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,
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