A 1940s Themed Dinner Party

 Well, not really a dinner party, just a big shared dinner with some chums.  

Do you do this?  Cook for chums or family and make a wee event of it?

We - ahem - I decided it would be fun to cook and share a meal with a few of our friends, and as we have all been talking about living below the line and how folk managed during the War, the theme was to be 1940s.

The girls all dressed in dresses with our hair pinned up, and the chaps wore trousers (just as well really) with shirts and braces (these are called suspenders in America, (hee-hee!!).

I tried to plan the menu both on what we already had, and what we would be able to have in the 1940s.    Where this fell down was alcohol - as you will read later.

Our everyday china is vintage 1940s - something I might pick up I when I am in a charity shop, and something that lasts really well.  I have collected it slowly for about 20 years.  It's known as utility ware.

(this is a stock photo, not my table!)

I use tablecloths and napkins anyway - all homemade from gathered fabric - so all that I needed to plan was the food and the entertainment.

The menu:

Cold meats with coleslaw

Mock Beef Stew and Dumplings

Scones with jam

I bought pre-cooked meats for the meat eaters and pre-cooked Quorn for the non.  The coleslaw was made with finely chopped red and white cabbage, mayonnaise, yogurt and mustard.  

The mock beef stew was a beef stew recipe with lentils instead of meat.  I used chopped carrots, tinned peas and spuds, and I made dumplings with veg suet, flour, water and salt. These were popped on the top of the stew to simmer about 10 mins before we wanted to eat.  

I made easy scones using flour, yogurt and butter.  The jam was from last year's blackberry harvest!

Drinks

This was where things went a little off-piste..  I bought ginger beer which was a nice change, but the chaps wanted to stick to what they liked, ah well!

One couple brought some bottles of wine which people shared. 

Entertainment

One of my chums is a Drama teacher, and I'd asked her to sort out some wartime games for us - we played Guess Who? with hidden names only the other people could see, and a couple of card games.

All in all it was a really lovely evening. 

FMxx