Thriftlady's wartime experiment

Emmy_L

meanmarie wrote: »

I started school in 1951 and we had slates for school work in first year of school...maybe even for 2 years

Marie

I would have LOVED to have used slates for school work!Even as a child, I daydreamed about doing my sums on a little 'chalkboard' (I didn't know they were slates back then:o )

Emmy_L

tdd111 wrote: »

never posted before but loving this thread!!!!!

i love my cooking but also love doing it on a budget, theres me, my oh and my 2 girls.

the other day cooked a whole chicken and had a roast dinner, kept the left over chicken and made chicken korma. Also boiled up the bones etc with some herbs, added veg (after removing the unwanted bits) thickened the sauce and made a pie, 3 dinners from 1 chicken!

Congratulations on posting!!!
Chicken is an amazing meat to work with...I loved the whole idea of making "rubber chicken" meals, and up until I started the WW2 diet, I used chicken a lot to stretch out a meal.
I got groans of disappointment from Himself and DD1 when they realised there wouldn't be any chicken on the menu :rotfl: I think they like it far too much!

Justamum

Emmy_L wrote: »

Altogether, for my family of 2 adults, 3 children (two under 5 for rationing purposes) that gives me:

Bacon and Ham: 20oz (or 500g)
Meat :320z (or 850g)
Butter :10oz (or 250g)
Cheese :" "
Margarine : 20oz (500g)
Dripping/lard : " "
Milk :23 pts
Sugar : 40 oz ( 1125g)
Jam : 225g
Tea :10oz (250g)
Eggs : 11 per week
Sweets :15oz... though the only person who really eats sweets is Him self LOL

Don't diddle yourself out of rations! There are about 28g for each ounce. I did some weighing out on my digital scales in ounces, then switched over to the grams to see what the equivalent was.

So
20oz ham/marg = 570g
320z meat = 910g
10oz cheese = 285g
40oz sugar = 1140g
10oz tea = 285g

I think there's a heck of a lot of fat and sugar! I buy a bag of sugar and it lasts us weeks. 285g tea is more than two boxes of loose tea, which would last weeks here (I'm the only one who drinks it and I prefer loose).

I'm going to do my own version of rationing - converting the meat ration into pulses.

Justamum

Emmy_L wrote: »

Congratulations on posting!!!
Chicken is an amazing meat to work with...I loved the whole idea of making "rubber chicken" meals, and up until I started the WW2 diet, I used chicken a lot to stretch out a meal.
I got groans of disappointment from Himself and DD1 when they realised there wouldn't be any chicken on the menu :rotfl: I think they like it far too much!

Why not do a "modern" version of rationing substituting a chicken for the equivalent of some of the meat? After all, if chicken had been available during the war they would have perfected the art of "rubberising". And surely some people must have had chicken? There were hens around after all

thriftlady_2

Good point Justamum -definitely measure in ounces Emmy as that was how the rations were measured. I used ounces -always do;)

I found I used up the fat ration pretty easily because to be honest it was what gave the food some flavour especially bacon drippings and drippings from a roast. It is easy to use less fat or even no fat when you're cooking with lots of full-on modern flavours -passata, soy sauce, wine, spices, chillies, lemons etc.

I had loads of sugar left though.

Emmy_L

Good afternoon all

We had a total blackout yesterday (as in the internet didn't work for most of the day, and then Himself took over the computer :mad: ) but I am back!

I'm really looking forward to today, because we are having a roast!!!:j :j :j

I'm going to try cooking roast potatoes without any fat, and see how they turn out, and I must must MUST remember to keep the fat off f the joint so that it can be 'clarified' and re-used in some way.

I'm panicking a little about the butter ration, because my lot have gone a bit greedy with it, along with the bread I don't think it is going to last the rest of the week:eek:
It serves me right really...A wartime woman (or man ) would have been super-organised and would have made that butter stretch and got the meals on the table in time, but I have to admit that, especially with having the two very little ones, [EMAIL="I@m"]I'm[/EMAIL] feeling a bit flustered with it all!
STILL!
Onwards and upwards!
The one main thing that I can say about this all is that I am really enjoying the food that I eat.We are still struggling to get DD2 to eat anywhere near her portion of food, but she eems to be making up for it by actually drinking her milk:rolleyes: I know that it isn't a good substitute for all her dietary needs, but I am kind of stuck with this little fussy eater of mine and not sure what to do about that...

P.S thanks Justamum for the measurment conversion...in honesty, I didn't think to check whther I was getting the right amount...that butcher has a bit of explaining to do
As for the chicken,I may make that a great suprise for christmas (hoping that we get that far!LOL)

Justamum

I hope you don't mind me joining you in this Emmy? I am adapting it to our vegetarian/vegan diet though. What interests me more is being able to live on the quantities of food they had rather than having to be exactly precise about the authenticity of the actual food they eat. So I'm having soya milk instead of cow's, soya mince as part of the "meat" ration - and beans for the rest of it. I've got all the fat and sugar weighed out (and it looks a lot :eek:).

A couple of things though (Thriftlady might know this) - flour presumably wasn't rationed, so does that mean a loaf of homemade bread a day is ok?

They had something called soyaghetti (according to my We'll Eat Again book, but presumably this wasn't rationed - if not, then I might use ordinary spaghetti instead. But I wonder how often it was available?

There are various recipes using cocoa. Would this have been one of the "specials" which were occasionally available to regular customers? Or would it have been available on a more regular basis?

Also, I'm not starting with "empty" cupboards as I doubt very much whether anybody in the war would have had empty cupboards when rationing started - they would have had home-made pickles and preserves etc, so I'm keeping my pickled red cabbage, beetroot and piccalilli

thriftlady_2

Justamum wrote: »

A couple of things though (Thriftlady might know this) - flour presumably wasn't rationed, so does that mean a loaf of homemade bread a day is ok?

Neither flour nor bread were rationed although bread was rationed after the war for a while -don't forget that rationing lasted until 1954.

Shirlei

I don't know if this has been mentioned on Thriftlady's wartime experiment thread, but I loved "How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War" by Norman Longmate. It's an easy and fascinating read about the small details that went to make up people's lives then. I think it's still available to buy but my library definitely has a copy.

Shirlei

moanymoany

Made a steamed sponge this evening - from the Victory Cookbook.

6 oz plain flour
2 teaspoons bicarb
2 teaspoons dried ginger
2 tablespoons sugar
3 oz sultanas (I used these) or chopped dates

1 oz marge/butter
half a pint of milk

greased 2 pint bowl

Sift flour, bicarb and ginger into a bowl add the dried fruit

Boil the marge/butter and milk

Pour into the dry ingredients and mix well

Put the mixture in the bowl - cover with greased, greaseproof paper

Steam for 1 and 1/2 hours

Serve with custard (I did) or sweet sauce

It was delish - and I've tried it cold - equally delish. And so good for us!