YesterdayTV

Discussion in 'General' started by peterhastie, Feb 6, 2010.

  1. peterhastie

    peterhastie Senior Member

    marcus69x likes this.
  2. marcus69x

    marcus69x I love WW2 meah!!!

    Brilliant site mate.

    I like the ration recipes. Might have a go at making some. :)
     
  3. marcus69x

    marcus69x I love WW2 meah!!!

    Me and Kelley are gonna eat 1940's food all next week.

    Using ration recipes, I'm gonna make a different meal each night. lol.

    I'll post pics and recipes on the 'what's for dinner' thread next weekend. :D
     
  4. marcus69x

    marcus69x I love WW2 meah!!!

    Reading through Peterhastie's link on the ration diet, it says:

    "When I first thought about doing this diet, I didn’t realise that only three things were rationed in early 1940;
    Bacon (4oz)
    Sugar (8oz)
    Butter (2oz). "

    Is this correct? What about things like cheese and other meats etc..?

    I know they were rationed, but why not in early 1940 along with all other foods?
     
  5. marcus69x

    marcus69x I love WW2 meah!!!

    Reading through Peterhastie's link on the ration diet, it says:

    "When I first thought about doing this diet, I didn’t realise that only three things were rationed in early 1940;
    Bacon (4oz)
    Sugar (8oz)
    Butter (2oz). "

    Is this correct? What about things like cheese and other meats etc..?

    I know they were rationed, but why not in early 1940 along with all other foods?

    Meat, eggs and tea - although weren’t rationed until March – would have been extremely hard to get hold of.
     
  6. peterhastie

    peterhastie Senior Member

    You see, if you lads had stuck in at school and done your homework......

    Rationing Timeline
     
  7. marcus69x

    marcus69x I love WW2 meah!!!

    You see, if you lads had stuck in at school and done your homework......


    Lol, I was always too occupied using my ruler to flick balls of paper at the teacher. :rolleyes::)

    Some good stuff there mate on the rationing. Been trying to google for the last few days but yours is the best I've seen so far.

    Nice one.
     
  8. PeterG

    PeterG Senior Member

    Reading through Peterhastie's link on the ration diet, it says:

    "When I first thought about doing this diet, I didn’t realise that only three things were rationed in early 1940;
    Bacon (4oz)
    Sugar (8oz)
    Butter (2oz). "

    Is this correct? What about things like cheese and other meats etc..?

    I know they were rationed, but why not in early 1940 along with all other foods?
    No, it's not quite correct.

    Food rationing started on 8 January 1940:

    Bacon and ham (4oz)
    Sugar (12oz)
    Butter (4oz)

    It was initially thought that everyone would take up their bacon ration, but many could not afford bacon at 2/- (2 shillings) a pound and it lay rotting in warehouses, so the ration was raised to 8oz at the end of January.

    Meat was rationed not by weight (since cuts vary in weight) but by value; the ration was 1/10d (1 shilling and 10 pence) per person per week from 11 March 1940. It fell to 1/2d and then to 1/- in 1941 (more severe than it seems due to higher and increasing inflation). Offal (liver, kidneys, tongue, etc) was not rationed but you had to know your butcher, leading many to complain that war-time animals seem to be born without internal organs.

    From March 1941 preserves (jam and marmalade) and syrup and treacle were rationed at 8oz per month, but from June 1943 could be taken as sugar, a concession which had been allowed from 1942.

    From July 1941 rationing was extended to tea (2oz), margarine (6oz in conjunction with butter, the ratio initially the customer's choice), and cooking fats (2oz).

    Cheese was rationed from 5 May 1941 at 1oz, raised to 8oz in July 1942, falling back to 3oz in May 1943.

    Eggs were not rationed, but were 'allocated' at 1 egg per person per week. The difference here is that they were not on the ration book. Milk was allocated at 3 pints per person per week from the end of March 1942.

    Game, poultry, and fish (including shell fish) were never rationed, but were expensive items.

    (sources: Wartime Britain 1939-1945 by Juliet Gardiner; Mass Observation: Britain in the Second World War data from the the Trustees of the National Archive)
     
    marcus69x likes this.
  9. marcus69x

    marcus69x I love WW2 meah!!!

    Peter,

    That's why we're becoming the number 1 WW2 forum in the world.
    Good stuff.

    Rationing is a crazy thing though. For example, 1 egg p/week is no good for me but 3 pints would be more than enough.

    How one product is more available than others.
     
  10. PeterG

    PeterG Senior Member

    1 egg p/week is no good for me but 3 pints would be more than enough.
    I forgot to mention that dried eggs in tins were introduced in June 1942 and the allowance was 1 tin (the equivalent of 12 eggs) per person per week.

    The thing about rationing was that it was 'guaranteed', it was the unrationed items which went 'under the counter' or were in short supply which were hard to get. Few now realise that the photos of long queues are not of people queueing for their food rations but for unrationed items. Word would quickly go around and a queue would form like magic. I can remember the long queues in 1940 before I left England. Because of this people were always demanding that more foods should be rationed but the government was reluctant to do this unless they could be certain of sufficient supply.

    A typical complaint was the shortage of onions, 80% of which had come from France and Spain before the war, and there was endless queueing in the hope of getting tomatoes, particularly scarce after 1940 after the occupation of the Low Countries and the Channel Islands. People ate lots of boiled dishes, stews, etc, as frying was particularly difficult as lard was rationed and olive oil could only be obtained at a chemist with a doctor's prescription.

    At the beginning of December 1941, to try to overcome the problem of guaranteed rations and the queueing phenomenon, the 'points' system was introduced. This was initially restricted to tinned fish, tinned meat, and tinned beans, but its popularity was such that it was soon extended to many other foodstuffs, particularly when there was a flood of tinned food, especially Spam, from the USA under Lend-Lease.

    Under the Points system everybody received a number of points, or coupons, around 20 per week, which could be spent on any item of choice. Points could be blown in one go, on a luxury item such as a tin of red salmon (32 points by March 1941) or spread around, for example on a tin of pilchards (2 points) or a tin of beans (2 points).

    [source: Wartime Britain 1939-1945 by Juliet Gardiner (Headline Book Publishing 2004) pages 144-149.]
     
  11. marcus69x

    marcus69x I love WW2 meah!!!

    Good info Peter.

    Spot on mate.
     
  12. slaphead

    slaphead very occasional visitor

  13. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    Food rationing in Australia was similar. You were "guaranteed" your rations however if there was a line you got in it because you never quite knew what you were going to get.
     
  14. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    I forgot to mention that dried eggs in tins were introduced in June 1942 and the allowance was 1 tin (the equivalent of 12 eggs) per person per week.

    I still marvel at the volume of Lend Lease food to Russia. Speaking of eggs and Oils/Lard, this was the number sent there.

    Eggs dried
    242,459,249 lbs. $280,800,963.USD
    Eggs in the shell
    1,883 doz. $4,038 USD
    (These must have been for the "Upper Class")
    Oleo oil, edible, oleo stock, edible
    tallow, edible, lard, incl. neutral,oleo margarine

    791,822,417 lbs. $124,387,146 USD

    A billion lbs of dried eggs and oils.
     
  15. marcus69x

    marcus69x I love WW2 meah!!!

    How much chicken did people eat?

    Pretending you have a few knocking about the back garden. What would be a realistic portion, per person, per week?
     
  16. spidge

    spidge RAAF RESEARCHER

    How much chicken did people eat?

    Pretending you have a few knocking about the back garden. What would be a realistic portion, per person, per week?

    With millions of mouths to feed it would not have gone to far.

    Seems they were not keen on canned chicken.

    Chicken, canned
    109,793 lbs. $46,879
    Poultry, live
    6,300 lbs. $7,384.

    Meats, n.e.s. includ. smoked [FONT=&quot]Poultry

    33,610,181 lbs. $16,130,915.

    * n.e.s. stands for "not especially specified".

    Pork, Beef and Sausage seemed to be either the most popular or what the US could supply.

    Tushenka was made especially to their requirements.

    Tushenka, canned
    166,650,966 lbs. $70,335,231.[/FONT]

    Other canned meats, excl. chicken
    2,405,696,825 lbs. $180,764,722.


    That does not include the Beef, Pork, Bologna, Bacon & Sausage etc

    [FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
     
  17. marcus69x

    marcus69x I love WW2 meah!!!

    Cheers Spidge.
     
  18. PeterG

    PeterG Senior Member

    How much chicken did people eat?
    Almost none. Even before the war chicken was a luxury. You had chicken maybe once or twice a year, usually at Christmas. Even in America, in the 1928 election Herbert Hoover's presidential slogan was "A chicken in every pot". Chicken broth was a luxury served to invalids.

    The working man's chicken was rabbit. Fortunately rabbit was cheap and relatively plentiful during WW2. For those who could afford them there were quite a few chickens but they were very expensive. Here is a Mass-Obsevation report for Christmas 1941:There were quite a few turkeys and chickens - where people got them from I don't know, because the restriction on imports from Eire affected the market. The prevailing price - controlled - 3/-, and 4/2d lb. dressed. A butcher of my acquaintance said this was ridiculous, in the old days he had killed, dressed, and cut up a pig for 1/6d.
     
  19. marcus69x

    marcus69x I love WW2 meah!!!

    Cheers Peter.

    I'll just have to pretend I've managed to buy a chicken from somewhere and we'll cook it tomorrow night. Making Woolton pie tonight. :D
     
  20. beeza

    beeza Senior Member

    Tea was rather short in Australia. There was a meat ration of sorts but I can never remember being too short. Remember my uncle used to kill his sheep (was a farmer) with a .303 until he got two with the same shot one day. We ate rather well for a week or two.
    The main shortage was lollies - werent any except barley sugar and clothes were fairly tightly controlled. You could get any colour you liked as long as it was
    grey.
    David
     

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