Ginger Shortbread from a Wartime Cookbook

Did you see my last post about a book I found when we were clearing out my father's house?

Go check it out.

Today I wanted to try out one of the recipes from the book.  For some reason my friends and family don't like the sound of some of the recipes, so I went with something that was traditional but with a little twist.  Ginger Shortbread.

The first problem was working out how much a breakfastcup is.  I know a cup was supposed to be 8 ounces, which would work out to 225ml, but modern cup measures used in kitchens are 250ml.  I wondered if a breakfast cup was more or less than a normal cup.  First of all I found a kitchenware place that still makes banqueting sets and so on, and has all the sizes, and sure enough, from their measurements a breakfast cup is LARGER than a teacup.  But how much larger?

Finally, after more research, I found a site of kitchen conversions that listed breakfast cups.  Breakfast cups appear around 1/3 of the way down that page and are listed as 10 fl oz or just under 300ml.  Remembering that most farmhouse kitchens will not have had proper measuring sets and will have used what they had on hand, I went ahead with an estimation.

So, for each breakfast cup required, I used 1 modern cup plus a heaped dessertspoon.  First the flour

Then the brown sugar

The other dry ingredients, ginger, salt and bicarbonate of soda (baking soda to my American friends).   Oh BTW I love my dinky little pinch pots!

A pack of butter used to be 8 ounces, but you can see that with modern times meaning metric, they now weigh more.

So, I decided that I would use a slice off the end to grease the baking tin and then use the rest in the shortbread.  And the baking tin.  What is a dripping tin?  How big is it? I just went with what I thought would work.

So, let's make gingerbread!

GINGER SHORTBREAD

2 breakfastcupfuls of flour.

1 breakfastcupful of moist brown sugar (this is important as white sugar won't make it). 

½ lb. butter.

Pinch of salt.

2 teaspoonfuls, ground ginger.

1 small teaspoonful bi-carbonate of soda.

Mix all dry ingredients together, work in the butter until the whole becomes crumbly. Spread evenly in a well-greased dripping-tin and bake in a moderate oven for 3/4 hour. Cut into fingers while warm and lift gently from tin with knife-blade.

This is an economical shortbread which is quickly made, and is a good stand-by as it keeps well in tins.

From Mrs. M. E. Glover, Lane Head Farm, Brough, Westmorland. 

This is where I cheated and, well, used a bit of modern technology.

Forgot to take a photo after it was mixed and before I put it in the tin, sorry.

When I tipped it into the tin, I realised it would make thin shortbread if I covered the whole base of the tin.  So I scooted it up to one end of the baking tin.

The recipe didn't say to prick it with a fork, but growing up that's what we always did to shortbread, so I went ahead and did it and marked out the fingers too.

I have a fan oven, so I went with the lower end of what would be considered a moderate oven, according to an oven temperature chart.  I checked it after 35 minutes and rotated the tin for the last 10 minutes.  Hmmm, maybe the scooting it up to one end of the baking tin wasn't such a smart move.

It also seems to have risen more than shortbread should, maybe I was too light handed when pricking with the fork.

And the final result?  Not bad, not bad at all.  Wonder if they will survive until hubby and son get home?

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

FARMHOUSE FARE

Just over a week ago we were clearing out my dad's house to get ready for him to move from the hospice (where he was at that time) to a nursing home.  Sadly he picked up an infection and passed away on Friday morning.  I'm OK, it was a relief to be honest because it has been a very long 6 months with many crisis moments when we thought we were going to lose him and at least now we know he is no longer in pain.

Anyway, while we were clearing out his bookshelves I discovered an old cookbook that I have become enthralled with.

You can see it is a wartime cookbook and that's why it's the very simple paperback binding.  It's been printed according to the war economy standard for book production.

It does have an inscription inside the front cover but it's not one we can make sense of with regard to the names (or in this case initials) used.  I do find the comment interesting though:

"May the future fare be better" - hmmm, wonder whose cooking was considered not so good then?

The introduction begins with an explanation of how the book is put together and how the 2nd edition was decided upon.

INTRODUCTION
THIS new edition of Farmhouse Fare, like its predecessor, is made up entirely of recipes con­tributed and well tried by countrywomen scattered over the length and breadth of the country.
The dishes you will find here have not been concocted by experts with all the resources of a modem kitchen. They have been cooked by succeeding generations of women in the farmhouses of the British Isles: upon modem cookers, upon open fires, upon old-fashioned ranges; and with every variety of fuel, from peat and oil to electricity.
Until the first Farmhouse Fare appeared, no such cookery book had ever been made. Its success astonished even ourselves.
Successive reprintings still have not kept pace with the demand. We had to decide whether to print again, or issue a new edition altogether. Times, as they say, were changing. More and more of these excellent recipes were constantly reaching us at the Farmers Weekly from all over the country. We decided on the new edition. 

It goes on to speak of the war years and the effect that obviously had on food availability and therefore recipe choices.

One of our difficulties was deciding whether or not we should leave out all those recipes which successive stages of this war make, for the time being, impracticable. We decided to include some of them nevertheless. In a number of cases you will be able to provide your own substitutes for the ingredients that have vanished from our larders and store-cupboards. In some cases, we may find ourselves unexpectedly rich occasionally in materials which at other times will be lacking. "Hatted Kitt," rich butter biscuits, iced cakes are things we shall not make again until war is over. You will find other such recipes.
But the interest of cooking does not entirely lie in the working-out of individual recipes. There is something to be learned from the wit and sense behind them, and the invention of the housewives' who first experimented with them-even if some of the dishes themselves may be a matter, nowadays, only for the imagination. To read them may stimulate our own ingenuity; therefore you will find that a certain number remain-to round off the picture of traditional English cookery this book represents; and to stir us all to do justice to it, even in these difficult times, with all the resourcefulness we have.
Now I hand over the introductory chapters to Mrs.
Arthur Webb, whose work for the Farmers Weekly is, as her readers know, the mainspring of this spontaneous contribution to the recorded cookery of her own country­side. And she, and the publishers, and I, gratefully record here our appreciation of the generous interest with which the real authors of this book-the ·senders of the recipes themselves-have collaborated with us.
MARY DAY. 

I tell you, I fell in love with this book just from reading that introduction.  I shall share more from it later this week, and may even try one or two of the recipes.


You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.

Audio of Yesterday's Story

Whether you read the piece of writing I shared yesterday or not, you should check out this audio of it.  Click on the link below the photo to listen.
The backing music is not mine, that came from a cd by Nancy Goudie.  But all the spoken word is me and written by me.

Those Feet - A Prodigal Returns

Those Feet - The Prodigal Returns

Writing Inspired by The Prodigal Son by Rembrandt 

It was the dirt on his feet I remember.  The dirt ingrained so deep I couldn't imagine it ever coming clean.  The dirt that represented the anguish of his heart, his desperation to “come home”. Yes, it was the dirt on his feet I remember.

I didn't recognize him at first.  I mean, he’d been gone so long we thought he was dead.  But the master, he never gave up hoping, looking, watching for his son to return.  And then, there he was, the master I mean, off and running.  I’d never seen a Jewish master run before, and there he was, grabbing up his robes in his hands and running down the hill.  To whom?  To what?  Why was he running?  And then we saw him, this man that the master had obviously seen approaching, this dirty, unkempt man, who had obviously not been living well.  He looked like a slave, not even a household servant like us, just a slave. His skin burnt from working in the sun, and wearing filthy rags. The sandals on his feet had certainly seen better days, they were only just holding together.  And those feet, those dirty feet, yes, it was the dirt on his feet I remember.

Because as the master reached him he saw the master coming and he threw himself at the master’s feet, but the master had turned already to lead him up the hill toward the house.  And so as he knelt before the master, all I could see of him was his back and the soles of those feet.  That’s when I recognised him.  I KNEW those feet!  I had served this family for many years, I had been there the day this son was born, I had bathed his feet each day when he came in from playing as he grew and then from working in the fields with his Father.  If he cut his feet working in the rougher ground, I was the one who tended to his wounds.  I KNEW those feet.  Well, that and the fact that then I heard him . . .

“Father, forgive me.” It was an anguished cry, that obviously came from somewhere deep inside.  He wasn't going to be polite, he wasn't going to worry about who did or did not hear, all he wanted was to be allowed to come home. “I don’t deserve to be your son, make me one of your hired servants.”

He was asking to be one of us.  To live like this in the house of his father, to be ordered around by his family, and even by some of us?  How could he be willing to live like that, to accept that in the house where he had once been a son?  I didn't understand, and then I remembered his feet, the depth of dirt that was ingrained there spoke of many days walking home, without knowing what would await him.  He must have rehearsed this speech a thousand times.  I could not imagine what he had done while he was away, what he had been through, but I knew that even this, that he was proposing, must be far better than staying away. Or else, how could he suggest such a thing?

But the master did not wait, did not listen to his son’s protestations, maybe he didn't even hear them, because he grabbed his son by the hands, pulled him up to his feet, and he hugged him.  Another thing I don’t think I’d ever seen a Jewish master do before.  He hugged his son in full sight of anyone who cared to look. In full sight of neighbours, family, friends and servants. 

He brought him into the house and pretty soon we were all busy running around bringing things.  Clothes.  Not just clean clothes, but the best clothes, the sygnet ring that signified authority within the household, the fatted calf for a feast.  And then, as the others ran around preparing meat and bread and all the other food for the feast, the master called to me “The sandals, go fetch the sandals, the best ones from my room.”

So I fetched the sandals and I knelt before him as he had knelt before the master, and I took a bowl of water and a cloth and I bathed those feet again, and slipped on the sandals his father had kept specially, and I swore to myself that I would always remember those feet, those dirty, filthy feet.

.

Prayer Spaces

Next week I will be leading a team that will be holding a prayer space in a local school.  We are rather excited about this opportunity and looking forward to the week.  There is still lots to do to get ready, but I thought I would take a few minutes to share some thoughts with you.

Back in October I shared a post about Why Prayer Spaces, in which I shared some of the history behind the prayer spaces in schools movement as well as snippets from recent reports and a video about prayer spaces in schools.

I also shared a post of some creative prayer space ideas.  Next week, we are only using one of the ideas in that post, the hands, and we will be drawing our hands on large pieces of paper, although for future spaces I would like to invest in a large printed and laminated hand.

Since writing that post I have made a board on pinterest for ideas for prayer spaces in schools and am gathering ideas at an incredible rate.  If you are interested you can check the board out at http://pinterest.com/aislingbeatha/prayer-spaces-in-schools/

So, onto next week.  We will have a variety of prayer stations.  The one we hope children go to first will be the calm zone where through mp3 players and quiet music with a spoken track over the top and the use of glitter calm jars, we hope they will calm down a little from the excitement of a new space and be ready for the rest of the room.



We will have a world zone where children will put post it note prayers onto a large world map on the wall, or pray for a particular part of the world as they put a piece of a world map jigsaw in place.  Next to that will be details of a charity the school supports with a marble run so that the children pray for the length of time the marble runs down the run.  On the other side of the maps will be a table with cress seeds to be sprinkled onto wet paper towels so that they can see their prayers grow over the week as their seeds grow.  This will be connected in to environmental issues.

As we are heading towards palm Sunday, two of our other activities will be using paper palm leaves which a team lovingly cut out last Sunday before church.  First will be a zone where they write down a prayer for someone who is important to them because on palm Sunday we remember the people celebrating how important Jesus was to them.  The other is the BIG QUESTIONS zone where children can write down a question they would want to ask of God and it can be absolutely anything!

And finally we will have a fizzy forgiveness table where children can think about letting go of something someone has done that has hurt or upset them by dropping a fizzy vitamin tablet into a bowl of water and watching it dissolve away.

You can check out the sites I link up to over in my sidebar. Before you go, why not check out my recipes index page, or my craft projects index page, I am sure you will find something there to interest you.