Sepia Saturday - What's Baking in the Kitchen?

Sepia Saturday gives bloggers the opportunity to share their family history and memories through photographs. 

This week's prompt photograph looks like a less than salubrious kitchen, and I doubt if I would feel happy eating something cooked there! 

No photographs exist of kitchens in my family homes.  But I have strong memories of my mother pouring over her Bero Book and her  collection of recipes, so read on to find out what a typical 1950's family was enjoying at meal times.  

 

Until I was 10 years old, we lived in a rented terraced house.  The kitchen was small and basic.    It was also rather dark and gloomy with a solid back door and little light getting in.   A pantry with a cupboard with a mesh door was the primitive fridge!   We later moved and my mother had a  Raeburn solid fuel cooker (a bit like an Aga) and this was her pride and joy. 

 

As a child I was a fussy and unadventurous eater, but home baking and desserts   were always my favourite.   Growing up in the1950's meant  food was simple,  limited in choice and all home prepared by my mother - no eating out or "take-aways". 

We always sat round the table for meals, apart from Sunday tea when it was sandwiches, jelly and cake from a trolley, whilst we watched the classic children's Sunday serial on the television.

During the week, desserts were puddings, such as spotted dick with custard or golden syrup sauce, baked apples, and rice pudding (which my father loved all his life,  but I hated)   Shrove Tuesday meant pancakes served with sugar and lemon.

 
Friday was my mother's baking day to set us up for the weekend and week ahead - cakes and biscuits with fruit pies or crumbles (apple, rhubarb, gooseberry, blackcurrant or blackberry).  Lemon meringue was my favourite Sunday dessert, along with trifle and jelly fluff (whipped up with evaporated milk). I disliked blancmange but liked Angel Delight.  Sunday tea meant chocolate cake with thick butter icing.

Icecream was a very special treat, reserved for birthdays, as we did not have a fridge until c.1958, so it had to be bought at the last minute.

My mother's recipe boo

A page from my mother's recipe book

My mother was a great baker and the Bero Book was her bible - I still have her copy,  somewhat stained and the cover torn but very obviously used a great deal.   We enjoyed  Caribbean slices, Paradise slices, Victoria sponges, chocolate crispies, coconut pyramids, ginger biscuits and Shrewsbury biscuits, flapjacks, fairy cakes, butterfly cakes. and Eccles cakes   I loved currant slices -  I ignored their school dinner nickname of  "fly pie" or "fly cemetery" - Mum's were far nicer!  I look back at home made jam and jellies with the muslin bag slung between to two chairs to drip, drip.  Home-made marmalade was delicious  - nothing to beat it, despite the arduous task of chopping up all those Seville oranges by hand - no labour saving devices then! 

Time for Tea!   

My mother's wedding china from 1938 -
 I can only remember it coming out of the china cabinet at Christmas time.

Looking back so much of the food we ate seems stodgy and fattening, yet I cannot remember obesity being an issue. I suppose we walked everywhere, played outside, got plenty of fresh air and exercise and did not snack as today.     It remains  a happy family time in my memory.

Mum, Dad, my brother & myself c. 1954

Click HERE to find out what other Sepia Saturday bloggers  have been cooking up for our taste buds this week.