Waste not want not

Sundays were big family days; normally my Nana would (much to the delight of my father) call in the very early hours to see if we were coming for lunch. We would be packed into the car and taken to St Michael at the Northgate for family service which is right in the centre of Oxford. Occasionally extra colour was added to these outings by tourists, I remember rather clearly one Japanese gentleman grabbing my hand and snapping a picture of me in front of Martyrs Memorial because he wanted a picture of a typical little English girl. Somewhere in the far east there is a picture of six year old me, blotchy faced screaming for my parents convinced I was about to be taken away by the child catcher in ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.’

We would head straight from church to Sunday lunch with my Grandparents house, this usually consisted of huge platefuls of roast beef from our local butcher, David John. There would also be cauliflower in white sauce, peas, roast potatoes, mash, broccoli, leeks and sprouts but never swede it was banned. I never thought to question this at the time.

I was taught how to mix Yorkshire puddings by hand and watch my Nana as she basted, boiled and plated up with fascination. Our plates were piled high and if we didn’t eat what was in front of us my Gramps would despair, sighing deeply and talk about wasted food. He was a wise man of few words and I would always feel terribly guilty, so on I would plough. It was only when I was older that I discovered why; as a young soldier in WW2 he was kept in Stalag Luft VIII-B (a German prisoner of war camp) after being captured at Cassel trying to stop the advancing Nazi’s getting near the beaches of Dunkirk.

When the Soviets advance on Germany towards the end of the war the Nazis marched their prisoners’ westwards in what is now often referred to as ‘The Death Marches.’ Not only did these marches prolong the war for him and many others the lack of food and clothing meant many died of the cold and or starvation. Sometimes all they would be given is raw swede, to my knowledge my Gramps never ate another swede once he was rescued by the Red Cross and brought home. He never told me any of this I gleamed the information from family and friends just after he died in 2010. He knew a thing or two about being hungry.

After lunch my father and uncles would take us kids to Mesopotamia (or Messpot as we locals call it) with the beloved mongrel Ben in an effort walk off our lunch and give my Nana and her four daughter’s time to sit around the dinner table and chew the cud. On our return it was usually time for tea and we would be treated to cold roast beef with mash and salad or sometimes bubble and squeak. Nothing was wasted from the precious beef joint I still to this day feel horribly guilty if I throw away any food after a meal.