Evie B - Consulting Historian - Vintage food and recipe blog

Has the upper classes moved their meal time later and later into the evening from the original four or five pm it became very fashionable to keep those who ate as late as a10 p.m. - 11pm. going with what was termed and afternoon tea. Now people are moving their main meal time back with the practicalities of work and home the tradition of the afternoon tea is dying out . It has been going out of fashion for some time even Mrs Beeton in her 1860 classic household and cookery manual spent very little time on the subject preferring to concentrate the vast majority of her menus for the dinner table. If you are lucky today you can indulge in this ritual at the Ritz hotel in London.  Indulge in a slice of one of the finest British traditions and take Afternoon Tea at The Ritz. Enjoy a selection of finely cut sandwiches, freshly baked scones with Cornish clotted cream and strawberry preserve, and a mouth-watering range of exquisitely presented pastries and teacakes. As well as 18...

The Christmas left over curry has become as traditional as the turkey and pigs on blankets of the big day. This is not surprising given that virtually every house in the kingdom has cooked to much meat and vegetables than the family needs for that one day. I cooked both a turkey tikka masala curry and a separate vegetable madras  they were served with a coconut to e and a lemon rice. Made the vegetable curry hotter to cater for different palates. I always prefer a spicier curry ! The kids loved the turkey tikka masala and it was a fantastic way to use those Christmas dinner left overs . Any left over curry also makes an ideal jacket potato filling.  Nothing beats a jacket potato wrapped in foil then cooked in the dying embers of a real fire. 

Added up the weight of these ingredients and you will end up with a cake weighting two stones! From an American cook book from 1948 called the modern encyclopedia of cookery by meta given. Love cook books from America during the 2nd world war. Food shortages not hav8ng the impact they did on British cook books of the same period. Fascinating for the food or social historian to compare and contrast 

Beautiful and functional I have a love of vintage jelly moulds both the more recent Tupperware variety but also the beautiful old Georgian Victorian and Edwardian versions.

Home made soups using lentils and other pulses are not only cheap they are filling and delicious.  Here is my lentil soup made by boiling the lentils with any veg I had in the house that needed using in some stock.  I like to add a creamy tin of condensed soup for both taste and texture. Delicious, nutritious and good for the tight budget. 

Nobody can deny that these treats look rather odd! And may be reminiscent of things that are not good for the appetite!  However there is nothing better for using up stale cake or biscuits than the traditional chocolate truffle here I simply melted chocolate with a little butter and sugar and mixed in the stale biscuits and cakes that needed using up . The good thing about this recipe is that it does not need precise quantities simply mixed to a very very thick consistency then set in the fridge.

The The Tupperware rice cooker is a foolproof method of cooking boiled rice! If you like me have spent many years struggling to cook rice then I can guarantee you will not be disappointed with this excellent gadget. See below for instructions you start by boiling the rice for just five minutes then Paul water and rice into the container leave to stand and low and behold you have perfect fluffy individual grains with no effort . My family were not disappointed I save this price in a traditional 1970s curry style .  With the obligatory boiled eggs sliced on top   these wonderful Tupperware gadgets work extremely expensive at the time from the fun Tupperware parties of childhood . But now can be easily acquired from eBay . Many of them however do not come with instructions so please feel free to download the recipe for you from here