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On the money
I was married in 1959. Peter was in his second year of teaching and earnedthirty five pounds a month, which could not be called a 'princely sum' by any stretch of the imagination. I did not have a job, having only just arrived in a small town in West Wales.
Our first 'married' task was to sortthe budget.We worked out that in a five week month there was seven pounds a week to juggle. Ashorter month gave useight poundsto splash.
Our rent was two pounds a week andcoal was ten shillings a bag. We had coin metres for the gas and electricityso we could pay-as-we-went. We also paid weeklyfor a rediffusion radio at first, but I forget what that cost.
I decided that three pounds a week would probably buy enough groceries for the two of us and in practise, it did.
I jotted down everythingI had spent when I came home from shopping, to see where the money had gone. (When supermarkets arrived in thesixties it was a relief, because prices could be compared and I knew what things cost before deciding to buy.)
The Sunday jointpresented a difficulty for me. I would ask fora small joint but always ended up with one that lasted us for four meals.My culinary imaginationwas tested to the limit. On a Sunday wehad a roast, Monday we ate the meat cold, with boiled potatoes, peas and a bottled sauce. Tuesday waspie day and on Wednesday I threw the remainsinto the cawl pot and breathed a sigh of relief.
(My daughters thinkI was lucky it lasted so longbecause meat disappears quickly in their houses.)
The topic for this blog was inspired by some recent research that says two people can save at least a hundred pounds a month by living together, sharing the bills.
Co-incidentallyIreada 1935 magazine earlier today and saw anarticle on household economy. I should have guessed thatthe main culprits for wasting money were the maids, who were lavishwith thecleaning materials, expecially scouring powder. Elbow grease would have done just as well and saved a lot of money!
The money suggested as a sufficient amount for groceries in 1959 was one of the things that chimed with me most as I just finished reading Stephen King's most recent novel, 11/22/63 - part of the plotline involves the book's main character, Jake Epping, travelling back in time through an odd portal from 2011 to 1958, and marvelling always at the prices of things in the past, as well as the quality of the food (i.e. he notes that it tastes much better, which I would put down to the lack of artificial ingredients that make up large parts of so many commercially-available food items in the present). My own parents married in 1964, and would no doubt have budgeted similarly to Gillian and Peter (albeit in USD rather than GBP); I even remember a trip to the supermarket with my mother, sometime in the mid '70s (I'm guessing 1975-76, as I was quite a young child at the time), and being astonished that she spent nearly $61 on groceries! This in a time when my wife and I regularly budget around $100/week for food, and it's just the two of us and the cats - no children to speak of, and none planned for the forseeable future.
But I've little doubt things tasted better back then - my memory suggests that I can even remember such a time - and I've heard my mum say that she remembers meat having more flavour when she was young than it does now.
Talking of cawl, of which I am not a great lover, but the rest of the family like regularly, an outbreak of scurvy is recorded in Cardiganshire during the nineteenth century. Some families kept the same pot going, toppping it up from time to time with whatever they had to hand. A supply of oranges was ordered for them to eat, to combat the lack of Vitamin C. ( bit like the sailors the 'limeys' who sucked lemons.)
I have heard cawl called the 'great knife and fork' soup of Wales, butwe've never eaten it like this. My mother and her cousins had wooden cawl spoons which they took to Idole School, a few miles outside Carmarthen. This was the 1920's, before the days of school dinners and my mother, who will beninety before long, cannot remember who supplied the cawl.
I like the leeks well cooked, not crunchy and added at the last moment, but I will allow parsley sprinkled on the top as well as cooked for an hour or two. A ham bone is the usual meatthoughI like lamb chops, too. I use beef lessoften.
Some people like Cawl Peese: dried peas and ham hock with onions. Peter likes plenty of potatoes with his cawl and I use two saucepans for this. (I did acquire a blue, old enamel saucepan, but regret I gave it to a charity, because I have so much 'stuff'.) Peter likes the liquid unthickened but I don't.
My preference is forCawl Potch, all the vegetables mashed with butter, preferably accompanied by a dumpling and whatever meat I can retrieve from the pan. I know of people who save the dumpling to spread with jam for 'afters' (not me!)Ilike a sorbet afterwards to clearmy mouth of the taste of cawl.To misqote Chaucer, Epicurious'sown daughter am I.
Thinking of reviving my old recipe for non-stop stew which is a form of cawl I guess