ONE hundred years ago, "the Lady Editor" of The Northern Echo invited the paper's readers to contribute to its Hints and Recipes column. The column gives a fascinating insight to how life on the home front was unfolding as the privations of war began to bite. Here are some contributions from this week in 1914:

TONGUE MOULD

Required: six sheep's tongues, two hard boiled eggs, ½oz gelatine, pepper, salt, and two teacupfuls of stock. Wash the tongues and simmer them very gently for about four hours in salted water, then skin and cut into neat slices. Slice up the hard boiled eggs and sprinkle with pepper and salt. Have handy a scalded mould, rinse with cold water and leave it wet. Garnish the eggs with bits of parsley, then lay in the tongue mixed up with slices of egg till the mould is full. Season the stock, dissolve the gelatine in it and pour in enough to come to the top. Stand it aside to set, then turn out and garnish with parsley and slices of tomato.

Essa Nairn, 11 New Fenwick Street, Half Moon Lane, Spennymoor.

November 18, 1914

EMULSION OF COD LIVER OIL

One pint of cod liver oil, one and a half gills of fresh lime water, 1oz of glycerine, one drachm of hypophisphite of soda, one drachm of hypophisphite of lime, two drachmas of essence of almonds, one tin of Nestle's Swiss Milk (small). Well dissolve the hypophisphite of lime and soda in the lime water, then add the glycerine, then the milk, and the almonds. Oil in last. Mix well. Dose: adults half to one tablespoonful. Children: one to two teaspoonfuls. Note – to be shaken before taken. Tried with success.

Mrs G Thompson, 9 Percy street, Bishop Auckland.

November 19, 1914

Notes: A drachm, or dram, was the equivalent to the weight of a drachma, an ancient Greek coin – as everyone knows, that's about an eighth of an ounce. We must admit that neither we, nor the internet, don't really understand what a hypophisphite was, but it appears to have been some form of crystals. Presumably in 1914, it was possible to buy cod liver oil, which had been made from the livers of cod, at the chemist. The Echo's Lady Editor seems to have been inundated with cod liver oil recipes.

COWHEEL BOILED

One cowheel, 1oz butter, 1oz flour, 1 dessertspoonful chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Wash the heel, put into saucepan, and cover with water, cooking gently for 2½ hours. Fry butter and flour together – do not let them brown – strain on to them three-quarters of a pint of the liquor in which the heel is cooking, stir until boiling, simmer for a few minutes, then add parsley, salt and pepper to taste. When cooked, remove the bones from the cowheel, arrange the pieces of meat on a hot dishy, and pour the sauce over.

Mrs Soulsby, George Street, West Pelton, Beamish.

November 21, 1914