A Taste of Now and Then

Today I will be jointing up a very large chicken. Probably battery farmed and I apologise to everyone who is urging buy free-range. But as Delia says...poor people can only afford to buy the battery hens. And, living on a basic state pension, we certainly qualify as being poor. With the fuel prices rising and the council tax rising and the pension not keeping pace, things get worse and worse. All I can say is that the years of cost-cutting in the kitchen now certainly has paid dividends for at least we eat very well indeed. And comfort-eating is what we need in these times of ever-increasing prices.

We should always be prepared to experiment, as our mothers and grandmothers did in wartime. Here I give you a few recipes from that time, the first may make you recoil in horror, but apparently it worked. wartime rations, and who nowadays would even wish to sample them. Perhaps it would do us all good to have one day a month making and eating some foods from those times. We would then be able to respect a great deal more what we are able to eat today.
Eggless Mayonnaise:
1 small baked potato
1 tsp mustard
salt
a little vinegar
5 fl oz (150ml) light olive or sunflower oil
Remove the flesh from the cooked potato and mash together with the mustard, salt to taste and gradually add the vinegar, beating together until smooth. Last of all, slowly beat in the oil.

Eggless Salad Dressing:
3 tblsp evaporated milk
2 tblsp olive oil
good pinch salt
pepper (pref white)
a little mustard
1 tlsp lemon juice
2 tsp vinegar
Whip the milk until frothy, then beat in the oil very slowly, continuing to beat until the mixture has thickened. Add the remaining remaining ingredients and blend thoroughly together.

Mock Clotted Cream:
2 oz (50g) margarine (block type)
1 tsp sugar
1 tblsp dried milk
few drops vanilla essence/extract
Beat margarine and sugar together, then slowly, a bit at a time, beat in the dried milk. Flavour with vanilla and beat until very smooth.