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?

There were sufficient calories available, for Brits.

Europe was quite a different matter

Make a Woolton pie!

i would add squash to veg list. We harvest lots of butternut squash in September time, and it lasts until March just somewhere cool. No fridge or freezer needed. If someone had garden they would have likely grown squash or pumpkin of some sort for winter storage

@StoatofDisarray : interesting thread! I’d love to know how you feel after a week of eating like that, i imagine not having much fruit would be the hardest part for me

Ugh I'd rather not!

My mum grew up in WW2. I used to love her stories about what it was like.
She said fish was quite plentiful and tinned sardines she loved!!
Absolutely nothing was wasted, you ate the food that put in front of you or nothing, because there was nothing else.Old clothes were repurposed, repaired and darned. There were some very talented seamstresses back then, include my mum and my Nan.
Obesity was unheard of. People walked or cycled most places

Tonight while the oven was on I've baked 8 potatoes and made a rice pudding.

My nan had various habits left over from Rationing days. One was drinking the veg water on Sundays (the water left after making gravy), and she thought it was a wonderful treat to give us grandkids half an orange sprinkled with a dessertspoon of sugar on top. 😅

This reminds me of my grandpa who used to think the water from poaching a kipper was the best thing ever, and also relished the parson's nose from the chicken!

I’d like to try this myself, thanks for the thread

I'd love a modern day rationing experiment that was applied to the whole of the UK for say 6-12 months. As long as it was balanced nutrition of course and was enough so that no-one was hungry. Three meals a day type thing with allowances for allergies and intolerances and religious aspects. The results would be very interesting. Of course it wouldn't be possible in this modern age.

It would be interesting to try but I almost never eat bacon and I doubt I’d eat 4 rashers a month. On the other hand I have a wide repertoire of mince dishes but might find the want of onions and mushrooms. We used to frequently have 200g of mince between 3 of us in the 60’s so I could maybe stretch 227g for me alone like a piece of elastic. My mother married in 1943 and wasted nothing for the rest of her life. However they would have had chickens and a pig out the back. I always feel it’s awful still to throw food out but a friend ( similar vintage) tosses everything . Great thread.

She sounds exactly like my nan.

Cabbage water was considered extra-healthy for pregnant women and after rationing was lifted, the women of my nan's age seemed to consider feeding up their grandkids a competitive sport.

My nan was lucky as all the men in the family were down the pit and were fed at the washery canteen (where my nan worked). There was no wastage but scraps like peelings were brought home and boiled up to feed my granddad's pigs.

They lived in a very close-knit community so all the gardens were planted for fruit and veg and shared. The pigs were slaughtered and every bit of them would be used and shared. Chickens were kept by several in the street and eggs were swapped for other food items.

Food then is nothing like food now. Beef dripping on bread was seen as good as caviar on blinis. My grandad would give my mum his butter and cheese rations in return for her sugar and jam rations.

Clothes were repaired and handed down and wedding dresses were made from curtains and passed on to other women getting wed.

Nothing was thrown, everything mended. Just like in Dad's Army, there was a well-known black-marketer who could get hold of items like lipstick or stockings amongst other things, but these came at a price.

Things were bad but times were good my nan used to say.

I was brought up by grandparents who still ate very much the diet they had during that time for the whole of their lives. The only thing DGF refused to eat was Spam.
Oddly my DB was podgy as a child even on that diet. I was a slim child.

If all the predictions about climate are correct, we may not have much option but to reduce food consumption. There may not be the resources to go round.

From what my mum said, they used to eat quite a bit of stodge to fill up - my grandma made bread every week and then they would have bread pudding probably with a sprinkling of dried fruit, when it was stale, Yorkshire pudding before the main meal to fill them up as not much meat and suet puddings. They lived in the country so grandad hunted rabbits and exchanged them for other meat at the butchers. She said they never went hungry - they all did physical jobs so burnt it off.

Fresh eggs were hard to come by, but you could get tins of powdered egg. My mum says they made very good scrambled egg.

I knew an elderly chap who grew up in Devon, he said they could always get stuff off the ration from local farmers, or by foraging. But as pp said, townspeople could eat out at a British Restaurant or elsewhere, so things evened out.

Upmarket restaurants were limited as to what they could serve - they couldn't serve bigger portions, and of course if some type of fish or meat just wasn't available, it couldn't be on the menu.

Many people would get one meal a day at a works canteen, so that would save on their rations.

Parachute silk was much in demand to make underwear or blouses. But my mum says it was very slippery and difficult to sew. Nylon stockings were unheard of (unless you knew an American soldier).

IIRC, brides were allowed extra clothing coupons.

If you had plenty of money you could eat out wherever you liked, no rationing to worry about. The big fancy restaurants still did a roaring trade.

Really interesting challenge OP. Am placemarking because I'd love to see some pics of your meals.

My mum and her sister (war & post war babies) were sent to stay with their grandparents who were farmers every school holiday - in part because they were able to access more fruit/veg/game etc that weren't rationed post war than grandma could by in the city. They also had the odd extra egg or bit of lamb over and above the ration but their rural cousins rarely saw sweets, oranges etc unless the city family brought them when they came to stay.
DH's London family were much more able to use the black market, raise rabbits etc on bombed out land.
The ration was enough but pretty bland and repetitive and just because you were allowed X or y it didn't mean you could lay your hands on it.

Yes. My father in law grew up on a smallholding, and my mother in law would always (jokingly) berate him that he had EGGS when growing up. She grew up on a city like my parents and had no such luxuries

But to be fair, during the war, it would be unlikely they would do a weekly shop. They would probably have bought the game on a different day to the minced beef and bacon. Popping the meat in the freezer is just replicating going shopping more regularly.

Anyone who hasn't seen it, watch The 1940s House, a Channel 4 programme from 2001 now available on YouTube. Modern family living as they would have done in wartime.

Just to clear up the freezer question, I bought too much mince and only froze what isn't on my ration this week. I bought half a kilo because that's how much I usually buy, but kept back £2.75 worth of it for use this week. I could have bought less but it was a good price and I know I'll use it in the future.

What I didn't use is in the freezer, the rest is in the fridge and I'll be cooking it tonight.