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.