: History

The ration years of the Second World War

30 July 2012

Marguerite Patten

Marguerite Patten OBE has been teaching Britain how to cook since the 1930s. During the Second World War, as a leading Home Economist for the Ministry of Food’s Food Advice Division, Marguerite and her colleagues worked tirelessly to make people aware of the importance of keeping their families well fed on the rations available.

The diet, imposed by necessity, was low in fats and sugars and high in fibre and vegetables with Potato Pete and Lord Carrot leading the way in this surprisingly healthy new lifestyle. The Food Advice Division travelled all over Britain and set up demonstrations in markets, shops, factories, canteens and welfare clinics to buoy the nation into getting through the war on the Home Front with the same spirit as the Forces in action. A contributor to the Kitchen Front, broadcast daily by the BBC, Marguerite was able to pass on her favourite recipes to the nation, and these recipes more often or not contained potatoes.

When war broke out in 1939, farmers were told to increase potato production by ploughing up grasslands and the quantity of potatoes produced increased significantly as the war continued. As a result of this careful planning and planting, rationing potatoes was not necessary during the war.

Potato Pete

Marguerite and her colleagues at the Ministry of Food Advice Bureau urged the nation to eat potatoes twice a day. Not only are the humble spuds a fantastic source of energy in the form of carbohydrate, but they are also rich in Vitamin C. To encourage consumption, a cartoon character called Potato Pete was invented with his very own song, cookbook and leaflets. Cake and pastry mixes could be bulked out with potatoes to save fat. Marguerite recalls ‘Home-grown vegetables were a very important part of our diet. We were encouraged to eat plenty of potatoes in place of bread, which used imported wheat, and for the valuable vitamins they contain. Carrots, parsnips and swedes were also used in a variety of recipes and green vegetables were very important and great emphasis was placed on cooking them correctly’. Cooks were advised to always scrub potatoes, not peel them, as up to a quarter of the potato and essential vitamins could be lost in this way.

Scalloped potatoes, champ, potato fingers and potato Jane were all popular war time recipes, promoted widely by the Ministry of Food’s Advice Bureau. Although the food was monotonous with meagre rations of meat, eggs and butter (and the total absence of many foods that we know take for granted), the health of the nation was surprisingly good despite the physical and emotional stresses that so many endured. Infant mortality declined and the average age of death by natural causes increased. For many poorer members of the community, this enforced rationing introduced more protein and vitamins to their daily diet, whilst for others a significant reduction in the consumption of meat, fats and sugar was a major benefit to their health.

Dig for Victory

Home gardeners added to potato production in a response to the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign. However, the Ministry of Agriculture urged home growers not to grow too many potatoes at the expense of other vegetables, and to stick to the official cropping plan. Varieties such as Arran Pilot, Duke of York and King Edward were recommended and are still as popular today. Austerity gardening, as it became known, is demonstrated to perfection at St Fagans National Museum of History’s B2 prefab garden with vegetables, fruits and herbs all grown using the techniques and cropping plans recommended by the Ministry of Agriculture during the 1940s.

Publish date: 30 July 2012

Tagged with: Conflict & Invasion History The 20th Century

Food from our shores

23 July 2012

Introduction

For centuries, communities living close to the coast have taken advantage of the source of food available to them on the beach or coastal rocks. There is extensive evidence from prehistoric and Roman sites that shellfish have been harvested in Wales throughout the centuries. Free for their collecting, shell-fish have been found in profusion along the coast, the types most commonly collected and marketed by ordinary people being cockles and mussels.

Cockle gathering

During the latter half of the nineteenth and early decades of the 20th century, female cockle-gatherers were regular stall-holders at urban markets in south Wales. Others sold their harvest from door to door in industrial and coastal villages in both north and south. Cockles, boiled and removed from their shells (cocs rhython), were usually carried in a wooden pail, balanced on the vendor's head, while the untreated variety (cocs cregyn) were carried in a large basket on the arm.

By the time she reached her eightieth year one woman from Llan-saint, a coastal village in south Wales, had experienced sixty years of beach-combing for cockles. She referred to the usual pattern of daughters succeeding mothers in this occupation. They were dependent on this source of income. She recalled selling cockles for halfpenny a pint, but towards the end of her career the same quantity was sold for sixpence, a very mean reward for the tedious work involved. Gathering, washing and transporting them home from the beach was the initial stage, which had to be followed by a second process of washing, boiling and further transporting for marketing.

Served with bread and butter or oatcakes, cockles made a light meal and were included in various dishes containing eggs or milk and chives. Women in the village of Penrhyndeudraeth, Merioneth, would sing the following rhyme as they sold the shellfish from door to door:

Cocos a wya Bara ceirch tena Merched y Penrhyn Yn ysgwyd 'u tina

(Eggs and cockles Thin oatcake The girls of Penrhyn Their bottoms ashake)

Welsh caviar?

Another important food product from the sea was an edible seaweed called laver. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries women living in the coastal regions of Anglesey, Glamorgan and Pembrokeshire were ardent gatherers of laver. Collected from sea-shore rocks and stones, it had to be washed in seven lots of water to rid it of all its grit and sand. All excess moisture was then removed, and the clean laver boiled away slowly in its own moisture for some seven hours. Finally, it was drained and chopped very finely to give a greeny-black pulp.

Tossed in oatmeal and fried in bacon fat, it was usually served with bacon. Know as bara lawr, llafan or menyn y môr, laverbread was prepared as a commercial product by Glamorgan families, and was sold along with the cockles on the market stalls. At one time, these two items were prepared and sold strictly by low-income families. Eventually their marketing was developed into commercial enterprises of considerable importance. Today laverbread, often called Welsh caviar, has found its way on to delicatessen counters and is offered as an hors d'œuvre in first-class restaurants.

Publish date: 23 July 2012

Tagged with: Agricultural, Craft and Transport Food History Social and Cultural History

‘Miners’ lives at 5½p each’: The Government Enquiry into the 1913 Senghenydd mine disaster

6 July 2012

Publish date: 6 July 2012

Tagged with: Heroes & Disasters History Industry - Workshop of the World Mining & Extraction Work & Labour

Coal Miners' Union Badges

2 July 2012

Badges are an important way of showing a person's allegiance to a particular cause or interest. They can also commemorate a particular event.

There are many examples of badges connected to the coal industry. These badges were usually produced during industrial disputes or following mining disasters and were often sold to raise funds.

The greatest number of badges were produced during and after the 1984-85 miners' strike. They came in various shapes and colours but usually gave the name of the National Union of Mineworkers (N.U.M.) Lodge or area, as well as a particular symbol. This could be an icon of the mining industry such as a lamp, headgear, crossed pick and shovel; or an example of working class symbolism such as clasped hands, broken chains and the scales of justice. In addition, badges produced in Wales often include a red dragon or a leek.

The Industry Department of Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales has collected several hundred examples of these badges. Some are on display at Big Pit National Coal Museum and examples can be seen on our Images of Industry collections database.

If you would like further information, you may be interested to read 'Enamel Badges of the National Union of Mineworkers' by Brian Witts (2008).

Click on the thumbnail below for a selection of Badges from our Images of Industry collections database.