Seasoning the narratives of our lives: memories of food

Illustration from Amistad – the Basque children’s magazine – number 5, accompanying information from a Did you know? article: it depicts a family sitting around a table and the illustration is headed “Las uvas de Nochevieja” or New Year’s Eve’s grapes.

The idea of food and memory – stimulated by the senses – has become more commonly recognised and Jon Holtzman in his review of food and memory in 2006, highlighted the power of food in maintaining connections, facilitating reflective memory of past events and experiences. The food that we encounter throughout our lives, it can be argued, leaves memories that frame our past.

Certainly within the oral history interview accounts of the Basque child refugees who arrived in the UK in May 1937 that we hold in the Special Collections there are various mentions of food which act as reference points for the children in their life journey and for the memories created.

As Vicente Cañada noted the sound of English as well as smells and tastes unlocked memories on his return to the UK: “I heard things again that I had forgotten but which had stayed in my subconscious and the same with smells and tastes that I had forgotten but remembered of food and soaps and stuff.”

In the food narratives relating to the life in the Basque country the children recreate a sense of their family through memories of favourite dishes eaten at home as well as where they would have eaten together as a family.

Jose Armolea recalls a favourite dish cooked by his mother:

“I’m talking about Aluvia. Aluvia’s a very well-known Spanish dish which is red beans which actually, it’s cooked with chorizo and a good portion of pork, fatty pork to give if flavour and indeed you can go to some places in Spain today where they specialise and it is a dish that you go out specially to eat because it is, if it’s done properly, superb, so that’s what, that’s one good dish. Garabanzos, chicken peas, that’s another one.”

And he also spoke of how the family sat down together for dinner each day and “we would always sit for breakfast together as well and in the middle of the kitchen you got a long table with stools that you can push underneath there when everybody had finished eating but that’s where we would eat normally. We wouldn’t have any ritual of eating in the dining room by the balcony”.

Maria Louise Toole’s mother was a professional cook and she had fond memories of the meals that she produced, including various Basque dishes: “a lot of fish, everybody says that in cookery books. They’re excellent at the fish dishes, and meat and things like that … and stews, and txakoli the fishermen do that in the boats … and they have their own puddings and things like that.”

Others share deep memories of the impact on food caused by the Spanish Civil War.

As Felix Amat recalls “during the blockade of Bilbao, things were even worse. The only things we very often all had was el garbanzos: chickpeas”: and chickpeas remain something that he has disliked ever since.

Or the fact that as supplies became more scarce, as Francisco Robles Hernando remembers, “we used to have the same food and eat lots of good fruit and all that, but … for one year we hardly had any of that. In Spain we were eating horse meat and my mother used to queue up for four hours for a piece of horse meat”.

Basque children on board the Habana, 1937 MS404/A4164/2/24/14/1

The trauma of the journey on the Habana, where most of the children were ill, includes tales of both the delight of the amount of food and the fact that it might have contributed to their illness.

As Valeriana Flores notes “We were so ill, all of us. I think probably to a certain extent it was the way we were fed. The food that was available was very strong, too strong probably to what we had been used to eating and I remember being sick the whole journey through.”

Felix Amat remembers that “when we eventually got on the Habana, the ship to come to England, they gave us some fresh rolls, white rolls. They were great. But unfortunately, as most of them will tell you, we were all sick”.

And Josefina Savery also recalls the plentiful supply of food on the boat. “They had white bread and chorizo, and that was like manna from heaven. It was absolutely marvellous. And because we went in the boat in alphabetical order, and we were “A”, I got a bunk for my brother and one for myself. And Gerry said “Oh I’m hungry, and look, they’ve got chorizo”, so I went to get it for him – when I came back, my bunk had gone. So I spent all the journey to Southampton on deck, being terribly sick. I’m a poor sailor. So it wasn’t a very exciting journey.”

Meal time at the camp at Eastleigh, 1937 MS404/A4164/2/24/60

Memories of the food the children encountered when they arrived in the UK, first at the camp in Eastleigh and then at the places they stayed in elsewhere, show something of the adjustments that they had to make to the differences between life in Spain and that in Britain.

Of the situation at the camp in Eastleigh, Josefina Stubbs recalls: “If you didn’t eat your food you didn’t get your pudding which was either a banana, an apple or an orange… We’d have a bowl and queue up… They’d put so much on your plate and then you’d sit down at a wooden table… my sister would go first and then start eating as quickly as she could. I would follow, then sit next to her and when she’d eaten her portion she would swap plates with me and she’d have mine. Then she could get her pudding and I could get mine and that’s what I used to live on… There were mainly dishes like mince-meat and brown gravy. To me it was horrible. I didn’t mind the mashed potatoes so much but the food was not very Spanish.”

And Rafael Leandro Flores remembers that “we ate very basic things of course like barley and onion soups and things like that. Corned beef. They put up a stall and I think Horlicks was a new thing in England and we would queue up to take a glass… and go back to the end of the queue again and take another”.

For Carmen Wood the memories of the food she ate are more vague, but she was clear that “whatever it was, I didn’t like it. We had fish, which was so different to what we were used to. Didn’t taste very nice. The bread was alright, in fact it was very pleasant and very welcome. I can’t remember what we drank. Stuck to water, I suppose”.

Francisco Robles Hernando remembered the “white bread for a start, plenty of butter, marmalade, jam, you know all the things that we missed in Spain during the War. We had tins of peaches. They gave us everything. Apples and all that … they used to bring apples from Kent, very good apples. We lacked for nothing in the colonies. I was lucky, others wasn’t so lucky as me but the ones that we were in, we were very well taken care of…

We had custard, custard pies and all that kind of thing there, cornflakes in the mornings that I never had before, never, you know in the morning in Spain you … cup of coffee with lots of bread there. Good. But all this kind of stuff like cornflakes and all that we never had it and we loved it. But we were invited to … I was invited to a home in Ipswich, two of us were invited to this home and they gave us a cup of tea with scones and I was sick because I never had tea before …”

Illustration from Amistad – the Basque children’s magazine – number 12, accompanying information from a Did you know? article that tea has rarely any other use than for medicinal purposes. That in fact, it is so despised that in Spanish “he gave me the tea” is a common expression for “he bored me to death MS404/A4171/6/1/1

Valeriana Flores’s recall of the bread was that it was awful, but “I don’t think in Spain I had seen a banana. I don’t think I saw a banana until I got to England. That was the first time I came across a banana because the food we ate in Spain was always grown in Spain, especially at that time”.

While the reception by the British government for the children could be said to be less than warm, this was countered by the kindness of the ordinary people. Agustina Pérez felt overwhelmed by the sympathy and attention displayed by the British people: “When we were put on a train, it stopped quite a bit and every time it stopped at a state people there came out and were giving us chocolates and sweets.  It was lovely.”

Manuel Rodriguez recalls that “when I started work in the Co-op Mrs Simpson she took me to her mother’s house. She gave me the best dinners I ever had. Beautiful! Today I’d give anything, I’d walk to Milford for one of them.”

And Rafael Flores paid tribute to a generous hostess: “Peggy Gibson was a tremendous woman…. She had a very big house near Birmingham and she would lay out a table full of everything; she took us there for tea and it was something that we’d never known. Cakes, tea and bread and butter and jams and cake and a lot of cutlery.”

Front cover of recipe book, MS440/1/A4291/5

Nostalgia for the recipes of home might well be the reason for the creation of a typescript recipe book in the collection of Caridad (Carito) and Marina Rodriguez Vega. Arranged into sections it includes recipes for broths and soups, macaroni and pasta, paella, vegetables, hors d’oeuvres, garnishes, eggs, sauces, fish, fried, cold cuts, meats in sauce, pork and lamb, desserts, cakes. Whether this was created as an act of remembrance or of nostalgia, it is a work that shows the effort and importance placed on remembering the dishes of the children’s past.  Do join us for a future blog when we shall be trying out some of the recipes.

Southampton as a Military Embarkation Port

With events to mark the 80th Anniversary of D-Day taking place this week, we look at occasions in Southampton’s past when this commercial port has become a base for military expeditions or has been subject to threats of invasion itself.

T.S. Seed, The Bargate (Southampton, 1814) Rare Books Cope c SOU 91.5 BAR

Beginning in the 14th century, the early years of the Hundred Years War saw not just a threat of invasion but a successful raid on Southampton by the French and their Genoese mercenaries. Arriving in October 1338 in a fleet of fifty galleys, they swiftly overran the town which had few defences to the south and west. The impact of the raid was severe. There was considerable loss of life on both sides and parts of the town were destroyed before the raiders left the next day. Stores of wool awaiting export and supplies of wine belonging to King Edward III, were plundered, adding to royal displeasure. Subsequently Southampton was ordered to strengthen its defences by completing the circuit of walls, the new western wall incorporating the waterfront walls of merchants’ houses, their windows and doors being blocked up. By the 1380s the town was enclosed by a wall which was fortified by twenty-nine towers.

Town Wall near West Quay, from: H.C. Englefield, A Walk through Southampton (Southampton, 1801) Rare Books Cope SOU 91

After the raid, Southampton became a garrison town, its complement of soldiers fluctuating in line with the frequent threats of invasion. Despite this, the local area was a mustering point for military expeditions to France. In 1345 Henry of Lancaster’s army set sail in over 100 ships and in July the following year the army which would fight at the Battle of Crecy assembled under the command of the King and the Black Prince. Similarly in 1356 troops were mustered for Normandy and the Battle of Poitier, and it was through the relatively new West Gate that many of the 11,000 men in Henry V’s army left for France and Agincourt in 1415.

S. Rawle, West Gate, Southampton (London, 1807) Rare Books Cope  double folio 91.5 v.4 illus.143

The next three hundred years were by no means quiet in terms of wars fought and threats of invasion, but it was Britain’s entry into the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793 that brought huge numbers of soldiers to Southampton once again. Lord John Manners who visited in August 1795 writing:

We passed through a forest of transports which were partly waiting for troops, and were partly laden with horses for Lord Moira’s expedition. As soon as we got into the town, nothing but red coats and military were to be seen on all sides. … In short, we never saw a place that had such a military appearance as Southampton.

From: Robert Douch, Southampton 1540-1956: Visitors’ Descriptions of Southampton (Southampton, 1978) Cope SOU 91

A ‘military appearance’ was not necessarily welcome in a town with a reputation as a spa resort although the resulting demand for goods and services contributed to the local economy. Whilst some visitors were probably deterred by preparations for war and fears of invasion, the many officers stationed in the town participated in its social life, attending balls, and staging their own entertainments. 

From: Hampshire Chronicle 26 May 1794

Inevitably tensions developed between the inhabitants and the troops. The billeting of soldiers in public houses was unpopular and the town successfully petitioned the government to provide barracks. Fears of disease arose in 1794 when eight regiments returned from an ill-fated expedition to Brittany with many of the men suffering from typhus. An empty sugar refinery was converted to a hospital, but the disease spread despite the Hampshire Chronicle‘s reassurances.

From: Hampshire Chronicle 5 April 1794

Fears of invasion later in the 1790s led to the formation of volunteer regiments to defend the local area, these being the Southampton Volunteer Cavalry and three infantry regiments, the Southampton Volunteers, Portswood Green Volunteers and the Associated Householders. Although the invasion never materialised, a false alarm during the Napoleonic Wars in May 1805, saw a new volunteer force acquit itself well, being armed and assembled within half an hour of the bugle sounding.

Handbill requesting a meeting to form a Corps of Infantry (Southampton, 1798) Rare Books Cope double folio SOU 06.5 v.1 no.32

Throughout the nineteenth century, Southampton gained experience of ‘trooping’ both in peace and war, notably, in the Crimean War, 1853-1856 and the South African War, 1899-1902. The railway made a huge difference to the embarkation of troops and in August 1914, as Military Embarkation Port No.1, Southampton received 350 trains in 45 hours when the British Expeditionary Force left for France. Troop movements continued throughout the First World War and by its end, over 7 million men had passed through the port as well as 179,069 vehicles, 859,830 horses and 15,266 guns.

Kitchener’s Army at the Inner Avenue, from: Southampton and the Great War 1914-1919 (Southampton, 1919) Cope folio SOU 45

At the outset of the Second World War, Southampton had resumed its role as an embarkation port, sending men of the British Expeditionary Force to German-occupied France. But its proximity to the airfields of northern France meant its use was reduced until it took on its well-known role in Operation Overlord, or ‘D-Day’, the largest seaborne invasion in history. Again, troops and supplies were gathered in the surrounding area, designated as ‘Area C’ in 1942 when planning for the invasion began. In the summer of 1943, the U.S. Army Transportation Corps took over the docks which became the U.S. Army 14th Major Port, responsible for the embarkation of troops and equipment.

Entrance to the U.S. Army Camp at Houndwell Park, from: U.S. Army Southampton Port of Embarkation (Southampton, 1948) Cope quarto SOU 45

In Southampton preparations for the invasion saw the introduction of one-way systems on the roads and areas sealed off from the public. On D-Day itself around two thirds of the British invasion force left from the town, many troops boarding landing craft at Town Quay, whilst vessels preloaded with supplies waited in the Solent. After D-Day Southampton continued to send men to France, as well as receiving returning troops and prisoners of war with around 3.5 million members of the armed forces passing through the docks during this period.

U.S. soldiers in landing craft prior to the invasion MS379/3/1

When the U.S. Army left Southampton in 1947 a plaque was added to the Mayflower Memorial in tribute to their troops, who were also awarded the Freedom of the Town. Another plaque at the Civic Centre recorded the gratitude of the U.S. Forces to Southampton and the links between the American troops and the town were highlighted in a booklet, Memories of Southampton, England, marketed in 1948 as a souvenir. To commemorate Southampton’s role, a D-Day Embroidery was stitched at the suggestion of Elsie Sandell, the well-known local historian. After these initial commemorations, subsequent major anniversaries of D-Day have seen the addition of plaques recording the role of Southampton’s dock workers and programmes of events to mark the occasion, as is the case on this 80th Anniversary.

Memories of Southampton, England (Southampton, 1948) Cope SOU 45

After the Second Word War it seemed unlikely that Southampton would be used as a military embarkation port again, as troopships gave way to air transports, but just over forty years after D-Day, Southampton once again saw troops embarking for war as the Canberra, the Norland and later the QE2 left for the Falklands.

For a look at D-Day seen through the papers and photographs of the U.S. Colonel James O’Donald Mays, held in the University Archives, see our blog marking the 75th Anniversary.