Heritage from Home
About the Project Welcome to our second issue of Heritage from Home. This week we are focusing on food and drink. Many of the young people we worked with were pretty amazed at the concept of rationing. No one could really imagine it. Then Coronavirus made us all see for ourselves, with the panic buying in supermarkets. It took me one week to find toilet roll for my family! A friend walked to my house with her two babies in the end to gift us a roll. As food is central to our lives we will be looking at it over the next few issues. Rations this week and the black market next. We want to consider how to celebrate important events over lockdown and recognise VE Day. When life resumes as we knew it, or perhaps, as we will come to know it, all of this work will be part of an exhibition at the National Archives. All photos from the project with young people
If you would like to share any stories or memories, we would love to hear them. Please just get in touch with Louise. We can arrange for a telephone call or an email exchange as suits you. Thank you so much for reading. With love from Louise, Holly-Anne, Henry, and Sharon at Bounce Theatre.
Things to read Heritage with Henry
Nothing quite captures the spirit of ‘all being in it together’ like rationing. The idea that due to shortages, everyone would only have a limited amount of food compared to normal, so as to help aid the war effort. So many of us who didn’t live through that time are shocked and horrified at the idea of not being able to have as much butter as we’d like for our toast (as I mentioned last issue, a real passion of mine...I love toast), or be able to just get some chocolate or sweets from the shop for a treat when we feel like it, or to have the luxury of a full English breakfast. But that was not the only reason rationing was necessary. It was also to keep the nation healthy and fighting fit. If people are weakened by lack of food, it’s easy for them to catch diseases - Napoleon famously lost his Russian campaign in 1812 after his army was decimated by typhus and dysentery. In WWII, it wasn’t just vital that allied forces had enough food, but the home front too; factory workers and farmers were vital to the war effort, working long hours, and if they weren’t getting enough food to stay healthy and fit, the knock-on effect could have been devastating. In anticipation of this, Britain carried out a three-month long experiment, to work out whether they could survive on British produce alone, or if we would lose
the war to Germany by starving, due to lack of imports (pre-war, we imported two-thirds of our food). This experiment was conducted by Cambridge physiologists Elsie Widdowson and Robert McCance (or ‘Elsie and Mac’). Along with four students and Mac’s mother-in-law, they volunteered to be guinea pigs. British food production in 1938 became the basis for their diet: one egg a week (a third of the prewar consumption); a quarter of a pint of milk a day (half the pre-war consumption); a pound of meat and 4oz of fish per week, no butter, and just 4oz of margarine. But they could eat as much potato, vegetables, and wholemeal bread as they wanted you can see the beginning of the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign here - there’s no limit to what you can grow and eat from your own garden!
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Happily, these guinea pigs survived perfectly well on their ration - they felt fit and could still do their usual work, and were even able to manage two weeks hiking, walking and cycling through the Lake District to simulate the level of physical work the diet needed to sustain. The only downsides were that it took a lot longer to eat - especially wholemeal bread without any butter - and that all that starch produced a lot of flatulence, and 250% bigger poos (yes, they measured it).
The government rationed bacon, butter and sugar just as the experiment was winding up, and the final report was used to reassure the government that if it came to it, Britain could still be fighting fit and fair. In the event, rationing was always much more generous than Elsie and Mac’s three month diet - so not nearly as big poos! Still, this wasn’t to say people didn’t go hungry or fall ill during the war. In 2004, former evacuee Terrence Nunn told the story of how, when he was evacuated to South Wales, his foster-mother, a hypochondriac, kept the meat, eggs and cheese he’d get through his ration book for herself,
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and feed him nothing but watery stews, spam fritters and cabbage. What vitamins he got came from stealing vegetables from the local allotment that he had to wolf down raw, and he later described having malnutrition from the lack of proper food. Nunn’s experience wasn’t unique - hosts were often astonished to see how evacuees lived at home many from inner-city areas had never seen farm animals before or eaten vegetables. Jill Russell, from Worthing, described her family taking in an evacuee who mistook stew for porridge, and the Gloscat Home Front tells of an evacuee who, in London, lived in desperate poverty because of his father spending all their money on drink, despite there being 10 mouths to feed. All this and more no doubt led to the Beveridge Report - the popular report that outlined ‘five evils’ to be eradicated - squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, and disease. Indeed, the report became part of the postwar consensus, and was the basis for the NHS and welfare state, set up after the war, which we rely on so much today, especially with the outbreak of coronavirus. However, in the meantime, as alluded to earlier, many still went hungry, some stealing to survive, and rationing brought its own challenges - and opportunities - for those desperate for food, and some more enterprising citizens. Next week, therefore, we’ll be discussing the black market...
Memory lane
Letters, memories and photos from our participants As part of Things to do in a Blackout, a number of people kindly shared their memories. Here’s an excerpt of an interview with a gentleman named Keith, who is 83. Keith also spent much of his time volunteering with Anstee Bridge in Kingston. Anstee is an alternative learning programme for young people with emotional health needs. All of the artwork in this week’s issue is made by them. Would you be able to talk to us about your memories of rationing? Rationing, oh yeah, that was pretty horrific. Particularly sweets. You couldn’t get any sweets? No, not to begin with. But later on, sweets became more freely available. Because I thought I wasn’t getting my sweets, my aunt gave me a whole month’s ration. With that I bought humbugs in a tin. And, after two days of Christmas, they’d all gone bar one! [laughter] I saved that one sweet for the rest of the month, it used to come out, have a couple of licks, and then go back in. When I was younger the children used to buy me a tin of humbugs every Christmas! Did you eat any fruit or vegetables? Not very much in those days because they weren’t readily available. I can remember bananas
coming over – we didn’t know if we had to have the skin or… We hadn’t got a clue what to do with them! Did you eat bread? Yes. I do remember being sent to get bread when my father was coming home, which I was dreading because there was this funny man that I’d never met before… and I went down to the baker’s and it was a lovely crispy loaf. By the time I’d got home there was no crust on it! You’d eaten it all? Yeah! [laughter] I had a wallop from my aunty. Can you remember any cakes? Oh yes, she used to make some cakes. What about fruit? Did you ever have fruitcake or anything like that? Well I can’t remember during the war on that, but I remember after the war we used to have these Kunzle cakes - they had icing on, and they had some fruit in. I remember those, but that was really after the war. One of the things she (my aunt) was very keen on, and we didn’t get a lot of it on the ration, was cooking cheese. Cooking cheese? Yeah. And if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s cheese that’s been
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Memory lane cooked…Welsh rarebit cheese she’d do a lot of! Even today I still don’t like eating cooked cheese! A bit off the topic, but what did you use as loo roll? Can you remember? Newspaper, I think it was. So, yeah. Quite often there was nothing! Really? And we coped. I don’t know how we coped, but we coped. Each week we will be sharing memories from our participants. If you would like to be interviewed for the project please email louise@ bouncetheatre.com
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Things to write Creative writing with Sharon
Recipes from Our Histories We’d love to hear about the food that’s important to you. It could be a dish that your family makes, a bite to eat that’s from your culture or something that reminds you of a place you’ve visited. Send us your writing or a recipe we can share to louise@bouncetheatre.com Sharon’s Mum’s Apple & Blackberry Crumble: My favourite dessert in the world is my Mum’s blackberry and apple crumble. I like the tartness of the fruit combined with the sweetness of the oaty sugary crumble, although I always enjoy the crumble a bit more than the fruit. If I can have cream or ice cream with it too then it’s even better! The crumble reminds me of Friday night dinners when I was growing up. We would light the candles for Sabbath as we are Jewish, eat some challah bread, have our main meal and then it was crumble time. We’d usually watch Friends as we ate our crumble. I also loved going to bed later than normal as I didn’t have school the next morning. I called it my ‘Friday Night Feeling’. This dish has a special meaning as we would pick the blackberries from bushes near our house. I went blackberry picking with my mum or with my friend, Faith. Faith and I used to pretend we were part of a documentary about people who were blackberry-pickers. We even made up our own shorthand terminology, describing the berries as being ‘SRs’ (Soft and Ripe) or in good or bad ‘Clusters’. Even now at the end of each summer I’ll still head out with a plastic tub and pick some berries for my own version of the crumble. I’m not sure I make it as well as my mum does but I’m enjoying the attempts!
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Recipe Ingredients The Filling: 3-4 Bramleys (or other cooking apples) peeled and sliced 150g blackberries or other red fruit Lemon juice, water, cinnamon, and about 50g of brown sugar The Crumble Layer: 140g flour 75g porridge oats 160g brown sugar 130g margarine or butter Method: I use a large ceramic dish. Put the blackberries in the bottom, add the water (about 2 fl ounces), 50g sugar and sprinkle with cinnamon. Add the sliced apples and sprinkle them with lemon juice. For the crumble, mix all the other ingredients in a large bowl and rub together until crumbly. Add more flour if it is too fatty. Put the crumble on top of the fruit. Cook at 375/190 degrees for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown and the apples are soft. This is enough for 8-10 portions. Serve with cream, ice cream, or custard!
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Things to make Art with Holly-Anne
Changing the Face of Age Whilst we remain in lockdown people naturally worry about our nations’ mental well-being. Yet, we are also inspiring stories of strength. From Captain Tom’s astonishing achievement for the NHS through to the older people we heard about brightening up lockdown by drinking cocktails and Baileys from their Easter eggs. Before lockdown we were working with young people from Anstee Bridge. All of the young people there were already battling mental health issues due to trauma. We have been keeping in touch with them over the last few weeks, setting creative tasks. This week they were taking photographs of their food.
If you have a moment this week, we would love for you to share a story with them. It could be through a photograph of something you’ve eaten creatively staged like Holly-Anne’s, a letter with a life story or a good joke! Anything that might lift the spirits of a 16 year old who might really be struggling at the moment - your wisdom, experience and humour would really brighten up their day. All items can be sent to louise@ bouncetheatre.com. We will distribute them to Anstee Bridge students to let them know people care!
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Things to make Spot the difference How good are you at spotting subtle differences? Test your eyes and spot the difference in these pictures containing foods traded on the black market during WW2.
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TOP TIPS
How to Make Your Food Go Further
• Store open jars of paste or sauce upside down to stop the contents from going mouldy.
In a time when we can’t get to the shops as much, we’re exploring how we can reuse our waste and make our food last longer. We’ve written some top tips below and if you have any of your own then we’d love to hear from you. Please email louise@ bouncetheatre.com
• Use up your stale bread to make crunchy breadcrumbs or add it to a casserole.
Top Tips • Make an inventory - have a look at what you’ve already got in your cupboards and freezer and make a plan for what you can make in the week ahead. • Organise your freezer - so you can make more space if you need to. Bulk cooking and then freezing portions is a great way to get the most out of what you’ve got!
• Reuse vegetable and fruit peel: Many veggies, like beetroots, carrots and radishes, come with their leafy tops still attached — and instead of throwing them out, you can wilt them down and add them to any sauce. You can also put them into a blender and use them to make pesto if you’re feeling inspired. • If you find yourself with leftover apple peel then add it to hot water to make a fruit tea.
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TOP TIPS • Throw potato peel in with a little olive oil and seasonings like salt and pepper and cook them in the oven at 200C for 15-20 minutes. You can do the same with cauliflower leaves!
Old Fashioned
• Roasted broccoli stalks are also delicious! You can add them to slaws, salads and stir fries, just make sure to peel their tough outer skin.
1. Metropolitan 2. White Russian 3. Manhattan 4. Cuba Libre 5. Amaretto Sweet and Sour 6. Margarita 7. Singapore Gym 8. Pina Colada 9. Mai Tai 10. Penicillin 11. Daiquiri 12. Bellini 13. Joan Collins 14. Moscow Mare 15. Caipirinha 16. Green Lagoon 17. Aspirin Spritz 18. Americano 19. Bloody Mandy 20. Cosmopolitan 21. Negroni 22. Dry Martini 23. Staten Island Iced Tea
Can you spot which of these cocktail names are real and which are fake? Answers below!
• If you find yourself with some last bits of jam add it to equal parts of oil and vinegar to make a great salad dressing! • Use your leftover fruit peels and strawberry tops to make a delicious jam. A quick recipe for this is: combine 500g of your fruit of choice with 30g of sugar, 2tbsp of lemon and a pinch of salt in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat and mash slightly with a potato masher or fork. Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer, stirring continuously until the mixture is jammy and thick approximately 20 minutes.
(Fakes are: 1, 5, 7, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 23)
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