Like your correspondent Desmond Painter (Letters, 4 June), my mother was at boarding school during the second world war. Her convent was evacuated in 1939 from Ramsgate, Kent, to rural Herefordshire. The nuns were of a French order and food was important. The girls were sent out in groups to collect blackberries, elderberries and cider apples. The nuns managed to stew these together to make something palatable. Throughout the war, they kept the girls well fed on limited rations and inspiration.
My mother remained adept at making the most of ingredients and trying new things – we were the only children in our primary school who recognised peppers and spaghetti in the late 1950s. At 96, she still has a freezer full of raspberries from the garden.
Mary Scobie
Te Kūiti, New Zealand
