The CBB :: View topic - veal and more veal

I suppose with all the working and games that that would have helped to fight off obesity but I can't help but feel now that there would be huge amounts of concern at their diets!

Now i have visions of Jamie Oliver descending on the school and completely revamping the menu....

...And Joey pushing lemon biscuits and cream cakes through the school fence at lunch-time to the desperate girls!

Quote:

I love that image! Also can imagine Jamie and Matey having some fairly heated discussions!

Did you ever try the Tyrolean cheese Graukase (sp) it could walk from Innsbruck to the Tiernsee all on its own no problem. It is truly appalling lol

I remember Matey gettinng terribly worried because she thinks everyone needs to have their meat as they are working so hard! I think she would have been flummoxed if a vegetarian Chalet School girl had turned up!

I don't think I've ever actually had veal - it's not common for eating at home in Canada, and tends to be more expensive than other meats, so I'm not even sure how it tastes.

Well, that was a strategy here in the UK as well, wasn't it? Yorkshire pudding was never intended to be eaten with meat and vegetables, it is more properly served with gravy as a first course, and intended to fill people up before they eat any of the expensive meat as a second course.

And my paternal grandfather thought nothing of serving a Yorkshire pudding as the pudding course, with blackberries or other chopped fruit in it, or with a good dollop of homemade blackberry vinegar.

Vegetarianism wasn't really around in the fifties, though.

I think the reason EBD is so keen on meat (and the reason the Great Famine comes across as a bit exaggerated) is to do with rationing, and the allied sense that meat was something of a prized food, maybe? )Though surely the amount of meat the CS would have consumed would have been severely reduced under rationing?) My mother, marked by her own childhood, finds my vegetarianism puzzling because it's not as though I can't afford to buy meat... I think she thinks it looks mean to invite people over to dinner and not feed them meat!

But I agree that the idea of cooking different meals for the same family would have been seen as insane in the 1950s

Although it's true she never shows them drinking water at the school or at Freudesheim either, only coffee, milk, lemonade, with occasional tea, or one of Joey's fruit drinks. Which I've always found puzzling.

I think a lot of EBD's fascination with food came from the deprivations through the War. I worked with a nurse who grew up in Lithuania during WWII and so experience huge deprivations and never deprived herself of any kind of food later on. I think if you go without for so long, you end up with a huge fascination for what you wished you could have to make up for it

Author:	MJKB [ Tue Dec 02, 2008 6:54 pm ]
Post subject:	veal and more veal
What do people think of the descriptions of food in the CS books? Some of the dishes she describes sound quite vile to me. There was one that had as its main ingredient cabbage biled in veal, I think. Yuck!! Talking of veal, nearly every meat dish appears to be veal, hot, cold and stuffed.

Author:	Mel [ Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:15 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
I love the typo 'biled' - most evocative!

Author:	Alison H [ Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:25 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Both veal and cabbage are traditionally much more popular in Austria (and Germany, and in veal's case also North Italy, bordering North Tyrol) than they are here, so Karen, and before her Marie and Luise, would have been used to making veal dishes. Maybe EBD was even trying to make a point about the school being "Continental" by mentioning so much veal rather than something traditionally British like roast beef. I always think that the food in the books sounds lovely - but I am unfortunately rather obsessed with food. It just bugs me that they all eat so much and yet most of them are so slim!

Author:	janem [ Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:39 am ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
I was in Austria last weekend and ate veal and cabbage. It was delicious and presumably both were easily available then as now.

Author:	janetbrown23 [ Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:50 am ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
I think the cabbage dish was in the Swiss books. Bernerplatte I think it was a dish containing cabbage and little sausages. Sounds pretty disgusting to me. The light airy buns filled with whipped cream were much more to my taste as a girl reading the books. No change there then lol.

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veal and more veal http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5343

Author:	Sunglass [ Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:36 am ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
I occasionally imagine PETA arriving at the CS with banners protesting about veal crates, so often does veal feature on the menu! What I often think about the food in the books in general is that a lot of it seems more like holiday food (maybe based on EBD's recollections of what she ate visiting Austria) than everyday food, especially the emphasis on cakes and pastries, and luscious black cherry jam etc. (Maybe especially in the wartime and post-war austerity period in which EBD would have been writing - it might explain how lingeringly she dwells on sweet and rich things...) Personally, I put down at least some of the behaviour of the mischievous Middles entirely to being high on sugar and caffeine!

Author:	Meg14 [ Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:23 am ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
The descriptions of food were always one of my favourite parts of the books. Our food at school was always disgusting and I always envied the Chalet School their food! I agree with the point about how it was amazing that the girls were not overweight. They were always having three course meals and cakes or biscuits in between meals. I suppose with all the working and games that that would have helped to fight off obesity but I can't help but feel now that there would be huge amounts of concern at their diets! Oh and does anyone else find it really bizarre the panic that is caused in one of the Swiss books because they have to have vegetables for two days in a row. I remember Matey gettinng terribly worried because she thinks everyone needs to have their meat as they are working so hard! I think she would have been flummoxed if a vegetarian Chalet School girl had turned up!

Author:	Tor [ Wed Dec 03, 2008 12:17 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Quote: I suppose with all the working and games that that would have helped to fight off obesity but I can't help but feel now that there would be huge amounts of concern at their diets! Now i have visions of Jamie Oliver descending on the school and completely revamping the menu.... ...And Joey pushing lemon biscuits and cream cakes through the school fence at lunch-time to the desperate girls!

Author:	MJKB [ Wed Dec 03, 2008 12:25 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
I'm a bit conservative about food, I admit, but I've always regarded veal as scrawny and anaemic beef. Also, the fact that it's a calf rather than a mature animal tends to put me off too. The 'featherlight blankets of whipped cream' however, sound gorgeous. I've visited both Switzerland and Austria on a few occasions and they are truly breathtakingly beautiful, but I must say I wasn't crazy about the food. Even the soups are a bit heavy and smokey in quality. Cheeses are fabulous.

Author:	Meg14 [ Wed Dec 03, 2008 2:36 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Quote: Now i have visions of Jamie Oliver descending on the school and completely revamping the menu.... ...And Joey pushing lemon biscuits and cream cakes through the school fence at lunch-time to the desperate girls! I love that image! Also can imagine Jamie and Matey having some fairly heated discussions!

Author:	janetbrown23 [ Wed Dec 03, 2008 3:20 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Did you ever try the Tyrolean cheese Graukase (sp) it could walk from Innsbruck to the Tiernsee all on its own no problem. It is truly appalling lol

Author:	Cat C [ Wed Dec 03, 2008 3:32 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Meg14 wrote: Quote: Now i have visions of Jamie Oliver descending on the school and completely revamping the menu.... ...And Joey pushing lemon biscuits and cream cakes through the school fence at lunch-time to the desperate girls! I love that image! Also can imagine Jamie and Matey having some fairly heated discussions! I shall do my best to remember when I get around to writing about Jamie! Although I'm not sure how censorious he'll be, given that the food is cooked from scratch on the premises - he might have a bit of a moan about the lack of fresh fruit and plain water though.

Author:	Lulie [ Wed Dec 03, 2008 7:04 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
janetbrown23 wrote: Did you ever try the Tyrolean cheese Graukase (sp) it could walk from Innsbruck to the Tiernsee all on its own no problem. It is truly appalling lol I'm going to Austria (based in Jenbach for a week, no less!) I love cheese but not stinky cheese so perhaps I'll give this a miss

Author:	jennifer [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:52 am ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
My roommate's comment about her childhood in the mountains of Poland was "Cabbage and potato is what we had, so cabbage and potato is what we ate". I quite like cabbage/potato/sausage combinations, particularly in winter. I adore stinky cheese, up to and including the stuff that could legitimately count as a biological warfare agent. Sadly, the cheese selection here is dominated by pre-grated mozzarella and processed cheese slices, which I classify as an edible oil product. My guess is that a lot of the heaviness of the food comes from what was available, particularly in the winter. I'm guessing that fresh fruit and lighter vegetables were simply not available in winter, particularly in the early days in Austria. Cabbage is very nutritious, full of vitamins, and keeps well in winter, as do potatoes and other root vegetables. I don't think I've ever actually had veal - it's not common for eating at home in Canada, and tends to be more expensive than other meats, so I'm not even sure how it tastes.

Author:	Tor [ Fri Dec 05, 2008 10:20 am ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
I think a lot of the upset people feel about eating veal comes from the crating/cramped conditions that goes along with intensive farming. that is the milk fed veal that is v. popular on the continent. You can get rosé veal, which is more expensive, and I think these calfs are suckled by their mothers and reared outside. At least the UK standards require that (is a bit vague as only remembers a bit in a River Cottage episode ) The tricky thing is, is that even the ickiness of the crate/milk fed stuff has to be put into the context of the milking industry. Male calfs are useless to dairy farmers, and so they sell them or they shoot them.. unless they can afford to do the ros´veal thing (niche market) or also farm for beef - unlikely these days. A lot go to continental veal farmers. When there is a beef export ban (cos of BSE or bovine TB) the shooting option comes into play more often. Thus, if you eat milk, you are by deafult contributing to the veal situation etc. The best thing for an easy conscience here is to either actively support the rosé veal industry (a short but happy life), or somehow help farmers to return to a mixed farming approach. It all depends how much these things get you het up (me, only a little, so it easily slips my mind). Maybe the CS girls were living off the all the male calf that had to be culled from the local milk herds? I can't imagine the tirolean peasants wasting much pasture on those unwanted calfs. That said. I love veal (and milk). Gorgeous if cooked well, and goes well with a marsala and cream sauce. The veal, that is!

Author:	charmkat [ Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:10 am ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
... and coffee and milk - well good job I didn't go to CS because I am allergic to milk (the mention of those boiled jorhums of milk makes me gag just thinking about them!) and I loathe coffee. It always annoyed me that there is so little choice in that respect because in practical terms it doesn't work. I went to boarding school and there has to be more variety to cater to people's taste, (sorry but not all of us can drink coffee!).

Author:	Lulie [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 5:26 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Something I never understood was how the jelly in meat pies could be thirst quenching? I always imagined the pies to be similar to pork pies and I couldn't eat a pork pie and not need a drink afterwards.

Author:	MJKB [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 10:34 am ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
With regard to the CS diet and obesity, I have a theory that most diets during the period in which the books are written are infinetly better than the processed 'food' that many children eat these days. When I was growing up there was very little variety, especially in fruit and vegetables, and they were usually available in season only. Oh, the difference between organic, summer strawberries from Wexford and those tasteless forced varieties you get now throughout the year! Our diet might have been limited but we ate lots of potatoes, cabbage, carrots etc, and nutricious stews. We ate sweet things, but mainly home made puddings such as apple tart, stewed fruit, bread pudding etc. We were out in all weathers and always active. I will never forget my first visit to America when I finished college in 1980. I had a fantastic summer and loved the pace of life there, but I can honestly say that it was the first time I realised what obesity meant. Now, if I go to my local shopping centre I see so many obese young people, particularly young mothers, that it frightens me for the next generation.

Author:	Jennie [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:59 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Part of keeping healthy is the school's emphasis on exercise. They can't even get to the station without walking, so that's good for them. And when I was growing up, my friends and I thought nothing of walking for five or six miles a day.

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:11 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
I think it's easy to become over-reliant on cars. Since I started the Mega-Diet 3 years ago I try to walk as much as possible, but before that I used to use the car to go even short distances; and people constantly express utter amazement at the fact that I walk to e.g. the bank or (if not going for a big weekly shop!) Tesco, which are only about a mile and a half from my house. Part of it's a safety issue in that people are, understandably, concerned about walking on their own or letting children walk about on their own - I won't walk around after dark and don't feel comfortable walking around in isolated areas - but the increase in car ownership has to be a big part of it. I feel quite embarrassed thinking that I sometimes used to use the car just to go to the newsagent's: by the time I'd got the car out and find somewhere to park it would have been quicker to walk!

Author:	Liz K [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:12 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Meg14 wrote: I remember Matey gettinng terribly worried because she thinks everyone needs to have their meat as they are working so hard! I think she would have been flummoxed if a vegetarian Chalet School girl had turned up!

Author:	MaryR [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:22 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Meg14 wrote: I remember Matey gettinng terribly worried because she thinks everyone needs to have their meat as they are working so hard! I think she would have been flummoxed if a vegetarian Chalet School girl had turned up! My mother, in the fifties, would have been just like Matey. We had precious little money, but every dinner had to include meat, no matter the cost, so that we would have protein. As far as my mother was concerned, a fat baby was a healthy baby - and I've suffered ever since with my weight. We did walk everywhere, as we had no car, but even so I didn't have the exercise the CS girls have.

Author:	Sunglass [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:24 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
I think that's also EBD writing during and after rationing - even though it's thought that the country was never in such collectively good health than under rationing, with its emphasis on vegetables and wholegrains, and relatively little meat - as shown in a recent UK TV programme where two presenters lived on a WWII diet for a week and had medical check-ups beginning and end. But I think people quite often fetishised the things they weren't able to have. (Which might also explain her smacking her lips over sweet things...) And as a vegetarian myself, I think it's also a bit generational. It would never occur to my mother to offer a guest a dinner that didn't include meat (despite enjoying my meatless cooking) as she would think it looked miserly. EBD is showing the CS feeding its pupils 'properly' without opting for cheap veggie dishes, probably also reacting against negative depictions of school food in books like What Katy Did at School, where the Hillsover girls are fed cheap pudding before the main course to fill them up, so they eat less of the more expensive meat dish.

Author:	Jennie [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:37 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Well, that was a strategy here in the UK as well, wasn't it? Yorkshire pudding was never intended to be eaten with meat and vegetables, it is more properly served with gravy as a first course, and intended to fill people up before they eat any of the expensive meat as a second course. And my paternal grandfather thought nothing of serving a Yorkshire pudding as the pudding course, with blackberries or other chopped fruit in it, or with a good dollop of homemade blackberry vinegar. During WW2 and afterwards, it was common to eat more fish than meat, because fish was unrationed or not so severely rationed, and we always had fish on Fridays.

Author:	Kate [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:41 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
My mum (growing up in the 60s) remembers a meal that they'd call 'mock goose' which consisted of goose fat poured over a potato and breadcrumb mixture and roasted. So it tasted like roast goose (which they couldn't afford) and filled them up.

Author:	Sunglass [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 6:05 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Jennie wrote: Well, that was a strategy here in the UK as well, wasn't it? Yorkshire pudding was never intended to be eaten with meat and vegetables, it is more properly served with gravy as a first course, and intended to fill people up before they eat any of the expensive meat as a second course. Absolutely, but I assume EBD thought it would look bad at an expensive Swiss boarding school, whose founder is a titled pillar of society ,and which has ski-ing on its curriculum! Though I am now quite amused by the idea of the CS being exposed as a kind of Dotheboys Hall, with pallid, protein-less Middles lying in heaps in the corridors, too feeble to go for a ramble, and Miss Annersley as Wackford Squeers going across to Freudesheim to gorge on cream buns and cackle. (Of course, all the Foundress's Family would have to get special food in this version...)

Author:	KB [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:59 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
jennifer wrote: I don't think I've ever actually had veal - it's not common for eating at home in Canada, and tends to be more expensive than other meats, so I'm not even sure how it tastes. Veal is lovely! It can be tough if cooked for too long, but it can also be delightfully tender when cooked well. Minced veal is a very good substitute for minced beef in sauces and veal sausages are heaven!

Author:	Pat [ Thu Dec 04, 2008 10:11 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
I like veal, and if you think about it, there's no difference between eating a young cow (veal) and a young sheep (lamb). It's just that we're more used to lamb.

Author:	Kate [ Fri Dec 05, 2008 12:24 am ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
The calves that become veal are often (but not always) quite a lot younger than the lambs that become lamb. That's what squicks me about it - though I know it's pretty irrational.

Author:	blue1 [ Sat Feb 21, 2009 6:19 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
I think along with it being "continental food" veal was one of the only german words EBD knew for meat. She nearly always uses it in its german form and she rarely if ever mentions any other meat in german. Just a thought. I would have hated the food at the CS. I hate milk hot or cold and i'm a vegetarian so meal time would have been torture. I actually don't like the tastes or textures of meat rather then the thought of killing/eating animals so I would have really hated it. Ok and that was probably more information than anyone wanted or needed to know. I'll stop waffling now.

Author:	MaryR [ Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:38 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Vegetarianism wasn't really around in the fifties, though. It was a case of eat what was put in front of you - and the choices in the shops were a lot fewer than they are now. Mum would have been horrified if I had refused to eat her food or demanded something other than what she provided. Same at school - no choice.

Author:	linda [ Sat Feb 21, 2009 9:03 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Jennie wrote: Well, that was a strategy here in the UK as well, wasn't it? Yorkshire pudding was never intended to be eaten with meat and vegetables, it is more properly served with gravy as a first course, and intended to fill people up before they eat any of the expensive meat as a second course. And my paternal grandfather thought nothing of serving a Yorkshire pudding as the pudding course, with blackberries or other chopped fruit in it, or with a good dollop of homemade blackberry vinegar. We've always eaten Yorkshire pudding as the starter course of Sunday lunch, and still do, regardless of what meat is served. My granddad used to say 'Them as eats most pudding gets most meat' in his best Yorkshire accent. When we were children we believed him and then wondered why we didn't have much room for the meat when it came!! As for eating them as a pudding course. We used to have any left over puds dredged with sugar or icing sugar, or with a spoonful of jam in the middle, as a treat at Sunday tea. (Yummy, but not exactly slimming!!) I have a cousin who would only eat them that way, never with gravy.

Author:	Sunglass [ Sat Feb 21, 2009 10:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
MaryR wrote: Vegetarianism wasn't really around in the fifties, though. Vegetarianism in the UK has a quite long history, on the contrary - the Vegetarian Society has been around since the 1840s. I don't know anything about Austria when the CS began, but there was certainly a strong Germanic-theosophist-health movement interest in vegetarianism in the early 20thc. I agree it's unlikely that it would have occurred to a school like the CS to offer a set vegetarian meal as such at any point in its documented history, but statistically, over the course of a comparable real-life school's history, it's likely to have had vegetarian pupils whose parents would have okayed matters with the school in advance. And in practice, during the war years, the CS may have been largely vegetarian without thinking of it in such terms... (I think we can figure out EBD's own attitude to meatless meals by the few meatless days in bad weather being referred to as the Great Famine, even though there's plenty to eat, just no meat!)

Author:	MaryR [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 2:56 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
It may have been a philosophy, Sunglass, but for normal families, most of whom didn't have much money in the fifties, I don't think it even figured. Certainly both my junior and grammar schools offered only one meal - no choice - and I don't think I knew anyone who was vegetarian until I left home in the mid-sixties. Most parents would have looked askance at us if we had asked to eat differently from the rest of the family. I am, however, only going on personal experience. I can't speak for the wider community.

Author:	Sunglass [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:38 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Looking back at what I said, I realise it does sound as though I'm talking specifically about the privileged classes - which I suppose was what was in my mind, the CS not containing many noticeably poor pupils. (I could easily imagine, for instance, Eustacia's parents, with their 'experimental' style of parenting of which EBD so obviously disapproves, bringing her up vegetarian, or at least in certain 'eccentric' dietary habits - I seem to remember her saying it is unnecessary to eat more than three times a day at some point, which suggests she's parroting a parent, as with many of her sayings.) My point was only that while I know the CS would not have offered different mealtime options on the prospectus, an expensive, real-life boarding school operating with a variety of nationalities over the CS time period is likely to have had to deal with at least a few vegetarian pupils (most likely to have been Brits, Americans or Germans) on an ad hoc basis. (One imagines Karen in the kitchen rolling her eyes about the demands of some of the 'young ladies'. I think some of the UK schools (maybe not Bedales, but that kind of 'progressive' school) founded in the late 19th/early 20thc in opposition to the public school ethos were entirely vegetarian, and grew their own food. Irrelevant to the CS, but relevant to your point about poverty and the 1950s, it's worth me saying that my mother and both of my partner's parents - who were born in the late 1930s in Ireland to very poor families - say they grew up eating virtually no meat, which was too expensive, and tended to be reserved for the working men of the family, while the women and children ate mostly potatoes, bread and vegetables. Not unusual for people of their class in that place and time. Meat was relatively expensive then, after all - my partner's father still remembers his rapture the first time he was given a fried breakfast of sausages and rashers when visiting someone, in his teens. Not that they would have even known the word vegetarian, but that's more or less what they were in practice! But I agree that the idea of cooking different meals for the same family would have been seen as insane in the 1950s - I hasten to add that though I became vegetarian when I was still living at home, I either cooked my own food, or ate the vegetable bit of what the rest of the family was having. I think the reason EBD is so keen on meat (and the reason the Great Famine comes across as a bit exaggerated) is to do with rationing, and the allied sense that meat was something of a prized food, maybe? )Though surely the amount of meat the CS would have consumed would have been severely reduced under rationing?) My mother, marked by her own childhood, finds my vegetarianism puzzling because it's not as though I can't afford to buy meat... I think she thinks it looks mean to invite people over to dinner and not feed them meat! Sorry, this became an essay.

Author:	MaryR [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:50 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
Quote: I think the reason EBD is so keen on meat (and the reason the Great Famine comes across as a bit exaggerated) is to do with rationing, and the allied sense that meat was something of a prized food, maybe? )Though surely the amount of meat the CS would have consumed would have been severely reduced under rationing?) My mother, marked by her own childhood, finds my vegetarianism puzzling because it's not as though I can't afford to buy meat... I think she thinks it looks mean to invite people over to dinner and not feed them meat! My mother never considered any meal a meal unless it contained meat - and we were very, very poor after the war and for a long time after. But she grew up in Ireland, on a farm, where the diet was literally meat (from their own stock) and potatoes - both cooked over an open fire. She joined the ATS during the war, where she became the cook, so got used to cooking whatever was available, and she said meat usually was! She can't understand vegetarianism at all and thought my daughter would starve for lack of nourishment!

Author:	Lulie [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 4:08 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: veal and more veal
My mother, growing up in a 1950s Yorkshire mill village, says that they were considered "posh" because they ate a lot of chicken. At that time chicken was a luxury, but my grandmother kept hens so they would eat those that were past laying. Because these were not nice roasted they were usually broiled, but I suppose at that time chicken was chicken was posh!