The woman who saved the children

How had I not heard of Eglantyne Jebb? 105 years older than me, in 1911 she was touring the Tyrol with her sick mother, writing passionate letters to a former colleague and wondering about her social purpose. Two years later, affair over, she set off for the Balkans (a war zone) to oversee the distribution of aid, including investigating the truth of a massacre. The information she uncovered was so sensitive she sewed it into her clothing for safety.

It's what Eglantyne did six years later that makes me think I should know her: just after the First World War she founded Save the Children. With her team - including one of her equally interesting sisters - she organised relief for children all over Europe, including those in 'enemy' countries. What she did there has left a legacy, not only in lives saved and an organisation of international standing, but in the whole way we think about children at war.

I've just finished her biography - The Woman Who Saved the Children, by Clare Mulley. Amazed by Eglantyne's achievements, I enjoyed following her through her life - finding empathy with her frequent depression and her feelings of purposelessness, and finding hope in the fact that she did, eventually, figure it all out.

I am inspired - but also outraged. How many other eminent, impressive women have I never heard of? The 1920s-30s are a period I studied at GCSE: I know about Lloyd George and Clemenceau but had not once heard of the parallel, influential peace movement, with its often female leaders.

I will go in search of further such women. Meanwhile thank you Clare Mulley - I recommend this book to everyone.

Historical Mutton Research Episode 2

Saturday's historical mutton tasted surprisingly good. Not really very strongly of anything, but mild and brothy, comfort food. The mutton was like tougher, stronger lamb.

I'm quite looking forward to using up the leftovers. Someone suggested boiling it all a bit more would improve the mutton. Boil boil. I'm going to cheat and add fresh parsley and frozen peas. I sit in the kitchen typing and waiting.

My housemate comes home. "Alex, no offence but - in the nicest of possible ways, your cabbage is making the house smell of school dinners." There is no cabbage in it. Which makes his point about the smell even more telling.

As he prepares courgette cakes and beautiful smelling sausages, I try to eat my soggy, nearly burnt pearl barley, my still-tough and now tasteless mutton, and the bloated corpses of what were carrots. I think this is the basis of England's bad cooking reputation. I do not want to live in 1911. I do not like it at all.

Luckily I have chocolate to take the taste away. And my housemate makes me a cup of fresh ginger tea. This century is much better.

Historical Mutton Research Episode 1

The real way to get into the mind of a woman of 1911 is to cook and eat what she'd have cooked and eaten, right? So - time for my 1911 mutton stew. I have put in the research - the recipe is from a book I found in the British Library called Unrivalled Cookery for the Middle Classes (1911)by a Miss Tuxford.

First, ingredients. Purchasing process not very 1911: mutton from freezer, turnips from large supermarket echoing with 'boops' and thanks for using the self-checkout. Parsley from Rye Lane, full of pound shops and Afro-Caribbean grocers.

The recipes in Unrivalled Cookery for the Middle Classes are simple but also lacking in detail. There is an assumption you know how to cook.  I wash the barley, cut the fat off the mutton and cut into 'neat pieces'. I wonder what size of 'neat piece' is meant for the vegetables, cut them as neatly as I can. Then I put everything else in the pan, incidentally spilling pearl barley all over the floor. (Would I have had servants? Statistically I suppose it's more likely I would have been one. But this is cookery for the Middle Classes which suggests there was a group that fended for themselves - maybe with the assistance of a Home Help or similar. The quantity in the recipe is only for one or two.)

I am not going to obey Miss Tuxford's 'Rules for Cooking Green Vegetables.' Apparently they should be cooked with the lid off the pan to allow all poisonous gases to escape, and with salt and soda in the water. This following an hour's soaking in salted water.

Right, now to wait an hour and a half. Smells good. Quantities, if anyone's curious - 1/2 lb mutton, 2 onions, 1 carrot, pepper and salt, 1/4lb macaroni / pearl barley / rice, 1 turnip, pinch ground mace, dessertspoonful parsley,

Unrivalled Cookery For The Middle Classes

I took myself to the British Library to browse through a 1911 cookbook:

Coombs' Cookery

Unrivalled Cookery for the Middle Classes

(3rd Edition)

Special Chapter on Vegetarian Cookery

Useful Hints on Gas Stove Cooking

 - Edited by - 

Miss H.H. Tuxford, M.C.A.

Dimlomée, Board of Education

One Shilling Nett

I was looking for a recipe for mutton stew - but more on that another day. The ads seemed worth a post of their own.

"Pure food for the family table - Reynolds' Wheatmeal Bread. Awarded 75 Gold Medals. Has stood every test for quality and now a recognised standard article. The Lancet says: "Excellent to the taste." Your baker can supply your orders - ask for Reynolds' Pure Wheatmeal Bread, and refuse substitutes. Postcards addressed to - J Reynolds and Co Ltd., 61 Albert Flour Mills, Gloucester."

Coombs' Eureka! Self-raising Flour, Sold in 3d., 6d., 1/- and 2/6 Bags. Is the Best and Absolutely Pure. 21 Gold Medals. Recommended by Chefs and the Medical Faculty."

"Variety in your weekly menu is easily maintained by using Winter's NUTTON. It is a delightful flesh meat substitute made from nuts, is exceedingly tasty, and just the thing to relieve the dull mootony arising from a constant use of Beef and Mutton and Mutton and Beef."

Which proves that I was right to choose mutton for the focus of my 1911 cooking experiment. I think Nutton may have died out. It didn't get any gold medals, so sounds as if it deserved to.