Snow Capped Mountains

I’m not exactly sure when the traditional pattern was set for British dining, with a starter, a main and a dessert… certainly even in lees well-off families having  soup with bread before the main meal – a soup which could be made from scraps or leftovers or the cheapest and most available vegetables, would fill the family up so they would need less of the meat or fish or whatever the more expensive principal of the meal should be. In some areas the batter pudding (Yorkshire pudding) was served first with gravy, and again the idea was to be a filler Sometimes the pudding would have been cooked beneath the roasting meat, catching all the lovely flavoursome drips so no gravy would have been necessary.

With the main course, filling the family up would be the aim, and as cheaply as possible, hence puddings and pies and lots of vegetables and a small amount of meat or fish, often the cheapest cuts, or with cheap meat added to the ‘better’ quality, as in steak and kidney pies and puddings!

So desserts…  fruit grown in the garden, preserved in a variety of ways, and again in pies, puddings and tarts to make the tasty stuff spread as far as possible. using eggs – maybe from chickens in the garden, to make custards and soufflés and meringues, all made mealtimes more interesting and enjoyable.

When British people went abroad, they took their dining customs with them, trying to recreate as well as they could exactly what they would have eaten back in ‘Blighty’ although this may see strange now.

In the recipe book my father-in-law brought back from east Africa where he had served during the war, ‘The Congo Cookery Book’ by Mrs Willett, I came across this recipe for Snow Capped Mountains:

Take 2 cups Fruit pulp. This can be either diced ripe Mango, ripe but firm Pai Pai, Cour de Bœuf, Pineapple, or almost ay other Fruit. For Mango or Pai Pai, cover the fruit with 2 tablespoons Ginger (Congo) Syrup and chill if possible for ½ an hour (covered to retain the ginger flavour).

Make a rather thick custard of:-
3 tablespoons corn flour, 1½ cups milk and the yolk of two eggs, beaten in when the corn flour is cooked but still boiling hot. Cool and chill. beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and when the custard is thoroughly cold,put the fruit on a dish in a high pile, pour the custard over it and top with the beaten whites with sugar (fine white Congo) folded in t the last moment.

When eggs are scarce, make the custard without egg yolks, colour with a little cochineal and top with whipped cream or thick milk whipped and thickened with a little gelatine dissolved in it. (See “Substitutes” for “Cochineal” and “Cream”.)

I looked up ‘Substitutes and Equivalents’ which is introduced by ‘All who have lived in the bush know there are times when one has to think of a Substitute for some ingredient…’ For cochineal they recommend he water from cooking beetroot with a squeeze of lemon, and cream involves corn flour, sugar, milk and butter… or just do without? I suppose it gave a taste of home, and I guess many of the women did not necessarily choose to be there, but went with their husbands who were ‘serving’ overseas..