Cheapo Meals: Tinned Tomatoes on Toast

March 14, 2023 Eleanor Scott

Half a can of tomatoes on toast, with seasoning (salt and black pepper) and a sprinkle of dried mixed herbs, that could cost as little as 20p - good news for students and fieldwork cooks

The 16th century acquisition of the versatile tomato from Mesoamerica influenced the culinary direction of travel in the Mediterranean world, wider Europe and Asia, once collectors and traders learned the full value this exotic plant. Tomatoes remain inexpensive and versatile - and tinned (canned) tomatoes on toast is a very cheap meal indeed. If you need or want to eat healthily for pennies not pounds, read on.

Cheapo Meals: Sardines on Toast

February 25, 2023 Eleanor Scott

If you eat fish, sardines on toast is probably the healthiest, cheapest meal to make. Bread and sardines may have been Roman peasant grub, but it was a necessary staple and kept the poor buggers fit enough to work the fields and the sea. Sardines powered empires.

Cheapo Meals: Eggs on Toast

February 6, 2023 Eleanor Scott

What will become of our adoration of the humble egg? The ancient and venerable egg. The valuable egg. The protein-packed, delicious egg. The versatile egg. The beautiful egg.

Humble Mushrooms - Are They Worth It?

December 8, 2022 Eleanor Scott

I’m having a look at the ‘things on toast’ genre. Basic though they may be, things on toast (or dietary alternatives) can be pretty cheap, flexible and easy to make. I’ve always got one eye on a key market - students, volunteers, and those having to cook during fieldwork trips on tight and diminishing budgets in challenging conditions.

Are 30p Meals Really Possible, Including Hidden Costs? No, Not Really

November 14, 2022 Eleanor Scott

Mmmmm. Assorted cheap ingredients that parliamentarians don’t eat. Students and fieldwork volunteers might though. I ate them so you don’t have to. Although you probably do have to, because we’re all broke now.

Food is political. ‘Lee’s 30p meals’ still occasionally trends on Twitter. Sometimes it’s ‘Lee’s 10p meals’. Lee Anderson - quite a big fella himself - is the daftie Conservative MP who decided that the British people could live on meals that cost just 30 pennies per person. Apparently he saw it done at a food bank kitchen - completely ignoring the facts of food donations, the massive aconomies of scale and the energy costs - and now he has visions of the impoverished doing the same. Student or budget setter, cook or parent, this is the new narrative of aspiration. Trouble is, ‘30p Lee’ is an idiot.

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