Tattie loaf makes financial sense

Observer impressed by potato war bread

With ingredients to make bread becoming ever more scarce because of the war, the Observer offered readers a slice of hope – a loaf made partly from potatoes.

The paper ‘reviewed’ the tattie loaf, made from a recipe provided from Mr Jesse Collings of the Rural League, and was impressed.

People were turning to alternative ingredients for bread making because of poor harvests, shortage of manpower on cerealgrowing farms and German U-Boat attacks on British merchant ships bringing wheat from North America.

In 1917, in an attempt to produce loaves that were made to go further, the Government introduced the Bread Order making it illegal to sell bread until 12 hours after it had been baked.

According to the Observer, use of potatoes in breadmaking made economic sense.

By adding potato flour, a sack of 280lbs of flour yielded 120 four-pound loaves against 95 four-pound loaves using flour alone. And the cost of each tattie loaf was sixpence compared with the subsidised price of ‘normal’ bread which at that time was ninepence.

“Bear in mind that the ninepenny loaf, if it was not subsidised by the Government at a cost of many millions to the nation, would be about a shilling,” added the Observer.

“We can guarantee that the loaf we have tasted is better than ordinary bread we have lately been eating – and it was made by a working man and not a professional baker, and baked on a cooking range in a country cottage.

It is said that the Rural League loaf keeps longer and in better condition than ordinary bread.”

Elsewhere in the Observer of 100 years ago, readers learned that as ever things were different in America.

Instead of using potato flour in bread making, it was proposed to add a mixture of ‘cotton seed flour’ to the bread manufacturing process.

It was suggested the cotton seed loaf would contain more fat than wheaten bread and therefore help people make up for any lack of meat in their diet. It was, said the Observer, the ‘refuse’ of the cotton seed – following the crushing and extraction of oil – which was used to make bread.

“Whether the Americans will take to it as war bread remains to be seen but it seems probable their immense supplies of cotton seed will be turned to account for the saving of human food.”

In Britain, cotton seed had until then been used as cattle food but the food authorities were looking at it for possible human consumption.