Thursday 18 August 2011

Wartime cooking - marrow stuffed with spam



This was the last of our meals on our 2 week wartime diet. A wartime experience cannot be complete without spam. This recipe - marrow stuffed with spam - also highlights the importance of allotments in feeding the nation during the Second World War. It also helps to highlight how allotments can play a role in feeding Britain in the 21st century, were we to stop them being used for house building or illegitimate car repair businesses.

The soft flesh was scooped out of the marrow after I sliced them down the middle. The stuffing was made from chopped spam (a quarter of a tin), a chopped onion, a bit of corned beef that we hadn't used up and, of course, the great wartime ingredient, breadcrumbs. I added a little bit of lard. Normally not somethig I use, it was the main cooking oil of the Second World War in Britain. As a special treat, we used an ounce of cheese, grated over the top. Given that a person's ration of cheese was 2oz a week, this amounted to an incredibly luxurious meal.

Put in the over at 180C.

We've stuffed marrows before though this is the first time we've used spam as the protein. We rather like stuffed marrows and with the crop we have growing on the allotment, we'll be having more of them over the coming weeks.

Marrow stuffed with spam Aug 11 2
Marrow before cooking

Marrow stuffed with spam Aug 11 1
Marrow after baking

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

btw - ref.: pies. i glaze the pastry with just water. it seems to be ok. i prefer it to having unglazed.

csquared said...

i cannot believe i'm typing this, but that actually looks really yummy!