Thanks to Cat who left a comment on the 100 wartime recipes page about this TV series I completely missed… you will LOVE this! It’s funny and informative and how do you think a wartime diet affected their health?? I’ve embedded the 1940s wartime episode below for you to enjoy..
Oooo, I’m going to snuggle down in bed and watch these tonight 🙂 Thanks for posting.
Its an hour all together and I’m gonna make myself a Lord Woolton Pie and do the same thing and watch them again!! It’s such fun!!!
I will have to watch these. They show some episodes of that show on American TV, but I don’t think I have seen that one.
Can you explain the title to the show to me? I have been trying to figure it out for several months now. Is it referring to Supersized soft drinks/food? (Sorry you are the first person from the UK I have had to ask about it!)
I am rooting for your here in Minneapolis, MN! Keep it up!
Ronda
Rhonda- I’m not sure why they call themselves “The Supersizers”…BUT it looks like they go back to 6 different time periods and wartime was one of them and they eat the food of the time etc and see how it effects their body…. its great fun and informational isn’t it!! C xxx
Re the name – The pairing began in one off called ‘Edwardian Supersize Me’ – as in the Spurlock film ‘Supersize me’ – in which they both gained a lot of weight eating way too much rich food. It was part of a season of programmes on the Edwardian era. Then they just kept the name ‘Supersizers’ for later programmes. Pie looks good.
Thanks Ang!!!
Carolyn~ I watched it last night and it was great fun! I do not think that The Cooking Channel is running the complete episodes here. Now I am going to have to look for them all on YouTube!
Ang~ That makes ever so much more sense! I figured that their name must stem from something, but I just could not piece it together. Thanks!
It was very whitty! I loved the booklet given to the Americans on how to not offend the British and how her partner in crime started licking the gravy browning off her legs and the scene where she is out in the field, head down, eating grass… LOL! Oh and the scene in the canteen where he wastes his food so she scrapes the cottage pie right into her handbag! Oh and the trail of bananas she drops after stealing them…. so funny!!!
There were two parts that struck me funny (okay there were more than that but these two stuck out). The first was when they were talking about how it was illegal not to finish your food and how some people went to jail because of it. She made a comment about imagining telling your cellmate that. I cannot imagine that would give you any sort of “street-cred”. The second was when the small girl won the raffle and was given an onion. The look on her face! The poor dear. I hope they secretly gave her something along with it. It did not look like she was accepting their explanation!
Oh you felt the same way I did about her winning an onion!!!! I hope so too! 🙁 Yep- loved all the comments and funny stuff. Those two work very well together!! C xxx
I watched these this morning, Carolyn, and really enjoyed it.
I will watch them again – really humorous but also delved deep into the 1940s – particularly interesting with regard to the 1940s diet and how much better they felt (including weight and fat loss) just over 7 days. Great stuff!! Bev 🙂
I’m watching them again right now and want to eat more Lord Woolton Pie- hungry all over again but I’m saying NO! Tee hee!!! C xxx
Good one, Carolyn – hehhehe 🙂
Born 10 years after the war I can recall my parents and older siblings talking about rationing – even some of the war-time recipes were on our regular diet and we grew virtually all our own vegetables and fruit (a throw-back to ‘dig for victory) to the point where there was no lawn for us kids to play on – just rows of spuds, brussels sprouts and cabbages.
The rockery was ‘adorned’ with tomatoes and cos lettuce and we grew rhubarb in clumps between the fuschias along the path. Nothing was ever wasted and it led to a ‘hoarding’ mentality of ‘it might come in useful’ – even today I can find it difficult not to wash and re-use so called ‘disposable’ food containers from the local Chinese takeaway, for example.
And yes – I do remember having mashed parsnip with banana essence as a sandwich filler!
That was the most I have laughed at a programme in a while. Especially after the mock dinner scene when the husband says “I’d rather have a sausage and a carrot” instead of the mock duck and mock apricot pie. I figured it would be quite informative, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so humorous. Thanks for posting Carolyn!
I think I wet my knickers several times!!! Tee hee!!!
The Supersizers were the show I watched that compelled me to look into the rationing. I met a lady that said she remembers using the beet juice and gravy beautifying treatment. LOL!!!
She didn’t put the bet juice rouge and lipstick on very well though did she. There were little chunks of beetroot falling off her face!!! LOL!!!!
I found it tantalizing that while the Missus felt heavier,she’d actually lost weight. This leads us to believe that her muscle mass increased, while her fat level decreased.
In addition, both of them had significant gains in cardiovascular health in just seven days. Spectacular!
I think of most of the information that doctors tell us today (to limit carbs, for example) as bad science. The Brits did it right the first time.
Slow releasing complex carbs are the good ones and the war was won partly on porridge oats (oatmeal)… the British grew that extensively during the war and encouraged folk to eat lots of it 🙂
I agree with you George 🙂
Thanks for the links – I really enjoyed the show and laughed a lot. They did seem to complain all the time about the food – I think the menus we saw had a lot of the more odd and unpleasant meals – and I will definitely draw the line at cracking open fresh garden snails! Its amazing how much healthier they became in a single week, though. I hope it works as well for me!