Domestic Science- 1960’s.

I did Domestic Science till the end of third year in Grammar School; I had absolutely no interest in continuing it to GCE!
I can't remember any of the dishes we made except for toast and coffee, which was our first cookery lesson, and I have a vague memory of making shortcrust and puff pastry.

And I did three languages to O level - French, German and Latin (failed Latin miserably...)

I’m trying to remember the sequence, but I’m quite sure that in our first year of secondary education we made our aprons, but also did Gardening. Our teacher was terrifying but I remember loving those lessons, the smell of the potting shed, the tulips we planted which were hidden under the stairs for a few weeks. Very grateful for them, but less so for the Cookery lessons which replaced them the following year. I know we did shortcrust pastry & made bread once but my abiding memory is of the importance placed on cleaning our wooden chopping boards. The third year was O level syllabus studies so I gladly bade Cookery farewell.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202501/medium-855393-img20250124175126.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202501/medium-946618-img20250124175118.jpg

Just for fun, here are some biscuit recipes from my exercise book - I chose this page because it has the date on.

And yes, it would seem that the proportion of sugar is quite low.

Ladyleftfieldlover

AGAA4

Before we could begin cookery we had to sew an apron!

So did we! Plus a matching Alice band with our initials embroidered on the front.

Ditto. Without 'outing' where were you at school? My DS teacher was Mrs Wells who always had her hair done Thursday evening, so immaculate the next day. So many of the posts above resonate with me, especially the GH tome that I still have. I went on to be a F/N teacher until the birth of the NCurriculum, which dictated that the students needed to know how food was prepared commercially.
I always believed that Home Ec should be at the centre of the curriculum as all other subjects could be taught through it.

I was only telling my DIL about sewing and embroidering and apron for Domestic Science yesterday !

My mother did O level domestic science/cookery in the 1940s - during rationing. So they had to save up ration coupons for the exam and she had the additional pressure of knowing it was the family's only dinner that night!

I’ve been waiting nearly 60 years to get that off my chest! Thank you for starting the thread OP.

I found cookery lessons at secondary school tedious. My Mum taught my sister and me to cook from toddlers out of necessity. She had so much to do with four kids under 7 and a full time job. Everything we had to make so laboriously in cookery classes (properly, without shortcuts) we had made a zillion times before at home in half the time. We learnt not to mention this to the teacher to avoid a hail of sarcasm raining down on us.

My outstanding memory as a student of fellow flatmates was their inability to cook anything or even to show some common sense where cooking was concerned. They must have had some cookery lessons at school: clearly they were pointless.

Sorry, but I laughed!! 😂😂😂
Bet you won't do that again Alison333

During my 'Food and Nutrition' Practical O Level exam in 1972, I forgot to plug in the electric oven so it didn't warm up. I finished 30 minutes after everybody else. Needless to say, I failed!

AGAA4

Thanks Allira. My mum was married in 1941 and all her family and friends saved their sugar and butter/margarine coupons so she could have a cake.

Probably better than the one in the recipe!
Dried fruit was rationed too, I think.

Thanks Allira. My mum was married in 1941 and all her family and friends saved their sugar and butter/margarine coupons so she could have a cake.

AGAA4

We may have used the same amount of sugar, butter etc but I think portions were smaller.
I think the smaller portions and more exercise was the reason so few were obese in the 40s and 50s.

Butter and sugar were rationed until 1953 too.
Margarine would have been used more extensively.

This link contains a recipe for a Ration Era Party Cake:

atasteofhistorywithjoycewhite.blogspot.com/2015/01/ration-era-party-cake-historical-food.html

RedRidingHood

I did domestic science in the early 70s. The cookery department had a "flat". A little dining room and kitchen. We took turns to get the flat for a day. We had to plan the menu, buy and cook the food for a three course meal and invite the teacher of our choice for a meal.

We weren't allowed to do wood or metal work and had to do typing which I hated.

Our cookery dept also had a little 'flat' for the very same reason.

I remember we all rather wanted to emulate one of our teachers who had the most beautiful long, thick, straight hair, way past her waist, which we all coveted. We just used to sit in class and stare at her hair. She probably thought we were all rather rude.

Then she got married and arrived at school one day with her hair chopped to shoulder length.
We were horrified. It was the talk for days.

How silly that seems now.

We may have used the same amount of sugar, butter etc but I think portions were smaller.
I think the smaller portions and more exercise was the reason so few were obese in the 40s and 50s.

If you read older cookery books, you will see that there is less sugar in desserts and cakes

I disagree about that. In my old BeRo books, some of the cakes and puddings would be too sweet if I used the same amount of sugar as they suggest.

Or perhaps I just don’t want as much sweet stuff as we ate years ago.

Ladyleftfieldlover

AGAA4

Before we could begin cookery we had to sew an apron!

So did we! Plus a matching Alice band with our initials embroidered on the front.

Me too! We had to have one term of needlework to make the apron and then went on to cookery the next term. After that we could choose between the two and I chose needlework for which I've been eternally grateful especially when younger and broke and could make my own clothes and then curtains etc once married. Unfortunately still a rubbish cook!

I didn't do domestic science at school because it occupied the same time in the senior school timetable as Latin.

When I left school after my Highers, I went to a finishing-school that taught domestic science as part of the accomplishments young ladies were deemed to need in 1968.

I agree the quantities in most recipes were smaller, but for dinner two courses were served every day, either soup followed by a main dish of meat or fish with potatoes and at least one vegetable, sometimes two. Or a meat or fish course followed by dessert, so I doubt the size of the portions were the reason that there were fewer obese people, or sufferers from diabetes 2 at comparitvely young ages.

If you read older cookery books ,you will see that there is less sugar in desserts and cakes, and usually no sugar in savoury dishes. We were taught the importance of a well-balanced diet, and taught that a certain amount of physical excercise was necessary for those who had a sedentary occupation and,or mainly travelled by car.

Comparitively more adults rode bikes (talking about Denmark here) or walked to work, or used public transport. Using public transport you were unlikely to be able to travel from door to door, so a certain amount of walking would be necessary.

Women too were only just starting to use labour-saving devices in the home, apart from vacuum cleaners. The first flat I lived in, we did our washing in a communal wash-house that only had a washing-machine of the vintage that washed clothes in cold water. You had to rinse them by hand, transfer heavy wet washing into a spin-dryer and from there into a laundry basket, and cart it into the adjacent cellar where the clothes-lines were and hang it up, or outside to a drying-green if the weather was suitable for drying clothes outdoors.

In blocks of flats the householders washed the staircases (front and back stairs) once a week from their own door down to the floor below.

This kind of housework was one very good reason why relatively few women were overweight, and till around 1980, you might manage to persuade your husband to dry dishes or vacuum the sitting-room floor once a week(!), but men proudly asserted that they knew nothing about doing washing or washing floors and most of them had the sense to keep it that way!

AGAA4

My DB bought me a Good Housekeeping cookbook when I was married. I'd had cookery lessons at school and the book helped me along with feeding a young family. Good, nourishing and inexpensive meals and not a pizza in sight.
I seem to remember dinner plates were smaller? I may be wrong.

I still use my late mum’s china, which is a Wedgwood pattern produced between 1957 and 1975. The dinner plates are exactly the same size as now!

In the fifties, we made our apron in P7, in preparation for secondary school - complete with embroidery. We were also introduced to machine sewing. However, I went on to an all girls grammar school, where, if you had two languages, there was no option for domestic science. In my thirties, our local secondary school offered the opportunity to join school classes, along with the pupils. If I remember correctly, I don’t think that domestic science was a certificate subject, but was a vocational one. I opted to do higher Food and Nutrition. This was more science related, with no ‘ learning to cook ‘ involved. I enjoyed it, and since then, I have had more consideration for the nutritional aspect of food.

At one of my cookery lessons on a Monday afternoon we had to take some meat to cook As we didn't have a fridge, so my Mum cooked the meat she bought on Saturday. There were no butchers open on the way. to school and the baskets we used had be left all day in the cookery class room which was rather warm. The cookery teacher was not amused that I gave the excuse that we had no fridge. Looking back now there were no more cookery classes using meat on a Monday.

I too had to make an Apron!
DS was for the first 2 years then we could drop it. We all did, but I still make my Sponge the way I was taught all those years ago.
My 32 Yr old DD, never had Cookery/DS at her Senior School, the kitchens were turned into other classrooms. She not a bad cook though.

The practical skills of domestic science GCE have stayed relevant, apart from English, not much else for that age has.

I only did half a term of cooking as I moved schools. In that time we made veg soup, soused herring and finally a cake. I am not a very competent cook and can get quite panicked at times. I blame this on the reception I got when I broke the Mason Cash mixing bowl when washing up and the teacher’s reaction.
My DD in the 80s got an A for Home Ec (very theory based) but then at university phoned us up to ask how to make jacket potato!

I was at grammar school in the mid fifties. I remember a Domestic Science room, but I am sure I never did any cooking. I do remember being taught to cut out a dress from a pattern, and about darts and seams. These lessons stopped at the end of the second year when you chose your O level subjects.
I remember also being taught to knit at junior school. Kettle holders with grey oily wool.In top juniors we had an afternoon with a young woman who helped us girls to sew a petticoat. Her name was Miss Curtis and she looked just like Snow White in the Disney film. What the boys did,I have no idea.