World War 2 Rationing Challenge: too much food?

[StoatofDisarray]

My partner has bet me I can't follow the UK world war 2 ration for November 1943 for a week.

I've just done the shopping for it and it seems like too much food. I can't work out what I'm doing wrong. Has anyone done this?

You are doing it very seriously. I’m impressed.

My grandmother would make this and sliced onion soaked in vinegar for coughs - you’d have a spoonful of it.
Weren’t dandelion roots used for ersatz coffee too? My parents were teenagers during the war, my mother would talk a lot about rationing, scrumping apples and eking out rations.
My father’s parents owned two grocery shops so I guess we’re far more fortunate than my mother and her family. My father would say that he didn’t think they were particularly affected but my mother’s experience was the opposite, little food and monotonous meals.
As a child of the 50’s we shared bath water as children, only a few inches allowed. I think that probably my childhood was very much shaped by my mother’s upbringing.

So glad to learn that it wasn't just my own dotty family who did the vinegar-lettuce-sugar thing!

Loving this thread!

Faggots, OP. You need to get hold of some faggots and gravy. Also liver, sliced, dusted with flour and pan fried.

Both are delicious.

While the British Restaurants were unrationed, you could only have one source of protein or cheese per meal. So no all-you-can-gobble plate of eggs and fried chicken and a cheese sandwich...

I'm feeling a lot better about things this morning. I think I just needed a good night’s sleep. The first thing I did today was jump on the scales because I couldn’t get my jeans done up yesterday and I was convinced that I have put on quite a lot of weight this week. However, I have only put on 0.2lbs which is nothing. I’m definitely thicker in the stomach though. Not sure what’s going on there.

I am craving coffee but I ran out of my jog of cold brew earlier in the week. There was about 50g old ground coffee in my coffee container but it’s been there a long time - since April when I replaced my oven and hob and discovered my Bialetti didn’t work on an induction hob. I make cold brew by using 2 full bags of coffee tipped straight into a brewing jug and honestly forgot there was even any in the container.

I don’t have a cafetière but I do have cold brew filter bags which are massive. I used one to drip hot water over the coffee and OMG the resulting half cup tastes so good compared to work machine coffee.

I couldn’t get the lid off my home-made damson jam (see picture below for proof of its existence!), so I used half of my weekly allocation of honey (23g, which I already had in the larder) on two slices of toast. Also shown: "A Week on Rations" by Karen Wiles, which was interesting but for someone in my position (living alone with no stock of "extras" in the larder) not that useful. Still a good read though, and recommended!

The snoek is defrosting on the countertop. It looks very dead.

I am down to my last fork, so I need to do some washing up. And some housework. In fact I’m going to spend the whole morning cleaning.

Absolutely true and that wouldn't bother me a bit! Half the pleasure would come from somebody else cooking and washing up!

Bialetti Induction Plate

There will be cheaper versions - and then you'd be using something that is pretty much unchanged from WWII (Mokas were first sold in 1933)

Thank you! This would be useful for emergencies. I might ask Alex for one for Christmas :-)

I used the Toddy cold brew system for anyone interested. It's very basic and makes a lovely rich smooth cold brew. toddycafe.com/product/toddy-cold-brew-system

living alone with no stock of "extras" in the larder

I live alone, but I was brought up to survive the winter of 1963 in rural West Dorset, so I still tend to have a well stocked store cupboard with flour, rice, oats, herbs and spices and all sorts.

I was not born till the 1970s...

I do have a stock of extras, but they are not part of this ration challenge, and I'm trying to stick to the ration.

I have a wide variety of dried pulses and grains from hodmedod, several types of flour, including Emmer flour, yeast, goose fat, suet, dried fish from Norway, cans of chopped tomatoes, all sorts of oils, vinegars, dried herbs, saffron, spices, dried chilies, oyster sauce, soy sauces, rice wine, fish sauce, maple syrup, tahini, two types of mustard, marmite, and that's just me standing in front of my cupboards and dictating what I can see.

I think it would be okay to use dried pulses and dried fish. They might not have had the same range, but stuff like pearl barley, marrowfat peas, some beans might have been there.

Unfortunately the dried pulses and beans were rationed and only available with points (when they were available) :-(

I did use 1 point for some marrowfat peas earlier in the week which I used with my bacon ration to make three servings of thick pea and bacon soup. I'm having the last serving for lunch today!

Ration roll-call:

One serving of pea and bacon soup
Two servings of cottage pie
One serving of apple and blackberry crumble
Bread, leeks, potatoes, oats,Brussels, bit of cauliflower
250g snoek
35g dripping
2 carrots
23g honey
57g damson jam
80ml whole milk

Karen Willes' extras: I wish I'd had some custard powder!

How are you going to approach the snoek?! Disguised in something I think would be my approach!

You're doing so well OP.... great thread!

I have quite a lot of that in. No fish (tuna, cod roe), because I don't eat it, and I've Bovril rather than Bisto powder. I've no peaches, but I have other tinned fruit, and I have some coffee essence that isn't Camp (I don't drink coffee though.) I do have some condensed milk I got for making fudge that remains unmade...

Well, apparently it's an oily, bony fish so I'm going to bake it in the oven and then mix it into patties with some steamed potatoes and leek (mashed with milk), salt and pepper and then fry the patties in a frying pan using any oil that has collected in the fish baking pan. If I am unable to collect any oil from the fish baking pan, I will probably have to use beef dripping.

I would totally make some fudge!!

I just had a look in my Marguerite Patten 'Victory Cookbook' - and I think your recipe sounds preferable to hers!

I would never presume to outdo Marguerite Pattern! But I think the tomatoes are going to to make it sloppy.

I just had a snack of dripping on toast with salt and pepper which is something I am going to carry on with post-ration week. The dripping is from Northfeld Farm (they have a stall at my local market and I buy from them every week). Savoury and delicious! It's not something I've tried before because I have never cooked roast beef as an adult and it was too expensive even at Christmas when I was growing up.

Dripping is lovely! I always save mine if we have roast beef.

i can't believe that me, a now non-eat eater, am about to type this, but I used to LOVE dripping! Mum used to buy it from the butchers and we had it for our sunday tea with toast every week. It was so umami before i even knew the meaning of the word

Snoek disaster! I didn’t have any potatoes left (I thought I had two) so no snoek fishcakes! Instead it’s going to be snoek on toast. I cut away 250g of it and baked it in the oven with a bit of salt. No sign of any worms during prep. It took about 15 minutes at 200 fan.

One hour laterrr…

So now I can describe what it tastes like, or at least what this particular bit of snoek tasted like. Imagine you bought a couple of super fresh mackerel from the fishmonger and you ate one and decided to freeze the other one. Two years later you find it at the back of the freezer and think, “Oh cool! That other mackerel! That’ll make a nice supper!” You thaw it and cook it, but alas. It tastes dry and stale, only vaguely fishy (more like an old bit of haddock) and it has lost all its delicious oiliness along the way.

That’s what the snoek was like. It was so bony I couldn’t put it on toast. Instead, I bent over the plate, pulling flakes of meat off the bones and stuffing them in my mouth like a hungry chimp, trying not to make eye contact with it.

I ate some toast and 23g damson jam immediately afterwards. I’m not doing that again!

I have seen the light! Hallelujah:-)