How we ate in the 80s - an idea for luncheon meat

I can't remember if we actually had this particular delight, as suggested by the serving suggestions department of the Co-op, served for our tea but I do recall luncheon meat forming part of our diet in the 70s and early 80s - mainly slapped between two bits of white bread. Luckily, we didn't examine the ingredients too closely.

This recipe is a triumph of hope over experience. I'm not sure Mum ever went to the trouble of making such a tropical delight out of a can of meat.

A book for ordinary middle-class families who cannot afford to despise margarine

One book that seems a little older than the other cookbooks in Mum's collection is the Bestway Cookery Gift Book, first published in 1926, which suggests that it may not have come from my paternal grandmother's house. Mum picked up things like this from lots of places, including older friends of hers. 

The Spectator from 1926 offers a review of this book as a "most excellent receipt book giving exact directions". It is aimed at the "intelligent amateur" and with a nod perhaps to the economic climate of the time,  it will help "ordinary middle-class families who cannot afford to despise margarine or to throw away materials." The "squeezed middle" of the 1920s perhaps?

One such example of  'waste not, want not ' is this recipe for Essex Cakes, which requires the use of the residue from making lard known as 'scraps'. Unlikely that I'll be be trying the original recipe for these cakes, given that I'm unlikely to be able to get lard residue anywhere, but the recipe is quite simple so could work with a vegetable fat.

Making chocolate rock cakes like a 1930s housewife

The simplicity of the recipes in Lydia Chatterton's Modern Cookery (Illustrated) is encouraging me to get my baking trays out and have a go at some of the cake recipes in my grandmother's cookbooks.

Although second hand book websites give the date of this book as anything from 1917 to 1951, my guess is that this is one of a number of cookbooks that my grandmother bought as a housewife in the 1930s. The pictures also suggest that this copy, at least, dates from that period.

I've made rock cakes before but never chocolate ones. I whipped these up in less than 20 minutes including cooking time. The result was a slightly biscuity cake that the kids devoured in seconds.

Next time I cook them though, I'm tempted to take a 21st century liberty with the recipe and add some chocolate bits to the mixture for a little extra taste.