Food and the Wartime Forties
Food and the Wartime Forties
Food and the wartime forties both seem to be favourite subjects for entertainment at present so I think I will combine the two for a short article. Now, where shall I begin?
As far as I was concerned food was not a great worry to me during the war. It was my poor mother who had the worry! However, I do remember various things about food and the forties that may hold some interest for the modern day person. To begin with, I don’t think that the general population in this country suffered greatly from the food shortage. Present day researchers think that, on the whole, it was a healthy diet and an annoyance rather than starvation. Many women had their own special recipes concocted to relieve the dullness. They would exchange their recipes with each other and live up to the challenge presented to them by the frustration and misery of war. I am, of course, writing of the Home Front as it used to called and the many women who heroically kept it going.
One of my favourite wartime foods was dried egg. With the addition of cold water my mother used to make the most delectable of omelettes. Placed on margerined toast this became the perfect meal! Even wartime marge was disguised and that really is saying something. That margarine was nothing like as acceptable as the modern stuff.
I have recently come across a notebook in which I had copied various wartime recipes. I can’t for the life of me remember where I got them from. Somebody at school or work, I expect.
Here is a recipe for wartime Yorkshire pudding.
5 tablespoons of plain flour
2 tablespoons of dried egg
4 tablespoons of dried milk
Water to mix.
As you see, a perfectly wholesome and nourishing recipe.
One of the things I remember is tinned black currant puree. I think this was sold as a good source of vitamin C for children. I also think it was very good if a little sour. I am pretty certain it was during the war that wild rosehips were collected to turn into a syrup for children, also, of course, for its vitamin C. Nowadays this is considered bad for children’s teeth, but I don’t remember that being mentioned in the forties.
The drink I most hated during the war was National Milk Cocoa. This was a drink that was considered to be of great value in the struggle to keep the young people of the nation strong and healthy. It was given to everyone up to the age of eighteen,. Those in work I should say. I started work in 1943, learning to be a chemist’s dispenser, and so I became entitled to this dreadful drink. There was enough in the shop for every member of staff to have a large mug full whatever their age. Because of this it was served to everyone from the age of fourteen to sixty. It was sickly sweet, probably loaded with saccharine, but hopefully full of nourishment! Every morning the baker’s shop opposite saved us a large hunk of fruit cake to have with our cocoa. This I remember as being rather dry but edible. Fortunately our elevenses were free to all of us.
The pharmacy was in Southend High Street which is a busy shopping area. At the time of which I am writing there were occasions when rations of more luxury items would arrive. Girls would pop across the road and say, for example, “We’ve got some individual steak pies. Come in if you would like some. This would be the grocer’s shop over the road, and as the pies were not rationed they were in great demand and not often available. We would all take it in turns to rush across the road and buy some. Can you imagine an individual steak pie being a luxury? I would take home four pies and give them to Mum as a contribution to the family meals. This was really exciting!
A small restaurant I would go to for lunch with a friend served a ‘little dinner’ for the ladies and a ‘big dinner’ for the gents. I think the little dinner was 1/9 and the ‘big dinner’ 2/3. I suppose the ladies could have had a big dinner if they had wanted it, but we always found little one sufficient! The meal always consisted 0f some sort of roast meat and some sort of vegetables.
Some time before Christmas there would be deliveries of Yardley goods and Elizabeth Arden’s cosmetics. As far as I remember this was the only delivery in the year. The scent of lavender is still a most luxurious scent to me. The whole shop used to smell of it, and it was wonderful. Another Christmas delivery was Evening in Paris goods with the little Eiffel Towers and such like. It is the Yardley’s that has stayed so strongly in my mind. Scent is supposed to be the strongest for bringing back memories.
A certain number of clothing coupons were given to everybody. This must have created a lot of problems for mothers with quickly growing children. While I was at the last school I attended all children were measured to see if they would be entitled to extra clothing coupons. This must have been in 1941, I think. As I was fourteen, measured five foot eight and took size seven shoes I received twenty extra clothing coupons. This was wonderful and must have been a great help to my mother.
The bane of my life as far as food was concerned was corned beef pies. My mother was a wonderful cook, and now and then she would come by a tin of corned beef. This she would convert into a lovely pie. Lovely to everyone but me, that is. I could never stomach meat fat. And I could not bear the hot jellified pieces of fat in the pie. I had to dig out every last bit or I should have been sick.
We had the intense pleasure of a Christmas food parcel from an Auntie and Uncle in Canada. Canadians were allowed to send one a year. They must have crossed the Atlantic in a convoy. Packed neatly away in a cardboard box were the goodies. As far as I can remember these consisted of a Christmas cake, a large tin of butter, tinned sausages ( nothing like our wartime sausages), ham, biscuits, tins of fruit, and other delicious bits and pieces that were not on our wartime menu. There is nothing like rationing to make us appreciate the non necessities of our diet when we have a chance to eat them.
WARTIME MARZIPAN
2 tablespoon of mashed potato
2 tablespoons of sugar
1tablesoon of Soyolk
A few drops of almond essence.
Mix all the ingredients well together. Spread top of cake while still hot with honey or a little blackberry jelly, press potato out to the size of the cake, put on top and press into shape. Pinch up round the edges and score with a fork. Put back into oven and brown up. While still hot sprinkle with a circle of grated chocolate in the centre. There was a sweet ration with which you might get the chocolate.
There was an occasion don’t know precisely which year, when Mum and I were in London for the day. We went to the zoo. There must have been some other reason but whatever it was has slipped my memory. Anyway. as I said, we went to the zoo. As always, we looked at the monkeys and apes. Beside their section we could see down into a basement. There was a wonderful array of dried fruits laid out for them. We were amazed but not jealous. We enjoyed knowing that they were being cared for. So many animals have a very limited range of foods that they can eat and it would horrible to know that they could not survive the dreadful times caused by humans.
I am moving forward to 1946 which I think was the year when Southend was swamped seagulls eggs. I was still working in the High Street and having my lunch here and there. I found that the gulls eggs were very acceptable eaten hard boiled or in sandwiches. I have no idea where they came from or what happened to the unfortunate gulls whose eggs were stolen. Did they lay more and manage have young ones that year? By the way, the eggs did not taste fishy as might have been expected.
Barley Broth
1oz of pearl barley
1 quart of vegetable stock
1 stick of celery
1 cup of household milk
Scrub well and cut the vegetables into dice. Simmer in the stock with the barley for three hours.Season with Yeastrel (a yeast extract) if desired, add the milk, and heat, but do not boil. Serve at once. As an alternative a rice soup may be made, using rice instead of barley.
Leaving food aside for the moment, for many other items of everyday life were in short supply. I must mention Joyce shoes. These were American shoes which were very much in demand, and they very seldom appeared in the wartime shops. These shoes were in lovely colours and were a plain lace up design in a beautiful soft leather. I remember the morning when one of the girls from the shoe shop opposite to our pharmacy came acrossto tell us that they had a few pairs of Joyce shoes just come in and would any of us like a pair. As for the pork pies, we took turns to run over the road, not forgetting our clothing coupons ( and money, of course), to purchase a pair of this wonderful footwear. Mine were a rich green colour, and I wore them for years. No one living in a time of plenty can imagine the intense pleasure of getting a luxury item such as my green shoes.
In my little book I have a recipe for marmite biscuits.
Marmite Biscuits
Half a pound of wholewheat flour
4ozs cooking fat
1 dessertspoon of Marmite
A little cold water.
Put flour into a cold basin. Rub in the fat until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add water to the dry ingredients a little at a time to make a firm dough. When well mixed turn onto a floured board. Roll out thin. Now spread thinly with Marmite, fold over and roll out. Cut into rounds or fingers. Bake in a moderate oven till crisp and brown.
A restaurant named Offredi’s changed their name to Offord’s at some point. Rossi’s ice cream parlours did not change the names of their Milk Bars, neither, as far as I can remember did Tomassi’s. I don’t think either of them suffered from their decision. They had been in Southend for many years.
My next recipe is for Carrot Rolls.
Carrot Rolls
12 very young carrots
Wholewheat pastry as for Marmite biscuits
Half a teaspoonful of Marmite dissolved in 1 tablespoon of milk
Roll out the pastry very thin, cut into strips or squares.Roll each small carrot in these, cutting in half if too long. Brush with the milk in which the Marmite has been dissolved. Bake in the oven for ten minutes. Serve hot or cold. One thing I can’t remember is whether it was possible to buy wholemeal bread during the war. There was a special National loaf that was brought out and was supposed to be extra nourishing. It was a pale colour, not white but not really brown. Some people thought it gave them indigestion but I didn’t suffer that way myself. I don’t think any of the family did either, As far as I recollect bread was not rationed until just after the war ended. This seems strange but I am sure that was the case.
I had my fourteenth birthday when we were living in Hendon. Mum found a fancy sponge in a baker’s shop in the Broadway. I can see it now. It was a plain sponge and had a jam filling. The top was spread with what I remember as plum jam, and it was decorated with small imitation flowers.
The next recipe is for Cheese Fingers.
4 slices of wholemeal bread, (stale)
2ozs of grated cheese
margarine
Cut the bread into fingers and spread with margarine. Sprinkle well with the grated cheese. Put onto a baking sheet in a very hot oven for about ten minutes.
These must have been easy to make and very tasty. However, I can’t see them turning up on any of the TV cooking programmes.
There was a great deal of emphasis on home grown food, and the keeping of hens and so on. There was a special arrangement with regard to the domestic hens. Four could be kept without having to take out a ration book for their balancer meal. My Dad bought four White Leghorn hens that gave us eggs for years. After the war ended, and when the chicken food was freely available, I brought a dozen day old chicks home for Dad. This started several more years of happy poultry keeping for him and delicious new laid eggs for the family.
Carrot Cream Soup
1 pound of carrots
1 large onion
1 pint of household milk
half a pint of vegetable stock
1 tablespoon of minced parsley
Scrub the carrots and steam until tender. Chop the onion and stew separately in a little milk. Add the carrots and put through a sieve. Add the rest of the milk and vegetable stock and heat. Just before serving add the parsley.
As with the Barley Broth, this would be cheap and nourishing, especially if made from home grown vegetables.
My Mother made sloe wine before the war, This I never tasted as I was not allowed alcohol. It was a shame really as there was not enough sugar to make it once the war started. She had a huge bowl in which the sloes would ferment. They were picked at the end of the garden where there was a very large sloe bush.
Things gradually came back to normal after the war ended. In 1948 I had a holiday in Jersey with a friend. For some reason that I don’t quite understand the Channel Islands were full to overflowing with luxury goods. What struck me as the height of luxury was a cup of coffee with a large spoonful of thick cream floating in it. I had never had anything like it, and for some reason that has stayed in my mind all through the years.
Films were also freely available in Jersey, and leather goods. We bought ourselves a handbag and a pair of shoes each, and that most longed for item of clothing, nylon stockings. We took a ridiculous number of photographs. It was the most luxurious of holidays. It is strange to think that nowadays nobody in Western Europe would think anything of such a holiday.
Some items of food were still rationed when I married in 1953. I still have the ration books in a box in the loft! The physical effects of nearly six years of war took a long time to get rid of. The memories never go.
Food and the wartime forties both seem to be favourite subjects for entertainment at present so I think I will combine the two for a short article. Now, where shall I begin?
As far as I was concerned food was not a great worry to me during the war. It was my poor mother who had the worry! However, I do remember various things about food and the forties that may hold some interest for the modern day person. To begin with, I don’t think that the general population in this country suffered greatly from the food shortage. Present day researchers think that, on the whole, it was a healthy diet and an annoyance rather than starvation. Many women had their own special recipes concocted to relieve the dullness. They would exchange their recipes with each other and live up to the challenge presented to them by the frustration and misery of war. I am, of course, writing of the Home Front as it used to called and the many women who heroically kept it going.
One of my favourite wartime foods was dried egg. With the addition of cold water my mother used to make the most delectable of omelettes. Placed on margerined toast this became the perfect meal! Even wartime marge was disguised and that really is saying something. That margarine was nothing like as acceptable as the modern stuff.
I have recently come across a notebook in which I had copied various wartime recipes. I can’t for the life of me remember where I got them from. Somebody at school or work, I expect.
Here is a recipe for wartime Yorkshire pudding.
5 tablespoons of plain flour
2 tablespoons of dried egg
4 tablespoons of dried milk
Water to mix.
As you see, a perfectly wholesome and nourishing recipe.
One of the things I remember is tinned black currant puree. I think this was sold as a good source of vitamin C for children. I also think it was very good if a little sour. I am pretty certain it was during the war that wild rosehips were collected to turn into a syrup for children, also, of course, for its vitamin C. Nowadays this is considered bad for children’s teeth, but I don’t remember that being mentioned in the forties.
The drink I most hated during the war was National Milk Cocoa. This was a drink that was considered to be of great value in the struggle to keep the young people of the nation strong and healthy. It was given to everyone up to the age of eighteen,. Those in work I should say. I started work in 1943, learning to be a chemist’s dispenser, and so I became entitled to this dreadful drink. There was enough in the shop for every member of staff to have a large mug full whatever their age. Because of this it was served to everyone from the age of fourteen to sixty. It was sickly sweet, probably loaded with saccharine, but hopefully full of nourishment! Every morning the baker’s shop opposite saved us a large hunk of fruit cake to have with our cocoa. This I remember as being rather dry but edible. Fortunately our elevenses were free to all of us.
The pharmacy was in Southend High Street which is a busy shopping area. At the time of which I am writing there were occasions when rations of more luxury items would arrive. Girls would pop across the road and say, for example, “We’ve got some individual steak pies. Come in if you would like some. This would be the grocer’s shop over the road, and as the pies were not rationed they were in great demand and not often available. We would all take it in turns to rush across the road and buy some. Can you imagine an individual steak pie being a luxury? I would take home four pies and give them to Mum as a contribution to the family meals. This was really exciting!
A small restaurant I would go to for lunch with a friend served a ‘little dinner’ for the ladies and a ‘big dinner’ for the gents. I think the little dinner was 1/9 and the ‘big dinner’ 2/3. I suppose the ladies could have had a big dinner if they had wanted it, but we always found little one sufficient! The meal always consisted 0f some sort of roast meat and some sort of vegetables.
Some time before Christmas there would be deliveries of Yardley goods and Elizabeth Arden’s cosmetics. As far as I remember this was the only delivery in the year. The scent of lavender is still a most luxurious scent to me. The whole shop used to smell of it, and it was wonderful. Another Christmas delivery was Evening in Paris goods with the little Eiffel Towers and such like. It is the Yardley’s that has stayed so strongly in my mind. Scent is supposed to be the strongest for bringing back memories.
A certain number of clothing coupons were given to everybody. This must have created a lot of problems for mothers with quickly growing children. While I was at the last school I attended all children were measured to see if they would be entitled to extra clothing coupons. This must have been in 1941, I think. As I was fourteen, measured five foot eight and took size seven shoes I received twenty extra clothing coupons. This was wonderful and must have been a great help to my mother.
The bane of my life as far as food was concerned was corned beef pies. My mother was a wonderful cook, and now and then she would come by a tin of corned beef. This she would convert into a lovely pie. Lovely to everyone but me, that is. I could never stomach meat fat. And I could not bear the hot jellified pieces of fat in the pie. I had to dig out every last bit or I should have been sick.
We had the intense pleasure of a Christmas food parcel from an Auntie and Uncle in Canada. Canadians were allowed to send one a year. They must have crossed the Atlantic in a convoy. Packed neatly away in a cardboard box were the goodies. As far as I can remember these consisted of a Christmas cake, a large tin of butter, tinned sausages ( nothing like our wartime sausages), ham, biscuits, tins of fruit, and other delicious bits and pieces that were not on our wartime menu. There is nothing like rationing to make us appreciate the non necessities of our diet when we have a chance to eat them.
WARTIME MARZIPAN
2 tablespoon of mashed potato
2 tablespoons of sugar
1tablesoon of Soyolk
A few drops of almond essence.
Mix all the ingredients well together. Spread top of cake while still hot with honey or a little blackberry jelly, press potato out to the size of the cake, put on top and press into shape. Pinch up round the edges and score with a fork. Put back into oven and brown up. While still hot sprinkle with a circle of grated chocolate in the centre. There was a sweet ration with which you might get the chocolate.
There was an occasion don’t know precisely which year, when Mum and I were in London for the day. We went to the zoo. There must have been some other reason but whatever it was has slipped my memory. Anyway. as I said, we went to the zoo. As always, we looked at the monkeys and apes. Beside their section we could see down into a basement. There was a wonderful array of dried fruits laid out for them. We were amazed but not jealous. We enjoyed knowing that they were being cared for. So many animals have a very limited range of foods that they can eat and it would horrible to know that they could not survive the dreadful times caused by humans.
I am moving forward to 1946 which I think was the year when Southend was swamped seagulls eggs. I was still working in the High Street and having my lunch here and there. I found that the gulls eggs were very acceptable eaten hard boiled or in sandwiches. I have no idea where they came from or what happened to the unfortunate gulls whose eggs were stolen. Did they lay more and manage have young ones that year? By the way, the eggs did not taste fishy as might have been expected.
Barley Broth
1oz of pearl barley
1 quart of vegetable stock
1 stick of celery
1 cup of household milk
Scrub well and cut the vegetables into dice. Simmer in the stock with the barley for three hours.Season with Yeastrel (a yeast extract) if desired, add the milk, and heat, but do not boil. Serve at once. As an alternative a rice soup may be made, using rice instead of barley.
Leaving food aside for the moment, for many other items of everyday life were in short supply. I must mention Joyce shoes. These were American shoes which were very much in demand, and they very seldom appeared in the wartime shops. These shoes were in lovely colours and were a plain lace up design in a beautiful soft leather. I remember the morning when one of the girls from the shoe shop opposite to our pharmacy came acrossto tell us that they had a few pairs of Joyce shoes just come in and would any of us like a pair. As for the pork pies, we took turns to run over the road, not forgetting our clothing coupons ( and money, of course), to purchase a pair of this wonderful footwear. Mine were a rich green colour, and I wore them for years. No one living in a time of plenty can imagine the intense pleasure of getting a luxury item such as my green shoes.
In my little book I have a recipe for marmite biscuits.
Marmite Biscuits
Half a pound of wholewheat flour
4ozs cooking fat
1 dessertspoon of Marmite
A little cold water.
Put flour into a cold basin. Rub in the fat until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add water to the dry ingredients a little at a time to make a firm dough. When well mixed turn onto a floured board. Roll out thin. Now spread thinly with Marmite, fold over and roll out. Cut into rounds or fingers. Bake in a moderate oven till crisp and brown.
A restaurant named Offredi’s changed their name to Offord’s at some point. Rossi’s ice cream parlours did not change the names of their Milk Bars, neither, as far as I can remember did Tomassi’s. I don’t think either of them suffered from their decision. They had been in Southend for many years.
My next recipe is for Carrot Rolls.
Carrot Rolls
12 very young carrots
Wholewheat pastry as for Marmite biscuits
Half a teaspoonful of Marmite dissolved in 1 tablespoon of milk
Roll out the pastry very thin, cut into strips or squares.Roll each small carrot in these, cutting in half if too long. Brush with the milk in which the Marmite has been dissolved. Bake in the oven for ten minutes. Serve hot or cold. One thing I can’t remember is whether it was possible to buy wholemeal bread during the war. There was a special National loaf that was brought out and was supposed to be extra nourishing. It was a pale colour, not white but not really brown. Some people thought it gave them indigestion but I didn’t suffer that way myself. I don’t think any of the family did either, As far as I recollect bread was not rationed until just after the war ended. This seems strange but I am sure that was the case.
I had my fourteenth birthday when we were living in Hendon. Mum found a fancy sponge in a baker’s shop in the Broadway. I can see it now. It was a plain sponge and had a jam filling. The top was spread with what I remember as plum jam, and it was decorated with small imitation flowers.
The next recipe is for Cheese Fingers.
4 slices of wholemeal bread, (stale)
2ozs of grated cheese
margarine
Cut the bread into fingers and spread with margarine. Sprinkle well with the grated cheese. Put onto a baking sheet in a very hot oven for about ten minutes.
These must have been easy to make and very tasty. However, I can’t see them turning up on any of the TV cooking programmes.
There was a great deal of emphasis on home grown food, and the keeping of hens and so on. There was a special arrangement with regard to the domestic hens. Four could be kept without having to take out a ration book for their balancer meal. My Dad bought four White Leghorn hens that gave us eggs for years. After the war ended, and when the chicken food was freely available, I brought a dozen day old chicks home for Dad. This started several more years of happy poultry keeping for him and delicious new laid eggs for the family.
Carrot Cream Soup
1 pound of carrots
1 large onion
1 pint of household milk
half a pint of vegetable stock
1 tablespoon of minced parsley
Scrub the carrots and steam until tender. Chop the onion and stew separately in a little milk. Add the carrots and put through a sieve. Add the rest of the milk and vegetable stock and heat. Just before serving add the parsley.
As with the Barley Broth, this would be cheap and nourishing, especially if made from home grown vegetables.
My Mother made sloe wine before the war, This I never tasted as I was not allowed alcohol. It was a shame really as there was not enough sugar to make it once the war started. She had a huge bowl in which the sloes would ferment. They were picked at the end of the garden where there was a very large sloe bush.
Things gradually came back to normal after the war ended. In 1948 I had a holiday in Jersey with a friend. For some reason that I don’t quite understand the Channel Islands were full to overflowing with luxury goods. What struck me as the height of luxury was a cup of coffee with a large spoonful of thick cream floating in it. I had never had anything like it, and for some reason that has stayed in my mind all through the years.
Films were also freely available in Jersey, and leather goods. We bought ourselves a handbag and a pair of shoes each, and that most longed for item of clothing, nylon stockings. We took a ridiculous number of photographs. It was the most luxurious of holidays. It is strange to think that nowadays nobody in Western Europe would think anything of such a holiday.
Some items of food were still rationed when I married in 1953. I still have the ration books in a box in the loft! The physical effects of nearly six years of war took a long time to get rid of. The memories never go.
posted by Margaret at 3:46 pm
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