School: Cill Díoma (B.) (roll number 6516)

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1. Food in Olden Times

   

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   Food In Olden Times. 4/4/1938

   Food in olden times consisted mostly of potatoes. These were eaten at almost every meal and sometimes with skimmed milk and buttermilk or even with salt, where people were poor.

   People usually had three meals each day. Breakfast being about eight o'clock. People usually went out to work before breakfast in those days, because they had to work hard for a living. Breakfast was almost always potatoes and milk or eggs which were often eaten with potatoes, and sometimes salt herrings were used for dinner, or home cured bacon which was cheap before the English market opened for it.

   Butter was used for dinner also on churning days, and also for supper, on most days when people could afford it.

   Veal was used often in the Spring time, as calf rearing was uneconomic, heifer calves being reared. Bull calves and inferior heifers were always sold to the local butcher. People usually ordered off quarter of it for themselves.

   People usually sat round the table for dinner. The table was left by the wall for breakfast when people might not be at the meal together.

   Wholemeal bread was used in those days and wheat was grown by almost everyone. They ground it in their querns and most farmers kept one that time.

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. products
      1. food products (~3,601)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   James O Connor

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Bolane, Co. Limerick

   Informant

   John O Connor

   Gender

   Male

   Age

   50

   Address

   Mellon, Co. Limerick