wartime recipe

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Mock Banana – Recipe No. 148

This is the legendary and authentic wartime recipe for ‘Mock Banana’.

Before the war the Brits imported 70% of their food which equated to around 20 million tons per year!

Imports dropped significantly to about 1/3rd and consequently many foods such as bananas were impossible to get hold of. Prior to the bar the Brits went crazy for bananas so it was one of the foods that were truly missed.

Somewhere, some strange culinary mind obviously decided that a substitute was needed. This was when the good old parsnip was brought into play…

My lunch today consisted of 4 mock banana sandwiches and actually, despite the rather bizarre experience, they tasted pretty good! (but then again I do love parsnips)

Mock Banana

1 medium parsnip per round of sandwiches
2-3 teaspoon of caster sugar per parsnip
2-3 squirts of banana essence per parsnip (you can buy on eBay)

Method

Peel and chop up the parsnip and boil until soft
Drain and mix in the caster sugar and banana essence
Mash until fairly smooth
Cool down
Spread on your bread and make your sandwiches!

parsnips

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Mince-in-the-Hole – Recipe No. 146

1940sminceinhole

Another recipe from ‘Eating for Victory’. I LOVE this book because it literally is a made out of the scans of ACTUAL Ministry of Food leaflets bound together in a hardback book.

This recipe is for ‘Mince-in-the-Hole’ and was a way to use up bits of leftover meats which were minced up and formed into balls, roasted in the baking pan then the batter was added and baked until cooked.

Being a veggie I used Quorn mince but had problems forming it into balls that would stick together even with the addition of some sticky tomato chutney and a little bit of margarine. Nevertheless I was able to mound the mixture up sufficiently in the baking pan to make a fairly good attempt at it. It tasted very nice and I ate two portions with peas, carrots and gravy!

recipeminceinhole

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rations

eatingforvictory
CLICK HERE to look at this book on Amazon!

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Mock Goose


This is a WEIRD recipe…  even with my eyes shut, this didn’t taste anything like goose BUT there is one element that could possibly, with some great imagination, remind you of eating stuffed goose. (the sage/bread stuffing in the middle)

I’ve seen two or three different versions of the recipe for mock goose but I chose the one without cheese and with lentils as I of course had to eat it for my lunch and as a vegan there wasn’t really a wartime alternative for cheese..

The recipe was quite nice and I’d make it again but I can’t see it being very popular with children!

Mock Goose

  • 1 cup dried split lentils
  • 2 slices of wholemeal/wholewheat bread breadcrumbs
  • 1 onion
  • sage chopped
  • a little butter (or vegan alternative)
  • some veggie or chicken stock
  • salt, pepper
  • garlic if you like
  • lemon

Method

  1. Place 1 cup of rinsed dried lentils and 3 cups of hot water into a saucepan and cook for 15 mins, drain and squeeze some lemon juice and sprinkle salt and mix together
  2. Chop onion and place in a pan with a little butter and saute lightly, add a little chicken/veggie stock (about 100 mls) and continue to cook and reduce a little. Mix in breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, chopped sage and mix thoroughly
  3. Spread half of lentils in a shallow dish and press down
  4. Spread the breadcrumbs/sage mixture over the lentils and press down a little
  5. Finally cover with the remaining lentils
  6. Cook in over at about 200 C for 30 minutes or so until the top is lightly browned
(serves 2-4)