A changing diet

Food in the first half of the century was very different to today's fare.

There were no fridges or deep freezers, so local produce was the order of the day, the only way to store meat and some vegetables long-term was to salt them in a slate trendle (a round or oval tub).

Jams and jellies enabled fruit to be enjoyed all year round.

Milk, cream and butter were produced locally on the farms. Bread was usually home made.

Breakfast
Porridge, broth, bread and jam, bread and milk, tea or coffee, cocoa, fatty bacon, eggs, fried bread, fried potatoes

Lunch (taken at about 11am)
Tea, bread and cheese, bread and butter, cake

Dinner (taken at about 1pm)
Beef, pork, mutton, chicken, rabbit, stew, herrings (in season), sausages, hogs pudding
Apple pie, apple dumplings, apple sago, rice pudding, junket (all with cream)

Tea (at about 6pm)
Potato 'Teddy' pasty, meat pasty, egg and meat pasty
Apple tart, egg custard, currant rolls, bread and butter, bread cream and jam (or syrup), saffron cake, buns, home-made biscuits

Beans, peas, cabbage, beetroot, potatoes, turnips, rhubarb, strawberries and raspberries were the major garden crops.

Potatoes and turnips were also grown in fields locally.

Blackberries were plentiful in season and were used for tarts, jam and jelly. A number of houses had orchards containing apples and pears - a few made cider.

Farmers usually reared pigs. Farm workers and many cottages would rear a couple of pigs every year for home consumption. Many people kept chicken, geese and ducks - so eggs were always plentiful.

Cooking was usually done using a black stove, known as the Bodley, and a Clome oven. Later oil or bottled gas cookers became available. Electricity was only used for lighting in the village and on a few farms.

Rayburn, Aga and Esse stoves were used to heat water and for cooking.

Local grocers supplied sugar, salt, rice, yeast, baking powder, sago, syrup, dried fruit and tinned fruit.



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