When history collides with the kitchen …… the cupboard was bare ..... cooking from home no. 5

The challenge is a simple one.

Take a handful of ingredients from the kitchen and come up with a favourite meal, while at the same time exploring its history. *

To be strictly accurate there were things in the fridge and freezer and a growing pile of tinned food, but essentially, I was pretty much out of fresh food.

And that was because I miscalculated when the woman/man with a van would arrive with the food order.

At which point someone will sniffly comment on the availability of nearby shops but yesterday was a day when I had to stay in and anyway, I like the man with his van.

All of which left falling back on the jar of lentils, an onion, and the last of the baby tomatoes.

So, while the red lentils cooked slowly in a pan of water with the addition of some turmeric, I set to frying the onion, tomatoes and a dollop of tomato puree.

And when the sauce was a lovely golden red colour, I threw in the cooked lentils being careful to save some of the water to add to the mix.

That just left me to decide what next, and because I had some frozen peas they went in to, along with a handful of chili flakes, and curry powder.  This I know will upset the purists who make their own curry powder but I was missing the dried cumin and coriander.

Later that evening I prepared some rice and the rest was the meal.

My Wikipedia tells me that "Lentils are among the most ancient cultivated foods; they have been found in human settlements dating back to the Bronze Age. Researchers have dated the preparation and cooking of split dal as far back as 800–300 BC".**

And this mix of lentils, and other things when cooked in pretty versatile, so I have added it to cooked mushrooms and used as a filling in home pasties, while our Elizabeth adds it to her soups and both of us will eat it as a main or side dish with a mix of curries, and I am minded to explore using lentils to make some savoury fried snacks.  

We shall see.

Leaving me just to ponder on the history of the boy, the woman or the man with a van.

Deliveries by local tradesmen are as old as the van, and before that the horse and cart or the humble bicycle.

When I was growing up in south east London such deliveries were pretty much limited to the milkman with his horse drawn float but a generation earlier and the streets would have been full of butcher's boys, grocery, green grocery and fish traders.

All making deliveries to even quite humble homes.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2026, except the delivery vans on Beech Road circa early 20th century from the Lloyd collection

*When history collides with the kitchen, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/When%20history%20collides%20with%20the%20kitchen

**Dhal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal