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.

why would you make your own jam? You know they sell it in Asda, right?

I can do lots of these things - make jam with foraged fruits, make bread, gut & fillet a fish, rear chickens, basic sewing & mending (am slow but can do it) - but I consider these to be basic skills. I have taught my DS1 (10) to do most of them, too. I can also light a fire & keep one going & clean it out afterwards! I'd love to learn to do more.

I do think, though, that these skills are becoming more popular & sought-after now. People in my village certainly are crying out for homemade jams & homegrown veg & are moving towards beeswax wraps etc instead of cling film. A lot of the old ways are better for both environment & health.

why would you make your own jam? You know they sell it in Asda, right?

1. my fruit is all organic
2. there are no preservatives, additive, etc in my jam, just fruit and sugar
3. I like it with chunky fruit, not puree
4. it tastes better, less bland

Having said that, it doesn't always taste better! That is one of the fun things about doing it yourself, you are never 100% sure what will happen.

why would you make your own jam? You know they sell it in Asda, right?

They don't tend to sell organic forest fruit, lemon and elderflower made with just the plants/fruit and sugar, though. And if they did, I would expect it to cost significantly more than the 45p spent on sugar and half a lemon, never mind the £6.00 in bus fares there and back.

I don't suppose they sell Organic Rhubarb and Angelica compote, either. Or Vegan Organic Beetroot & Lovage soup for the cost of a single stock cube. Or Rosehip Syrup made from a plant that will also provide the petals for my confetti and decorated a fruit salad I gave my OH on the first morning after we'd spent the night together.

On the rare occasions that my apricot tree bothers to produce any apricots, the jam I make is way better than any apricot jam you can buy (probably because the slow grown English apricots end up with more flavour than the sweeter ones from more reliable climates).
And cheaper too, of course, since I am only paying for the sugar.

First jam I ever made was with foraged blackberries to Delia's bramble jelly recipe. It was absolutely amazing. Once you've made your own jam, shop bought stuff doesn't quite cut it. Only expensive stuff like Bonne Maman even starts to come close.

Saying that, I've also bought some pretty horrid home made jam from our church fete.

I knit, sew, crochet, make rag rugs, macrame, tie-dye. I can make pottery, too. Make yoghurt, butter, have a sourdough and Amish friendship bread starter I've been using for years, make my own soap and can make lye if need be. Making vinegar isn't hard, either. I can fish and hunt as well and most of all, start and maintain fires.

GGM apparently worked as a midwife for a while. This was the early 1900s in the expanding East End. I don't think she had qualifications or registration (I'm not sure if they would even have legally been required at the time)--presumably her 'knowledge' came from having had at least 10 kids herself. As DD would quite likely have died without hospital birth/ EMCS, I'm quite happy not to go back to that!

I do a lot of the foraging, make-your-own stuff, re-purpose old stuff etc....and at 45 am generally seen as a bit of a weirdo for it.

In terms of easy, cheap things to learn that are applicable to most people...I started looking into live sauerkraut as my digestion seemed to be permanently ropey. You can pay nearly £5 for refrigerated stuff! Or you can pay pennies for a cabbage, some salt and some cling-film, and spend a grand total of 15 minutes cutting and mixing it. (And a couple more minutes each day stirring it then putting into pots. But still.)

Grandmother did leather work, upholstery full maintenance (no money for new suites back then), granddad kept chickens. Other grandma grew all own veg and made homemade jam and bread.

Mum made a lot of our clothes including pyjamas when we were young from Butterick patterns and her Husquvarna sewing machine. Knitted all our jumpers, scarves, gloves and cardis as kids.

Dad sewed the sails for our boat on his Singer sewing machine (the non electric type)

My parents grew own veg, kept a goat, harvested our own fruit (mum would sugar and freeze all fruit picked - blackcurrants, apples, blackberries, pears, rainier cherries). Made a lot of homemade jam. Homemade bread and cakes and Christmas goods.

Dad would service the cars and boat himself and fit parts as necessary.

Mum made all our curtains and chair covers and table clothes and duvet covers and pillowcases

Homemade elderberry wine from the berries in the garden.

Scythe found in one of our old stables to cut the grass before they could afford a mower.

Dad installed the electricity, plumbing, built the upstairs and an extension. Mum went to night school and learned woodwork.

Lots of skills passed down. Cheap and cheerful and you learn something.

My priority on learning stuff is where I could get something better, cheaper, or what I want doesn't exist to buy. (So I don't do bread, as it's a faff, doesn't turn out that well, and I'm on a salary that can afford to buy decent stuff.)

So my current enthusiasm is loom knitting. I realised last year when DD was 2yo that you just can't get proper warm socks for little feet. Cue buying a sock loom, and a bit of time on YUoTube rediscovering 'French knitting' technique from primary school days. DD is probably the only child her age to be wearing merino wool on her feet!

why would you make your own jam? You know they sell it in Asda, right

Come the apocalypse, Asda will be the first to be looted down to the pet food.

I can and do do a lot of these things. I got a summer job as a student after demonstrating my shit hot trouser hemming skills and prowess with an iron.

pudding21: Up until the 70s it [Portugal] was a communist country ...

Umm, Portugal was never a Communist country. From 1933 to 1974 it was run by an authoritarian right-wing (some would say fascist) regime. Google Estado Novo or Salazar.

(Sorry for thread hijack.)

Although I can do lots of these things, I don't think I would be much good come the apocalypse.
There is a huge difference between making jam for fun, and trying to bottle things in order to have food all winter.
Even more hard trying to grow them.

Funnily enough our back garden is supposed to be the size you need to grow all your own vegetables for a year. So we could dig up the lawn, pull out the flowers and try to grow it all. Lots of pressure with it being important food. Also, come the apocalypse, where will you get the sugar, vinegar, salt to preserve it all, and how will you do it, over a wood fire?

My father could knit his own socks, they taught him in the army. My grandmother taught me how to darn socks with a wooden egg, sitting going through a pile with holes in and putting them right was very therapeutic and soothing.

I can make yoghurt without a yoghurt maker!

My granny had a darning mushroom. It was a lovely smooth wooden thing.
In fatc BOTH Granny's had one, I wonder what happened to them?

Great Grandmas?! I must be old! I know about a lot of this stuff. Don't do so much in the way of baking and preserving these days, but can dress a bird, make clothes and soft furnishings, mend clothes and shoes, cut hair, put up shelves, unblock sinks, give my car a basic service, mend a bicycle tyre, hang a door, wallpaper and paint, replace a broken window as well. I did all these things as a single parent and now have a husband with a similar set of skills - he can mend/replace engines, dig trenches, mend fences, make/repair wooden buildings and more.

I think we could be self-sufficient if we had to. I also think that there are more young people with these skills than most people think.

Fascinating thread