#rationing recipes

[petermorwood]

A recipe which just happens to be an ad for a brand of molasses.

Or an ad for a brand of molasses which just happens to be a recipe.

Your choice.

Either way, it's also a WW2-era US rationing recipe, though in comparison to what UK rationing was like at the same time, it doesn't look rationed at all.

And definitely an ad.

One word of caution! Be sure you use Grandma's Old Fashioned Molasses...

*****

Back in the 1980s my mum had a 1950s or '60s US cookbook - I've no idea where / when she found or was given it - which was a collection of sponsored recipes, all emphasising use of the recipe-sponsor's branded ingredients.

I don't think it was intended to be funny, but after more than a few pages that was what it became, helped by the food photography being just what you'd expect from that period... :-P

A couple of her UK cookbooks did the same branded-ingredient thing, but I don't remember any with the manic intensity of the American hard sell, with its air of "use only our products or great woe will befall your culinary endeavours"...

She liked the "recipes" (AKA agglomerations of disparate foodstuffs) which used a product, often a highly improbable one like Weetabix (cork mat) or Shredded Wheat (pot-scrubber), in unlikely and rather desperate ways that put the product front and centre whether it belonged there or not.

Dylan Hollis has shown that Improbable Ingredients - tomato soup, potatoes, mayonnaise, even sauerkraut - sometimes actually work. But sometimes they don't, and those times are BAD. :->

*****

However Mum was also fond (in the humorous not cookery sense) of recipes which bolded the branding not just of ingredients but also in the method, as if - she said - an invisible advertising goblin was marching up and down the margin of the book, beating a drum and waving a placard.

Most of those were (probably) OK recipes, but were hard to take seriously when they looked something like this:

"...stir 3 tablespoons of Whizzo™ Tomato Paste and one of Whizzo™ Worcestershire Sauce into 2 cups of Whizzo™ Beef Bouillon and season with Whizzo™ Black Pepper and Whizzo™ Iodized Salt before adding 1/2 lb of Whizzo™ Macaroni..."

I can't remember seeing Whizzo™ Boiling Water, but it can't have been for lack of trying and I may just have missed it.

*****

I also can't remember ever seeing Mum make anything from that book.

This was because she couldn't get, or had never heard of, many of the US brands...

Or because using Lea & Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce or Saxa Salt instead of Whizzo™ ones really would set off a domestic disaster...

Or because, whenever she opened it, she usually forgot about cooking and just sat down for a good laugh...

:->

BTW molasses has the exact same number of calories as sugar.

Parents Magazine - October 1945

[amethystsoda]

Lost red dragon ham (summer sausage) and orc medicine (ground sesame seeds, dates, peanut butter, and my homemade cherry plum jam) toast!

[noivern]

fucking eat your leek greens you ingrate

[afinickyguide]

episode 143: trail rations 🍫🍪☀️

[thresholdbb]

Yes, yes, coffee black, but what kind of coffee?

Arabica? Robusta?

Light? Medium? Dark roast?

Drip? Pour over? French press? Percolator?

Single origin? Blend?

Ethiopian? Brazilian? Colombian? Hawaiian? Kenyan? (Ad nauseam)

Paris Delight? Landras Blend? Paksor Blend? Firenut Blend? Even-better-than-coffee Substitute?

Fruity notes? Chocolate notes? Earthy notes? Warm notes? Bright notes?

Is it the ritual? The caffeine? The flavor? The comfort? The headache?

And why did she stop taking cream?

Since we know she has coffee opinions...

[matt-w-blogging]

Reasons why I frequently make my friends and family baked goods/confections:

So they'll never feel desperate enough to betray me for turkish delight

Love I guess

[prvtocol]

bri attempting to cook pandoran food for the first time... if you find her dying in a ditch somewhere you know why. smh

[therecipelibrary]

War time recipe booklet from General Foods 1943

It begins with an illustration of Victorianna and a letter to Uncle Sam from his 'Niece' pledging to do her best to get dinner on the table despite food shortages.

This was a fun read and included many war time tips to make meat, eggs and sugar stretch further.

It suggests adding cereals like grapenuts or bran flakes to tamales, hamburgers, meatloaf, casseroles, breads and pancakes. And, actually the pancakes would be very good with fruity or chocolate cereal.

It also features cake recipes with low or no sugar, subbing all the sugar for honey and or half for log cabin syrup.

The cakes and cookies feature one egg only and have a section on rendering your own chicken fat to sub for shortening.

The lunches and dinners encourage using less meat to really stretch those war time rations.

Another tip is mixing butter for sandwiches with gelatine to make it last longer, but concedes it is not meant to be cooked with.

Here are two featured recipes, one stretching a small amount of sausage with Grape-Nuts and the other a Jell-O dessert featuring postum.

I had not yet heard of postum and was grateful for the following passage explaining its usage. You can apparently still purchase this.

All in all a great little booklet and a fascinating glimpse into recipes and rationing during WW2.

[soumariana]

BANANA CAKE

Recipes at my blog.

July 5, 2018

[eugeniedanglars]

going toddler mode (i’m cranky and i know it’s because i need to eat food but i’m refusing to do that because i’m cranky)

[misforgotten2]

AKA Cow goo.

Parents Magazine - February 1944

[basingstokemercury]

oh. it's going to be one of *those* nights again. not like I cared about sleeping properly or anything.

[oldfoodtimewithswitch]

Holiday Meals for Wartime, undated (c. 1941-45)

I love WWII-era recipes. Through a combination of wartime rationing and copious propaganda that advertised thriftiness as patriotic, we got some fascinating recipes.

During rationing, households would receive booklets of stamps on a monthly basis. Each stamp was worth a set amount of ration points. Certain goods, like sugar and fresh milk, were limited on how much you could buy at once. With others, such as meat or specialty goods, you had to spend more points to get the more desirable options. Backyard or community “victory gardens” grew vegetables to help stretch those ration books a little further.

As a result, we see more use of fresh vegetables, thrifty cuts of meat, vegetarian protein sources, sugar substitutes like maple syrup and honey, and canned alternatives to fresh milk products - such as Pet Evaporated Milk, the publishers of this handy little pamphlet.

Here we see homegrown carrots used in place of expensive canned pumpkin; spaghetti made with cheaper bacon instead of fresh ground meat; and ground pork bulked up with rice to stretch those precious points a little further. In-text tips advise using meat drippings in place of shortening or reusing the water you used to boil vegetables, to reinforce that thrifty mindset. A red, white and blue stamp in the corner reminds us - “Food Fights For Freedom!”

This is just such a cool little keepsake. It tells a war story in a way I don’t often see these days. Hope you find it as interesting as I do 💕

(Alt text is provided on all pictures. I am new to this so please let me know whether they are helpful or if you have any suggestions on how I could improve them. Thanks for reading!)

[bakedbananners]

Mexicans and their emergency cinnamon

[angeletombee]

I have a 1945 meal in the oven right now.

FUCK THAT RACIST POTATO PETE. We invited Dr Carrot, and all his weird little friends. Beetroot Betty, Owen the Onion, and Swede the Swede. Peter the Pumpkin makes an appearance as the thickener. No other herbs, no garlic. Agnes would’ve run out by now, but we have Marmite and Lee & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce.

We’re doing this, kids.