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?

Has the Snoek arrived yet?!

I enjoyed that MRE video... have to admit I've been bought foreign MRE's as gifts before... some of them are very nice!

Omg yes it has: hang on! I already know it's going to be a disaster because I've run out of delicious butter.

It's an oily, bony fish so I hope grilling it will work. I don't know how bad it will be but I expect it'll taste better than the tinned snoek picante that was imported during rationing.

Sorry ;-)

Fantastic! Fingers crossed you like it... that's quite a lot of snoek to get through!

My father's family were farmers, and I don't think they really went short. They also got sent fish by cousins who had a trawler fleet (though some of their ships were requisitioned.) Also they had a range and a proper dairy with stone floor, so could keep stuff cool. And they stored what they could, with the result I have inherited a couple of bars of 1950s Lifebuoy soup...

I was brought up with good farmhouse cookery. We mostly froze stuff in my childhood, fruit and veg from the garden, but Mum talked about memories of salting beans and bottling stuff as well as ham and chutney. I remember being at a friend's house for Sunday lunch, and they did not save the carcass to boil up for stock. I still make stock if I have bones! It would just feel too wasteful not to.

There are 3 volumes of the Simon Garfield edited Mass Obs diaries- Private Battles, We Are At War and Our Hidden Lives (that one's actually post-war.) There are also the Nella Last books (as dramatised by Victoria Wood.)

Julie Summer has also written some good books on the social history of WW2, including Jambusters, which inspired the Home Fires TV programme - but it goes into detail about things like the WI coordinating community efforts to harvest wild food like blackberries and mass produce jam, and also can some produce. Also Our Uninvited Guests, about how big houses round the UK were used when requisitioned. She's also written books on evacuees and wartime fashion.

I’m full of admiration that you actually bought the snoek, @StoatofDisarray!

I’m wondering how you could ration electricity and mains gas. Did they fine people for overuse?
I think a lot of people in rural areas just didn’t have a gas supply. The house I live in now still doesn’t and didn’t get electricity until after the war.

No, they just turned it off completely for a few hours when supply was short.

just like a power cut.
or during the 1970s, to save coal, during miners' strikes.
guess same can be done for gas.

I think this is actually the best thread of the year

'girthy carrots'

😂

Yes. I can believe that because individual rationing on a ‘fair shares for all’ basis wasn’t possible with fuel on a mains supply. Coal rationing on a household basis would have been possible.

I suppose if the gasworks ran out of coal the pressure would gradually go down.

Poisonous, explosive gas going on and off unpredictably does sound very dangerous.

I cannot describe how good breakfast tastes. This is my whole week's ration of cheese (57g) but it's rich and fatty and packed with umami-ness. No coffee left so I've got a glass of water.

That'll be all the vegetables

I once read a book about Nazi Germany. It said the smell of farting in public places was very noticeable during the war.

My cottage pie has loads of veg and lentils in to stretch the mince and make it one pot. I’d have at least carrots and celery and onion or leek in with that mince! Maybe peas, if it was not going to be cooked too long. I prefer them in with a separate gravy but that wouldn’t pass the rations test!

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.

This was my mum's experience too (and her dad didn't return). I think the war was pretty terrible for a lot of effectively single mothers. FiL's family were all farmers so were well fed and had their dads around (none seemed to fight), and MiL's was a teacher who also, bafflingly to me, was in a protected occupation. Just from looking at my own family I think there must have been some real divisions which the government must have been aware of and must have had to put some thought into.

As a child in the seventies I longed for a deep bath, but Mum would never allow it. I think while water wasn't rationed the heating of it was restricted or frowned on. I felt this was a hangover from the war. Our diet definitely was a hangover from rationing and I think I ate very healthily, albeit plainly, as a result.

I was also a child in the seventies too. The wartime limit of five inches (?)of water for a bath sounded incredibly generous to me.

So there was a limit on bath water..

When I went to university in 1984 there were giant baths in the corridor bathrooms (ironically housed in old WW2 RAF accommodation) and I delighted in filing them to the top and soaking for hours. I still do the same - a minor rebellion against a childhood rule!

The limit on bath water was a seventies drought thing, too. You bathed in a puddle, basically, using tubs and flannels to get the water up your body, rather than enjoying a soak.

@pickledandpuzzled unfortunately celery wasn't available at my designated market stall when I went, and as you say, your usual additions didn't fit with the ration: lentils were available on points and I used mine for dried peas for my lunchtime soup, fresh peas are out of season, I used 2/3 of my one onion with the mince and all but three of my mushrooms, and I’m using the carrots as a snack at work. I could have done more with it last night but I was tired (lots going on at work). Tonight I’m going to attempt a leek gravy to go with it (no onion left) and serve it with cauliflower and Brussels. I might also try reheating it in the oven brushed with a bit of melted dripping.

@faffadoodledo I grew up poor in the 1970s too and it was definitely the cost of heating the water that was the issue with having a deep bath. Mum heated one tank of water on Sunday specifically for bath night and we went in one after the other in order of dirtiness (cleanest one first).

During the summer this was sometimes the case but all year round it was the cost of heating it that I remember!

Oil in the eighties… Dad walking round bleeding radiators, turning them down, sucking his teeth…

@StoatofDisarray oh yes. That makes more sense. The early seventies weren't that different from wartime! My parents have thought 'here we go again'!