Bringing heritage recipes into the 21st Century has been no challenge for school caterers, Educaterers, who have been recreating some dishes from bygone eras, as documented in Warwickshire’s hist...
Bringing heritage recipes into the 21st Century has been no challenge for school caterers, Educaterers, who have been recreating some dishes from bygone eras, as documented in Warwickshire’s historical records.
When they haven’t been busy providing school meals to vulnerable children, the children of key workers and those year groups that have now returned to school, staff from Warwickshire-based Educaterers have been using their spare time to cook up historical recipes from the Warwickshire County Record Office collections.
Last month, Heritage & Culture Warwickshire shared an interesting selection of heritage recipes from the county’s archives on social media.
Taking up their latest challenge, Development Manager, Philippa Dadswell, and Area Manager, Liz Peat, attempted the recipes for a 20th Century chocolate fruit fudge and a 17th – 18th Century ‘creame with aples’.
With older recipes, just reading them can prove difficult, as the language and terminology used can be markedly different with unfamiliar spellings ~ and some very elaborate handwriting.
Philippa, who followed the chocolate fruit fudge recipe, said that with a few ‘guestimates’ on weights of ingredients, she found the heritage recipe ‘simple’.
Philippa said: “The finished product was a little sticky and didn't set to what we would expect fudge to set. A little bit gooey. But a small dusting with cocoa powder helped to alleviate this. It was delicious!”
Liz, who took on the challenge of the older ‘creame with aples’ recipe ~ which is not dissimilar to an apple and custard tart ~ said: “I knew this was going to be a challenging recipe from the start with a lot of choices to be made along the way.”
Liz made some adaptations, swapping Cox’s Pippin apples, which are not currently in season, for Braeburns. Liz said: “I was in these current circumstances also unable to get any rosewater, but added a little cinnamon, which gave a nice flavour.”
Liz added, “I did have my doubts regarding the quantities quoted and found I was right” and she had to adjust the amounts of some ingredients ~ but ended up with a very successful result!
Other recipes that will be shared via social media include a ‘cucumber catchup’ from the 19th/20th Century attributed to Mrs Bunny of Baginton, a seed cake, taffaty tarts and apple pasties.
The recipes are also available on the ‘Our Warwickshire’ website (www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk), where the Heritage and Culture team have shared their own experiences of tackling the recipes (prior to Covid-19) ~ including trying to get to grips with strange quantities like pecks and gills and, in many cases, no quantities whatsoever!
Managing Director of Educaterers, Terry Tredget, said: “For our staff, cooking isn’t just a day job, it is their passion, so I am not surprised that our employees have volunteered to take on the challenge of cooking the heritage recipes.
“It’s really interesting for them to compare the ingredients and methodologies from centuries gone by with the modern, healthy and nutritious recipes that we use to prepare our school meals.”
Councillor Heather Timms, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Environment and Heritage & Culture, said:
“These heritage recipes provide a fascinating insight into Warwickshire’s culinary history and demonstrate the range of historical records and information that is preserved in the Warwickshire County Record Office archives and that the public can access on the ‘Our Warwickshire’ website.”
For those wanting to try out the recipes at home, you may find they are a little unusual for modern day tastes. Some of the ingredients may be beyond our modern palettes and you may find it difficult to adapt old-time techniques with today’s cooking tools and equipment.
But, as demonstrated by Liz and Philippa from Educaterers, it is an interesting process and gives a fascinating insight into the culinary history of Warwickshire.
You can read about Philippa’s previous experience cooking an almond cheesecake recipe from the 18th Century on the Educaterers website at: https://educaterers.co.uk/news
If you want to try making the heritage recipes yourself at home, follow the ‘Our Warwickshire’ Twitter account @OurWarwickshire and Warwickshire County Council Twitter account @warwickshire_cc and look out for the recipe posts with the hashtags #homecooking and #HeritageRecipe.
You can also visit the ‘Our Warwickshire’ website at https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/article/heritage-recipes-with-a-warwickshire-twist to read about how the Heritage & Culture team got on with the ‘Heritage Cooking Challenge’.
The ‘Our Warwickshire’ website contains thousands of archive photos, stories, memories and maps documenting the history, heritage and natural environment of Warwickshire, which have been uploaded by local people, museums and archives.
When schools are fully open, Educaterers serve up over 120,000 nutritious tasty meals a week in over 200 schools and colleges in Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Birmingham and Oxfordshire. For more information on Educaterers, visit www.educaterers.co.uk.