You may have heard that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and if my father’s gift-buying habits in the 1970s are anything to go by, it would seem he agreed with that statement. My parents married in 1976. A few months before their nuptials, my late father Michael gave my mother Mary two cookbooks for her birthday, both instructing wives and mothers how to feed their families.
Optimistic, right? I’ve been asked to cook like it’s the 1970s and see how it compares to today. Naturally, my mother’s old cookbooks immediately come to mind. Though I grew up in the 1990s, those recipes remained part of my childhood, shaping the dinners and cakes I remember fondly.
Mam arrives at my home with two well-thumbed books by Marguerite Patten, a cook who rose to fame in Britain during the Second World War and became one of the first ‘celebrity chefs’ for her practical advice. I have more source material than I know what to do with. I enjoy cooking from scratch, so this is a fun experiment, but I am conscious that, for the average cook 50 years ago, it was a labour-intensive task with few to no shortcuts.
Also, little consideration was given to sugar and fat quantities. Both came under the ‘food is fuel’ label. Often, convenience wins out when I’m cooking, with frozen ingredients, ready meals, and the odd takeaway supplementing my diet on busy days, particularly during workdays.
And, of course, I’ve chosen a busy workday to put these recipes and lifestyle to the test. Dietitian Kathryn Stewart, from the Dublin Nutrition Centre ( dnc.ie ), says an important focus of 1970s cooking was community, whether you were cooking a family meal or hosting a dinner party.
“There was more home cooking in the ’70s. It was people eating together, whereas now people are coming in at different times in the evening, eating different meals,” Stewart says. She points out that dinner parties were more common than dining in a restaurant, never mind ordering food through an app.
Also, the evolution of our cooking and eating habits is likely a result of equal employment opportunities today, which offer more disposable income to eat out while also making seven days of intensive cooking untenable in many homes. “Now more women are working, and that’s a positive, the convenience foods we have are really helpful,” Stewart says. “Back in the 1970s, it’s more likely the man went to work and the woman was at home or working less [hours], so their job was to cook the meals.
” Since the 1970s, processed foods have replaced many ingredients and even dishes, but Stewart points out that ‘processed’ does not necessarily mean ‘bad’. “Not all processed foods are ‘unhealthy’,” she says. “Tinned tomatoes are healthier than fresh tomatoes because they have more anti-oxidants.
Milk is processed so it’s pasteurised. There’s a lot of focus on processed foods at the minute, but they are convenient, and they are a lifeline for a lot of people too.” Love of lard Some dishes in the cookbooks I borrow are quirky, some are retro, and some look downright disgusting.
One ingredient appears repeatedly: lard, made from the fatty tissue of a pig. Lard is not easily available in Ireland today, but a beef fat version is my substitute of choice. Good luck finding a low-cal spray within these cookbooks.
Back in the 1970s the portions were large, the calories were high, and animal fat was the item of choice to grease your pan — and more. I linger in horror over a recipe for ‘Lardy Cake’ and recoil at its ingredients, including 4oz (100g) of lard. I’m starting to wonder if this is why the average life expectancy back then was 10 years younger than it is today.
Breakfast Quick and easy breakfasts existed in the 1970s, from cornflakes to good old-fashioned porridge. However, cooked breakfasts were growing in popularity, and with some eggs I need to use up, I decide on baked eggs with mushrooms. I divide 1oz (25g) of animal fat between four ramekins and place these into the oven to melt.
While slicing some button mushrooms, I realise it’s been a while since I chopped veg — a touch of arthritis in my dominant hand means I always have a steady supply of pre-chopped and frozen vegetables from the supermarket ready to dip into as needed. This quick-fix is a modern luxury most 1970s cooks did not have, so it’s back to chopping for me. The mushrooms are added to the ramekins, followed by an egg cracked into each.
It only takes a few minutes to prepare and cook, so I feel I’m off to a strong start, and my protein-rich breakfast keeps me full for a few hours. I love the flavour of eggs anyway and it’s a breakfast staple in my home, but I was relieved to find a new tasty combo when paired with mushrooms. I’ll be making this delicious concoction again Lunch A simple sandwich sustains me when my belly rumbles at lunchtime.
I’m working from home on the day of this experiment, but as I chew my ham and cheese sandwich (made with white bread and lashings of butter, naturally), I realise I probably would have packed a sandwich for myself anyway if I had been working from the office. However, one modern-day lunch choice I favour is leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. Again, this seems 1970s-friendly given how large some dinner recipes are, but how many offices had a microwave available to heat it up? Snacking Snacking during the day is simple, 1970s-style, and as a tea drinker anyway, I feel like it suits me down to the ground.
A cup of tea and a plain biscuit — think digestive, Rich Tea, or Marietta — keep any hunger pangs at bay between meals and offer an energy boost. Stewart says we have more drink varieties today in comparison to the ’70s. “People tended to focus on milk, tea and water as their drinks, whereas now we’ve got sports drinks, energy drinks and more fruit juices.
” Dinner I swear by the most 2020s kitchen appliance: the air fryer. I opted for a classic bacon recipe, which I’d usually cook in my air fryer. While my 1976 cookbook suggests multiple ways to cook it, I know how my mother would do it, so out comes the pot to boil the meat.
The benefit of boiling it, in this case, is that the recipe does not call for any lard, which Stewart acknowledges too. “If you’re boiling meat, there’s less of a tendency to add fats to cook it,” she says, adding that fattier cuts of meat may have been cheaper and more readily available 50 years ago. I get to work peeling the spuds.
By the 1970s, convenience foods were starting to creep onto more shop and supermarket shelves so options like Smash, an instant mash product made from potato granules, existed. However, I’m committed to cooking from scratch, even if my hand aches from peeling potatoes and Aldi’s microwavable mash taunts me from the fridge. I fill a second pot with chopped cabbage to boil alongside the meat.
The 30 minutes of boiling required by the recipe means my cooked cabbage is very malleable, just the way my mother likes it. The result is a nostalgic dinner that brings me back to the kitchen table of my childhood. Is it a dinner I’d readily cook in 2024? Not with my full-time work schedule, the main difference between me and Marguerite Patten’s target audience.
While she sprinkles lots of practical advice within her pages, it is very much aimed at full-time “wives and mothers”. In her introduction, she writes that “most women, and some men, need to cook for themselves or their families, and interesting cooking and good food make a great contribution to the enjoyment of living and to good health”. It is unlikely Patten could have foreseen not only how women would dominate in many workplaces a few decades after her books were published, but also that many more men not only need to cook for themselves and their families, but also enjoy the experience.
Dessert Dinner is filling, I’m drained from a day of cooking on top of my regular workday, so, on this occasion, I decide not to whip up a dessert from scratch. I could instead open a tin of fruit cocktail, but one popular product from the 1970s is still on shelves: Angel Delight, a powdered dessert. After a day of cooking from scratch, I’ll gladly take this pink and fluffy convenient dish.
Anything is better than ‘Lardy Cake’, surely..
