2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Laura_Elsewhere

diminua said:

And inevitably a lot of the things I wasn't counting - like fresh tomatoes and citrus and olives and all the delicious breads that liven up my diet - simply wouldn't be available.  

That's really interesting to read, diminua- I know we would be horribly over on sugar if we simply started recording what we eat, and we get through enormous quantities of butter and cheese compared to the rationing amounts... 

Tomatoes, though- I have my grandfather's hand-written notebook which he started in the 1930s when they married and continued til he died in the early 1980s, just in the one little notebook, every single payment for rates, electricity, gas and coal/coke, telephone bills once they acquired one, and doctor's bills too... anyway, mostly they are intact lists from 1930s to 1980s, but there's just two pages where he recorded the tomato, marrow and runner bean yields throughout one summer in the early 1940s, and it was a LOT...! 
Copying from where I mentioned it in @Cherryfudge's 'Moving On' thread back in August:

" on Aug 21st 1943 they picked 4lb 8oz of runner beans… 
Tomatoes were only yielding c.4-6oz a week until Sept when they went up to 1lb 7oz on the 2nd, another 1lb on the 3rd, 1lb 15oz on the 5th and 4lb on the 7th and it carried on like that, until 11lb picked on the 25th with note ‘cleared garden of tomatoes’!
they had 43 tomato plants (yielding 42lb 2oz in all!)- also the runner beans ( 26lb 15oz in all) and marrows (10 in all)"

And Gran would have bottled some of the tomatoes and runner beans, and made jam of the marrows, I suspect. So they would have enjoyed them all freshly-picked, but also had them until well into the winter. 

If you have less than 43 tomato plants, obviously you're just not trying!  

Laura_Elsewhere

Olive oil was still sold in tiny bottle at chemists in the 1980s, I have a little bottle I bought in the 1990s and kept because it amused me that I had bought it at a chemist's!

The sugar ration wouldn't have gone far once you remember that coffee was mostly drunk only with or after meals, quite often bought at coffee stalls or in restaurants rather than made at home, and an awful lot of people didn't drink it at all- but very nearly everyone drank strong tea, all day and every day, throughout the day and typically with a good hefty couple of spoons of sugar in it, like "builders' tea" still does. 

And it was for baking, and to have with cereal, and for making jam and jellies, and for baked apples, and for sprinkling over bread and milk, and for everything, all through the year. I suspect the tea-drinkers accounted for a huge amount of it nationally, though. 

When you look at archaeological remains in Britain, you can tell from the dental health when the Sugar Tax is lifted in the 19th century, because they all suddenly start having decay on the chewing surface which is typically to do with very high levels of sugar in the diet... the bread&marge/ potatoes&marge diet didn't provide much energy so everyone propped themselves up with endless sweet strong tea, all through the day, between meals and with meals... and their teeth show the results!!

Not much had changed by the 1940s, although coffee was becoming more widely-drunk, but nowhere near the same levels as coffee drinking. 

Nelliegrace

Much of the sugar ration went in tea. Mum’s old Bero recipe book uses margarine, fewer eggs and more breadcrumbs. A fruit crumble uses less fat than fruit pie. My old Bara brith recipe uses cold tea to soak the fruit, no fat, and one egg eked out with a bit of milk. 

The grey, stodgy, wholemeal, National Loaf was so unpopular that it was nicknamed Hitler’s secret weapon. It was made using the Chorleywood Process to use the softer British wheat, to reduce imports of strong wheat, and had added calcium and vitamins. Even worse, it was sold a day old because stale bread cuts into thinner slices, and was supposed to use less. The Waste of Food Order, 12th, August 1940, made wasting food was a criminal offence. 

Taking in an evacuee would increase the amount of rationed milk and eggs for the household and there would be a few oranges, but no extra tea ration. The 10 shillings for the first evacuee and 8 shillings and sixpence for others would have helped too, and children were expected to help with the chores. Wives of those called up got a very small allowance to keep the family, from his low pay.

skogar

For years I thought that the war time sugar ration was quite high and I wouldn't have needed that much sugar, as I don't have it in tea. Since I started jam making, preserving etc. I no longer think that is the case as it would have been needed to make jams, chutneys etc to preserve fruit and veg and of course extra sugar is also needed for fruit wines I'm aware on 1 side of my family noone has sugar in tea as when they were children sugar was rationed and it was the easiest thing to cut out.

Sarahspangles

Laura_Elsewhere said:

And Gran would have bottled some of the tomatoes and runner beans, and made jam of the marrows, I suspect. So they would have enjoyed them all freshly-picked, but also had them until well into the winter. 

If you have less than 43 tomato plants, obviously you're just not trying!  

My Granddad had quite an impressive setup on his allotments with a couple of brick built greenhouses with stoves. He visited every morning and evening on the way to and from his job. He grew a lot of tomatoes. My grandmother dutifully bottled them but the only way they were ever served was on toast for breakfast. Tomato sauces just never entered her repertoire!

diminua

I only have one tomato plant I'm afraid - and I only have that because it's a little trouper that spontaneously grew from some bought compost (along with two siblings) and even though it's only been on the windowsill and I've been away twice and not had anyone in to water it not only refused to die but even grew and ripened four whole tomatoes. I've shifted it a little way indoors to avoid frost and am hoping to overwinter it and put it in a bigger pot and maybe get more next year. 

thriftwizard

@Cherryfudge, thank you, that book looks interesting; I've just ordered it from the library.

@Laura_Elsewhere, ginger beer is totally necessary here in Dorset, Blyton notwithstanding. But it's the real deal, home-brewed & actually probiotic, as is real lemonade, the way it used to be made; lightly fermented (i.e. just for a few days) with just the natural yeasts, like elderflower or rhubarb champagne. Very refreshing, with an absolute minimum of alcohol. But that apple cake looks delicious, and the whole meal quite scrumptious!

@diminua, I've tried overwintering tomatoes in my conservatory & have to say, they didn't do too well - not enough sunlight. But many of the "grafted" tomato plants sold next spring will be side-shoots from plants that have been overwintered in warm, light industrial greenhouses, so it can be done.

My tomatoes have done well this year, and are still going, but only to the extent that we'll eat in the immediate future, My allotment, a "half-plot", is really only a quarter the size of a standard plot, but I'm finding the dilapidated-but-still-functional greenhouse an utter delight! We're not going to run out of dried chillis for the foreseeable future... However I think I could easily run out of sugar "on the ration" between baking, preserving & fermenting. I'd love to know what my Great-Granny did; she combined the rations - and the cooking - for 4 adults and one teenager (Mum) plus whatever eggs their hens laid and all the veg Great-Grandad could grow in their quarter-acre garden. Did she keep & store anything non-perishable more than was needed that week? Or would that have been frowned on? 

Mum, now 98, still remembers the National Loaf; she's currently living in WW2 in her head and quite often speaks to us in French now as she's convinced she's in La  Résistance - she grew up in Kent & was 18 when the war ended! Great-Granny made a "National Loaf" once and they all hated it with a passion; it ended up being fed to the chickens, as did most peelings & outer leaves, boiled up & mashed. So there must have been flour available to make other kinds of bread, even if you'd swapped some of your allowance for poultry feed, as she's certainly talked about eating sandwiches in the air-raid shelter. 
 

ETA: @Nelliegrace, please could you share your bara brith recipe? I love the stuff but have never managed to make it well!

Cherryfudge

@thriftwizard, I wonder if your Mum had an actual connection with the Resistance? My Mum used to revert to the Fifties and her office job in London when she was older and unwell: I'd heard various tales from when she was younger but it was quite fascinating to get a phone call from her and be treated as a contemporary, and I had to promise to let her Mum (who passed away in the late 1970s) know she was unable to get the train that evening. Of course the whole thing would have been confusing had I asked who she thought I was and what the date was, but I just went along with it, secure in the knowledge she wasn't by then physically able to leave the house and if her mind was at rest, she was safe enough. But as far as I can tell, the situation she felt she was in was based on real memories, which makes me wonder whether your Mum may be remembering something, too.

Regarding older people and other languages, one more short story: Mum was educated in Spanish and in the hope of jogging that part of her memory, I asked a Spanish member of staff at the nursing home to try his language on her. She gazed at him as if at a curiosity, but said absolutely nothing so in the end we gave up. When he'd left the room, she turned to me and remarked 'That man was Spanish, you know'.

On another tack, I think I need to try to overwinter my 'best' tomato, inspired by people's efforts here. Do you prune them back, keep them warm/cool, watered/dry? I should have made notes when I've tried in the past as I seem to have a sure-fire method of killing them!

CapricornLass

Gosh - what a lot has gone on!  And so fascinating to read, too.  (I've been buried in OH's tax return, so that's why I've not been on for a while.)

Earlier on this year, my mum recorded some of her memories of her childhood during the war in Glasgow and Clarkston.  I've copied out the bit about food and clothes rationing.  It has a bit about the sugar, and also jam being a replacement for butter on bread - something my grandparents continued to do long after the war had ended.

It must have felt that everything was rationed.  Not only was it rationed, but sometimes the quality was poor.  I can remember going to a restaurant well-known for good meals.  My mother tasted her meal and left the rest untouched.  The manageress was in tears – it was the best the kitchen could do with the ingredients supplied.  She didn’t fancy the meal either.

Perhaps it would be easier to think of those foods that were unrationed, such as potatoes, carrots, swede, turnips, cabbage.  Basically, those that could be grown in this country.  The same rough guide can be applied to fruit- apples and pears.  In summers there were strawberries and raspberries.  In addition to rationing, you had to register with the shops from which you would buy your rationed foods.  You couldn’t flit from grocer to grocer.  There was a Black Market which was illegal.  If you had family living abroad, they could perhaps send a parcel of the tea, coffee, biscuits and chocolate which was a welcome addition to your weekly ration.

Canned foods also cost points. Strange to relate, milk and eggs were rationed, but the biggest loss for me was sweets and chocolate.  My mother’s greatest loss was surely chocolate biscuits.  She stopped taking sugar in her cup of tea, so that she could continue to make jam with the berries in the garden.  If we ran out of butter, we could put jam on our bread.  Rationing was difficult, especially so for those on special diets.

Each person had a ration book, the colour of the cover indicated to which group you belonged, male, female, child, pregnant, heavy worker, etc.  When you paid your bill, the shop-keeper cut out the number of coupons from your book.  You then had to count the number of coupons left in your book to see if you had enough coupons left so that you could buy e.g. a packet of biscuits.  Having the cash to buy was simply not enough.

No doubt rationing was fair, but there was not enough for extras.  Brides had to hope that friends and neighbours could give a coupon or two to help her having a wedding cake, which would then be hidden under a beautifully decorated cardboard “cake”. 

Towards the end of the war, they thought to save paper by not putting a label round tins.  It was infuriating if you opened a tin to find the contents were the peaches you had been saving for a special occasion!

Clothes and Shoes

Clothing children during the War was a great problem for mothers and when children were growing rapidly.  I have written elsewhere about coming home from school with very wet feet.  The problem was not a lack of money but a lack of coupons.  You can do lots of repairs to clothing but few things can prolong the lives of shoes.  Use of rubber soles does not help if children have out-grown their shoes.  I got very wet feet one day going to school.  One of my friends’ mother saw me, and gave me a pair of another of her daughter’s shoes which she had outgrown and which fitted me.   Many fathers were hammering tacks (small squares of metal) on the heels of ladies shoes.

Holes in jumpers and knee length stockings were carefully darned but coats and jackets and blazers needed patches (leather ones if possible).  “Fashion” did not exist.  Hair was often short, but women whose hair was longer would cut the top from a lisle stocking to use as a hair band and tucked their hair up.  Head scarves were very popular.  Stockings were made of lisle which wrinkled badly at the ankle.  Young ladies who wanted to look smart would draw a line up their legs so that it looked as if they were wearing silk stockings.

Towards the end of the war the first nylon stockings appeared.  They were an instant success.  Every young girl wanted a pair of nylons.  In 1951, six years after the war had ended, Ian [my father.  He and Mum eventually married in 1956] went to the USA.  He brought back two pairs of nylons, one pair, 30 dernier, and the other 15 dernier.  Wow!!

She also recalls one of her aunts who ran a small shop in Glasgow spending a lot of time after the shop had closed trying to sort out the coupons and making it all balance.  

Nelliegrace

Midwife Mary Thomas used to make this for the staff when she worked night shifts. At other times we took turns to supply toast and homemade jam for the 5 a.m. low point. Word would go round that Mrs Brown (the teapot) was at the desk and we made sure that everyone could have a few minutes to swallow something, to complete the long shift and get home safely. She wrote this for me in a hurry one night. 

I use half and bake one alongside a Sunday pot roast, then bung in a crumble or bread and butter pudding when the bara brith is done, and finally some flapjacks or rock cakes.