Food that wins wars!
In the VICTORY CUISINE (CUISINE! Cuisine! cuisine!) series I will explore a range of Extraordinary New (and old) Foods that nowadays, we would think of as weird and wonderful - or incredibly dated - but that played their role in nutrition during the forties.
Some will be wonderful (such as this one) and you may think why yes! Perhaps I should re-introduce this wonder-product into my culinary repertoire! Some may be more ... um. Erg. (See: Spam.)
I do hope you will enjoy VICTORY CUISINE (CUISINE! Cuisine! cuisine!) however, and perhaps you will even hop into the comments and suggest a few things yourself.
If you do want to see me try out something a bit special - won't you consider sponsoring me to do so? If your donation is generous enough, I might be persuaded to try many things. Once.
This evening I would like to introduce a blast from my own past - a lovely malted beverage known as HORLICKS.
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| Magic in a jar. |
Horlicks is a malted milky miracle that was invented in the late nineteenth century, a blend of lovely lovely malt, and powdered milk. You used to make it into a lovely warm beverage with hot milk, buuut I am using hot water and a touch of soy milk for richness - hot water because milk takes coupons, and soy milk because my Stomach Says So.
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| I love lovely Horlicks. |
I grabbed a jar from my local supermarket this afternoon, not having tasted it for a number of years. To my pleasure it still tasted like a melange of flannel-nightie-soft-toy-Brownies-lullabye-Mum-hugs plus malt. Malt!
I love malt.
During the forties Horlicks (in tablet form. Tablet form!) was marketed as an energy-boosting foodstuff.
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| WOO HOO! Aw yeah. Horlicks! Energy! Jitterbugging! Let's invade something! |
However, Horlicks's true claim to fame is that it is said to promote a good night's sleep.
How does this work? NOBODY KNOWS. It's kind of like the Australian magic-beverage Milo. It gives energy! It's marvellous what a difference it makes! Milo turns kids into Olympic sportspersons! But it also seems to put you directly to sleep. Blat! Asleep.
I honestly don't know. Perhaps it's the fragrant overtones of a happy, peaceful, nursery-and-teddy-bear childhood that does it. Horlicks is like a teddy bear in beverage form. Sort of cuddly.
How did it help people in the forties? Well, malt seems to stave off hunger, quite effectively. Since I have just eaten a hearty meal that consists - let's face it - of less than half a lamb chop, most of a potato, a carrot and some onion and cabbage, the extra boost of malt and soy milk may well do the trick of giving me a pleasantly full tummy so I can go bo-bo's.
If your nights, as a woman in the forties, largely consisted of finishing work, shopping, cooking, eating, washing up, bathing, ironing, balancing the household budget (and coupons), curling your hair, putting the kids to bed, going to bed, getting woken by the air raid siren, putting on a dressing gown, collecting the kids, heading down to the shelter, listening to bombs falling and shrapnel falling on your shelter's tin roof, wondering which neigbour had received their 'wings' that night, hearing the all-clear, taking the kids back to bed, cleaning up the mess then stoking the fire and boiling the kettle for a final cup of Horlicks before crashing and getting up early to make the fire, make breakfast, get the kids to school, packing lunch, styling your hair, putting on lippie, washing then getting to work, well ...
... perhaps Horlicks was essentially a gift from the culinary gods. Milk, malt, a full tummy and as much of a night's sleep as possible.
Let's give it a shot.
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| The All-Clear has gone and it's time for a Horlicks. |
Up the wooden road to Bedfordshire, cup o' Horlicks in hand. Tastes nice enough.
And ...
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| Dreaming of David Niven. |
Frock you later.
Blossom
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