One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 31, from fish flan to spaghetti aglio,olio e peperconcino

A Good Breakfast, 1947

The continuing story of the house Joe and Mary Ann Scott lived in for over 50 years and the families that have lived here since.*

Now I can’t be certain but I am pretty sure that back in the April of 1948, Mary Anne might well have offered up steak and potato pie, or fish flan for the evening meal followed by raisin crisps or rhubarb pie.

And if it was a special day perhaps a starter of cottage soup or artichokes in cheese batter.

A little over 27 years later and Mike John and I would have settled down to one of Lois’s baked ham and pineapple dishes, while tonight inspired by Rosa’ Neapolitan cooking we might well have spaghetti aglio,olio e peperconcino which is pasta with garlic and olive oil.

Also from A Good Breakfast 1947

And in that simple travelogue of meals I guess you pretty much have one of the history’s of the house.

There are others of course ranging from the changing fashions in interior decoration and furniture to how the house was heated and lit.

Each in their way offers up insights into how things have changed in a hundred years.

So the heavy varnished embossed wall paper with matching floral design became the emulsion and wood chip of the 1970s, the William Morris and Liberty prints of the late 80s and the patterned wall paper painted in pastel colours of today.

But throughout its history food has been a fairly constant barometer of how things have been lived in the house.

Now as I said I do not actually know what Mary Ann cooked but these dishes were all from the ABC of Cooking, issued by the Ministry of Food in the immediate post war years when there was still rationing.  The sheets were issued regularly and along with standard recipes there were guides to healthy eating and suggestions on how to make food go further.

Hedgerow Harvest, 1946

My own favourite were the sheets, Hedgerow Harvest from July 1946 which declared that “there is a wealth of wild foods in our hedgerows and fields for those who are within reach of the countryside” and provided recipes for Elderberry pudding, Blackberry or Elderberry Roly Poly, Blackberry or Elderberry Kissell and Blackberry or Elderberry Tart, along with suggestions for how to make pickles and chutneys, fruit bottling without sugar, how to preserve tomatoes and jam making.

By the 1970s when we wanted to be adventurous there were curries interesting ways to cook meat and because Mike Lois and John were Francophiles many of our special Saturday meals were heavily influenced by French cooking and enlivened by plenty of plasi wine so called because the local offi sold litre bottles of dry white and red which came in plastic containers.

The dining room 1976

They were wonderful nights when the rules of what to serve with what were overturned in the sheer pleasure of tasting new things around a dining room table often crammed with old friends.

Once or twice a year there was Marc and Giles  from Paris, Jen from round the corner and more often than not Whispering Dave who taught at John’s school and helped build the boat in the back garden

Fast forward another few years and as my boys were growing up it was the influence of Tina’s mother who was from Naples.

spagehetti aglio, olio e peperconcino, 2012

Now I have written about Rosa’s cooking** and so shall content myself with the reflection that the house has acted as a mirror to all those big changes which have washed over the country.

Back in 1976 after John had ripped out the fireplaces and in the absence of central heating the dining room in winter resembled the inside of a freezer, and so for an hour before we ate, the three bar electric fire with its pretend glow light would feebly do its best.

Now with the open fires restored like a big chunk of Chorlton the dining room once again  is a place to linger long over a slow meal dreaming of other places.

Hedgerow Harvest, 1946

Picture; from the ABC of Cooking, issued by the Ministry of Food, in the collection of Vince Piggott, and the collections of Lois Elsden and Andrew Simpson





*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/The%20story%20of%20a%20house

** http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Rosa%27s%20cooking