What they ate!

"Over-riding all these trifling discomforts was the non-stop foraging by the housewife to provide some variety in her family's meals. I cannot recall ever being literally hungry, but the country had been reliant upon imports, which were now impossible because of the sea blockade. Everything was scrupulously rationed and we ate some strange things to supplement our diet.

Tea tablets were used to make the tea look stronger; babies' dried milk or 'National' milk was added if it could be obtained; and saccharine was used as a sweetener. Some even resorted to using honey or jam. What a concoction - but we drank it. Bread was heavy and a dull grey colour, but it, too, was rationed - so we ate it.

Sweets were devised from a mixture of dried milk and peppermint essence with a little sugar or icing sugar if available. Grated carrots replaced fruit in a Christmas or birthday cake, while a substitute almond paste was made from ground rice or semolina mixed with a little icing sugar and almond essence. Dried egg powder was used as a raising agent, and this same dried egg could be reconstituted and fried, yielding a dull, yellow, rubbery-like apology for the light and fluffy real thing - but there was nothing else, so we ate it.

Bean pies and lentil rissoles provided protein to eke out our meagre meat ration, and the horse-meat shop, which previously had sold its products only for dogs, now bore a notice on some of its joints occasionally, 'Fit for Human Consumption'. This horse-meat was not rationed, but it did have to be queued for and sure enough eventually it appeared on our table. It had to be cooked for a long time and even then it was still tough. Nevertheless, it did not get thrown out.

In complete contrast, one highlight for me was the coming of spam from America. It was an oasis in our desert of mediocrity; an elixir in our sea of austerity. It seems to me that it was meatier, juicier, and much tastier than it is now. (Tricks of memory again, no doubt.) We ate it in sandwiches; we ate it fried with chips; cold with salad; chopped in spam-and-egg pies, until, of course, it ceased to provide the variety we longed for, but I never tired of it." 

- Anne Butcher

So back in time again, we go! This time to the 1940s, with war raging all around, and the British and Irish governments issuing ration books to households around the country! 

I did a bit of research, along with dipping into my ration cookbook, and, not being able to find any Spam for sale in our local supermarket, decided on Corned Beef instead and to make some sort of hash.  Its something I cook myself, with fresh corned beef and plenty of potatoes, so I was intrigued as to how they would have made it in a time when there was few onions, hardly any potatoes and tins of meat! 

So this is the recipe I chose, as it was one which the ingredients were available in war time, and it was a bit unusual and fancy, often served on a Sunday!!

Layered Hash

You'll need

Twelve thin slices of corned beef

1 small green cabbage

2 leeks

2 tins of haricot beans

Half a pint of gravy (Made from bisto!)

1 tsp english mustard

Method

Fry the cabbage and leeks in a small bit of oil until soft.  Then layer the greens, beans and slices of corned beef in a lasagne dish. 

 Mix the mustard with the gravy and pour over the top.  Bake for 1 hour in a medium hot oven.  

This was a lovely meal, hot, comforting and very tasty.  I'd imagine, with the little they had in wartimes, that taste came before anything in the meal stakes!