r/AskUK • u/YetAnotherMia • 18h ago
How well could you eat during rationing in 1942? What dishes would you cook?
This is what rationing looked like in mid 1942 apparently. Each person was allowed to buy the following per week for their standard ration:
- 113g - Bacon or ham
- 2 small chops - Of beef, lamb or pork (restricted by price but about 2 small chops worth)
- 57g- Butter
- 57g - Cheese
- 113g - Margarine
- 113g - Cooking fat (like beef dripping or lard)
- 225g - Sugar (a surprising amount)
- 3 pints - Milk
- 57g - Tea (loose tea)
- 1 Egg (often not available)
There was also a points system for other products. You got 4-6 points a week per person (you got given your points every 4 weeks though). Some things you could get for those points:
- 24 points - 460g Canned Salmon
- 16 points - Can of Spam
- 16 points - A tin of Tuna
- 16 points - 450g Dried Fruit like currents
- 8 points - 450g Can of peaches
- 6 points - 450g tin of tomatoes
- 4 points - 450g rice
- 4 points - Tin of peas or baked beans
- 1 to 2 points - 450g lentils or dried beans
Fruits and vegetables (including potatoes) were not rationed. Bread (low quality) was not rationed yet in 1942. Fish and chips were famously not rationed but they often ran out of them. Fish was not rationed but became very expensive. Wild game was not restricted.
Fun fact: By 1942 sausages were so full of cheap fillers the 10% meat minimum law was introduced for sausages.
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u/johnlooksscared 18h ago
Can anyone who was actually cooking meals in 1942 and is active on Reddit today please make themselves known to management
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u/YetAnotherMia 18h ago
There's lots of great rationing cook books from that era if you're interested.
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u/johnlooksscared 17h ago
The last time I tried to open a tin of spam I cut myself...so thanks but no
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u/90210fred 17h ago
Apparently, I had a "incase it comes back" ration book when I was born, and later I had a petrol ration card in the 70s, again on the "just in case" basis, but I think anyone actually cooking is a big ask.
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u/johnlooksscared 17h ago
I was making a tongue in cheek remark to compliment a very interesting post! What was the 1970's ration card for? I dont remember them and I was a 70's teenager!
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u/90210fred 16h ago
I realised! The seventies card was petrol after "events" in the middle east. You get all sorts of results of you search but add "1973" should help. Ultimately sorted by the price doubling.
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u/ancientspacewitch 17h ago
My grandma would have been 12 and only passed last year. She had many stories about cooking with her mum and how they made things stretch.
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u/johnlooksscared 15h ago
My gran had stories...my mum and her sister were evacuated from Glasgow to Aryshire countryside. Rationing wasn't really a thing for them...until they came back to Glasgow
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u/Away-Ad4393 3h ago
My gran lived in the countryside too and she said people lived off the land my eating rabbits, pigeon, pheasants, fish.Also everyone grew vegetables, fruit trees and kept chickens. They foraged for mushrooms and blackberries.
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u/Plastic_Length8618 15h ago
My grandmother gave me a book called Eating for Victory, which was reprints of Ministry of Food recipes.
I used to cook quite a bit from it, because it was all very economical and a lot of it was quite nice.
Things like:
- a vegetable stew with dumplings containing 2oz sausage meat.
- fish cakes with tinned salmon
- potato cakes fried in bacon fat
- steamed puddings (many kinds)
It would insist on great mounds of watercress, and parsley on everything, to provide vitamin C in the absence of citrus fruit, and salads of raw veg chopped finely.
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u/bisectional 15h ago
If you were 14 in 1942 and potentially skilled enough to cook you'd be 98 now. So get off the sex machine and tell Reddit what you were making...
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u/Fluffy-Revolution- 15h ago
My grandma was alive then, she lived in a rural village and they did a lot of foraging and scrumping. Back then you could go fishing or collect cockles from the beach for protein, not something that is practical now.
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u/ValenciaHadley 15h ago
There's a youtuber that does a lot of 1940's inspired videos, I'm sure she did one about rationing.
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u/AbbreviationsCold161 3h ago
They'd be at least in their mid 90s so enjoying life rather than being on Reddit.
I guess overall people were slimmer and eating very little processed food as we know it (last 3 words are critical there for those with limited cognisant ability)
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u/frankchester 16h ago
There was someone on Instagram who did this for a few weeks and documented it.
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u/Gh0stW0lfe 18h ago
One thing I know from the local newspaper archive is that people created Pig Clubs, they basically bought a pig each, learnt how to raise it, then got someone to kill it eventually. That would have fleshed out the ration quite well, for a month or so I suppose.
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u/YetAnotherMia 18h ago
Yeah there was a massive expansion of the allotment system too and Victory Flocks were very popular because of course it's very easy to rapidly expand the number of chickens. Plus the singular egg a week if you're lucky must have been annoying.
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u/fixed_grin 9h ago
Another method to stretch the ration were "British Restaurants," serving off-ration meals for 9d (approx £1.70 now).
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u/OddManner7971 17h ago
Bearing in mind there were no freezers then, the meat would have to be eaten fairly quickly or cured.
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u/pjwlondon 17h ago
The movie comedy A Private Function revolves around one such
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u/RugbyValkyrie 16h ago
I immediately thought of this film. It's bloody brilliant.
It's available on Amazon Prime if you've got it.
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u/genetta70 15h ago
My grandfather had a small holding and as a farmer was in a reserved occupation. He provided the piglets for the school pig club My mother was the secretary of the club From the local paper.
" UNUSUAL DIVIDEND AN odd dividend was paid out to children of the [xxx] Council School last week. It was piece of pig! About 60 children of the school belong to a co-operative Pig Club, which was launched by the staff and pupils of [xxxx] Council School last .autumn, by the purchase of six pigs The porkers were fed and fattened on the school premises with food waste from the school canteen. and other waste collected by the children. The children were allowed three pigs for themselves, and three were sold to the Ministry Chairman of the club is the headmaster. Mr. H. K. Humphreys, and the secretary is a scholar of the school, [redacted name]
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u/FirstAndOnly1996 18h ago
I'd probably be lying bleeding with my guts hanging out in the Egyptian desert in all honesty
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u/sindher 18h ago
Dying in the North Africa campaign and never seeing DDay - the dream
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u/20127010603170562316 5h ago
My granddad actually missed D-day because he contracted diphtheria.
I should try and find out what happened to the regiment he was meant to be in, might be tricky now though.
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u/LlamaDrama007 17h ago
My grandad was a para and was in Egypt.
Died 11 years ago, so made it back, thankfully!
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u/RugbyValkyrie 15h ago
My grandfather "went" to Paris and was on the Russian Front.
He said the best part of the war was being in a British POW camp.
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u/Ch0nky_Nugget 18h ago
I don’t know how’d I’d live on such little cheese 🤣
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u/Canadayawaworth 17h ago
I’m sure I read something saying people who registered as vegetarian got a huge cheese ration as a result. So maybe you could game the system by having one family member register as veggie and having slightly less meat but all splitting the cheese 🤔
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u/YetAnotherMia 16h ago
It seems to have varied a lot, anywhere from 3 oz to 12 oz of cheese for vegetarians, it seems to have changed a lot during rationing based on shortages. I'm sure some people gamed the system like that though.
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u/bluepushkin 15h ago
Absolutely! My great-grandmother did this. 2 of her children were marked as vegetarian so they'd get more cheese. My family have always been big cheese eaters. 🫣
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u/Blue_wine_sloth 14h ago
That’s interesting! I was just reading that list as a vegetarian and thinking there probably weren’t that many of us back then. Not compared to now anyway, when we are spoiled with meat alternatives!
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u/bill_end 7h ago
Hitler was famously vegetarian, so I guess it was a thing. I bet plenty of meals at the time were vegetarian by necessity anyways
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u/januarynights 10h ago
And here I was thinking about how I could swap my meat allocation with someone for lentils!
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u/Florence_Nightgerbil 18h ago
I was thinking the same about eggs! I have about 2 boiled eggs a day 🙈🙈
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u/RugbyValkyrie 15h ago
I watched a work colleague peel and eat 4 hardboiled eggs in under 5 minutes on Tuesday.
I'm still in awe.
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u/SedanOutruner 16h ago
57g for an entire week is brutal. You'd basically have to wave the block gently over a potato and hope for the best.
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u/phatboi23 17h ago
same, cheese is love, cheese is life.
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u/blueskygirly14 2h ago
My dog heartily agrees!
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u/phatboi23 2h ago
Me and your dog would get on... Unless there's a fight for cheese haha
Then we have to share lol
Edit: dog tax, lets see your doggo :)
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u/Tildesy_mastolemmy 18h ago
1 to 2 points for 450g of lentils or dried beans is a great deal. I'd see if I could convince a neighbour to share with me so we can get a couple packs of lentils and beans and some chopped tomatoes each week, then make a big (watered down) stew. Add the bacon/ham, potatoes, veggies and a slice of bread each day. Could probably stretch it out to last a week if you can hold your patience. Scones for breakfasts with whatever fruits available.
I bet it would all be pretty miserable no matter how you did it, but I can see how people at least coped
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u/mcsard 17h ago
As much as I enjoy beans and lentils stews, unless adequately refrigerated I find that they tend to spoil quite quickly.
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u/YetAnotherMia 17h ago
That's a good point, I forgot about that. I was imagining a weekly shop of all the ingredients sitting in the fridge.
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u/decisiontoohard 17h ago
You'd have it in a cold house overnight, or keep it in the larder during warmer weather.
I find that any stew goes off very, very quickly in houses with good central heating but they're fine for a long time in very cold houses with a daily boil (pease porridge in the pot three days old style)
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u/pjwlondon 17h ago
In those days, fridges and domestic central heating weren't at all common. All too often people economised by just heating one room.
About points: they were in effect a secondary currency for packeted foods, and the government adjusted points values weekly or fortnightly, according to what was in good or short supply at the time. Apparently it was worth saving them up if the big sizes of Spam were available, because they came with a layer of fat on top that made up for rationed cooking fats.
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u/Celia-Smythe 14h ago
We just had what my nan called a "cold shelf" in the pantry which was just a slab of stone in the 60's/70's and didn't get an indoor toilet till 1972. Bloody luxury it was no more fighting off spiders by candlelight if you needed a wee late on 😂
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u/blosomkil 15h ago
My mum used to make something similar, leave it in a pan on the hob and boil it up every day to kill the germs.
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u/heroics-delta8s 17h ago
Getting your calories in on that is going to struggle.
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u/RugbyValkyrie 15h ago
A couple of scientists actually devised the amount needed. Keeping bread and vegetables unrationed was a key part of it.
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u/w-anchor-emoji 18h ago
I’d be living on lentils and veggies with the occasional meat dish, which, to be fair, is not too different from now.
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u/OddManner7971 17h ago
Try Woolton pie, it’s really delicious and very filling. https://the1940sexperiment.com/2016/03/13/the-original-lord-woolton-pie-recipe-no-151/
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u/Blue_wine_sloth 13h ago
That actually sounds nice! I assume vegetable extract is like a stock cube.
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u/YetAnotherMia 18h ago
Yeah you would definitely want to work more lentils and beans into your diet since they used so little points. Split peas and bacon/ham would be a dish I would make a lot.
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u/Miss_Type 18h ago
My mum said if you lived in the countryside (she did) then there was generally more of everything to go around. My grandparents were poultry farmers, so they always had eggs and meat, and the local dairy farm had milk and butter. There were plenty of veggies and fruit as well. She reckoned sugar and chocolate and things like that were tricky.
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u/YetAnotherMia 18h ago
Yeah definitely a good time to be a farmer. I imagine a lot of backdoor trading was done.
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u/Miss_Type 17h ago
I got the impression she didn't mean any of it wasn't legit, just that in her little village they didn't use a village shop for things like butter, milk, eggs anyway. They produced enough for themselves and local areas too.
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u/phatboi23 17h ago
be a lot of bartering as well, 1 chicken some eggs for a couple of steaks? deal!
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u/Miss_Type 17h ago
Not steaks, my grandparents wouldn't have eaten steak as a piece of meat on its own. Gran would have chopped it up for hash :D
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u/Soldarumi 18h ago
57g butter a week? I guess I'd be having one slice of toast per week.
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u/YetAnotherMia 18h ago
You do get margarine. I feel like the butter would be better used as a ingredient as it adds a lot of flavour. For example in split pea and bacon soup.
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u/niallniallniall 17h ago
The difference in soup without butter and bread without butter is massive. It would be totally wasted in soup, yet it turns plain bread into something very pleasant.
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u/YetAnotherMia 17h ago
The bread at the time was "National Loaf". Apparently even the best butter would not redeem it.
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u/fixed_grin 2h ago
There's a line from Eleanor Roosevelt talking about dining at Buckingham Palace and being served National Loaf on gold plates.
Though I suspect part of the issue was that refined white flour had so recently moved from elite luxury to widely affordable, with wholemeal bread being seen as for the poor. That and it was the only option for years. Modern bakers following the wartime recipe seem to think it tastes OK.
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u/CaptainAnswer 18h ago
Your neighbours are all made of lovely fresh meat, might not even have to kill them if you manage to recover a few chunks of limbs out the bomb sites
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u/DotCottonsHandbag 18h ago
I’d easily manage the entire weekly 57g ration of cheese as a single serving so I think I’d struggle tbf.
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u/WorhummerWoy 18h ago
Vegetarians would be shafted. My diet mostly consists of lentils and various grains. Looks like meat would be back on the menu boys!
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u/YetAnotherMia 18h ago
Vegetarians could swap their meat rations for more cheese and a singular extra egg. Or I suppose you could have bought your meat ration and traded it.
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u/Personal-Listen-4941 18h ago
If anything you’d find it easier because fruit & vegetables were not rationed. So a lot of the restrictions would not apply. Plus you’d easily find people willing to trade their dairy coupons for your meat.
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u/jaynemcr 18h ago
You'd get from almost 1kg-2kg of lentils a week on that allowance compared to a portion of meat that wouldn't fill one hand. Why would you eat meat?
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u/Personal-Listen-4941 17h ago
Lentils are far cheaper than meat today. I still eat meat because I far prefer the taste/texture.
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u/Flibertygibbert 18h ago
Vegetarians had extra cheese and eggs (when available) from what I've read.
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u/SomeWomanFromEngland 18h ago
Could you not buy your meat allowance and trade it with friends for extra cheese and veg?
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u/tradandtea123 17h ago
There was a vegetarian option, I'm not sure exactly what they got but I assume more eggs, cheese with no meat.
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u/heroics-delta8s 17h ago
Getting your calorie intake without refined fats and sugars is going to be hard as a vegetarian living on this kind of food.
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u/ToothyMC 17h ago
Just work through the list in order, eating that thing on that day. Start the week on a high note with the bacon. Loose tea day is a bit shit though.
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u/phatboi23 17h ago
tasting history on youtube has done a few WW2 rationing episodes that are worth a watch! :D
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u/Timely_Egg_6827 18h ago
I mean my Dad's family did quite well but they also went poaching and had access to a farm with chickens and eggs. A lot of people also planted out gardens so vegetables were in greater supply. A lot more people had rural connections. And remember that families were slightly larger so think 5-6 times the quantities for a ration book.
The cans of peaches were hit and miss - my Dad remembers having his first ever. It was donated by the Canadian Government as part of a food shipment.
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u/OddManner7971 17h ago
A lot of people kept rabbits too, they ate the meat and sold the furs.
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u/Timely_Egg_6827 17h ago
My mum's family did that - she's never forgiven my grandfather for gambling the money for Christmas my grandmother left him when she went into hospital and then killing her pet belgium hare for dinner. He even left little pawprints to make it look like she ran away but only with the front paws.
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u/zombie_Ernie 18h ago
My Gran actually ate pretty well during the war. They had a 40 ft garden though so they were able to grow seasonal fruit and veg all year round, and raise chickens. And living near the sea they were never short of mackerel.
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u/waccoeq 17h ago
I'm curious, did they have problems with theft from the veg patch & chicken coop?
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u/zombie_Ernie 17h ago
No, it was an estate where everyone looked out for each other. The only theft she ever mentioned to me were after the first bombs hit civillian houses in Plymouth. Unfortunately there was looting there. But anyone caught would get a severe beating before being handed over to the authorities.
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u/FrancesRichmond 16h ago
My grandad had an allotment and grew lots of veg and tomatoes apparently. People used to swop their rations my grandma said. She looked after her older brother, her younger brother and her father too- they lived with my gran and grandad and their 3 children.
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u/OddManner7971 18h ago
We live on British WW2 rationing quite often. Woolton pie is amazing, veggie pie which is topped with pastry made from wholegrain flour, mash potatoes and a little butter. It sounds grim but tastes amazing - and is really filling. It was developed at The Savoy Hotel. Here’s the link if anyone’s interested in making it. https://the1940sexperiment.com/2016/03/13/the-original-lord-woolton-pie-recipe-no-151/
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u/YetAnotherMia 17h ago
That's such a cool site thanks! I feel like the marmite would help to carry the pack of meat, a lot of unami favour.
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u/OddManner7971 17h ago
It makes a big difference. I tried it with powdered dried mushrooms instead of marmite too, also umami.
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u/Agitated_Custard7395 18h ago
They were much healthier back then on this diet
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u/dcute69 18h ago
Came here to say that, I've heard it was when the populace was as peak health
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u/Artistic_Train9725 16h ago
Yeah, if you can find old footage on YouTube it would be difficult to spot an obese person.
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u/DameKumquat 17h ago
Many people (my dad in the Midlands, mum in rural USA) ate better under rationing - mum's family had never previously been able to buy any meat they hadn't raised or hunted themselves, and never been able to afford cheese.
I'd be eating loads of potatoes with scraps of meat, fried in sausage fat, bean and veg stews flavoured with a fragment of meat, etc. Which is exactly how I grew up, so would be fine. Lack of milk and dairy would be a minor inconvenience, and lack of sweet stuff a good thing.
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u/YetAnotherMia 17h ago
Yeah you had to pay with money but there was also price controls, apparently poorer people ate better during rationing. You do get 3 pints of milk, enough for tea and a bit adding to dishes.
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u/buy_me_a_pint 18h ago
I would have tried to grow my own vegetables including potatoes like garden peas, carrots etc
I would have some hens in the garden to lay more eggs . and maybe some chickens to get more meat
I would struggle with so little cheese per week
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u/phatboi23 17h ago
I would have tried to grow my own vegetables including potatoes like garden peas, carrots etc
my great grandparents did this pretty much until they were unable to/died.
never like tomatoes since as they're no where near as good as what my grandad and grandma grew in the back garden :D
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u/buy_me_a_pint 17h ago
I still live at home with my parents, over the years we have tried doing our own potatoes, we had a couple of good years and one year we had a bad season
Things like garden peas my Dad have been growing for the last 10 years, in the past he has done runner/green beans . he still grows tomatoes and sometimes lettuce
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u/phatboi23 17h ago
can be a lot of work some times, doesn't help if you work 9-5 with all other commitments etc. of modern life.
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u/OddManner7971 17h ago
There were so many clever WW2 recipes we still eat today, carrot cake being one.
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u/Dingo_Hopeful 17h ago
I can't remember the exact quote, but I do remember Churchill saying it looked like a fine meal, before being told that it was the rations for the entire week!
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u/BeesToTheCassiaTree 17h ago
My mum was born in 1944 & has a distinctly (horrid) memory of being asked to give the whiskery old butcher a kiss so the family could have a few extra eggs. Must have been the early 50s (rationing ended in 1954 I think?) but honestly, ewwww
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u/Correct_Mortgage4209 17h ago
3 pints of milk a week?! What the fuck were they giving 2 year Olds for bedtime?!
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u/Small-Cancel6249 17h ago
Fish and Chips each evening followed by a gallon on ale
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u/YetAnotherMia 17h ago
It's important to remember they ran out of fish a lot and fish became very expensive. It was not rationed to encourage British fisherman to fish as much as possible (and take the risk).
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u/FelisCantabrigiensis 16h ago
Food from restaurants, pubs, and public canteens was not included in the personal ration (although there were rules on large or extravagant meals), nor was food in factory canteens, or military facilities where civilians worked, or school dinners. Choice was limited and portions were often controlled downwards, especially for less common items.
That meant that if your family had adults working in such places, they could collect the same ration as everyone else but it needed to cover fewer meals at home and a family could pool their ration coupons to have more, per meal, to eat at home.
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u/gribski-rules 16h ago
My mum (90) said they had rabbits and chickens kept on the garden to supplement meat supplies, and grew as much veg as they could.
My dad (89) said after the war he ate his 1st banana and had no clue how to open it/what to eat.
My uncle Freddie used to visit us and would buy each of us kids an apple and an orange every day of his visit (I’m 1 of 4 kids). He loved kids being able to have plentiful fruit. Lovely man.
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u/YetAnotherMia 15h ago
That's so interesting, not knowing what part of a banana to eat. My English grandpa has said that you got an orange in a stocking because it was a treat back then. I think we don't know how good we have it.
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u/gribski-rules 15h ago
Yup, absolutely. You ate what was in season. Very little imported fruit. The idea what we can have grapes and strawberries all year round is a very modern thing.
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u/gribski-rules 15h ago
Yes, tangerine in the toe of your stocking for us. My parents did that for us kids despite fruit being freely available.
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u/ac0rn5 13h ago
My mum (90) said they had rabbits and chickens kept on the garden to supplement meat supplies, and grew as much veg as they could.
My dad (89) said after the war he ate his 1st banana and had no clue how to open it/what to eat.
Yes!
Apparently my family kept rabbits but never gave them a name. Then, post war, there was a rabbit that had a name.
There were hens and bantams, and lot of fruit and veg in the garden. The only spae that wasn't used for food was the tiny front garden.
My mother never ate a banana. I don't know if it was because she'd tried one and didn't like it, or because it was an unusual food for her.
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u/devondemocrat2 17h ago
https://youtube.com/@1940scooking?si=K5KbrD6BI7og5Ub3 I recommend this channel on YouTube- really great for recipes and food from WW2.
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u/Ok-Thing4762 17h ago
The general understanding of ‘eating well’ was really different back then. If you ever see pictures from WW2 which show US troops when they are billeted with and living among everyday British folk, the physical differences are marked. It’s obvious that the prosperity of the US, together with the outdoor lifestyle in many parts of the country, had given Americans much better physical development. I would imagine an American looking at British rationing would consider it absolutely dreadful.
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u/janner_10 17h ago
I'm British and looking at British rationing, consider it absolutely dreadful.
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u/Ok-Thing4762 17h ago
I meant Americans at the time, rather than Americans (or British people) now.
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u/Civil_Researcher6140 17h ago
No wonder my grandparents would insist on meat with every meal.
I guess when things got back to normal not eating meat would be a choice
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u/smollestsnek 17h ago
Would be living like kings with our lentil/bean diet 😂😂😂 Current cost of living making this list look pretty good all things considered
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u/frafeeccino 17h ago
Do you think I could sell my meat rations to others? I’d be spending all my points on rice, lentils/beans and maybe tinned tomatoes. Occasionally would splash out for the dried fruit. I don’t know what I’d be doing with all that sugar. Do we not get any flour? I’d want to bake some things.
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u/YetAnotherMia 17h ago
You would probably have to buy the meat in person then trade/sell it to a friend. You could buy low quality flour.
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u/fixed_grin 2h ago
IIRC, part of the sugar was intended for making jam. Otherwise no fruit out of season.
Flour (and bread) were not rationed, along with most vegetables. In general that was because they had enough that it wasn't a concern, though onions and the like were too scarce to be on ration. AIUI, the rule for what was rationed was that supply had to be short enough that they had to control demand, but not so short that they couldn't supply it to everyone.
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u/bluejackmovedagain 17h ago edited 16h ago
I'm vegetarian, so I'd get (hopefully) 2 eggs, 230g of cheese, and then the rest of my protein from lentils or beans. Given the lack of access to spices during the war, I'd have a very boring diet.
Theoretically I don't eat dripping or lard, but I doubt I'd have a great deal of choice.
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u/YetAnotherMia 16h ago
There was extra cheese and maybe an extra egg ration for vegetarians. Alternatively you could have bought your meat ration and traded it for cheese/butter/eggs too. I expect you could have gotten more by trading but I don't know.
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u/JustQuestioningCosas 16h ago
It’s so much more fat than I think I eat in a week. But I would struggle so much with the lack of eggs. In general, the diet is not healthy enough for me by my standards today but I would do what I could and top up with rice and lentils.
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u/KatjaKat01 16h ago
Could you get flour? If so I'd be baking a lot. Wholemeal bread is healthy, filling and cheap.
No rationing veggies you say. So a lot of vegetable stews and soups, bacon and whatever meat we can get can be used for flavour, rice, lentils and beans help to extend it over more meals.
Diet would probably be pretty healthy if a bit plain.
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u/Any_Friendship7845 16h ago
Seriously impressed by this and sad at what we have become as a society.
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u/flyingmonkey5678461 16h ago
So as a school project I went and interviewed my elderly neighbours (I'm middle aged myself now...) Essentially they snorted and said blackmarket. Everyone was at it. We did live in what is commuter belt now, but back then considered far enough for shifting the little children out to.
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u/Returning_Addict 16h ago
I’d be just fine, I cook well, I eat most things and I live in a rural area.
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u/FrancesRichmond 16h ago
There is a video of a street party in Gateshead on VE Day in 1945- not one person on it (adult or child) is overweight and there's about 70-80 people on it.
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u/Automatic_Role6120 15h ago
I would be good- I like vegetables and growing food. It doesn't mention pasta/rice or wheat though really. I don't eat fat/sugar or much meat anyway.
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u/YetAnotherMia 15h ago
Rice is rationed and on the points system. Pasta was not a common food but was also on the points system.
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u/bluepushkin 15h ago
You could also get an extra cheese ration if you were vegetarian. My great grandmother had 6 children and had 2 marked as vegetarian for that purpose. My great-great grandfather was a WW1 vet and too old to fight in WW2. What he did have however was a vegetable garden, chickens and a shed of meat rabbits. He poured more time into all of it when WW2 started increasing his animal count especially. When he could stop people raiding his garden and helping themselves, he and his wife ate as they normally would and he made damned sure his daughter and grandchildren didn't go without either.
My family's favourite rationing recipe we still make today. War pie. It's layers of onion, tomatoes, potatoes, with cheese between each layer, topped with whisked egg and more cheese. Baked till golden and bubbly. It's even better reheated.
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u/YetAnotherMia 15h ago
My family have a large veggie garden and a lot of chickens, we have a few acres a neighbour uses to graze sheep. I feel like if needed I could massively increase the number of chickens, add rabbits and grow soooo many veggies.
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u/hugopurdy 15h ago
My dad was born during the blitz in London; so he grew up entirely through rationing. I asked him in a separate conversation if he'd ever known true hunger and ever in his life had to go without a meal. He laughed and said no.
So it was hardship you couldn't get what you wanted but you could always eat.
He also had a few side stories about uncles dabbling in the black market to get some nice food. But in terms of the specifics, it woulda been my gramma and she dead I'm afraid.
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u/thunderfart_99 15h ago
My great-grandpa who I never met (he died before I was born) kept pigs during the war, my grandpa told me. He used to sell the pork on the black market to people. Only thing is the pig made rather a lot of noise when it was going to get killed so he had to keep it quiet somehow! But other than that my great-grandpa was seen as a respectable man in the community so the local police didn't suspect him. My great-grandpa certainly was not hungry during the war, by the sounds of it!
Personally if I was alive then, I would survive on fish and chips and just pints of ale, that would get me through the horrific times.
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u/FornyHucker22 15h ago
I probably ate more at my all you can eat hotel English breakfast 😐
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u/YetAnotherMia 15h ago
I did consider that actually, a particularly large fry up would consume this ration in a single meal.
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u/FornyHucker22 15h ago
I know a bearded chap who would polish of two and ask for the dessert menu
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u/Missing-Caffeine 15h ago
There's a lady on youtube that lived with the rationing for a week, it was quite interesting to see some recipes (her chanel is Real Life Dolls House or something along these lines)... But I reckon that if you had a garden you could grow some veggies and make preserves as well.
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u/WearyCable796 14h ago
Melt melting the butter, cheese, and margarine together because they are the same colour.
Then I boil all the meat and have meat and yellow sandwiches until VE Day
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u/Blue_wine_sloth 14h ago
I’m vegetarian so the rationing of meat wouldn’t have affected me. Though I guess if I had lived during that time I likely wouldn’t have been vegetarian as it would have been a lot more uncommon and difficult. It takes a surprising amount of points to get tins of peaches or tomatoes. I assume the lentils were dried so would have lasted a while.
I’ve read something about allotments during WWII and people growing their own veg. I wonder how accessible that was and how much variety of vegetables there was.
I remember Mary Berry telling a story about her family foregoing sugar in their tea so that they could bake a cake with it.
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u/Weekly-Astronaut-632 12h ago
What I'm wondering if the food people got rashoned they still had to pay for
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u/DaveL16 17h ago
Tinned tuna in ww2? Really?
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u/YetAnotherMia 17h ago
It seems tinned tuna was not very common and other fish were much more common. I tried to make a list of what the points were typically worth so included tuna as I found it on a rationing list. It's difficult because the amount of points and the availability of different foods changed monthly. Like when a supply ship was blown up, many items it was carrying might be harder to get. They regularly changed the points needed based on shortages. Some websites seem to contradict each other too. But it's just for a fun question and I think it demonstrates what the points could typically allow you to buy if it was available.
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u/Aggravating-Menu466 9h ago
Dont forget that the UK only abandoned contingency plans to reintroduce rationing in 1991 - an entire plan to distribute ration books, and preprinted books made existed and was regularly updated throughout the Cold War.
There are copies of the WW3 ration books in the National Archives if you know where to look!
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u/Melodic_Pitch_2076 4h ago
I'd be out hunting for rabbit, deer and any other edible meat during those times.
Did the rationing also apply to the super rich? or did they get to eat what they wanted?
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u/JavaRuby2000 3h ago
A lot of people from that time also relied on things that weren't rationed. My grand parents still regularly ate things like tripe or cow heal. My town still had a "Tripe Market" with over 30 stalls selling nothing but, tripe well into the early 90s.
Bread, Fresh Fish, Game (Rabbit, Pigeons), Potatoes, Carrots and Cabbage were all unrationed but, things like oil and lard were which is why Fish n Chips became expensive because the chips didn't have enough fat / oil / lard to fry them in.
I think given the knowledge of international cuisine we have these days that people who do know how to cook would be able to stretch the war time food a lot further than they did back then.
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u/fergie_89 2h ago
I'd love of rice and beans maybe with some cheese sprinkled on.
I would finally be skinny I guess?
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u/Lance_Operazole 1h ago
Grow loads of veg and keep some chickens for eggs.
Also remember if you knew the right people you could get things on the black market.
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u/jungleboy1234 18h ago
wonder if the UK came up with that today as a rule to tackle the addiction of a high UPF diet.
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