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?

Thanks for telling us about this, henry. If this goes into a second week I'll definitely look for a rabbit and spend my meat allowance on offal.

No breakfast this morning as I'm still full after last night's blowout. I'm just enjoying a black coffee from my dwindling jug of cold brew. I've probably got enough for two more coffees.

I'll walk to and from work again and use the stairs not the lifts. It's just over 3.5km each way according to Map My Walk.

Let me know if this gets too boring and I'll stop!

I didn't say much about it but last nights rice pudding was incredible: creamy, rich and warming with just the right amount of sweetness. I used 2 pints of whole milk, 15g margarine (butter would have been better obliviously), and 20g sugar all from the weekly ration, some grated nutmeg from my cupboard and 75g pudding rice, which was rationed and available for 4 points per pound (I used 75g so I'm calling that 1 point). I cooked it in a fan oven at 140 for about 90 minutes while I was baking potatoes.

In France during the war the French made coffee from acorns.

Basically you'd not have got much coffee because it's not produced in the UK. You wouldn't have seen a banana, nor likely citrus fruits, avocado, blueberries.

@Whataretheodds yes, coffee will be a problem :-( when I've finished my jug of cold brew, I won't be able to make any more and will have to rely on coffee from the machine at work, which is grim and I'm sure would be a convincing double for coffee made from acorns!

Blueberries do grow here, though I assume the bushes weren't here yet? There would have been various other berries, though only as jam in November!

You should try and find the book ‘Our Hidden Lives’ by Simon Garfield which has real diary accounts of rationing from the Mass Observation Project. It’s a great read, I was sad when I finished it.

Thanks! I'll look for it in the library!

They had that Camp coffee stuff.

This recipe book was my grandmother's and showed a 'new wife' Patsy how to cook with rations. Her neighbours pop in with advice and encouragement... excuse the fuzzy photos

Camp coffee was chicory, wasn't it?

(And no, this thread isn't remotely boring - enjoying your posts!)

I'm assuming that hospitals also had catering - for both staff and patients. Anyone know if large factories (like munitions) or mines had cafeterias? And if you were assumed to eat at least once a day at your workplace, were your rations adjusted?

What a really great thread - thank you OP!

I went on a foraging course a few years ago and made some acorn coffee afterwards! It was a HUGELY labour intensive process which involved shelling, soaking, double roasting and grinding... we're talking HOURS. And I have to say it was disgusting. Looked like coffee but tasted nothing like it. It had a slight taste of something a bit like Barley Cup. One brave visitor to the house tried it too and confirmed it was disgusting!

I think what you could allow yourself is the odd stick of chewing gum if you want something with a bit of taste. My Mum (child in WW2) often recalled being given gum by the American soldiers stationed near her home!

I grew up just after WWII and lots of people still drank that. Few drank real coffee.

Ha! That book looks hilarious: they're really laying into Patsy aren't they?

@edgeware I managed to get that book from the library (I'm working from home today).

I blew two points on a can of beans, and my last 85g portion of spam for the week (I swapped on for dried peas of which more later). It smells mouthwatering.

Thanks for the acorn coffee report! I have always wanted to try it! Well, ever since I saw Ray Mears making it with that historian friend of his. "It's very bitter, Ray!" has become a household phrase.

Here's my lunch. I'm going to the market later on.

@StoatofDisarray My foraging course was run by Ffyona Campbell (she who 'walked around the world' in the 80s/90s). She was quite fearsome & dogmatic and made us do the course in silence while only she spoke. I saw her at a market selling her foraged goods a few months later and told her I had made acorn coffee. She said, 'It's so warming and comforting isn't it', full of enthusiasm and wasn't too impressed when I told her it was definitely an acquired taste!

Steeping your own tea from mint leaves is definitely preferable!

Bwahahaha! Ah the enthusiasm of the zealot!

As I understand it, any factory over a certain size had to have a canteen, by law. I doubt the ration was adjusted for workers eating there but I’m not sure - still trying to find info on that!

I have found a site about rationing that says: One thing that is often not understood about food rationing at home is that in its calculations, the Ministry of Food expected that rationed home food would be supplemented by meals at work and at school. So to me, that implies that, even if you paid for your canteen meal, you wouldn’t have your rations adjusted, it would be extra.

There's an interesting exchange from Hansard on this very subject from 1941 - involving Lord Woolton, of pie fame (and of course Minister of Food and responsible for the rationing system).

Not mines. The practicalities would be too difficult.

Very interesting thread. I remember my grandad talking about camp coffee with carnation milk in it. Not sure if that was after or during the war. Sounds revolting!

We ate rabbit when I was a child, and my parents liked tripe cooked in milk. I never did. But I do remember the meals that were nearly all cooked from scratch, and a mincer was an essential piece of kitchen equipment! My mother would cook a piece of mutton for Sunday lunch, then mince the leftovers and mix with mashed potatoes to make rissoles for the following day. Dumplings in stew eked out the meat.

Rationing didn’t stop until the early 50s.

It's coffee and chicory - and it makes some of the best iced coffee especially with a slug of Coole Swan in there as well added to milk/coconut mil and shaken up or blitzed so it goes creamy and frothy.

I had a rice pudding snack earlier - I shouldn’t have skipped breakfast.

Stocked up on veg and a bottle of milk at the market (taking me up to three pints), and did some batch cooking which I would have done on the weekend if I had planned this week rather than launching into it.

I now have a big cottage pie that used up all my remaining pre-baked potatoes plus four more, 20g butter, 100ml milk, all my minced beef, 3/4 of the single onion and 8 field mushrooms, a stock cube, salt and pepper and dried thyme which I grew and dried myself.

I used the other half of the onion, half a leek, my three remaining rashers of smoked streaky bacon, some more thyme and my last remaining “point” (instead of the last 85g spam) of 75g dried marrowfat peas to make a pea and bacon soup that should do me for three lunches.

Lastly, I made an apple and blackberry crumble, with 300g wholemeal flour, all my remaining margarine and all but of the 10g butter, all the remaining sugar, 6 Bramley apples and a paper bag of blackberries. I found an old bag of cider mulling spices left over from last Christmas in the cupboard so I used it to flavour the stewed apples.

Dinner tonight is pheasant hash (basically the other half of the pheasant and last nights leftovers fried up in 7g dripping) plus a majestic bowl of apple and blackberry crumble.

Behold its majesty! The snoek arrives tomorrow.

I'm finding your thread very interesting. Watched and enjoyed the 1940s house a while ago! You don't seem to be going hungry! I love rice pudding and we often make it in winter.

I was reading earlier after having breakfast of toast and jam and tea, which would have been ok except the bread was gluten free. Usually I have porridge (tick) or berries and yoghurt (nope). All downhill from there though - my lunch was oatcakes with cream cheese and avocado (definitely not, unless I'd made the oatcakes myself) and a slice of pineapple

My mum was born in 44 so remembers rationing. In my early years we ate quite frugally so plenty of mince and potatoes, offal and fruit/veg from the garden.

@AllLopsided my mum was born in '44 too! She was a terrible cook, alas.

I might do this again next week. I've learned quite a lot and there are some things I'd do differently. I do need to nail down what points could get me in November 1943 in London.

My father still gets in a rage because his mother used to mix the margarine with the butter thus destroying the flavour of what little butter there was.