I was thinking the other day that I am just over-thinking all this.
I've done wartime rationing challenges before and planned it all out carefully, and indeed for most of the photos you will see this week I have been setting out the amounts to record the foods that I will be having on the rations, on the points system and I was about to do the un-rationed foods.
But then it struck me during our time away at the weekend that while the second World War didn't come totally unexpectedly back in 1939, and it was to some extent planned for on the Home Front, everyone had to get used to a new way of shopping, cooking and living virtually overnight with the advent of rationing.
So I am just jumping in with this now.
This week each day I will share one of the pages that will be remaining at the top of the blog for future reference both for myself and for readers of the blog.
Today - The Weekly Rationed Foods as they would have been during the war years for a vegetarian ... but with a modern tweak for a dairy-free, non-tea drinking person who is using up supplies already in the house.
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4oz Cheese - Violife Extra Mature
Will usually be grated to make it go further.
6oz Dairy-Free Spread
In place of 4oz margarine & 2oz butter
In place of 2oz Lard - I am using up supplies I already have.
One carton of Dairy-Free Milk
In place of 3 pints cows milk.
2oz Instant Coffee
I cannot drink tea, it makes me ill.
2oz Sweets
I am using up any 'sweet things' that I have in the house before buying anything else.
1 Egg and 2 Veggie Sausages
In place of the 2 eggs vegetarians were allowed each week.
These are the weekly rations I will be using, and the italics give additional information.
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As well as the weekly rations each person had monthly and bi-monthly food rations, as well as other foodstuff available for them to chose for themselves and their families through the Points system. There will be more about all of these on the next couple of posts.
Remember that whether you were shopping with your ration coupons or your points all food still had to be paid for in cash. The rationing system was to ensure that everyone in the country had the same access to the same foods to keep them healthy and fed during the war years. Lessons had been learnt and acted upon after the first World War when the rich had much more access to foods than the poorer in the population.
Why is there a photo of £40 at the top of this post you might have been wondering. Well I have decided to give myself a loose budget of £10 per week to purchase the bread, fruit and vegetables that I will be able to have to go with the rationed foods. Just to see if it can be done, this should be easy at first when I have things in the cupboard and freezer to use up but maybe more difficult later. We'll see, but in any case having a small amount of cash on my mind should help me to start the process of saving towards retirement.
Sue xx
Found it! Yay!
ReplyDeletexx
It wasn't THAT well hidden ... haha. :-)
DeleteNo, but it was pretty early and my eyes were hardly open! :-D. xx
DeleteHaha ... you really are an early bird!! You need MORE coffee, but I can't send you any sorry. ;-)
DeleteThis helps me understand why both sets of my grandparents kept chickens.
ReplyDeleteGosh yes, I am going to miss having chickens. During the ration years if you kept chickens you surrendered your egg coupons and instead received a chicken-feed allowance Lots of homes kept at least four birds in their back gardens.
DeleteSo timely when food price inflation is still at an eye-watering high and I cannot see prices falling in the short (or even medium) term. Good luck m'dear, x
ReplyDeleteYour comment about rationing being introudced virtually overnight makes me think of the first lockdown - we all expected it and then whoosh - house arrest.
Thank you. Yes, I am doing this for health and financial reasons, and to highlight again how well the population of our country coped with such terrifying and harsh times.
DeleteThere were a lot of similarities to the lockdowns, the food shortages, the queues outside shops etc, all that was missing were the bombs dropping ... but of course we had to contend with Boris Johnson instead. ;-)
I love it when you do your challenges! Interestingly (or not!) drinking tea on an empty stomach makes me throw up. It's something to do with the tannins I believe. Coffee is perfectly ok and tea is fine later in the day for me. I know I'd struggle with the 2oz of coffee a week!!! Can't wait to read more :-) xxx
ReplyDeleteWith or without food tea makes me throw up and stay feeling ill for the rest of the day if I accidently drink any. If I am remembering rightly the coffee ration did last me through the week each week when I did this challenge last time. I hadn't touched the monthly additional allowance at all. Fingers crossed it's similar this time.
DeleteYou are right, people would have had little time to prepare for rationing when it went into effect. Looking forward with interest to see how this challenge unfolds. :)
ReplyDeleteIt's getting used to the limitations, new ways of doing things and the actual ration amounts and points system that takes some getting your head around isn't it.
DeleteSo looking forward to following your rationing experience. I think the items people already had in their food cupboards would be so precious and eeked out for as long as possible. The older generation especially, having experienced food shortages in the first world war. The milk and tea ration would be my personal horror, I have 2 cups before I even think of breakfast! I already eat porridge for breakfast made with water which is something I thought I would never enjoy but just cut the oatmilk out over a couple of weeks and found that I do like it.
ReplyDeleteI always just make my porridge with water, I put the oats and measured water in the pan together the night before which helps to make the porridge more creamy tasting naturally. Heather
DeleteTam: Luckily I have always made my porridge with water, by putting it to soak first thing in the morning while I have that all important first cup of coffee, and then giving it a good stir before cooking it slowly in a pan, it means that the oats make their own oat milk and it's delicious as you have found out.
DeleteHeather: I'm not quite as organised as you, but a good hour or so soaking in the morning means that the water goes nice and milky.
DeleteI shall enjoy following you on your rations, coincidentally I have been binge watching Ration book Rebecca on you tube this weekend ,she is lovely and I love the relationship she has with her chicken. I would really like to try to eat this way but I don't think husband would be too happy even though he is very easy to feed. Could you get extra coffee by Alan inviting you to his kitchen to have a coffee or is that not allowed :)
ReplyDeleteWhen I first found her a couple of months ago I had a big binge watching session too, it's nice to support such interesting and nice people on their channels isn't it. I think she's on the point of monetisation.
DeleteOh yes, I could go into Alan's and have a coffee, but not just for the coffee, that would be cheating. It would only be if and when he offers without prompting when I'm already there for some other reason. :-)
I'll practice looking thirsty!!
I’ll look forward to following your latest challenge as you prepare for retirement. Catriona
ReplyDeleteThank you Catriona. xx
DeleteGlad you’ve started the challenge, I love your challenges. Heather
ReplyDeleteThanks Heather, nice to see you here. xx
DeleteI'm so looking forward to following this challenge, Sue, I just know it will be fascinating and informative :)
ReplyDeleteI agree it will be easier in the beginning as you work your way through your food stocks and really much tougher as you go on....just like the war years of course. At least there will be no pigs tails or trotters, or chitterlings like my mum used to cook...yuk :(
I've been trying to eat more simply to see if I can feel better in myself so I might pinch a few ideas for meals from you, if I may x
Lovely to hear from you, I had just left a comment on yours ... I was getting worried. No pressure to post again though as long as we know you're okay. xx
DeleteOh gawd no, I couldn't have stomached offal. My Mum remembers being forced to eat tripe as a child and hating it ... and yet she forced us to eat liver!! You may pinch any ideas that I come up with, I need to get reading my recipes again.
Is this a time-;lmited challege or more-or-less indefinite? Either way - good luck!
ReplyDeleteIt's possibly to retirement ... and maybe beyond. That's why the URL is different to the blog title. :-)
DeleteThank you. xx
That is some challenge. It does bring awareness to how much we spend on food and our consumption. I need to do better, I spend a lot for 4 people.
ReplyDeleteIt really makes you stop and think about all the foods we eat these days for sure, and also about the sheer range of foods, many of them very ultra processed and profit driven, that are in the shops.
DeleteFor meat eaters the WW2 ration was by price, one shilling and tuppence, which would buy two good size lamb chops or a pound, 450g of beef mince per week. We set our meat ration at £2.50 each a week. Ham or bacon was a separate ration 4 oz 100g week. Offal and fish were not rationed but were in short supply.
ReplyDeleteHousewives used to shop most days, and sorting out the ration coupons took the shopkeeper a lot of time, so there were long queues. Customers had to register with the butcher and grocer and could shop only where they were registered.
Thank goodness for the freezer. I put our butter, cheese and meat in ration portions in there. I have had to cut a small meat joint in two and freeze half to keep within our rations.
Clothes rationing was by points. It is a good way to curb spending on clothes.
Yes, I know all that but thanks for the information, it's probably helped anyone reading today. I had planned to go into all that on future posts.
DeleteUsing the Historic Inflation Calculator (and the most up to date conversion which is 2022), the correct amount to spend on meat if you are living on rations now is £3.50 per person. If I was doing rationing the way I did it last time I would have spent that amount on vegan meat alternatives, but this time I have decided to take the vegetarian ration and tweak it a bit.
It is much harder to be able to cope with rationing out the meat if you are buying it in larger portions to last for a few weeks to save money isn't it, as you say thank goodness for freezers. Have you thought of shopping at the butchers and asking for exactly the amounts you need?
I couldn’t find any medium oatmeal this week, another shortage even though it is 2 ration points per pound. I bought porridge oats and blitzed them with the hand blender in a tall jug. It is finer than I wanted, but it worked.
ReplyDeleteAgain you're jumping ahead to my future posts. :-)
DeleteI remember at the beginning of lockdown finding it a real challenge to source food. I take immunosuppressive meds for a condition which has given me vastly reduced lung function, so couldn't safely go shopping. In the end I discovered a local company which had been supplying restaurants canteens and cafes, all now closed, switched to an online delivery service of fruit or veg boxes. But each box was enough for 4 people for a week! I used to have an outdoor 'shop' in the driveway for friends to drop in after a delivery to share it. All keeping strictly 2m apart from each other, of course.
ReplyDeleteNothing to do with WW2 rationing, but it was a sudden food supply problem, for about 6 months until I managed to get on a supermarket list.
DeleteThank you. I cannot tolerate tea either.
ReplyDeleteI think I had my last ever cup of tea when I was about 12 or 13, it's been coffee ever since.
DeleteI'm really looking forward to reading your future posts Sue:) There is a lot that I need to learn:)
ReplyDeleteI hope you find it interesting. xx
DeleteThis is so fascinating....and a bit daunting, as I try to mentally do the maths to apply this to a family of four, with only one of us a veggie! I have more and more admiration for the people (let's be fair - mostly women) who had to do all of this juggling to feed their families. I'm very much looking forward to learning more from you...thank you so much for deciding to share it with us! ~ mel
ReplyDeleteA lot of families during the war years declared one or two of them a vegetarian even if they weren't, in order to get more cheese and egg rations. You can start to understand why there were such huge queues at the shops each day can't you. Imagine the poor shopkeepers having to weigh out all the portions ahead of time and then mark or cut the coupons for each family member as each person got to the counter. It must have taken a lot of getting used to for everyone involved.
DeleteThis is so interesting, I think I am going to enjoy following your journey.
ReplyDeleteI hope you do. :-)
DeleteInteresting the amount of some foods you were allowed to have on rations. I can't see me doing anything with so little sugar...I would have to save up in order to do any baking at all.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Funnily enough I always think just the opposite ... what am I going to do with so much sugar. :-)
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