2025 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

Cherryfudge

@PipneyJane, remember that clothes (and, I assume, yarn) for under-fours are coupon-free.

I have been admiring the knitwear and blankets given to my newest grand daughter. So many lovely blankets! There's a particular shade of dusky pink there that I much prefer to the baby pink we usually see. There's also a large white 4-ply blanket made by the baby's Yorkshire Great-Grandmother which has heirloom potential. I didn't knit anything as I heard work colleagues were busy on the blankets!

Laura_Elsewhere

@maryb - I use lard a lot for the reasons you give, and yet another advantage over oil is that you can ‘clean’ it to keep reusing it: put it all into a pyrex jug and add boiling water, at least twice the volume of water to fat and stir very well to mix all the fat and water; let it cool and then refrigerate for 48 hrs to set the lard solid. Use a thin knife to get out the thick disc of solidified lard and gently scrape the bottom.

it will still have water in so now you heat it in a saucepan with a plate over it to let steam bubbles explode out of it (!)  and then you have clean lard to use for roasting or frying.

I collect mine in a couple of jars until I have enough to do a batch of cleaning! 

florianatwobob

Talk of stockings has just unlocked a memory. My mum used to take advantage of a ‘while you wait stocking darning’ service in the town she lived in in the 1950s whilst rationing was still
in place. Mum hated darning and this lady was far better at it than she was, especially repairs to stockings. 

Laura_Elsewhere

Cherryfudge said:

@PipneyJane, remember that clothes (and, I assume, yarn) for under-fours are coupon-free.

I am pretty sure that knitting wool cost coupons regardless of shade or weight or purpose. As I understand it, very very little baby-wool was produced during the war, and so people really did have to make do and mend, either knitting anew after unravelling and washing the wool of extant things, and stretching it a little as it dried to un-kink it, or simply mending extant things and perhaps adding a bit of embroidery or some ribbon bows, etc., to make it look new. 
The situation may have improved in the post-war-still-rationing years, but during the war I'd put sixpence on there being no baby-wool available to buy. 

Laura_Elsewhere

I must update my signature- not one but two new jumpers bought! so that's two lots of 5 coupons used up. 

I bought one in November, M&S men's pure lambswool crew-neck in dark grey, and found it so good that I decided to lash out wildly and buy one in a sort of nearly-eau-de-Nîl green and one in a sort of mid-light salmon-pink  

But they are good quality, and should last many years. 

Nelliegrace

I had fun showing some of my collection of vintage handkerchiefs at WI today. There was a lot of interest in the clothing coupons required for the CC41 Utility Mark hankies. I wonder what talks were held about clothes rationing and Make Do and Mend in the 1940s.

Was anyone here in the Brownies? I remember the things we had to keep in the brown dress pocket, checked at every meeting, a clean, spare handkerchief, two pennies for the telephone box, paper and a pencil, a piece of string and two safety pins. Was there something else? The yellow neckerchief would make a sling for first aid. We practised bandaging and taking messages. 

I managed to sell six eggs quietly. Later another member asked loudly if I had eggs to sell. I was glad to tell her that I hadn’t. I wonder if back garden hen keepers would be prosecuted or the purchasers, or both, if they were caught?

I heard something good last week, a large flour mill donates the flour for the baking lessons at the nearby college to support the students.

Some bad news on tea rations, for those with friends overseas. The Times, 6th, March 1941. 

PipneyJane

Laura_Elsewhere said:

@maryb - I use lard a lot for the reasons you give, and yet another advantage over oil is that you can ‘clean’ it to keep reusing it: put it all into a pyrex jug and add boiling water, at least twice the volume of water to fat and stir very well to mix all the fat and water; let it cool and then refrigerate for 48 hrs to set the lard solid. Use a thin knife to get out the thick disc of solidified lard and gently scrape the bottom.

it will still have water in so now you heat it in a saucepan with a plate over it to let steam bubbles explode out of it (!)  and then you have clean lard to use for roasting or frying.

I collect mine in a couple of jars until I have enough to do a batch of cleaning! 

Thank you for sharing your lard cleaning technique, @Laura_Elsewhere.  I do something similar with the fat drained off the Christmas Goose.  This year, we got 1.5L of fat directly from the bird, plus there’s another 650g in the freezer waiting to be rendered, which the butcher had already removed and vacuum packed before we got it.  I’ll add to it scraps and trimmings from various roast chickens - wonder if the butcher can save me some chicken skins** -  including the fat lifted off my homemade chicken stock, before eventually rendering it down in the oven, one day when I’m cooking a roast.  Once drained of any crackling*, I’ll wash it and clean it like you do.  

It’s well worth the effort.  We store ours in recycled soup containers.  Each one holds approximately 500ml.  The in-use one is in the fridge, and the others are in the freezer.  I don’t deep fry but, since 90% of my recipes start “fry onion with sliced mushrooms, add garlic…”, I use a couple of tablespoons of goose fat per meal, as my primary cooking medium.

Also thank you for your wise words about fat quality.  If I ever actually use the deep-fat-fryer we were given as a wedding present, I think we will use lard in it, not oil.  Only been married for 21.5 years and its never been out of its box…

- Pip


* Dust the crackling with salt and pepper and fight to get your share.

** I’ve been in his shop during a morning when he’s portioned up chickens and prepared chicken breast fillets.  It’s quite an industrial process.  When I ask, he’ll save me chicken carcasses for stock making, selling them in bags of 3 for £2.50.  Not only do I get a really nice vat of chicken stock, there’s always enough meat left on the carcasses for at least one meal.  

PipneyJane

Nelliegrace said:

I had fun showing some of my collection of vintage handkerchiefs at WI today. There was a lot of interest in the clothing coupons required for the CC41 Utility Mark hankies. I wonder what talks were held about clothes rationing and Make Do and Mend in the 1940s.

Was anyone here in the Brownies? I remember the things we had to keep in the brown dress pocket, checked at every meeting, a clean, spare handkerchief, two pennies for the telephone box, paper and a pencil, a piece of string and two safety pins. Was there something else? The yellow neckerchief would make a sling for first aid. We practised bandaging and taking messages. 

I managed to sell six eggs quietly. Later another member asked loudly if I had eggs to sell. I was glad to tell her that I hadn’t. I wonder if back garden hen keepers would be prosecuted or the purchasers, or both, if they were caught?

I heard something good last week, a large flour mill donates the flour for the baking lessons at the nearby college to support the students.

Some bad news on tea rations, for those with friends overseas. The Times, 6th, March 1941. 

I was a Brownie, @Nelliegrace, and later on a Girl Guide.  I don’t remember having my pocket contents inspected, but I do remember always being told to carry a safety pin, as well as a clean hanky, in case I needed to do first aid.  Brownies is where I first learned First Aid, including slings, applying dressings, and bandaging.  “Always iron your hankies after washing, girls, to sterilise them.  They won’t stay sterile, but it will kill off any residual bugs!”

- Pip

maryb

I pour the lard and water mixture into a large jam jar put the lid on tight, tight tight! then store it upside down.  Once the fat has set turn it upright again and you can just pour off all the water and scrape the top.  Then soften the fat to pour it out of the jam jar into a saucepan to drive off the water

Cherryfudge

Once again there is far too much interesting stuff on this thread! You are all better than a book...

@PipneyJane, I didn't know that about baby yarn, but it makes sense. 

And @Nelliegrace, I'm going to miss my silk stockings!