Rabbit

[featherstick]

Britain's food history is amazing. Tudor food was spicy, inventive, must have tasted great. Elizabethan food made use of new ingredients and new trade routes to broaden our palate. We fought wars with the Dutch to control the spice trade as it was so lucrative - people absolutely used mace, cloves, allspice and nutmeg, on a daily basis.

Then something happened. I've seen it ascribed to the sudden prevalence of servants in the 19th century - the middle classes could afford a "cook", but she (and it was a she) didn't know how to cook from the rich British heritage. So she served boiled meat and veg and her employers convinced themselves that this was what they wanted. I don't know how true this is and even if true it's almost certainly not the whole story.

Then after the war, Britain decided that industrialisation was the answer to food security, and the market was going to deliver it. The skills, knowledge, demand and heritage all evaporated as the "Chorleywood process" and its analogues in other production became the norm. Home economics classes were axed and families needed two incomes to stay afloat so time and knowledge were lost.

It's nice to see the return of farmers' markets and micro-breweries and artisanal sausage- and pie-makers but let's face it they are not going to bring replace what's been lost.

On the upside, I'm gradually teaching the 12 year old to cook, by the time he leaves home he'll be ready!

[Arzosah]

There's probably something to that. Another factor is more recent - the wholesale mobilisation of the country for WWI and WWII. My mother and her sister didn't live at home after they were 13 and 11 respectively, between one evacuation and another. Their mother had worked full time in a factory from when she was 14 years old in WW1, and she worked in a parachute factory and was then an air raid warden in WW2. Ingredients were quite prized, I think, but cooking with them, not particularly. Rationing got worse after the war, and wasn't abolished completely till 1954, not kidding. Fourteen years of it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/date ... 818563.stm

During and after the American Civil War (cotton couldn't get to the English factories so easily, plus there was a dip in trade) there was widespread hunger and malnutrition in Lancashire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_Cotton_Famine. The Victorian working class in this country had it very hard. Though sometimes it wasn't as hard as the agricultural labourers had it; the ones who managed to get local jobs in the new industries probably did best of all (one of my great grandmothers ran a village post office, for instance).

[diamond lil]

Veryinterestingpost featherstick. Wish I knew more about all this.

[ForgeCorvus]

We started off with Thumper, moved to nostalgia and ended up with a history lesson..... Who says we're obsessed

[jansman]

It’s a nice drift off topic though. Organic even, ( see what I did there?)

[Arzosah]

And I do see what you did there, jansman

[piglet]

When I was a child Rabbit was eaten often.
The first ever pocket money I earnt was from selling, to the local traders, wired Rabbits caught locally and Eels caught from the lower reaches of the river.

Now there is a Seagate across the river mouth preventing Elvers from entering the river.
And VHD2 is greatly reducing Rabbit populations in many areas.

[jansman]

When I was a child Rabbit was eaten often.
The first ever pocket money I earnt was from selling, to the local traders, wired Rabbits caught locally and Eels caught from the lower reaches of the river.

Now there is a Seagate across the river mouth preventing Elvers from entering the river.
And VHD2 is greatly reducing Rabbit populations in many areas.

I used to make money by wiring rabbits too , when I was a lad! My dad used to put long lines down with lobworm for eels. Sadly eels are in decline.

[grenfell]

I suppose seeing as how i started this thread i should just add one thing . I could very well have been put off rabbit as a youngster , not by any squimishness or thoughts of eating a fluffy bunny but more by my mother's set in her ways method of cooking it. For years rabbit was always stew or rather lobby in that everything went in the pot meat , potatoes and veg. Economical one pot cooking admittedly but never really bringing out the flavour to its best. After many years we did convince mother to roast a rabbit which i felt was far more tasty.

[piglet]

I used to make money by wiring rabbits too , when I was a lad! My dad used to put long lines down with lobworm for eels. Sadly eels are in decline.

Never tried long-lining for Eels, but growing up by the sea we regularly laid sand lines at low tide, during the winter months. That was back in the day when Lugworm and Ragworm were so plentiful, we could easily dig enough to bait 100+ hooks. I think the invention of Lugworm pumps have made Lug much rarer now as I see so few casts when walking on the sands.
Do people even dig Lugworm anymore? A skill that seems almost lost now.