Monday, September 12, 2022

Preparing for Rationing


I am currently just back from holiday and working out how to alter rations that look like the above painting, to foodstuffs that as a vegan I will be happy to eat.  

I first thought that I would simply change the meat rations, which in the war years were valued by shillings and pence rather than pounds and ounces, to the modern equivalent in meat-free alternatives. In 1942, the year I am using for my rationing period this was 1s 2d, which in today's money is equivalent to £3.13.  This would have been fine and enough to buy me a pack of meatless mince or perhaps a meat-free burger or steak each week, but in recent months I have been moving away from this sort of eating.

I had a re-think and decided that I would instead use the 1942 wartime rations for a vegetarian, keeping it simple and taking the cheese ration as dairy-free cheese, vegetarians got an extra 3oz in place of their meat ration so I will be able to have a total of 4oz per week.  But taking the egg ration, vegetarians also got one extra egg ... so two each week as the meat-free meat replacements which I do still eat, sausages and occasionally ham for a 'bacon butty'.

It's all been a bit confusing hence my slow start to this.  What I want to do next is to check what fruits and vegetables are in season where I live during September and October, and these will be the only ones that I will be buying for myself during my rationing period.  I will be taking a list of what should be available out with me when I do go shopping and only buying what is in the shops marked 'Grown in the UK'.  Of course, I can also use what I have growing in my tiny garden as a guide, and these will be available to me too.  At the moment I have courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers, salad leaves, baby leeks and soon there should be more potatoes.  

I need to go and register my Ration Card.  🙂

Vegetables were never rationed ... well apart from onions as supplies of these quickly dried up as they were at the beginning of the war mostly imported ... and although fruits were pretty scarce, if you grew your own or they were in season they did become available.  I have a few apples on my own tree and there should be plenty of apples in the shops at the moment as this year has been a bumper fruit year in the UK, but I am going to miss my bananas!!  I need to see if there are any blackberries left in the few places that I know of in this area ... oh how I am missing my old hillside at the moment and the copious brambles growing the length of the paddock that I used to pick to turn into Bramble Jelly.

Anyway, I thought I would just quickly come on and do a post to let you know that I am still planning this and once I have finished the holiday washing and have gotten back to normal, I will be starting my minimum of a Month of Modern Rationing.


Sue xx



6 comments:

  1. Perhaps all your thinking and planning is a parallel to the effort that wartime housewives had to put in to work out how they could feed their families on what was available?

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    1. It feels like that for sure! I'm just eating my way through some of the more tempting foods that might break the rations but leaving in the larder the things that I can legitimately say were there at the start of my particular 'war with prices'.

      I also have a Gousto box arriving on Friday (an offer I just could not resist) so I will eat well for five days after that even though my food stocks are running down ... then it's time to randomly pick a date and just get on with it.

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  2. Hopefully you will have a good diet as you are inventive with your cooking, I would love to do this too so I will have a long hard think especially as I have been told I am pre-diabetic and my cholesterol is too high ( damn those chips ! ). My twins were 40 yesterday, we did a small surprise party, it was lovely but some rotten so and so took a photo of me side on. I don't know which stuck out more, my backside or my chest, probably equal otherwise I would be forever falling over. Good luck, Chrissie x

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    1. I'm lucky as I have normal cholesterol due to not eating animal products the doctor said and am not even pre-diabetic ... it helps me check regularly as Alan has testing strips. BUT, if I stand sideways the horror of a collapsed back is there and I might not be a wide load but I am a deep load!! ;-)

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  3. Your a inspiration ..eagerly follow your blog as I’m trying to live on war time rations and lose weight.. also go back to being a vegetarian which I was before COVID

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    1. Thank you so much. I could do with losing a couple of stone too, so I must remember to weigh myself before I start to eat rations and see if it does have an impact.

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