The Ration Book Diet

Occasionally I check a book out of the library that I find I don't want to return.  I re-check it to the limit allowed and then reluctantly return it, sometimes even paying fines.  The Ration Book Diet was one of those.  Not that I'm on a diet or that we're rationing food around here.  I love it more for the history than the recipes, though they are good, too.  The wartime menus and their modern revisions are grouped by season.  I think I'm unlikely to use many of the recipes as they are in general highly calorific, designed to keep people well fed, full of energy and in good spirits.


This book is very much along the lines of Make Do and Mend, which I got for my birthday a while back.  I did my best at the time to make the information about clothes rationing into a strategy for a capsule wardrobe.  However, what one might end up with was too variable to characterise.  Even starting from scratch, the resulting wardrobe was entirely dependent on how clever a person was at knitting, sewing and re-fashioning garments.  There was a lot of wisdom to take away from the exercise even though I didn't come out with the answer I was seeking.

I love books about Britain's experience of WWII, not that I expect it was a very pleasant time. Nancy Mitford's letters (in, strangly enough, The Letters of Nancy Mitford) to friends and family provide me with a more chilling picture of the bombing horrors than movies ever have.   I think I like these rationing books because they make Britain seem more like my homeland, not that I ever experienced rationing, but certainly my Mom used all her skills to make our food budget go as far as possible.  I might add that I would be very sad if Britain were to be more like the US (and it does seem to be going in that direction, rather than towards Europe).  I would prefer that each culture managed to retain its own unique aspects, else what would be the fun in travel?

The Ration Book Diet makes the point that although Britain enjoys far more affluence than it did 60 years ago, this wealth has not resulted in better health.  This is largely true throughout the developed world.  (What on earth does that say about us?)  The British government learned some lessons from the first World War when many potential soldiers failed their physical due to conditions caused by malnutrition. Also, during that war the price of food rose by 60% and people with lower incomes went without; news about food riots was suppressed. The government plans rolled out during WWII were even more important with her capacity to import food and fuel under threat and so rationing and price controls were all put into place. My parents met and married during the war and Mom and my grandparents sometimes talked about their experiences of rationing in the US: sugar, meat and gasoline were things I heard about.   I have Grandma & Grandpa's old ration book around here somewhere. 

The captions read:  Do you remember what John Bull used to look like --  before he was invited to dig for victory and so forth -- and conserve petrol and all that -- and become a fitter Briton, etcetera, etcetera -- and go easy at meals times and that sort of thing -- and join the Home Guard and all -- and help with the harvest and this and that -- and do spare-time work on munitions and these and those -- and lend a hand with defence works and the like -- and be a good neighbour and so on -- and go to it and everything?  Well, just look at him now! 

When I first arrived here in 1995, it seemed to me that people couldn't spend their money fast enough.  I'd never lived in a society that went out to eat, to pubs, to plays or shopped and travelled quite so much.  When the nurses I worked with complained that they never knew where all their paycheques went, I kept my mouth shut.  I didn't know if I was stacking up my savings because I made that much more or because I didn't spend money on facials, convenience foods, a roaring night life or leg waxing (ouch!).    It was an alien culture to me on several levels and whilst I was fascinated, I didn't admire  all of it.  I've come to understand since that rationing here continued far beyond the end of the war and that there were economic hardships throughout the 1960s and into the 70's.  One could understand why people would take the view that 'make do and mend' was full of four-letter words they didn't want to know.  

However, when I read about the ingenuity of how Brits coped with the shortages during the war, it seems very much like the pioneer spirit that Americans are raised to appreciate, only moreso given the war here in Europe.  

We have food experiments at our house all the time!

I can't speak for the southern part of Britain, but from where I stand I wouldn't say there is a great deal of patriotism over here.   The world is changing and the old ideas of patriotism may not be as useful as they once were, but there is a lot to be said for having a sense of community.   

Given that Britain was fighting for its very survival as a nation, I imagine the sense of community was immense. 

I don't want to experience a war in the way that Britain did (or in any other way for that matter) and I'd prefer not to have enforced rationing, but I must say that I like a good challenge far more than I do having none at all.   Any one can spend money, but it takes a bit of creative imagination to solve problems in a different way.

I expect that's one of my definitions of frugality.