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?

I understand how your father feels but this was an emergency!

And my mother reckons nobody had an oven, which is a bit sweeping but worth bearing in mind.

I'm watching it now: it's great! I feel for the little kids though: "Granny, we've got rabbits! What does it mean when it says this one will be ready in 6 to 8 weeks?"

Would you cook in a pot on top of a wood burner? My great aunt still does that.

I once reheated a slice of pizza on a wood burner when home alone with a power cut, but that’s as far as I got. Your GA is a genius.
My mother said they had an open coal fire and an alcove in the chimney where they cooked stews and pot roasts until about 1950 when they moved house.

https://www.cooksinfo.com/british-wartime-food/#Canteens

I don't know if anyone posted this yet.

The unrationed bread was not bread as usual. It was dubbed 'Hitler's Secret Weapon' due to its unappealing qualities.

Have you seen the book 'We'll Eat Again', shows the type of meals people were eating.

Chips were around.
My grandmother was a child in ww2. They lived above a fish and chip shop and her mother worked in the shop. So they always had chips. He father was a prisoner of war in Asia for about 4 years of the war, so her mother was alone feeding and working for 5 children. Money was tight.

As an adult she hated them!

Sugar was scarce though. I think it often wasn’t available even if you have ration allowance for it. My grandmother used to let all her grandchildren eat one bite of dinner, then skip straight to pudding at hers as she deemed sugar almost healthy I think after her lack of it. She died this year, and they served apple pie at her wake due to her love of puddings.

We had an oven in the 40s, we had a gas cooker! One elderly lady we visited had a range, a coal fire with a built in oven at the side.

‘Nobody’ was an exaggeration but they weren’t common in her experience.
Actually, my maternal grandfather said he and his six brothers all used to whinge if there was bought bread, so his mother must have had some sort of oven to bake bread in in the 1920s.
I suppose my mum meant an easily controllable gas or electric oven.

If I had put more thought into this, I would have made a National Loaf like this: www.farmersgirlkitchen.co.uk/ration-book-cooking-tuesday-6th-november/

While I was looking for it I came across this article on emergency rations distributed by the government during Covid, which was very interesting www.ed.ac.uk/global-agriculture-food-systems/gaafs-news/blogs/inside-the-box-an-analysis-of-the-uk-s-emergency-f

Rationing timeline. Coal was rationed - so for fires (heating), heating water & cooking on a range. Soap was also rationed.

If you could afford it. My mum lived in London during the war and they were quite poor. She and her siblings were often hungry.

According to the graphic electicity & gas were rationed as well as coal - maybe that's what your mother meant @WhatWouldJeevesDo ? It's all very well having an oven, but it's not much use if you've got no fuel for it.

Found an interesting site about experiences on the "home front" https://www.1900s.org.uk/war.htm
One of the entries talks about the gas supply being so low that it was impossible to cook with.
BTW @StoatofDisarray have you thought about trying eels - they wouldn't have been rationed and would have been available to Londoners.

Absolutely love this thread op

I think it's an interesting thing to do, but it's not really right. You would have to GROW the veg if you wanted unlimited, rather than just nip to the shop to get it. You'd also have to queue up at multiple shops to get your rations, rather than get in your car to go to one shop.

I know people mean well by doing this, but it's just not the same at all.

Plus, you know you're not going to starve. If it runs out, you CAN get more. People in the 1940s didn't have this luxury, plus a) the risk of bombs even in the countryside if planes were dumping excess ammo and b) the risk of losing loved ones who'd gone to war.

Remember, the OP said:

In my defence, the challenge was to live on the ration of November 1943 for a week, not to replicate the entire lifestyle of someone living in London in 1943.

The context is that my partner is a vegan and I'm a meat-based woman. I like spices and trying out new foods, and I don't eat many carbs or much dairy.

What did that oven run on @Seymour5 ?

My mum was a child in the 40s, in rural Ireland. The farmhouse she grew up in had an enormous open range with a variety of heavy cast iron pots, kettles, and griddles for cooking, boiling, and baking. There were cranes to swing the pots and kettle over the fire, and tongs to handle the hot handles and lids. Some of the pots had three or four legs so they could be placed directly into the fire. There was a rack for the griddle. Bread (always soda bread or brown bread) was baked in a 'bastible' pot, basically what is now called a Dutch oven.

When my grandmother got an oven in the 50s it was run on gas cylinders as there was no piped gas out in the country.

My other grandmother had a massive Aga that ran on turf and wood during the war.

Evening! Breakfast today was the last of the sweet, creamy rice pudding, which left me feeling sleepy, and certainly not ready for a day of work.

Lunch was great though! The pea and bacon soup was easy to knock up because it’s a less luscious version of the pea and ham soup I’ve often made in the past with a smoked ham hock instead of bacon. It was thick and smoky and filling, with a piece of bread on the side.

Which brings me to dinner. The best you can say about this cottage pie is that it’s hot and savoury and there’s a lot of it. The mash is dry and the mince is thin in a basic gravy. I’ve still got three more massive portions to munch my way through. I was so tired this evening, I could not be bothered to do vegetables on the side but I won’t need them. Pudding will be another huge serving of spiced apple and blackberry crumble.

Today I learned: raw carrots are enjoyable to snack on over a spreadsheet. I ate three girthy fellows.

@Talipesmum thanks for reiterating what I said about not trying to pretend I was living in London during the Blitz. This all arose because we were watching SteveMRE1989 on YouTube (he reviews all kinds of rations). He was reviewing a French military ration that was (in Steve’s words), “truly gourmet” and I said to my partner, “I could live on that!” And then the conversation moved onto rations in general and the rationing in World War Two… and here I am! The video in question is here:

@mathanxiety it was a gas cooker.

Really interesting discussion- thanks, OP

i am slightly amused by people pointing out that you would not have had a freezer in 1943.
the vast majority of homes did not have fridges, never mind freezers.
the house i was born in did not have any electrical sockets in the kitchen (was called the scullery, which was more accurate).
and this was quite some time, decades after 1943.
i don't know much about cookery, but i am probably nearer in my experience to how people lived then.

I'm slightly bemused too, especially as I'm not using my freezer for anything other than freezing some extra mince I bought that I won't be using in this one week challenge!

yes, OP, i know you know, it was more a comment to others.
well done on taking up the challenge.