1941

We decided to begin with March 1941 as our "early war" year, late enough that some things are on ration but early enough to be a gentle introduction. It was easy to find out the dates that different rations were introduced and what they were at that point, so that wasn't a problem. Harder to work out were the things that were unrationed. Most people imagine that if something wasn't rationed you could have as much as you wanted. That is true, but only if the shopkeeper actually had a lot in! Where things were in short supply you might struggle to find any at all, or the shopkeeper would only let you have a little so other customers could have some as well. A ration card was your guarantee that you would get something. A lot of things were unrationed simply because the supply was too low to be sure that everyone could get it, or because they were seasonal things so year round supply couldn't be guaranteed. Which left me puzzling over how many sausages I could reasonably get hold of, or how much cheese would be available in the months before it was rationed.

We also had to decide "who we were" since access to different foods varied a lot. It made sense to stick as close to our modern lifestyle as possible, no point in pretending to live in Central London when we don't! So that puts us firmly in the countryside with a large garden. Having got married the previous September we wouldn't have been in the house long enough to have an established veg garden yet, but it would certainly be underway and we would have a hen or two as well. Judging by the rabbit warren next to our garden fence we would certainly have had the odd rabbit pie and we would probably take part in a pig club as well. We didn't want to go overboard with those though and didn't include them in the first week. I would be a housewife with no other job for the week (I had a week's holiday from my real job at the time) and RAF man would have some sort of work to go to. We never did decide just what, only that he couldn't be in the RAF since if he was he wouldn't be at home eating civilian rations!

March is a difficult time of year for vegetables, too early for anything new to be ready yet. Almost all you have is what you can store or preserve from the autumn harvest, with maybe a bit of kale or spring greens. By the end of the week I was getting tired of swede, carrot and parsnip!

I can't remember our exact menus but breakfast was mostly porridge (you were encouraged to eat oats - very good for you) and my lunches were whatever bit of national bread was available with perhaps a bit of cheese or some soup. As a housewife I was eating a fairly slim lunch, trying to save the rations for evening meals. RAF man sometimes took a similar lunch and I sometimes gave him a more substantial meal, as if he was eating in a British Restaurant or perhaps a works canteen. Evening meals were made from period recipes and mostly consisted of something with "brown gravy" followed by something with custard.

I learnt just how different the standard diet was then. The basic norm that you were applying rations to was totally different. Given the same restrictions now I would be making pasta sauces and stir fries, followed by fresh fruit. And I'd probably be trying to work out how to use cabbage leaves instead of seaweed to make sushi, or what I could use instead of hoi sin sauce. In the 1940s they wanted to make suet puddings without fat and steamed sweet puddings without spending hours over the stove. It's not just about rations, the tastes and expectations were different. The comfort food and familiar recipes you craved were not the ones we use now. If I was doing the experiment again I would start with 1938, just to get a feel for the diet before wartime restrictions. Without that it's difficult to see the impact that shortages had.

We actually didn't use all of our rations. We had fat, a lot of sugar, tea and even meat left over. Looking back I used "too many" wartime recipes, which were probably from later in the war and designed to stretch the rations. In 1941 people would probably have used pre-war recipes most of the time and only resorted to the more frugal ones where necessary. But it was certainly easy to live on what was available.