Recipes
During the siege, force of circumstance resulted in recipes that would have otherwise been unthinkable. The two recipes here bring home the inventiveness of the “cooks”. Chevril of course was the best food innovation during the siege.
The following instructions were issued to Tommy Atkins for the preparation of Mealie Meal, or ground Corn seeds.
The Camp Kettle will be filled three quarters full with water and brought to the boil. Add 1 ounce of salt then the Mealie Meal gradually by hand whilst the mixture is stirred with a stick to prevent it forming lumps. When the mixture has arrived at a proper consistency, the lid should be put on and the kettle left to simmer, the lid however must be raised every few minutes and the mixture stirred. The time required to cook is at least an hour and care must be taken that it is properly cooked before eating.
Siege recipe: Blancmange.
Take half a teaspoonful of Citric Acid, some sugar if you have and a few drops of essence. Add all these to one tin of Violet powder then mix all together with boiling water as you would for cornflour.
*
Siege recipe: Ladysmith Relief Cake.
To celebrate the relief of the town, a Ladysmith celebration cake was concocted.
Ingredients.6 ounces butter, 6 ounces sugar, 6 ounces flour + 1 extra teaspoon, 3 eggs, Raspberry Jam, 1 moderate teaspoon Baking Powder ,2 teaspoons Cinnamon
Method: Cream butter and sugar and add well-beaten eggs alternately with sifted flour and baking powder.
Take less than half the mixture, add cinnamon and the extra teaspoon of flour. Spread cinnamon mixture into greased 7-inch square tin, spread mixture with Raspberry jam, and then add remaining mixture on top.
Sprinkle with chopped nuts and bake for 1 hour at 350 Fahrenheit.
My thanks to Liz Spirit for this cake recipe.
Other recipes from the period:
Butch’s potjie given to me by my brother-in-law Butch Collins
Bobotie a traditional South African dish
Dublin coddle A meal found in the 1800’2 in Ireland and created using cheap, ready to hand ingredients where ‘coddle’ means to heat slowly.
Chiddingly hot pot Chiddingly is a town in Sussex and this particular recipe comes from a man called Edward Shoesmith who lived in the village in the 20th century.
Cornish pastie; This recipe was given to me by a tour guide when I visited a Cornish tin mine. An ex miner himself he recalled taking a large pastie down the mine with him every day, as all of his colleagues did. Similar recipes were found in Luton where women working in the hat factories took them to work.
Faggots; Faggots date from Roma times and is a corruption of ‘fegato’, the Italian word for liver.
Forfar bridies; Forfar bridies are something that I was introduced to on a visit to Aberdeen and they would have been a staple diet for the working classes during the 19th century.
Devils mixture; This is a classic Victorian recipe for a very hot sauce that is used as a brushing sauce for deviling vegetables and meats.
Steak and ale pie; This truly is one of the classic British dishes and combines the three main things that Britain is known for beef, beer and pastry! However, this truly is a very tasty dish. Call it the modern update on the greasy Victorian original.
Seaweed relish; This is a recipe, based on that of Gentleman’s relish the Victorian savoury spread that makes an equivalent spread not from anchovies but from seaweed, the main ingredients being laver, kelp and bladder wrack. In many ways it’s similar to the Japanese seaweed paste, momoya and can be used in any recipe calling for this ingredient. Do not skimp on the kelp as it’s the glutamate in this that provides the umami taste (the full ‘mouth feel’) that is provided by the anchovies in the original version.
Samp and beans; South African recipe
Clapshot from Scotland
Comments on this entry are closed.