Spam, and a broken egg

Day 7 in 1942, the last day so it's time to use up the rations! Of course some things wouldn't need to be used up. I'd be saving sugar all year for use in jams and chutneys to preserve the harvest from my vegetable garden. But not everything keeps, especially without a fridge, and the ministry of food were always telling you to be sure to eat all of your rations as the first and most important part of a healthy diet. So those last bits of fat, meat and bacon need to be eaten up, along with any bits of veg
that might not last much longer.

For breakfast we had bacon turnovers, a different recipe this time. Instead of a sort of pasty, these turnovers were more like a scone. Crisp bacon, flour, milk and a few herbs formed into a dough and then fried. I served them with scrambled eggs and they made a good meal. As I started to make the eggs I dropped one and it smashed all over the floor. I still had two left so we just had slightly less egg that morning, it wasn't really a big deal, and my 40s self would have had plenty of eggs from the hens. But it did make me think. What if I had only had one egg every few weeks? Of course I would have just had to get on and eat something else but how would I have felt about it? Perhaps it would feel like a great disaster, my recipe ruined, other ingredients wasted, beating myself up for being so careless. Or perhaps it would be a very small loss compared to bombed out houses and soldiers loosing their lives. In all likelihood it would depend on my mood that day and what else was going on. I'd like to think I might keep calm and carry on, but then again it might just be the final straw.

In the 40s Sunday lunch was still an institution, but of course rations put paid to a roast joint. People
tried to have something special, like a chop, instead and eat it at lunchtime, with a lighter evening meal. I hadn't thought of that when I did the menu though, so our Sunday lunch was mushroom soup, using up the vegetables, followed by Spam with salad. We didn't need to use the spam, I was quite aware that the tin was a lot of points and would be an occasional treat. But as we both like spam I didn't see why we shouldn't have it! The tin would have done two meals and quite a lot of fat came out when it was cooked, which could be saved for another recipe, so it would have been worth it.

Our main meal was a meat roll. Suet pastry spread with mince and chopped leek, then rolled up like a Swiss roll and steamed for a few hours. I served it with roast potatoes, veg and the ever present brown gravy. Pudding was a cherry crumble, made with tinned fruit and the last of the fat ration. Mixing leek with the mince might seem a bit odd but onions were in very short supply. Of course gardeners tried to grow them but the varieties available then were not the same as the ones we have now and didn't grow well in our cold, wet climate. Most gave up trying after a failed crop and used the land for something more profitable.

And so our week draws to an end! I haven't been hungry, or missed any particular foods, although I'm sure after a few weeks I would be longing for a Chinese. I must admit that I'm sick of wholemeal flour. So many things are made of flour and all that bran gets a bit wearing after a while. I can see why people used stockings to sift it and make white flour, just to have something lighter for a change!

The questions everybody asks:

I haven't lost any weight, or gained any. Before the war people ate 3000 calories a day. Huge numbers of villages didn't even have running water yet so you can imagine the amount of physical work involved in just running a home, let alone any other work. All the pastries and custards kept you going! If you used the rations but ate modern food you would probably eat less fat and loose weight. Or you could eat the 1940s diet and do their work as well!

It did work out cheaper than our usual diet. Three generous meals a day for two people, including a hot breakfast and puddings, were about £65 for the week, or about £1.55 per meal. And lots of things were left over, so it would be less if we were to do a second week.

The day we ate the cheese

Day six in the 1942 kitchen and it's the weekend. Which means two things. Nobody has to go to work, and lunch comes out of our rations.

I've been saving the cheese ration all week for today. It's funny really, usually we have cheese in the fridge (we even have a seperate "cheese fridge" to age homemade cheese, but that is another story). Usually, though, that cheese has no particular purpose. It just sits there, and it's very easy to cut a bit to put on some bread, or just eat with an apple, or maybe without the apple. What can I say, we do cheese. Which would make you think that sticking to a cheese ration would be difficult, even a relatively generous ration as it was at this point. But it was easy. When I planned the meals I decided exactly when the meat would be used, and when the cheese would be used. That cheese had a place, an important job to do, it wasn't just sitting there with no purpose. And I had plenty of filling food so I was never prowling around the cupboards looking for something nice. Not once was I tempted to eat that cheese, even though it sat there for almost a week.

But today was the day. Today we had cheese cutlets for lunch, and very nice they were too. Basically they consisted of mashed potato (what else?) mixed with grated cheese and flour. I added chives but you could also make cheese and veg cutlets by adding peas, grated carrot or whatever else you had. The cutlets are then shaped, dipped in batter and fried. Crispy on the outside, melty on the inside, and jolly nice served with a salad.

I was wary of this evening's meal. I tried to make mock fish in week one and it was a disaster. It refused to thicken no matter what I did, I got more and more stressed over the silly thing and we ended up eating a barely recognisable version at about 9.30 at night. I was slightly traumatised by this. I sort of felt I should give it another go, but I really wasn't looking forward to it. Guess what? It was easy. Really easy. Done in about ten minutes in fact. I can't get over how easy it was, it just worked! I may even make it again! You boil milk with ground rice, leek or onion, anchovy paste and margarine until it thickens then take it off the heat and beat in an egg. Spread it out on a plate, cut to shape, coat in breadcrumbs and fry. It really does taste like fish, although it doesn't have much texture, but some crispy fried potatoes and crunchy veg solved that problem.

A Day "Off"

Day five was my day off from cooking, hurray!!

Mostly this was because I cooked everything yesterday, and didn't need to prepare anything for tomorrow. But I'll take a day off any way I can! The suggestions for "holidays at home" actually talk about how important it is for mother to have a holiday as well, and not spend it all cooking for the family. It then goes on to say that this should be achieved by doing the cooking in advance.

Breakfast was bacon turnovers. Cooked bacon, potatoes, sage, and a little cheese wrapped in pastry. They turned out really well, the pastry was just wholemeal flour and lard but turned out very nicely and the filling was tasty. They would be good to wrap up and take to a bomb shelter or out on night duty too.

Lunch was a vegetable curry. A roux of flour and fat was made, with a spoonful of curry powder. Then made into a sauce with stock. The cooked vegetables were added and it should all be simmered for another 30 minutes. That seemed liable to result in very soggy over cooked veg to me, so I'll admit I cut that part down! One recipe was just for "curried carrots" with no other vegetables but We had potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and green beans in ours. Since rice was only available on the points system I didn't think British Restaurants would have much, so we ate ours without. It made a very nice, flavourful sort of stew - if not very curry like to modern eyes.

Friday is fish day and we celebrated the end of the working week with a trip to the fish and chip shop! Chip shops stayed open during the war serving fish and chips as well as meat pies (which were mostly spam) Of course I'm sure modern chip shops have larger portions of fish, and probably nicer batter with white flour being easily available. But it's the closest we can get, so it will have to do!

Housewife Fail

You know how I said in yesterday's post that lunch for today was cooked and ready? Well it was, but I hadn't packed the boxes because I thought salad would be nicer freshly cut. Which would have been fine, except I forgot that RAF man was going to work early today and he left before I woke up. Oops. Can you imagine a 40s housewife forgetting to give her husband food when he was out on duty? No, me neither. That would be a fail then.

I wasn't going to waste good rations on a cooked breakfast just for me either, so I had porridge. Strictly speaking we should actually be having porridge or cereal alongside our cooked breakfast every day, and probably some toast and jam as well. That's just too much for us though, we don't always have breakfast so just the cooked part is more than enough!

Lunch was beef rissoles, potatoes and salad (or rissoles and potatoes for my poor husband). The rissoles were really nice. I minced some cooked beef and it came out beautifully, really fluffy and light. That was mixed with breadcrumbs, egg and a little mustard before being rolled into patties and fried. Because the beef was minced rather than chopped they were really smooth and unsurprisingly tasted a bit like a burger. A good way to make a little meat go a long way.

The Ministry of food was very keen on salads. They advised you to eat at least one raw vegetable every day (and one "properly cooked") today we have shredded cabbage and grated carrot, quite nice with a bit of dressing.

This evening we had a cottage pie, made with porridge oats to stretch the meat ration. That worked surprisingly well, you would never have guessed there was porridge in there but the sauce was lovely and thick, delicious. I'll definitely be doing that in future! For pudding we had stewed apple, custard and some blackberries I picked earlier. I suppose I should have made them into jam really but I only got a few. They were yummy!

Glorious pink soup

Day three in the 1942 kitchen and we now have bread! Which is lucky as today's menu mostly involves bread.

Living where we do (in the country with a big garden) it is pretty much guaranteed that we would be keeping hens during the war, if not before. You could actually exchange your egg ration for enough feed to keep one hen, so I'm sure we would have at least two, if not more fed on scraps as well. The hens I know are currently laying one egg on most days, so we would have plenty. Which means that this morning's cooked breakfast was... scrambled egg. Not especially exciting and it doesn't contain the required potatoes, but I'm sure a 1940s housewife would be pleased to serve scrambled egg when she could. We had 3 eggs to share between us, with some of the homemade toast.

Lunch, according to the BR menu, was meant to be liver. Well of course you wouldn't be able to change the menu so what they have is what you get, but what if you don't like liver? Perhaps then you just have the soup? That's what we went with, the wonderfully pink beetroot and celery soup that I made on Monday, served with national bread and butter (I know, butter!) and followed by a sponge pudding and custard, which I didn't make. Because I'm lazy sometimes.

Lastly we had a lamb (because I couldn't get mutton) stew with potato dumplings. Being keen to save on fuel, and out at work during the day, my 40s self would have used a haybox. Basically a big box full of hay, or anything else insulating, with a hollow in the center. You bring a pot to the boil for a few minutes then tuck it into the hay, cover it up with more hay and leave it to cook away. Basically a fueless slow cooker. I have a thermal cooker, (one of these) the modern version which is a bit less bulky, and it did a great job. The dumplings were good, despite replacing half of the suet with mashed potato,  although the wholemeal flour does make everything look a slightly unappealing dull brown. Luckily the vegetables added a bit of colour!

Lunch for tomorrow made, it's time for bed.

Woolton Pie

Day two in the 1942 kitchen and I'm feeling like a good 40s housewife. As per government recommendations I managed to feed my family potatoes at every meal (although I'm not sure if it was the required 1lb of potatoes per day!) including a hot breakfast.

I have to say I'm glad I'm not really living in the 40s. Being expected to get up early enough to light a range, stoke the boiler etc, and cook a hot breakfast before everyone went off to work and school must have been a bit of a chore! I prepared our breakfast the night before, popping the potato in the bake while I cooked our evening meal (got to save fuel you know) and assembling it before I went to bed. So at least it only needed to be put in the oven this morning. And what was this wonderful dish? A cheese savoury, listed in one of the ministry of food leaflets as a good breakfast food. Basically mashed potato, with a few slices of tomato on top and covered in grated cheese. I added a rasher of bacon chopped up but I don't think I'd bother with that next time, it didn't make enough difference to be worth it when the bacon could be used in something else. A few chives might be nice though. Mashed potato for breakfast seemed like an odd idea but it did make a good dish, warm and filling and it made good use of the cheese (1/3 of our ration). RAF man thought it would be better as a lunch or supper, perhaps with some salad, and he has a point. But if you were used to a cooked breakfast this would make a good alternative when you couldn't get many eggs or a lot of bacon.

Lunch today was straight out of the British Restaurant suggested menus. Beef served with potatoes, veg and brown gravy. I decided that we wouldn't be splashing out on a three course meal every day and it seemed more realistic to just have the main course. Portions were not huge, meat worth about 1d per person. Here it is, pictured on a side plate.

And so to the evening meal, that famous dish "Woolton Pie", named after Lord Woolton, the minister for food. We didn't try it in week one so I thought we probably should at some point. It was pretty good too, as it should be really since it was created by the chef at the Savoy. Followed by a syrup pudding (egg, fat and sugar - what a treat!) with the obligatory custard.

Oh, and the second batch of bread rose!

Not rising to the occasion

Day one in the 1942 kitchen.

I hadn't done the shopping yet so this morning's breakfast was porridge. Perfectly satisfactory to my modern eyes but my 1940s self would definitely have considered it inadequate. Oh well, she will have to put up with it for today.

As I had a day off from paid work today I used the time to play housewife, plan the weeks menu, do the shopping and get a start on the cooking. I made some soup for later in the week (beetroot and celery, it tastes pretty good and is a glorious pink) and tried to make a loaf of bread. Now, I have made many loaves of bread in the past, and made all the national loaves last time round without any problem. But this one isn't rising. It's just sitting there looking heavy and very, very wholemeal. Maybe the yeast has died.

More successfully, I slow roasted some beef for tomorrow's lunch. As we will both be at work we would probably be eating at British restaurants or work canteens. I found a menu for a British restaurant, with information on their meat allowance, so we will be following that for lunches on work days. Some of the beef will be served as a straightforward "meat and two veg" tomorrow and some will be rissoles later in the week. Luckily we both have microwaves at work so the complete meals are boxed up ready to take in and zap at lunchtime.

Having done that I made a steamed vegetable pudding for this evening, using grated potato to replace half the suet in the pastry (suet isn't rationed in 1942 but probably difficult to get hold of) I filled it with potatoes, carrots, celery and gravy and served it with cabbage and fried liver. I thought long and hard about the liver. I know RAF man isn't fond of it, but it was unrationed and eaten a lot in the war. It turned up at least once if not twice a week on the British restaurant menus alone. If we are aiming to experience a wartime diet then it has to be the wartime diet, not just the parts we like the sound of. I decided we couldn't avoid liver altogether, so I served it on the side (that way it could be left!) and got it out of the way early in the week.

Of course, a main meal must have at least two courses and "something with custard" seems to have been the done thing. As apples and blackberries are both in season I made a crumble, but with oats as the topping to save the fat ration that would have been needed for a traditional crumble. It turned out surprisingly well, not a bad way to end the day at all.

Planning week two

Well RAF man suggested that it was about time we moved the rationing experiment on a bit and did part 2, which was a fair point since it's been a good six months since we did part 1. We decided to go with October 1942, since all our other re-enactments would be over by October and 1942 seemed like a good year! Then I got a job that meant I would be working evenings for most of October, so the end of September it is after all.

The research was more difficult this time. Finding out what rations were when they were first introduced was relatively easy, but for any particular point in the year it is very difficult. Different sources give conflicting information and most just give the rage for the whole war anyway. I had started to go through documents on the national archive website in the hope of piecing it together when, three days before week 2 was due to start, I stumbled across a list for June 1942. Phew! June is close enough to September to suit our purposes, although perhaps one day I'll research more.

The tricky thing is deciding how much access we should have to things that weren't rationed but might not have been easy to get, or which were on points so access wasn't guaranteed. For week one we had sausages so I thought we should probably avoid them this time round for the sake of fairness. As a country woman I would have lots of vegetables and eggs but where I would miss out would be food on points. Someone living in town could go straight to the shop when they heard something new was in, but I might make the trip only rarely and just take what was available. For the week I decided we would have a tin of spam (which wasn't popular when it was first introduced so might still be on the shelf!) and there is a spoonful or two of golden syrup in the tin if needed.

Menu planning was interesting to say the least. I discovered that toast was not considered a proper breakfast, it was actually classified as "a tea meal." For breakfast a hot dish was expected, bacon and eggs or something along those lines. If we wanted to experience the 40s diet then we would need to at least try to do the same. Equally, a main meal had at least two courses. Quite a lot by modern standards!

Eventually the plan was done, shopping bought and we were ready to begin. Now I just have to cook it all, and hope it tastes OK.