This little article in The Children’s Newspaper from 1937 caught my eye. Wear more milk?
The Children’s Newspaper, 3rd April, 1937
In the 1930s, Italian chemist Antonio Ferretti worked out how to extract fibres from the casein protein in milk, which could then be used to make material. It was called Lanital (and Aralac in America). This was celebrated as a national success in fascist Italy, which was looking to promote self-sufficiency in fabrics and everything else, on account of sanctions being placed on the country by the League of Nations in response to Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.
In the end, Lanital didn’t wash well, apparently smelling a bit like sour milk when damp, and bacteria could eat away at it, which is why it was soon replaced by the newer synthetic fibres.
Futurist poet Antonio Marinetti wrote “The Poem of the Milk Dress” about the invention of Lanital and how it was interwoven with the fascist system of Italy. In the extract below, “the man” is referring to Mussolini:
“The Man commands Milk, divide yourself […]
And let this complicated milk be welcome power power power let’s exalt this MILK MADE OF REINFORCED STEEL MILK OF WAR MILITARIZED MILK”
A 1941 advert from Kellogg’s Cornflakes today – literally demonstrating their blitz spirit.
It’s apologising for the shortage of Cornflakes in the shops, while giving themselves a hell of a (deserved) pat on the back for keeping the armed forces and blitzed areas supplied with breakfast.
Here’s an advert for Burnley’s version of the World War Two National Loaf, Veget bread:
Burnley Express, 1946
The National Loaf wasn’t very popular. It was the consequence of white bread flour being in short supply and was made with wholemeal flour, husks and all, and added calcium. It was a bit of a shock to the system of the British public, who had previously only been used to eating white bread, and soon started to be referred to as “Hitler’s secret weapon”, as bakers were banned from making any other type of loaf. Wikipedia describes it as “grey, mushy and unappetising” so it’s no surprise that I also found this rude local rhyme about Veget:
Don’t eat Veget bread,
It makes you shit like lead,
And fart like thunder,
And no bloody wonder,
So don’t eat Veget bread.
I love that Wikipedia says that “The loaf was abolished in October 1956.” I bet there was cheering in the streets. I was wondering if Veget had another ingredient included – the name implies there’s vegetables involved, but maybe that was just to make it sound healthier.
Here’s a recipe for a version of the National Loaf you can make now, by Hugh’s mum, Jane Fearnley Whittingstall. It’s taken from Lavender and Lovage:
The National Wheatmeal Loaf: (Makes 2 loaves) From: Ministry of Food – Jane Fearnley Whittingstall
1 ½ lb wholemeal bread flour 1 ½ tbsp salt 1 ½ tbsp dried yeast 1 dsp honey or treacle 450 ml tepid water
Mix together all the ingredients and knead for about 10 minutes until you have a soft dough. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave until dough has doubled in size (around 2 hours).
Knock back the dough, give a short knead then cut into two equal pieces. Place in 1.5 litre loaf tins, allow to rise for a further 2 hours.
Pre-heat oven to 200°c then bake loaves for 30 min. To test the loaves turn them out of their tins and give the base a tap. if it sounds hollow they are ready. Allow to cool on a wire rack.
Velveeta isn’t a product I associate with either the UK or the 1930s, so I was surprised to see an advert for it in The Yorkshire Post from 1937. I don’t think it was sold for long in the UK though, not post-war anyway. It’s not cheese, it’s “cheese food”.
“The phosphorus in Velveeta makes it an important brain-food”, it says.
The Yorkshire Post, 1937
I first came across Velveeta processed cheese while living in Kentucky during a so-called “exchange year” in the early 1990s – I was a vegetarian at the time and I ended up eating quite a lot of it. It does make an amazing easy cheese sauce in the microwave, even though I’m not entirely sure exactly what it is, apart from being described as “American cheese”. Apparently, the official description of it now is “Pasteurized Recipe Cheese Product”. Mmmm.
I didn’t know it was as old as all that though, I thought of it as one of the convenience foods that sprung up in the 1950s. It always reminded me of Willy Loman complaining about American cheese in Death of a Salesman – “How can they whip cheese?” – and it being an indication of the zeitgeist, moving away from the traditional ways of life after the end of the War.
As every foodstuff apparently was, it’s presented here as being not only nourishing and good for you, but also suitable for invalids – very well catered for, the invalid demographic was.
I think you’d have to go a long way to get a more half-arsed advert than this one, for Holland’s Everton Toffee. It simply states:
“Sugar is Food. So are Sweets. Try Holland’s Everton Toffee. Sold Everywhere. Advt.”
The Lancashire Daily Post, 1920
Hitching a ride onto a small piece about the price of sugar, its entire sales pitch is “Buy Toffee, it’s food.” Not even sticking in a spurious claim about being nourishing or anything. It looks like it’s trying to pass itself off as news, so it has to be made clear it’s an advert at the end of the line.
All the old school “Family Fun” games that I post from time to time remind me of just one thing – old fashioned cherry cake. Especially Up Jenkyns and Ghosts because those were the games we played with Grandad and Nan, and Nan generally provided the aforementioned cherry cake for tea. Proust had his madeleines, I have cherry cake.
Funny really, I’m not generally a fan of the glacé cherry, despite fresh cherries being maybe my favourite food ever – they’re what summer tastes like. But you need glacé cherries for this kind of cake. I had a hankering for one and searched through my old cookbooks for a suitably non-tarted-up recipe. I decided on one from The Radiation Cookery Book – originally published in the 1920s but updated and reissued for decades. I have the 1948 edition.
Radiation Cookery Book, 1948 edition
It’s the rich Madeira cake recipe, which has various alterations to make different cakes.
Radiation Cookery Book, 1948 edition
Radiation Cookery Book, 1948 edition
Radiation Cookery Book, 1948 edition
Cherry Cake
4oz/115g butter or margarine 4oz/115g caster sugar 4oz/115g glace cherries 2 eggs 6oz/170g plain flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder Grated rind of a lemon Milk as needed
Beat the butter and sugar to a cream, add the eggs one at a time, and beat until the mixture is stiff and uniform.
Stir in the sifted flour and baking powder, adding milk if necessary to form a soft mixture which will shake easily from the wooden spoon.
Transfer to a tin lined with greased paper and bake in the middle of the oven for 1 hour and 5 minutes with the Regulo at Mark 4 (but I baked it at 180C for around 45 minutes).
This was how it turned out. It’s an art ensuring the cherries don’t sink to the bottom – an art I have not mastered, although it doesn’t really look that way from the picture. Tasted nice though, although I’d used fancy morello glacé cherries, which new-fangled it up a bit too much. Plus, the ones I used to have were round cakes, but there wasn’t enough batter for my cake tin and so it became a cherry loaf. To be fair, the recipe does say to double the quantities for a larger cake, which you would need to do for a 20cm cake tin.
Cheery cherry cake
Next time I’m trying the reliable Mrs Rea’s 1910 version, below.
Mrs Rea’s Cookery Book, 1910
The Radiation Cookery Book contains hidden treasure in the form of this scribbled recipe by the original owner for coconut ice, a none-more-Blyton kids treat, that I am planning to make soon:
Mercer's Meat Stout, The Lancashire Daily Post, 1940
Here’s a curious advert I stumbled across in The British Newspaper Archive – it’s for Mercer’s Meat Stout. “Tastes good, does you good.” Now, I’ve heard of milk stout (Ena Sharples springs to mind), but…..meat stout?
Mercer’s Meat Stout, The Lancashire Daily Post, 1940
Is it me, or does this look exactly like a mock advert from Viz? Meat and beer, together at last.
This wasn’t just a quirky name, it was stout that actually included meat extract in some form. It was sold (as every food-and-drink-stuff was, even chocolate) as being good for you. It was also advertised as a nourishing drink for invalids. Invalid cookery and care was a big deal pre-NHS and a special invalid recipe section was in nearly every cookbook up until around 1950. I’ve got some recipes here if you’re feeling a bit peaky.
The Zythophile blog has more information on Meat Stout. It turns out it might have had some offal chucked in during the brewing process. Mmmm. Well, one of the aforementioned invalid recipes was raw beef tea – raw mince steeped in lukewarm water – so I guess it might not have seemed so strange at the time.
It’s more of this kind of thing today. Oh, why don’t I just go and live in 1937 if I like it so much?
Anyway. I do like the 1930s approach to chocolate advertising. They need a good, solid, sensible reason to eat it, not just because it tastes nice. I suppose Mars Bars with their slogan “A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play” is the last remnant of this kind of campaign.
The KitKat started life as Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp and was marketed in the 1930s as a nourishing meal substitute – here
The Aero bar is another piece of confectionary that has stood the test of time. Here it is in 1937, where it’s promoted not so much as a sweetie but a pioneer at the forefront of science. Yes, yes, it gives you energy, good for acrobats, blah, blah, but eating it is basically taking part in an experiment. With patent pending, they can reveal that “Science has given Aero a special texture that is different.” With a “unique quick digestive action”, “Aero stimulates the enzyme flow,” and dissolves fast so that “these particles get right into the bloodstream to give you the quick new energy you need.”
The Yorkshire Post, 1937
As with Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp, I find these advertising pitches work shamefully well on me. Who wouldn’t want to stuff yourself with a chocolate bar in the name of science? Now, where’s that Aero….
It’s Shrove Tuesday so, of course, it’s a vintage pancake recipe today. The recipe is from a delightful 1930s Co-operative booklet called 32 Entirely New and Original Lutona Cocoa Recipes. The name “Lutona” refers to the Co-op’s exotic cocoa processing plant…in Luton. Lutona cocoa booklet, 1930s
Lutona cocoa booklet, 1930s
Here’s the chocolate pancakes recipe: Lutona cocoa booklet, 1930s
What’s lovely about this book is the specially painted illustrations of all the recipes. This one for chocolate custard is very tempting… Lutona cocoa booklet, 1930s
Does anyone else feel compelled to enter long since defunct competitions? There’s one small bit of my brain that thinks it might open up some kind of time portal to the past. Lutona cocoa booklet, 1930s
Me, I’ll be experimenting this year with egg and dairy-free pancakes for my little allergy-ridden daughter. I have my eye on some banana ones, so I’ll be seeing if it’s possible to make pancakes without most of the things that make a pancake a pancake…
Hooray Hooray, it’s a happy holiday! It’s a 20-hour joy-day! To be more precise, it’s May 1937, the week before George VI’s coronation, and The Mirror couldn’t be more excited. I have the overseas edition of The Mirror, which was a week’s worth of newspapers bundled up into one edition (the overseas edition was out a week later, so the dates are actually those of Coronation Week itself). We moaned about the coverage of the last Royal Wedding, but this was something else. Nearly everyone was trying to get in on the act. (By the way, I’ve not been able to scan everything in the paper, it’s quite delicate in places, so the not so good bits are photos that might not be quite as clear.)
Firstly, the reason for George being King at all – Edward and Mrs Simpson. 12th May 1937 was originally Edward’s coronation date and, when he officially abdicated, the same date was kept for his brother. There’s lots of sweet, romantic pictures of the couple, and seemingly no disapproval at all, in this paper at least.
The Mirror, 1937
Here’s the schedule:
The Mirror, 1937
There are many ways to celebrate the day, as the Very Reverend Edgar Rogers rather tolerantly points out. He might be singing hymns, but he doesn’t mind if you’re getting completely blotto instead. In fact, is it just me, or is there a bit of a homoerotic vibe going on here? I’m imagining he has a secret passion for a “bit of rough” neighbour of his who likes a drink – all that talk of “he-manness” and everything.
The Mirror, 1937
And, along those lines….
The Mirror, 1937
It seemed like all the nations of the world wanted part of it. Nazi Germany was no exception, with Hitler giving George a special honour and sending a present.
The Mirror, 1937The Mirror, 1937
Generous Ovaltine gave its workers an extra week’s wages to celebrate the occasion:
The Mirror, 1937
The Mirror had a special song commissioned, with a tune by Ivor Novello, no less.
The Mirror, 1937
Planning to get a good spot for the procession? Hyde Park was specially open all night on 11th May for overnight sleepers – here’s some tips:
The Mirror, 1937
But don’t bring your car: The Mirror, 1937
Working underground? There’s still no excuse to miss the event!
The Mirror, 1937
You’re not patriotic enough unless you’re eating the correct food for the occasion.
Eat Nestle’s chocolate (in the days when everyone called it “Nessles”):
The Mirror, 1937
Or perhaps you fancy a Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp? I know I do. It’s a Kit Kat now, by the way. The Mirror, 1937
Drink beer! I love how this isn’t an advert for a particular company, it’s just that YOU’RE BRITISH SO DRINK BEER. From 1429 (that was Henry VI’s coronation) to 1937, beer has been going strong. I don’t know what they had before 1429, though.
The Mirror, 1937
Stuck in a crowd waiting for the King to go past? Eat some specially shaped cheese triangles:
The Mirror, 1937
And smoke some special coronation fags while you’re at it:
The Mirror, 1937
And here’s the film to use to take your pictures:
And finally, the new King pardons a murderer to mark the occasion, for some reason (welease Woderick). Well, he only stabbed his 20 year old fiancee to death, poor lamb. At least his “grey-haired” mother gets to see him again:
