Proper old style! Living on WW2 rations

I don't know if anyone is interested but there is a Blogger who is living on war rations for the rest of this year, in a bid to save enough to pay off her mortgage. She is documenting everything, growing her own and recipes, with a breakdown of all her costs. Worth a look.

http://achallengingyearonawelshhillside.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/rations-and-points-overview.html

Ilona

Ilona what an interesting blog thanks for that I have bookmarked it. I was listening on the car radio yesterday and they did an obit for Hannah Hauxwell who died at 91 last week when her life was on TV as a hill farmer she was living on a fiver a week !! but what an amazing lady she was I would love to have met her as she seemed so relaxed and unfussed about her life
Perhaps thats why the return of the OS ways are so popular and although I remember war time rationing very well I don't think I would want to return to the strictures it placed on people.)I enjoy my spices too much ) but cutting back on over consumption wouldn't be a bad idea for a lot of folk. Perhaps its the return of basic cooking that is the pull or making the most of what you have, and adapting things in recipes. To me a well cooked HM meal is also a comforting thing for so many folk I would much rather eat hot buttered toast than a burger and chips from a take-away in a cardboard box but them I am pretty OS myself :):)

Ilona wrote: »

I don't know if anyone is interested but there is a Blogger who is living on war rations for the rest of this year, in a bid to save enough to pay off her mortgage. She is documenting everything, growing her own and recipes, with a breakdown of all her costs. Worth a look.

http://achallengingyearonawelshhillside.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/rations-and-points-overview.html

Ilona

Thank you! I'll have a read.


To the OP, good luck with your challenge. I've only just found this thread so have some catching up to do before I can chime in properly.


A decade or so ago, I was lucky enough to attend a talk by Marguerite Patton about cooking during the war years. (It was at the Cabinet War Rooms.) I have her war time recipes cookbooks. The only thing I recall making were some "Carrot Cookies" which came out similar to rock cakes and prompted my husband to utter the immortal words "I don't like Frugals. I don't like any kind of greens!" when I told him it was a good, frugal recipe.


- Pip

monnagran wrote: »

Flour wasn't actually rationed but people were dissuaded from using it due to the difficulties in shipping wheat. What there was consisted of whole wheat flour that was not universally loved! Just because it wasn't rationed didn't mean that it was always available. The baker was only allowed so much and instead of having daily deliveries of bread, (by horse and cart) ours only called 3 times a week. People could be prosecuted for throwing crusts out for birds.
There was a big campaign to get people to eat more potatoes, you may have heard of the cartoon character Potato Pete, to replace the carbohydrate lost from not having as much bread. We could grow our own potatoes.
The National loaf was grey and gritty. People used to white bread hated it. It was never rationed during the war, but it was in 1946 when austerity began to bite and we were helping to feed the starving millions in Europe, many our recent enemies.

Here ends the history lesson.

From what I've read, rationing got considerably tighter after the war, with the rations in 1947 being the smallest. It had to be done - there was very little food to go around, much of Europe had been devastated and labour was going into rebuilding, not into farming. Additionally, much merchant shipping had been devastated and docks destroyed, so even if a country could buy (say) Australian wheat, there was no guarantee that it'd be shipped or that there would be a dock available at which to unload it.


What is rarely discussed now is how much both Wars cost Britain. The country did not recover during the 20 years in between. In fact, we haemorrhaged money because, as well as paying for the Great War, we'd acquired a lot of almost bankrupt German colonies that had to be supported.


During WW2, while they were still standing on the sidelines, the Americans made a lot of money out of us. We virtually gave them our gold reserves. Once they joined the war effort, the terms of the lend-lease program meant that Britain was still paying off the debt decades later. (I understand that the final war debt was repaid in the 1990's!)


In some respect, I think we're still living with the financial consequences. I can't think of any other reason why the country is still so poor when it is currently the sixth largest economy in the world. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom) In 1946, we were bankrupt. We didn't have the money to invest in our infrastructure or in modernising our factories*. What else can explain why Germany continues to have such a strong manufacturing sector, when we don't? They were totally rebuilt after the war, while we weren't. Interestingly, Wikipedia tells me that we were the largest recipient of Marshall Plan money, getting about 20% of the total pot. Nobody ever mentions that.

bouicca21 wrote: »

I had thoughts of trying carrot cookies but I am doing so well with the sugar ration that I don't need to bother. Perhaps just as well judging by your husband's reaction. I also ended the week with a spare egg, butter, a couple of crusts of bread and milk. So I rediscovered the delights of bread and butter pudding, made a rice pudding with the rest of the milk and made a crumble topping to go with the apricots that I got cheap in the market.

Feeling smug.

DH was just kidding when he said "I don't like Frugals! I don't like any kind of greens!". He has a sweet tooth and had been looking forward to eating something akin to regular cookies, so was disappointed when they turned out to be rock cakes and not half as sweet. They were lovely split open and lightly toasted, with a little butter spread on top.


- Pip






* There were other factors involved, too, such as wasting what money there was trying to hold onto colonies instead of pushing them to independence. But even factoring in that, I can't completely explain why a comparable colonial power like France did far better after the war than we did and continues to do so. (Like sibling rivals, Britain always compares itself to France and usually says "see? We're doing it better", whatever "it" is.) I really don't know the reason why Britain still acts as if it is living one pay-cheque to another, with some of the most deprived municipalities in the EU. (Tower Hamlets, for example.)