So the crux of the matter is... whatever happened to all those recipes that were toted out and created during the world wars? We all know that food culture changes over the generations, but just how much did the wars affect the kitchen?
Now you may be wondering what the inspiration for such an endeavour was- well let us tell you. On a misty, cold, snow-blown, January afternoon we began a ‘literature and food’ module at university. Why you may ask... well Jess saw it as a challenging module as she had never been able to combine something practical with literature and Carmen, a notoriously bad cook, thought this might be a way to open her eyes to the culinary arts.
So having ventured into the realms of Mrs. Beeton’s ‘Guide to Household Management’, we set off on a journey through the Victorian, pre war, post war and modern literary texts on cooking. Now, having tasted the many delights of these era’s one particular period-that of war time cookery, especially appealed to us. Thanks to the Imperial War Museum archives we were able to access war time recipes, menus and advertisements. The opportunity to blog about long lost recipes which we could personally find in these archives was just too good to miss.
So we shall say no more but tell you that this blog aims to recreate a series of recipes- in a textually chronological order- which we think will be enlightening... and also pretty fun to bake.We have lain out the initial recipes, in the way in which they are presented in each book. This will illustrate to all our readers, exactly what we are dealing with and furthermore will be useful to our arguments.The two of us have chosen different analytical perspectives, which we will use to talk through the day’s work.
These arguments are as follows:
Jess-- Is rationed or substituted food still good food? - She is interested in understanding why the presence of substitute foods has declined in the post war periods. Is this because they were nutritionally lacking, perhaps lacking in flavour or because once rationing was over, there was no need to substitute?
Carmen-- How does language and presentation differentiate from the taste and realities of the food? - She wants to find out whether war time food looks better than it tastes. Can the compromise of most ingredients in a recipe, really go unnoticed? Do authors substitute adjectives for taste? Are authors clear in their instructions? But most of all does it taste good, or is the general public being fed a diet of images and daydreams?
Now you may be wondering what the inspiration for such an endeavour was- well let us tell you. On a misty, cold, snow-blown, January afternoon we began a ‘literature and food’ module at university. Why you may ask... well Jess saw it as a challenging module as she had never been able to combine something practical with literature and Carmen, a notoriously bad cook, thought this might be a way to open her eyes to the culinary arts.
So having ventured into the realms of Mrs. Beeton’s ‘Guide to Household Management’, we set off on a journey through the Victorian, pre war, post war and modern literary texts on cooking. Now, having tasted the many delights of these era’s one particular period-that of war time cookery, especially appealed to us. Thanks to the Imperial War Museum archives we were able to access war time recipes, menus and advertisements. The opportunity to blog about long lost recipes which we could personally find in these archives was just too good to miss.
So we shall say no more but tell you that this blog aims to recreate a series of recipes- in a textually chronological order- which we think will be enlightening... and also pretty fun to bake.We have lain out the initial recipes, in the way in which they are presented in each book. This will illustrate to all our readers, exactly what we are dealing with and furthermore will be useful to our arguments.The two of us have chosen different analytical perspectives, which we will use to talk through the day’s work.
These arguments are as follows:
Jess-- Is rationed or substituted food still good food? - She is interested in understanding why the presence of substitute foods has declined in the post war periods. Is this because they were nutritionally lacking, perhaps lacking in flavour or because once rationing was over, there was no need to substitute?
Carmen-- How does language and presentation differentiate from the taste and realities of the food? - She wants to find out whether war time food looks better than it tastes. Can the compromise of most ingredients in a recipe, really go unnoticed? Do authors substitute adjectives for taste? Are authors clear in their instructions? But most of all does it taste good, or is the general public being fed a diet of images and daydreams?
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