Back to 1950s cuisine to cope with COL

[Bleachedjeans]

I started a similar thread a while ago and I wonder if the responses are the same. I now make Sunday roasts with chicken followed by a meal of leftover chicken , veg etc on Monday. Homemade meat pie, egg and chips, stews, salads made with basics: lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber. Cut down massively on ‘fancy’ veg, herbs, spices. I’m really missing steak, asparagus etc. even my favourite ratatouille seems expensive these days and not the budget meal it used to be. I’m a keen cook but I’m now cooking like my grandma!
Still trying to maintain standards: no UPF, crappy pizzas, nuggets.
Anyone else?
Not really AIBU but I like AIBU 😊

How can meat pie and stew, even if homemade, be cheaper than ratatouille? Or dal and rice? Or rice and beans? Or a veggie curry?

Beef is always more expensive than aubergine and lentils surely.

My mum grew most of our veg in the 70s and grew lots of herbs too.
I often roast a piece of pork and it makes two roast dinners and a stir fry for 3 adults.
I grow some veg on my allotment and lots of soft fruit and then freeze things. I may have rebellion on my hands if DH has to eat anymore runner beans.
Food very similar to how my mum cooked and not much different from my gran although she would have had to eat seasonally as no freezer.

Standard herbs and spices used by my grandmothers: Parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, bay, mint etc.
Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, black peppercorns.
Admittedly garlic and chillis were not widely available, but Elizabeth David popularised Mediterranean cooking in the 1950s and I have my grandmother’s copies of her books.

I was a child in the 1960s and your family food sounds very, very similar to ours.

Always a pudding although often it would be some variety of milk pudding like rice, ground rice, semolina or tapioca. The best pudding was always on Thursday as that was Mum's baking day so we had things like lemon meringue or apple pie and custard. Mum baked lots of sweet things like buns, cakes and jam tarts. My Dad had a sweet tooth and liked two or three sweet treats in his pack up.

We did have chicken now and then because we kept hens and once a hen stopped laying Dad killed it and dressed it. Ditto surplus cockerels after a batch of chickens grew up.

We didn't have a freezer until the 1970s though. After that half a pig was something they would buy.

Always plenty of veg because Dad was a keen gardener and grew loads.

If you eat seasonal veg and are creative you don't need to eat like it's 1950. Our menu last week was Sunday sausages,ash, broccoli, Monday was homemade chilli and rice, Tuesday was salmon and green beans with cou cous, Wednesday was veg and cheese omelette, Thursday was a nigella recipe from years ago with chicken, veg, potatoes, chorizo all in 1 roasting tin, Friday was leftover chilli made over homemade potatoes wedges, Saturday was roast pesto veg on pasta.

How much are you really saving by not buying herbs and spices? I tend to avoid out of season vegetables, but soups and casseroles using winter root veggies are cheap, nourishing and can be made interesting with the right seasonings. Tinned pulses are cheap and add interest to a curry or casserole. I always use the leftovers of a roast in a pie or some such for the next day, because I don’t like food waste. We don’t do a traditional salad in winter because salad veg aren’t in season and don’t taste nice, but I do a salad using sweet potatoes which is lovely as a cold side dish. You don’t need to go 1950s to be economical.

I’m pretty sure my DM’s use of herbs and spices was restricted to mint, sage and parsley from the garden, Schwartz jars of dried mixed herbs or spices (when she died some of the jars I threw out were pretty much antique) and salt and pepper.

I’m shocked at how people hav interpreted this thread in such a negative way!! No need to be judgy re herbs and spices, and no need to take offence on behalf of the 1950s (!)
I think op is just alluding to a more restricted manner of shopping and eating and is using the post war rationing period as a comparative.

OP I have changed the families diet to a more considered approach. No I can’t go and buy ras el hanout, pomegratine molasses and lamb mince to make a new ottolenghi recipe in the way that I used to. Because I can’t risk the family not liking it/ the waste of money for an ingredient that will not be regularly used.

I meal plan now around a set of ingredients that I have, that can and will be used over and again, and that will definitely be eaten. the veg I buy is the boring stuff- onions carrots parsnips. The fruit apples and bananas- because a kilo bag of carrots is £0.50p and serves two or three meals. Baby corn (a favourite) is £1 for one meal. It’s simply not economical anymore.

This weeks meal plan is

corned beef pie and steamed veg
tomato pasta bake
pan haggerty
jacket potato and beans
ham, egg and chips

Yes - all sounds very familiar (I was born in the 60s too, but Mum was very much a child of the 40s).

I’d forgotten about tapioca - tinned and served hot with a big lump of jam in the middle.

I’d also forgotten about brawn - made from the pig’s head, which sounds disgusting but it tasted just fine.

As they say, the only bit of the pig you can’t eat is the oink.

I can see how sticking to a specific range of foods can save money. Less impulse buying quinoa and throwing it out unopened 3 years later.

If you want to take it further, there is a good facebook group called living on wartime rations 1940's experiment. I don't remotely do that, but there are good tips about making things go further and eating more veg. They say people had very healthy diets then, if perhaps u interesting.

Roast chicken was expensive in the 50s. Our Sunday roasts were usually beef, lamb or pork. Chicken was a treat. We did have two or three meals from the roast and still do the same now, just swapped to have chicken regularly with beef or lamb only when on offer,

Lovely but I’m intolerant to aubergines and peppers. Eating is very upsetting

Yes, it went straight into the bin along with any leftover prawns and fillet steak,
.

Had a small roast chicken tonight. Tomorrow will be Caesar salad cold chicken & crash hot potatoes

You chucked fillet steak in the bin … why not keep it for sandwiches.?

God, let's not start this debate again

I think with modern supermarkets we’ve lost sight of eating seasonally and locally. Avocados and pomegranates flown thousands of miles never used to appear on a weekday menu, they might form part of a special meal but the idea of avocado on toast as a routine breakfast never would have been in my house growing up.

While it’s nice to have greater variety in food, it’s not economical to buy out of season, but it’s hardly post war rationing either. There’s a middle ground to be had.

Yes, this is what I meant about herbs and spices: ras el handout for example. Mixed herbs and similar are great. And posters who suggest that I used to throw away leftover chicken! lol. As if! I make two or three complete meals from one chicken whereas before leftover chicken week oils be used for sandwiches and snacks.
I am always amused by the mumsnetters who wait in the wings with torches and pitchforks. 🤣

We had jacket potatoes and beans the other day. Yum.

I didn’t mention rue and beans or ‘veggie’ curry. Depends how much meat you use in stew/pie. A good ratatouille is surprisingly expensive. Look it up. The tomatoes alone can cost neatly £3.

Pretty sure it was sarcasm

We didn’t have avocados, peppers, aubergines or chillies growing up. Vegetables were seasonal and UK grown - although the sprout season seemed never ending (nasty little things). Salads were lettuce, tomato, cucumber, radish and beetroot (another of my pet hates) with a splash of vinegar and some salt. No olive oil.

We didn’t have pasta and rarely had rice.

I used to buy a whole chicken for the DC and me, we only ate the white breast meat, and as I can’t bear leftovers of any kind, and seeing the carcass just sitting there made me feel sick I’d throw it in the bin immediately.

Just DD2,.and me now, since DD1 moved out, so I only buy chicken breast fillets, and have that on the few occasions I make a roast, we had that for our Christmas Dinner too.

I can’t bear seeing any leftovers on plates either, so they go straight in the bin, I could never make anything out of leftovers! Can’t stand reheated food either.

I accept that I’m very strange.

All sounds good to me.

How??? Literally, how can aubergine, peppers, onion, garlic and tinned tomatoes ever cost more than beef stew?