A few dodgy meals

We've had a couple of questionable meals this week.  Liver and onions, that isn't a personal favourite of mine, followed by beef stew that I hadn't made the night before.  When I got in at 7.30pm, from work, I only stewed it for 30 mins and the beef was tough!  Although, my Dads upbeat response was to proclaim the extra chewing made the beef feel like it was going further.

This reinforced the fact that, on this diet, planning and preparation are essential.

An interesting change for me and my Dad is we're now feeling full with just the main meal.  Last week the meals were making me feel physically full but not in the way that meat makes you feel contentedly full.  Come dessert time, we're just not fussed.  I made a mocha whip last night, consisting of flour, cocoa and black coffee.  Sounded dubious but whipped up into a tasty mousse like concoction that wasn’t filling but was just right to give us a taste of chocolate.

The funniest event this week was over lunch at work, munching my haslet sandwich.  The discussion over lunch often turns to what I’m eating today and this was no different.  However, today, the discussion quickly turned to what I could spread in the sandwich and the various methods people remembered their Mother/Grandma etc. using to make food go further.  I’ve found this happens a lot.  People either look at me as if I’m mental or start quizzing me on what I’m eating and how I’m using up this ration or that ration and offering excellent advice on what their family would do to eke out rations.

The Country definitely still has a good grip on the struggle at home through the war years.

Rationing: A few days in

It's almost a week and its been interesting.

Firstly, the shopping came in at a 1/3 of the normal price!!! Hopefully, the normal shopping for 10 days should roughly pay for the whole of January.

The first day was deceiving, we had cheesy breaded potato and a raw root veg salad that was gorgeous. There was plenty of cheese (4oz.) for the 1lb of mash and the grated parsnip, turnip, carrot and watercress with an interesting dressing was also delicious. The dressing was made from a mix of milk and vinegar and was arguably better than modern vinaigrette.

I had a hard time over day 2 and 3 as the meals were lacking in meat and I went through a protein obsession. It was a bacon hotpot with only 3 rashers of bacon followed by a vegetable stew. I honestly considered buying a tin of Spam to eat straight from the tin! I stuck with it though and since I've not felt deprived at all.

It helps that we are able to have a dessert most nights and there are plenty of bulky carbs to fill up on. The most interesting dessert was the chocolate cake. This had half the sugar and less than half of the fat you'd normally use. It was instead bulked out with grated raw potato and bulky is definitely the word I'd use to describe the eating experience.

Overall, I'm realising how many empty calories I was adding to meals before and how, with a little effort, I can think more about my weekly meal planning and create tasty healthy meals.

Rationing Diet

It's January, we've eaten too much and it’s time to pull in the purse
strings. Sound familiar?

Before Christmas me and my Dad hatched a plan. It seemed brilliantly
simple and would also a be fun way to experience history. We decided to go on a
World War 2 rationing diet!

I’m using two books for reference,

For one month we will be living on the following rations per adult:
Bacon and ham: 4oz (100g)
Meat: To the value of 1s.2d (6p today). Sausages were not rationed but difficult
to get; offal (liver, kidneys, tripe) was originally unrationed but sometimes
formed part of the meat ration.
Cheese: 2oz(50g) sometimes it went up to 4oz (100g) and even up to 8oz (225g).
Margarine: 4oz (100g)
Butter: 2oz (50g)
Milk: 3 pints(1800ml) occasionally dropping to 2 pints (1200ml). Household milk
(skimmed or dried) was available: 1 packet per four weeks.
Sugar: 8oz (225g)
Jam: 1lb (450g) every month
Tea: 2oz (50g)
Eggs: 1 fresh egg a week if available but often only one every two weeks. 1 packet equals 12 eggs every four weeks.
Sweets: 12oz (350g) every four weeks

The first challenge was calculating the current value of the 1s.2d. After much searching and comparing, this turned out to be £1.70. For my experience I've set a few rules: Offal and sausages are hard to get so we're only having these a couple of times I haven't been able to find dried eggs so I'll just be using fresh, 1 packet of dried egg was equivalent to 12 eggs.

I'm averaging the cheese ration to 3oz per week. I've found it’s not the rationed items that are causing difficulties but actually the non-rationed items. Information on availability and cost is scarce and my Nana was quite young when she lived through rations. Spam, for example, was not rationed but there's no guidance on how easily it could be bought and how expensive it was. In addition, there was a points system for certain foods. There is little information on the food available through this so I have spent our points on dried fruit and dried peas and pulses.