Back to 1950s cuisine to cope with COL

It's still cheaper to buy a whole chicken (£6.60 for 1.3kg) than thighs/legs (£8.40 for 500g) at our local butcher. They sometimes have game in but currently only guinea fowl at £21 so perhaps not.
I could take a shot at the guinea fowl who bizarrely hang around our church on a small 1960s housing estate, but that would be cruel (due to me being an appalling shot, not due to it being inherently cruel to eat game). Or a whole jointed rabbit is £5.99.

Unfortunately, any savings from doing that will be instantly wiped out by the supermarkets putting the price of whole chickens up. After all, if people are going to be buying less chicken because they're stretching it to three meals, that'll affect their profit margins.

Same reason why lamb shanks are stupid expensive now, pork tenderloin is overpriced instead of a couple of quid and coley is nowhere near the cheapness that it was when it was referred to as 'fish for the cat'.

I would cook the bones to make stock as a base for soup. I've always cooked and eaten the way the OP describes. I love asparagus but wouldn't dream of buying it out of season - the air miles apart from anything else.

So you’re just on the wind up then! Why don’t you get a hobby.

Frustratingly though I did one reply on FB (not GUTG but a local page) as someone posted that they were absolutely desperate and couldn’t feed their kids… I offered to take them a decent amount of game, stay with them and teach them to prep it and put them in touch with people locally that would supply them in the future. Completely for free! I got absolutely torn apart on the page for being ‘cruel’ by people telling them to buy 2 chickens for a fiver in Tesco or go to Iceland. I despair sometimes!!

Oh hello @TheodoreMortlock!
it’s brilliant isn’t it.

Ha, I'm on there too @OrlandointheWilderness and would second that recommendation!

just as a thought if anyone out there fancies trying something different then do consider game - it’s generally very low cost/given away for free to those who will use it, local, free range and low fat. Plus it tastes fab. If you are willing to learn the skills like debreasting/plucking birds etc then there is a lot of meat for free or you might have to pay a bit for prepped. There is a brilliant FB page called ‘giving up the game’ that connects people with game to those who want it and it’s full of decent knowledgeable people willing to help!
it’s the end of shooting season about but there is still venison etc through the next few months and game birds for the next couple of weeks.
something to consider!

Re chicken, I’ve read more than once of people using only the breast and drumsticks of a roast chicken - and binning the rest. I suspect it’s not uncommon. Either a case of cluelessness or plain old CBA.

Sticking to local, UK grown, seasonal veg will always be cheaper. Forget the flown-in baby sweet corn, asparagus, etc. for a while.

I don’t need to do if for the sake of economy, but often batch cook minced beef with a good handful of red lentils, plus carrots, swede, etc. chopped very small. With a few additions (tinned toms/tom purée/garlic/spices/herbs/kidney beans it can then turn into bolognese or chilli - as well as the likes of shepherds pie.

Re chicken again, thighs are cheaper (and tastier) than the chicken breasts specified in so many recipes.

Re salads in winter, white cabbage is cheap, and sliced thinly is a good, crunchy substitute for lettuce etc., and unlike lettuce, will keep for ages in the fridge. If the outside goes a bit discoloured, you can just slice a thin layer off.

Cannot beat sausage mash and baked beans tbh.

My mum maintains that "old fashioned" processed foods are fine such as beans, all bran, Weetabix, suet, pease pudding (if you can find it)...

And since I have discovered that mash freezes exceptionally well with butter and cream added, I have it all the time.

You do need to add salt to your own stock, but it's nicer than bought cubes.
I can't see why people make veg stock from peelings but I imagine they don't get veg covered in mud, like we do, but ready scrubbed from the supermarket.

I'm sure you are right, just that I can see why people don't. On the occasions when I have done that, personally I didn't find the end result special. I expect you're a better cook.

I just put my boiled stock through the sieve. Boil for half an hour, sieve, chuck out the bones, reboil in a big pan till it's an inch deep, freeze in massive ice cube trays and use as stock.

We like a roast at the weekend but we now do pork instead of beef because beef is so pricey. I'm going to have a roast pork (something - probably not sandwich as we are out of bread!) WFH today.
We get a veg box and DH complains we don't use it all but I'm making a bigger effort to plan round it. Swede/celeriac/parsnips get mashed in with potato. We're having a carrot, cherry tomatoes (tinned) and chickpea tray bake this week as we will be getting carrots. So that's not very 1950s but it is cheap. It asks for feta but I'm trying to cut out dairy so I think I'll put in olives.

I'd like to think of some puddings that are more fruit based and not cake/jam roly poly. We sometimes have one on a Sunday and it's always apple crumble or stewed frozen berries (also not 1950s but can be cheap if bought in bulk, and more environmentally friendly than fresh).

It's the faff time, I think. To process a chicken carcase means picking off all the bits, then making into stock and then picking out all the little bones. I have done this, Waitrose makes better stock imho though unless you had a high quality chicken.
I can understand why someone might not choose to do that. Time/effort/money equation.

My man is retired, not particularly active - and on a diet, so obviously that helps! Of course, you can trim the chicken to whichever size suits the appetites: maybe 2-3oz for small children…. I do tend to buy those large packs where the individual chicken breasts often weigh up to 7oz each though - hence the trimming to size!

• normal eating !

Surely this is just nomrla
eafknb 😂 I don’t think people only ate their leftovers in the 1950s. What on earth have you been doing previously.. chucking out away??

I think I’d rather use leftover chicken in fried rice or fajitas than go back to 50s recipes. But I live alone, very modern of me.

Obviously it depends on who you are feeding and what job/activity they do but 4 oz chicken isn't a great deal for an active man, for instance. Love a bit of magic mince.

Hahaha Not in our house. Tbf my mum had grown up in dire poverty and herbs and spices just didn't figure.

Surely the cheapest way to eat is by taking inspiration from other cuisines that have developed in poorer cultures, with ingredients that are readily available in the shops nowadays- unlike in the 1950s.

How can roast chicken be cheaper than dhal, pasta or home made falafel?

I would argue that it's traditional meat and 2 veg cooking that is the most expensive nowadays. Most cultures don't eat massive amounts of meat for every meal for a reason.

A bunch of fresh herbs is about 60p in Lidl and lasts for several meals- you can freeze it (apart from basil, which is a prima donna).

I don’t understand why eating like that is 1950s. I suspect that the accompanying veg was things like turnip where as we eat broccoli and carrots which thanks to technology is available cheaply all year round. Do you buy canned and frozen veg? They get a bad rep but are just as nutritious as fresh.

Have you looked at the World Foods aisle at the supermarket? The spice quantities are far bigger for the same price as the little glass jars. It’s also fun to grow your own fresh herbs from scratch. Start with a supermarket (or even better a garden centre) plant, divide it into like 3 smaller plants and replant into 3 containers with some soil. The supermarket plants are overcrowded so they look more impressive in the shop but they don’t last because of lack of space, I can’t get basil to last years but have had success with other herbs.

Left over roast is my lunch at work on Monday/Tuesday. I look forward to it.

If o make bolognese or chilli I use half good beef mince and half soya mince ( Linda m was £1.75 a big bag at waitrose last week on offer) - my H actually prefers it.

My granny (born 1884) used all those herbs. She also used turmeric to make piccalilli.