wartime memories

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Wartime Rations – Day Three – Ooops!

I think I mentioned in my very first post that I was on a steep learning curve with learning how to use this blog.  It now appears I forgot to push the ‘Publish’ button yesterday.  Sorrreee.

I’m having a lot of fun with my week of wartime eating and would like to acknowledge a few sources – in addition to my Auntie Anne – which have provided me with a lot of information.

The first is Marguerite Patten’s book  ‘We’ll Eat Again‘ based on wartime recipes. Most of the meals I’m eating this week are taken from her book.

The second comes from The 1940s Experiment.  This is a fabulous website and contains not just recipes but videos and stories of life of the Home Front.

Also, check out Foyle’s War.  Not only is it a great drama, but it addresses the challenges of daily life on the Home Front, including issues like rationing, food shortages and the Black Market.

As for today’s meals – except for my usual breakfast of porridge – it’s been a very ‘red’ day.

Lunch –  Borscht , a slice of bread and some fresh strawberries.

Strawberries Borscht

Dinner- I haven’t eaten three courses in one meal for ages, but tonight I was hungry, so I had Borscht, Cottage pie  (left over from last night) and Broccoli, followed by Rhubarb Crumble. The crumble was excellent and it was wonderful to have something sweet.

Rhubarb crumble

Some thoughts on sweet wartime treats from Anne:

Sweets and chocolate had their own coupons, for which I was quite grateful because I had ‘grown out of’ them at a fairly early age and so was able to sell them (big Black market dealer, me) and buy myself a treat in a cakeshop.  Similarly with clothing coupons (which also covered cloth and household linen).  I couldn’t afford much in the way of new clothes except for what Mother made, so got a good price from wealthier friends.

Much more than sweets, I missed the Italian ice-cream shops with their tiled floors and little booths with marble-topped tables with iron legs – I’ll never taste ice-cream like that again.  They all closed down when their owners and families were interned.  I understand that the majority were released after a few months when ‘investigations’ were completed.  There was an interesting TV programme last year about internees: many/most? were taken, along with Austrians, to the Isle of Wight and housed in what had been boarding houses.  They had left a lot of their art behind.  Apparently they had only been there for days before ex-professors and teachers among them were holding classes in everything you could think of, and people were sketching, painting, learning maths, new languages, singing – you name it.

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Wartime rations – Day Two

The one thing I’m learning really quickly is that with such a limited ration of protein available, you definitely need to be organised to eat a wartime diet!  Not like these days when you just dip into your freezer and nuke dinner on a whim.

Today’s breakfast and lunch were much as yesterday, so no pictures for those.  However, I did add some chips/fries to my lunch as I met with a friend to go to a movie (the pictures!) this afternoon and knew I wouldn’t be home till late.

Dinner was supposed to be Woolton Pie – a dish created during the war – but wouldn’t you know it, I didn’t have the right veggies in.  So, it was soup from yesterday, followed by cottage pie and cauliflower with parsley sauce.  It looks a bit pallid in the picture, but tasted good, so with plenty pie left over for tomorrow, I’ll need to come up with more colourful vegetables to make it look a little more appetising.

cottage pie

Some conflicting memories of a particular wartime experience now, and for the fiction writers out there, an important lesson in age appropriate characterization.

Although they spent most of the war in the countryside, my Mum, Anne (who was 12 years younger than my mother) and my brother were in Glasgow during the Clydebank Blitz.

According to Wikipedia, over two nights, 528 people died, 617 were seriously injured and hundreds more injured by blast debris.  Out of approximately 12,000 houses, only 7 remained undamaged, with 4,000 completely destroyed and 4,500 severely damaged.  Over 35,000 people were made homeless.

My grandparents lived in a flat in Byres Road.  During those horrific raids, my grandmother pulled all the mattresses into the hallway – well away from the windows – for the family to sleep on.  If they were going to be killed, Mum said, they were going to die together.  It always brings me to the verge of tears when I think of that; my grandmother facing the possible loss of her whole family and my mum being unable to protect her infant son.  I can’t imagine the horror.

That’s an adult account of that experience.  Now here’s Anne’s .

A couple of years ago I was invited by the local junior school to talk to groups of children about wartime, and got many, probably enforced, thank you letters from them.  From these it was obvious that the bit they liked was when I confessed that during the Clydebank Blitzes (I was about 11/12) we had all gathered in the ‘safest’ place in the house but I several times made an excuse to go to the bathroom so that I could see the searchlights and the glow of the fires.

Oh, the wondrous resilience and fearlessness of youth!

If you have any stories of the war, I would love to hear them.

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Day One – Part 2

I am neither the best cook in the world nor a particularly organised person.  Put the two together and…  I’m beginning to feel like the girl on Youtube’s My Drunk Kitchen, only without the ‘drunk’ bit.

1) I carefully measured out all my meat rations on Sunday morning and put them in the freezer. I needed one single piece of bacon for tonight’s liver, but it was frozen solid in a block of two.  Ah well, at least I had enough dripping for the Bubble and Squeak.

2) Dessert tonight was supposed to be rhubarb crumble. In deference to my health, I’d decided to go with margarine made with olive oil rather than animal marg or lard.  Weellllll… you can’t make crumble with that kind of marg,  so it was stewed rhubarb for dessert instead.  I’m going to have to exchange my rations at Safeway tomorrow.

3) I put the liver bake in the oven and forgot to set the timer.  Duh!

Anyway, I survived and this was tonight’s menu.

Liver Bake, (liver, onions, apple, bacon, seasoning), Bubble and Squeak (mashed potatoes, cabbage, spring onions, and Carrots.  The liver actually tasted much better than I expected  and I can see myself making this again in the future. As for the Bubble and Squeak – I could LIVE on this.  It was wonderful!

Liver Bake Stewed Rhubarb

Stewed Rhubarb.  I haven’t had this in years and it was delicious.  As soon as I took my first spoonful it brought back memories of the rhubarb sponges my mum used to make when I was young.

So that’s Day 1 done. This is probably the healthiest I have eaten in a long – long – time, and I’m feeling very satisfied.  Day 2, here I come, but before that, a final thought from Anne.

Everything outside the staples, incl. tinned foods, biscuits, dried fruit, coffee etc needed coupons called ‘Points’ and you could choose what to use them for, but again, a tin of apricots would make deep inroads into your allocation of Points, while a tin of meat or fish would probably use a month’s allocation.  In theory you could spend Points in any shop, but were likely to be met with,  ‘Sorry, registered customers only.’

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Wartime Week of Rations

I’ve just been down to the supermarket to collect the rations for my week of eating wartime food – starting Monday morning – and here they are!

ratiions

Bacon – 4 oz

Meat – 8oz

Butter – 20z

Margarine –  8oz.  (It was supposed to be 4 oz each of marg and lard but I couldn’t find lard.)

Cheese  – 2oz.

Milk – 3 pints

Sugar – 8oz

Jam – 2oz

Tea – 2oz (I read somewhere it was 15 teabags, but I measured out 23!!)

Eggs: 1

I haven’t been able to pick up any dried eggs yet… and I’m going to hold back my sweet ration (3oz) till the weekend.

My aunt reminded me that I can only eat UK veggies and fruit in season.  I am so out of touch with seasonal foods that I had to go online to check what they are for May.

Veg: Asparagus, Cauliflower, Beetroot, Cucumber, New Potatoes, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Radishes, Spinach, Sorrel, Spring Greens, Spring Onion, Watercress and Lettuce.

Fruit: Rhubarb, Gooseberries (Yuck!!), Strawberries.

Carrots, onions and apples don’t appear to be in season, but I’m going to be adding them to my list, otherwise I’d be stuck!  Also, I can eat as much bread (brown) as I want, although it must be at least one day old. (Apparently fresh bread encourages one to eat immoderately!)

To bring a slice of authenticity to this experiment, here are some wartime memories from my Auntie Anne who grew up in Glasgow during WW2.

Civilians were, on the whole, pretty good about food shortages, feeling that it was more important for the soldiers and sailors to get enough to stay fit and fight on, but home fare was pretty drab and monotonous.  Dad, taking on two allotments at the age of 70+ was a hero really, since there were always fresh veggies on the table, and later he also kept a few rabbits – I’m not sure about chickens, but I think so: my memory is a bit hazy.  And I think he enjoyed it in many ways, not just that he was doing his bit, but for the satisfaction when he brought home his produce.  He had to carry his tools to the tramstop, both ways, every time he went, but later put up a small shed – NOTE THAT nothing was ever stolen – neither tools nor mature veg: they were more honest times.

So now I’m ready to go.  Roll on Monday morning.  I’ll publish a post tomorrow evening to let you know how I fared on Day 1.