National Loaf or Hovis

Yet another post about the National Loaf. If you read the history you'd believe it was the only bread available during WW2. So I asked someone who lived through the war years as a young girl. What was the bread like in the war? They could only recall eating Hovis. Now memory is deceptive. But it is true Hovis was available and was advertised in the newspapers.

Hovis was sold at co-operative stores, and other shops, for it had an interesting business model. Your local bakery bought the patented flour from Hovis, along with the baking tins indented with the Hovis name. Thus the bread was clearly marked as a Hovis loaf a popular and respected brand.

What is different about Hovis flour is the addition of partially cooked wheatgerm and salt. The display advertisements mention Macclesfield, which was the home of Hovis which commenced in 1886. Nearer to home there is a large mill and grain elevator in Trafford Park which manufactured Hovis flour from 1914. If you visit the Imperial Museum North you can't miss seeing the mill with its large concrete silos. It was severly damaged in the Blitz of 1940 but subsequently repaired.

Now just when you think you know all about a subject, even a tiny subject of the National Wheatmeal Bread then along comes another fact that changes your understanding of the history.

Related links : The National Loaf

National Loaf...recreation

Maybe I should have used a better bread knife

This is a continuation of the story of the National Wheatmeal Bread which was on sale across Britain in World War II. Had an attempt at a reproduction of said loaf. I made a 1kg bread machine version. I was in pressed for time and bread machines once loaded with the ingredients do all the work and release wonderful baking aroma in the kitchen. It was made to check the taste, crumb structure and crust. The result was just fine. Good for a sandwich. Dense, moist inside, with a firm thin crust. But as you can see from the photo it does make a few loose crumbs when sliced.

Essentially I followed the wholemeal recipe for the bread machine using a flour mix with the following percentages :
75% lightly sieved 100% wholemeal.
The original used 85% wholemeal, usually called wheatmeal. I didn't have any so I bolted some of the bran out of a flour produced by The Watermill. They use organic English wheat, and yes it is milled by water power.
15% of strong Canadian white (the item that was in short supply in the war)
5% potato flour (really it is just a starch filler)
5% wholegrain barley flour

I'll have another attempt but trying a hand made version using fresh yeast and a longer proving time.
Links : Previous posts about The National Loaf.

National Loaf...continues

Here we have the M&S Co-op's Golden Twist loaf being pawed by film star Glynis Johns on a visit to the head office and central stores in Ardwick on Saturday 20th January 1948. Other photos not shewn here have the crowds and dinner with the directors of the co-operative. She is wearing a fur coat in all the pictures.

As in previous posts this loaf was the local version of the National Wheatmeal Bread. Clearly the M&S Co-op are proud about their bread if they make it a feature in story of a visitor from London. Bread wasn't on ration, other types of bread are available yet it is still being baked by the thousand. Somebody must have been buying it, so much for it being unpopular. It looks like a full 2 lbs. (907g) unsliced loaf. I've read reports that in the war years that bread had to be reduced to 1 lb. (453g) size due to wheat shortages.

Glynis Johns was in then in a new film release of "An Ideal Husband", directed by Alexander Korda and starring Paulette Goddard and Michael Wilding.

'The film was advertised on milk bottle tops in return for free advertising for the Society on the cinema screen, where the slogan : "An Ideal Husband's Ideal Wife Saves as She Spends at the Co-op." will be shown three times daily for the whole run of the film.' - Manchester & Salford Co-operative Herald February 1949.

The film was on at the New Oxford and Market Street cinemas in Manchester city centre.

Links : Glynis Johns Wikipedia a long and successful career in Hollywood, Broadway and Tv.

National Loaf...more

If you study history you realise it is never complete. To most what happened in the past is cut, dried and pressed into a series of memorable or not so memorable dates. For the historian you always want to know more. So it is when I got distracted by the story of the National Loaf introduced in WW2. This is an update from a previous post called National Loaf....

The real name is the National Wheatmeal Bread (1942-1956), the term National Loaf is one coined after the war. There was also a National Cheese which was rationed, some months at just 2 ounces (56.6 grams) a week. It was processed and homogenised in the cheddar style. Also National Dried Milk which came in large tins introduced in the winter of 1941. Times were tough on the food front...and then you had to make something from dried egg powder.

The M&S Co-op version of that National Wheatmeal Bread was called the Golden Twist loaf and we know it was still being made in 1950 from this trumpted article..." The result is the famous Golden Twist loaf. Its colour a rich nut brown, its crust delectable, its texture perfect. Just try one out on the kiddies, and they will clamour for more."¹
Then made at the Manchester and District Co-operative Bakery which was formed after the war as a joint venture by the M&S, Beswick, and the Blackley Co-op Societies who were baking off 1,600 loafs an hour. So brown bread wasn't that unpopular. Some or most of these would have been at the factory on Cakeloaf Street in Ardwick. What a great name, who came up with that? Just off Ardwick Green, around the corner from the M&S head quarters. This co-op transfered its engagements, a phrase much used in co-op business to cease trading because of financial difficulties, to the CWS in 1961.

Still work to be done. Re-create the National Loaf...it's nothing special if you can make your own bread. Not rocket science but just four ingredients, a hot oven and 3,000 years of history.

1. Manchester and Salford Monthly Herald April 1950, page 86

National Loaf

The National Loaf was introduced to Britain in 1942 due to a shortage of shipping space for flour from Canada and the USA. It was sold unwrapped and unsliced to save packaging. There are references to it being sold a day old despite bread being best when fresh as possible. White bread was then no longer produced so if you wanted bread you bought the National Loaf.