The Usual Allowances.

I know that I have several times in the past repeated the shameful modern fact that we in the developed world throw away one fifth of the food that we buy for the household. Clearly, we do not accurately estimate the quantity of food that we get through at home each week. Alternatively - we do estimate it correctly, but then can’t be bothered to cook it, and decide to eat out instead.

So, how much food does one person get through in a week? We had a glimpse of this in a previous story about WW II rationing and the Food Ministry’s hints about how to manage within those restrictions, if one lived alone. Today I want to revisit the issue from a different perspective.

British cookery book writer Mary Jewry’s intent in Food Consumption and Kitchen Equipment (c.1894) was to assist the inexperienced housewife to estimate food requirements for the whole household based on what one member would be expected to consume in a week.

She says:

It is essential that a housekeeper should know the average weekly consumption of food of each person in an ordinary family … For this purpose, we subjoin a list of the usual allowance, which will of course vary much from differing circumstances, but it will give a general idea on the subject.

Food for one person weekly.

Tea – two ounces

Coffee – one quarter of a pound, for breakfasts

Cocoa paste – one quarter of a pound, for breakfasts

Sugar – one half pound

Cheese – one half pound

Butter – one half pound

Milk – one quart, varying with the taste of the family

Bread- eight pounds for a woman, sixteen pounds for a man or boy

Meat – six pounds

Beer – one gallon for a woman, seven quarts to a man

Potatoes – three and a half pounds

Of course this estimate of quantities must be modified greatly by the habits and tastes of the family, and by the fact of residence in the town or the country. A large supply of vegetables, fish, or puddings will greatly reduce the scale of meat; and making tea and coffee for numbers will reduce the amount of these articles. We merely give this general idea of quantity to guide, in a measure, the inexperienced housewife. We should have been thankful for such knowledge ourselves, as without it one invariable buys more than is actually needed for the consumption of the household.

These amounts seem enormous to me. I am not having my quota of breakfast chocolate, that is for sure, and I am certainly not eating six pounds of meat a week, nor (sadly), half a pound of cheese. Do you – could you – get through this much in a week? Remember that the butter, sugar, and milk would include that used in cooking, and that bread would be the breakfast cereal.

For the recipe for the day I give you one which will reduce your meat consumption at the same time as it helps you avoid wasting leftovers, by using salt fish remaining from the previous day. It is from one of Mary Jewry’s other books - Warne’s Every-day Cookery: containing one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight distinct recipes (1872),

Salt Fish the Second Day.
Time, twenty minutes.
The remains of salt fish previously dressed; same quantity of mashed potatoes and parsnips ; a quarter of a pound of butter; a little Cayenne; one egg.
Pick the remains of the fish into small flakes; butter the bottom of a pie-dish, place it in alternate layers with the mashed parsnips and potatoes ; sprinkle a little Cayenne in the dish. Bake for about twenty minutes in the oven; turn it out on a dish; garnish with a hard-boiled egg cut in slices, and pour over it a little melted butter, or instead of the sliced egg, use egg sauce.

Quotation for the Day.

Honest bread is very well, it's butter that makes the temptation.
Douglas William Jerrold.