The Ration Book Cooking Project

When we were in England a few years ago, Tim and I wound up at the Imperial War Museum's Duxford air field on WWII day. We had planned to go because we both love aeroplanes, but it was a total accident we were there on that particular day. It was meant to be.

Not only were there many people there in full WWII attire, complete with gas mask boxes, hairstyles and uniforms, but we had the pleasure of seeing many wonderful examples of historical flying machinery, some still in working order. We wandered through the ill-fated Concord and saw a cool black spy plane. We rode on 1940s bicycles which was thrilling, so much so that when we got back, I spent months trying (in vain) to find a pair to buy. In one tent there was a lady who was an expert in ration book cooking. She'd made a few things that we tried, including a chocolate truffle made of potato, cocoa and sugar. Nothing more. It wasn't half bad either.

Since then, I have bought a few WWII cook books that I love pouring over. I have a couple of authentic volumes from the period, from both the UK and the US. It certainly seems as though there was a big difference between the food situation in each country. In fact, the second edition of 'Wartime Recipes' that was published by the Omaha World-Herald is funny for the lack of rationing. It contains recipes such as 'chocolate jelly roll', 'enriched french toast' (with real eggs!) and 'baked squash with sausage links.'

I also have a more recent and very helpful book called "Ration Book Cookery" by Gill Corbishley. It's a British book and has a nice range of easy recipes and a lot of interesting information. I've often meant to cook from it and over the next week, I'll get my chance.

I've had in mind a project for a while where I cook ration meals for one week. Tim asked me why. Basically because I'm interested to know how well these recipes work and what they taste like. It's pure curiosity, although I would also like to have some appreciation of what people were eating then.

The plan is that for the next seven days, I'll cook a ration meal each night. I'm not going to follow ration quantities in the sense of how much we're allowed to eat. It's simply an exercise in cooking and eating, although I won't take my usual liberties with the recipes and I will follow them as exactly as today's ingredients allow. Tim's agreed to get into the spirit and eat ration meals all week, including breakfast and lunch, so there will be a lot of porridge, Spam and Oslo meals happening. He's also agreed to provide feedback each day on the blog.

Now just so we're clear, this is not a weight loss exercise or a social commentary. It's just something that I thought would be fun and interesting to try. I read somewhere that during ration times in Britain, the British people as a whole ate better and were healthier than at any other time, so hopefully it won't be too difficult to enjoy the food either. Having said that, Tim's Godmother Al told me yesterday that she remembers rationing as a child and said it was horrible. I guess we're about to find out!