Looking for Wartime Recipes

[The Lonely Navigator]

Not too long ago, I went for a visit to a friend's house. They had a booklet from 1943 with wartime recipes. I went through it and found quite a few that I liked and copied them down. I then went through some of their other 1930s - 40s recipes booklets and wrote down more.

I liked these wartime recipes because they don't take long to make, they aren't something that requires ingredients that I can't find, and they are filling. For someone who lives alone and has CFS - this is the perfect combination...because I'd like to make myself small meals that may last 2-3 days and that are filling...but...that aren't going to kill me to make.

I was wondering if anyone knew of any good sites or places to find more wartime recipes (nationality doesn't matter).

Thanks - I appreciate any info.

 

[Puzzicato]

Marguerite Patten worked for the Ministry of Food demonstrating how to make the rations stretch and developing recipes. I think most of the recipes look inedible and time consuming, but whatever blows your hair back.

Here's another of hers http://www.amazon.co.uk/Victory-Coo...r_1_17?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278073383&sr=1-17

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

Thanks!

I'll take a look and see what's there. Some of what I read didn't appeal to me in those booklets...like tongue for example. I also saw 'Minted Peas' (peas with mint) and I mentioned that to my friend and she said that it's actually good.

I'm not much of a pea person to begin with (by far prefer brussel sprouts to peas)...but I'm kind of curious...

 

[Smithy]

I also saw 'Minted Peas' (peas with mint) and I mentioned that to my friend and she said that it's actually good.

Good grief, what else do you have with a roast leg of lamb

Minted peas are a very British thing and for obvious reasons are very popular and traditional down this neck of the woods. Bags of frozen mint peas are probably one of the biggest selling frozen veges there are in Oz and NZ. They are brilliant with lamb! We had them the other day for the Sunday roast with a whole leg of lamb, roast veges, and mint sauce and gravy as well.

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

LoL...lol

I didn't know that! They were listed in quite a few of the American recipe books so I thought it was an 'American thing'...didn't know it was actually a British thing.

Cool then. I'll be sure to give them a try!

 

[Puzzicato]

Minted peas are delicious - and minted pea soup is one of my favourites. Tongue is delicious, if someone else cooks it. It's a bit too anatomically precise for me to prepare myself.

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

I actually love pea soup - so I'll also check into making mint pea soup.

I don't know if I could eat tongue...I don't mind liver, but the tongue... *scratches head*...

 

[Jasmine Jolene]

this book looked good when i visited the imperial war museum in London:

http://www.iwmshop.org.uk/product/18386/Wise_Eating_in_Wartime

there are others as well

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

Thanks - I was just trying to find more on that booklet and came across this site:

http://www.wildhealthfood.com/wise-eating-top-tips-from-wartime-england

What does food in wartime England have to do with us today?

Quite a lot actually. Rationing and restrictions meant most peoples diets actually improved during the war. In general, people ate more fresh vegetables, ate less sugar, ate less fat, and bread was wholegrain rather than white. Poor people received improved nutrition (on rations), and wealthy people reduced their over-eating habits.

Before the world Wars, many common illnesses resulted from nutrient deficiencies. Since then we have seen the reduction of issues like scurvey and rickets, and the growth of degenerative diseases. These diseases, like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, are often lifestyle and diet related. It seems clear that if we 'turn back time' and learn some lessons from the recent past, we can reduce the risk of both nutrient deficiency and degenerative diseases.

What was normal in 1940 England that we don't do now?

These sensible ideas can be easily incorporated into your own families approach to food.

Homemade and simple – during wartime in England, cooks started with basic ingredients and made meals from scratch. Food was generally wholefood. The food processing and packaging industry was in it’s infancy.

Food was also usually organic – pesticide and chemical fertilizer use only became widespread after the war. Also many people grew their own vegetables as part of the war effort. My Dutch grandmother was not so well educated in self-sufficiency and insisted on growing a flower garden during the war, even though her family was hungry for quantity and variety!

Eco-packaging – Food came in paper bags, or wrapped in a paper package. Packaging was minimal and almost always recyclable.

The author of 'Wise Eating in Wartime', Dr Charles Hill, makes several points – which fit right in to our Wild Health whole food philosophy:

1. “Green leaves make rosy cheeks.”
The ministry of food, through this booklet, recommends people include more raw green vegetables in their diets. Not just lettuce. Dr Hill enthusiastically writes of salads: “For our daily supply of vitamin C we must look to raw vegetables… Go all out for cabbage leaves, water cress, mustard greens, endive, chicory, young dandelion and nasturtium leaves”. It’s not so long ago that people were encouraged, by the government, to eat ‘wild herbs’ in their daily salads. Good affirmation for an enthusiastic weed-collector like me!

2. “Do we eat too much sugar?”
Dr Hill answers “ We do… The first load of sugar came to this country (England) in 1563. Then it was luxury. Today it’s something of a menace.” He explains that sugar is not a helpful food because it contains energy without nutrients. “Other energy foods like bread, potatoes, have got something else, some builder, some vitamins, some salts”. These days Roger and I would use language like “anti-oxidants and phyto-nutrients’, but we mean the same thing… wholefoods give you more nutrients per mouthful. Dr Hill recommends easy ways to increase what we now call nutrient density. For example, serving cooked potatoes with their skins on.

Dr Hill claims that in 1840 people ate a tenth of the sugar they ate before the war in 1939. Pre-war consumption of sugar was approximately a pound per person. During the war it went down due to rationing. What brief relief for the body!

So how does this compare to sugar consumption today? Dr Mercola writes: In the last 20 years, sugar consumption in the USA has increased from less than a pound per week to 2.5 pounds (1.1 kilos) of sugar per person per week. Aside from tooth decay, the exponential growth of diabetes and obesity are sure signs that sugar consumption is too high.

3. "Menu for the Ideal Meal"
As follows according to Dr Hill: "Wholegrain bread, milk, cheese, and uncooked salad vegetables". Dr Hill recommends good quality proteins, (vegetarian like legumes or otherwise including organ meats), variation in your veggies, and he is totally opposed to over-cooked vegetables. Pretty straightforward isn't it?

Roger and I would add to this: gluten free whole grains, fish, eggs, some nuts and seeds, and if you do drink milk try to source unhomogenised and unpasteurized.

It seems some things don’t change! – There are still many opinions about the specifics of healthy food. One thing that is hard to argue with; whole food makes sense.

---

See, the nice thing about this sort of eat is that it already goes hand in hand with my natural living/healing 'way of life' - which is why I love this. I don't have to radically 'overhaul' my current way of life, just refine it a bit more with the help of these things.

 

[Norumbega]

WWII Oatmeal Molasses Cookies
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/wwii-oatmeal-molasses-cookies/Detail.aspx

WWII Spam & Egg Sandwich
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/wwii-spam-and-egg-sandwich/Detail.aspx

The Victory Home: Food Recipes
http://tvh.bfn.org/recipes.html

Uncle Phaedrus, Finder of Lost Recipes
http://www.hungrybrowser.com/phaedrus/m033101.htm

From Cooks.Com. WWII Recipes
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,world_war_ii,FF.html

Ok.....I had to add this one:
http://family.go.com/contests/cake-recipes/cakes/wwii-sherman-tank-9664/

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

Spiff. Thanks Norumbega.

 

[Silver Dollar]

Minted peas soup sounds like a good dish to me. Like the Jolly Green Giant says there's nothing in the world like a good pea. Wait a minute. somehow that didn't seem to come out right.

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

Silver Dollar: Like the Jolly Green Giant says there's nothing in the world like a good pea. Wait a minute. somehow that didn't seem to come out right.

....lol lol

 

[KilroyCD]

Prien, I have that "Victory Cookbook" by Marguerite Patten. I picked it up at the IWM a number of years ago. I can lend it to you if you would like, or I could copy and e-mail you with recipes.

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

Hey Kilroy

Copy and email is fine - I'll PM you my email address.

Thanks!

By the way - that Spam recipe we had at Reading, if you could email me that too, I'd appreciate it!