Its really interesting to see why exactly English cooking became what it is

Your tablecloth must have calmed these books as it reminded them of their natural environment: the '60s and '70s. That was very kind of you.

An old cookbook should be judged by the number of ancient grease smears and gravy stains

Am I the only one that would TOTALLY buy audio books read by Atomic Shrimp??? This is very interesting to understand what happened to British cuisine and how WWII affected everyone in Europe. I love your videos. Keep up the awesome work!

Man, that austerity cookbook talking about not being at war and food in shops being plentiful yet costs are rising ever week. Nearly 50 years old but sounds like it could have been written last week.

Marguerite Patten was lovely. They say never meet your heroes I have met a few clebrety cooks mosty i have been distpointed. I met her once in the late 1990's when she spoke at a conference that i had helped organise. I had been quite excited that she was coming, so when i was asked to escort here to her car i was a bit of a fan boy. I thanked her for all her work with the Ministry of Food she looked me up and down a bit as i was in my late 20's at the time ,so i offered "well that was when people most needed to make the most of what they had" and explained that i was the first boy at my school to do "o level" home economics and she seemed happy with what i said. Dad was a milkman so we had a copy of the Dairy Book of home cookery! Irony as i was working for what the MMB's Thames Ditton lab folded into when i met Marguerite Patten!

I’m British too, but of partial Italian descent. What you say about the wartime effects of cookery is very true and I have a few observations to add. The first is that British traditions of every kind were already in decline by the world wars due to the fallout of the Industrial Revolution, which uprooted local communities and forced many people who had once been prosperous and educated into extreme poverty. Lots of traditional know how was lost as were the communities that supported them. We see this is music for example, with the loss of traditional forms of music and the ordinary man as musician and its replacement with the passive experience of the music hall and rise of popular international tunes. We also see it in culinary terms, as the British stereotype of over boiling vegetables is a 19th century thing, designed to ensure they were ‘healthy’ due to the high levels of chemicals in the soil. By the time WWI happened and the state began organising food production for the war effort it cemented a process of decline and loss that had been happening for about a century. I’d also contribute something from my Italian background. My ancestors came over in the 50s. When I was born, in the 80s, Italian food was still not very popular in the UK. You couldn’t get a lot of ingredients that you needed, so you adapted. Skills were completely lost and the kind of cooking has stuck in the expectations of the 50s. That has meant I have had to read books, watch KZfaq videos, learn to use tools and techno which are Italian but were never used in my household (though my nonna remembers them when shown to her). Outside, most British people are probably more connected to what is contemporary in Italian cooking than anyone in my family. It’s funny the way traditions fossilise and expand or contract like that.

I always love looking through 70's cookbooks. It's not a PROPER 70's cookbook unless there's something in there which you decorate with glace cherries!

Never know what to expect from this channel, but it's always interesting.

Google differs a bit between countries, so when I in Sweden searched for almundigoes, I found this in McCONNAUGHEY SOCIETY OF AMERICAs Annual Bulletin : "When she planned the McConnaughey Society of America reunion here last suminer, she included cock-a-leekie soup, fish au gratin. almundigoes (meatballs), stuffed roast pork. colcannon, minted carrot, raisin bread pudding, lemon snow. Hussar salad Ind truffles on the menu. Recipes came from "The Scottish Women's Rural Instiiutes Cookery Book," which reflects the fntegration of dishes from other countries tnto Scottish home cooking. "

Reminds me of when Milk Bottles would freeze on the doorstep & end up bursting the cap.

Once again your video is a measure of calm and reasonableness, that seeks to gently educate without admonishment, and celebrate the little things that might otherwise be forgotten. Thank you for being a considerate and kind creator of entertainment

It seems like The Netherlands went through a similar hurdle. Our (yes, I'm Dutch) potato mash based dishes are super simple, and massively rich in energy. Regardless, they are loved by many people, including the youth. Boerenkool is probably the best example, as it's not only mostly potato, but the vegetable part is curly kale - this veg is so hardy and well suited for wartime dishes, because it _has_ to have been through a period frost in order for it to taste well. And after preparing a large pot of boerenkool, you can safely freeze the leftovers, and eat it again another day.

Your comments on the effect of rationing etc on British cuisine was very interesting. I'm in Ireland and it made me reflect on the state of our own cuisine. Most people don't realise that Ireland also had rationing, and throw in the famines etc and it feels very much as if we, like Britain, are in a period of exploration and reinvention. It's both sad and exciting. I own a lot of historical cookbooks and you made me re-read them in an entirely new light. I'd love to hear you talk more about this subject.

I'd love to see more recipe tests from these old books! love it.

I loved seeing this program as I grew up in England during the 40's and fifties. Pudding was just that, and indeed the birds always got the cream.

In my area there’s a large resurgence of independent dairies popping up with milk vending machines and I’m totally here for it. Cannot get enough of nipping to the farm the milk comes from and bringing my bottle with me (a litre bottle as sold by the dairy) and getting proper fresh milk from local North Walian cows. If we want to support local business over supermarkets it seems like a great place to start IMO, the milk is only a few pence dearer and a whole lot better so for as long as I can justify the cost I’ll be there.

Japan's now famous Katsu Curry was actually based on British curries not Indian curries, the Japanese navy started serving it because the British Navy served their men curry. It then got popular with the rest of the population and is why it's sometimes called Navy Curry in Japan.

My nan used to make the most heavenly suet puddings. All the fresh fruit came from the garden, usually blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, strawberries and raspberries. Cutting into the pudding all the fruity goodness would spill out, ready for the thick golden homemade custard on top!! This video has inspired me to seek out some ATORA and recreate this wonderful childhood nostalgia.

I love the 'Dairy Book Of Home Management'. A great 'dip in' book. (I particularly enjoyed the cheese section) Another fun thing about it, is that it's general editor, was Neil Tennant, now better known as one half of the Pet Shop Boys. He went from this, to being a writer, interviewer, and record reviewer on 1980's pop magazine, Smash Hits. Lovely video, Mike - my late mum had several of these books. Made me very happy to see them again. Thank you.👍👍👍

I can't believe that these cook books are on my bookcase, I have collected them from the age of 13, my mums cookbooks were my starting point and some of these date back to the beginning of 1900s and there's some very good recipes, some developed during the wars and we're working hard to create healthy nutritious meals. Great video, thank you 😊

This was actually really fascinating, and I'd love to see more recipes tested our if that's something you'd be interested in sharing with us any time. I really never have too much to worry about when it comes to your videos because I almost always find something interesting and useful to know.

when I was about 14 years old I met this girl who's Mother was English and her dad Dad American but she was born in the US one night she invited me to come for supper which was what the locald called the nighttime meal. She told me that we were going to have beef stew. When we got to her house I couldn't smell the aroma of beef stew cooking .When got to the kitchen to eat her mother was warming up canned beef stew I was shock .She didn't evened try to hide the can it was sitting on the counter! We lived in a farming area in New England and women in are area didn't buy prepared food from the store.I don't think she really knew how to cook . My mother called her a War Bride and stated that we have no idea how hard her life had been before coming here. The other thing my Mother said was its hard to learn to cook when bombs are dropping around your head. I did enjoy your video and Thank for a trip down memory lane

I just wanted to say that I love your channel. Its a variety slice of life, from scams, to tools, building, gardening, food, science, plants and so much more.

Not many people can make milk this interesting, great video and honestly, my favourite milk flavour is probably vanilla, from the rare and coveted yellow cow. Thanks for making my evening better!

The Dairy Book of Home Management was one of my special interests as a kid - I was a weird kid. And I read & re-read that book over & over. I especially loved the illustrated images of fruit, veg & meat & the tables of seasonal availability. I found a copy at a car boot sale a couple of years ago & it has pride of place on my kitchen bookshelf!

Completely fascinating. That Almundigoes recipe is a great find. I've got my own collection of British cookbooks from 1920s onwards, and I've come to these same conclusions of the war depressing ingenuity and availability. I'm currently writing a video on the same topic.

The "Ploughman's lunch" was another invention of the milk marketing board in the 1960s, it was so effective that it was hard to buy any other food with my lunchtime pint as an 18yo in the early 1980s, and I really thought it was a traditional pub meal 🙂 (a bit like my presumption that ciabatta was a traditional Italian bread when I first tried some in around 1985-- I was quite surprised around 15yrs ago when I discovered that it was invented in 1982!)

Those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s had parents who were still in the austerity mindset. Mine grew their own fruit & veg, baked bread, cakes etc, brewed beer & wine from stuff they grew or foraged. What a nostalgia trip, thank you!

The steamed pudding reminds me of when I used to make Pond Pudding for Christmas as we didn't like Christmas pudding. The filling is equal amounts of sultanas or raisins, and brown sugar. Mixed in with that is dollops of unsalted butter. A lemon with skewered holes is placed in the middle. It's so delicious with cream. I've seen versions on the Internet without sultanas, but they soak up the liquid and take on the lemon flavour. We love it.

The pudding came out looking really yummy and it did look fun to cook, lovely video as always

I love these old recipe books & that pie looked interesting but the pudding looks delicious 😋. Thanks Atomic shrimp 🦐🤗

My dad was one of those who used to go on about "foreign muck", his generation grew up with very plain and simple food. I am thankful that I am of the generation who got to try new food from other countries, and I love it. I remember some of the old cookery books, my favourite was the BeRo book, do you have one of those? Going back to the 70s I remember some of the cookery shows on tv. I am a bit young to remember Fanny and Johnny Craddock, but I do recall the "Galloping Gourmet" Graham Kerr, and a series called Farmhouse Kitchen, where Dorothy Sleightholme used to go from one end of the kitchen to the other leaving a trail of debris behind her. There were several books that were made available from that series. I would love to see more from these old cookery books please.

Born in 1959 I too remember fighting over getting the cream from on top of the milk. We also had birds peck holes in the bottle tops here in Australia, but our birds were magpies. I remember Mum getting very annoyed for quite a few weeks that "someone" was going around poking holes in the top of the milk bottles, until she realised that it was the maggies that were doing it. Can't remember if that made her more annoyed, or less. :) Btw, that steamed apple pudding looked amazing. Takes me back to my Mum's cooking. I really miss her and her cooking.

I've watched well over 100 of your videos, many more than once and I think this is your best video. Great story arc, informative, entertaining. In a way it was a typical video, but this was another level. Enjoyed every single minute!

I have this old cookbook, the "New Doubleday Cookbook", I inherited from my mom along with a bunch of old cookbooks and things. In the forward it talks about how novelty appliances such as microwaves and food processors have exploded since the first print along with such glorious innovations such as dried pasta being available in supermarkets. Really puts into perspective how lucky we are even in these trying times.

Shrimp You should cook a traditional british curry to show people what its like. My nans variation was like a curried stew. basically youd chop up a couple onions and brown them and then brown like 500g mince, add in couple cans tinned tomatoes, add in a couple of chopped carrots, parsnips and a chopped leek.Fill the tomato can with water once or twice and add it. Bring to a simmer. Once its reduced slightly add a bunch of curry powders. The powdered ones. I usually go for madras and some other mixes. My nana had a whole cupboard full and we'd mix and match and experiment. Then let it simmer for a good while, hour+ really until the carrots and parnsips slices are soft. Serve with rice or mash or homemade chips, with a slice of bread and butter for dipping. Delicious.

Another awesome Atomoc Shrimp video... Great way to start the weekend!!

I watched this and its earlier companion video today, and it sparked quite a nice discussion with my wife about the austerity that the UK would have experienced for those forty or so years. It also gave new perspective to the sheer joy it must have been to be a twenty-something in the sixties, and I think this must have been part of the reason there was so much rejection of older social norms - leading to rock and roll and other such "excesses" (as their parents might have called them) of the time. Thank you, this was a really enlightening video to watch.

Oof! I was put off steamed puddings by my experience of school dinners. I am 62 and so was at school in the late 1960's. School dinners (at least at MY school) were pretty disgusting. It is definitely what made me become a vegetarian as all meat dishes were the absolute cheapest cuts which were largely fat and gristle. I digress, steamed puddings were always grey in colour ( I do not know how they achieved this!) lacking in sugar and came with a compulsory dollop of lumpy, floury tasting custard which again lacked any discernable sweetness...I can feel my stomach turning at the thought of those school dinners...!

this is such a relaxing yet interesting corner of the internet - well done!

Pure nostalgia,thank you. W.e had the dairy cook book every year, try the cheese & parsley pudding - yum - it's more like a souffle👍

I love the cookbooks. I love the pudding. I love this video in general. Thanks Mike 😊

Back in the early 50s my Dad had a job delivering fresh bread, in the same way as milk is delivered. His first job was to take yesterday's loaves and stack them into the middle of the new, fresh bread .. so that the steam and heat of the fresh bread would liven up yesterdays bread so that could also be sold as fresh. :D

I am a teenager of the 1960s and trying the exotic food 🍱 from China and India, it was so sophisticated and adventurous, yes still love a good curry 🍛👍 Wonderful memories😊 Old cook 📚 books are a fantastic reading.

One of favourites is the reader’s digest cookery year when I was a child I made a beeline for that book every time I visited my grandmother. Most of the recipes were broken down by month and what was in season. The start of the book had all the different fruit, veg, animals and all of the different cuts of meat and what part of the animal it came from. At the back was baking recipes. The different kitchen equipment needed for a well stocked kitchen.

I have acquired so many old cookbooks over the years as i have been getting more and more in traditional cooking. I don't think i will ever make the jelly cucumber and salmon bun recipe! Last year was fantastic growing season and sometimes even got overwhelmed with the produce and processes but with the late spring and sudden temp increases, it really shocked the already struggling plants. Everything seems a month late compared to last year, when in reality, everything last year was a month early. The only thing that i have been preserving so far is rhubarb. I made 3 tubs of rhubarb crumble no churn ice cream and 3 jars of Rhubarb, ginger and orange jam. I could already see that we couldn't get a full jar of strawberry jam and supply our child with dessert and only managed a quarter filled jar. Year 3, season 2 of raspberries and they are still picking up in production, despite their 20 - 30 cm pots. We only bought one plant and the birds provided the rest by pooping exactly in one or two of our empty pots! Not enough for a pie or preserving but adds to our child's pudding. Far from self sufficient in a London based garden. Third of it is lawn for a paddling pool or kick about a football, another third is for growing fruit and veg and the other third is for the birds and privacy. We also have winter (yellow) and summer (white) jasmine and wisteria, amongst other non edible flowers. I like to watch The Seasonal Homestead and Mary's Nest for preserving and canning. You can get the non beef/meat suet and that is for sweet dishes and puddings. I love suet for dumplings and doughnuts! I think the flour is in there to stop it from sticking to itself. Always worth seiving dried refined products as there is a certain bug (thankyou mem bank for not loading), which can get into open bags, etc of flour, sugar, rice etc. Sealable containers or cheap freezer bags work well. Another great video! I used to love watched those videos of the two men and one woman, with ginger hair on the BBC?, doing things in certain time periods. You could really see the lady's spirit change that year when she entered the Victorian era! It's a shame the BBC pulled all of those videos as it was very educational.

Very enjoyable and interesting. Reminded me of my childhood and how inventive and flexible my Mum was with cooking for a large family. It always seemed to me that she could make something tasty out of a very few ingredients. Thank you.

I think cooking during a war, with all the stress and rationing, would take a lot of ingenuity. My mom made quite a few "depression" recipes, as she called them; I still make some of them, comfort food for me. I like this series, thanks. Take care, be well

45 years ago when i first married i was given The good housekeeping cookbook and a Margarette Patten book on internationalrecipes(not the one you show here but illustrated and organised by country... These two books were my bibles. I cooked many steamed puddings both savoury and sweet. My husbands favourite was steamed treacle pudding (it actually used golden syrup. The apple pudding you show here was less stodgy because you rolled the pastry quite thin.. then cut a quarter triangular slice which would be the lid. The rest was then easier go slip into the pudding bowl. You actually filled the apples to the top and laid the pastry top over pressing the edges together without folding over ( or as you did you would have a this wadge of dough with no filling)when using your greaseproof and foil cover tou would make a fold in order to allow for any rising of the pastry... always worked and was much less stodgy .. but of course these were always filling puddings

What a wonderful video essay. A truly informative recipe of a dollop of history, a tsp economics, a pinch of politics and a juicy slice of apple pudding. Mike, with this masterpiece you are truly spoiling us 😉

I’ve only just started getting milk bottles delivered and never grew up with it. I’ve always struggled to get the tops off. Then I see you, a veteran in milk delivery, just push the top in and take off the lid. You have changed my life. Thank you.

Ah, thanks Mike. A fantastically nostalgic canter through my culinary/milky childhood. The point at which you pressed your thumb into the foil milk bottle top re-awakened a long-forgotten muscle memory for me [if you used your forefinger, a finger nail would typically go through the foil first - nice]. A lot of us who grew up in the UK in the 1970s will no doubt remember the provision of milk to primary school children, where a skewer would be used to puncture the foil tops of individual sized bottles [quarter of a pint?] and a straw inserted in the hole after which a pupil designated as 'milk monitor' would hand a bottle to each member of the class and a silent quaffing of the contents would ensue. Happy times.

I can remember my step father using the term foreign muck for pasta on a regular basis. Spaghetti bolognese for us and he would have pilchards on the toast.

I remember making a milk bottle box, from some wood off cuts. It turned into a major project,when a hinged lid and wall brackets where added. I had forgotten about it, till watching your excellent video

Regarding the birds stealing the cream, a similar phenomenon is happening here in Australia. The cockatoos have learnt how to open residential bins, and routinely figure out how to overcome improvised deterrents. The number of cockatoos capable of opening bins was localised to Wollongong, but growing populations in surrounding areas are learning to do the same.

The skill of pushing a metal foil milk bottle cap just enough to loosen it, without putting your thumb through it is a muscle memory akin to learning how to crack an egg without smashing it. :D

I’d love to see more of these 70’s recipes. It brings me back to my childhood.

That was fascinating! And hilarious, "mmmm steamed apples" made me cackle

26:20 I seem to recall some anecdotal story about a Humphrey being an elephant but it was cheaper and safer to mimic the trunk with an elongated straw. I may have dreamt it.

Since you've mentioned lamb being expensive now, i have a GREAT TIP: lamb neck costs £6 / kg even at London butchers, ask thrm to slice it for you and throw it in the slow cooker with some stock, a few carrots and onions and herbs. Tried it this weekend. Best stew I've ever tasted ❤❤❤

Hi Mike, I really enjoy this kind of experimental cooking video, and I usually pick up some good ideas from you. I'm into this kind of thing myself, in particular I found two cookery books - Good Housekeeping (1959) and The GEC cookbook (1961, came with the purchase of a GEC oven,) and I have made most of the steamed puddings, cakes and biscuits in both. It made me realise that a lot of cakes are sweet enough with a couple of ounces of sugar, rather than the 6oz typical in a modern recipe. One recipe I particularly like is for plain digestive biscuits, I don't know why, but I don't ever get tired of them.

I've got a Collins Family Cookery book by Elizabeth Craig dated 1957. I really recommend you try to find one - it has some real marvels in it that I think you would just love making/eating. When you started talking milk bottles I immediately had aural memories of clinking bottles - I had a newspaper round as a youth and the milkman did his round at the same time as I did my round. The memory makes me smile.

I’d love to see you doing more budget challenges. I really enjoy them!

The birds used to get at our milk all the time. Eventually my father made a wooden box with a hinged lid for the milkman to place the bottles in. I still have the box 45 years on although these days I buy my milk by the carton.

I like that bean recipe and I'm going to try it with a few alterations. About that mustard usage: here in the US, it's typical to use mustard in cooking beans. As it happens, in the book you've shown 20:10 the recipe above is for Boston Baked Beans which is, without a doubt, an American favorite and as you will notice it also contains mustard. Unfortunately, as someone who regularly makes homemade Boston Baked Beans in a proper stoneware beanpot, I regret to tell you that the recipe is woefully wrong! Don't try that one; you'd be disappointed. It should contain dry Colman's mustard and a whole onion, and it requires rather a lot more molasses.

Nice to see you are keeping it authentic with the cooking bowl my man had a set of those in the 70's and 80's No way would my wife eat that she does'nt use much salt in her cooking I remember the milk being delivered as a child and the bottle tops being pecked open by the birds custard has to be birds

I made watching your videos my habit. Hearing the intro song feels so good on a Friday evening. Thank you for making all these creative videos! I'd like to ask you: who taught you to cook so well and understand all the replacements you can use when cooking? I wish you a great weekend!

I remember getting loads of orders for that Dairy Book of Home Management and delivering to my customers on my milk round. Nice memories.

I can smell the cookbooks just watching you flip them open. We have some really old ones we always whip out on special occasoins and it just brings back memories

Remember in childhood, 50s/60s when shopping at butchers, a piece of suet would be torn from the hanging carcass and added to whatever meat was purchased, free of charge; I was often instructed to request "extra suet please". I really enjoyed the job of rendering down the suet to make our bowl of fat as there were always little bits of crispy fat left at the end. I've always loved well cooked fat on my meat and have raised two sons who will gladly accept the discarded fat from other people's plates. As butchers disappear from the high streets the evolution of fatless joints of beef, with a bit of fat tied on is very disheartening. I also miss the rind which was left on rashers and fried up to delicious bacony crackling. I was raised in the west of Ireland and everything from poultry, beef, mutton (lamb was for Spring/Easter), eggs, milk and butter was so flavoursome. You took me on a trip down memory lane today and I'm feeling wistful. 😌

I found your previous video really useful in expressing my thoughts on british food and now actually have a defence of the food i was raised with, so thank you. Loved your previous video and loved this one

I love old cookbooks and quite a few of them (U.S. versions) 😁😋. Those British ones look like so much fun! I can’t recall ever hearing about suet pastry before, using lard as the fat, yes, but suet, no 🧐 (and I can’t recall ever seeing that suet product in the stores over here in the U.S.). So that part was very interesting. I was surprised and curious about the thickness of the pastry, so I had to look it up on the internet and wow, the recipe I found was showing a very thick pastry crust for a steamed pudding. Maybe it has to do with needing to hold up while being steamed?🧐 I generally make pastry crusts for fruit pies and quiches and like a very thin crust on those, so it was very interesting and fun to see the differences 🙂. Thanks for a fun video!

I didn’t have a television growing up but I remember the milk advertisement making Accrington Stanley famous!

when you cut the circle for the bowl by folding it into a wedge first … that was so simple yet so clever!

My mum used to boil whole onions..one for each person ...then stuff with soaked breadcrumbs mixed with herbs . put in a dish in oven for a while then sprinkle with grated cheese and replaced in oven until golden . This was a favorite but I never knew the name of this dish and wonder if anyone else had it

"Smells like wallpaper paste..."😂😂 So you can use it for decorating if the pie failed😂 very interesting video.. I have the Dairy book.. same edition, together with the cookbook which I use a lot! I also have a set of recipe books published by Stork margarine, the Stork Wives Club put them out in a series which my mother collected... some really odd recipes but very tasty! Little trick for pud lining... cut a quarter out of the pastry, then bring it to a shallow cone and ease into the basin, then use the quarter for the lid. My nan used to do it... worked every time.😊

always love when shrimp brings out the pudding chart

This was a great fun/nostalgic video Mike - many thanks. Another shout out to the under appreciated brown cows for their chocolate milk production 😂

I find this fascinating. My own family hails from the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky and Virginia (USA). My great grandparents were all coal miners and farmers. They were dirt poor. They ate things like soup beans and cornbread, tomato sandwiches, and dandelion salad because it was cheap and easy to stretch. The younger generations eat it not because we can’t afford better, but because it’s comfort food to us. I mean, a meal that feeds 6 people for $2? Yes, please!

My favourite part of visiting my grandparents was always their glass-bottle delivered milk (one of my aunts was doing it too at the time but these days I don't think she bothers anymore, or perhaps the service isn't available anymore where she lives), for the rest of my relatives it either wasn't available or it was jsut easier to nip down to the corner dairy if you needed any. Something about it just tasted better than even whole milk in a carton now (my mum prefers 0%, everyone else I know/stay with prefers 1-2%, so I just top whatever I get up with a dash of cream... not the same, but good enough). My dad has some of the 80s bottles for personal nostalgia (not sure if NZ had the same taller bottles while he was there, I'll have to look into it as he'd be thrilled to have those too I'm sure), he's very proud to have acquired them (he lives somewhere way too hot for doorstep milk in glass!). I remember the bit about birds getting into milk, might've been in a story I read though (ripped from reality or the headlines, I'm unsure, almost certainly a British children's book though). (And yes, YES, MORE CUSTARD, correct course of action, I approve)

Last year we got the pleasure of having a dairy company move into our area from IL. They home deliver milk in 1/2 gallon glass bottles (they really are a 1/2 gallon). The milk is obtained locally from farms a part of the 1836 Farms (local family ran farms). The milk is way superior to what you get in the big box grocery stores and we have the options of having other products delivered as well (cheese, ice cream, baked gooda, meats etc) all from farms near us. Every bottle also comes with a lovely slogan "Texas Forever" cause that is how we roll in Texas. They have themed bottles too for the holidays including a cow with a Santa hat and the Texas Flag. Yes it costs more to have it delivered to the home but we enjoy the luxury and it is one less thing I have to worry about. I adore old cookbooks. Thank you for the wonderful video and showing us the recipes in action.

I learned the hard way that the colours of the tops of milk bottles aren't universal. Red cartons of milk over here in the Netherlands are in fact, buttermilk.

There's something just sweetly adorable about The Humphrey. The whole campaign just makes me smile. How wonderful that everybody was in on it too!

One of the other factors often sited for the dim state of UK food as late as the 60s and 70s was that as people were starting to 'think' about food being fun again this coincided with the birth of processed and freezer based wonders like Angel Delight and Fish Fingers, and this became 'the new exciting'.

When I was a kid in the US, our lunchtime milk came in small glass bottles with cardboard lids. Those might have outlines of the states with their capital indicated, or a drawing of a US President. Of course we collected them and tried to get full sets. We moved to another state and I was introduced to little cardboard milk cartons, and it was just not the same.

When i was a kid in the 70's the milkman always delivered silver top milk which from memory was full fat milk. And ohhh atora suet dumplings in my nan's stews and casseroles 😊

So much nostalgia here. We used to get the foil-topped glass milk bottles as well but couldn't justify the expense. Was just typing about birds pecking through the foil when you mentioned it yourself! I just use my hands to squish up those big tomatoes until they resemble the chopped variety.

I only know the milk delivery from TV shows, not sure if it were even a thing in Germany. One question came to my mind though. How do you close those bottles to avoid the milk going bad when you're going to store them for several days. Love your content by the way, every video is a joy to watch! Cheers from Germany ❤

What a wonderful topic. I've still got books from the early 1980s when I got married and still refer to them. I was born only 8 years after rationing ended and it's been a facinating journey to where we are today with the wonderful choices we have. Still like basic cottage pie and other basics though. Hungry now and it very late😢😢

I've learned so much from this video, including unexpectedly the origin of pogs ❤

I really like the making of old cooking recipes and generally find the cooking videos very soothing

The trick with the greaseproof paper was absolutely magical.

Whole milk blue cap? I only recall silver for whole milk up North, red/silver for semi, and i presume solid red for skimmed.

Back in the 70s in Sydney, Australia, small foil-topped bottles of milk were delivered to schools each morning ... and then left out in the hot Australian sun till lunchtime. Makes me gag just remembering the hard plug of milk in the top of the bottle.

As someone who's always been kind of wary about telling people where I'm from, due to the notions people have about English food, this was a fascinating dive into why and how those views became so wide spread. As usual, another fantastic video! Ps, I really want to make a pie now 😅

I'm lying here in my hospital bed after a failed intestinal operation, constantly fluctuating between hunger and nausea, and for days I've been fed almost exclusively liquid. While my stomach reacted with a very serious "NO" to the thought of the beans & onions, the thought of the cooked fruit made my mouth water... now I crave steamed fruit 😂 But yes, old cookbooks of this sort are like time capsules of their own kind, if we read them carefully we can learn a lot about the history of our country. And I think they can help us to find our way around a little better in adverse economic situations. As I was raised by people mostly born before WWI and WWII, I also know their aversion to "foreign food". For most, garlic was already too exotic, and not even wanting to try new ingredients or dishes often amounted to almost a fundamental rejection of everything new. Maybe it was also because these generations had to adapt to new things far too often and endure bad things, and being able to reject new things was simply a way of regaining a little bit of control over one's own life and living conditions.

Really interesting. Brought back lots of memories. Thank you.

Fun fact: savory is called Bohnenkraut in german, which translates to bean herb

It was not just the birds that attacked your milk as slugs and snails could also have a feast then Jack Frost would often freeze the milk out of the top of the bottle during winter. sometimes though rarer was the milk thief that would pinch a bottle from your doorstep on the way to school or work.