Cooking History Week in Review

(ministry of food poster encouraging civilians to grow their own food to supplement what could be bought)

In January, 1941, the British instituted their civilian rationing program. This will be my experiment in fooding only these ingredients for a week.

The British system was ingenious as a means of providing access to food for the homefront. This was so successful that life expectancy for civilians actually went up during WW2.

In accordance to the ration cards and the points system instituted later (which I will explain throughout the week), I have procured this list of groceries for the week:

Weekly ration (1 adult):

1. 2 oz butter
2. 8 oz sugar
3. 2 oz of cheese (cheddar was the only one permitted)
4. 1 lb of meat + 1/2 lb of bacon
5. 1 egg
6. 1/4 gal of milk
7. 2 oz of dried fruit (currants)
8. as many vegetables as possible especially potatoes and carrots. Limit of one tomato and one onion per week.
9. 1/3 lb margarine (I substitute vegetable oil because margarine is really not healthy)

I will be posting daily for the rest of the week about what my current usage totals are and what I made. I have no real reason to other than because I want to know how feasible it would be.

This is day 1

So yesterday I did some prep work. Instead of regular ketchup I made carrot ketchup.

Ingredients:

1. 4 carrots
2. 1 quartered apple
3. salt, pepper, applecider vinegar, paprika to taste

All that you need to do is steam the carrots and apple, combine the rest of the ingredients and blend with enough water to make is smooth. I couldn't get it as smooth as regular ketchup, but it has a great color I have to say. I used it in my breakfast with my only fresh egg, 2 pieces of bacon, toast, and wilted beet greens:

Around mid afternoon I tried to make some scones. What made these interesting is that I had to use whole wheat flour as flour processing was banned because it became less nutritionally valuable and much was lost in the process. Also I had to split half and half between butter and vegetable oil or I would have used all my butter in this one recipe.

I slathered the end product with marmalade (permitted) and had it with a strong black tea:

For dinner, I made potato leek soup.

Ingredients:

1. Onion substitute mix (combination of green onions, celery, and garlic)
2. 6 thinly slices potatoes
3. 3 leeks finely sliced.
4. 4 cups of chicken stock from stock cubes, or water

I would have liked to use some cream, but cream was not available so I had to go without. The result is less pretty, but I actually think tastes better than normal.

This has been day one! Overall I really like it, but I have no idea how much longer I will. Who knows!

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(a ration booklet from WW2)

This is day 2

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Yesterday went well so lets take another stab at this.

Breakfast

I mean you have to admit that this looks real fine.

Ingredients:

1. 2 strips of bacon
2. the requisite whole wheat bread
3. 2 potatoes chopped
4. 2 carrots sliced
5. carrot ketchup
6. 1 clove of garlic, minced

This involved cooking the bacon, then frying the garlic, potatoes, and carrots until soft and caramelized. The remainder of the bacon grease was used to toast the bread; what a shame! Served with a hot black tea this was awesome. I have some leftovers so I will have those tomorrow as well.

Lunch

was another bowl of potato leek soup and I had another scone with tea later. I had breakfast right before class and it was a shorter meeting length than normal so I was not hungry enough to make something special.

Dinner

I was mega hungry come dinnertime and I pulled out all the stops to make this a killer meal. My end result was a hamburger with cheddar cheese, carrot ketchup, and tomato, baked steak fries, and beet greens 2 ways as you can see:

For the burger, just follow my recipe from my post.

Fries:

1. 2 potatoes cut into sticks
2. oil
3. salt, pepper, sugar. garlic powder to taste

Toss the fries in the oil and spices. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 300 for 20 minutes. Broil for another 5-7 until crispy. This makes the outside crisp, but the inside soft.

Beet Stems

1. bundle of beet stems, cut into 1'' long sticks
2. 1 clove garlic
3. oil, salt, pepper
4. soy sauce, brown sugar (or white sugar+molasses), ginger, rice or white vinegar.

Just combine all the ingredients and cook on medium covered until slightly soft.

Beet Leaves

Just saute these with oil and a slivered clove of garlic like you would with spinach. In fact, it tastes just like spinach but slightly tougher.

And from this angle it almost looks like a normal meal. Not to say it wasn't knockout because it absolutely was.

Day 2 Down!

Daily ration fact:

England never officially rationed bread because of the negative publicity it would have caused. Instead they established strict regulation mandating only whole wheat flour could be used and set a standardized bread recipe so as to ensure that bread would remain accessible. This product was dubbed the national loaf. It was not well liked and became known as "Hitler's secret weapon".

This is day 3

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Day 2 exceeded my expectations by a wide margin. Today however looked a bit more boring.

Breakfast was leftover hash from yesterday and an irish breakfast tea.

Lunch was a bowl of potato leek soup, and the rest of the fries.

For dinner I tackled the cauliflower and cabbage.

Cauliflower:

1. oil
2. salt, pepper, paprika

I roasted them like yesterday's potatoes for 20 minutes at 300.

Spicy cheese sauce:

1. 3 tbsp of butter
2. 3 tbsp of whole wheat flour
3. 1/2 cup of milk
4. as much cheese as can melt in
5. cayenne, garlic powder, Worcestershire

Make a roux and add the milk. Bring to a simmer and stir in cheese until dissolved. Add spices and taste for salt and pepper. Serve over cauliflower (also makes killed mac n cheese sauce)

Cabbage

1. 1 head of cabbage roughly sliced
2. 1/4 cup of brown sugar (or white sugar and molasses)
3. 1/4 cup apple cider or white vinegar
4. paprika if desired

braise covered in a saute pan on medium heat until soft.

This needed something fresh so I made a slice of toast and topped it with a precious slice of tomato for something bright and fresh. Everything is becoming the same almost, but is manageable so far.

Daily Ration Fact:

During the length of the rationing, life expectancy went up. This is due to a number of factors including the healthier proportion of meat, abundance of vegetables, and the aforementioned transition to whole wheat instead of white flour.

This is day 4

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Yesterday was blah to say the least so I needed to break the mold on this one.

For breakfast I started out with some of the cabbage doused with hot sauce and a slice of toast topped with bacon, a grilled tomato, spicy cheese sauce, and roasted beets. It might not be pretty, but it was honestly really tasty. The sweet minerally taste of the beets was a new flavor for this week and was really quite welcome.

For lunch I killed the remainder of the potato leek soup at last.

For dinner I made baked beans and rice.

Baked beans:

1. 1 bag of navy beans, soaked overnight and drained
2. 1 carrot sliced,
3. one onion chopped (or 1/2 of an onion and a bundle of green onion to supplement)
4. 3 large spoonfuls of carrot ketchup (or use normal ketchup like a normal person)
5. 1 celery stalk
6. 2 garlic cloves
7. 3/4 cup ish of BBQ sauce.

• simmer soaked beans for an hour in 4 cups of water
• cook the vegetables in a small saucepan until soft, add ketchup and BBQ. Simmer and blend
  *combine all ingredients in a dutch oven and bake uncovered for 20 minutes at 350.
• serve over rice for a complete protein.

Sweet, salty, tangy, and a little spicy; this is exactly what I needed to spice up the week. What a solid meal and I have enough to last me for another few days!

Daily Ration Fact:

The ration program was extremely flexible. For vegetarians or people of specific faiths, there was an allowance where they could surrender their meat rations for additional dairy products. Similar exchanges could take place for those who suffered from diseases like diabetes (exchanging sugar and sweets for dairy products or meat).

This is day 5

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Over the hump, lets see what I can do today.

Breakfast:

I went for as close to a classic english breakfast as possible. I have no more eggs, and I had no sausages so this was as close as I could do it:

Lunch

A fat stack of nothing

Dinner

I made a shepherds pie with the rest of the ground beef, onion, celery, carrots, and topped with mashed potatoes. I have to say that this made me quite pleased. I have been craving meat for a while, so it was much needed.

Daily Ration Fact:

The ration program never gave people food. The only thing it was responsible for with an upper limit of what could be purchased per week and what foods were considered priority items the the government to ensure access to could people afford it. No handouts here

This is day 6

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No cooking today, just history talk

It's time to talk about the man who created the ration program, because he was a very interesting guy. Frederick Marquis was born into relative poverty in 1883. He worked to put himself through college before accepting a job at Lewis' Department Store. He quickly rose through the ranks and reached the position of managing director of the establishment before he left to work for the government. He was so successful as a businessman, that he was knighted as the first Earl of Woolton in '35 for his contribution to industry.

Prime Minister Chamberlain appointed Lord Woolton as the head of the new Ministry of Food in 1940 to build a ration program for the looming invasion. Changed by seeing people starved to death in his youth, Woolton took it upon himself to not only secure food for the nation, but to also increase the health of the British subjects through his program. By all measures, his program was a wild success. During the time, the Savoy Hotel in Westminster concocted a new recipe around the ration restrictions. This pie became published in the papers and was dubbed "Lord Woolton Pie", by its creator in honor of Lord Woolton. I will be cooking the Lord Woolton pie on Day 7.

In 1943, the passed the torch of Minister of Food to his understudy to join Churchill's War Cabinet as the new Minister of Reconstruction. After Churchill lost the '45 election, Woolton stepped down to become the chairman on the Conservative Party. Their success in the 1951 election is attributed largely to Woolton's rebranding of the party.

This is day 7

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This is the final day of the project and I am very happy with how it all turned out!

Breakfast:

I had my last scone and a cup of tea.

Lunch:

I tackled the famous Woolton Pie. This turned out really well for the first time I did this and without any recipes. I made single serve pocket pies which seemed like a good idea but turned out to be needlessly difficult. I still would recommend.

Filling Ingredients roughly 1 lb each of:

1. rutabaga
2. turnip
3. potato
4. carrots
5. celery
6. beets
   (basically any common or root vegetable you like)
7. mushrooms
8. enough stock concentrate to make 1 cup of chicken stock
9. whatever dried herbs you have

Steps

• chop all but mushrooms and steam until soft. Reserve steaming liquid.
• I had about 5 cups of steaming water left. Set aside 1 cup to reconstitute the chicken stock and 4 for beef stock if you would like a gravy.
• saute sliced mushrooms, deglaze with chicken stock and whatever herbs you have.
• make a gravy by making a roux and reducing the beef stock until thick. Set aside.
• combine the vegetables

The crust:

I had no butter or eggs left so I added 3 cups of flour into a bowl and eyeballed some salt, a splash of white vinegar, oil, and about 1.5 cups of cold water. I just mixed it to form a dough, cut it into fourths and rolled into ovals.

• fill the dough pockets and seal. Bake at 400 for 25 minutes until crust is cook. Let cool and serve with gravy

And this is the end of the British Homefront Ration Week! Thanks everyone for staying tuned and I hope you enjoyed

--@roofcore