A Different Era

(excerpt from my father’s memoir)

My first memories are from October 1946, but when it comes to food it starts around 1949. At this time, we were poor but rich from all that the earth was giving us.
We were eating seasonal vegetables (green beans, tomatoes, radishes, turnips, green peas, carrots, potatoes, kohlrabies, navy beans, kidney beans, cabbage and lettuce) as well as seasonal fruits (cherries, bigarreau cherries, plums, pears, apples, chestnuts, common medlar pomes and service tree pomes).
Living on a farm, we always had a supply of milk (therefore, we would make butter & cheese), eggs, poultry, rabbit and pig. We also ate goat, buck, and veal, also raised on the farm.

Food was preserved differently than it is today:
• Green beans were kept in earthenware pots with salt.
• Kohlrabies were stored in a silo with the beets reserved for the cattle.
• Navy and kidney beans were attached in a bunch and hung by their stems under a hangar. They were then shelled on demand.
• Cabbage was hung upside-down in a place near the cowshed.
• Potatoes remained in a pile but were limed (quicklime) to prevent sprouting.
(Note: Fruit preserves were made similarly to today’s techniques)

A major difference to today’s eating habits was the fact that we would eat the same food (especially vegetables) several times a day through the duration of the harvest.
For instance, green beans for lunch and dinner: as an appetizer with vinaigrette and as a main course cooked with butter or with a white sauce. This would go on for 3 months alternating with some other vegetable.

Example of daily meals for an adult in the 50’s:
Breakfast: soup (left-over from the night before), omelet or chansiau (cake cooked in a skillet), cheese, coffee, and “goutte” (digestif)
Lunch: soup or rice cooked in milk, vegetables with meat (usually chicken left-over from Sunday), cheese, and fruit
Dinner: soup, chansiau, lettuce, and cheese

A few variants of soups of this time:
Basic: Cooking juices of cabbage & kohlrabi (vegetables were removed and used in the main course) with pieces of bread. To add flavor, a fricassée of garlic was thrown in the cooking juices.
Soupe panade: boiled bread with salted water.
Soupe au vin: same as “Soupe panade” with the addition of wine.
Soupe au lait: pieces of bread added to boiled milk.

The culinary evolution slowly took place according to incomes, children’s ages, skills of my sisters (who were enrolled in a caregiver program and followed cooking classes).

After 1955, weekday meals consisted of:
Breakfast: soup, coffee with milk or hot chocolate with milk, fried eggs or fresh or cured herrings (bought in small barrels for the winter) with raw onions
Lunch: rice cooked in milk, French fries, lettuce, and cheese
Dinner: soup with tapioca or vermicelli or made with seasonal vegetables, fried eggs or chansiau with pickles, and cheese
During the summer, bread soaked in milk or wine would be served for dinner.

On the weekends we always had poultry with either mashed potatoes or pasta. Also my sisters would make cakes (biscuit de Savoie, baba au rhum, savarin, tarte…); they all had their specialty.

Around 1960 we were able to buy meat on Wednesdays (pork rind, liver and beef tripe). It was often paired with boiled potatoes (sometimes eaten lukewarm with cottage cheese or used in an omelet). The left-over potatoes were then diced and sautéed with onions the day after.

As a child, the 4pm snack often consisted of a slice of bread (pain de 4 livres) with either 2 cubes of sugar, 1 square of chocolate, some butter and chocolate shavings, fruit preserves or some cheese.

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