HOUSEKEEPING

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 51, Issue 3112, 29 April 1942, Page 2

HOUSEKEEPING

PROBLEM IN ENGLAND-

INTERESTING ADDRESS “WASTE NOTHING NOWADAYS” Some interesting sidelights on the difficulties of housekeeping in Britain were given by Elizabeth 'Craig, the well-known writer of books and articles on cooking and housekeeping, in a recent radio talk from London. She said that only those who were experiencing life in Britain to-day could realise the problems confronting the housewife who, irrespective of • age or size of family, was unable to get domestic help.

The first difficulty came when lighting the fire in the morning. Paper was scarce and recourse had to be made to patent firelighters—if they were obtainable. Matches, too, were as scarce as gold and the few boxes obtainable had to be hidden from predatory menfolk. The greatest worry was, of course, maintaining a menu. The breakfast bacon had to be used for other meals, and its rind, formerly thrown into the garbage tin, was now treasured and eaten. To eke out the butter ration a method had been devised by which four ounces were creamed with a similar -’weight of margarine and four ounces of cornflour stiffly jellied. Personally, she had managed to get only one lemon since December, 1940', and four oranges. They had drunk the juice of the latter and she had juggled with the peel to make it into marmalade, a serious strain on the family’s sugar resources. To make the sugar go as far as possible she had used only half the usual amount of tea and for sweetening dishes had added saccharine, when it could be obtained, to replace the balance. Fruit could be obtained for bottling, but it was little use when sugar for sweetening was not available. Vegetables, too, were in short supply, and one became tired of the eternal carrots and parsnips. The shortage of

onions had badly hit discriminating palates. A most valuable birthday present had recently reached her from the country. It was a basket of beautifully fresh spinach, in which nestled three large onions and two fresh eggs. Shopping Difficulties Shopping was one of the greatest difficulties. If one went into the West End for a day’s shopping, it was necessary to take a large basket or suitcase. It was .the best way in which purchases could be taken home, for food was the only thing which was allowed to be wrapped in paper.

One might join a queue at the fishmongers to try and get something to form the mainstay of a meal. On reaching the counter it would turn out that all that was available was salted cod." “We shall turn into' salted cod fish, I think,” commented the speaker. Sausages and poultry, and such things as ox-heart and liver were mostly sold out very early in the clay, but they could occasionally be got to help in serving a meal. Despite all these difficulties the housewife was managing to keep her family fed, even if there were some sleepless hours spent trying to think up variations from the monotony of menus. Not the least onerous of her duties was the sorting of the garbage. Tins, bottles, torch batteries, bones and paper were among the things which had to be sorted into separate piles, and. pig food had to be kept separate. Collectors for each of them, Boy Scouts and school children and others, called at regular intervals. “We waste nothing nowadays,” Mrs Craig concluded.