Proper old style! Living on WW2 rations

Cappella

What an interesting thread
Does anyone know if flour was rationed? I know that bread wasn’t but can’t find information about flour anywhere?

bouicca21

I'm assuming not, but I think it had to be wheatmeal. It's really difficult to find accurate details. For example, the December 1942 list that I used in post 1 includes cereal. But adverts in the Times for shredded wheat don't mention a points value until 1945 (when it was 3 for a 'large' packet); they do mention that transport restrictions meant it wasn't available in certain regions.

monnagran

Cappella wrote: »

What an interesting thread
Does anyone know if flour was rationed? I know that bread wasn’t but can’t find information about flour anywhere?

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.

[Deleted User]

I well remember the interminable queueing for everything .apart from things being rationed even on ration things were often just not available

No good having points for things that you couldn't buy if there were nothing in the shops to buy.

I can often remember seeing shops shut even after in late 1940s because they just had nothing to sell. There would be scrawled on the window in white shoe stuff 'Not open until Thursday when we hope to get supplies !!'

True no one went that hungry, but often the 'sameness' of the food was the hardest bit.

Neighbours network was like a jungle drum, and 'Mrs from next door' would pop her head over and say ' so and so shop has dried fruit or shoe polish or something in that was hard to get' and women would grab their shopping bag and any idle child that happened to be in the area (usually me for my Mum ) and we would hare off to the shops to queue for what ever was there that day.

I think its one of the reasons I dislike shopping so much as my childhood seem to consist of standing in a queue for something (often I didn't even know what ) as my Mum stood in another queue

Unlimited fresh fruit sounds great ,but often the shops didn't have that either, especially in the east end of London.
The fact a shop was still standing was often a result, if nothing else.We lived on the Isle of Dogs and it took quite a battering.

I remember clearly one tiny butchers shop that one half was badly damaged and shored up with roofing felt and wooden timbers but the chap kept on as best he could for his customers buying and selling on the same day what he had managed to get that day from the market.

Because of streets being clogged up with rubble etc the lorries couldn't get around very well to deliver stuff (lack of petrol was a problem as well)

My late dad decided to move us out to the 'countryside ' and we moved to Blackheath which is only a couple of miles across the River Thames.

The rationing problem wasn't quite so bad and a few more shops had stuff in them but fruit and veg were grown in our garden as we had a very large garden after we moved.

Every scrap of anything edible was eaten and no one had the choice to be 'fussy' about anything.
You ate up or went without.National dried milk in silver grey tins with blue lettering was quite prized in our house and my mum kept one of the tins once empty as a biscuit tin for years.

Mum always said the worse rationing came after the war had finished really.
I think that generation were the original recyclers and to this day I still wind up and save a bit of string .

My Dad decided to repaint our house one day, and inside we had two colours green and cream as that was the only colour he could find to use so every room had a white washed ceiling and green and cream walls, even my Mums pantry was green and cream.:)

I too remember Woolton pie and really disliked it immensely.

She had a stash of tinned fish called Snoek which came I think from South Africa ,well to me it tasted disgusting and I would have happily sent it back there ,but it was food and it had to be eaten.

My Aunt in the U.S. used to send food parcels of tinned stuff after the war and I first tasted pineapple and fell in love with it To me it was the most amazing taste in the world. She also sent for some reason tinned heinz baby apple puree, which I was far too old for ,but my Mum insisted we used it like a jam and spread it on bread

The diet may have been fairer and healthier but I don't think I could do it today I am far too fond of herbs and spices and to lose my sweet chilli sauce would be dreadful to me
Nothing in this world would make me eat tripe again for all the tea in china :):) horrible stuff.

bouicca21

Well the great thing about a 21st century take on the diet is that there are no shortages and we have fridges and freezers.

And of course there is a greater variety of goods available. I'm not giving up on herbs and spices. In fact tomorrow I'm planning a dhall, using the recipe that was posted on one of those deleted threads. Good thing I wrote it down.

I saw three ghastly recipes for using potatoes for a main course in ministry of food adverts. Definitely not going down that road, nor am I going to try Woolton pie!

PS I just love the idea of Blackheath as country. Not quite how you would describe the village today.

monnagran

JackieO I do so agree and am most impressed if you actually ate Snoek. Mum bought some but I wouldn't touch it and once she had tasted it, neither would she. I think that the cat thought it was his birthday. We would probably been thrown into jail if anyone had found out. I was sworn to secrecy and on my honour I kept that secret until about 30 seconds ago. I think that the statute of limitations will save me. It must have been 75 years ago.

[Deleted User]

monnagran wrote: »

JackieO I do so agree and am most impressed if you actually ate Snoek. Mum bought some but I wouldn't touch it and once she had tasted it, neither would she. I think that the cat thought it was his birthday. We would probably been thrown into jail if anyone had found out. I was sworn to secrecy and on my honour I kept that secret until about 30 seconds ago. I think that the statute of limitations will save me. It must have been 75 years ago.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:My late Mum bless her was insistant that we ate what ever was put in front of us, irrespective whether we liked it or not. I won't tell a soul your secret Monnagran :rotfl:I think the food police will let you off now

boudicca, indeed the Blackheath of today is nothing like the village of the 1940s, my school which was attachted to the All Saints Church on the heath had back then four classes, which had an average of 42 children per class. The roads around the village were not even tarmacced until HM Queen did a tour acros the heath in the 1950s after her Coronation:rotfl: it really was a village back then

RicardaRacoon

monnagran wrote: »

JackieO I do so agree and am most impressed if you actually ate Snoek. Mum bought some but I wouldn't touch it and once she had tasted it, neither would she. I think that the cat thought it was his birthday. We would probably been thrown into jail if anyone had found out. I was sworn to secrecy and on my honour I kept that secret until about 30 seconds ago. I think that the statute of limitations will save me. It must have been 75 years ago.

I remember reading Nella Lasts War where she shares a tin of salmon with her dog. Reading that I thought that this wasn't the thing you would write to the mass observer about it...

joedenise

JackieO wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:My late Mum bless her was insistant that we ate what ever was put in front of us, irrespective whether we liked it or not. I won't tell a soul your secret Monnagran :rotfl:I think the food police will let you off now

boudicca, indeed the Blackheath of today is nothing like the village of the 1940s, my school which was attachted to the All Saints Church on the heath had back then four classes, which had an average of 42 children per class. The roads around the village were not even tarmacced until HM Queen did a tour acros the heath in the 1850s after her coronation:rotfl: it really was a village back then

Was that HM Queen Victoria? or was it a typo and you meant 1950s[/B?

Denise

RedFraggle

In case anyone else is wondering
http://www.recipespastandpresent.org.uk/wartime/tag/woolton-pie/