WWII Rations

BrokeBrokeBroke · 28 June 2005 at 11:20PM

Just been looking around as I would find it very interesting to see if any of us could actually make World War 2 rations stretch out, with all the temptation of there actually being food in the shops to buy if you see what I mean. Apparently this is what the list was
Butter: 50g (2oz) Bacon and ham: 100g (4oz) Margarine: 100g (4oz)

Sugar: 225g (8oz ). Meat: To the value of 1s.2d (one shilling and sixpence per week. That is about 6p today) Milk: 3 pints(1800ml) occasionally dropping to 2 pints (1200ml).
Cheese: 2oz (50g) Eggs: 1 fresh egg a week. Tea: 50g (2oz).
Jam: 450g (1lb) every two months. Dried eggs 1 packet every four weeks. Sweets: 350g(12oz) every four weeks

I wonder how much healthier we would all be if we lived on this supplemented by our 'Victory Gardens'?

I might look into meal - planning around this for a month just to see if I could do it. (I get bored very easily, one of my worst traits and I am determined to really try and make our lives simpler)

Any ideas for some yummy scrummy war time meals?

Ticklemouse · 29 June 2005 at 12:03AM

I wouldn't be able to do this - mainly because I come from a line of 'black marketeers' apparently

Paternal g'parents were market gardeners and had a stall. My mum said for all my g'ma moaned about not having much, they were never short of anything on their table. Mum's side kept pigs and chickens and grew veg, so I can't imagine what it must have been like living in a city.

Don'y necessarily know about scrummy. With all the rationing and the fact they didn't have access to the seasonings we do today, I understood quite a lot of stuff was bland, esp. if the raw ingredients weren't up to much. Also, didn't it get very repetitive?

Queenie · 29 June 2005 at 7:14AM

I have the book "We'll Eat Again" (plus the other 2 in the series) which is full of recipes made with rations.

There is a book called "The Ration Book Diet" but I haven't got that one (yet!

)

Repetative? I know they were very *inventive*!

Everyone grew veggies in the garden, local parks were turned into allotments so every scrap of ground was used for growing vegetables.

Lucie_2 · 29 June 2005 at 8:52AM

this thread from over a year ago was all about going back to a WWII diet.

culpepper · 29 June 2005 at 9:04AM

we did it for a week and the kids loved it,even the sweet ration.My son made some little ration books and we tore out the 'coupons' as we used them.We were doing WW2 for our History project at the time.I did use 'we'll eat again' for the recipes as we had borrowed it from the library.The most difficult bit was the meat as even if you think of it as 6p,you would have to allow for inflation which I believe doubles about every 10 years,so 6p in 1945,12p in 1955,24p in 1965,48p in 75,96p in 85,£1.92 in 95 and £3.84 in 2005.We made an Air-raid shelter in the garden too from corrugated iron.

Chipps · 29 June 2005 at 9:16AM

The diet may have been boring, but apparently people were much healthier. I have a stork margarine recipe book which my grandma gave me, although it is from the early days of the war & talks about the possibility of rationing being introduced.
I have used wartime recipes when money was tight, as they use cheap & easily available ingredients to make filling meals.
My mum was a small child in the war, so she says she didn't know any different from rationing, in fact when bananas were re-introduced after the war they made her ill. She remembers having easter eggs made of chocolate poured into 2 dessertspoons for the moulds, then stuck together with icing. When we were small she made some for us, just for fun!
My grandma remembers making pastry with liquid parafin. Not sure I would like that one!

THIRZAH · 29 June 2005 at 9:23AM

You might find " Nella Last's War " interesting if you are planning to try to survive on rations. It's the diary of a housewife who lived in Barrow- in- Furness during the second world war.

She worked as a volunteer making supplies for the local hospital, in a canteen for troops and in a Red Cross shop. She describes the meals they ate and how she stretched their rations

swizzlebabe · 29 June 2005 at 11:18AM

I`m waiting to get hold of a copy of `the ration book diet` my local library didn`t have a copy, but they have just told me that 1 is on order at no cost to me.

Feed a family of 4 on £30 a week, hope it`s not all tongue and stuff.

Asked my granny about it, she said they never had enough money to buy all the rationed stuff, lived on chips, that sounds ok, never will be slim!!!!!!!!

Austin_Allegro · 29 June 2005 at 11:24AM

Looking at those rations I don't think I'd have any problem keeping to those. I assume things like potatoes weren't rationed, and you can do a lot with potatoes and some inventiveness. I would probably miss sweets though.

People in the 30s and 40s were a lot more resourceful than we are today, and were able to grow food or knew/employed people who could grow food and eke it out. Today such rationing would simply produce chaos, because few people grow or make food or even know where it comes from.

Dont' forget though that during the war practically everybody smoked, and nicotine is an excellent appetite suppressant!

culpepper · 29 June 2005 at 12:53PM

An old lady told us she and her friends could buy cough sweets as these were not on the ration so it helped them eke out their sweet rations.Ready made cakes and biscuits seem to have far too much sugar in nowadays so people probably didnt miss it as much in those days.Jam would have helped too.If each person was allowed 1LB every 2 months and there were 4 of you that was a jar every 2 weeks so not so bad.A friend who had been evacuated to Devon as a child ,described her bread and butter as scraped on and scraped off

Eliza252 · 29 June 2005 at 1:12PM

i tried the WWII rationing thing for a while - it really worked! I saved loads of money! - only problem is its based on alot of tato's so dont expect a hollywood body at the end! Also, after a few weeks I slid into just making alot of cakes..... not good for the big tum either...must of been all that victory digging that kept everyone in shape

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WWII Rations

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