1940's baby menu

Hearty fare! Big, bouncing babies were the trend.
Can you imagine the work involved in preparing all that for a baby. Without a fridge. I think some of the people who wrote these books did not actually rear their own children.
At one stage I used to pick up old parenting books. There is a small collection somewhere upstairs. My favourite suggestion was:
Collect juices from raw beef, keep in a warm place, give to babies.

GULP! SHUDDER! No wonder infant mortality was high.
Unfortunately old books often don't have a publication date.

Don't think I'll show that to dd. she is still breast feeding and intends to continue until she goes back to teaching in June. Baby led weaning, which means no pureeing or chopping just let them grab and gum!

I was a war baby and I'm pretty sure my mother breast fed all of us until 9 months. There might have been rusks on top of that, but I doubt if all that food was even available, though I believe that the first thing my dad did after he registered my birth was to rush off to the food office and get my ration book.

I'm not too knowledgeable about babies' diets when I was a baby myself, although I know both soft roe and brains – both of which I dislike as an adult – featured in my early years of solids. However, I have recently come across the most astonishingly foul recipe for invalids.

"Boil a quarter of a pound of tapioca in 2 quarts of water until tender. Drain, add half a pint of milk, season with salt and pepper and add 1 lb fresh cod liver cut into pieces. Simmer very slowly for half an hour till the liver is quite cooked. Press on it with a spoon to get as much oil into the tapioca as possible. After taking away the liver, mix the tapioca. If it is too thick, add a little more milk."

If this were presented to me while lying on my sickbed, I think I would have an instant relapse.

Ugh!

Oh, please!

absentgran that's really revolting! JessM you've reminded me that I used to be given a small glass of blood from the roast beef on a Sunday. As the glass was cold it began to congeal really quickly. It was supposed to be good for you. Another food memory - we do seem to talk about food a good deal - is my grandmother telling me that the chicken we were eating was Cynthia who I used to visit at the end of the garden. Needless to say I stopped eating!

At least your beef juice was cooked! Not incubated!
If you would like i will poke around on bookshelves to see what other gems...
Oh the cod liver recipe is pretty special. Feed your baby up and prevent rickets.
Teaspoonful of cod liver oil rather more humane? Sad that this disease is making a comeback at the moment.

How many cod's livers does it take to make a bottle of cod liver oil? Pedants - what is the plural of cod?

Cod kittylester.

My mum breast fed me until I was 2! Then the teeth got in the way

Phew absentgrana - that's what i thought. But, how many?

nanac I read that as 21 for a minute!

bit like duck. plural duck. who would want to be a learner of English?
If we are going to be like that kittylester depends on the size of the cod. When I were a lass they used to be right big booggers. Up to 200 pounds.
Now due to overfishing they are only catching tiddlers in comparison

Not Dux?

I have some stoneware jars of varying sizes advertising VIROL Ideal food . A preparation of Bone Marrow, an ideal fat food for children and invalids. Uggh!

So is the plural of mallard mallard? I uk ought you put an s on the end
But then h'im hignorant!

I lved virol!

'Three little ducks went swimming one day
Over the hills and far away....'

Thank you for another poetic contribution annobel . I think bird watchers and hunters though would say duck. we shot a lot of duck today. that kind of thing.

Did Virol have fat in it? I thought it was a kind of beef essence like Bovril?

I gave my girls a similar diet to the original post, in the late sixties. Baby porridge, boiled egg, fruit and milk for brekker. Some sort of stew usually for lunch followed by blancmange and fruit. Rusks or bread and butter with milk for tea. I'm pretty sure it was from about age six months. All according to the sacred word of Doc Spock.

They are both healthy adults now. The older one is the slimmest of all of us, while the younger one has to watch her weight (or thinks she does ).

All in the genes I reckon!

Virol was /is (?) malt extract jess.

That's what I thought,it had orange juice in as well it used to make your teeth go black and was really yummy. Can you still get it?

It was malt & codliver oil - a trick way of getting you to down the codliver oil. It did not contain orange juice. That was very concentrated and in a sort of rectangular bottle and free. Codliver oil was free too but not when it was hidden in malt extract.

Free milk, free codliver oil, free orange juice. But havn't we progressed....