Reading everyone’s comments on what they are eating and all the historical knowledge being shared, is making me even more enthusiastic about the 1940’s Experiment. Thank you so much for sharing!!
OK I admit I’m a VEG HEAD so meatless dishes excite me.. I literally crave veggies every single day and currently am devouring kale on a daily basis whether it’s raw or lightly blanched with a little margarine and salt on top, makes no odds to me!
Day 2’s menu was filling and yummy and today I feel it will be the same
Breakfast
Porridge oats
Lunch
Large raw salad with romaine lettuce, spinach, tomato, cucumber, slice of bread and butter (OK vegan margarine)
Dinner
Potato and lentil curry served with lots of kale
Bread and apple pudding (without the egg)
And of course there will be lots of tea to drink…. 🙂
C xxxx
Todays breakfast- big bowl of porridge with some jam in 🙂
Todays lunch provides lots of fibre, protein, and iron, about 500 cals and cost = 40 p
Dinner today- Potato and Lentil curry served with kale. Lots of protein, fibre and iron again! About 800 cals and 60p per portion
The 1940's Experiment 
Loving your blog, Carolyn. I’m halfway through a two week wartime ration experiment and it’s going really well. http://www.dianacranstoun.com.Tonight I made bread pudding from your recipe and it was a great hit!
LikeLike
Hi Carolyn, I am still feeling full from a large bowl of homemade vegetable soup I made at lunchtime yesterday. For dinner I was going to make a shepherds pie, but had a pasta cheese dish made to your recipe, skimmed milk and cornflour with a small grating of cheese and some fried tomatoes. I looked at your blog Diana and it reminded me that we always had puddings when we were young. Mum made something everyday. I was born in 1945 but rationing still went on. She made apple sponges, macaroni pudding, jam sponges, pastry puds like treacle tart, jam tarts and apple pies all served with custard of course. The worst school pud for me was tapioca, “frogspawn” yuk.
Perhaps it is about portions and not about the guilt about eating sweet things when we are on a diet? What do you think, Carolyn?
LikeLike
Good morning all! At the risk of being boring, I only want my homemade bread as toast for breakfast-marmite & marg today.
Lunch = split pea soup with bread
Dinner = whatever the cheapest cut of meat is on ‘special’ at my local butcher. Probably as a stew with veg.
Never been so organised!
LikeLike
End of day 3 for me and a full tummy.
Dinner was awesome. I took the potato and lentil curry recipe and substituted lentils (as I didn’t want to use the points,) I used slightly more diced carrot and added cauliflower instead. With some fresh beans from the garden it was fantastic, great flavour…
2 loads of washing done by hand as exercise and a walk to the shops!
Loving this whole experience . . . . so far
LikeLike
Gosh- what a productive day! Veggie curry is the bomb!!
LikeLike
Organisation definitely seems to be the key. I have to work out what I’m going to cook so that I can get darling husband to put out what I need on the hob. Todays menu is:
Breakfast: 2 x slices gluten free bread with a scraping of butter and homemade blackberry and apple jam
Lunch: leftover veggie and lentil soup from yesterday (sadly no soda bread survived)
Dinner: vegetable and bacon pasties with lots of veg and a bit of gravy made with veg water.
I’ve just baked a ginger parkin from Margueritte Pattern’s Victory Cookbook. It smells fantastic and is now making me really hungry.
LikeLike
Ooooooooo!!!!!! I’ve never made that! Mmmmmmm!!
LikeLike
Tastes great! However I was obviously on autopillock today because I forgot to add xanthum gum (I have to do everything gluten free) so it’s a bit more crumbly than it should be.
LikeLike
Ooh, macaroni pudding! Now that’s a blast from the past for me….I loved it as a child!
Macaroni cooked in milk and sugar to taste, the starch comes out and thickens the milk to make a ‘sauce’, I liked it fairly dry but oh my goodness I loved it. I may well cook some later…thanks mollyannabythesea for reminding me…X
LikeLike
Hey, Carolyn, are we all going to weigh in every Monday? How have you done it in the past? Weekly, Monthly? Just wondering x
LikeLike
Yes for anyone who wants to share their weight losses or weight gains I’d say a Monday morning weigh-in would be good- get into a routine. I’ve always weighed in weekly but everyone has their own preference. Some people like to hide the scales!! LOL!! xxxx
LikeLike
Count me in, no point in hiding I say!
Went to my local butcher and got 5 thick slices of shin of beef for £5 (on special) so it is stewing in the oven-there will be enough left over for another meal or two I reckon! Mashed potatoes, carrots & broccoli will finish the job. 🙂
LikeLike
Count me in, no point in hiding I say!
Went to my local butcher and got 5 thick slices of shin of beef for £5 (on special) so it is stewing in the oven-there will be enough left over for another meal or two I reckon! Mashed potatoes, carrots & broccoli will finish the job. 🙂
Oh and I made the chocolate oat cookies from your recipes-very nice as not too sweet
LikeLike
I’m in for a Monday weigh in (eeep!)
LikeLike
Monday weigh in’s sounds like a definite!
I’m still finding it so strange to feel almost ‘connected’ to people I’ve never met, but would love to meet over a cuppa (I’d bring my own ration of course) and perhaps a slice of bread and jam…
LikeLike
Another fairly boring day here!
Breakfast – stewed rhubarb
lunch – mixed green salad, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms
dinner – veggie curry with brown rice
snack – 200g jkt potato, 10g cheddar
drinks – water, herbal tea, black tea
LikeLike
Dinner ended up being Quorn sausages with mash and gravy – curry is tomorrow and Friday now!
LikeLike
That doesn’t sound boring, it sounds nice 🙂 !!! xxxxx
LikeLike
I know children under 5 had slightly different rations, eg more milk, half meat ration, orange juice etc, but what was children over 5’s rations? Were they the same as adults? And can you do this wheat free aswell? X
LikeLike
Claire, I’m doing this wheat free/gluten free. I’m adapting recipes as I go. For instance when WW2 recipes call for breadcrumbs I substitute oats because I found gluten free breadcrumbs don’t really work well.
LikeLike
Someone asked how often people baked during the war. I could not find the question so am just going to stick the information I found here and hope the person who asked sees it. The information is from a Scots friend who lived through the ration years. She was from a rather poor working class family so those with more money may have done differently. And for those with more money it was not the rations that allowed them to bake more often but rather the fuel for the oven. Everyone was told to conserve and of course cost played a big part for the poor. They learned to be frugal starting in the 1930s during the Great Depression.
Most people baked only once a week and when they did the oven was stuffed full of bread, pudding, oatcakes, a pie and even a joint of meat – all depending of course on how you had planned out your rations. And this had to last the week. People really did not eat many cakes and cookies. They were for special occasions. Tea time was bread and jam – if you had jam. Otherwise it was margerine and dripping or in my friend’s case, a fish paste or liver paste her mother made. (sorry but yuck). Lack of baked goods was a key reason people lost weight and kept it off.
Neighbours also shared their ovens. If you were going to bake or roast and your oven was not full you told your neighbours and they shared and later paid you back by letting you use their ovens when they had room in them.
In the poorer areas the local baker often let people use his ovens for a small fee after he finished baking for the day . And of course lots of people just bought their bread from him. When a bakery was taken out by a bomb or fire it really was an additional hardship.
LikeLike
Good morning!
Carolyn, have you heard of the Mass Observation Archive? If not then you need to get 2 books…available from e-bay….”Nella’s last war” and “Nella’s last peace”. It was a national information gathering project which I think started in 1935, advertisements were published in The Times newspaper for people(anybody) to write a diary and send it in to the Mass Observation Unit where it was kept in an archive. A lot of diaries were sent but in the last few years they published some of the entries in a book. Absolutely fascinating, but one stood out, a woman called Nella Last who turns 55 at the end of the war. I won’t spoil it… Everyone interested in wartime/vintage/rationing/feminism(!) MUST read. I’m going to read them again, it’s fired me up xx
LikeLike
Oh, Victoria Wood made a film of Nella Last called Housewife 49…brilliant but the books are better xx
LikeLike