Thriftlady's wartime experiment

teedy23

My mums family where lucky in that they owned a dairy, ( a small shop not a herd of coos and such) and probably didnt miss out too much. The makeup and clothes must have been a bit of a struggle though, that ,and my dad getting a bit too much home leave at the start of the war, resulting in a baby each time. Still she was an inventive woman and all our lives wanted for nothing, almost. Not being a war baby myself and having 2 long distance lorry drivers in the family saved our bacon a few times, not counting the many large tubs of malt that fell off the back of some ones lorry YUCH! my mammy used to make us have a spoonful. She made clootie dumplings with the end of loaves gone stale, these could be pudding with custard or fried with an egg and sausage. Pancakes where the same, fried or buttered. he one big con she used to play on us was a "special treat". Scots especially will know "Francie and Josie! from the telly and theatre who would have have a "hot pea special" from louigi,s chip shop. She must have been on her uppers when she would come into the room and shout "who wants a hot pea special?" What a treat a plate of peas for your tea, MEEEE! we thought it was wonderful lol

Frugal_Fox

thriftlady wrote: »

‘Grow fit not fat on your wartime diet ! Cut out ‘extras’; cut out waste; don’t eat more than you need.
You’ll save yourself money; you’ll save valuable cargo space which is needed for munitions and you’ll feel fitter than you ever felt before.’

Ministry of Food Bulletin

Wow ThriftLady...

This is something I wanted to try earlier this year - never actually got round to doing it!

I read a blog by a woman in America who was doing this... She was mainly doing it for weight loss - which is what caught my eye! I must do some more reading about it as I am really interested. Will be watching with much interest and envy as I hadn't got by 'behind' into gear!

All the best
FF

[Deleted User]

I remember my Mum trying to make my two brothers and me eat snoek , although my brothers seemed to have permanetly hollow legs they couldn't eat it either. It really is the most disgusting thing to ever put on a plate.:eek:
I remember My Aunt in America sending my Mum 'food parcels' after the war and us children eating pineapple from a tin for the first time.She also sent my Mum some small tins of Heinz baby food -stewed apples- and Mum made us eat them spread on bread like jam.When I had my two DDs years later I couldn't bring myself to buy these as it reminded me of how awful they tasted on toast and bread.:eek: Aunt Edie packed the parcels full of things we couldn't buy over here, and even stuffed every spare space with something useful. My Mum sat and cried because she had sent her three pairs of Nylons. It was pure luxury for Mum.
At one time, because Stockings had to last, there was a shop in Lewis Grove ,Lewisham where a lady sat in the window, and did repairs on stockings on a machine .It was 8 ladders for two shillings, and Mum would wait until she had the required 8 ladders in various stockings before she would take them for repair.
When the first Bendix Launderette arrived in Lee High Road there was a queue stretching for about twenty yards with women wanting to try this new-fangled machine .We queued for around three hours to have a go, but my Mum wasn't impressed .She said it didn't seem to get the clothes as clean as her boiler at home so she never went back again.
At school when we had milk we also had to have a spoonful of Malt . Teacher had one spoon to each classrom so you shared a spoon with the other 38-40 children in your class .As it was doled out on an alphabetical rota I was lucky as my surname started with a 'B' , but some kids had to wait their turn and after it had been in other childrens mouths it wasn't washed or anything Ugh .Todays H&S folk would have a fit. But we seemed to survive . I always longed for a pair of wellington boots as I thought they were the bee's knees but my Mum wouldn't let me have any as she said I would look like a road mender :rotfl: I think maybe she just couldn't find any . She used to knit these pixie bonnets for me to wear, and I hated those, as soon as I was out of sight of our house I would stuff them in my satchel and not put them on until I was almost haome after school.I can also remember wearing 'a liberty bodice' which seemed to have lots of knobbly buttons on it .You wore it like a vest under everything else to keep you warm. In the winter you also had to wear red flannel under your clothes to keep away the germs I still caught all the things going and we had a measles epidemic at our school that closed it down as most of the children all caught it at the same time (probably from sharing the malt spoon:rotfl: )
'Victory V' lozenges were mostly what I can remember eating as sweets for some reason ,maybe they weren't on ration.
It's daft I can remember things from 60+ years ago, but forget where I put my glasses yesterday ,can't be far away though I expect they will turn up.Got a spare pair on today
keep up the good work Thriftlady it's a great thread:A

thriftlady_2

Frugal_Fox wrote: »

Wow ThriftLady...

This is something I wanted to try earlier this year - never actually got round to doing it!

I read a blog by a woman in America who was doing this... She was mainly doing it for weight loss - which is what caught my eye! I must do some more reading about it as I am really interested. Will be watching with much interest and envy as I hadn't got by 'behind' into gear!

All the best
FF

There's a blog by an English woman living in Canada who's doing this in order to lose weight. I tried to put a link to it but it wouldn't work. It's on a website called A Country Life. She is just feeding herself on rations but not the rest of the family.

I've been thinking about living on rations for ages and ages but never really got round to it. Last weekend I just thought 'I'll do it'. I measured out my rations and mentioned what I was doing on the daily thread and suddenly it just took off. Having so much interest has really made me motivated as I can't just give up now. I haven't actually told my family what I'm doing. I mentioned it to OH and he didn't seem very interested but he didn't raise any objections. The kids haven't noticed at all. I'll tell them at the end of the week and ask if they've noticed any difference. I'm trying to get OH to read this thread but no joy :rolleyes:

thriftlady_2

Keep those stories coming JackieO, they're wonderful as are all the other reminiscences. I wish my parents could remember a bit more about the war:rolleyes:

jauntmoneyneeded

I am really loving this thread, all the reminices are fab. I was born in Germany 1953, Dad was in the army.Dad got the princely sum of £5 a week pay. They used to get a ration box which would contain a mix of veg and tinned goods, only thing was you could end up with loads of cabbage (which Dad hated)and not much else. Mum made me a kilt from a tartan scarf Dad had worn for years. We also had ration books after the war for Coffee, Tea, Cigarettes, National Dried Milk,Concentrated Orange Juice,Virol (yeuk!).

Keep up the good work thriftlady I am sure you should win post of the month
going to try and nominate now

ellas9602

Just wanted to say I love this thread and have nominated it for post of the month.

I've been late for work twice this week because I just had to see what you were having for tea before I left!

If you had to recommend one book for a
beginner , which would it be?
:T

Frugal_Fox

Thriftlady....

Its the same one! I'd forgotten what it was called - but I found the site fascinating. Slapped wrists over the American/Canadian bit!

I only found the thread today - and theres been a fair few posts! I've got some ironing to do (for a paying customer - so I really ought to do it!) then I'm going to sit here with a cuppa and read the thread from start to finish - noting recipes etc as I go. Wonder how it fits in with Weightwatchers????

FF

thriftlady_2

ellas9602 wrote: »

Just wanted to say I love this thread and have nominated it for post of the month.

I've been late for work twice this week because I just had to see what you were having for tea before I left!

If you had to recommend one book for a
beginner , which would it be?
:T

Thank you and anyone else who's nominated me :j

Marguerite Patten has written 3 books ;We'll Eat Again, The Victory
Cookbook and Postwar Kitchen. The first 2 are most useful for recipes on rations. The Postwar Kitchen deals with each year from 1946 to 1954 with recipes for foods as things gradually came off ration.

My books are in a box set called The Wartime Kitchen http://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Time-Kitchen-Nostalgic-1940-1954-Hamlyn/dp/0600611388/ref=sr_1_5/202-4560088-2422211?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182419950&sr=1-5 Amazon don't make it clear that this is 3 separate books. Also there is a book called Feeding The Nation by Marguerite Patten which is a compilation of the 3 books but with some recipes missing and no index.

Sweet ration I haven't bought this yet as we don't really like the children having sweets (chocolate's Ok though ). However, I've just remembered there's an old fashioned sweetie shop in Worcester so I think I'll buy the kids some sweets there tomorrow and spend OH's and my ration on chocolate. The kids will think this rationing lark is fantastic because they'll actually be getting a treat !

Linda32

Hello Thriftylady,

Just wanted to say this thread is an inspiration, and makes really interesting reading.

Previously, I said I did have some Camp Coffee which I use for coffee cakes. I tried some as coffee and I don't like it.

Previously someone mentioned about gravy granules being used by mistake. Gravy would be nicer.