8 March 2021
The toasty scent of hot scones, blackcurrant jam bubbling in the pot, my bare feet on the cold stone kitchen floor, my grandmother bustling about in her floral apron: These were the hallmarks of my childhood. On the table were ingredients from the past: lard, Spam, liver, and a box of dried egg powder. Britain came out of the war in 1945, but it wasn't until 1954 that food rationing was lifted. My cheery grandmother was a product of that era; her pies and puddings, soups and gravies, were all formulated with a set of food restrictions that made her cooking at once ingenious and warming. To me, every one of her dishes was full to the brim with history: the nation's, my family's, my own.
