to think that if asked to go back WWII style rationing, we'd never cope?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Not that it's a seriously likely thing to happen, more a reflection of how spoilt we are by the 24/7 disposable consumer-goods culture, even in relatively hard economic times. Reading up on the WWII home front experience & all the fantastic ways people (women) then coped with shortages of basics, I can't imagine being asked to present a ration book at Sainsbury in exchange for my one solitary egg for the week. They'd have to barbed-wire the shelves and post armed guards... What would happen to all those fussy kids? Would they just starve to death? And I'm not sure I could knit a sock to save my life.

AIBU to think that, unlike our grannies, too many of us are a bunch of trembly-lipped 'ruined my life by delivering the wrong sort of tomato' wussies that would cave at the first mention of 'make do and mend'? ... or are we just as tough and capable of knuckling down in a crisis?

I suspect if rationing was brought in now it would be at a higher standard of living than in WW2 anyway. I grow my own fruit and veg, but I do like my meat, and cheese. I might struggle to feed dairy allergic DS as soya milk might be hard to come by, I suspect the reason you didn't hear about intolerance and allergies in WW2 is that people just died of it and nobody found out why, there were not the diagnostic services we have today.
I have managed on vary little, am lucky to have a bit left over for savings these days, but I have always mended, made do, and passed on items that have further use to those who might need them, it just makes economic sense.
As for the rice/lentils comment, I think people had a lot of wheat, potato and corn based carbs as these can be produced in the UK.

A lot of people did grow their own then or keep animals. Wasnt Hype Park full of allotments? I couldnt deal with the lack of cheese (a teensy piece the size of a small matchbox).

Yes, semi starvation was very healthy.

Some people might have eaten more calories, certainly they didn't all.

What I fear is that as we saw in the riots last week, some will stop at nothing to get what they believe is their entitlement. In many places, there is far less community than there was back then - people were generally afraid of their elders and respected them. I grew up in a street that most of my family lived on. We knew everyone else and if you were doing something you shouldn't be doing, you got a row from one of the grown-ups and you were shitting yourself that they would tell your parents. I don't think that is true today for some kids - not all, but some. So, I think a minority of people would struggle to cope with rationing and would go out stealing veg and stuff as they somehow believed they were more entitled to food than others...

It wouldn't be so bad. People would be healthier and kids wouldn't be fussy. There would of course be a black market, but also a lot of enterprising people growing their own food and keeping chooks.

BUT I'd hate to have to give up my quinoa from South America and my chocolate cherry cupcakes.
It's just what people are used to in different times, isn't it?

I started the thread more to explore ideas of resilience and resourcefulness than - as some people are interpreting - to say that rationing or wartime was in any way a good thing, fun or easy. That would be ridiculous. Many are experiencing hard times at the moment and it feels as a lot of what were once routine skills such as cooking, mending, preserving etc. that might help a family budget go further have been lost. I wondered if, faced with the same acute situation, modernday households would be able to rediscover that resourcefulnes - or if it never went away in the first place.

I agree with thederkinsdame that there was always and will always be a 'bad-apple' minority. But in general, Cogito, I think if the chips were down people would muck in together, respect and help each other, and find ourselves to be more resourceful than we might have previously thought.

People who don't have everything provided for them on a plate will always need to be more resourceful, I guess, and we can certainly learn from that, and I think that was the OP's original point. There is far too much waste in our society and people do take a lot for granted. However, I do agree that there is a danger in making out the war years to be some golden era of thrift and community mindedness.

When I lived in St Petersburg for a while the grandmother of the family I stayed with told me that during the blockade she used to leave her 18 month daughter in front of the fire in the morning and go to work, hoping that the flat they lived in wouldn't be shelled whilst she was away. No matter how much I read and try to understand how people survived back then I simply can't comprehend how appalling it must have been. We should be careful not to trivialise it.

Ah, just what we needed, an entire thread for smug people to congratulate themselves on how wonderfully thrifty they are and resourceful and self-sufficient and rationing, because a very real enemy was trying to conquer the entire country, was such a great thing, so healthy.

'What I fear is that as we saw in the riots last week, some will stop at nothing to get what they believe is their entitlement. In many places, there is far less community than there was back then - people were generally afraid of their elders and respected them.'

There was a better 'sense of community' because Hitler was trying to annihilate us. You do realise that gangs of teen boys were running round feral in gangs during The Blitz, wrecking havoc, stealing, etc, right? I mean, anyone who was there can tell you that.

What a bunch of 'Broken Britain' nonsense! Some of you have really fallen for it. The economy, now that's a busted drain, but it's better for the sheeple to believe it's all those feckless 'sense of entitlement' folks on the ground they're surrounded with.

Events the likes of the riots are far from confined to modern-day London because really, it rather makes sense. Why work for it and grub for it when you can take it from someone else far more quickly by force?

Duh.

Even the term 'Viking'. It was a verb to describe pillaging, because that is what Vikings originally did, they went 'a' viking', land somewhere and loot it, stealing not just things and food, but people, too, to sell or keep as slaves.

It's like my brother used to say to my dad, when he'd say, 'The meek shall inherit the Earth.'

'Oh, I hope they do, Dad, because I'll push them down and take it from them.'

I agree with inmysparetime - modern rationing would probably be a very different animal. Also, I don't think we would be forced to get along without washing machines, fridges, the internet etc. It would depend on the price of electricity - people would become much more focused on turning appliances off when they weren't being used, and perhaps we would all give up things like Playstations/watching TV/MNing all day (sob!) in favour of being able to run the fridge 24/7.

I can kill a chicken, and Dad is a licensed slaughterer so he can teach me how to gut and butcher them. (He has a chicken farm.) I do think that if rationing was introduced then I would make do, because I would have to. And I am talking only about rationing, not how I would manage in a Blitz-situation with bombs raining down on me and looting and such.

My parents were born pre-war and we brought up early on rations however they did semi-support themselves as rural. My parents were slim and very healthy and my mum is 75 and takes portion control very series. When we were growing up she was strict about our weight and what we eat. So it did them no harm and feel that my parents were more in control of our eating habits against the parents these days who continually want to show affection and praise through food and chocolate.

I could cope for the reason that I can cook and make meals up without books. So sad that many mums think its funny that they cant or wont cook for the family and expect their partner to do it. Im fed up with this attitude I seem to be surrounded by friends and family who are aghast that I can confidently cook a decent meal and bake a cake....why???? I can kill a chicken and gut a fish without freaking out or make out its unsavoury and cruel to shoot an animal and eat it when people think its better to send thousands of animals through an industrial factory after being stuck in a truck for hours on end.

As for the Blitz, there werent any supermarkets, no instant welfare system, and a fight for survival so I see this as a nonsence comparrison.

EmLH, I know what you mean. It's a shame that the feminists of the 1960s and 70s felt they had to devalue traditional womens' work (sewing, knitting, cooking etc) and that we decided that in order to be equal we had to do traditionally male work.

I learned to cook and bake by watching and helping my mom and grandma. My grandma was a fantastic knitter and seamstress and her father was a tailor, however, I learned my craft at uni and then learned to knit later on. I love knitting.

I too wish home economics was a bigger subject in schools, for both sexes. I also wish I could be a housewife. It's an important job and although I enjoy my current job and am good at it, I know I could make a more valuable contribution as a Domestic Executive ;)

Anyone who hasn't read Nella Last's War, I really recommend it. It's the real life diaries of a woman who lived through it all and it shows the good with the bad.

bacon, I know what you mean. It freaks me out that so many of my younger girlfriends can barely boil an egg let alone cook a hot dinner. My husband says one of my best skills is that I can take a bunch of random crap and turn it into a delicious feast, ready-steady-cook style. I love doing it.

I see no problem with a division of labour within a marriage but having said that, I don't believe the division has to be traditional--if the husband prefers to cook than good on him.

Both my grandads lived in extreme poverty on 1 meal a day (often cold food) pre-war & remembered the way that the obsession with food filled their whole childhoods. For them & their families army life & rationing helped them - it was the first time in their lives they had eaten healthy decent food. I would find rationing difficult though - my cooking skills are rubbish!

I saw a message in the local shop superstore this week, asking for people to rehome battery hens, and that started me wondering whether this was actually a good way to get a cheap hen. Would-be chicken-keepers on MN always seem to be waiting ages to get chickens, so I presumed there was a certain outlay (unless it's the investment of the chicken coop).

I imagine that battery hens would require a lot more looking after, so may be an entirely "false economy", unless they are kept as pets. Am I right?

it wasn't easy then. they had to. they had no choice. i think I would do better than some as I am older and was brought up by parents who lived through the war and some of the values have rubbed off onto me. I am aware that a lot of the modern values have also rubbed off onto me too, so would not cope as well as my granny did.

yes, you've got to make surethat you've got the coop in place, and that it's fox/predator-proof first.
and often, the battery hens take so long to "arrive" because the farmers have specific release datse, the rescuers bsically have to wait until they're summonsed because they can collect.

that's terrible, why didn't the Police investigate the matter first instead of thinking guilty until proven innocent and get it to court! a trip to his home and simple questioning with the knowledge the Police had of it being basic food he had stolen would give them the answers to look into it further. hope it worked out for them in the end.

my message has been added at end instead of after message intended. anyone know how to edit or delete a message!! ta.

We'd cope. People aren't 'softer' nowadays, but they don't tend to make do and mend of they don't have to.

No problem making lovely rabbit pies. (My mum always said she was sick of eating rabbit during the war.)
But 2oz cheese and rationed teabags ...
I nibble 2oz cheese while I'm standing at the fridge wondering what to make.

As @wherearemysocka says.
There is a huge cemetery in St Petersburg solely for something like half a million civilians who died from starvation during the siege.
So for all these light-hearted threads about make-do-and-mend and keeping chickens, that was the reality of war for many.