran and also pre war. I have lots that I use every day..well you know what I mean I have the stork book, I also have one from 1933 called economical cookery that I usea lot. I grew up with my grandparents so is a way of life for me and as I have already said I find that it is mstly very relevant. I am desperate to go to the IWM but am struggling to save for the train fare I hope to go this winter.

[citizentwiglet]

I watched them all on Yesterday - these been on a couple of times this year, so it's worth keeping your eye on the schedules over the next few months to see if they are on again. I was absolutely engrossed with it - and it was a real eye-opener in to the kind of practices my grandparents still used when I was a child - steaming everything in the one pot, with spuds held by muslin into the lid, that brought back some memories; and the 'invisible' bonfires to generate extra potash (although whether it actually did produce more was never proven, IIRC).

When you watch that programme, I think most of us would agree that - even when times are hard - many of us really don't know we're born.

[indy]

I absolutely agree with you and I think that there are lessons to be learnt from that generation and I am glad that at least here they are not wholly discounted

[seasidegirl]

I've only managed to catch one edition of this series and am dead keen to watch the rest (and get the book).

I think that possibly fuel was much cheaper in those days. On the programme I watched the cook made a leek pudding which looked lovely, but ...

She seemed to spend hours preparing this dish and I think this included about an hour or more steaming on the hob and then possibly more time in the oven. Was fuel so cheap then the cooking time was irrelevant? The leek pudding was a side dish.

Were they possibly time richer in those days (or those employed in growing and cooking) and also fuel richer?
Perhaps our modern technology like microwaves balances this?

Another thought I've often had about the war years, and before, is how skilled people were in those days.
Eg if you watch the war films like Colditz or about escapes they always seemed to have people with skills to solve problems. An engineer to understand tunnel construction, air-flow etc, a linguist, geographer, photographer and forger, tailor etc.

Strip the mobile phone from a yooungster today and they are bereft, useless.

My dad made a crystal radio and mapped the position of his dad, and all the rest of our forces on a map on his wall. He was six when war broke out.

[LemonBalm]

You've raised some interesting points, seasidegirl -

I think that possibly fuel was much cheaper in those days. On the programme I watched the cook made a leek pudding which looked lovely, but ...

She seemed to spend hours preparing this dish and I think this included about an hour or more steaming on the hob and then possibly more time in the oven. Was fuel so cheap then the cooking time was irrelevant? The leek pudding was a side dish. Were they possibly time richer in those days (or those employed in growing and cooking) and also fuel richer?
Perhaps our modern technology like microwaves balances this?

Actually there were drives to conserve fuel. Petrol was rationed. As for domestic electricity and gas, people were asked to be careful how much they used. In one of the episodes of WKaG they showed cooking a casserole in a hay box - a way of both saving on domestic fuel and leaving the dish safely cooking while you went out and about.

Were they possibly time richer in those days...

I think most people had even less time, especially in urban areas. Many people would have been involved in some sort of part-time ARP/Civil Defence activity e.g. firewatching. Also many women may have been in the Women's Voluntary Service, set up to support ARP. Also, ofcourse, there was the hours queuing for food stuffs. Some days there would have been no gas, or no electricity, or no water, because, for example, the water main had been damaged by bombing the night before.

Another thought I've often had about the war years, and before, is how skilled people were in those days.

I absolutely agree with you on this point. I feel most of the population no longer have domestic skills that many in the wartime generation would have taken for granted. Women had cooking and sewing skills. And men too had domestic skills that I think are now forgotten - many men were able to do basic repairs to shoes and boots.

[seasidegirl]

I think most people had even less time, especially in urban areas. Many people would have been involved in some sort of part-time ARP/Civil Defence activity e.g. firewatching. Also many women may have been in the Women's Voluntary Service, set up to support ARP. Also, ofcourse, there was the hours queuing for food stuffs. Some days there would have been no gas, or no electricity, or no water, because, for example, the water main had been damaged by bombing the night before.

Good points Lemonbalm. They had the same amount of time as now but just so much more work to fill it with.

In the countryside they had less of the above problems but as well as producing all the food they also had to look after the evacuees.

Good food was so much more valued then I'm sure though. As demonstrated by the hours spent queuing and the long slow cooking it was deemed worth waiting for.

A great deal of my own influences came from my grandparents who were employed all their lives producing food for their job.
He was the gardener and she worked in the kitchen. The actually met in service in the country house of a wealthy woman. What they produced in those gardens and kitchens (1920s +) was amazing.

[cocobelle]

Loved this when it came out and the Victorian kitchen, I think they lived so much healthier in so many ways than we do today. Sometime people today should 'make do' instead of being such a throw away society.