Cool stuff our Great grandmas would know about.

[madmomma]

Just opened my yoghurt maker for the first time and was struck by the thought that before yoghurt makers, bread makers etc etc people would've had so many skills that we now don't have and feel we have to buy gadgets to do it for us. Like, I'm sure if I asked my Pakistani mother in law, she'd be able to tell me how to make yoghurt involving zero gadgets and very little time. So what other stuff along those lines is worth re-learning? Off the top of my head I can think of sprouting beans and seeds for bean sprouts, making bread without gadgets, repurposing old garments... Just wondering if anyone else had any ideas.

Dressmaking /sewing
Edible pastry from scratch
Plant medicine, how cool is that

Loving the idea of a North African FIL!

Some pretty impressive skills on this thread, particularly CMOTDibbler.

I can’t do anything particularly hardy or gruesome, but we make our own bread (without a breadmaker), jams, chutneys and pickles, grow veg, can sew enough to repair clothes. We’ve made sloe gin, blackcurrant liqueur and bitters. Grown our own bean sprouts. Tried yoghurt making, didn’t work...

We’ve had to do laundry without a washing machine, sweep the carpets wth a stiff brush, lay a coal fire and keep it going.

Some of this stuff is because we’re quite old and grew up without much money, but a lot of it is self taught (veg growing, pickling etc) because it’s fun and tasty.

I’ve made country wines (rosehip, dandelion, blackberry etc) and sloe gin. I knitted the kids fancy baby stuff and all their jumpers up to about the age of 8.
I’ve gutted and skinned rabbits and fish, made bread and pastry from scratch, rewired plugs and light sockets, painted, plastered and decorated, laid lino and carpet, replaced a cistern’s ballcock and removed and cleared blocked sink u bends. But now I’m old and tired and can afford to pay tradesmen, I do a hell of a lot less!
My granny, born in the 1880’s, used to knead a stone of flour (ie 14lbs) at once to make a week’s bread for her family. She pounded the laundry in a poss tub with a big wooden peg called a poss stick or dolly peg, fed it through a mangle and pegged it all on a line. She had 8 kids, 4 of whom died in infancy of diphtheria and pneumonia. I certainly don’t envy her life, however many survival skills she had.

my mother knew how to kill,de feather and gut a chicken ,as a child one day i was a bit shocked seeing one hanging on the kitchen door.

Feed a family of 8 for 6 months with half a sheep and a sack of tatties.

You don't have to buy gadgets though do you? I mean some things make sense, washing day used to be more like two or three days with the washing, mangling, drying and ironing. Thank goodness we have better gadgets these days or women would never have got out the house. If you're about to buy a gadget just stop and find out what the alternative is. Some will save you time, others won't. Many will depend on how often you use them.

A decent loaf bought from a good bakery is great, and it might be £3-5 but making your own takes time, and the ingredients might still add up to a pound or so. Foraging for say sloe gin is simple, but you do need sloes or whatever you're after and they aren't' always easy to come by. Pick your battles I'd say, yes our grandparents might have had different skills to us but they genuinely lived in a different world.

There are loads of wiki's on how to do stuff, if you fancy having a go at something then don't be afraid! And if you like it then do a bit more, or go on a course. I think we're intimidated to try things sometimes so a gadget seems safe. But really if you try and darn a sock what's the worst that could happen?

My gran can peg rugs but she can't use a smart phone. She doesn't get to see photos of her rapidly growing great grandson. It makes her sad, but she refuses to try the new phone. Don't be my grandma, try new (or old) things!

How to make the most of vacation time. Also she knows how to find a good deal on insurance and vacations. My mom is a walking mine of information. My mom also hates wasting food. As a child I had a pantry stocked with preserved fruit and vegetables for our family meals. My childhood was peppered with tips from her.

I'm very thankful I don't have to knit socks, though...

Technically, I know how to do a lot of this stuff, as I saw the skills in use back when they were routine in rural life, but I remain to be convinced that the world was a better place then. The information from other cultures IS fascinating.

Those days were fine as long as you weren't at the bottom of the social scale. The welfare state may not be generous, but it's better than parish relief and workhouses.

I can make bread by hand but it takes far more time than I'd be willing to spend on it. Also it wouldn't be freshly baked and warm for breakfast unless I got up in the middle of the night to do it. The bread maker is much better from my point of view!

I do grow some of my own fruit and veg, can sew well enough to mend things and can knit. I think preparing vegetables straight from the ground is a bit of a lost skill because it is more tricky than preparing ready washed ones from the supermarket and there are more bugs and odd bits to contend with. Especially things like Leeks, sprouts and carrots.

GGM
Rode
Hunted
Managed staff
Wrote beautifully
Played the piano

GM
As above
Mucked out
Ran a farm in the war
Drove a tractor
Plucked and skinned
Had a mind like a human calculator

Both shockingly bad cooks and didn't paint, draw or sew.

What fancy equipment do you need to make jam?

A wooden spoon? A pan? A clean jar? Pretty much the same goes for pickled onions or any other preserves.

I personally love my second/third hand bread maker because it's zero effort and my oven has two settings - off and hotter than the surface of the sun. But if the oven wasn't quite so recalcitrant, I'd have been happy to keep making it in there. And having it means the OH is likely to bung the stuff in and have a fresh loaf ready when I get home
especially since I taught him how to make bread pudding with the stale bits . If I had neither, I'd make flatbreads or stove top breads with the help of an upturned saucepan.

I also like the slow cooker because it performs the same function as a warming oven in the absence of a full sized one that works. The cost of the two together is still significantly less than the cost of replacing the built in thing.

I do think that learning to start and look after a fire is a useful skill which you can't learn if your only experience of fire is setting light to a disposable BBQ.

Growing plants isn't hard. Growing them well enough to guarantee a crop at the end and your garden hasn't been taken over by one plant at the expense of others, though, not always as easy.

Understand how to read the weather would be useful. It's handy to look up and think 'I think I'll bring the washing in' before the heavens open from a seemingly clear sky or shove a jumper in your bag when it's bright and sunny because you have a feeling it might get colder tonight.

The most important skill I think everybody should have is knowing when to say 'Nah' and get somebody who knows what they're doing involved. Thus avoiding bodged DIY, dodgy electrics, standing on wobbly chairs and overreaching to paint somewhere high up, broken bones written off as sprains, that kind of thing.

My grandmother born in 1896 was a milliner

There are no need for yogurt makers. It's so easy to make. You need some live starter first. Book your milk. Let it cool down until you can keep your little finger in it until you counted to 10. Then add the milk to a container. Add your starter. Cover for 4 to 8 hours depending how warm your house is. I use the airing cupboard. For 5 hours then check when set put in the fridge for 24 hours. Job done

I can prepare raw sheep fleece and spin it into clean spun wool and knit/ crochet it into clothing.

CannyLad Could you possibly print off some photos of her Great grandson for her? If she isn't up to date with technology it's hardly her fault.

Printed photographss are a wonderful gift for grandparents and I bet your Gran would be over the moon to get them. It wouldn't take much effort to do that.

My Gran [born 1910] would bottled enough summer fruits to last the whole winter...peaches, gooseberries, apricots.

Her bedroom was so cold that she would put trays of apples under her bed to use during the winter and they lasted well under there.

She would makes jars and jars of apple and blackberry jam in the autumn.

Before the advent of sliced bread she could cut a slice of bread off the loaf which was a perfect thickness [about 7mm] all the way round. The loaf would be upright on it's end and she would go in with the knife from the side. It always impressed me. And she could also carve meat from the Sunday joint into slices just 2mm thick to make it go further. To this day I don't like thick slices of meat.

She would also buy salt in a big block and smash it down with a rolling pin. And do the ironing with a solid iron heated on the coal fire...no temperature controls there, just good timing. It was the same fire which she toasted crumpets on for Saturday teatimes.

She could make rugs out of rags, which were colourful and didn't wear out. Wasting food/anything was to be avoided at all costs.

These are brilliant thanks for everyone's contributions.

things like hemming or sewing/changing clothes.my gran still says "yep today im taking in these trousers,pulling them up half and inch or move some buttons,ringing the waist in and I would.not.have.a.clue.

I can, and do, make bread and yoghurt! And jam from foraged berries, and elderflower champagne.

My maternal grandmother was from a wealthy background, with setvzbts before WW2. Although she was very intelligent (demon card player at least!) she described herself as “fairly ornamental”. She struggled with domestic chores, cooking etc after the war, but was much happier with her Aga than anything new fangled like a gas oven or microwave.

I only knew my Jamaican/Scottish granny as a very old lady, and she died before I left primary school. I bet she was pretty handy though!

My great grandma was a bit of a rebel. She decided during the war to set up her own businesses and was quite a success. She too recycled everything. Rag rugs made from old tights and sewed, knitted and darned. Played the church organ. Made mean pickles, chutneys and jams, and had about 20 bags of sugar or a huge bottle of vinegar and empty hard for this purpose in her pantry at all times. Country walks in autumn were always done with a basket for blackberries, sloes, crabapples etc. And she could bake so well too.

Blimey this thread makes me feel ancient.

I can darn a sock, make bread, make yoghurt, make chutney, jam, preserve veg and fruit, garden (but nit that well, I don't soend enough time in it)

I can sew, and remember my Granny turnign sheets sides to middle. Make an oven glove out of old curtains. Make curtains, patchwork,

make clothes.

Honestly, I rarely do most of these but I can

I didn't think it was unusual at all!

By the same token, I can change the oil in car and put up a set of shelves which are straight and firm, and I do all the painting and decorating.

I am 51.
I have taught my dds to do lots of these too.

I am not convinced most if them are that out dated

One tip from my granny who would be 110 if alive today: with big oranges they are easier to peel if you leave them lying in some v hot water for 5 mins beforehand. It’s true! Peel comes off quite cleanly. I guess in her day they didn’t have easy peal satsumas!

My dad (80) often tells me about caravan holidays he went on as child (to a farm). His mum would make butter by vigorously shaking a jam jar of milk. The memory always makes him chuckle because it was just so absurd. She must have ended up with a tiny blob of butter, but that was her holiday treat!

I can make butter, soda bread, I already do preserves. I can wire a plug, am a competent painter & can hang wallpaper. I can sew and alter clothes. I can repurpose shirts as quilts, I can't knit but I can do some crochet. I know how to save hay, milk a cow, gut and fillet a fish. I was shown how to kill and prepare a chicken for cooking but I'd probably not remember how unless I looked it up. So i'm not too bad really but am in my forties so some other skills mentioned on this thread probably were falling by the wayside before my time.