Sunday 22 January 2023

Stoke the fire

Sunday morning 9am.   "Stoke the fire Jack", my mother would say. "It'sirloin today and it needs to go in the oven shortly.".

We only had an oven attached to the fire in the living room - a unit which took up half the wall - two ovens, fireplace and boiler for hot water.   A ton of coal from the coal merchant in September (paid for over the year in the weekly Coal Club (Monday night at Mr Croft's house 6 - 7pm.

My mother didn't need a thermometer - later, when she did have an electric oven she used to say she never looked at the thermometer, just stuck her hand in for a second (and this was someone who baked all her own bread and tea cakes).

Fuel was supplemented by anything my Dad and I could collect on our long walks looking for wild flowers - we would always come across wood in the hedgerow and woods.

Sunday lunch was always special.   My parents were great meat eaters (I am not) and what we ate on Sunday would depend upon how much poultry my mother had dressed for Mr Green the butcher whose shop was opposite our house.   On a busy week it would be sirloin, less busy brisket (my mother loved beef) or sometimes ham (my Dad's favourite).   And always fruit pie and custard.

This would mean, of course, cold meat with 'bubble and squeak' on Monday followed by cold fruit pie.  Bubble and squeak?   All the veggies left from Sunday cut into small like-sized pieces and fried to crispy exteriors in good beef dripping.    Delicious.

My Mum loved her fire oven.   She would often put in a rice pudding (on the bottom shelf or bottom oven if the top oven was still too hot) when they went to bed.  Those rice puds had a taste impossible to replicate today.

Does anyone still cook on a fire oven?   I had an Aga at the farm (oil fired so dread to think how much it would cost to run today)  - I presume you can still get ones which run on solidfuel but I guess they are not popular.   My first ever oven was a Rayburn - lovely but hard work to keep it cleaned out.

How times have changed.   I am not even sure whether Sunday dinner is 'sacred' any more.   Is it? 

37 comments:

the veg artist said...

Rice pud cooked overnight in the bottom oven of an Aga, one of my favourites, but not had for years. I grew up with ovens which depended on the strength of the fire too - including my gran who baked bread weekly in a huge chimney oven, using long paddles to put the bread in.
We eat our main meal at night, so not 'lunch', but it's often a roast/casserole which provides leftovers.

busybusybeejay said...

We still have a roast dinner on a Sunday.Monday it is cold meat and chips and if any meat left over it goes in a sauce with pasta. on Tuesday Three meals taken care of.Barbarax

Rachel Phillips said...

I have a roast each week but not on a Sunday. It does me several meals through the week and is good value for money. My mother always did the fire herself, totally in charge of everything in the house. Outside was men's work, inside was women's work. Later in life my brother converted her solid fuel Rayburn to oil to make life easier for her. Solid fuel ranges are still available.

Anonymous said...

My grandmother lived in the country and had a wood stove. We'd walk through the country collecting firewood with her - magical times. Her adult sons 'gifted her the convenience' of an electric stove - never saw anything with less character in my life. As a young married woman, husband and I rented a cottage with a wood oven. Our cat ran across the top of it, and I was horrified, frantically applying ice to its paws.
We are not rigid about Sunday roasts, only have them occassionally for guests, and find an oven bag makes all the difference for very tender meat.- Pam, Aust.

Tom Stephenson said...

Many Bath houses have - or had - big old ranges in the cellar/kitchen. I had one friend who used theirs, but always had a back up oven alongside. I had a solid fuel Raeburn for a couple of years. The trick is to think a few hours ahead for everything. I also had a back up gas cooker. Last night I roasted a chicken. Ah, Bubble and Squeak...

Brenda said...

I have been vegetarian since 992…my adult children and their families prefer turkey or salmon…occasionally one family eats ham…I do not miss the meat at all…never thought k about it…your mother sounds lovely…yes…when my children were growing up, Su day dinner after church…however, we ate together every evening u less their dad was out of town for work…now I eat my meal around noon and then a salad for dinner…you have not mentioned your book club recently…is that still on? Perhaps I missed it. Just love your blog and look forward to reading it.

Bovey Belle said...

How I love your memories Pat. We viewed a house in Derbyshire once which still had its working range - we would have offered on it but someone beat us to it. I still really miss the Spanish Hergom stove we had at our old farmhouse. It was the heart of the house and so useful for drying washing, warming the room and some hot water, for cooking on - it was never the same when we changed it from solid fuel to oil and we lost the oven heat then.

Any Sunday roast beef joint when I was growing up often ended up minced and turned into a Cottage Pie. I was in charge of the mincer.

thelma said...

Sunday was and is a day of rest, so I am sure the family lunch meal is still there. When I was a child we had a large Victorian range in the kitchen but also an ordinary cooker in the scullery. Sunday meal was an occasion, with sherry before hand, now the ritual of three courses is not adhered to, the leisurely act of a meal taking time has taken a somewhat different route.
We had a Rayburn when I first married, it was coal fuelled and I remember having to come back to the cottage lunchtime in my work break to top it up, it gave off fumes which gave me asthma.
You tell a lovely tale Pat but it was hard work for your mum I think.

Justme said...

Love my sunday roast Pat. I love the tradition of roasting veg, yorkshire puds and rich gravy. I make 2 days extra meals with the left overs.
Lovely to read your reminiscences. Sally.

Will said...

My parents farm cottage had a solid fuel Truburn (a bit like a Rayburn) for cooking and hot water. My mother won several prizes at local flower shows with Victoria sponges cooked in that oven, and could always be depended on for the most wonderful Yorkshire pudding with the Sunday roasts.

Barbara Anne said...

Another very interesting post, Pat! My parents had a normal electric stove all the years I was home and DH and I have had gas stoves ever since. AGAs and other such older stoves are more rare here than in the UK and are SO expensive.
Alas, since being bitten by a Lone Star tick a few years ago, I can no longer eat beef. Some enzyme from the tick bite reacts with an enzyme inside human bodies and causes this reaction in most people who have been bitten. I long for pot roast, hamburgers, beef chili, and beef gravy. Sigh! Those wonderful foods are not worth the GI misery they'd cause.

Hugs!

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, we always have a roast dinner on Sunday. Today it is a small chicken from the smallholding but it will feed three of us tonight, provide part of a cold collation tomorrow evening, make a few rounds of chicken mayo sandwiches and stock for soup or risotto. When my parents were first married they lived in a cottage in Somerset with no electricity or gas and cooked on a solid fuel range. My mum had been evacuated to farming relatives in Shropshire for the whole of the war so she was not fazed by skinning rabbits or plucking pheasants. My dad meanwhile worked for Southern Electricity Board and his job was to connect outlying Somerset villages to the Grid. I love our woodburner which will be lit as soon as the sun sinks. We have central heating but it isn’t on as the sun is warming the house beautifully and I am wearing six layers so am feeling snug. If I start to feel cold I will do some ironing, haul the hoover out, bring some logs in or dance. We had such a good walk this morning and a big bowl of ribollita soup when we got home that I am still feeling warm inside. I am enjoying reading your reminiscences Pat. After my mum died (another Pat and also a teacher) used to love spending one to one time with my dad and he would tell me stories about his early life which I had never heard before. Sarah in Sussex

Traveller said...

We have a large wood burner in the inglenook in the dining room. We often use the top to heat up food. I am boiling up some Seville oranges to make Lebanese bus’fair. Will take it off the induction hob and put on the wood burner to see if that works.

jinxxxygirl said...

In my house there is not sacred Sunday dinner but i imagine some people still do.. I have not read thru your comments yet.. The only time i have ever cooked over a fire was when we went camping when we were younger.. and then hubby really was the one to cook over the camp fire.. Lovely memories Pat.. I think sometimes we don't realize what we have given up for technology.. Hugs! deb

Debby said...

I cannot claim that Sunday dinner is sacred anymore, but it made me laugh. The Amish cook with fire, and the large kitchen range is where everyone gathers after supper to rock and play games and do puzzles.

Granny Sue said...

My mother made a Sunday roast most weeks when I was young, sometimes substituting chicken or pork, very rarely ham. That tradition stopped at our house in the 60s, when she started working outside the home. I never cooked a special Sunday dinner, but did cook on a wood range in the winters for several years when I first moved to the home I still live in, in 1974. But in 1990 or so we had to get fire insurance and they didn't like my stove so we disconnected it, and finally sold it about 10 years ago. I miss it very much, but with free natural gas I must say cooking is easy. My current range in a 1950 Tappan Deluxe, and she is definitely the queen of my kitchen.

Jean said...

My mum made the most wonderful rice puddings, thick and creamy with a hefty skin on top.
I miss the Sundays we had when we were kids, a proper dinner in the middle of the day, then something like beans on toast or ham salad for tea. Mum did her cooking on an ancient gas cooker, green enamel with big, knobbly taps and a solid oven door. You couldn't see if things were cooked until you opened it and that let all the heat out so the cakes always sank.
We always had lamb shoulder so it was shepherd's pie for tea on Monday.

Country Cottage said...

Hubby does most of the cooking and loves his Sunday roasts.

Anonymous said...

This is very interesting Pat. The meals sound delicious. My family didn’t cook specific foods on Sundays. Sime dinners might be roast, others “breakfast for dinner”. Neighbors from. The Southern U.S. always served fried chicken for Sunday dinner. As for stoves, the only time I’ve used a gas stove was home economics class.

Bonnie said...

My mother got going early on Sunday to put a roast in the oven that would be ready after church. All these years later, I still can’t face raw meat that early, and I understand yet another thing I took for granted.
Bonnie in Minneapolis

Susan said...

Your mother's meals sound hearty and delicious. My mother disliked cooking. She always had a large full kitchen with all electric appliances. That said, she served a dinner every evening with everybody at the table. She insisted on balanced meals and all food groups were present. Deserts were rare because as she did not bake. The exception was 5 birthday cakes (box cake) a year; one for each family member. Today, I do not know anyone that has a Sunday family dinner.

Heather said...

I am imagining the flavour of that slow-cooked rice pudding. Yum! I imagine a joint of meat has become too expensive for many people to have a Sunday joint, especially one that would last well into the next week.
On one of our house moves I had to make friends with an Aga. There was no instruction book for it but I did get some delicious casseroles from it. Thank goodness there was also an electric cooker for baked items.

Virginia said...

I'm 70, and a city-bred New Zealander, so I only remember electric ovens, or gas, with ever improving thermostats and reliability. My mother was an adventurous cook and her meals were varied and delicious. We ate Eggplant (Aubergine) and had great curries and wonderful French-inspired dishes back in the 60s. Unfortunately I was at boarding school from the age of 8, and the food there was pretty dire. People who've had slow-cooked rice pudding rave about it, my experience was otherwise - not enough sugar and lumpy - shudder!! Likewise Tapioca and Semolina... names burnt into my memory for all the wrong reasons.

I cook a roast for us (now just 2) quite frequently, as its variations can cover meal bases for three days. Free-range hooks are one of our favourite as they're so easy. An eye fillet of beef or pork (stuffed or rolled in bacon) for guest meals makes serving the meal easy. I like easy! The grandchildren love pork spareribs (probably because they're smothered in sweet tangy sauce!) or Make Your Own pizzas or Tacos. The Tacos are a great way to get peace at the table because there is no argument about Using Your Knife And Fork!!

You do get us all thinking and talking, don't you Pat. You must've been a fantastic teacher.

Heather said...

When we were first married we lived in an end of terrace cottage with a Rayburn.The cottage was old and the Rayburn was in a large inglenook. I could not get on with cooking in the oven but used the top for a kettle and saucepan until little ones came along then it was ideal for drying nappies around it.
My Mum or Nan, who lived with us always cooked a roast on a Sunday, usually beef, only chicken or turkey for special occasions. We had a long garden so Dad would grow lots of veg and we had apple trees too. We often have a roast during the week now but although we have moved several times and I've had various ovens, gas and electric, I can not make decent Yorkshire puddings!
I do love your reminiscing Pat.

Red said...

No Sunday dinners around here which is too bad. My family had Sunday dinner after morning church. This sounds similar to what my wife's family had in Royston.

Joanne Noragon said...

No Sunday meal for many years now.

gz said...

Sunday meals here, as they were when I was growing up, tended to be evening meals and not too heavy..but substantial enough after a day on the bikes!
I had a woodfired stove in the 89s and an oil Rayburn in the 90s.
I miss baking and cooking on them.
We tried to get Pirate's neice's Rayburn mended,or replaced, but they are only gas or electric now..and are the same company as Aga.
She replaced it with a Hungarian Wamsler...half the price ...and a solid fuel stove is still needed up on the Weald of Kent, where electric supply cuts are frequent.

Pixie said...

When I was a kid there were always Sunday dinners, often over cooked roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Today, there is not special meal on Sundays anymore. We cook on a fire sometimes, but it's outside in a firepit and we only cook hotdogs and marshmallows:)

Hilde said...

I often end up with a traditional Sunday dinner even though I don´t really do it on purpose. I guess it is just bacause this is what we had when I was a child and later on when we went to my in-laws every Sunday. As long as we had a village butcher here, I would go there every Saturday morning, and there were always some very nice pieces of meat, usually beef. I also like to be able to put the roast in the oven and then have time to read the Sunday paper without watching the stove. ANd of course, leftovers are great!
Hilde in Germany

Cro Magnon said...

A Sunday roast is imperative in this house. When I was small we always ate a big joint of Beef on Sundays, to have a whole roast Chicken was a rare treat, even though we had our own. These days it's usually a Chicken as I can't afford a joint of Beef. How times change.

Librarian said...

On Sundays, I am usually either at O.K.'s or he is at my place, and unless we are invited with friends or family, the one of us who is the host usually comes up with something a bit more elaborate for our evening meal. It is almost never a proper meal at lunch time, as we a) have breakfast late on weekends (and would not be hungry again by noon anyway) and b) are often out walking or hiking during the day and only return late afternoon or early evening.
We both eat meat but we don't insist on having it; a meal without meat can be just as nice and tasty as one without.
At the moment, we have bits of wild boar (a piece of loin, among others) in O.K.'s freezer, waiting to be turned into a delicious Sunday evening meal.

When I grew up, my parents used to spend much of Sunday afternoon together in the kitchen, preparing a meal they had been looking forward to all week. My sister and I were never afraid to try something new, and our parents cooked dishes from (almost) all over the world. During the week, our evening meals would not always see all four of us around the table, as our Dad would be VERY hungry coming from work and wanted his meal there and then, whereas my sister and I would often still be playing outdoors and come in a couple of hours later for what usually would be a cold meal of bread, cheese and maybe a salad. We had our hot lunch after school. (In Germany in those days, children did not go to school all day but finished at 5 past 12 or 1:00 pm.)

As for fires, there was only the bathroom boiler in our house that needed to be fired with wood and coal. The rest of the house was central (oil) heating, and the kitchen stove was electric, like almost everyone else's. My grandma still had her old gas range but I was always scared of that, imagining gas explosions which I had seen on TV news.

Frances said...

Your version of bubble and squeak is different to the usual mashed potato and left over cabbage fried up together, but I am sure it was delicious.

Rachel Phillips said...

Sweet on a Sunday after the roast was always a tin of Libby's fruit and evaporated milk.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Rachel - - I had quite forgotten Libbys - always a tin in the cupboard along with a tin of peaches - a standby if anyone called.

Thank you all - I love it when I stir up memories - good for the brain!


My grandson is coming after tea today - I am so looking forward to seeing him after four years. He goes back to China at the beginning of next week/

Derek Faulkner said...

I'd forgotten about Libby's fruit and evaporated milk, we did have that but favourites for sweet were the left over suet pudding from the roast, with sugar, jam or treacle on and rice pudding.

thousandflower said...

I cook on a wood range that also heats the house and our hot water. I love it.

thousandflower said...

My mother-in-law who will be 100 March 10 still cooks on her wood range.