BRINGING heritage recipes into the 21st century has been no challenge for school caterers in Warwickshire.
Educaterers have been recreating some dishes from bygone eras as documented in the county’s historical records.
When they have been busy providing school meals to vulnerable children, those of key workers and those year groups now returned to school, staff at Educaterers have been using their spare time to cook up historical recipes from the Warwickshire County Record Office collections.
Heritage & Culture Warwickshire recently shared a selection of heritage recipes from the county’s archives on social media.
Taking up their latest challenge, development manager Philippa Dadswell and area manager Liz Peat, attempted the recipes for a 20th century chocolate fruit fudge and a 17th century ‘creame with aples’.
With older recipes, just reading them can prove difficult, as the language and terminology used can be markedly different with unfamiliar spellings – and some very elaborate handwriting.
Philippa, who followed the chocolate fruit fudge recipe, said with a few ‘guestimates’ on weights of ingredients, she found the heritage recipe ‘simple’.
She added: “The finished product was a little sticky and didn’t set to what we would expect fudge to set. A little bit gooey. But a small dusting with cocoa powder helped to alleviate this. It was delicious!”
Liz, who took on the challenge of the older ‘creame with aples’ recipe – which is not dissimilar to an apple and custard tart – said: “I knew this was going to be a challenging recipe from the start with a lot of choices to be made along the way.”
Liz made some adaptations, swapping Cox’s Pippin apples, which are not currently in season, for Braeburns.
Liz added: “I was in these current circumstances also unable to get any rosewater, but added a little cinnamon, which gave a nice flavour.”
“I did have my doubts regarding the quantities quoted and found I was right” and she had to adjust the amounts of some ingredients ~ but ended up with a very successful result!
Other recipes that will be shared via social media include a ‘cucumber catchup’ from the 19th century attributed to Mrs Bunny of Baginton, a seed cake, taffaty tarts and apple pasties.
The recipes are also available on the ‘Our Warwickshire’ website – www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk – where the Heritage and Culture team have shared their own experiences of tackling the recipes (prior to Covid-19) – including trying to get to grips with strange quantities like pecks and gills and, in many cases, no quantities whatsoever.
Educaterers managing director Terry Tredget, said: “For our staff, cooking isn’t just a day job, it is their passion, so I am not surprised that our employees have volunteered to take on the challenge of cooking the heritage recipes.
“It’s really interesting for them to compare the ingredients and methodologies from centuries gone by with the modern, healthy and nutritious recipes that we use to prepare our school meals.”
County heritage spokeswoman Coun Heather Timms said: “These heritage recipes provide a fascinating insight into Warwickshire’s culinary history and demonstrate the range of historical records and information that is preserved in the Warwickshire County Record Office archives and that the public can access on the ‘Our Warwickshire’ website.”
