Children’s Celebrations

JUMP TO RECIPE

World War II brought its own peculiar challenges to children. Some were affected by it mostly through rationing and blackouts. Some watched parents leave for service or work long hours away from home. Others were evacuated from their homes in London, Glasgow and various coastal cities, and these children spent the war years being fostered by families in the country or on farms. Moving to the countryside was a great thrill for some children, a great loneliness for others.

Aside from the awkward moments most children experienced as a result of the transplanting, they often endured dietary changes that would make today’s adults shudder—including cod liver oil and regional ingredients they had never seen before. The many take-out restaurants were replaced by earthy vegetables from the garden and organ meats from animals slaughtered on the farm.

Children Helping with Food in Wartime

The recollections of many individuals during the war, both adults and children, highlight the variety of unusual situations people found themselves in. Some of the accounts from farming families, who had taken in young evacuated children with their mothers, record great surprise when the children said it was the first time they had ever seen their mothers cook! The living conditions they had left behind, many flats with no kitchens or half kitchens, were hard for country folk to comprehend.

Although I haven’t read any records of children being allowed to help with the actual cooking, many children shared memories of planting and harvesting Victory gardens, gathering berries and other fruits from the hedgerows, and searching for wild rosehips. These last were allotted to children by the government in syrup form, to ensure they got enough Vitamin C.

In fact, children in many countries worked hard to cultivate and gather food as well as any other supplies to help the war effort. Children were among the main gatherers of scrap paper, metal, rags and rubber. They helped collect paperback books to send to soldiers, and they even sacrificed some of their precious few toys—many of which were made from metal—to help build real trucks, airplanes and tanks.

Special Recipes for Children

Earlier this year I happened upon a lovely British children’s cook book, We Can Cook. Although published after the war, it is full of simple but delightful recipes wartime children would probably have loved. Now grown and with children of their own, it would have been their children using this whimsical book. I imagine cookbooks like this must have made them happy if for no other reason than knowing their children could live safely at home and enjoy the everyday foods we so often take for granted.

I am sharing the recipe I made from the cookbook, for Bread & Butter Pudding, as well as my recipe for gelatin cutouts. I use a high-quality, organic fruit juice and unflavored bovine gelatin, which I think are better quality than the boxed, flavored gelatins I can buy locally. This recipe is very simple and allows plenty of room for choosing the specific ingredients you prefer.

Gelatin Cutouts

Pour
1 cup juice of your choice
into a medium bowl. Sprinkle
4 teaspoons gelatin (I use unflavored bovine gelatin)
over juice. Allow to stand several minutes to soften gelatin. Meanwhile, pour
3 cups juice
into a medium saucepan; then, bring to a simmer. Remove from heat and pour into the cold gelatin mixture. Stir to completely dissolve gelatin. Pour into a 9x13-inch baking dish and cover. Refrigerate until gelatin is fully set.
To remove gelatin, dip bottom of dish into hot water for a few seconds to loosen. Then, invert onto a glass cutting board. Cut into shapes as desired.

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Bread & Butter Pudding

Yield 6

Author Lynne Peebles

From the children's cookbook We Can Cook comes this yummy recipe children can make with only a tiny bit of help. It would be even better with fresh fruit.

Ingredients

• 4 slices white bread
• 1 oz (25g) butter
• 2 oz (50g) mixed dried fruit
• 1 oz (25g) caster sugar [or regular cane sugar]
• 1 egg
• 1 cup (250ml) milk

Instructions

1. Put oven on at Gas Mark 4 (electricity 350°F/180°C).
2. Carefully cut off crusts from bread and spread the four slices with butter. Grease the dish. Place crusts in the bottom.
3. Cut each slice of bread into four, either squared or triangles.
4. Arrange pieces of bread over the crusts and around the sides of the dish and sprinkle some of the fruit and sugar over the bread.
5. Put in another layer of bread, the rest of the fruit and some of the sugar.
6. Cover this with the rest of the bread with the buttered side up. Sprinkle with the rest of the sugar.
7. Beat the egg well into the milk and gently pour over the pudding. Let this stand for 10 minutes so that the bread will soak up the milk.
8. Put into oven and bake for 30-45 minutes until set and the top is crisp and golden.
9. Serve immediately.

References

Ladybird Books Ltd. We Can Cook. Loughborough, UK: Ladybird Books Ltd., 1979.

“To all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God.”

John 1:12