A Healthy Breakfast 1940s Style

I suppose that what I used to feed the children for breakfast was an old-fashioned version of muesli. Oats or wheat berries would form the base of the meal, and added to that would be any summer fruits that we had, chopped cobnuts or even walnuts if we had them. A few slices of apple mixed in, a little honey for sweetness and fresh milk made it a breakfast that would keep them going for hours.

We had a much more physical lifestyle back then, and our diet was more restricted when compared to what’s around today. It was very important to make sure everyone went about their business on a full stomach. I never knew of vitamins and minerals and all that back then, you just kind of knew what was good for a body and that was what you fed your family.

In the winter I would add apples and berries that I had dried above the range when they were plentiful, the nuts, of course, kept well in their shells so we were rarely without them. We always made sure we had a good supply of oats and wheat berries at the end of harvest time. Dry roasting them very slowly to reduce the moisture in them allowed me to keep them for longer. A couple of the children preferred the flavour of the winter grains to the fresh ones…you never can tell with children, can you?

During the last year of the war, the older children benefitted from the luxury of pineapple and bananas given to us by the American soldiers stationed in the field at the top of the lane. We would swap them fresh eggs and suet for fruit and the occasional bar of chocolate if one of the children had a birthday coming up. Mmmm, I remember tasting pineapple for the first time, it was wonderful. They were very generous giving away lemons I recall, we became quite accustomed to lemon marmalade on fresh bread for supper.

Of course, as time went on more products became available, boxed cereal and the like, but we stuck with our grain and fruit mix as everyone enjoyed it and it was cheap and filling.

I did eat the modern muesli for a little while, but the bag was sitting on the table and I was reading the back of the packet…it has sulfur dioxide in it. No I have no idea what sulfur dioxide is, but I know it’s not a grain, berry or nut and I had no desire to have it for breakfast. Now I have a handful of oats and a mix of whatever fruit is in the house, and nuts if we get the pre-shelled ones. Neither Edith or I have the strength to use nutcrackers anymore so pre-shelled it is, the aging process gets us all one way or another.

Edith said that doing it ourselves is better, and it works out no more expensive than the manufactured stuff. One of the grandchildren did the shopping when Edith had the flu last year. Neither of us was sure what it was in our breakfast bowls, but it looked like cat litter and possibly tasted like it as well, horrible stuff.

Well, I have to go now, it’s almost 11 am and the nurse is paying us a visit today. We go through this every year. They come to try and insist we have an injection to stop us getting the flu. We never do, it seems wrong to put bugs into your body when you don’t have to. We are so rarely ill, and Edith only got the flu because one of the kids came to visit with it, why would you do that? Stay home and keep your germs to yourself I say.

So, it looks like Nurse Joiner is about to be disappointed once again, that won’t please her at all, she can be very insistent can Helen Joiner. I went to school with her grandfather, I can see where she gets her brash ways from.

Alright then, I will write soon, love to you all

Regards,

Maud