Back In Time For Tea: The Ellis family’s tripe dinner will make you thankful for your beans on toast
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The Ellis family from Bradford got a harsh lesson in what it’s like to live like a family in the 1910s. Be thankful for the invention of beans on toast, at least you’re able to keep it down.
In the first episode of Back In Time For Tea, a BBC 2 show which sent the Ellis family back in time to discover what working class families have eaten over the last 100 years, they started in 1918, which happens to be the time when COW’S STOMACH was a staple on the dinner table.
While these days it’s something you might feed a brand new puppy, back then it was protein to keep a hard working family going. And then they came home to a tea of tripe, which they didn’t even know what it was.
‘Is it fish?’ Oh, you wish.
Back in 1918, post war Britain was a tough place to be, and the family of five were forced into a tiny two up two down with all but the youngest Harvey going to work in a textile mill.
The delicious tripe was the food to fortify them against their tough jobs.
But as they came to taste it, they were hit by a rough reality. It might be better to go to bed hungry.
‘It’s the chewiness and the cowiness,’ the mum declared as she forced herself to swallow the stuff.
‘If mum doesn’t like it you know it’s bad,’ the eldest noted. The youngest vomited.
That really says it all. Thank GOD for Deliveroo.
Things won’t necessarily get better for the family, as in future episodes they’re forced to find a poacher to get some decent meat on the table, and the threat of unemployment means things are set to get even tighter for the poor family. They have the global depression to see off, and then they’re hit with World War II.
Back In Time For Tea airs 6 February on BBC 2 at 8pm.
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