Hay Box Cooking - Old Methods of Keeping fuel costs down Part One

When I was a little girl, my Nan had a small Wood/Coal Rayburn Range cooker in her tiny unfitted kitchen which kept the family warm during some really frozen cold winters as well as well as giving a wonderful facility for cooking really good food, making bread, and drying and ironing the laundry.  Like its much more expensive cousin the Aga, this type of Range Cooker is more a way of life and once you become used to them you never really want to be without them.  As I have said, my Nan had one, my Aunty R  had one and also my Uncle who had a farm also had one and they were a constant feature of my younger life.  Our PJs used to be warmed on them before getting ready for bed.  As well as the Range cooker, the cottage where my grandparents' lived had an open fire in the front best room and the dining room, and the house used to be really hot and toasty during the winter months as a result.  Later on my grandparents' moved with the times and had a Log Burner fitted in the dining room, but the front room remained as an open fire.

I know that my Nan whilst she was able always did a big bake once a week for family pack-ups, family puddings, cakes etc. no matter what usually with all the baking being carried out on a Saturday afternoon once they were back from the market in the morning.  This was how she did things and the scheme seems to have been set for this from predominantly the War years, where Nan worked at the Naafi on the Air base at the back of their property which was a Lancaster base during the second World War.  Pop was in the "Dad's Army". His occupation of Fitter Engineer precluded him from being able to go into active service.  They even took in two Evacuee sisters from Southampton as well who kept in touch with my Nan until she passed.  I was thinking of Rita and her sister Brenda when I came across a repeat of the Wartime Farm with Ruth Goodman, which I subsequently re-watched.  I will talk more of this below, but one seemed to lead to the other.

My Grandparents' kept pigs, chickens and geese - always kept them but there was always an extra one or two, and the pigs were slaughtered at home and anyone close who could perhaps hear the squealing would find later in the day a cut of meat that they had not expected wrapped in newspaper on he doorstep and left anonymously.

My Dad was apparently also a dab hand of catching rabbits and so if there was any excess this would often end  up on the doorstep of those not as lucky as well.

My Nan was one of these wonderful ladies who could make something out of nothing food-wise and in most cases she would always help others help themselves and encourage and teach where necessary.  She was actively involved in getting the WI into the village where she lived, and  took part in food produce days, often supplying a lot of apples herself from the apple orchards and canning them.

The reason for me talking about my Nan and Pop in this way today is that we have a horrible situation in the Ukraine which just seems to be escalating.  That aside,  we also have lots of issues arising in relation to fuel costs, and food costs as a result.  It is bad enough that we have people and children on a poverty level in this country today and often through no fault of their own in this country in any event.  We could with the just wrong bit of luck be like them.  No one is safe from that and therefore we should be grateful ie, therefore but for the grace of God go I.

There are also besides that lots of other issues which are playing their part.  One of the worst is that we do not produce enough food in this country in any event and therefore this clearly needs to change and we can learn so much from looking to the past.

As I have said I re-watched the Wartime farm episodes I ended up watching a couple until OH got really fed up I would have carried on watching.  Ruth Goodman showed the method of Hay Box cooking.  During the war years fuel was scarce and at a premium and so it would only be used where absolutely necessary Ruth demonstrated that her normal cooking facility was a paraffin stove and that the food used to be cooked and bought up to boiling and then decanted into the Haybox to keep warm and continue cooking without any additional fuel being used.  Just insulation and the forethought to put something in place that could be used to cook food using that little bit of energy originally put into it.

I then remembered that at the age of 11/12 we had actually been shown at school this particular method of cooking.  At the time we had two old school Domestic Science Teachers, Mrs Whitney and Mrs Lockyer.  It was Mrs Whitney who demonstrated the Hay Box method and the one she showed was close to this example.  I remember that her version was lined with blue felt.

This is basically what a Hay Box Oven looks like;

There is even a version made out of an insulated cooler, which uses recycled shredded paper.  The link to that is here;

Modern Take on Hay Box Cooking care of and courtesy of Shantyboat living.

Basically you have a wooden box or chest stuffed full of Hay. into which you add your boiling hot Dutch Oven or metal casserole into the Hay Box, pop more hay on top of the pot.  Put either a thick pillow or rug on top and more hay and then the lid to the box.  the Hay box which I was shown when I was young by Mrs Whitney had little latch hooks on it to keep the heat in.  The method then carried on cooking food without using fuel, and you would come home to a hot piping meal after being at work all day.  The food does have to be really boiling hot when it goes into the box though. 

It strikes me as a good way of being able to provide hot food for the family, without wasting fuel unnecessarily.

I remember also growing up with the Miner's strikes where we had intermittent electric (we did not have gas in our home) and the heating boiler was oil with an electric feed which would not work without the electric.  I believe an unorthodox method was worked out by my father to actually provide heat at some point but its best to say that perhaps he should not have done it. However, he was keen on keeping my brother and I but more importantly my Mum warm as she was seriously ill at the time.  I remember going to bed by gas lamp, and us all being huddled in the front room trying to keep warm with the gas lantern on, playing card  and board games.  We just took it in our stride.  I believe in the circumstances the way our parents' reacted by okay lets just get on with it, taught us both that we could tackle anything if we absolutely had to.

However, I was bought up by Mum, not to put the oven on especially the big oven unless we absolutely had to and if we had to, to make the most of the heat and cost of using it and making sure that there were at least a couple of other items to go in at the same time so as not to waste the heat.  The oven would only be switched on after everything was prepped up and ready to go. Primarily on a Sunday morning when Sunday lunch was being prepared we would set too and do a load of baking, making and prepping and then bulk cooking whilst the oven was on. Mum also used a pressure cooker an awful lot and our evening meals during the week were always cooked in the pressure cooker on the top of the stove.  Using a Ninja Foodie or an Instant Pot or something similar can also make sure that you have at least one good warm meal a day for the whole family.

There are lots of things you can do to try and keep yourself warm.  Primarily insisting that everyone is in the one room.  No lights are left on through the house, doors are kept shut.  Draughty windows and doors have heavy curtains or blankets covering them to try and keep the warmth in.  For hot drinks use a flask full of hot water and make your drink of an evening using this.  Sometimes these little things add up a lot and can make a lot of difference.  Plus a little family bonding and interacting with the kids, might actually do your children good and is a good place to start on discussions about different subjects.

Hope this helps, or at least gives some ideas to consider.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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