Sheephead.. just what the doctor ordered

Dietary advice as food shortages kick in

Stirling area people facing wartime food shortages were given some dietary advice in the Observer of 100 years ago this week.

It came from Dr AK Chalmers, medical officer of health for Glasgow, who set out daily menus for breakfast, dinner and tea.

He said a carefully adjusted form of feeding was specially necessary if the working capacity of people was to be maintained at anything like the high standard demanded.

Despite the flourishing of schools and colleges teaching cooking, there remained an inadequate knowledge of food “with the consequent result that feeding goes on in a haphazard and promiscuous fashion”.

His ‘model menus’ took into account the need for economy and served as the basis for a week’s feeding for the average working class family, with food “sufficient to meet the demands both of the appetite and the palate”.

Porridge and peasbrose was the breakfast staple suggested by the doctor, supplemented by ham on Sundays, sausage on Monday and fish on Wednesday. For their porridge, children could be given syrup, treacle or dripping instead of milk, which was expensive.

For dinner, the doctor suggested a Sunday feast of rice soup with suet dumplings, plain kedgeree, potatoes, harricot beans, steam pudding, figs and dates. On Wednesday, broth was followed by sheephead, potatoes, turnip and rice pudding.

If you could manage tea, the doctor suggested on Thursday and Friday a cuppa with bread, margarine, syrup or jam.

Dr Chalmers said the menus could be re-arranged to suit individual tastes, and he added: “These model menus provide a well balanced diet and I can confidently recommend them as a substitute for the unsystematic and unscientific system, or want of a system, now in vogue. By their adoption, anyone may secure maximum nourishment at minimum cost.”