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I know this is preaching to the converted, but I’ve found this comment by Nick Timothy the most frustrating take out of many, many awful takes by Brexit fans this week, and the rebuttal by @redhistorian is best I’ve seen. https://twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1337526891868254208
Allow me to add my own twopenny-worth through one of my favourite cultural prisms - 1970s Mary Berry and Judith Chalmers. First up, it’s 1973, and Mary is making an omelette.
Omelettes are good because you can use up leftovers or small amounts of bacon left in the fridge that won’t stretch, and Mary later adds that the benefit of a salad is it doesn’t use any gas or electric, handy if you have a powercut cut but you already prepared your veg.
Excusing herself for using narrated Mayo, Mary explains that she doesn’t make her own in the winter because we don’t have many salads, and overall Judith is impressed by the amount of protein in the salad and omelette which makes it a good deal.
Moving on to 1975, Judith points out the benefit of a bread and butter pudding is that it’s economical with eggs and milk, and then Mary reminds us after grating lemon zest that lemons are expensive so the rest must be kept.
1977, and Mary and Judith are making cheaper cuts of meat go further, spending time deciding which of the different cheap cuts is cheapest of all. Streaky bacon is used because, yes, it’s the cheapest bacon, and we must save the fat for economy sake.
There are lots of things to admire here: consuming less, wasting less, eating more seasonally, but that’s not my point. The most simple observation is the cultural shift, lots of foods we nowadays treat as cheap staples were luxuries, never mind exotica like pasta or olive oil.
The things we might welcome now weren’t feeling as welcome then because we had no choice, people worried about the cost of the ingredients they were able to get hold of, and the cost and availability of the fuel to cook and save them.
I’ll sound a massive privilege klaxon at this point - this is a situation all too familiar to a lot of people now, and the Tories have already done a sterling job to ensure many more of us have been forced to make these sorts of decisions in recent years.
The point is - a lot of us were a lot poorer, across all classes. There were a ton on non-EEC, EU reasons why, just as there are a ton of non-EU reasons why it’s different now. But look where we’re at now - the amount of food poverty, rising unemployment, sliding economy...
Combine that with the seizing up of the food system that has enabled such cheap food throughout the year and shortly there will be a lot of sabre rattling, comfortably off Brexiteers who are suddenly brought to see the realities of the food choices they are making.
As a sidebar, drawing on one of my proudest MSc moments, I predict Delia will shortly be re-publishing Frugal Food. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv9AKiMH_Q-/?igshid=6a9xgvmao4xm
