by | January 18, 2013 · 8:03 pm

Marmalade


It’s a freezing January day and the greengrocer has delivered a large box of Spanish Seville oranges for my O level group to make marmalade. We’ve stripped the labels from empty jam jars and made a collection of the black haired gollies from pots of Robertson’s Golden Shred.

‘We’re going to work in groups and share out the marmalade when it is made.’

I’ve dusted down the giant aluminium preserving pans stacked on the top shelf of the larder. This is their first outing and I can see a problem looming towards me.

It’s Carol. Clever, stroppy, foldy arms Carol.

‘I ain’t sharing me cooking with no-one. How will we get a mark if we share! I ain’t sharing.’

Carol is hanging on in my O level group as she’s got nowhere else to go. No other teacher wants her and  the class despairs at her constant outbursts . They’d  love her and Vicky to toddle off to smoke and drink Maxwell House coffee in the station cafe.

‘OK Carol – you and Vicky make marmalade on your own. We must slice the orange peel really thinly like this.’

I demonstrate how to cut tiny slivers of peel,  leaving the bitter pith behind.

‘Put the pith, pips and orange fruit in these pieces of muslin, tie in a bag with string and simmer with the peel and water.’

Muslin, that delicate cotton fabric so popular with the Victorians. A bolt is stacked on the top larder shelf ready for wrapping Christmas puddings and straining curds from whey to make cheese. And today my London teenagers will be tying it in tiny bags to boil in a pan. Oh ancient tasks of yester year.

Carol is on the moan again.

‘I don’t want no pips or peel in mine. We don’t eat them things.’

‘Carol, the pips and peel  help the marmalade to set, otherwise it’s runny.’

She doesn’t care. She and Vicky will strut out of the room soon, off to meet the local smokers who lurk outside the school gates.

We settle into the gentle rhythm of slicing the peel. The rind bursts with zesty fragrance and a warm, pungent calm descends.

I give myself an inner pat. This lesson is going well.

Then Janice yells, runs to the rubbish bin and spits out a large lump of orange flesh.

‘Urrggh Miss, this orange is vile. Sour as anything. It’s off. Take ‘em back to the shop.’

‘Class, put down your knives and let me explain.

Seville marmalade oranges are bitter and sour. You don’t eat them. You cook them with sugar. The first marmalade was made in a factory in Dundee – they got a delivery of sour oranges that they couldn’t use so they invented a new recipe – Dundee Marmalade.’

I’m like the smart arse from Listen with Mother, only with a Midland accent.

Steam blurrs the classroom windows as we simmer the orangey juice then tip in vast quantities of Tate and Lyle sugar. Ah Bisto! The room smells delicious.

‘Please don’t lick your spoons class or taste!’

Marmalade may smell nice but it’s reaching tongue scorching temperatures.

I rotate from pan to pan sticking the jam thermometer into the bubbling mixtures. Sylvia follows with a cold plate for the wrinkle test. A spoonful is placed on the plate and if it wrinkles, it’s setting.

We’re ready. Hot jam jars come out of the oven and are filled with scalding, golden liquid. Quick now. Cover and seal it from germs with a circle of greaseproof paper and a crackly cellophane top tied with string.

The room glows orange -  floaty slivers of finely cut peel dancing in the gold jelly of our east London marmalade.

Two pots are different. Carol and Vicky have abandoned their sugary, orangey liquid which will probably never set and never deserve the name marmalade. But they gone down the cafe.

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by | December 4, 2012 · 10:25 pm

Peppermint creams – Christmas cookery lesson 1972


For days pungent smells of cinnamon and nutmeg have wafted out my cookery room as we mass produce mince pies for carol services and staff Christmas parties. We’ve had lessons making marzipan fruits, coconut ice, chocolate truffles and Christmas logs to take home as special gifts, but the most spectacular treats were the rich, dark fruit cakes stacked in my larder ready for their final shroud of marzipan and icing.

The class had strict instructions to decorate the top with green holly leaves and blobby red berries and to finish with a shiny red ribbon tied in a giant bow.

Jessica plonked a grubby, plastic Father Christmas in his even grubbier sledge on top of her cake. Even the plastic reindeer seemed to need a good scrub. She pulled a glittery, red tinsel band around the cake’s circumference., and it all looked very much like Christmas past. Jessica grinned with success.

‘We always have ‘im on our cakes, miss and decorate it like this.’

Mr Bush the headmaster came in to judge the Best Christmas Cake competition. I’m trying to show him that I don’t spend my lessons cooking meals for my supper, but I know he is not convinced. And Jessica with the plasticly decorated, rather common Christmas cake won. Some people have no taste.

For the last afternoon lesson of term, my class of noisy boys is going to make peppermint creams as a Christmas present for gran – or more likely they will eat them on the way home.

Gavin is back from his week long suspension and arrives late in bullish mood. I’ve been dreading the moment I have to start educating Gavin again. Well not exactly again. I can’t make any claim to have educated Gavin, ever.

‘Hello everyone, and welcome to the peppermint cream lesson. Get yourselves ready and start to sieve your icing sugar into your bowls.’

Peppermint creams

Gavin thunders down to my desk and towers over me.

‘I’m going to make rum creams, Miss. Don’t like peppermint. And anyway rum is more Christmassy.’

He eyes me provocatively and sways unsteadily. His right hand clutches a bottle of rum. Half of the contents are missing. I wonder how Gavin knew what we were cooking today. I imagine he grabbed the smallest boy, pinned him to the wall and threatened to throttle him if he didn’t disclose the information.

‘Tell me what she’s cooking else I’ll kill yer.’ might have spluttered from his lips.

Through clouds of sugary dust I watch the class busying themselves and I sense their nervousness. A confrontation with the class bully is imminent.

‘Gavin – get ready to cook and leave the bottle of rum on my desk.’

To my amazement, the rum is placed next to my pile of marking and Gavin ties his apron over his school blazer.

‘Gather round class – I’m going to show you how to crack an egg to separate out the white.’

Gavin has disappeared. Thank God. Perhaps he’s gone home. The bottle of rum looks out threateningly, trying to find its owner.

Cracking eggs to separate the whites is a delicate task and large clumsy boy hands frequently break the yolks and we have to start again. I sometimes wonder if this is a ploy to use the spoilt eggs to make omelettes at the end of the lesson. They go back to their workstations and sieve and mix icing sugar and egg white into a dough.

‘Now you can add a few drops of peppermint essence and some green colouring to your icing.’

A sudden movement catches my eye. Gavin rises from behind his table at the back of the room and stamps to attention. On his head is one of my large pudding bowls and his right hand is raised in a Nazi salute.

‘Miss! I told you! I am using rum!’

The group is silent. No one wants to be noticed. Especially not by Gavin.

‘Gavin – we can’t use alcohol in the classroom. It’s forbidden and anyway you are under the drinking age.’

‘Miss, you let the girls put brandy in their Christmas cakes last week.  Are you picking on me?’

Gavin puffs up like the Green Giant on the adverts for those tins of sweetcorn. Only Gavin is bigger. And not jolly, not green and not friendly. And certainly not singing ‘Ho, Ho, Ho.’

But he’s right about the brandy, and surprisingly quick witted now he’s drunk. But Gavin’s wrong that I would choose to pick on him. Not unless I had two beefy minders with me for protection and a clear escape to the room exit.

Gavin stumbles to my desk and grabs his rum. The rest of the group squeeze the icing dough, and roll and cut out shapes. A factory line of peppermint creams is under production in a kitchen silent with tension.

I must face my fears and deal with Gavin. He thuds his great body down in my chair and lets out a gigantic yawn. A quiet mumsy approach might work here.

‘Gavin – the room’s hot – you must be tired. Put your head down and just rest.’

Obediently he spreads his giant fleshy arms on my table, rests his head on his bulging forearm and begins to doze.

I turn to the class, industriously packing up their sweets and clearing away. We smile conspiratorially together. The mumsy plan has worked. Peace is restored. I have won. And next week it is the Christmas holiday.

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by | September 12, 2012 · 10:55 am

School trip to the butchers


We’re leaving school today. Not going far, just to the butcher’s shop at the end of the road. He’s promised to show us how to cut a carcass of lamb into the different joints and since we’ll be cooking some really cheap meat dishes, I need him to persuade the class that cheap can be delicious. Large posters showing pig, beef and lamb are pinned on my classroom wall, free from the Meat and Livestock Commission. The animals have cuddly faces but the rest of the picture looks like a chainsaw massacre. Their body parts have been hacked it into bits and they must learn the names of each cuts and know which pieces are tough or tender. We can’t afford to cook the tender bits, like fillet steak and pork chops, but we make tasty choices such as Lancashire hot pot, nourishing beef stew from skirt, and find many ways to cook beef mince.

Cuts of pig

Poster with pig cuts

First I must get parental permission so that my students can leave the school grounds.

No-one should trot up the school drive without a note. Well, teachers can go if they ask nicely, but students need proper written authorisation. I’ve seen the bands of naughty students skiving off through the fence at the bottom of the school playing field, but they’ve been too quick for me to chase for long, especially if I’ve got cakes baking in the ovens.

My note for the butcher outing goes like this

Dear Parent /Guardian

Next week I am taking my group to the local butchers to learn about meat.

Please could you give permission for me to take your son/daughter out of school for this lesson?

Please sign below

I agree that Name of student… can go on the visit.

Signed                    Dated

Miss Whitney Head of Home Economics

The week before the outing is tense. If I don’t get all the signed forms back we can’t go, as there is no-one to sit with the forgetful. I suspect that many forms are signed by students, just like their sick notes or the ‘Jimmy could not do his homework because …’ letters.

To raise the profile of my subject and get some school publicity, I’ve asked a photographer from the local newspaper to come to take snaps. I hope my group will impress him so that he will write about the importance of teaching boys and girls how to cook.

We snake down the road in an ordered line and gather in the butcher’s shop.

He heaves a lamb carcass onto the thick wooden block and sharpens his knives on a steel. This is manly, grown up stuff and my group are keen. As he deftly butchers fleshy chunks of meat from the large bones, the lamb is reduced to chops, shoulder and leg, and the cheapest bit that we are going to cook – the rather fatty but very delicious, breast of lamb

I wait in anticipation for news of our visit in the local paper. Will we make the front page? But what a disappointment. For all my talk of modern men and women sharing tasks in the home and family, the reporter has chosen to put us on page three with the sexist headline

‘It’s not easy for mum, is it!’

Underneath is a photo of my class smiling at the butcher and his dead beast. My interview with the reporter ends with a further piece of sexism:

‘Miss Whitney says that the idea is that the girls should get a visual impression of the cutting up of pork and lamb, in addition to what they learn from their textbooks.’

Oh no I didn’t. But it’s too late, and just reinforces the views that mum does the shopping and cooking, and the challenging questions asked by the dads of the future that day are just ignored.

One day, I’ll get things changed. One day!

Back at school Sylvia sharpens our filleting knives ready for them to bone, stuff, roll and tie a breast of lamb. The butcher delivers a pile of plump lamb breasts with strict instructions that they must be the same size and not cost more than 50 pence.

Each cooking place has a plastic tray containing a breast of lamb with a pink stamp on the skin stating New Zealand Lamb, which is the cheapest at the time. The boys jostle for the largest breast, moving from tray to tray like a game of musical chairs.

‘Stand still class, this is serious cooking. Stand by your place and don’t mess about!’

Boning meat is a very skilled task and I want no fooling around.

We’re using sharp knives, which are normally locked away, safe from harm.

Sylvia and I count them out and count them back in at the end of the lesson.

No-one dares to leave the room until all knives are returned.

I use my VERY STERN VOICE for this very serious task. The rib bones need cutting carefully from the flesh of the breast. They gather round.

‘Bert, watch carefully. You must only cut the meat off the lamb bones, not yourself. These knives are sharp and I’ll stop the lesson if anyone messes about. So no stupid behaviour, this is really skilled meat boning like the butcher.’

They set off as Sylvia and I patrol the group like lions watching their young at play, encouraging, warning, and keeping an eye for their safety. We collect the bones, fat and gristle in a large bin for Mr Davey in history to take home for his dog.

‘Spread the flattened lamb with sage and onion stuffing, roll it up and tie it like this.’

I show them how to tie the joint with string using butcher’s knots.

There are no quips today. This is impressive. No chat back. Miss is deadly serious and she will take no nonsense.

A line of neatly tied and stuffed rolled breasts of lamb appears on my table for marking. The butcher would be proud to sell them in his shop. Beside each one is a clean knife.

Then come up for their marks.

‘I’ll cook these for you while you go to your next lesson so they are ready to eat tonight.’

I don’t want anyone munching on raw lamb on the bus home.

They pack and go and once again the room is a culinary haven filled with the fragrance of roasting lamb, and sage and onion stuffing. It feels nourishing and nurturing and I know that these new skills will set them up for family meals in the future – and they might even pass the exam!

Breast of lamb with roast potatoes

Ingredients

1 breast of lamb with the bones in

1 packet of sage and onion stuffing mix

1-2 potatoes for roasting

Salt

Method

Buy a breast of lamb in one piece with all the bones still in it. Use a sharp knife to cut round each rib bone. Make sure you don’t  pierce through  the skin. Take out the rib bones in one piece. Cut off any big bits of fat.
Make the stuffing with a dried sage an onion stuffing mix or make your own from bread, onions and herbs mixed with egg.
Put the boned breast of lamb flat on chopping board, with the skin side on the board. Smooth the stuffing evenly over the top. Roll up the breast of lamb starting with the thin end.

Squeeze it into a roll and then tie with string. Rub the outside with salt.

Set the oven at 150 c, Gas 4.

Place the lamb on a roasting tin and roast the joint slowly for two hours, so that the fat melts out and the meat is tender with some crackling skin on the outside. Pour any excess fat into a large glass jar. Do not pour down the sink as it sets solid in the u bend and is impossible to budge!

Put the roast potatoes in after about an hour and baste with some of the fat.

Serve with some green vegetables and gravy.  Carve the meat by cutting into medium slices, lifting them so that the stuffing doesn’t fall out. Put in a warm oven to keep warm until ready to serve.

The most popular meat dish of all cooking lessons must be shepherd’s pie, which should be made from lamb, since shepherds look after sheep, but since it was cheap and affordable, we made it from minced beef. These days you can choose leaner minced beef to reduce the fat. In the 70s, we even fried the fatty meat in lard.

Shepherd’s pie

This recipe leaves out the lard I would have used for frying the beef and also the OXO stock cube. Tomato paste has been substituted for tomato ketchup in the original recipe.

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

500 g minced beef

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped (110g)

2 tbs tomato paste

1 carrot peeled and chopped

salt and pepper

Topping

600 g potatoes

25 g butter or margarine

2 tbs semi-skimmed milk

salt and pepper

You can use dried potato for the topping to save time

1 tomato

Method

Place the minced beef and onion in a large saucepan and heat gently until the meat begins to brown. Stir in the tomato paste, salt and pepper.  Add a little water.

Cover with a lid and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Boil some water, peel the potatoes, cut into quarters and add carefully to the saucepan of boiling water. Cover with a lid and cook for 20 minutes until the potatoes are soft.

Drain the potatoes in a colander over the sink. Return the drained potatoes to the saucepan.

Add the butter or margarine and mash the potatoes with a masher until smooth.  Stir in the milk, salt and pepper.  You could use dried potato flakes instead of raw potatoes.

Put the minced beef mixture into the serving dish and cover with a layer of the mashed potatoes.

Smooth down the top with a knife or decorate using a fork to make stripes on the top.

Grill the pie to make the top golden brown. Cut the tomato into slices and use to decorate the top of the pie.

History note

In the 70’s New Zealand lamb sent demonstrators into British schools and provided us with recipe books and teaching resources including large posters to go on the wall. Mutton was also on the menu.

Philip Harben wrote a leaflet New Zealand lamb helpful hints which told us

‘New Zealand farmers believe in producing meat which the housewife likes and there are over 15 million housewives in Great Britain. New Zealand livestock has been bred from the best British strains and is hygienically wrapped and preserved in cold, clean air, for transportation to Great Britain in speedy refrigerated ships.’

The brand mark New Zealand was stamped on different parts of the animal.

When the UK joined the EEC in 1973 it was still a major market for NZ sheep meat and New Zealand sheep exports were allowed preferential access as a transitional measure from 1973 to 1977, as New Zealand had voluntarily restricted exports. After 1977, meat exports were subject to the European Union’s Common External Tariff of 20%. In 1980, New Zealand agreed to limit sheep meat exports to the European Union.

Today more than 70 per cent of the New Zealand lamb sold in Britain comes from halal slaughterhouses  so that the New Zealand meat industry can sell its lamb in Muslim markets round the world.

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by | June 24, 2012 · 7:11 pm

Practical cooking exams in the 1970s


The summer term of 1973 brings the final test for my teaching skills – the practical cooking exam. I have to get 150 students to cook an elaborate and edible meal, with hot drink, flower arrangements and all the other exam tasks that they throw at us. This feat takes place over several days as each student is allowed their own cooker and sink, which is unheard of during the rest of the year. And I provide all the ingredients. The headmaster has agreed that since it is an exam, the school will cover the cost!
These are some of the tasks.

‘Cook a two course lunch for 4 people and prepare an evening dish for someone coming back from a fishing trip. Clean a pair of muddy football boots.’

‘Prepare a hot breakfast for a family of four who are going out for the day. Make a packed lunch and some cakes and a drink for them to take with them. Wash and starch some napkins.’

‘Prepare an evening meal for a family with a teenage girl. Make sure that the meal is rich in iron and calcium. Bake some pasties for a packed lunch. Wash and iron a shirt.’

On the day of the practical exam, I switch from helpful teacher to the role of THE EXAMINER. I march round the room with my clipboard, watching my students peel and chop vegetables, prepare pastry, bake cakes, biscuits and bread. I take off marks for poor cooking skills, messy worktops and general flustered bumbling.

They’ve had lots of practice at learning what loses marks. I peek over shoulders, open up saucepan lids, bend down and peer into ovens, and rootle in the rubbish bin and take off marks for food wastage.

On rehearsals before the exam, I bark out warnings

‘John – don’t cut away all that potato skin– use a potato peeler.’

‘Claire – don’t peel the apple with the cook’s knife!’

‘Alice, turn the pan handle in – someone could knock over the boiling water.’

‘Martin – use your fingertips to rub the fat into the flour – if you squeeze it anymore it will be a soggy lump’

‘Jane – don’t throw those bits of pastry away – make some jam tarts – we have to use everything – no wastage!’

Licking loses lots of marks.

‘Don’t lick your food – I won’t taste it if you do!’

Privately I love licking. My favourites are spoonfuls of fluffy margarine and sugar, beaten to pale creaminess for Victoria sandwich, and the foamy, whisked eggs and sugar which make a Swiss Roll. With just a dash of sweet Marsala wine, whipped eggs and sugar are only a stir away from warm zabaglione served at the Italian restaurant on Camden High street.

Savoury and sweet dishes have their own bizarre serving rules. Savoury flans and cheesy scones are cooked and cut with PLAIN rings and cutters. Sweet tarts and lemon meringue pies must have FLUTED edges. These are the RULES laid down in some Victorian kitchen and they are not to be BROKEN. Years later I am shocked when I see a Sainsbury’s savoury quiche cooked in a fluted flan case. This was an unforgiveable sin committed by the food product developers.

D’oyleys follow savoury and sweet rules too – plain d’oyleys for savouries and frilly ones of sweet scones and cakes. The penalty for the wrong choice – half a mark lost and a scowl from me.

On the exam day they work in silence.  Questions are for emergencies.

‘I feel sick miss.’

‘Just keep on cooking Angie – we can’t waste these ingredients.’

‘I’ve dropped my eggs on the floor miss.’

‘Dan, here’s the mop – clear up and start again.’

I only come to their aid if there is real danger.

‘Paul – can you put the lid on your frying pan quickly and so that it doesn’t catch fire. And take the tea towel off the top of the cooker before it catches light too.’

I deduct marks from the chart on my clipboard. Paul looks forlorn.

‘Please miss, it was an accident.’

I press my finger to my lips. No speaking, no excuses, this is the real test.

The exam lasts for  two and a half hours. That is a lot of cooking and cleaning. They must keep to time and follow their plan and produce edible food on the table.

‘OK class you have 20 minutes to finish.’

They gasp in dismay.

‘I’ve burnt the cake miss.’

‘Jack, just cut off the black bits and cover it with icing.’

‘My chocolate mousse is all wobbly.’

‘Mick – stick it in the freezer, quickly.’

They fluster and scurry round the room, boiling up water for the hot drink and tarting up the dishes with garnishes of parsley for savoury and sticky glace cherries for sweet.

And suddenly it is over.

‘Time’s up – present your food.’

Amazing pies with crisp, golden pastry appear hot from the oven.

Steaming dishes of perfectly cooked cabbage and carrots sprinkled with chopped parsley and topped with a knob of melting margarine.

Soft mounds of creamy mashed potato, decorated with a sprig of parsley.

Pineapple upside down cake with glistening glacé cherries and shiny rings of tinned pineapple. A jug of hot Bird’s Custard.

And a pot of tea with a strainer, jug of milk and sugar bowl.

And a rose in a polished vase.

And a clean pair of football boots.

They file out the room leaving sinks heaving with dirty plates, bowls, burnt pans and sticky baking trays.

Now for the tasting session.

Students watch this ritual peering through the outside windows. I have a tasting tray with knife, jug of boiling water, tasting spoons and teatowel.

The judgement begins. All dishes must be tasted – unless they have been made by LICKERS. My face remains deadpan. Once when I tasted a ragout of kidney, I realised the student had used icing sugar instead of cornflour to thicken the sauce. I remained impassive but gave the dish no marks. It was inedible.

For a thorough examination, pies are cut, fillings tasted, cakes are sliced in half and puddings relished. Are the vegetables overcooked? Has the egg custard curdled? Are the bread rolls crisp? Is the Shepherd’s Pie well seasoned? I poke and prod, taste and appreciate. It is delicious.

They have done us all proud.

The tables groan with food fit for a king or queen – after all there is no sex discrimination in cooking.

The marking is over and they surge in to photograph and fuss. Friends come in to congratulate and commiserate.  But mainly to eat. Then pack up, wash up, and leave with a wave and ‘Thanks miss – I enjoyed that!’

I have taught them to cook and they have learnt well.

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by | June 19, 2012 · 11:45 am

Studying Home Economics in 1955


This American film gives the low down on how women should learn Home Economics and discover how to cook and sew in 1955 and learn about running a home for their married life.

Quite scary and shows how things have changed!

How to be a good homemaker in 1955

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by | May 3, 2012 · 1:57 pm

Rhubarb rhubarb


April 1971 – I drive the mini traveller back to Kettering for free food from my grandmother’s garden. She forces pink rhubarb  under old, metal buckets, with holes punched in the top to let in light. These tender delicacies are only for the family but now she’s happy to let me pick from the huge clumps  which thrive on her compost heap. I cut armfuls with leaves and all.
Grandma is worried.

‘Jenny- rhubarb leaves are poisonous. You can die if you eat them.’

She tells me about someone who ate the cooked leaves as a vegetable and was so ill with stomach pains that they had to go to hospital. Grandma boils rhubarb leaves in water to clean her saucepans. If they strip your stomach in the same way that they bring a shine to her aluminium pans,  that could be painful.

‘Don’t let those children have the leaves. They could get into all sorts of trouble.’

‘Don’t worry grandma – I’ll tell them all about it.’

Grandma knows about London children. During the war, evacuees from the east end were billeted with her, and they thrived on her cooking and helped with her garden. She’s proud of her certificate from  Queen Elizabeth 11 thanking her for this service which she keeps in a faded envelope with its official stamp.

Back at my London school, I plonk my huge pile of rhubarb with its massive leaves on my demonstration table.

‘OK class – first to warn you – these leaves are poisonous. They can give you stomach ache, make you feel sick and some people have even died from eating them.’

The death story may not be true but it’s  a good start to the lesson. I have their attention. They are curious.

‘How do they poison you, miss?’ Bert isn’t usually concentrating this early in the day.

‘The leaves contain oxalic acid which is toxic. That means they are dangerous. ’

‘But miss, why can you eat the stalk  and not the leaf – why does the poison just go into the leaf?’

There is no Google search for the answer, and Bert has a clever point. I’ll have to ask the biology teacher later.

‘Miss, what do you have to do to poison someone?’

Ah ha! I can see where this diversion is leading. Bert’s after my rhubarb leaf mountain. We’ve just had the school acid attack when someone sat a boy in concentrated sulphuric acid. It burnt the backside off his school trousers and he had to go to Whipps Cross hospital to have his bottom checked. Now it could be the rhubarb poisoning scandal. And it’s all my fault.

‘Bert, I’m taking these leaves home, so let’s get on. Today we’re going to make Rhubarb fool.’

‘First we wash and chop the stems and cook them in a saucepan with a little water and the lid on until they are soft.’

I’ve learnt to give clear cooking instructions after many disasters. Last week I told Robert to boil his potatoes and he stuffed them unpeeled into the electric kettle with some water and clicked it on. We had the devil of a job poking out the mushy bits. I pass round a dish of grandma’s soft, pink cooked rhubarb so they can see.

Now for the  custard. There is a magic moment when you mix custard powder with gritty sugar and milk. Suddenly as you stir in the milk, the pale peach powder turns to bright yellow  – a chemical mystery which probably holds its truth in tartrazine.

‘To make the custard, pour in the hot milk into this yellow mixture and stir until it thickens.’

A delicious, golden, glossy custard magically emerges in the bowl.

‘Add your cooked rhubarb, some red colouring then whisk an egg white and carefully fold it in. Spoon into the glass dish and top with a glacé cherry.’

I haven’t  told them that the cochineal red colouring is made from crushed beetles. Imagine the screams.

‘She’s making us eat beetles! Mad teacher from the north! We ain’t eating beetles!’

Tiny bottles of artificial colours and flavouring line my storeroom shelves to prop up our culinary skills and lack of tasty ingredients. Red for rhubarb and strawberry tart glaze. Green for anything made with gooseberries or cooked apples.
Vanilla essence goes in sponge cakes, drops of almond essence mix with the semolina that we use instead of almonds for Bakewell Tart and the ultimate sin, rum essence, is dribbled onto rum babas or into chocolate truffles. How I long to taste the real thing.

They chop, cook and stir and thicken and my table soon has a display of glass dishes in various shades from pink to plum. Each on a saucer with a frilly d’oyley. Always a bloody d’oyley!

The lesson is over. And we have  all made a potion of rhubarb with enhanced colours and flavours which richly deserves the name fool.

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by | April 5, 2012 · 7:40 pm

Invalid cooking


Why, oh why do we have to teach Invalid cooking? Is it a spill over from Victorian days when women had the vapours and collapsed on the chaise longue to be attended by servants and nurses? If so, Invalid cookery ranks even lower than Awful Offal in educational pointlessness. We’re supposed to make our lessons real and relevant to teenage needs, but I’m teaching the skills of Mrs Beeton. And she died at 28 so clearly wasn’t a great success at making invalid food.

Tasks for the exams go something like this:

‘Plan a meal for an invalid. Lay the tray with a starched tray cloth and serve the meal.’

So not only must we make a meal that will slip down the sick person’s throat but we will starch and iron a traycloth, stick a flower in a vase and arrange an invalid tray with food.

As a working woman of the 70’s, I have little time for sick leave, and anyway, I’d be left on my own in my flat with a cup of tea. No invalid food in sight for me. Really serious invalids are hospitalised and attached to drips, providing rehydration and nourishment. And hospital food is notoriously disgusting.

O level Cookery tells me

‘The main aim of invalid food is to build up wasted tissue and give a supply of protective food’.

Invalids, it seems, start at the very sick stage with a liquid diet of beef tea and barley water. As a young child, when I was ill, my mother made me banana custard before she cycled off to work as a teacher. My grandmother would pop in and check if I was still alive, but I was otherwise left alone and we had no telly for comfort. If I was really ill, the banana custard had a bright red glacé cherry on top. If my mother did that  today she’d be accused of child neglect and struck off from teaching.

Onto today’s lesson. What shall we cook?

Cookery for Schools has a list of invalid dishes which fill me with dread.

Egg nog, beef tea, lemonade, junket, egg jelly, savoury custard, baked fish, cheese pudding, apple snow and fruit fools.

For some reason the examiners think white food is best for the sickly.

They gather round my table, hoping to learn something interesting.

‘OK class – you have to plan a meal of soft food for this invalid. Something they don’t have to chew. I’m going to demonstrate steamed fish, white sauce and cauliflower.’

‘Don’t invalids have teeth miss?’ Jessica is always concerned about people, and will make a good nurse or social worker, so this lesson may have some purpose after all.

‘Me nan never puts her teeth in when she eats.  Only when she goes out for Bingo and then she takes her curlers out and puts her teeth in.’

Bert is clowning again, trying to raise our spirits. I imagine his nan, reminding herself before she goes out.

‘Teeth in, curlers out, fetch the Bingo money.’

I have to get this lesson over with.

‘Look! Invalids need nourishing food that is easy to eat like steamed cod in white sauce with well cooked cauliflower.’

I show them a picture from the Good Housekeeping recipe book

‘But that looks like sick miss – who wants to be served sick food when you’re sick?’ Jessica is alarmed.

‘Look – we’ve got to do it – it’s in the exam. But first I’m going to show you how to make the junket.’

This is like going back a hundred years. I’ve never heard, eaten or seen junket.

‘Watch while I demonstrate.’

They like sitting on stools and watching me cook.  It’s a time for jibing and jollity and a chance to tease and test my patience.

‘Warm the milk to body temperature – dip your finger in the saucepan and when it feels warm, it is ready. Now add the rennet. That’s from the enzyme, rennin that comes from a calf’s stomach. It clots the milk and makes it set.’

The group is aghast. Why should they put the contents of a calf’s stomach into milk? Their mad cooking teacher has landed from Planet Pointless again, demanding that they use suffering animals to make inedible food that will be thrown into  nearby gardens when they get out of this crazy lesson.

The junket is poured into a cut glass sundae dish and presented on the pastel blue Berylware saucer with a frilly d’oiley.

Resentment is brewing.

‘ Miss, we ain’t making that – when do we move onto cakes and stuff?’ Alan folds his arms defiantly.

‘ Please class – it is in the exam – you have to know about it!’ I beg with increasing despair.

‘And why must sick people eat white food miss? I had mashed baked beans and Angel Delight when I had me tonsils out.’

Bert is right. Perhaps the Victorians thought coloured food was too much of a shock if you were sick. Would the sight of bright red tomatoes raise blood pressure?

Did green cabbage make them feel nauseous? The smell of it boiling for our school meals at nine in the morning certainly makes me feel sick.

We need to get this over with. I tip the cauliflower florets into boiling water, put an enamel plate with a tiny piece of cod on top, and cover with a lid to cook. Bert helps me make an all in one white sauce and the room smells of boiled fish and cauliflower. Just like teh school kitchens at nine in the morning.

I tell them the Rules for laying a serving tray for invalids, using the gospel of Cookery for Schools. I read to them as Bert cooks on.

‘When the doctor orders the invalid to have a light diet, the meals must be served punctually, as they are the main interest of the day. If the invalid does not want to eat at the appointed time, remove the meal and re-serve it later.’

Now that could make you ill, eating food that has been kept warm and then re-served. Imagine as your food is shuffled backwards and forwards all day and being told

‘Eat it! This is your main interest of the day!’

The invalid is promptly sick into a bucket, and their carer offers encouragement.

‘It’s OK. I’ll come back and serve you later.’

The white meal is ready and I arrange the cod and cauliflower on my blue Beryl ware plate.

The book bleats on with advice on how to lay the invalid tray. Some of my students don’t have a dining table but they know about trays as they use them for their TV dinners.

My invalid task must finally prove to them that I have landed from Doctor Who’s Time Machine. From an age long ago when we all lived on turnips.

‘Make sure the patient has all the accompaniments salt, pepper, butter and add flowers in tiny posies in small low vases which cannot be knocked over, or single blooms such as roses which can be tucked into the table napkin.’

Oh great. The school gardener with love me as his borders are raided for the posies to plonk on the bloody tray. Perhaps they can snap off some rose buds as they walk to school.

The CSE exam has one more rocky horror story for them to practice. We have to wash and starch a traycloth using powdered starch, blended with cold water and then boiling water. I can’t bear the screams of shock as they discover, once again we are practising homecrafts from a museum age.

‘First starch your traycloth. You dip it into this bucket of starch, wring it out and then iron it.’

‘What! We’ve got a Formica table – why can’t they eat off a plastic tray!’

‘What’s a traycloth?’

Alan is fed up. He loves cooking but this phaffing to pass this awful exam just takes the biscuit.

Please let this lesson end!

I haven’t got a traycloth so I starch one of my tattered teatowels instead. The iron is plugged into one of the black overhead cables which dangle from the ceiling. The boys frequently  swing these clonking cables in the direction of their latest enemy.

I read on.

‘We need a traycloth and napkin, matching china and cutlery, cruets, butter dishes and a small posy, and use a tray of suitable size and arrange all serving dishes so that they are ready for use. Tea pot and milk jug on right hand side, cruet etc on left hand side.’

So that’s a tray the size of a small table. And we’ve got flowers and food as well.

Gawd almightly!

I place the steamed cod and cauliflower, junket and a glass of water carefully on the tray and IT’S DONE.

We’ve DONE invalid cooking. But there’s still two questions for their homework from the wonderful Cookery for Schools.

  1. State six points that should be kept in mind in the choice, preparation and serving of foods for invalids. Give reasons.
  2. What differences in diet would you suggest for a) a bed-ridden elderly person, b) a convalescent from pneumonia?

I can imagine some of the answers.

Would anyone would like my cod and cauliflower?

Alan sums up the feelings for the rest of the class.

‘Na thanks miss, no-one is sick in my family at the moment.’

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Filed under Boys cooking, Cookery exams in the 1970s, Foods of the 1970s, Invalid cookery

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