2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Cherryfudge

MrsCD said:

Were foods like barley and lentils on the ration? We were just talking, DH and me, about how cheaply you can make a pan of filling broth, compared to a ready meal where you feel hungry after an hour or two. I made a pan yesterday with a leek, 3 bendy carrots, 3 small bendy parsnips, a few old potatoes, stock cubes and a good handful of red lentils and barley. It made a good meal for both of us yesterday and today, but I don't know how many people would be prepared to stand and do the veg.

I can't find any reference to either being rationed officially and both are nutritious so I'd imagine they went down well when there was less meat available. I understand lentils weren't grown commercially in the UK till 2017 (Raising pulses: UK's first commercial crop of lentils to go on sale in autumn | Food & drink industry | The Guardian) but the article also says they were eaten here in prehistory, so I'm not sure whether our remote ancestors imported them or picked from the wild or how they got them, or how they might have arrived in the UK during the war.

Barley, however, has long been grown in the UK so I would imagine it was part of the wartime diet. I don't know how a big a crop it was but I've found wartime recipes that refer to it: Ursula's Cook Book (1946) has a pottage containing barley. Marguerite Patten quoted wartime recipes for flaked barley cake, barley water and 'golden barley soup', and has a recipe for lentil sausages, but this last is in the 'Victory Cookbook' so it may or may not have been a bit of a treat. I've a Good Housekeeping book from 1946 with barley recipes and one lentil recipe (lentil cream soup).

I went down the rabbit hole and compared two copies of Elizabeth Craig's Economical Cookery: in both 1934 and 1948 she has three barley recipes and three lentil recipes... so lentils must have been around, but perhaps barley was easier to come by?

I'd imagine 'Pottage a la MrsCD' would be great as comfort food as well as being good for us - and using up Christmas discount veg!

Watty1

Rose Elliot bean cookbook has a number of wartime recipes, my long term favourite being tomato and butter bean soup.  Perhaps beans were more available than lentils?

Cherryfudge

Watty1 said:

Rose Elliot bean cookbook has a number of wartime recipes, my long term favourite being tomato and butter bean soup.  Perhaps beans were more available than lentils?

I have a copy but for some reason hadn't read the introduction. That's where I've been most of the morning, along with searching online for references to what grew in the UK in WW2! That Rose Elliot book is absolutely fascinating, thanks for the reference @Watty1

I think you have a good point about the availability of beans during the war. People could grow their own and were encouraged to turn any bit of land over to growing the most nutritious foods possible. I'm supposing people dried some, as fridges and freezers weren't generally available.

CapricornLass

Runner beans  used to be salted down. I worked with a colleague (younger than me) who remembers her parents salting runner beans down for the winter, before freezers became popular

I also have a war-time cookbook, which came out in 1945,  It mentions haricot and pinto beans, but strangely enough, not lentils,.  This also mentions salting beans, which the author says she learnt from Belgian refugees.  Rolled oats were available through the points system

Cherryfudge

I remember my parents preserving eggs in waterglass. There was a big red bucket full of them so my brother could have his beloved eggs when the hens went off lay! I'd not heard of salting runner beans, I wonder if you could get all the salt out before eating them?

I think some of us will already have taken part in threads to do with wartime rationing. I was wondering if this discussion should perhaps move over to one of them - save getting food and clothing mixed up! (It's a bit messy, keep your pinny on). I'm sure there will have been various threads over the years, but this is one I had bookmarked, which wasn't all that long ago, and then there's @thriftlady_2's thread about living off rations, and @bouicca21's on the same subject.

TC77

@Laura_Elsewhere thank you. @florianatwobob for the.milk,.coincidentally about half an hour before reading your post I'd been telling dd2 to try milk on the pen mark on her jeans. Is it the fat in the milk as I then told her full fat milk which she doesn't use but she will try s/.skimmed! I also thought it should.be very shortly after? 
I noticed pen on my newish  posh sheet and thought I must try , and also make notes in bed in pencil. We were in shops looking at trousers for her.  And I bought some reduced jeans for.me. I am assuming that if in sale doesn't reduce the coupon value. I didn't think about the coupons! 

Just looked at coupon figures and wanted to see if jeans count as 5? Like corduroy trousers? X 

PipneyJane

TC77 said:

Just looked at coupon figures and wanted to see if jeans count as 5? Like corduroy trousers? X 

@TC77 the notes on the first post state Dungarees = Jeans = 6 coupons 

Sorry

- Pip

Laura_Elsewhere

TC77 said:

 And I bought some reduced jeans for.me. I am assuming that if in sale doesn't reduce the coupon value. I didn't think about the coupons! 

I think it took me til my third annual challenge to really get the hang of it! 

I think the coupons system works wonders in the long run for getting you to think about whether to buy new clothes- I stand there in a shop, going, "welllll.... yes, I like you- but do I like you six copupons' worth???" and then you also start that thing that ALL our grandmothers did automstically, but we've mostly lost, of thinking ahead so you become aware of what you need- "I like this pretty blouse but I only have 23 coupons left this year and I know I shall need new winter boots and a better coat, so..." 
We've been able to get used to just buying whatever we want, for tuppence... it's a massive change to think beforehand about what new clothes we need and then with what coupons are left, to be far more picky about what we want!   

PollyWollyDoodle

I agree, that’s how it has worked for me, I really question whether I want something new if it’s going to eat a big hole in my coupons.  We have so many clothes these days, far more than women (or men) in the 1940s would have had. 

It’s also made me think much more carefully about where I shop.  If I’m spending those coupons I want whatever I buy to last!   I would never shop at Pr*mark or similar, I’ve tried to be aware of where (and how) clothing is produced for a long time and buy ‘ethically’.  Now I’m also thinking much more about quality and longevity.  

I think of it a bit like my grocery budget.  I eat mostly vegetarian food and only eat high welfare meat when I can afford it. In this case the second-hand clothing is the vegetable element, with the occasional bit of new, ethically sourced clothing thrown in to make it more exciting. Sorry I’m mixing food and clothes again! 😄 

Still no coupons spent this year and only three second hand items. 

Watty1

Sorry I derailed with the food, it just struck me as I cleared the cupboard but for me it is more about stockpiling and getting my head around saving and not scarcity as they are not the same.  I know for some who are genuinely very short then they will be.  For me the coupon scheme has made me aware that I will need to be very mindful of what i spend.

I have a good income but  spent many years in an unmarried relationship that ended.  We had no agreements and although I had paid off the mortgages and owned a rental property that I had stupidly put into joint names so I am cleaned out getting out of that and getting on my feet.

The ration coupons really help. I really wanted the waterproof trousers so was happy to spend my ration coupons on those.  I love the second hand item I bought.   The scheme has ended late night " I wants" and "I can afford" and so is helping me save.   I appreciate that so much.