Hi there I think I have posted in the appropriate forum (I hope!) I am undertaking a 1940's social experiment for a year- basically just trying to replicate living with a 1940's diet in the Uk. I have pretty much got to grips with the whole thing but one area I am finding grey is the lack of info regarding the extra 16 points allocated to each person and how many points actual tins of food stuffs cost. I have been told that the 16 points was per one person for one week but I have also been told itwas for one person for one month. I have also been advised that a tin of spam was 16 points and also 12 points. I wondered whether we have any experts on here that could point me in the right direction as I want to do this thing as accurately as possible Audio & web log below to give you some idea if interested http://www.acountrylife.com/journal.php?id=2061
Welcome to the forum. There seems to be plenty of info on google at a quick look. Also one of the members of this forum (James Pickering) has a great deal on the subject on his own website with great images. http://www.jp29.org/2rs.htm Web Results 1 - 10 of about 155,000 for points for food ww2 rationing . (0.22 seconds) Rationing During the War Rationing in Britain during World War 2 ... Everyone was allowed 16 points per month to use on what ever food items they wished. This was later increased to ... www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/ Homework/war/rationing.htm - 36k - Cached - Similar pages Food Rationing in World War 2 What was Food Rationing really like in World War 2. ... Everyone was allowed 16 points per month to use on what ever food items they wished. ... www.worldwar2exraf.co.uk/Online%20Museum/ Museum%20Docs/foodration.html - 33k - Cached - Similar pages Food Rationing in World War 2 What was Food Rationing really like in World War 2. ... At some points in the war customers were allowed to 'swap' the jam ration for extra sugar. ... www.worldwar2exraf.co.uk/Online%20Museum/ Museum%20Docs/foodrationpage2.html - 30k - Cached - Similar pages [ More results from www.worldwar2exraf.co.uk ] BBC - London - Your London - Rationing - Food in the Forties Food rationing was introduced during WW2 by the government to cope with food ... A points scheme was introduced for other non-rationed foods (usually ... www.bbc.co.uk/london/yourlondon/1945/40s_food.shtml - 42k - Cached - Similar pages Rationing in the United Kingdom during and after World War II ... Strict rationing caused many people to buy food on the black market; ... Clothing was rationed on a points system. Initially the allowance was for ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom_during_and_after_World_War_II - 20k - Cached - Similar pages Rationing in the United Kingdom during and after World War II ... As the war progressed, most kinds of food came to be rationed, ... Clothing was rationed on a points system. Initially the allowance was for approximately ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_ in_Britain_during_and_after_World_War_II - 21k - Cached - Similar pages The Victory Home: A WWII Home Front Reference Library She buys those vegetables and foods which are plentiful and cheap. ... Washington, DC Explaining point rationing to a registrant for the second ration book ... tvh.bfn.org/rationing.html - 23k - Cached - Similar pages The Wartime Memories Project - Rationing Unlike the rationed items, you could use the points in any shop. The types of food which were on the points system included: Tinned meat, fish and fruit, ... www.wartimememories.co.uk/rationing.html - 21k - Cached - Similar pages Latinos & WWII Extra food and supplies were needed for the men overseas fighting the war. ... Twelve weekly ration points were granted per person. Out of those 12 points, ... www.utexas.edu/projects/latinoarchives/ narratives/02HOME_RATIONS.HTML - 13k - Cached - Similar pages WWII, Rationing NOT ALL FOOD IS RATIONED - Chief unrationed items are eggs, fresh fruits and ... Each person is allowed sixteen points a week. Red coupons in War Ration ... www.rootsweb.com/~nyfulton/Salute/WWIIrations.html - 15k - Cached - Similar pages
The number of points required for an item was not fixed for the whole war. It could be changed according to supply and demand. As for Spam, which was imported from the USA, you probably need to check whether it was even being produced as early as 1940, let alone imported. Rationing in 1940 was not as restrictive as later in the war or, indeed, the period after it when some of the most severe restrictions were applied.
</div><div class='quotemain'>The number of points required for an item was not fixed for the whole war. It could be changed according to supply and demand. As for Spam, which was imported from the USA, you probably need to check whether it was even being produced as early as 1940, let alone imported. Rationing in 1940 was not as restrictive as later in the war or, indeed, the period after it when some of the most severe restrictions were applied.[/b] It seems the pre 1940 manufacture is proven yet not conclusive on 1940 import to Britain. Kenneth Daigneau, the brother of a Hormel executive, came up with the name SPAM. It was in 1936 while Daigneau was attending a New Year's Eve party thrown by Jay Hormel that he devised the moniker. SPAM is ham that is spiced, thus SP from spice and AM from ham make SPAM. In so doing, Daigneau earned a $100 food naming prize. As America entered World War II, SPAM luncheon meat played a crucial role overseas. With Allied forces fighting to liberate Europe, Hormel Foods provided 15 million cans of food to troops each week. SPAM immediately became a constant part of a soldiers' diets, and earned much praise for feeding the starving British and Soviet armies as well as civilians. WEEKLY ALLOWANCE FOR ONE ADULT IN 1941 One egg Jam - 56g Meat - 224g Bacon - 12g Tea - 56g Butter - 56g Lard or margarine - 168g Milk - 3 pints (1.8 litres) Sugar - 224g Cheese - up to 56g Source: Imperial War Museum
1940s Experiment, welcome aboard and good luck with your quest. Get your hands on the book and DVD of "The 1940s House," to see how Britain's Channel 4 put a modern English family through WW2 life and rationing for eight weeks. The Hymer family even let themselves be used by University of Leeds for a study on how rationing affected their health. Should be interesting. The University might have the study available.
I am pretty sure though that the 1940s house was set later in the war, when things were quite well organised. In 1940, I think it still had quite an improvised feel about it. It is fairly well acknowledged that the rationing diet was an improvement to the average pre-war diet, but note the word average. Due to government information and education, knowledge of nutrition increased dramatically and pre-war, many people struggled with the poverty of mass unemployment. Unemployment was still high, well over a million, in 1940, but it then fell dramatically. There were still numbers of registered unemployed throughout the war, as there always are, but pretty quickly what economists call full employment was reached.
Thank you for the replies.....I've been googling for days trying to find out conclusive evidence of what actual tinned items were available to spend your points on (when of course they were available in the shops) and how many points they would cost you but its proving difficult but thank you for all your pointers.....I can see immmediately that my weekly meat allowance of 1lb is twice as much as the Imperial War Museum suggests was available Yes the 1940's house- what a brilliant piece of media. We used to have the video many years ago but sold it before moving to Canada.....we do have the book still in a packingbox somewhere so must find that!!Thats a good point about the University of Leeds- I will try contacting them....thank you Spidge- James pickerings site is brilliant! I'm very much interested also in what sort of veg would have been grown in the average 'Victory Garden' and the varieties of the veg used too.. I am awaiting some Marguerite Patten books to come in the post so I guess I may find some of the answers in these too.. Thanks once again carolyn x
And whereabouts in Britain is your garden to be modelled on? As for my family in South London it was potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers and beans. However, though it wasn't a large garden - not the 35ft x 100ft mentioned - they still grew flowers and I don't think were too serious about veg. Certainly no chickens or rabbits etc. If you look at the recipes, they should suggest what veg was available/being grown. Example: WOOLTON PIE This pie was named after Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food. The vegetables could be changed according to what was available at the time. 500g Potatoes 500g Cauliflower 500g Swede 500g Carrots 1 tsp Marmite 259 0atmeal 4 Spring onions 750g Potatoes 25g Cheese Method 1. Dice and boil 500g of potatoes, cauliflower, swede and carrots in salted water. 2. Strain the vegetables, and save 200ml of cooking water. 3. Arrange the cooked vegetables in a large pie dish. 4. Add the Marmite and oatmeal to the vegetable water and boil until thickened. 5. Pour the thickened liquid over the vegetables. 6. Add the chopped spring onions. 7. Boil and mash the remaining potatoes. 8. Top the pie with mashed potato and a little grated cheese. 9. Heat the pie in a moderately hot oven until golden brown (approximately 1 hour). 10. Serve with brown gravy http://www.diduknow.info/blitz/1600_info.html "Parks, allotments, gardens and even window boxes were used to grow food. Many people grew vegetables on top of [marrows]and even inside their Anderson shelters (the dark and damp was ideal for mushrooms). You have to remember that shops in the 1940s aren't like supermarkets today. You didn't have things like strawberries all year - you only had them when they were in season. People didn't have freezers then either, so it was important that people knew how to pickle and preserve all of their excess produce. You could exchange your jam ration for extra sugar with which to make more jam. Government leaflets were handed out advising on many topics including: coping with garden pests drying apples, plums, onions, mushrooms and herbs salting and stringing beans bottling and pickling fruit and vegetables The Ministry of Food ran cookery demonstrations and radio programmes showing people how to use all their homegrown produce." More info, hopefully not duplicating what spidge has put forward: http://www.veganviews.org.uk/vv79/vv79war.html http://www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Focus/War/londonRation.html http://www.livingarchive.org.uk/nvq03/julia/making%20do.html Inventive German recipes: http://timewitnesses.org/english/food/ No.9
(The1940 @ Jan 11 2006, 04:01 PM) [post=44290]I'm very much interested also in what sort of veg would have been grown in the average 'Victory Garden' and the varieties of the veg used too.. I am awaiting some Marguerite Patten books to come in the post so I guess I may find some of the answers in these too.. [/b] if this is the series published by Hamlyn in conjunction with the IWM, they are very good. I have tried a couple of the recipies, which I would describe as edible, but not necessarily that good. Wartime recipies were designed, after all, to make mundane ingredients edible. One thing I have picked up from a number of sources is that onions were usually in short supply, because pre-war, most of the onions sold in Britain came from France. Overall, I would describe the wartime diet as boring and starchy.
Good luck with the project, Carolyn. When you have collected together as much of the “official” information as you can you might find it worthwhile to turn to contemporary diaries. If the one I have in front of me is typical you will find within them comments about changes in rationing allowances as the war progressed, and even seasonal changes; and about the individual’s reaction to them. Which emphasises the point made previously by Angie999, namely that nothing was fixed for the duration (and in fact some aspects of rationing got worse after the end of the war). I’ll quote as an example a couple of typical passages from one excellent diary “Mr. Brown’s War” (by Richard Finn Brown, ed. Helen D. Millgate, Sutton Publishing Ltd., Stroud, 1998, 2003 ISBN 0 7509 3170 1): Monday 8th January 1940…….”Rationing starts today for butter, sugar and bacon - 4oz butter, 12oz sugar and 4 oz bacon and ham. We shall have to cut down a little on sugar but not much. We ought to be able to manage on 3 3/4lbs of sugar a week (family of 5) and as for butter, I like margarine just as well…..” Easter Sunday 9th April 1944…..”Food is adequate, good in quality, but does not include some of the prewar luxuries. Things like ice-creams, cream, cream cheese, bananas, good quality cake, cake icing, white flour have disappeared and sugar, butter, meat are rationed. The amounts are, roughly, per head, 1/2lb sugar, 1/2lb bacon, 1s 2d worth of meat, 2oz butter, 4oz margarine, 2 pints milk, 2oz tea, 2oz lard and 4oz sweets per week. Eggs are roughly 30 per year issued singly at certain times. Each person gets 24 points per week to spend on anything he chooses so long as his demands are not huge enough to be refused by the shopkeeper. As an illustration rice is 4 points per pound, sultanas etc are 8 points, prunes 6, tinned fruit about 8, luxuries like salmon about 16 or 24 points per tin…..” You may need a book or two to take your mind off the diet! Chris
Spam According to http://www.spam-uk.com/info/timeline.asp "On March 11, 1941, the American Lend Lease act is signed, bringing SPAM® Chopped Pork and Ham to Britain for the first time as part of the U.S. Government's Lend Lease aid scheme for Allied Forces." So, it looks like Spam is out for 1940. Interestingly, wiki, which cannot ever be totally relied on, says it was off ration. After the war, a number of British brands of pork luncheon meat appeared, but I do not know if any were made during the war.
Just bumping an old thread. How available was canned Tuna? I've read it was 6 points when it was available. In an average weekly shopping trip, would it be likely to obtain some Tuna? Cheers.
For 6 points i reckon not. My grandmother recalls that they never seemed to have fish but she was under ten at the time so I wouldn't rely on it.
Rationing & Points ? I was reminded of two separate postings I previously made on the subject and I think they are worth repeating here (said he ). There were inevitably a few anomalies to the Ration system. Prior to being called up in October '42 I used to commute daily between Luton and Kings Cross and as everyone piled out at Kings Cross, one could see an almost permanent queue outside a small kiosk. Human nature being what it is, if the queue was not too long I always joined in to see what goodies were on offer. For some unknown reason Peanut Butter had missed being on the list of "Pointa only" and proved a welcome addition to my family's diet. Lucozade tablets were also to be found and on the very rare occasion a No.8 battery was also available, strictly one to a customer. Happy days Ron & As part of the Regiment’s ‘peacetime’ procedure we used to have morning parades in which the whole regiment took part and the CO took this as an opportunity to address us on matters of importance. On one occasion he told us that he had been annoyed to hear of his troops complaining about the size of their portions at mealtimes. He went on to say that civilians back in England were still having to live on very restricted rations and to shame us all he was having set up at the entrance to the dining hall a table on which would be the civilian’s rations for a week. Having delivered his sermon for the week we were then dismissed to our duties. The very next day the whole regiment was abruptly summoned on an unscheduled parade to be faced by an apoplectic CO. Some had stolen the ‘civilians rations for the week’!!!!!! I can’t remember what terrible punishment he meted out to us for this heinous behaviour but I still remember the colour of his face when he made his announcement."
WE had a local general store in our small town and all through the period I was there - he served up Ice Cream on Sundays - he duly appeared in court on the Monday - fined 10GBP's - which he paid out of his 50GBP profits...he did very well all through the war ! Cheers
