Almond Pudding

I wasn’t surprised that Amanda Knox got off for the murder of the poor Meredith in Italy. The media campaign that surrounded the case, made any Judicial/Criminal/Police process almost impossible. Now, no-one will ever know what went on. However, one thing is probably for sure there will be a book! It seems to me that everyone involved lost something in this terrible case, unfortunately one person lost their life.

After the really peculiar weather we have been experiencing in the last couple of months, it does seem that autumn has arrived. Flicking through the war recipes, I decided to make Almond Pudding, with its snappy headline ‘no flour needed.’ However, this does contain breadcrumbs, so to be fair it does contain flour, only in bread form. I also wanted to use up some more of my semolina as I have about 500g of the stuff left.

As with most of the ration recipes, I could not picture how this would taste or turn out. I think this is largely due to the strange ingredient combinations and in the modern day, I would not put these together. Yet, as in most cases in Ration Kitchen, this is quite a nice pudding. It tastes just like a treacle sponge and although it has a slight gritty consistency (probably the semolina), I think anyone would enjoy it. Owning a stand up mixer really did help with this, due to combining semolina, breadcrumbs milk and margarine. It would probably be quite an elbow ache achieving a smooth consistency by hand.

They were made of stronger stuff in the War!  

1 tablespoon of syrup

2 Ozs Margarine

2 Ozs of Sugar

1 egg (reconstituted)

2 Ozs of breadcrumbs

70 mls milk

½ teaspoon almost extract.

Spread the syrup at the bottom of a greased pie dish. Beat margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy, add the egg. Add breadcrumbs, semolina along with the milk and almond essence. Mix well to a smooth consistency. Pour into the dish and bake for 30 minutes at 180 C.  

  

Semolina Souffle

Semolina Souffle

¾ Pt Milk

4oz Semolina

1 Small Onion

1 dessertspoon Chopped Parsley

2 oz Cheese

2 Eggs reconstituted

2 to 3 sliced tomatoes.

So it looks like the world economy is going into recession yet again and the whole economical outlook is looking rather bleak. Even more so after Ed Miliband’s un-arousing speech today at the Labour Party conference. To comfort us in these troubled times, we turned to WW2 Semolina Souffle or as I like to call it Semolina Mould.

I do not know much about semolina apart from hearing it in folk lore that people ate it as a dessert. Larousse Gastronomique states that is ‘a food obtained by coarsely grinding a cereal, mainly hard (durum) wheat, into granules.’ Either way I have never used it before and this was my first go.

The ingredients for this did not inspire me with much confidence. To start, boil the milk and add the semolina and the onion and cook for 10 minutes. Now, the thought of onion and milk was off putting enough for me. Pale onion boiled in milk, really sounds and unsurprisingly smells unappealing. Then add the eggs (the egg flavour returns) and the cheese. Line the bottom of a baking dish with sliced tomatoes and bake for 30 minutes in a moderate oven. I spread the gelatinous mixture into the dish and here are the results after cooking.

Despite low expectations, this tastes perfectly fine. It does almost taste like a soufflé  and the raw onion was not too bad. Also really filling. This might sound even more revolting, but I quite fancy this with gravy!    

Eggless sponge.

Eggless sponge.

Due to rations, baking has been off the menu lately, which has been a shame as it is one of my favourite past-times. Fortunately, I have been saving up fat and sugar which has enabled me to make this ‘eggless sponge.’

I was also spurred onto make this sponge as my least favourite television personalities ‘The Hairy Bikers’ also happened to make this last night on television as part of the latest ‘food revolution’ type program. Theirs is about advancing the state of meals on wheels. Although the concept does seem like an extension of Jamie’s attempt to improve school meals, I must say that after watching this program, the meals served by the ‘wheels’ were horrible and hats off to them! I cannot believe that these vulnerable older people were served frozen re-gen food from the offer section of a mass food supplier!

The women in this ‘meals on wheels’ kitchen, were actually steaming ready prepared cabbage. Why would anyone have a need for frozen ready shredded cabbage? How hard, is it really to get a fresh cabbage and shred it your self?

 I am all for cheats in the kitchen, but this really was shocking. There was also this abhorrent scene where the bikers were looking for a bit of chicken in a horrible liquidy gravy, which was meant to be a chicken pie.

The frozen horrors and general lack of quality from this freezer really was the Anti-Christ of cooking. I think that our older generation, really do deserve better. So, bikers, despite my general apathy towards you, I like what you are doing here. Please, oh please change these freezer abominations!

They began the program with the history of meals on wheels, which started during WW2, which just showed how the masses could be fed on very little. Despite the austerity, all of the meals were home cooked and fresh. What a shame in today’s modern world of excess where the possibilities are endless, we are cutting open bags of frozen cabbage!

Recipe:

6oz self-raising flour, 1 tea-spoon of baking powder, 2 ½ oz margarine, 2 oz sugar, 1 level of golden syrup, ¼ pt milk.

Cream the margarine, with the sugar and the syrup, add the flour and baking powder and thin with milk. Place in a 20cm tin, bake for 30 mins at 180 and spread with jam.

I didn’t have any jam, but instead had four apples from a friends garden.

Apple sauce topping, four apples cooked with a tablespoon of sugar until soft and spread on top.

Ration Fish Cakes

Fish Cakes.

Ration fish cakes are a nice tea time treat. Fish were not rationed in the War but were not always available, with a limited variety. The Ministry of Food tried to tempt the nation to trying less known varieties with catchy little poems such as:

When fisher-folk are brave enough  

To face mines and the foe for you  

You surely can be bold enough  

To try fish of a kind that's new.  

Quaint.

I do like fish, but I am not a fan of intense fish flavours and it does generally have to be fresh. I am not sure I could have been tempted by the Salted Cod or Whale Meat.

Similarly, I am not that fond of the old British favourite of Herrings. The old rhyme “of all the fish that swim in the sea, the herring is the King.” Admittedly, they are relatively cheap and we are still encouraged to eat these oily fishes today, but I do find their flavour a little too intense for me, so I don’t think I will be attempted the Herring Pie or Herring Hot-Pot.

My ration fish cakes consist of the following, 1 large baking potato, boiled until soft, 1 medium can of fish and parsley mashed together, covered in bread crumbs and cooked until brown. Low fat and cheap. This is a basic recipe which means if you have other ingredients you can throw anything in to make the flavour more exciting.

Lancashire Hot-Pot.

Lancashire Hot-Pot.

Lancashire hot-pot is a revelation. I studied in Lancaster for three years and despite the rain, lack of money (I was a student) and the hangover I have never had Lancashire Hot pot before.

I am not sure why. I love meat casseroles and consider myself an expert on Beef Bourguignon.  From the simplicity of this recipe, I did not believe it would have the same impact. However, despite the lack of lardons, garlic and red wine which make Beef Bourguignon sensational, Lancashire Hot-Pot is a strong contender as a fantastic and frugal runner up.

I know it is late summer and it has been 26C degrees in London today, which does not make everyone jump up and think of Hot-Pot for dinner, but I really fancied it tonight had never made it before and I am so glad I did.

The other great thing about this kind of dish, is that you can throw any meat in. The more odd and frugal the cut, the better casseroles taste. Cheaper cuts benefit and improve with long slow cooking and if you didn’t have any meat a simply vegetable version would still work pretty well.

Oatmeal Cheese Rarebit.

Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of ‘Oatmeal Cheese Rarebit’ as for some odd reason the camera didn’t save the photographs. However, I was using my partner’s ‘posh’ camera so shows me right thinking I could be arty with the photos.

This week, my war-time meals have mainly consisted of Oatmeal. There is no real reason for this apart from I bought it as it is a ration ‘staple’ and there is so much of it, I feel compelled to use it up. It also has an earthy, holistic feel to it which I really like.

The Ministry of Food promoted Oatmeal and outlines three good reasons why the population should eat it and here they are:

Firstly, for fitness; oatmeal gives you energy, helps to protect you from illness, and makes strong bones and healthy blood. Secondly, it is home produced. Thirdly, it is economical; you can add it any kind of dish to make it go further.

I agree it definitely makes it go further and it doesn’t have that horrible solid effect that flour does. It has quite a deep flavour which does give body to dishes. The following recipe for ‘Oatmeal Cheese Rarebit’ does highlight how effectively cheese on toast can be bulked out with flour and oatmeal.

Blend 2oz of flour with some water to make a paste. Bring half a pint of water to the boil and pour into the pasted flour. Bring mixture to the boil and cook gently for 5 minutes stirring all of the time. Add 2oz of oatmeal and 2oz of cheese, season, mix thoroughly and spread on toast. Place under the grill until brown.

I also added some Worcester Sauce into this. I am not sure Worcester Sauce is always great with cheese on toast. I think we all believe it is, because of the clever advertising. 

Cold Meat Pasties.

It is hard to believe that out of pretty much nothing and some War time store cupboard essentials, meals can be created that are both filling, warming and easy to prepare. The ration foods are not ‘fashionable’, they do not contain three litres of olive oil or designer leaves strewn over the plate, garnished with pomegranate seeds. They provide wholesome meals to keep the family fed.

These little pasties below are a symbol of these principles and are so versatile that pretty much anything could go in the filling. Consequently, these are a great way to use up leftovers of, well, anything. Due to my aversion to throwing away any kind of food away, I would use them as a food vehicle to use up scraps of anything I had.

Their high flour/oatmeal content means they are filling and the limited fat content in the pastry will not make anyone pile on the pounds. They are also incredibly easy to make from everyday ingredients and luckily do not contain the words ‘mock’ or ‘reconstituted egg’ (although you could use one if you wanted to brush the surface of the pastry).

To make the pastry; mix 175g of self-raising flour and 50g of oatmeal with 50g of fat. Rub the fat into the flour to form a breadcrumb consistency and add milk instead of water to increase the fat content, to form a dough.

Roll the pastry out and cut into 4 rounds (I used a saucer) and place on a greased baking sheet.

For the filling, use 225g of cold meat, 1 one chopped onion, 2 tomatoes, 2 tablespoons of chopped vegetables, 2 tablespoons of Worcester sauce, 2 tablespoons of water. This is the war-time suggestion, however you could put anything you like in these pasties.

Fold the rounds in two and pinch the edges with a fork. You could glaze these with a reconstituted egg and bake at 200C for 20 minutes.    

Savour Scones.

I can wholly recommend these ‘savoury scones’. They are filling, satisfying and are pretty low in fat. They would be great for lunchboxes and my partner will be having them for his lunch tomorrow. They are also really quick and easy to make. This is something I will defiantly be taking with me post-rationing.

These scones are also very thrifty, consisting of flour and oatmeal, but do not have a heavy feeling like some of the other war recipes. They have a holistic feel and are probably the kind of scone you would find in a trendy coffee shop or West End food shop today.

It does seem that a lot of the recipes from the ration period are in keeping with modern nutritional advice. The principles of home produced meals which are low in fat and sugar are key messages today.

Give them a go.

Mix 4oz of national flour (normal flour), 4oz of oatmeal, 1 tea spoon of baking powder, ½ teaspoon of salt, 1oz fat, 2 oz of shredded cheese. Mix with milk or water to form a soft dough. Flatten out and cut into circles with a pastry cutter and cook for about 15 minutes at 180 C or until brown.

A couple of points, I have noticed. The cheese ration was often 2oz, so these scones would use up the whole of the cheese ration. Consequently, you could supplement the cheese with something else, dried fruits for example to make a sweet scone. They are savoury, so you could use meat fat, or fat gained through the rendering process without any problems. Similarly, a combination of water or milk would probably work best here as using both flour and oatmeal means that that they need quite a lot of liquid to get this into a dough. Wholly using milk seems a little bit frivolous, in rationing.

Fat

I really wanted to make a cake this weekend to take back to my parent’s house. However, I do not have any fat and this is a problem when surviving on rations. Not having any fat or very little is a strange scenario especially when reading this article below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14669203

I cannot imagine obesity being a problem in WW2. Although I have found the food quite heavy and flour based so far, it is mainly freshly prepared home cooking without ‘secret’ ingredients buried in it. Having to live on a limited fat ration and using up what you have also makes the food quite simple and uncomplicated. I do not really understand the trans/saturated/good/bad/ fat argument, but do believe that excessive eating must be the main cause of the obesity problem. During the war with limited calories and food available, although you may experience carbohydrate overload, I do not believe anyone would get fat on WW2 rations.

Struggling along with limited fat rations, also makes our supermarket excesses seem frightening. Fat is available so freely and cheaply to buy and is available in all forms. It also seems to be in everything and the amounts of processed foods available today, mean it is not surprising people are putting on weight and struggle to keep it down. Walking around the shops today and seeing the obesity epidemic increase, we cannot appreciate the hardships that those living through WW2 on rations endured, especially as I am going to start using the methods below, I will let you know the results:

Collecting Extra fat:

Trim of all extra fat off cooked or uncooked meats and render it down. Firm fat may be chopped or grated and an be used in place of Suet.

To render down fat Method 1.

Cut fat into small pieces and place in a pan. Cover with water and lid and boil. Skim well and boil until all of the water has nearly evaporated. Turn down heat and stir so the pieces do not stick on the bottom of the pan. Once the pieces have dried up and sunk to the bottom, leave to cool and then strain.

Method 2.

Cut up the fat into small pieces. Place in an oven dish in a low oven and cook until the fat has melted. Drain off the fat and place into a container.

In either case do not thrown the remnants away. They are excellent in pies, stews and soups.

My attempt at this to follow soon.

　

Sausage Roll

Ration special tonight is sausage roll. This is not sausage roll as we think of today, with heavily seasoned sausage meat encased in puff pastry. This is sausage meat with a selection of available ingredients and steamed. The recipe is 8oz of sausage meat, mixed with 3oz breadcrumbs, 1 chopped onion, 1 tablespoon of pickle, 1 tablespoon of mixed herbs and salt and pepper. Effectively, (without the pickle) this is pretty much the recipe for a sausage stuffing recipe.

The recipe calls for this to be steamed for 1 ½ hours. Firstly, I live in a one bedroom flat and do not own, have the space or the inclination to own a steamer. Secondly, the thought of steamed sausage meat made me feel a bit ill. I do not like the thought of paled sausage meat with steamed onion in it. Instead, I slapped this into a loaf tin and baked for an hour and fifteen minutes. The results, stuffing! Or, a kind of meatloaf. To be honest, this is Yum! This recipe also makes quite a lot, and quite a nice recipe for a family meal. For me, I think I will be carving big slabs of this off and putting it in sandwiches.

Might have one now…… 

Mocha Whip

I have waved goodbye the egg leaflet issued by the Ministry of Food and have moved on to some other wonderful WW2 meal suggestions.

For dinner tonight we had salad, made largely from vegetables I have grown on our balcony (when rationing, any small amount of in house food production counts). This left a vacant window for desert and I was tempted by mocha whip. Coffee flavoured deserts or cakes would never be my first option off the menu but they do have a 1970s feel which is slightly endearing. However, I do like coffee and although not as popular in the 1940s as it is today, coffee was incredibly hard to come by and rarely available at the shop. Luckily, I have plenty of coffee in the cupboard and embarked on the mocha whip.

Mix 8oz of flour with 3oz of sugar and a table spoon of cocoa. Meanwhile make a pint of hot coffee and slowly combine with the dry ingredients until it forms a paste. Then add the rest of the coffee and bring to the boil in a saucepan for 5 minutes until it thickens and the raw flour taste has been removed. Whip up and place in glasses, serves 4.

This is quite an odd creation. Firstly, it has a coffee taste, but due to the flour has a very heavy, gelatinous consistency that makes eating more than two mouthfuls quite difficult. It has quite a strong flavour, so again not sure it would really be popular with children. Yet, if you like coffee deserts, maybe give it a go. I doubt you will need seconds.  

Powdered Egg I respect you.

Few foods evoke the wartime feel than powdered eggs and I have just completed the War Cookery Leaflet Number 11 with its optimistic statement that ‘dried eggs are just as good as fresh eggs.’ After cooking with the powdered egg, I can from experience confirm that this statement is not true. The recipes are inventive, but they are not a substitute for the ‘real thing.’ However, in the war, eggs were rationed to one a week, and the ration allowance of powdered egg was the equivalent of a dozen. I can see that these were essential and powdered egg is better than no egg at all.

Eggs became scarce during 1940 following massive cuts in imports and the culling of chickens to save on feed. You cannot imagine the shelves in the supermarket without eggs, the ingenious and precious food item is taken for granted and so are the chickens that lay them. Most eggs are produced in a factory like manner and I have seen a dozen for £1. This does not seem right to me and living without real eggs makes you really appreciate how ‘special’ they are. The cook in WW2 must have really missed a real egg and would have done anything to get hold of them. The government encouraged people to breed their own chickens as they were in such short supply and I can understand why my great grandmother stored them in isinglass. She wanted to do everything she could just so they would go that little bit further. The egg is versatile as a meal and almost critical in most baking. This is why, with a shortage of shell eggs, powdered egg became invaluable when living on rations.

Powdered eggs do not taste or look great, they rarely resemble what they are meant to and when using them in cakes, Yorkshire pudding and anything else that needs to rise they refuse to. Once my little project is finished I doubt I would stick to powdered egg, as I do not believe anyone would use them out of choice, (they are also virtually impossible to get hold of and expensive), but I do find their rubbery, ‘egg flavour’ endearing. In the darkest moments of rationing, with the store cupboard empty, there they were providing meal options for the family. Let us, for now, thank the powdered egg for providing emergency meals and helping to feed Britain through the War.

Sponge Cake

A miracle has occurred in ration kitchen. Something has come out relatively normal and does not have any deformities, powdered egg flavour or look so inedible that you have to close your eyes to eat it, (this did occur with the egg cutlet, yuck).

This is the plain cake mixture, which is really simple and has spongy outcome. Cream 2ozs of sugar with 2ozs of margarine, beat in a reconstituted egg and then slowly add 4ozs of national flour with 1 tablespoon of baking powder. Thin out the mixture with milk so you have a cake like consistency. Place in a tin, I used a 20cm cake tin and bake for 20 minutes at 180.

The cake does turn out flatter than a normal sponge as there is no self-raising flour, but it tastes like a cake and is not at all solid like the Madeira cake. What I am finding with the ration recipes is their simplicity. The processes are not difficult and although the results are mixed, this cake along with the potato pastry would be great to make with children.  

Omelette

In Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child writes that ‘a good French Omelette is a smooth, gently swelling, golden oval that is tender and creamy in side.’ She then goes on for a few pages, explaining extensive techniques. The Ministry of Food had their own ideas and suggest the following: Beat two reconstituted eggs with salt and pepper, melt some butter in a pan, pour in the egg and work it with a fork. Fold and serve immediately. I like a nice omelette and used to eat a lot of them, however cooking with reconstituted eggs throws out all normal rules of cooking.

Firstly, they do not react the same as shell eggs. They cement and stick to the bottom of the pan. I do not use a fork in omelette making and didn’t here as they are so granular that they would scramble instantly. I persisted while they bubbled away and attempted to gradually fold over, they would not. I had to use a spatula to prize the omelette (pancake) away from the bottom of the pan. There was no way this was going to be tender and creamy in side. Once I had managed to transfer this to a plate it did almost resemble an omelette, but did taste of the dreaded egg flavour again. My ration leaflet on eggs also recommends a Spanish Omelette, which suggest browning some vegetables in a pan and adding two reconstituted eggs until it sets into the shape of a Spanish Omelette.  

Egg & Bacon Pie

Egg & Bacon pie does sound really retro and what throws this into the realm of rationing is the potato pastry topping and cooking with a pie plate. Unfortunately, I do not own a classic enamel pie plate, but to feel like I want one now.

Not only is this pie easy to make on rations, it is super economy gastronomy and really frugal cooking, consisting mainly of potatoes, flour and a bit of bacon. The revelation to us, after eating Egg & Bacon pie for our dinner this evening, is that potato pastry is quite good. It is solid and almost biscuit like, but as an easy to make pastry, I would really recommend this. It would probably be more suited to a rich meat pie as you would have more of a contrast in flavours and textures. The filling of this pie is also quite solid and plane which makes the whole dish quite dull. This could easily be rectified, as any old left-overs could be thrown into the filling and would enhance this massively.

To make the potato pastry, mix 8oz of flour with ½ teaspoon of salt and add 2oz of fat to 4oz mashed potato and combine all of the ingredients together to form dough. I did add some water to slacken this slightly and you really need to make sure that the fat is combined into the potato first, otherwise you will get lumps. Yet, this makes a good ball of pastry dough and for anyone learning basic cooking or baking with children this would be a great idea.

For the filling, which I would adapt, mix two reconstituted eggs with 2oz of mashed potato, salt, pepper and two rations of chopped bacon. Smear out the mixture into a pie plate or oven dish and layer with the pastry.

This does go quite a long way as it is very filling. I am not used to really flour heavy food and after the Yorkshire pudding yesterday I am feeling rather stuffed.

Yorkshire Pudding

Yorkshire pudding feels about as British as a queue at the Post Office. I love Yorkshire pudding and although there is nothing remotely Yorkshire about me I think I am pretty good at making them, that is with shell eggs. I would quite happily eat it on its own, with gravy or with cream. Yet, this is rationing and cream on Yorkshire pudding would definitely be a major, major luxury which the WW2 housewife would never have been able to indulge.

One complaint that I have read about repeatedly regarding Yorkshire Pudding with powdered eggs was that they came out as flat as they went in. I don’t usually follow a recipe for Yorkshire pudding and instead go by consistency, so this recipe did strike me as being a little thicker than I would usually make. Here Goes…

Mix 4oz flour with a pinch of salt. Add one tablespoon of powdered egg and add ¼ Pt of milk, whisking to a thick consistency. Then add another ¼ Pt of milk and beat well. I left mine to stand for a while. Heat a knob of dripping or fat to smoking hot. Pour in batter and cook for 30 minutes.

This is the foundation recipe to which chopped cooked meat or vegetables can be added to create something completely new.

The result is that this tastes like Yorkshire pudding however, I like mine light, fluffy and crispy and this is one of the most solid Yorkshire puddings I have ever eaten. If you decided to use this recipe for Toad in the Hole, this would fill you up for a few days. Moreover, as feared it did come out pretty much as flat as it went in… 

Coquet Pudding

Luckily the riots have ceased in London for the time being, but this week has been a strange week and today quite an odd day. I took the day off after working excessively over the previous two weeks and so far have been questioned by the police regarding ‘a disturbance’ at another flat, been asked if I wanted a ‘stolen’ plasma T.V and rescued a check out worker who was being abused by a customer. I called the police regarding the Plasma screen incident and as an officious bystander took down their number plate and reported them. In the back of my mind, this was probably stolen from an innocent shop owner on Sunday/Monday night during the riots and if my little but of civic duty results in prosecution I will be elated. Rescuing the supermarket worker from verbal abuse also secured £3 off of my shopping bill so I feel I have triumphed twice already today.

With a bit of spare time, I decided to get dinner done early and prepared for this evening. For dessert I have made Coquet Pudding. This is mashed potatoes, cooked with powdered egg, sugar, milk and jam.

I could not imagine in anyway how this would look, taste or smell. Potatoes in a dessert are beyond anything I would ever contemplate. I cooked and mashed the poatoes with butter using a potato ricer. I thought any kind of lumps in this would really make it feel like potatoes and lumps in mashed potatoes can never be forgiven. I mixed in sugar, two reconstituted eggs and milk. I did not follow an exact recipe for this one, as I find converting imperial to metric measurements all the time slightly annoying. I also only had one large baking potato so pretty much threw in what I thought was best.

Despite low expectations, this is really quite nice. It has quite a granular consistency, and reminds me almost of a thick semolina pudding. Yet, you cannot taste the powdered egg which is a massive bonus for me and I would quite happily eat it again. 

War-Time Cookery to Save Fuel and Food Value

My blog is all about eating and cooking using the rations of World War 2, hopefully learning a few things along the way. However, this week what has really been on mind is the appalling behaviour of the rioters. Did Britain endure 10 years of rationing and a World War against fascism to be lumbered with a generation of vandalising thieves? I understand people get disenchanted, I get like that myself most weeks in a thankless job, but to go out and burn down people’s businesses and homes is really shameful.

Where did it go wrong, that caused this to happen? I may have a rose coloured, tinted glasses view of World War 2, but I thought people were meant to pull together in times of trouble and that we all had the Blitz Spirit. Unfortunately, this seems to have disappeared in the current climate, I just hope that these events do not become normalised and that we as a nation shun their thuggish actions and unite against them.

Moving onto the topic of this blog, I found this great little leaflet over the weekend, issued by the National Food Campaign Exhibition in 1940 held in Manchester, titled: War-Time Cookery to save fuel and food value. Here are some of its top tips, some of which I hadn’t thought of and really shows how all food can be stretched that little bit further.

1. Keep a vegetable stock-pot with water from celery, leeks, onions, carrots, potatoes, greens and other vegetables. Never throw these liquids away; they contain valuable minerals and vitamins, and partly help to make up deficiency in rationed foods.
2. Use the liquid from boiled vegetables to dilute tinned soups.
3. When serving soup and vegetables at the same meal, cook the vegetables in the soup.
4. Steam root vegetables
5. Cook potatoes in their jackets.
6. Save all fat from cooking meat; refine it and use it for other cooking purposes.
7. Cook meals as far as possible with one unit of heat e.g. in one large steamer on a low fire or single gas-ring you may cook: a meat roll, steamed jacket potatoes, boiled or steamed suet pudding; or in one over you may cook: baked meat, casserole of mixed vegetables, fruit pie or pastry, scones.

The leaflet has some really interesting recipes, which are of interest. Powdered egg will resume shortly….

Baked Egg Custard and a Tomato

So far this week, America nearly went bust potentially ruining what little economic progress we have made over the past two years, my colleague at work fell off a banana boat which has left me working twelve hour days and I think I have a chest infection. However, on a brighter note the balcony garden has been in major tomato producing mode this week and I will be subjecting them to my new ‘preserving’ book. I am really excited about the idea of preserving and making my balcony produce last throughout the winter. I know this is August, but I will start giving them a go soon.

I was quite tempted by the latest government recipe, ‘baked egg custard.’ I have never been a fan of custardy deserts as a rule but for some reason, really fancied this one.

Beat one reconstituted egg with sugar, add 1 ½ Pt of milk and some flavouring, pour into a greased dish and bake until set.

Unfortunately, the recipe is a little bit vague in relation to cooking temperatures and quantities and that is probably why this did not work. I baked and baked for two hours and nothing, not even a skin formed on top of the milky bath.

I decided to revert to tried and tested cooking methods and bake in a Bain Marie, reconstituted another egg and poured that in and cook for half an hour which seemed to do the trick.  

I liked it, although it did seem to have that powdered egg taste which seems to tarnish everything that powdered egg goes into. If I gave this a go again, I might add more sugar or flavouring of some kind to erode this.

Madeira Cake

I have always enjoyed baking and I was hopeful that dried egg would have a real use in baking. The ‘powdered egg’ meals really will have had to be reserved for desperate times. I still haven’t finished all of them, but I am taking a little break before I try the bacon and egg pie. However, baking must have been a challenge on rations. The principle key elements of cake making are fat, sugar and eggs all of which were rationed. This must have made cake making the reserve for special occasions, if at all. 

At first glance at the recommended recipe, I could tell this was not going to have the consistency of a ‘normal’ cake. Firstly, this was going to be a dense batter, due to the small amount of fat and sugar to flour ratio. Secondly, there was not a lot of moisture in the recipe. Using powdered eggs, means that you are losing quite a lot from the egg whites and due to the low fat content I could not picture how this would turn out. The recipe also calls for ‘National Flour.’

Nation Flour was the name given to the 85% extraction flour which was introduced in the UK in February 1941, it was later called wheatmeal flour and then production discontinued in 1956. Now, it took me a month to get hold of powdered egg, so finding ‘National Flour’ was probably not going to be an option, so I decided to go with all purpose.

I followed the recipe exactly, however the consistency was so thick that my poor mixer could have used the dough hook (this may be rationing, but I'm still using my modern appliances). To resolve this I went my own way and thinned down the consistency with milk. The baking time also seemed a little excessive of 1 ½ to 2 hours in a moderate oven? I only baked this for ½ an hour as I would with most sponges of this size in a 23 cm tin. If I had cooked this in a loaf tin, I would have increased this to 50 minutes but not much longer.

Once cooled, I chiselled out the Madeira cake from the tin and although it wasn’t the best cake I have ever made, it was not unpleasant at all. Due to the thickness of the mixture it pretty much tasted of scone (one big giant scone). However, cut into slices, you could quite happily eat this with Jam, butter or cream (like a scone) and it is so stodgy that it would keep you going for ever!   

'Egg Cutlet'

‘Egg Cutlet’

I spoke to my grandmother this weekend and asked her about the powdered egg ‘meals’ as they are not great. However, she did say that although they did use them, they didn’t eat them as per the recipes I am re-creating. Instead, they mainly used them in baking etc, which does make sense. She did tell me though how her mother used to preserved real eggs in isinglass, which is from the swimbladders of fish. Fresh eggs were placed in a bucket with water and isinglass which would keep them from going bad over winter. I wonder if there is anyone out there still doing this? Keeping eggs that little bit longer, is a really good idea.

The egg cutlet, consisted off powdered egg, mixed cook vegetables and oatmeal, formed into patties and fried. 

Mock Fried Egg

After a week at work where the last thing I was thinking about was food, due to extreme business and general stress, tonight it was ‘Mock Fried Egg.’ In our organic, anti-additives age the word ‘mock’ in any recipe or on any package would not be popular. However, this is rationing and the ministry of food was working with what they had. I need to ask my grandmothers if they actually made ‘mock fried egg’ or just went without. To be fair, this wasn’t that bad and just tasted like bread dipped in egg and fried.

Recipe:

Cut a hole in a slice of bread, (I used a pastry cutter), dip in water and fry on one side until golden brown. Reconstitute an egg (working out the lumps) and once the bread is brown, flip over and pour the egg into the hole. Once the other side of the bread has browned, flip back over briefly so the reconstituted egg cooks through.

Scrambled Egg (1 Egg, reconstituted)

The potatoes have run out (for now), so tonight it is the turn of the famous powdered egg. As previously mentioned the egg ration was one egg per week per person or powdered egg which made up to 12 eggs. The issues surrounding eggs today are how chickens are treated and how little cheap eggs can be purchased for. The range in the shops is extensive from ‘caged hen eggs’ (never a good thing) or field reared, corn fed roaming hens’ eggs. During WW2 it was whether there were any eggs available at all. 

My paternal grandmother lived on a farm during WW2 so eggs were generally in plentiful supply. However, she has often told me a story regarding a mysterious woman knocking on the door to barter for eggs. Apparently, my great-grandparents had never seen this woman before and were such innocent country folk, that they refused to barter in fear of being prosecuted for participating in the egg black market. Eggs are such a crucial part of our daily diet, probably as much then as now, that it is not surprising people were desperate to get hold of them. I can really understand why after tonight’s experience with powdered egg. 

The Ministry of Food Leaflet Number 11, states that ‘dried eggs are just as good as fresh eggs and should be used in the same way. They are very useful for main dishes.’ Now, I understand that the government had to sell powdered egg to the people and maybe they are useful in baking (we shall see) but eating them as an egg replacement you really can tell the difference.

Today, it was scrambled egg with powdered egg. The direction goes as follows add 1 tablespoon of milk to 1 egg (reconstituted)* and season. Melt ½ Oz of fat in a pan and pour in the mixture, stirring as little as possible until it just sets.

To set the record straight, this does not taste like scrambled egg. Scrambled egg is buttery, light and fluffy, this has a more solid consistency and tastes as if it is flavour of scrambled egg. This really is not as ‘good as fresh eggs.’

However, I should count myself lucky that I have the equivalent of 12 eggs rather than the one. I probably would have foregone scrambled egg during the war if all I had was the dried version and would have saved this for when I was lucky enough to have a real egg. I am hopeful that the dried egg will be useful in baking as I can really see a use for it in this field as it would solve the egg problem. Not sure how cakes will turn out, but I will be giving this a go.

To reconstitute the egg, it is one tablespoon of egg powder to two tablespoons water, working out the lumps.  

Potato & Bacon Cakes

Due to the fact that I am on the benefits of potato at the moment, I have found a copy of the Ministry of Food’s leaflet Number 27 and tonight’s dinner has been Potato and Bacon cakes. Luckily, I had a couple of rashers of bacon spare and the potatoes. The recipe goes as follows: Peel, boil and then mash 1lb of potatoes and add 6 tablespoons of fried onion, 1 ½-3 Oz fried Bacon, 2 teaspoons of meat extract,  ½-1 teaspoon salt and a pinch of pepper. Form this mixture into cakes and cover with milk and breadcrumbs and bake in a medium oven until firm.

The results for me were mixed but this was a very economical and quite satisfying dinner. Firstly, after working a ten hour day I did not have the inclination to convert the measurements so pretty much used my culinary judgment. Secondly, I didn’t have milk, breadcrumbs or meat extract so went without. However, I believe this is in the spirit of rationing as I am sure our predecessors in the war went without most things and had to work with what they had.  To be fair they tasted like potato cooked with bacon and onion, but I quite enjoyed them. The main thing also was that I was starving after returning to work and these were really filling.

Now, I know their appearance is questionable on reflection, but I am sure they could be made to look much more picturesque if you wanted to take the time to mould them into proper cakes. The recipe makes 8, or 4 if you want to be greedy like me and my partner. 

Going to Bed Hungry

Going to bed hungry.

Today there has been another story reported by the BBC regarding families not able to afford food. Not surprisingly this appears to be a reality where inflation is as at 4.1%, unemployment high and fuel prices astronomical. The article does make you think where the increasing food prices will end? I am sure for families who are struggling, they would not throw food away, but for everyone else who is not sure about that bit of cheese or bacon that has gone past its ‘use by date’ maybe it can be used for something? The article is in the following link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13765820

A reasonable food option for me is still the potato! They are still good value in the supermarket and as the government during WW2 realised, they are very versatile. Tonight I created my favourite soup of all time, which of course contains ‘potatoes’.

Leek and Potato soup really is a thing of amazement, from the ingredients above (none of which were rationed) you can have a really fulfilling and satisfying dinner. Again, it is also a great soup for using up old potatoes or leeks and is very quick to make. I make the soup as follows:

Wash and chop four leeks and an onion (which I think helps boost the flavour of the leeks) and throw into a sauce pan. Roughly dice two large potatoes (baking) or four smaller ones without peeling, (there is no need to peel and a lot of goodness is in the skin). To preserve the flavour of leek as much as possible, I believe two parts leek to one part potato is a good ratio. Season generously with salt and pepper and add boiling water so that the vegetables are barely covered. To achieve the best results you want to add the least amount of water as possible.  At this point I add a chicken stock cube and leave to simmer until the potatoes are soft. Once the potatoes are soft, put into a blender and add two tablespoons of milk. Blend, correct seasoning to taste and serve.

This soup is a simple, frugal, low in fat and tasty soup. The quantities above would serve four as a starter or two for a main meal. I am such a great lover of leeks and this will taste even better if you grown your own. I used some really old leeks out of my grandmother’s garden a couple of months ago and it gave the soup a whole other dimension. Once I have dug up the dead and mouldy courgette plants from my balcony, leeks will be put in their place! 

The Potato

Luckily in the war, vegetables were not rationed, (although most could be hard to come by), people were encouraged to dig up their back gardens and ‘Dig for Victory’. I love to grow things and even though I live in a one bedroom flat, I am currently growing all sorts on a 1 metre by 5 metre balcony, (despite the fact that my courgettes have contracted some horrible fungal disease and died). Although I am never going to grow enough to live off in a ‘Good life’ kind of way, it is nice to just eat something you have grown from scratch.

Understandably, the potato was a war staple and it is still a massive part of our diet today. Although we do not necessarily eat the standard meat and potatoes like generations before us, I probably like most, still eat them in various forms.  I can understand why potatoes were so popular and promoted by the government, they were not alien to the British people like other foods, they are easy to grow at home, nutritious and have that comforting air about them. Sometimes only potatoes will do.

Potatoes are naturally fat-free, have many vitamins and minerals, do not contain cholesterol and are high in Vitamin C. Putting the word potato into Google and you are guided to many sites promoting the virtues of the potato and the lists and lists of goodness that is contained within them.

However, in an era where butter, cream and fats were rationed, substitutes to the usual potato favourites were offered by the Ministry of Food. The potato was also thrown into other foods such as potato pastry and biscuits, which sound intriguing in themselves.

Today though, it has been Roast Potatoes ‘without fat.’ Roast potatoes are something special in their own right and their crispy golden skins with soft middles cannot be rivaled. I was puzzled by the idea of cooking them without fat, but as many families had limited fat rations, this would not have been a choice. My Nan has told me on many occasions that her mother (my great-grandmother) was so short of fat that she would scrape the fat off tinned meats and keep it by for cakes or cooking.

The recipe for roast potatoes, without using any fat is as follows: peeled potatoes cut into roast potato sized pieces placed in a roasting tin so they are not touching. Then, add a tablespoon of salt to water and poor over so that the water reaches half way up the potatoes. Cook for one and a half hours at 200C The results are in the picture below. I was surprised at how good these actually are. Maybe a little too salty, but they were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. You can’t beat the real thing, but I would eat them again………

'Poor Kids'

I was expecting my next blog to be about the use of powdered egg as a replacement to normal eggs. Unfortunately, the website I ordered my powdered egg from, has failed to deliver as yet. Their customer service is also pretty shameful, but that is something I could start a whole other blog about.

However, in the theme of this blog, this week I stumbled across a televisions program called ‘Poor Kids ’ and it really made me think about food rationing. The film recorded various children around the country who currently live under the poverty line and this made for pretty thought provoking viewing. Many of the children regularly missed meals due to lack of money in the household to put food on the table. Moreover, they spoke really frankly about going without food as if it was the most normal thing. To me, not having food or means to get food and to go hungry is a frightening prospect. I really felt for these kids and realised how important it is not to throw food away. It is so precious and most people do take this for granted. To think that any child in the U.K goes without food does seem unfathomable.

In World War 2, everyone was largely provided with the same rations. This meant that the rich and the poor both started with the same provisions. Some literature has stated that food intake actually increased during the war as poorer families had been issued with food, where previously they had struggled to buy it. Maybe a fairer solution of food distribution would have relevance today where children are going without meals? I don’t know, but I do feel something should be done so that everyone can eat.

Food creativity and food rationing in a home management sense is becoming more and more relevant. Another news article today has stated that many pensioners are using their winter fuel payments to feed themselves. Food prices continually rice, due to fuel hikes and shortages of supply.

Vulnerable people going without meals, the lessons our grandparents learnt about the value of food from rationing, really does seem more relevant than ever! 

Rationing Order

To deal with the shortages of food during World War 2, the Ministry of Food implemented rationing.   Ration books with coupons were provided to the population to be exchanged in shops for food and clothing. The Nazis believed that by cutting off food supplies to the U.K the nation would be starved into defeat, (a plan that would break us in minutes today). The system of rationing out food in our society seems almost unimaginable. In our mass supermarkets, where food is thrown out the back of the stores into large bins and where aisles and aisles of fully stocked shelves glisten through the windows, how would we cope as a nation today, without this ‘food security’? I like most people buy into this ‘food utopia’, expecting to be able to walk to a shop to buy exactly what I want. I am tempted by the offers and drawn in to buying more than is needed.

However, despite this, I do believe I am a reasonably educated in buying food in the modern day. I price check the shelves, consider the deals (and whether or not they really are a ‘deal’) and I do not throw food away! Old fruit will go in a crumble and scraggly vegetables will go into a soup. Unless something really would make me ill, it will be eaten rather than go in the bin. Although I do have an aversion to food wastage, whether or not I could deal with rationing for 14 years, I really am not sure. Like most people, I have become comfortable in knowing that the supermarkets are there with their troves of full shelves, and have probably come dependent on our diet of plenty. This is why I feel like I should do this project. I am not going to starve, or go hungry. I will not have to worry about food running out, rationing is not being imposed upon me by our government and our country is not fighting for survival. However, I am going to give it a go.

The key image of war rationing for me, from history books, television, and so forth has to be powdered egg. During the war, 1 egg per person, per week was the allocation. The thought of one egg a week, does strike a little bit of horror for me. As a keen baker, using three eggs at a time for a cake and 5 egg yolks for Crème Anglaise means that one egg would really not go very far in this luxurious egg fest.

An alternative offered by the Ministry of Food was 1 packet of egg powder a month which made up to 12 eggs. Today, egg powder is near by impossible to buy. None of the shops seem to supply it and I have had to go on-line. Luckily, I have found a quaint body building website who sells it as a protein supplement for muscle build. However, it is made in the same way as the orginal powdered egg, by spray drying it. Once this arrives, eggs a go go. From the recipes I have seen, distributed by the Ministry of Food, powdered egg really was a suggested replacement for eggs in all forms. From mock fried egg to scrambled egg this really was a promoted option.

When it arrives, from my muscle website, we will see how ‘just as good as fresh eggs’ they really are!  

Ration Kitchen

Like most, my grandparents endured the hardship of rationing throughout World War Two and beyond. In Britain, rationing was introduced in 1940 and did not end fully until 1954. For my grandparents, fourteen years of rationing changed their lives and gave them values on wastage that have stuck with them until today. Unfortunately, both my grandfathers have passed away, but both my grandmothers (one 90 and the other 84, who still live on their own) still recall this period and the lessons it taught them. I do hate wastage of all kinds and when you read in the media that a third of food is thrown away this does seem criminal!

I intend to revisit food rationing and cook through the recipes supplied by the Ministry of Food to keep Britain going through the War. Hopefully, I will discover whether these principles can be applied to our modern wasteful society and if these were healthier times.

An important note is that this will be my experience of the rationing policies of the 1940s and 50s. I do not presume to know what living with food shortages was like for 14 years with the constant fear of bombings and loss of loved ones throughout WW2. I have the upmost respect, for the generation who fought for our liberty and who endured so much so that we can have the freedoms we have today. I just hope that from my meagre experiment, I can experience a small modicum of what rationing was like and hopefully bring some of those lessons into the modern day.   

Within this blog I will also be incorporating the stories of all four of my grandparents who all experienced the war in a very different way. I find these stories interesting and I hope you do too!

Now where to find powdered egg?????