Your Guide To Scottish Vintage Cooking – Lentil Soup
These days, the Scottish food scene may be characterised by innovation and bold takes on the classics, but there was a time when creating dishes that were tasty, yet nutritious was no easy feat. After World War II, many everyday ingredients, such as meat, cheese and sugar were rationed until 1954, meaning that the people who did the cooking – mainly wives and mothers – had to get creative in the kitchen.
While on the surface level, a lot of the food from the 1950s sounds quite foreign to modern taste buds (such as the combination of bacon and bananas), you can also see many of today’s food trends mirrored in recipes from the decade. During this time, most people had their own veg patch that would provide much of the produce they needed, pre-empting today’s growing interest in eating local, organic food. All kinds of life and cooking hacks were also very popular. While today, these are found in viral internet videos, in the 1950s they were exchanged via newspaper columns.
Today, we’ve got some of those classic cooking hacks to share, alongside some authentic 1950s Scottish recipes. These tips and recipes are all found in the new book Pass It On, and were originally featured in The Sunday Post, People’s Journal and The People’s Friend.
Feeling inspired? You can find even more vintage recipes and cooking hacks over on the DC Thomson blog.