On the ration: Day Seven

The end of the ration challenge is usually reserved for a sort of VE day celebration, breaking the rules of strict rationing and having a treat so mark the end of ‘hardship.’ The last day of the ration challenge however, fell on a very special day for the British people, the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. (Note: This challenge was undertook before the passing away of her majesty and has been typed up in December following her sad passing.)

I went to work and took the pre prepared Italian rarebit with me along with the chocolate vinegar cakes topped with mock cream and enjoyed a quick breakfast of porridge and some of the little golden syrup the neighbours points had got me before getting to work.

I hope our team leader Ange doesn’t mind me mentioning her, but her spirit that morning of the jubilee was unlike anything I had ever seen, creating sandwiches and other nibbles in little paper bags for the people we work for, whilst the jubilee procession played on the television in the background. She worked tirelessly, putting up bunting and spreading cheer for all those we worked with, reminding me of both VE day and the coronation of the past.

There was a street party for everyone we work with, with cake, and I passed around my authentic, eggless bakes which surprised everyone, there was no taste of vinegar at all, and enjoyed the Italian rarebit, which to my total, complete amazement tasted exactly like pizza! The true miracle was that the stodge of the national loaf was not even apparent, perhaps the day of festivities and the stolen drink of fresh lemonade had caught me in good spirits, but this was by far the best meal of the week.

The jubilee celebrations were not unlike the queen’s own coronation which took place during the time of rationing itself, with the government giving out extra butter, flour and sugar rations for households in order to bake and celebrate. What households did have television sets, allowed neighbours to gather and watch the spectacle, and pamphlets were issued providing crown themed baking show stoppers for households to try and recreate to host their own coronation celebrations. This was very much what was happening to me during this jubilee celebration, with rows and rows of celebrating people. and many tempting cakes, which I still, to my chagrin I still couldn’t eat!

In the evening we made more vegetable patties, using milk instead of egg and coated them in the national loaf crumbs, frying them up with margarine and roasted potatoes, truly using up everything we had left.

That night we went to sleep full, and content, knowing that for us this time of rationing was over, knowing that back then we would have had many years left of this, ahead of us, alongside the horrors that this time period presented. The war would carry on, and even when it finally finished, most of our foodstuffs went to America and to war-torn Europe, and the British kept calm and carried on, chin up and stoic. For me, yes I could wake up and have access to whatever I desired, with imported food safe from submarines and missiles, I didn’t have to shave my cheese and count every gram. I didn’t have to go outside and source my flavourings from the undergrowth and could pick from hundreds of options from a superstore down the road, but did I want to anymore?

In short, yes. I had a new value and appreciation for what I had and where it came from and what I could do to stretch it further. I remember the first day of the challenge, being frustrated at the air miles that came with the produce, and had to learn the seasons that native vegetables came from, and even the fruits, berries and herbs that are freely available in our countryside. I have learned the many ways that wartime Britain adapted what they did have to create something that resembled something they didn’t have and appreciate the wealth of recipes that have been left behind to preserve this creativity.

On the ration: Day Six

The morning of the penultimate day I woke up feeling optimistic, for me this experience was almost over, but for the British public, rationing would be a very real presence in their life, long after armistice day and into the mid 1950s. Tucking into my porridge and Hawthorne jam, I could only feel grateful, and grumbling at the grey rough mixture I was eating would achieve nothing, I had food inside me, it was warm and filling and sweet and it wasn’t national bread!

Speaking of national loaf, no matter how much we ate it appeared that the loaf remained the same size, and it seemed a mammoth enough task to eat it, let alone deplete it. I had barely started slicing it before it caught the eye of Matt who was visibly wincing. “Please, I beg of you, not the national loaf again!”

Lunch was another kind of rarebit, this time the traditional welsh variety, one that he quite likes, because of one very specific ingredient. The apparent trauma that I had invoked by cutting up the national loaf was instantly quelled when I began opening a small bottle of beer. The face he had been pulling, and his re-enactment of our dog Meg when we suggest she has to get off her bed and go outside, magically faded and he began to creep into the kitchen.

“Is that for me?” he asked interestedly. After almost a week on the rationing his favourite thing in the world had just been cracked open, and suddenly his entire world view had shifted.

Beer and alcohol was not rationed but was heavily taxed and very hard to get regularly, and was in essence ‘priced out’ for the working classes, more a commodity for the odd occasion, and with Matt being in banking, I thought he might have been able to afford it, on this particular day, and back in the 1940s.

We mixed national flour, powdered mustard, melted butter (yes the precious real butter!), homemade ‘mushroom ketchup’, a small amount of the remaining cheese and some of the beer and made a paste. At this point he was looking into the pan as if it was some kind of instant happiness potion, his excitement was radiating. I then began to roll the slices of national loaf out and the inner turmoil began, eyes darting between the cheesy, beery goodness and his nemesis the national loaf, a flood of conflicting feelings very apparent.

I topped the loaf with the paste and the very last of the cheese ration and let it cook, and poured out the remaining beer into a little glass. The effect was instantaneous, he had all but grabbed a knife and fork and tied a napkin around his neck, eyes popping out like the scene from a cartoon, franticly licking his lips.

After lunch I did another audit, seeing what we had left. The cooking fat was gone, we had little margarine, little butter, no cheese, a small scraping of preserves, no bacon, no meat… the list went on. We had some egg, some potatoes, fat from last night’s bacon, a few vegetables and the Italian rarebit and cake for the Jubilee.

Dinner time was the egg, more chipped potatoes and some boiled vegetables, cooked for Matt in his bacon fat from the night before, and for myself in the margarine, and the scrapings from the wax paper that the cooking fat arrived in. I offered Matt some more national loaf to go with his dripping, potatoes and vegetables but he declined, something that was not uncommon as the national loaf had a very notorious distaste with the British public.

We dined on what we had that night, but tomorrow was a very special day indeed….

On the ration: Day five

I woke up this morning to the sound of my stomach growling, the first hunger indicator I have had since the start of the ration challenge. I have an alarming amount of national loaf left considering the week is nearly up, so a nice slice of toast and margarine started the day. We also have quite a substantial amount of fats left, the butter that we do have is untouched, the margarine is at the half way point after the baking and cooking fat has been our primary source of frying oil so is the item most depleted.

Whilst I am checking the rations, we are now devoid of tea bags, something we as a family don’t use anyway and enjoyed swapping with the neighbours, we have very little sugar and national flour left, Matt has had his entire meat ration and does have some bacon left. I have some of my ‘meat’ ration left, some cheese, 3/4 of a whisked egg, plenty of milk and some preserve. I am surprised we had so little in our allocated rations and still have anything left by the fifth day of the challenge and a little bit impressed by the creativity that allowed us to do so.

When taking a look at the things we have used and what we have left it was very interesting to see how many vegetables and foraged items we still have access to. We have a lot of peelings and off cuts from the week alongside all the potatoes, seasonal vegetables and wild garlic, and in order to avoid committing a home front sin they need to be eaten.

In a bowl I mixed some vegetable suet and all but the last remaining national flour together to make wartime suet pastry and put that to the side. I chopped some of the vegetables and potatoes into chunks alongside the rest of the nettles and created a gravy using the peelings and ends from the previous days, cooking the vegetable chunks with it.

With the little cooking fat I had left I fried the last of my ‘meat’ ration and mixed it with the vegetables and stock and poured it into a pie dish, where it was apparent how very little meat there was in there and how much we had to bulk it out with vegetables. I rolled out the coarse suet pastry and stretched it thinly over the pies. The egg is very precious so the egg wash usually destined for the pies had to be substituted with milk instead.

In with the peelings were the sliced potatoes left over from the second day in, these also needed using up and were layered in a small pie dish with ‘mock cream’, chopped wild garlic and some tri cornered leek as onion was not readily available to us during the time of rationing. This was then topped with half of the remaining cheese ration and was cooked alongside the pie.

Mock cream was another popular world war 2 recipe created by households who were feeling the pinch of rationing, and is surprisingly versatile, especially to me during this challenge. I used about half of the recipe on the potato dauphinoise and then had another half that I whipped up to top the vinegar cakes for the jubilee party, with the last gram or so of sugar to sweeten it gently.

Sitting down to the afternoon’s pie, it was interesting to think how normal it felt that I was eating nettles and peelings, and not fishing around inside it to find out how little meat there was there. I had hit a feeling of normalcy, something I can only imagine many families settled into as rationing dragged on. I was feeling full, managed to eat a good meal and was not struggling with the amount of food I was provided with. I did miss having Just eat at my disposal and was jealous when I went to work and watched what everyone else was eating, but I was not going without.

I am embarrassed to admit that with the national toast and the hearty pie and potatoes I wasn’t hungry for anything further but did fry up some bacon in fat and margarine up two slices of national loaf to make a sandwich for my partner, straining up the fat and leaving to cool to cook for him another day with. He clearly wasn’t going to go without either……

On the ration: Day four

Day four was a break from the national breakfast staple with no national loaf in sight, using almost all the points we had left to get our hands on some exciting oats! Four days ago I didn’t think I would be describing coarse oats as exciting yet here I was looking at these grey, rough, unrolled grains and was seeing heaven!

Hawthorn preserve porridge with some of my milk ration was a warming start to the day which, just as it’s early morning national counterpart had done, managed to keep me full until around 2pm. I don’t eat breakfast as a rule, and on the list of possible breakfasts porridge would be at the very bottom, but in the last four days I have seen the benefit of breaking the fast, and have learned to appreciate the humble oat in it’s milky, sweet form, especially when compared to the stodgy national loaf, especially on it’s way down.

Lunchtime was leftovers, an incredibly common practice, especially in the time of scarcity, with fines and jail time given to those who wasted food. Yesterday’s rissoles were still buttery, and still contained… nettles. There’s not much more I can say on the matter, but they did look, in production, like the veggie patties you get at subway!

Both breakfast and lunch were consumed at work, where the food being brought in is still quite amusing to the rest of my colleagues. All eyes were on me on the first day when I came in with the stew, ~~hockey pucks~~ yorkshire puddings and national loaf slice, and the pure comedy of watching me try to swallow them, so when I arrived today the first thing they wanted to know was what had arrived with me in my lunch bag.

Throughout the morning I saw a few staff members who were ‘in the know’ pop their heads into the fridge and come out looking disappointed. The most notable was my friend Sam, who had witnessed the stew spectacle and approached me saying “Go on then, what have you got to eat today?” I remember everyone in the lounge in shock when I told them “Nettles.” They all wore the faces I had before I’d tried the rissoles, and they asked the same questions I’d asked myself, about the stinging, and the possibility I’d just eaten something inedible!

I produced the rissoles and the preconceived notions all the staff had, meted away, as I had what looked like a crisp bake in a box, nestled alongside the sandwiches, yoghurts, and other socially acceptable workplace goodies. “Its also fried in lard, does anyone want some?”

The Jubilee fast approaching I decided I wanted something tasty to bring with me, and I knew exactly what I was craving. The first appearance of pizza, or ‘Italian rarebit’ was during the time of rationing, although a far cry from the real thing, I still had the ingredients!

I cooked the seasonal tomatoes I had on the stovetop, they were small, oddly shaped and every colour but red, but nicely sweet, amongst the foraged wild garlic, carrots and cauliflower. These reduxced nicely but were not quite the pizza sauce that I knew and loved. I grabbed mine and matt’s tea bag ration and went next door. My neighbours are not strangers to my social history projects, and when I appeared with some tea bags, I’m sure they didn’t know what to expect. Trading supplies was not uncommon amongst communities, and when above board and not on the black market, this was a great way to make sure everyone had what their families needed. Since our points had gone on oats, and the jubilee was coming up, someone else’s’ points may have gone on something else. In theory this may have been our neighbours. I managed to trade two persons supply of tea bags, something that Britain ran on, for the appropriate amount of the neighbour’s points in the form of golden syrup. I could now make flapjacks for the jubilee, but more importantly, I now could sweeten the tomato sauce that was cooking on the stovetop.

Pizza dough would have been the dream, as the pizza sauce smelled delicious, but the realities of rationing meant that tipo 00 was not an option, and I didn’t have enough of the national flour to try and make anything close, once again the national loaf beckoned. I rolled a thick slice of national bread with a pin until it was wide and flat and spooned the pizza sauce on, with some grated cheese and plucked herbs that I was growing from the garden.

At some point between the completion of the Italian rarebit and the cooking of the sauce, our border collie Wheatley taught us a valuable history lesson, regarding Homefront cookery. During aid raids, the house and contents were abandoned, and food and valuables fell victim to those braving the dangers of bombs to steal and plunder wreckages and active homes alike. This was highly illegal and the penalty for doing so was akin to war crimes and could result in being put to death, the risk also posed by being outside, thieving during the potential fall of bombs.

In my case I had popped out to let the sauce cool, and during that time he had struck. We heard the clatter and rushed downstairs so see pizza sauce everywhere, the pan was still upright but the spoon that has been left inside had been jettisoned to the floor, splattering the worktop, floor cabinets and very surprised looking dog in sauce.

I packed up the rarebit from the oven to save for the jubilee later in the week and went to bath the dog, something I didn’t have on the bingo cards for the day. By the time everything was done, neither one of us had the chance to eat or cook any dinner, but the previous two meals had carried us this far at least and neither of us felt hungry.

Thankfully dog food isn’t on the ration for Wheatley.

Here is a bonus picture to finish the day with, a very sorry for himself looking counter top thief.

On the ration: Day 3

Day three started quite pleasantly in contrast to the day before, presumably due to the absence of national loaf or national flour, I actually awoke feeling energised and optimistic. When I went downstairs and had a look at the food we had in however, it really dawned on me how little food I had to work with.. the majority being various fats for frying and baking.

Breakfast was national toast with preserves again, it’s filling power had been more than enough on the first day, but I had been so taken aback by the first taste of the loaf to really think about what I’d been spreading on it. I had made the preserve in advance using what little sugar I was allocated and fruit that I could find for free, something I had never thought about eating in my wildest dreams… Hawthorne berries.

I am, if having toast, very used to sugar. Most jams and spreads on the market in the Uk (and the US!), Nutella, Chocolate spread, peanut butters, fruit jam are incredibly sweet and not surprisingly packed with sugar and sweeteners. The preserve from my ration was a story in itself, the tale of how households were hit by the first rationing and the sheer creativity needed to stretch what was had and how to adapt when rationing placed limitations on recipes. The ministry of food, through domestic propaganda encouraged the creation of homemade preserves, and many households saved their sugar, one of the first imposed rations, in order to create these. Some households grew their own fruit, or used berries from hedgerows and in the times building up to winter, took other resorts, depending on when the desired amount of sugar had been stocked up.

World War 2 rationed Jam could use as little as 3/4 lb sugar, in comparison to a jar of Nutella which has 58 % sugar, totalling 230g sugar per 400g jar, so understandably preserves on the ration were far less sweet. The hawthorn preserves that had been made for this challenge sat upon the bread, as far from Nutella, or supermarket jam as it could be, however for something that I’d spent a dark evening foraging for, tasted delicious.

The afternoon was powered by sweet, sweet and very stodgy national toast, a taste of Hawthorne and a stretched sugar supply, whilst I made lunch using the nettles I had collected the day before. boiling down the leaves with potato, carrots and broccoli, UK based seasonal vegetables and mashing them up into an appetising paste. As a writer, I love to exaggerate, so please imagine a colcannon or mashed potato texture which was then mixed with some of my precious egg and crumbs of the national loaf end. This was flattened out and cooled on a marble slab- the fridge of the world war, and formed into circles using a glass from the kitchen. These patties were coated in more of the egg and rolled in yet more national crumb and fried in Lard. I suppose the best way of explaining what these are, is a bit like those breaded vegetable burgers usually the kind found in the freezer, but made of nettles and national load and made crispy by hot lard.

As a medical vegetarian I have had to substitute lard with a cooking fat called Trex which has the exact same colour, structure and taste as lard ,according to my partner who has had the pleasure of trying the real thing. I would like to mention that I am not a fan of frying foods, and could have much preferred to have put these in the oven but where physically possible I have tried to keep things as accurate as possible so yet another food stuff is tossed into a pan of hot fat.

The rissoles were not too dissimilar to the tuna ones I made for my partner back in the 1950s challenge, but prepared in cooking fat rather than my precious oven and contained, nettles, a food I had never in my wildest dreams thought I would put in my mouth. I closed my eyes and prepared to be stung into oblivion, but the stinging did not come. The first taste was buttery, hot and delicious. I had made a lunch using things I could find for free and in abundance amongst homegrown and local produce… for pennies, and had not used much of the precious rationed food.

When preparing an omelette I will put about three eggs in without giving it a second thought, so having one egg for the whole challenge, meant cracking it open and using small portions of this literal liquid gold and spreading it out throughout meals. In the rissoles I had used two measly portions topped up with water and milk in order to serve my culinary purposes, and I then realised how much I had taken this simple ingredient for granted. Before 1941 and the US came to British aid in the war, households had to make do with their one precious egg, unless they had fowl and were advised not to register for their egg ration, or had access to the American wonder the powdered egg.

In an eggless kitchen with the Queen’s jubilee upcoming I had been tasked to make a cake, when most of the ingredients I would need were on the ration. If you remember the 1950s challenge and my post about zero waste housewifery, you may remember the housewife’s favourite cleaning ingredient Vinegar. Now, you may be wondering what vinegar has to do with baking a cake for the jubilee, and yes, those of you who might be reading this and grimacing, you are absolutely correct!

Using some of my allocated ‘points’ I was able to get my hands on a small scoop of baking powder, and when mixed with cocoa powder, national flour, some of my rationed fats (I went with margarine, I wouldn’t handle lard at this point!), milk and sparse sprinkling of sugar created a cake mixture. The lack of egg to make the cake meant that I, alongside many households who were also feeling the pinch of rationing had to resort to creativity, and so my precious window cleaner, vinegar went into the pot.

My workplace was having a jubilee ‘street party’ later on that week, so as the vinegar cakes were left to cool, I knew that I had a few days to psyche myself up before I tried them.

The evening was potatoes cut into chunks and fried using the cooking fat, a city dwellers staple, that during the time of evacuation left a massive culture shock for the children involved. We had the chance to dwell upon the day’s culinary choices, and think about what food had come from our precious rations and what we had a stock of. Potatoes had appeared quite a bit in today’s meals and the peelings, which we would ordinarily compost and been saved in a tin in the kitchen, alongside all other rings and vegetable skins. These would have been saved by households to feed to pigs in ‘pig clubs’ or sent to the local councils to feed poultry, nothing was wasted, and for us that was no exception. The ministry of food provided many leaflets to alert households to what they were saving their remains for, and fines were imposed to those who did waste food, with bins being checked very commonly.

Day three left me full, and surprised, very little of our rationed food had been used, and even then, most of it had been the larger stocks, such as the fats, even our one egg had been stretched with about 3/4 whisked mixture still left. Day four was just one sleep away…

On the ration: Day two

I woke up feeling full, a feeling I am very unfamiliar with. Not only did I feel full, but the combination of the national loaf, the dumplings and the Yorkshires had sunk to the bottom of my stomache. I felt like I had swallowed cinder blocks, and continued to do so for most of the day.

Usually around 12, I admit I have eaten quite a lot, so was surprised when the hours ticked by and still no hunger signals were sent to my brain. I found myself keeping busy around the house and realised exactly how much time I waste thinking about food, socially eating or just going to the supermarkets… for fun. Since the aisles were strictly off limits I realised that I’d have to occupy my time a different way.

I have done a stint in modelling in the past few weeks and today was the day I got to see the pictures. During the viewing I was eying up the complimentary popcorn on the table and it was apparent so was Matt. Even in the reception for the modelling agency there were sweets and complimentary drinks everywhere. This was a minefield!

Popcorn resisted, I was again mindful that I wasn’t actually hungry and for the first time I recognised an impulse! It is estimated that we make 226.7 food and drink decisions a day, most of which we don’t even realise and I was just as guilty! The stodge in my belly mostly comprising of wholewheat husk and potato flour was giving me clarity somehow.

On the way back Matt and I took Meg the dog and a basket on a foraging adventure to gather the ingredients for the following days. We collected nettles and wild garlic whose lovely white flowers were beginning to wane, and took some time to think about the country and it’s abundance. Before I started this week on rationing I never had to collect wild plants, relying on a plethora of herbs, spices, veggies and convenience foods available whenever I wanted them. Now I was finding myself having to be creative and stretching what I had left, and today that meant collecting nettles.

Later on in the evening Matt and I treated ourselves to the cinema, a pastime we don’t indulge in often, But since cheer isn’t on this week and after waiting 2 years for it, it was time to see Bob’s burgers. The cinema is shrine to all things convenience food, and our local amps it up to 100. There is a bar, a pizzeria, sweet counter, drinks machines, the list goes on, and I am quite partial to pizza pretty much all of the time. Planning ahead for this kind of temptation I dug into my sweets ration and brought some of my chocolate, lovingly weighed and wrapped and ready to go.

“Will trade ya my bacon for your chocolate mister!”

When you are on the ration Cadbury’s chocolate hits different. Instead of gorging myself on it, I savoured every bite, making a few squares last the whole film. Cadbury’s chocolate played a big part in the war, substituting their liquid milk for powdered and keeping morale for the troops and housewives alike. Being the savvy woman I am I had traded some of my bacon ration with Matt for some of his sweets coupons, a practice very common at the time! I was very pleased with my supply of sweets for the week, and very surprised I didn’t use the lot in one sitting!

The problem with watching a film about burgers when doing the ration challenge is you really can’t stop thinking about burgers. When I returned home I had a look at what I had in the fridge and selected my meat ration (well beyond meat ration!) and some potatoes and just fried them together with the tretex, served with boiled broccoli. An unexceptional meal I would normally turn my nose up at now tasted like the most delicious thing I had ever eaten, a homage to wartime burger and chips, a mouthwatering masterpiece. Breaking the fast for the day, I felt full and was satisfied at my basic, greasy, unseasoned meal and sniffed around for more of the boiled broccoli. After a very dense, stodgy day one and a bland, greasy, but very happy day two, somehow I know I can carry on for the rest of the week.

Who knew broccoli could get someone so excited?!

On the Ration: Day One

I, like most people who envision the 1950s tend to have tunnel vision on America. By the mid 1950s the gaps in the american and brittish housewife’s quality of life were worlds apart due to World War 2. Rationing in Britain did not end until 1954 as crops and foodstuffs were sent to european companies most afflicted by the war. The british 1950s housewife would have spent a good portion of her life on the ration, a far cry from the lifestyles we live in the present day.

I make no secret about my love of halloumi, ravioli, pizza, the ability to grab a packet of Wotsits Crunchy cheese crisps whenever I walk past the supermarket. This leaves my fridge at risk of neglect, and after organising and cleaning my entire kitchen lately I am painfully reminded about how much my life relies around convenience foods. It is very easy for me to take for granted what I have to eat, and with a busy lifestyle being in two cheerleading teams, working in epilepsy nursing, attending mass, church group and a pub quiz, I admit I don’t always put much thought into what I cook.

Matt has decided to join me on the rations challenge this time around, seemingly forgetting the last time we did a history challenge together and the many faces he pulled when the mystery dishes were presented to him. This all changed when the basket arrived on our doorstop. “Is that all the bacon I get?” I dutifully reminded him that half of that basket was mine, and the bartering began between us, a bit of bacon for some cheese, a bit more bacon for the egg, some bacon for the… well, I’m sure you get the idea.

In total, each person recieved:

4oz Bacon

8oz Sugar

1 shilling 2p meat (around £2.57 in today’s market.)

4oz cheese

1lb preserve

4oz Margerine

2oz Butter

2oz Lard (We are using Tretex as I am vegetarian)

6oz Sweets

3 pints Milk

1 whole egg

Alongside these we could have seasonal produce. Luckily we have a victory garden anyway and a source of duck eggs so obtaining potatoes, carrots and broccoli wasn’t going to be too much of an issue. We went to the supermarket to see what other vegetables we could get to supplement our diets and came back frustrated. Almost every vegetable we picked up had to be put back, as they came from Morocco, Spain, Portugal, even the produce that is harvestable in the UK all seemed to have flown by jet to visit Morrisons that sunny morning! All local produce had a british flag on the box but on closer inspection these were lying to us and they too hailed from foreign climes. (It is interesting to note too that these boxes and shelves also said ‘plastic free’ and each item was invididually shrink wrapped in plastic. Where do the lies end Morrisons?! Eventually we found some tomatoes in a small box at the back that had been grown locally and slunk back to lick our wounds, this was going to be tougher than we thought.

Before we started the week Matt decided to batch cook his first meal, a beef stroganoff, and was going strong bulking out the meal with cauliflower and other seasonal vegetables, until he made the first rookie error.

“Is that your entire meat ration?!”

Sheepishly Matt cooked the rest of his stew in silence, the entire weeks worth of beef cooking on the stove top. It was then he made the second rookie error.

“How much onion?”

Onions were grown in France in world war 2 and were few and far between, couples being lucky to even get hold of one, and there it was, sitting pretty in this millionaire’s stroganoff. I knew then, that the rest of the week was going to be… creative.

Whilst the stroganoff cooked we turned our attention to the biggest staple of our week, the bread. Wartime shortages of flour created the ‘National loaf’, a grey brown stodgy loaf made of wheatmeal and potato flour. White flour and white bread were banned, reserved for soldiers, whilst ‘national flour’ was used on the Homefront.

The national loaf baked, we were ready for day one.

Matt left for work early, stroganoff in tow, and I in turn started my day not hungry. Normally I would wait til lunchtime and find something on my way into work. Today was not the case, and I thought carefully about my wartime breakfast options, deciding on a careful option of Jam on toast.

Cutting through the national loaf was like cutting through a rock, it took two hands, a knife and a prayer. Once the thick husk of loaf was cut, I then had to get smaller slices to fit in the toaster, on my way earning the strong woman 2022 championships. Meagre spread of jam atop, I bit into the national toast. I have not had jam for years, it was just a forgotten taste memory locked away in the vaults of childhood, and the refamiliarization made me feel grateful, appreciative. I was lucky to be eating this, and something that tasted fresh and sweet, a feeling I would grow even further as the week progressed.

This brief euphoria was then interrupted by the bread. When the national loaf first appeared on British shelves it had acquired the nickname ‘Hitler’s secret weapon’, such was the distaste for it that the British public had. This hulk of husk and density truly lived up to it’s reputation and was truly demoralising to chew, I was looking forward to finishing eating it. This happened again in the afternoon when eating a small crumble of cheese and thinly spread margerine on a smaller cut of the national loaf.

As much of a struggle it was to eat the national loaf, it did fill me up. I had eaten two slices of national bread, a small blob of jam and a tiny bit of cheese, but didn’t feel any form of hunger or the urge to snack until about 6 o’clock that afternoon! For me, this was almost unheard of!

When hunger did finally arrive, I had my main meal ready. Vegetable stew with homemade dumplings and Yorkshire puddings. This was made with carrots and mushrooms, a stock made from Matt’s stroganoff peelings and very little else, flavour was amiss but the warm heartiness was very welcome at the end of the day. The dumplings were made with a pinch of national flour and some vegetable suet, something I had never sued before, but was in the wartime kitchen as a staple, alongside rationed meat suet. To add taste I was urged by the packet to use parsely, to which I had none and had to get creative. In Matts’ peelings there were some leafy carrot tops from the Victory garden, which if you squinted and turned your head could probably pass as an exotic herb, so it was finely chopped and in it went. Surprisingly this worked, and the hefty dumplings had a really lovely flavour, especially when nestled and steamed amongst the stew.

Last but not least were the Yorkshire puddings, cooked in “Lard” and made using national flour and the precious wartime egg. These came out looking like hockey pucks and could easily pass as an assault weapon, and were the amusement of all my colleagues. My dinner was poked, prodded and passed around and became something of a sideshow amusement at work, where I became centre of the ring when I tried to eat it.

The food was warm and very filling but was very dense and stodgy and was again, a struggle to eat. I was incredibly grateful to eat it after a long day of not eating much, and was a nice feeling to have warmth in my belly, and to feel truly full. This was an experience I wasn’t too familiar with, and realised just how many hardships the British housewife would have faced, through fear and austerity and just how lucky I was to have a warm dinner in my hands. I swallowed the rest down with a new sense of just how fortunate I was.

The thrifty housewife strikes again.

After the last 1950s housewife challenge I was surprised how much I spent on crap! Useless items, mood swing takeaways and pointless sugar fixes! The post war boom gave the 1950s housewife a little more wriggle room to spend, the economy soared with the appliance industry bringing new prosperity. Unfortunately for the British Housewife rationing was still rife with reserves of food still needed to feed the allies. So she would scrimp and save, working flexibly around what she had to create meals and reusing and recycling with the popular “make do and mend” mentality. With that in mind, I have set myself a new micro challenge in order to set myself up for a very exciting Christmas collaboration with The Unfashionable Housewife and Karine Lassiter! If there is going to be a lavish Christmas housewife or any presents then I’m going to have to knuckle down and save.

All the household expenses have been sorted, there is still food in storage from the week before, and I have money left over with 24 days to stretch it, and hopefully save.

I have been in the victory garden, the cupboards and the fridge and written down everything I have, before starting a home journal to document them. In this journal I have penned down possible combinations of lunches and dinners that I can make with our stores.

With my position as a key worker, late night travel, Christmas costs and fondness for convenience meals it will be interesting to see if I can stretch my resources and get creative!

50s housewife in lockdown: Day fourteen

Well here is is! The last day of the 50s housewife challenge! For the last two (and a bit) weeks I’ve been living the lifestyle of a 1950s housewife.

The last day fell on a Saturday but with something major happening at work, I used that day to just sleep. I spent this Friday as my last day instead, getting all dolled up to go to church. Sunday was the housewife’s day of rest, but due to the events of Saturday I hadn’t preprepared dinner and due to my tremor, a Sunday roast was out. Imagine one of those vaudeville shows with flame throwers and replace them with fountains of hot fat! Sounds safe! Instead I made Matt’s favourite, enchilladas as we had all that in. Today is the last day of the “please the breadwinner” clause of the challenge so I thought I’d go all out.

Dinner pre prepared we decided to go for a Sunday stroll, avoiding all the main places and going somewhere quiet to exercise the dogs and enjoy conversation. I popped to the shop to do the “marketing” and bought some scouters as we are all out of the homemade ones I have been using this fortnight. Part of this challenge involved being authentic in my cleaning and being thrifty, reusing old fabrics, sponges and newspaper fo clean the house. This was the last thing on our second week’s tally of expenditure and keeping the books!

When we got home I could now “plan the next weeks meals and indulge in a pastime”. Since today is the end of the challenge it meant I could finally think about the fun forbidden meals we could have next week, especially impulse bought ones! Gasp!

Dinner went into the oven and we relaxed on the sofa and watched a 1950s appropriate amount of television, and soon we were enjoying the cheesy goodness of Matt’s favourite meal.

After dinner we relaxed and talked to each other and I had chance to unwind after 7 days of continuous “volunteering.” I had a chance to think about all the takebacks I have from this challenge, and I will go into detail about it later.

After a while I decided to follow another weekend tradition, baking. Again, my tremor was not my friend and these supposed “flower crown” cakes appeared more like “floppy fail” cakes. I’m not quite the domestic goddess that I’m trying to be, here!

So… what can I take back from the 1950s challenge?

1) Getting up really early for exercise in a bow is not for me. I do enjoy exercise, and I will continue dancing and going to the gym and going to cheerleading but I enjoy sleeping far too much for this one.

2) Keeping books is good! In the first week we spent between us £16.40. This was on groceries, recreation, household DIY and dispensary. We used what we had, got creative and learned to say no, embodying the wartime mentality of “make do and mend”. In the second week between us, including fuel we spent £56. In two weeks, between two people we renovated a kitchen, fed ourselves and kept healthy for £78.40 including a tank of petrol. Maybe there’s a lot to this vintage thriftiness malarkey. We had saved over £500 according to our Past few months personal bankings, that’s a holiday!

3) Pleasing the breadwinner is nice if you want him to follow you around like a puppy. As I mentioned before, with Matt only seeing me all dolled up at the door, giving him kisses, dinner or cocktail, he went all Pavlovian on me. When he made dinner at the end of the challenge, he put down his plate after eating and thanked me, as if I’d made it! This might be a habit that needs breaking.

4) Vegetable soap is amazing! Using only borax, vinegar, lemons and vegetable soap has been resting for someone who loves hunching herself happy! But vegetable soap is amazing and leaves a clean like nothing else, and is cheap to make at home too! I will be swapping Astonish oven cleaner and Pink stuff and will be making it myself.

5) Despite all the cream and cheese, I lost weight! This came as a massive surprise to me! It might be my bad habit of convenience and boredom eating being curbed by 1950s thrifty mentality and portion sizes or the fact I’ve been on my feet constantly, cleaning or working. I’ve lost half a stone! Matt however has gained 2 lb, but when waited on hand and foot, it’s to be expected!

6) A 1950s housewife did lonely and hard work. The last of my aims was to compare my experience to the doe eyed romantic expectations of 50s housewifery. It wasn’t soda hops and cheek kisses, it was dirty, hard work! I spent hours on end on my own cleaning and working hard. I am very lucky to have all my technology back and I have missed it, especially catching up with my favourite people.

7) I missed the shower. I did shower and bathe everyday but not being able to wash my hair daily was soul crushing. No amount of talc or homemade hair masks can change my mind!

I would like to thank Anna for all her help, providing source materials and books I didn’t already have in my repertoire. I also want to thank my partner Matt who had to grin and bear some truly horrifying vintage foods. I don’t plan to do another one of these challenges for a little while, until I can get Toby and his camera in my house. I will make some posts as I see fit, and am looking forward to a Christmas collaboration with Anna and Karine!

50s housewife in lockdown: Day thirteen

I’ve had to wait a day to post about this, but the 1950s housewife was hardly rife with technology was she?

When “volunteering” a certain someone doubled up on PPE, everything steamed up and she walked very hard into a wardrobe. What an idiot. Definitely wasn’t me!

Nursing the mother of all headaches and a very attractive 1950s head bump, I’ve been too busy avoiding bright painful screens to blog, my apologies.

The morning of the challenge’s penultimate day I arose extra early to tie my hair up in a ribbon and do my stretches. I got a shower but retired my hair instead of curling it, the hairnet just crushes them anyway and according to the bride’s handbook you shouldn’t be “fussing with curls” so early in the day anyway. I went to volunteering and came back in a very bad mood. As soon as I entered the house, Matt looked guarded, I think you could smell my bad temper from a mile off. I had to shake it off to keep the house atmosphere pleasant, not a healthy coping mechanism but for the sake of the challenge I must be “airy, kind and palletable”. Whatever that means! Jeez, aren’t some of these instructional books lovely? I set about tidying the house and Matt went back to work. I spent a little bit of time under the duvet covers blocking out light as I had a bit of a headache! I hear a knock on the door and Matt asks me the mother of all questions. “Do you want to go to the range and look at the scrub daddies?”

To my international readers, The Range is a cache all shop that sells everything and I mean everything! It also boasts a large range of cleaning supplies, a favourite of my beloved Mrs Hinch. I have no excuse for the name of her favourite scouters though, 1950s slang or not, the word “daddy” is seriously uncool!

The shop cheered me up, and I actually only spent £3! The thrifty housewife in me won the fight against the one feeling sorry for herself. Matt went to Tesco to buy some treat night food and I went back to the fish shop for some small chips. This is one of the few take outs we’ve had during the lockdown and our wallets can really tell. I’m curious to find out how much we’ve saved and if my weight has changed tommorow.

I cleaned the bathroom when I got in, to make up for the forgone schedule whilst I was volunteering! I do lots of cleaning whilst I’m there, especially during this pandemic, but I don’t want our own home to slip! It’s just not the way!

Tommorow is the last day of the challenge and it will be bittersweet. I’ve picked up some healthy habits I’m looking forward to bringing to the future. I’ve also got some things that I will be glad to see the end of, and I’m hoping Matt will soon recover and be able to function by himself again! Haha!