War time recipes 6 December 2022 at 5:01PM edited 6 December 2022 at 5:04PM in Old style MoneySaving 72 replies 6.5K views

Katiehound

Came across these today, because there was rationing the recipes are very frugal

Might be worth a look at even a try out

https://www.lavenderandlovage.com/2014/11/on-the-home-front-original-wartime-recipes-from-the-great-war-1914-to-1918.html

and there are more here:
https://www.lavenderandlovage.com/?s=Wartime+Recipes

YorksLass

Interesting, Katiehound.  Some of these aren't too different from what we eat now!

I have an old, dog eared and battered recipe book that belonged to my GM that I still use from time to time, with some small adjustments to suit today's tastes.  From the font and product advertisements I think it dates to around the 1930s with all the recipes having been submitted by housewives from the Bradford and other surrounding areas in Yorkshire.  The front and back covers, along with a few of the pages, are missing but it still makes for interesting reading.  Some of the recipes have very fanciful names that belie what they really are!

RAS

One of the bigger issues with some wartime recipes is the long cooking times, even when energy (coal and gas) were limited in supply, they were comparatively cheap. 

There was a lot of emphasis on eating cold meals, particularly later in the war.

And some of the cheaper cuts are now difficult to get. Although at least we are not being encouraged to eat snoek.

bouicca21

My mum’s go to cookbook was a wartime government publication by Marguerite Patten.  It included instructions for cooking whale.  Mum insisted that if one followed Mrs Patten’s instructions, it was actually quite palatable.  I never heard anyone else from that generation agree with her.

My local Waitrose has taken to including what they call ‘forgotten cuts’ on the butchery counter.  These include ox tail.  Now I bought an oxtail from a much cheaper butcher in Croydon pre pandemic, and weighed the bones after cooking it.  I came to the conclusion that the actual meat cost as much if not more per kilo as stewing beef, plus it needed cooking for longer.  Not a cheap buy at all.

herebeme

The authors point about portion sizes is spot on. I have a set of crockery from about 1900s. The main plate from then is about the size of a side plate these days. A modern cereal bowl for one person holds about the same volume as one of the 1900 serving dishes designed for a family! Eating from an old set like this is a good way to be frugal imo. 

Rosa_Damascena

herebeme said:

The authors point about portion sizes is spot on. I have a set of crockery from about 1900s. The main plate from then is about the size of a side plate these days. A modern cereal bowl for one person holds about the same volume as one of the 1900 serving dishes designed for a family! Eating from an old set like this is a good way to be frugal imo. 

Seriously? I was under the impression that people would eat a bigger volume that we do now, but being active and a lack of snacking meant they kept in reason shape.

weenancyinAmerica

Rosa-Damascena - she is right on. Portion sizes have gotten much bigger. We have some snack bowls and I keep pointing out to one of my roommates that they hold one serving of ice cream. The cereal bowl she uses holds 4 - and then she tells the nutritionist she only had 1 serving. She has been deluding herself for a long time. She got measured for her new uniform and it has a 52 inch waist - very hard to find in the store. But she refuses to check the portion sizes on the cans and boxes her food comes from. Our companies finally admitted that a 12 oz. can of soda is what people consider to be one serving and have upped the serving size (and doubled the calorie count). Our roommate who does most of the cooking refuses to accept the serving amounts on boxes and doubles everything so we end up with lots of leftovers, even with the female roommate deluding herself with how many servings she is eating and eating for two or three. A portion of meat is supposed to be the size of your palm, not the size of the plate!

Katiehound

I have only had a skim read but these caught my eye:
Ration scones (dates not sugar)
sausage cakes
'Nice supper dish!': baked ham & cheese patties
savoury spread: cheese& lentils
Ginger puddings

Although some of the cooking times are long- perhaps in slow cooker?

I note the way of extending jam for the jam tart- Boil it with water & custard powder!

I also saw the portion size comments. Much smaller.....

herebeme

Maybe the very rich ate more? But regular people not so. At least, if I use my grandparents’ china and serve onto the plate like they did when we were kids, the portions are very small by today’s standards. 

If you google ‘history of plate sizes’ it’s really quite fascinating. I lived in the USA a few years ago and bought plates etc over there. I was amazed at how much bigger they were then the plates I’d been using that I’d had off my mum and were probably from the 1970s. 

herebeme

I like the idea about making pies with layers of potato in between the meat filling. Will definitely try that. 

The lentil spread thing sounds a bit like a spreadable version of pease-pudding. I’ve done a lentil spread before but it’s very stodgy and I got very bored of it after a few days. Definitely not hummus

London_1

RAS said:

One of the bigger issues with some wartime recipes is the long cooking times, even when energy (coal and gas) were limited in supply, they were comparatively cheap. 

There was a lot of emphasis on eating cold meals, particularly later in the war.

And some of the cheaper cuts are now difficult to get. Although at least we are not being encouraged to eat snoek.

I remember having to eat snoek and it was a revolting fish, no wonder the South African sent tonnes of it to the UK, that and tripe I loathed but you ate it because it was that or go hungry

JackieO xx