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#1: The School's Food Supply Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:28 pm
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So, the trains stopped running up to the Tiernsee, the steamers stopped running, so how did they get their food, the fresh stuff such as meat and vegetables during the winter when the blizzards were roaring outside?

Yes, you can keep dry goods in store, but fresh stuff is more problematic. Perhaps this is oneof the little details EBD ignored and we shall never really know the answer.

#2: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 7:45 pm
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Horsedrawn vehicles or lorries perhaps, weather conditions permitting.

Meat and dairy produce would be available locally - many of the cattle might have to be slaughtered in the autumn if the herdsmen couldn't keep them through the winter when there was no pasture.

They'd have fruit that was picked and bottled during the summer, or tinned stuff, but as for fresh vegetables - back then, if it wasn't in season, you didn't have it.

#3: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:21 pm
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I suppose they may also have been able to keep some foodstuffs frozen? It seems to have been below freezing for about 4-5 months.

#4: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:23 pm
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I imagine they did what a lot of people in that area would have done - eaten salted meats until Lent, when meat would not have been a problem, and then, as Jay said, had fruit stored for months beforehand. The biggest issue would probably have been milk, with all that milky coffee and whatnot. They would have had to be fairly close to some of these huts where the cows stayed, and I suppose poor Eigen had to schlep through whatever the weather to get things.

#5: Author: Rosie, Location: Land of Three-Quarters Sky

Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:22 pm
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Was Lent really still so strictly kept by this time? Or does being very Catholic and very poor (well they wouldn't have it anyway...) make a difference here?

#6: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:21 am
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I guess they would manage in the same way that the local populace (the more affluent families, anyway - e.g. the Brauns - some of whom at least seemed to stay around the lake during the winter months) and hotels managed. Herr Braun and the Pfeiffens would probably have advised them - put them in touch with the right trades people, local farmers etc.

I know most of the hotels and pensions closed in the winter, but some were still open, and there were winter feasts, people coming to celebrate weddings (winter weddings were the tradition in Tyrol, right - didn't Marie and Andreas buck the trend with a summer wedding?), and so on. So, the Tiernsee would have had to feed plenty of people over the winter months and I'm guessing they had well established ways of doing so.

#7: Author: MaryR, Location: Cheshire

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:59 pm
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Rosie wrote:

Was Lent really still so strictly kept by this time? Or does being very Catholic and very poor (well they wouldn't have it anyway...) make a difference here?

Lent was still very strictly observed, Rosie, even in the Sixties. And that has made me wonder, for the very first time, what would happen in the school. Did they all, for example, not have meat on Fridays, or would the Catholics have had a separate menu?

And what about both fasting AND abstinence on days like Ash Wednesday? Certainly the Catholic mistresses would have had to observe such rules, even if the girls themselves could escape, by reason of their young age.

#8: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:53 pm
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Quote:

Did they all, for example, not have meat on Fridays, or would the Catholics have had a separate menu?

Fish on Fridays was and is quite common even in non-Catholic institutions. It was the norm in my state grammar school in the 1960s/70s. And the cafeteria in my local County Hall always served fish on Fridays up to the last few years. (I don't know what they serve these days, I don't eat there so often now).

Though the only time I can remember them having fish is when the girls did fried fish in a cookery class. I can't recall which book that was in.

#9: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:33 pm
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Our university canteens serve fish on Fridays still here today.

#10: Author: Billie, Location: The south of England.

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:51 pm
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At both high school and university, friday was fish'n'chips day without fail.

#11: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:59 pm
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We always had fish and chips at school on Fridays - it was tradition! Religion didn't come into it: we actually had very few Catholic pupils as there was a really good Catholic school only about a mile away.

IIRC Elizabeth I tried to keep the "fish on Fridays" tradition going in England after the Reformation to avoid putting fishermen out of business (only a female monarch could have taken such a sensible, practical view of things Laughing

) so the idea just carried on.

I assume Karen, as a Tyrolean Catholic, didn't serve meat dishes on Friday Very Happy

, but I've often wondered why it was never mentioned.

#12: Author: Miss Di, Location: Newcastle, NSW

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:12 am
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Alison H wrote:

I assume Karen, as a Tyrolean Catholic, didn't serve meat dishes on Friday Very Happy

, but I've often wondered why it was never mentioned.

Maybe that is when they had her delicious vegetarian sausages?

#13: Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:03 am
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Perhaps potted meat and brawns? Preserved salami kind of sausages? Smoked hams, dried meats. Tinned or dried fish.

Fruits could have been dried or bottled, (possibly canned).
Back then veges were also bottled, but botulism poisoning could have been a problem due to low acid content in the veg. Canning was better- involved high temperatures like a pressure cooker and killed off any nasties.

Veg could also have been dried and things like beans and peas stored well.
Salting was common for meat and some veg.
Possibly veg might have been pickled (sometimes fruit also)
Possible to store fruit in alcohol, although this would have been unlikely to be given to the girls. (drabble anyone? Wink

)

Milk could have been bought dried or in tins. Certainly evaporated and condensed were available.
Cheese in wax or cloth
There was a way to preserve whole eggs and I think it was covering them in fat(?).

How easy would it have been to obtain dried eggs back then?

Jams, chutneys, pickles, sauces....

#14: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:13 am
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There's some mention in Jo of of supplies being brought via the sawmills, although they would have stopped running if the river and the lake were frozen over.

#15: Author: Miriam, Location: Jerusalem, Israel

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 7:52 pm
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tiffinata wrote:

There was a way to preserve whole eggs and I think it was covering them in fat(?).

I have a recipe book from 1905 which has two pages of different methods of preserving eggs for the winter. One of them is to rub the egg all over with butter or melted parrafin, and then pack them (not touching) in either salt or sawdust. The main aim seems to be to exclude any air from entering the egg. In 'Highland Twins' Anna says that she has over 200 eggs put down for the winter in waterglass - whatever that is. Rolling Eyes

It also suggests preserving butter by 'working one ounce of white sugar and one ounce of saltpetre into every pound of butter'. One then had to leave it in a brine of fairly strong salt water with a bit of sugar added, with a weight to keep the butter under the suface of the liquid. I'm not quite sure what it would have tasted like.

Looking through the vegetable chapter, the only suggestions for keeping vegetables for the winter are bottled mushrooms and 'sourcrout' (their spelling). There are a lot of recipes for pickled vegetables (in a separate chapter) and a lot of different 'catsups' - not just the plain tomato ketchup we are used to now. There are even more recipes for bottled, canned, spiced, dried and preserved fruits.

A lot of vegetables and fruit they would have been able to store through at least the early part of the winter. Onions, potatoes, carrots and apples would have lasted fro a good few months. So probably would plenty of others that I can't think of right now. They probably wouldn't have had many leafy vegetables like lettuce, but one can mange without.

Preserving for the winter would have to be done in advance - this probably kept Marie/Karen busy during the summer holidays.

#16: Author: Katherine, Location: London, UK

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:42 pm
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Courtesy of Wikipedia:

Sodium silicate, also known as water glass or liquid glass, available in aqueous solution and in solid form, is a compound used in cements, passive fire protection, refractories, textile and lumber processing.

Sodium silicate was also used as an egg preservation agent in the early 20th Century with large success. When fresh eggs are immersed in it, bacteria which cause the eggs to spoil are kept out and water is kept in. Eggs can be kept fresh using this method for up to nine months. When boiling eggs preserved this way, it is well advised to pin-prick the egg to allow steam to escape because the shell is no longer porous.

#17: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:26 pm
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I agree that the idea that one should "lay in" stores for the winter was still prevalent, at least during the earlier books, and that most of the vegetables that wouldn't make it in a root cellar or in dried form would have been stored as canned vegetables, preserves, jams, etc.

On the milk front, I have some German relatives who still consider canned milk the only proper sort for the daily afternoon "Kaffeetrinken," so it mightn't have seemed a particular hardship. (They also prefer to catch the modern "steamer"-equivalent to Switzerland when the coffee supply needs replenishing. mrgreen

)

#18: Author: LizzieC, Location: Canterbury, UK

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 9:59 pm
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Kathy_S wrote:

On the milk front, I have some German relatives who still consider canned milk the only proper sort for the daily afternoon "Kaffeetrinken," so it mightn't have seemed a particular hardship.

On that note, and slightly off topic, there was an article in the times (well everywhere, but the times has the table that I wanted) about the Government apparently urging people to stop using fresh milk and start using UHT (possibly to save the planet).

The bit that relates to this thread is at the bottom of this article where they list the consumption of UHT milk as a percentage of all milk drunk by the population. The fact that 60% of milk consumption is UHT really puts a different spin on the milky coffee with lashings of cream! Laughing

#19: Author: JustJen, Location: waiting for spring training

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 11:14 pm
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I know that a lot of around the world sailors store their eggs in wax and wasn't it in Rebel that the girls were able to buy bananas and tinned fruit at a shop.

I would also assume that Karen would make some arrangements with the local farmers to buy chicken, beef, fish and pork etc.

#20: Author: Miss Di, Location: Newcastle, NSW

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:21 am
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Sorry, not even to save the planet will I give up my full cream jersey milk from Over the Moon Milk (http://www.overthemoonmilk.com.au/). UHT is vile.

Do you think Karen made bread everyday or did the school perhaps have an arrangement with one of the hotels to buy bread?

#21: Author: Karry, Location: Stoke on Trent

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 6:53 am
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I have memories from the sixties of sitting and slicing green beans to be packed in large sweet jars with layers of salt, stringing onions for the back place, and racking apples in the same place, so they didnt touch each other. carots and potatoes were stored in hessian sacks along with turnips and swedes., we used dried peas and bicarb for a change. This was in the midlands, and most of my friends families did similat things. the only tinned things we seemed to use were baked beans and joy of joys! heinz spagghetti! We had no idea of a much wider range of veg - brussels etc were best grown in the winter.

#22: Preservation of eggs Author: suemac,

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 2:51 pm
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I am sure in one of the books, Joey and Anna are preserving eggs in isinglass- my dictionary tells me that is a "kind of gelatin got from sturgeon etc" Not something you'd pick up at the village store!

#23: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 3:11 pm
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It was probably much more common then, when a lot of people were doing that sort of thing. You can still get it for clearing home-made wine. I think it's the same stuff anyway!

#24: Author: Katherine, Location: London, UK

Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 4:39 pm
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Yes, I think it's made from fish bladders or something. It's the reason why wine's not really veggie.

#25: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 3:09 pm
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Kathy_S wrote:

(They also prefer to catch the modern "steamer"-equivalent to Switzerland when the coffee supply needs replenishing. mrgreen

)

I go across the Channel to stock up in France, if I can! It's quite a lot cheaper over there.

Re bread: Karen (or Marie, in the Tyrol) probably brought their "broetchen" in daily from a local baker, rather like a French school would buy in baguettes. Broetchen are gorgeous, very crisp and delicious, but, like French bread, they don't last many hours before going stale.

#26: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:22 pm
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Anna makes bread, or at least breakfast rolls, in Switzerland. I think it's in Coming of Age. (I assume it was something she did regularly, not just a one-off, as she had all the ingredients to hand.)

#27: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 3:25 am
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Yes, Anna does make her own rolls, or Jo does it for her. In one of the Swiss floods (Trials, I think) the mistresses discuss the fact that Jo has only one bowl of flour left, so the school sends her half a crock.

On a separate subject, I was thinking about the beginning of Bride Leads where we see the Bettanys at home. Do you think the fact that we see Peggy making the splits and also her mother's breakfast suggest that they did not have a cook?

#28: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 7:02 am
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I think there's a mention somewhere of a maid/general housekeeper at The Quadrant, but by the 1950s it was becoming much less common to have a cook/several domestic staff, so they quite possibly didn't have a cook. That was horrendously badly put, sorry!

Actually, it must have been quite a culture shock for Mollie: as her dad was Dick's boss in India, she presumably grew up there, where it would have been usual for British (/Irish in her case) families to employ several domestic staff ... sorry, have got off the point ...

#29: Author: Mia, Location: London

Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:42 am
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Their maid is called Loveday and is mentioned in Peggy IIRC. I'm sure Peggy refers to Cook at home at one point at school, but not entirely sure where (or indeed if I didn't imagine it).

#30: Author: JustJen, Location: waiting for spring training

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 2:41 am
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Didn't they have someone coming and do the laundry?
And if so, can I hire her Smile

#31: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:07 pm
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I've spent forty-two and more years hoping that the laundry fairy would turn up and transform the lot into clean ironed clothes and fluffy towels, etc.

#32: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:14 pm
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Goodness! You must have amassed a huge pile of laundry in that time, Jennie Wink

#33: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:23 pm
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Well, in the absence of the aforementioned LF, I've had to do it myself. Very unwillingly, I might add.

#34: Author: AuntieBethy, Location: Wilmington, Delaware

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 12:18 am
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Please, what is UHT milk?

#35: Author: Lottie, Location: Humphrey's Corner

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 1:30 am
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AuntieBethy wrote:

Please, what is UHT milk?

It's Ultra Heat Treated, and I gather it changes the taste - I don't like any milk so I don't know.

#36: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 2:05 pm
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UHT milk is supposed to last longer before going off.

#37: Author: Karry, Location: Stoke on Trent

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 3:41 pm
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UHT is normally sold in tetrapak cartons. They do not need refridgerating until after they are opened, so are able to be stored for quite a while in a cupboard. We always used to have UHT on holiday in a caravan because of this! BTW it does taste different - an acquired taste imho

#38: Author: Rosie, Location: Land of Three-Quarters Sky

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 11:20 pm
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Very popular in France, which was lucky for my German friend who drank so much coffee she had to buy UHT milk in bulk as she couldn't take up that much space in the shared fridge...

I always drank my coffee black as I can't stand the stuff!

#39: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Sun Nov 04, 2007 11:22 pm
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I mistakenly put some on my cornflakes when I was in Paris. It was vile - I couldn't eat my breakfast after that. Rolling Eyes

#40: Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 10:30 pm
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UHT is good in things that you would use hot or cooking milk for.
Fantastic if you have a milk frother for coffee!

#41: Author: RoseCloke, Location: In my pretty box-like room

Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 12:14 pm
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On my first school trip to France we were allowed to get our own breakfasts. I obviously hadn't being paying attention to what my mother had fed me on previous trips, because I made straight for the milk and poured myself a huge glass. I got rather a nasty shock when it turned out to be UHT instead of straight-from-the-farm Jersey milk! Laughing

I should imagine that the CS probably baked all their own bread - EBD mentions several times how deserted the lake is during winter (and so maybe there wasn't a bakery, as there would've been in a large village/town) and they get snowed in a few times as well. The idea of freezing food is a good one - would that have been feasible and if so, does anyone know when freezers were invented, or would Karen have used an ice house? EBD does mention a lot of food as being bottled or canned as well.

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