PINS - Rule Forty-two: A quick word on rations
(That goat, nearly killed him.)
Baked Cutlets
Wash cutlets and trim fat off the end.
Bat cutlet with rolling pin or cutlet bat.
Melt dripping.
Put cutlets in fat and baste them over.
Bake in moderate oven for about half an hour.
Well, I would like to thank you for all the years of delivering the milk. We’re selling up, it’s the end of an era. It's been fifty years so it’ll be a little bit strange not hearing the gate open and the bottles being put on the step - I’m old enough to remember when you delivered it by horse and cart! (Full fat, unpasteurised milk, illegal now, tasted like grass; tangy, thick, left a residue on your tongue. The clink of the bottles… I remember the horse, too; a tall and strapping brown-black shire horse with a long mane and white fetlocks. Dobbin. He’d pull the cart right up to the late 1970s, standing placidly in the road, while the farmer in his wellingtons, tweeds and flat cap would drop off the milk, all the way up the row. An unusual scene, no-one would believe it now but one, when thought of in retrospect, representative of those post-industrial times; brickworks, car exhaust smells, smoke, black houses, the pub and the sheds and old garages and works, lorries going up to the tip, the horse in the road).
(Ten years later; on the dole. Walking up through Dill Hall Lane past the old wooden crib display - it’s Christmas - steep climb towards the cemy and the farm opposite that delivered the milk, their land runs down towards the Leeds-Liverpool and the posh haunted hotel and the old GEC - made bombers there in the war - bypass there since the early 1980s, all built up, amazing this was farmland and factories in the 1950s. Down the hill towards the junction going up to Whinney Hill past the cricket club; that wall’s been there since Edwardian times, can’t see into the cricket if it’s on, only on tiptoe. I remember when that lad threatened to knock my 10 year old block off in the nets because I said I’d bowl him a bouncer. Past the corner shop, get a mix of salted peanuts and crisps in a bag, four-pack of Trent Mild. Up through the estate, I remember the same walk, in miniature, from the age of 5, 6? Nothing else to look forward to -a year of dole, a recession, then get out.)
Rene’s brought one of his hams, a full side. He doesn’t get about much now but there’s nowt like his ham. Soft and a little bit dry but it doesn’t crumble. Cures it himself. I’ll put it on the special china dish and if you get the special plates for pickles and chutneys. (The table, best cloth on and paper napkins and bakelite elephant rings, spoons only used for doling out pickles. There’s posh see, tha can put on a good spread, good do that tha’ll be glad o’ that and don’t be shy just don’t fill your cakehole or be rude in front of your betters. )
These sprouts give me wind (note: the word ‘wind’ has to be mouthed, and accompanied by a roll of the eyes).
I eat my cornflakes with no milk. This is sufficient, thank you. (Not him, but someone else, would just eat toast with no butter for breakfast, as he was “on a diet” no, it was the only thing he could hold down after a rake of Guinness and whisky chasers then a bottle of wine he’d hide in the bushes every night. Wears my old shirts, too. That time we went to the pub without anything to rub together, we’d gone round to his parents, found the collection money in a jar for the poor kids and we took it and spent it on a night on the pop. Thought we could win it back on the quizz. We were skint till pay day, we would put it back as winnings as said, but the collection came early and his mum flipped never been so embarrassed she said. He’s not going to heaven and I’m not anyway because I’m not a Catholic, all that left footer stuff, state of him, no wonder. I really have to get out of this now. Coming home after town and having games of running up the wall - landlady sent her big son round to take the fire back, a fucking hole and an open chimney. The porch looks like a fucking tardis; it’s filled entirely with wine bottles on either side and even above your head, they could fall at any minute, it’s like an extra glass entrance. Car got jacked too. Top end of Acc is no joke.
We’d find him in his khaki, stripping the turkey in the kitchen! (Forty years later I’d strip the bone of a leg of lamb, not in khaki, away from everybody else.)
Cook that kipper in milk, slowly. And dust the herring in flower after you’ve gutted it. If he comes round again, send him up and lock the door.
It is our love we share! (The Rupali, upstairs, we are being told of a love shared by the owner and someone we know whose son is inside on a murder job so we are not going to laugh or show any emotion, and we are sweating a lot from the buffet. The Bigg Market heaves, groans, gropes and pukes through its allotted ten pints outside the window. We stare back at the owner, our mouths on fire. We are being treated at a works do, so eat it up as it’s free.)
The fruit never rises properly in this batch of Christmas cake - it’s still only half way, sagging. Your great grandmother could do it wonderfully. She was tough! Came back as a ghost and scared your bad great-uncle away, he came down the stairs white as a sheet, according to your aunt - he’d been eyeing that dresser up, the one with the mirror, wanted to sell it in two parts, a wrong ’un. Tried to murder your great auntie, too. But my mother always pulled her face when I cut her a slice, not as good as her mother’s but that can’t be helped. It’s this bloody cancer, it’s done something to my fingers. Oh, it’s so frustrating, I’m not going to make old bones.
(The following recipe can only be made with cancer-free fingers, apparently. Written in 1922 in black ink with a dip pen in COOKERY 2nd Year, and taken from the family recipe, originally from the 1880s.)
5 ozs castor sugar. 5 ozs butter or marg. 5 ozs currants. 5 ozs sultanas. 5 ozs valencias. 4 ozs glazed cherries (if wanted). 3 ozs mixed peel. ½ teas. Mixed spice. 1 dessertspoonful treacle. Rind of 1 lemon. 6 ozs flour. 4 eggs.
Method-1. Cream butter & sugar together till mixture is white and fluffy. 2. Whisk the eggs & add to butter & sugar a tablespoonful at time & beat in thoroughly. 3. Wash and pick fruit & cut thro’ it to get flavour out. 4. Cut cherries in 4. 5. Add all ingredients to mixture and stir in. 6. Place into lined tin. (Note added, 1950s in blue ink.) Use double thickness greaseproof paper for base + sides + for lid. 7. Hollow centre out flat. 8. Place into mod. hot oven with as low a light possible. (Note added, 1950s in blue ink.) 3rd rung from bottom. 4th from top. 9. Leave from 3 hours. (Note - 4 to 5 hours crossed out.) (Note added, 1950s in blue ink.) Wrap outside of tin in double thickness brown paper, including a brown paper lid.
He drank the whelk water! He’s not well. Told us he ate a raw spud, all he’d had for a week. Why’s he come here, to Clitheroe?
An accompanying post to this Rule, with relevant illustrations, can be found in the Museum of Photocopies.
