Two Cooks and a Cabbage (1941) | BFI DVD
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 พ.ค. 2009
- This amusing guide on the correct way to boil vegetables in times of austerity features alongside a host of other handy wartime shorts on the BFI's latest DVD collection Ration Books and Rabbit Pies: Films from the Home Front, available to pre-order now. shop.bfi.org.uk/ration-books-a...
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This intriguing title is essential viewing for cooks everywhere, especially in times of austerity. The two cooks, Sally and Jane, are called upon to assist their forthright, no-nonsense northern Grandmother (Mrs Ingleton) in cooking dinner. The girls are sent to find a large cabbage from the wartime garden and cut it in half: a whole cabbage would be frivolous; there is a war on!
Sally and Jane choose different cooking techniques but the message is simple: never boil green vegetables in vast quantities of water. I wish my mother had seen this film. (Sharon Messenger)
All titles on the BFI Films channel are preserved in the vast collections of the BFI National Archive. To find out more about the Archive visit www.bfi.org.uk/archive-collect... - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
My Nan used to over boil the cabbage, my grandad used to drink the cabbage water saying to her, “you’re always boiling out goodness” god bless them both
That older boy shouldn't have been allowed to get away with that.
That Alan was a right blighter, wasn't he?
What should have happened? The younger boy learned to stick up for himself. Should he have relied on someone else to defend him? Granny advised in the end.
@Dennis Wilson Yep and a nice lecture on top of it.
@@nope24601
If was his grandmama l would have a boxed his ears!
@Dennis Wilson genuinely curious, can you tell me what this means? The taking him to the birch and the castor oil thing?
On the acting alone I can't understand how this missed out on an Oscar.
Lmao!!!! 🤣
😂🤣
Yes, the acting was BLOODY AWFUL! 👎😂😂😂
It's not nearly diverse enough.
I sat through the whole thing and didn't see a single nonbinary trans-black lesbian of colour.
Claws, sir! Lol.
It is quite touching that they drag out the table cloth and make the effort when there is so much extra work involved. Collecting wood, the old hand wash!
And I would love to know where the house was - maybe now the charming home of an IT exec. All mod cons, tastefully done - maybe a huge new kitchen extension
This was so lovely! Make me miss watching "Our Gang", the music was just right. Imagine children dressed like that for play & content to eat cabbage & potatoes only.
That was a different time & place, Karon. I wish it were like that in 2014; sadly, it isn't. By the way, you have such an attractive face. 😃
Dario Witer, No it's not like that now, a lot fewer bombs being dropped on us for one thing.
im proud to say my children would eat cabbage snd potatoes (and do) if thats whats served to them. its just a matter of that being all there is. and nothing else to compare it to. i hope it helps you feel a bit better :) we make $68 a week for groceries and toiletries etc work and although id always try to put a protien on their plate so they may ask if there was anything else or is this the whole meal. once assured they would get on with it without compkaint. and without!! stealing from anothers plate!! 🤣 we mske $67 a week for a family of four work. we have a very small garden and 2 ducks who lay occasionally spring through summer. theyve never known a patry full of instant food or treats. they get plenty of treats because sugar is cheap and people give kids sugar all year round halloween christmas birthdays easter. we bake apple pies or cookies and we enjoy our lives. i hope im doing the right thing.
My tiddler grandie ate 4 bowls of plain boiled cabbage last night. She didn't want to have nothing to do with the chicken and rice. Her dad learnt to play cricket from some snipes at the caravan park.
@@Stevie-steel It sounds as if you are. Fresh food is better than prepackaged meals full of salt and preservatives.
Best film I seen in 40 years. I loves cabbage.
LOL...Imagine being told that the food you just cooked tastes "nasty" I nearly fell off my chair laughing. I guess all grannies weren't all sweet and nice in the 49s.
I would never tell children when they are learning to cook that their food tastes nasty. Just tell them what was not right and how to fix the problem next time. Always had the boys cooking with me. The only seasoning they use is lemon and oregano and only use olive oil. I taught them other seasonings but that's all they use. Well at least they cook!
@Dennis Wilson Reread my comment. Key is to teach kids and be there to stop things before they go wrong. You back off when they understand the process and they will become confident and independent. That's why my children (and nephews and nieces) will always be around and they are bringing their kids around me too.
It always surprises me when their friends recognize me yrs later and give me a hug and the utmost respect. I was a the VA getting a procedure done and a young woman with a bunch of kids came up to me and asked if I was my son's mom. Happy to see me 16 yrs later. She didn't remember what I did just that she had good feelings around me. I feel very good about the life lessons I gave my kids.
Teach Your Children CSN
the girl basically wasted half a cabbage because she was a stubborn brat. and it didn't look like they had much food, so wasting was extra bad.
Steamed cabbage with butter and black pepper, lovely.
And a dash of vinegar
taa gonna try it
But I love a ton of butter with it. That wasn't happening! :-(
Remember that Janey put her boiled cabbage on while Sally was still shredding hers - it was the shredded cabbage that cooked for only 15 minutes. Those boys were pretty rude though
Only one of the boys was an absolute dick. Stealing his brothers food. Grandma should have slapped him and sent him to his room without anymore cabbage.
Cabbage can be prepared in dozens of ways plus it's growing season extends almost year round. Sour kraut is an easy dish that requires little hands on preparation. Cabbage rolls can be filled with ground lamb, beef, turkey, etc. and can even be mixed with TVP, or rice to stretch it out into more rolls. There is no reason we need to panic about food rationing, even if it is in our future. Our parents and grand parents survived and so can we. The key is to share and share alike, not hoard.
What is TVP?
@@tilasole3252 Textured Vegetable Protein. Dry, consistency of ground stuffing bread crumbs. I also use directly in chili and most people think it's ground beef. That said, I mix into meatloaf, Mexican dishes, etc..
@@paulj0557tonehead ahhh... I think I may of heard of it before. Not sure I have ever cooked with it though.
@@tilasole3252 Its horrible stuff. My parents used to have some. I cooked some up one time and it was horrid. It was like the first ever impossible meat or plant based meat product.
@@buffrogers6650 ewww...
'I want it to cook for ever such a long time' -- hahaha!
Shirley Temple Boils A Cabbage
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It's soaked in saltwater to encourage the bugs to depart. We would have grabbed those leaves that fell off and cooked them, too.
Sandra Lewis no you fed them to the hens.
@@olwenloud9704 My hens not mad on cabbage but love the lettuce leaves.
One of my favorite meals is cabbage and noodles fried in Crisco until the cabbage is nice and brown. It's got to have pepper on it, too. This is one of my grandmother's recipes from the Great Depression. It is so good.
SanGiovese What's "crisco"?
Chris Walford shortening
Crisco is hydrogenated fat marketed by the evil scum in ny!!
We put onions in and cook until soft and some butter then add cabbage, easy, cheap and yummy
I’m going to try this @SanGiovese.
What are we having for dinner gran?
Go fetch the twigs dear.
This film is effing golden
3:53 Grandma kept a couple of cabbages stored in her dress in case the girls both failed at their task.
I count at least four
Thanks for good laugh.
And then she teaches about soggy cabbages.
@@shrikant11211 you mean "saggy" cabbages. Ha ha!!
lmao
"I'm going to cook mine for ever such a long time." Sounds like my mum, bless her. She used to boil the guts out of it! I shred it, stick in a dob of margarine and nuke it for a couple of minutes. Job's done!
🤪😂😂😂
Mine also..😊
All mum recipes, boiled to hell or burnt!
I like my cabbage chopped, lightly salted, and sauteed with onions and garlic in olive oil. After growing up on "cooked ever so long" vegetables I have rebelled.
Omg my grandma did exactly the same
My grandma would have popped me upside my head if I acted like those boys, lol
Just recently I realized that shredded raw cabbage is a low calorie healthful food to snack on.
It does take extra cooking labors when not just cooking for ones self.
People are often very fortunate to have any land for growing their own food.
Thank you for sharing great videos!
If you do not have your own land you can look for a community garden in the area. Or if in an apartment, hopefully get enough sun to grow plants on the porch in pots.
I still HAVE that grate. It's called a Triplex grate and I think it was made in around 1936. We used to use it as a fire many years ago before we got central heating, but never really used it as a cooker. When my kids were small,thirty -odd years ago, I used to warm their pyjamas in the oven. Now I use the oven to store my metal cooking trays etc. How great to see it featuring large in this little film!
You must have a really charming house. I am wondering how that house is going. Whether there is a big modern but tasteful kitchen...
Now the home of an IT consultant or a Surgeon...
@@georgielancaster1356 probably not alive now, if they had a grater from 1936 and they posted 10 years ago 🥺
The grate was from then but not her, as her kids were small 30 years ago. I’m sure she’s trucking along nicely.
@@SigmundJaehn hope so...posted 10 years ago so her kids probably in their 50s now, she might be in her 80s, life expectancy has gone down if she still lives in the uk, ugh, hope shes alive
That was so cute. Can't imagine anyone eating salted boiled cabbage for dinner now in days.
I live alone now, and I eat a boiled cabbage for dinner every once in a while.
It was the war. Rationing meant that meat was a rare treat.
What do you mean. I'm American( German extraction) we still eat alot of cabbage. Fry shredded cabbage with onions in bacon grease or butter. Boil with smoked sausage( or ham bone)onions,carrots, potatoes( turnips,rutabaga) for boiled dinner. Boil & eat with a splash of viniger. Lots of ways. Roll up with a stuffing of minced meat, onions,garlic, Rice or barley. Cover with tomatoes sauce & bake. Stir fry shredded cabbage with vegetables. Very versatile vegetable.
This film is charming--and a meal of cabbage and boiled potatoes sounds quite good!
But much nicer with lots of butter
@@georgielancaster1356 Too bad it was rationed.
I had the distinct feeling that one girl was going to bitch slap the other towards the end of the film.
The title of this sounds like an 80's sitcom. "And now on BBC 1, Two Cooks and A Cabbage featuring two cooks and some cabbage"
The cook that cooked the soggy cabbage got sacked. And now on BBC 2, one cook one cabbage
Steaming vs boiling.
One more helpful hint for when I live on my own as a bachelor on on a budget. I enjoyed this piece and I hope to see more!
Thanks!
You're going to GROW YOUR OWN CABBAGES, and then boil them in LOTS OF WATER? 😂😂😂 Don't forget to SAVE THE CABBAGE WATER!
13 years later, how is life going?
Did you cook the cabbage? There are some brilliant later tv shows
The WW2 garden, I think it was called. EDIT: The wartime kitchen and garden. It's on yt.
And several tv shows with 3 historians/archealogists temporarily living in different periods.
we use to drink the Cabbage water ,,and add it to the Gravy,,,,,keep all the goodness in ,,
yes very true ,,food was lots better in them days
Eric Potter was it really?
+Keisha Cole Yes it was, good wholesome food. Not the plastic covered crap that is sold these days. I'm 47 now, my grandmother and my mother taught me how to live on next to nothing. Make a great meal on a couple of quid. If you shop at the right places and look for bargains. Then you can eat like a king on not very much money.
Zooumberg ok cool
Plenty of vitamin C in cabbage water.
Most of the vitamins & minerals are in the skins, for all vegetables. The water issue talked about here is absolutely correct!!
Good old 'Range' , just like my Grandmothers .
People who lived for the past two generations do not know what Hard economic times are like, one would have to go back to Europe to the 1930s through WW 2 to have experienced food shortages and soup lines on a daily basis. Movies like this show us how most people had to live allowing us to be more thankful for what we have.
Perhaps not America and Britain as entire nations, but capitalist classism still has room for extreme poverty of few and there is a whole world outside of these two countries.
@@NasikaSakura But this is a British short film from 1941. Not sure what your abstract little rant about capitalism had to do with the subject of two girls cooking a cabbage.
@@Miniver765 Then you should read the OP's comment my singular comment from over a year ago was a reply to.
@@NasikaSakura And even STILL, yours is random, off topic, and totally meaningless. The family depicted in the film aren't "poor" or "victims of capitalism" either. They're in the midst of wartime food rationing, along with the rest of Britain. Maybe you'd know that if you bothered to watch the film.
Your reading comprehension skills and ability to articulate in text are abysmally lacking.
@@Miniver765 That's your opinion. You're entitled to it. Fortunately, the comment wasn't made for you, so it doesn't much matter in the situation either. Have a good day/night and focus on better and more meaningful things, my dude. ✌🏻
Cabbage & potatoes boiled--
That's what I love, breakfast, lunch, &/or dinner!
just that? no butter or salt?
So the girls did all the cooking and wait on the boys as well, no surprises there.
The boys would have been better off learning to cook also, but I know things weren't done that way back then.
Baked cabbage is the best sliced into steaks smothered in butter and garlic salt !! Yummm Yummm
Granny was only 48 years of age 😂
Thats old, in Essex its 38 to be a granny
My mom, born in 1918, lived to 90 and looked like a 60 year old, slim and beautiful.
Maroulio I’m 60 next year I don’t think I look it, I was 42 when I had my baby. Some people act old I’m doing everything I want to do now, life is short don’t waste a minute of it. Hope I’m like your mum, my mums nearly 81 and looks good despite having a rare disease
Pqrst Zxerty I live in Essex, my sister was 36 when she had her first baby, when my mum said she was pregnant someone she new said “ that’s old” 😆 I was 42 when I had my baby and my sister in law was 45 with her third
@@lesleyhubble2976 Very good advise. I'm 60 this yr and look it! Part of it is that I gained too much weight. Should have kept to a diet of boiled cabbage and potatoes!
It’s just cabbage. Damn. That kid was acting all desperate for more like it was a pixie stick
Naughty Sally, running with a knife.
That older boy was a brute
Awesome grandma 👵
As my mother, who was about the same age if not a bit older than these ladies during WW2, would have said "Just eat the damned cabbage!" Actually they showed that the cabbage was cooked for 45minutes ... I don't care how you cook it, 45 minutes is too long to cook ANY cabbage dish!
15 min. 12:30 to 12:45
Although red cabbage you boil for up to 30 minutes and with sugar,salt, pepper, apples, onion vinegar, and red wine . Yum
@@patstocker3658 sounds delish!! Must try!
Running water as well !
During the war I had school dinners there was mostly parsnips which we all took home in our pockets
Lol if you use the water that you boiled the cabbage in then you aren't losing nutrients no matter how much water you use. Nutrients don't disappear in water lol.
These people are REALLY into cabbage.
@Buffalobigboy69 - I AGREE. My wife and I went out for a meal recently to a 5* restaurant. On the plate was """a creation""" which cost a fortune and it wasn’t that nice. I can tell you that I would have preferred a plate of my Mum's or Grandmothers special stew. If you want the recipe let me know.
I'd appreciate the recipe!
Old grandma must be hiding the scones going by the shape of her.
Andy Anderson 🤣😂🤣
those were big scones
Sally forgot to put her teesh in before the film started rolling, bless 'er.
Well, I love cabbage and potatoes, but they are extra nice with some onion and a glass of fresh water.
And everything is better with lots of butter. Sigh.
STEAM your veggies! (especially CABBAGE!). Boiling STINKS! (especially CABBAGE). I love the bouncy happy music in between the scripting...so 1930’s 😁!
What a wonderful little film.
This is still prime time viewing in the Ukraine.
Are you a time traveller?
Hope you are safe, now?
I love this😀! I adore the English and the educational flavour of this; it has taught me a little lesson🙂🙏🙂.Thank you dear people. Will you kindly put some more like this one ? Thank you🙂.
I am trying this tonight, the right way!
Spoilt bastards don't deserve the fucking Cabbage-kick their arses out of it
whats to do , whats to do ? ?
Scahoni I don’t like this mess. David’s is much nicer.
This whole video for that little bit of info? This meeting could have been an email😂
You never put the lid on vegetables that grow above the ground only those that grow underground, such as potatoes.
Why not?
Good luck steaming a cabbage with the lid off.
Good to see the boys were up to something useful.
COMPUSTA!!! shredded cabbage, liberally sprinkled with salt and left to wilt for at minimum of 2 hours, the longer the better, over night is best. drain off the salty cabbage water, squeeze out excess, add shredded onion, vinegar, olive oil, tiny bit of sugar, maybe some shreds of carrot, and let sit overnight, stirring a couple of times and you get the best cabbage ''slaw'' without all the mayo and muck. and it gets better as it ages...mmmm
RIXRADvidz i will try ths..thanks
Mmm probiotic
This actually sounds *very good* ! I'll try it too!
Sounds really good and easy. I have a half a head of cabbage that I haven't thought what to do with it.
Does this require refrigeration during the prep stage?
Lov this channel xx
Back when films for the working class were made by chaps named woopard and wodney.
Good thing I'm growing cabbage this year!
I think it was good children learned how to cook, now a day's, youth rely on fast food and microwaveable mesh.
But not just the girls. The boys should learn too.
So healthy in many ways...
Kapusta (fried sauerkraut with onion, garlic, and kobassa) is delicious, and excellent for the digestion.
Of course, the people in the film would never have heard of kobassa, even before rationing.
I have never heard of kobassa and it is how many years since rationing?
losing the 'goodness' of a cabbage! and Alan should exercise good manners.
We had them every day ugh
Title cracks me up...Cabbage Patch Wars...lol
so where was granny when the girls were prepping...should she have been there to instruct them???
Kids learned homemaking from a very young age and some still do. Can't watch them all the time
@electrogeek77 - LOL :-} You know, your correct. As a young-lad when I would be playing the gramaphone I would be told ""Turn down that blasted noise"" Oh! the memories. LOL.
Going to have to avoid cabbage cooking now. So complicated!
wonderful.
They sound so cute!
I quite enjoy the tone of this bit of education. Nothing truly didactic, nothing heavy-handed...
LOL! Thanks, I needed that!
Actually a great way to cook cabbage is to put olive oil and crushed garlic on it and broil it. There are recipes on line.. but yum!!
Caelidh Goode Well they didn’t have the ability to get recipes from the internet and they only had what they grew, most people couldn’t afford to purchase things outside of their homes like you’re suggesting.
Why does this remind me of Monty Python?
Yummy
Good stuff
Makes you fluff though
I've never had bad cabbage. I cut mine into large postage stamp sized squares and boil it in salted and buttered water.
I slice it thin, then braise it in butter with some garlic
@@MegaMackproductions that sounds good, too!
Damn that boys like a ravaged dog!!
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Notice the classical conditioning taking place as the girls cook then call the boys in from play to eat ha!
Up Next: Two Cabbages and One Girl.
Certainly more wholesome than two girls and one cup.
That’s not a particularly high bar.
Why in the hell are those girls cooking and then SERVING the meal for those boys? Then the one ungrateful little welp complains about it?? Kids these days...
@topherh33 This was 1944. Those kids are about 9 and 10.
And I was making a joke, you walnut...
Calm down boys! You'll both get the 'good' cabbage!
THANK'S
Grandma could use a better support garment IMHO.
If they're just eating boiled cabbage and potatoes, I don't think that's on the budget, lol!
It's so nice to see these young ladies being trained so well to be good housewives!
🤣🤣🤣
You don't need to be a housewife to benefit from knowing how to cook...
the one boy should have knocked the other boy out
OOhhhhhh I'd have smacked the heck out of that boy, trying to steal his brother's food like that, then I'd have scraped every bit of food off of his plate except the "bad" cabbage and MADE him eat it or go without! And he's the older of the two!! Wartime or not i would NOT have put up with that let alone given him some of the "good" cabbage! If he'd have simply asked politely I might have told the younger girl to eat her own cabbage (ie the one she cooked), and let him have some of the "good", but to heck with trying to push his own brother off of his food to steal it!
The so-called nasty cabbage could have been rescued by returning it to its cooking water and turning the whole into a soup of some kind, perhaps with beans, potatoes and onions, plus if possible a tomato or two, and a handful of barley or pasta. A little bacon or bacon fat would have really rescued the soup to a decent meal too. But it's true that you should not cook cabbage in enough water to cover - just enough to steam it to tenderness.
This was wartime. They may not have had beans or onions or tomatoes. They almost certainly didn't have any bacon.
@Norm T huh no wonder kids are such a mess now all this lack of discipline those boys should have been made to help females are not put here to be servants to men
One cabbage was harmed in the making of this film.
They can actually use cutlery! Not like people today!...
OK boomer
How did they get the dishes on the shelves to turn colors? One time they look white as snow, the next look like they may have turned red or dark.
It must of stunk in that house.
Ahh.... the good old days. When the men could goof around outside and play with paper airplanes while the women cooked ;)
Bubble and squeak🙂.
Granma said lunch Gail send dinner ill have big feast 😋 ☺
Surpassingly entertaining and informative, I only wish I liked cabbage
Have you tried fried cabbage, with pepper and salt? Tons of flavour!
What % of British people still cooked over an open fire circa 1940???
Maybe in rural places?
But what kind of house did they live in rick? A primitive cottage? Did they even have a cooking range on the premises? Which part of the UK? Sorry about the plethora of questions but I'm fascinated!
@@iseegoodandbad6758 Grandma seemed to be living in a country cottage in a village or hamlet in the countryside, and the girls were probably staying with her on holidays or as evacuees relatively safe away from the cities where enemy bombing was a threat. Many such homes were not connected to the grid and used solid fuel and candles or oil lamps. Probably somewhere in the south of England. The thatched roofs were fairly common in the countryside and many still survive, despite problems with getting fire insurance to cover them. Such cottages were not considered in any way 'primitive' or undesirable, but rather quaint and cosy. Still applies today. They fetch big money. Even in the cities, many homes still had gas, rather than electricity during those times.
@@iseegoodandbad6758 Even a lot of big houses were pretty primitive in the 30's and 40's.
Some still carried buckets of boiling water to tin baths. And you had a candle to go to bed
The old money families had often lost the owner of the house, once or twice in WW2. Each time, they were hit with huge death taxes that could take a generation to pay off. So no money to improve life quality, from pre WW1, into WW2.
You might lose 2 young men who'd just inherited, in WW1. If they die in wrong order, house/family gets hit with 2 huge death taxes.
That is why huge number of ancient families lost homes of 500 years.
If unlucky, old man owner would die just before or start of WW1. Oldest son would become young officer, WW1 with huge death tax to pay off. He would be killed in 1915 or 16. His younger brother would inherit but have 2 major death taxes to pay. Sometimes he would also be killed and 3rd son would attempt to hold onto house.
He would live in genteel poverty, be 50ish WW2. His 2 eldest sons sign up and be killed. No death taxes, as dad is alive - but maybe only a daughter to inherit, no money. She wasn't highly educsted. So if she doesn't marry rich man, family home will be lost when father dies. More death taxes due. House still lived in as it was in 1910 but can't afford any servants to run the old house, which was why those houses were nice to live in - TONS of cheap servants. Now no servants. All in the war or off to work in city or war work, if still on.
That is why post WW2, so many lovely big homes knocked down. Or just roof removed, to make the house officially a ruin
All the internal ancient wood panelling rotting with rain and sun... Often no money to repair roofs if family still living there...
Beautiful houses lost WEEKLY
@@georgielancaster1356 very informative. thanks so much!!! I mean those houses could still have been converted to museums or hotels or not.
Ah, the good ole' days when families actually spent time together and learned things together. Now we're all separated by TV's and X-boxes.
She says, commenting on a youtube video...
Personnally my family all sit around the table eating with VR Oculas headsets. 🤪
Mine sit around on their phones texting each other at the table. Meanwhile my husband's glued to the TV bitching about the kids on their phones.
mmm , noodle soup .
check out grandma`s two cabbages hidden up her dress
LOL