Food and Rationing
How extensive the rationing was and how long it lasted depended on location. Rationing in the United States was not as strict as it was in Europe. European rationing lasted beyond the end of the war as European industries struggled to rebuild infrastructure that was destroyed during the war. Families and individuals were given ration books on a monthly basis, which contained stamps that indicated how much they were allowed to purchase of different types of foods for the month. When people went to a store to buy food, they would have to give the clerk the appropriate ration stamps from their ration books as well as the money they owed. The stamps operated on a point system, with different types of items worth different points. When a shopper had spent all of the stamps that they were allotted for a particular type of item, they couldn't buy any more of it until the following month, when they would receive their next ration book with new stamps (Athan, et al., p. 2). People had to be careful to budget their ration stamps to avoid using them up too soon.
From Wikimedia Commons
(Considered public domain in the United States)
Among the most-rationed types of foods were sugar, meat, and dairy products, like butter. Among the least-rationed products were vegetables and fruits. Governments released recommendations to the public about how to spend their food budgets, and there were special cookbooks printed to help people to make the best use of their rations (Athan, et al.) Cooking had to simple and practical (Athan, et al., p. 1).
In this video, a British woman remembers what her mother would serve the family during World War II. As this video from Anglophenia observes, much of Britain's reputation for serving bland food came from World War II. They were able to keep families fed, but the foods were monotonous due to the limited range of ingredients.
The film Wartime Nutrition, produced in 1943 by the Office of War Information, explains what war rationing was like in the United States and what the United States learned about rationing and nutrition by studying the methods already in place in Britain. People became increasingly concerned with the nutritional value of foods, and governments offered nutritional advice so that people could make best use of the foods they had at hand. People in the United States didn't have many canned foods during World War II because many canned goods were shipped overseas for the troops, and metals that would have been used to make more cans were needed to make other types of war materials (Athan, et al., p. 2). Spam, canned ham, was send overseas to the troops because it had a long shelf life and didn't require refrigeration.
From Wikimedia Commons
(Considered public domain in the United States)
People also planted Victory gardens and grew their own vegetables (Athan, et al., p. 3). As part of the Victory Garden effort, women were encouraged to can their own fruits and vegetables at home for later use. One of the difficulties in doing that was that sugar was heavily rationed, but it is necessary to the home canning process. People who were canning food could apply for extra sugar for the process, but they might be denied extra rations, depending on supplies. Also, not everyone had a pressure cooker to use for canning, and new ones were not being made because of limited metal supplies. To get around that problem, communities set up canning centers for public use. The community members who used the local canning center and its equipment would supply their own produce and would either donate some of their canned food or a small amount of money to the center for its services (Food Rationing and Canning in World War II).
During the war years, sugar rationing made candy and sweet baked goods more rare treats than they would have been either before the war or after the war ended. Families had limited sugar rations for their personal use at home, so they had to either skip desserts, find alternate ways to make them, or save up their rationings over time for special occasions, like birthdays, Halloween, and Christmas. Some of the candy that was still available underwent some changes. For example, Three Musketeers bars, which were created in the 1930s, originally were sold in packs that included three pieces of candy with fillings in three different flavors: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. However, because of sugar rationing during World War II, the company started selling them with only chocolate filling, which is why they only come in one flavor today.
Resources
Books
Athan, Polly, Rebecca Sample Bernstein, Terri Braun, Jodi Evert, and Jeanne Thieme. Molly’s Cook Book. 1994.
This is a nonfiction companion book to the Molly, An American Girl children's fiction series. It has recipes from the 1940s that people would have made during World War II. A section at the beginning of the book explains how shortages and rationing during the war changed the way that people shopped for food and cooked. The cookbook is divided into sections for different meals.
Websites
This is a collection of recipes from World War II. The blog explains how they can be used to both save money and lose weight because they were intentionally designed to make maximum use of limited resources, both economically and nutritionally.
Documentaries
A film about making tea in World War II Britain. Made in 1941 and sponsored by the Empire Tea Bureau. Demonstrates how to use large urns for serving tea to Civil Defense workers and bombing victims. Can you remember six golden rules for making good tea? The women in this film can!
The Wartime Kitchen and Garden
A video that explains how people in England produced their own food and cooked during the war. Information about food is combined with descriptions of how people reacted to the war, beginning with the worries at the beginning of the war, even before the bombings began, and later, when the children were evacuated from London. It describes how Land Girls volunteered to help with producing and harvesting crops. The video lasts a little less than an hour, and it looks like the end it missing, but I listed it here anyway because what they do say is interesting.