Frugal Recipes from Wartime Europe
Written by Asinus Asinum Fricat on May 21, 2008 – 8:43 am -Reading from my vast collection of world food stories, I came across a slew of recipes from wartime Europe. I had heard stories, of course, of meat shortages, rationed dairy products etc but I never really did pay any attention as to how they accommodated their meager provisions.
There was little fruit, scarcely any sugar, few eggs, and meat, butter and nearly all foods were rationed. Families were encouraged to Dig For Victory, grow as much food as possible themselves. Consequently many a flower garden found itself turned over to potatoes, carrots and onions in a desperate attempt to fill up the ever hungry children’s stomachs.
Women were told that food was their munition of war. The Ministry Of Food and women’s magazines of the day, gave basic nutritional advice and suggested substitutes such as mashed potato for flour, sour milk for cheese, grated vegetables for fruit and whipped margarine with vanilla instead of cream, but the housewife of the 1940’s had to be very creative with what little food they had queued for with ration books in hand. Here are some of the meals they cooked up I dug out for you.
Woolton Pie
Ingredients:
1lb diced potatoes
1lb cauliflower
1lb diced carrots
1lb diced swede
3 spring onions
1 teaspoon vegetable extract
1 tablespoon oatmeal
A little chopped parsley
Method:
Cook everything together with just enough water to cover, stirring often to prevent it sticking to the pan. Let the mixture cool. Spoon into a pie dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley.
Cover with a crust of potatoes or wholemeal pastry.
Bake in a moderate oven until golden brown.
Serve hot with gravy.
Sausage and Sultana Casserole
Ingredients:
1lb sausages
1 large onion
2oz sultanas
1 sour apple
Pinch of mixed herbs
Stock
Salt
Method:
Chop up and fry the onion.
Fry the sausages.
Cover with stock.
Add sultanas, herbs, salt.
Place in oven and cook slowly for 35-40 minutes.
Carrot Fudge
Ingredients:
Carrots
Gelatine
Orange essence
Method:
Finely grate carrots and cook four tablespoons
full in just enough water to cover for 10 minutes.
Add flavouring with orange essence, grated orange rind or orange squash/cordial.
Melt a leaf of gelatine.
Add gelatine to mixture.
Cook quickly for a few minutes stirring all the time.
Spoon into a flat dish.
Leave to set.
Cut into cubes.
Vegetable Roll with Potato Pastry
Ingredients for pastry:
4oz mashed and sieved potato
1/2 teaspoon of salt
8oz plain flour
3oz fat
2 tablespoons of baking powder
Method:
Sieve dry ingredients together.
Rub fat into flour and gently mix in potato.
Add just enough water to make a fairly dry dough.
Knead well.
Ingredients for filling:
11/2 cups of any mixed boiled vegetables, diced
1 pint thick gravy
Salt and pepper
A little chopped parsley
Method:
Take 1/2lb of potato pastry and roll out on a floured board.
Moisten the vegetable mixture with a little of the gravy.
Spread vegetables on to pastry leaving 1 inch all the way round.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Roll up and seal well at the edges so that gravy cannot seep out.
Place on a well greased baking tin with the seal underneath.
Brush with milk.
Bake in a moderately hot oven for 35-45 minutes.
Health Bread
Ingredients:
11/2lb self-raising flour
1 teacup sugar
1 breakfast cup syrup
1 egg
1 breakfast cup of raisins with stones removed.
1 breakfast cup of milk.
Pinch of salt.
Method:
Mix together the sugar, flour, salt and raisins.
Beat the egg and add it to the milk and syrup.
Mix all the ingredients together. Bake in two well greased loaf tins in a moderate oven for approx. 11/2 hours.
Slice thinly after a couple of days and serve with butter or margarine.
Will keep for a month in a tin.
Sugarless Apple Dessert
Ingredients:
Cooking apples
Condensed milk
Orange juice
Nuts or grated chocolate
Method:
Grate raw cooking apple.
Whip together with the condensed milk.
Add a little orange juice.
Arrange in dishes with nuts or grated chocolate on top.
Sausage Pancakes
Ingredients:
1lb small sausages
4oz flour
1/2 pint milk
1/2 oz custard powder
Salt and pepper
Method:
Mix together the custard powder and the flour
then mix with some of the milk to a smooth batter.
Beat well for five minutes, stir in the rest of the milk.
Season with salt and pepper and leave to one side.
Fry the sausages, remove from pan and keep hot.
Pour off some of the fat and save, leaving enough in the pan to fry the first pancake.
Brown the pancake lightly on both sides and roll up with the sausage inside.
Keep warm.
Add some of the saved fat to the frying pan and add more batter for a second pancake.
Continue until all the batter is gone.
Serve very hot with fried tomatoes.
Honey Cakes
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon sugar
21/2 ounces margarine
2 teaspoons honey
6oz self raising flour
1 level teaspoon cinnamon#
Method:
Beat sugar and margarine until a soft cream consistency.
Sieve flour and cinnamon then add to mixture.
Mix with a wooden spoon until it binds together, then knead with your fingers until you have a soft dough.
Break off a piece of the dough and roll it between your floured palms into a ball.
Place on to a lightly greased baking tray.
Flatten slightly.
Repeat until you have used up all the dough, when you should have about sixteen delicious honey cakes.
Tags: Food, History, Recipes, Wartime
Posted in Food, Frugality, Recipes |
9 Comments
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Note for the first recipe: A “swede” is a root vegetable similar to a turnip; turnips can be substituted in equal quantity.
(Yes, I read old cookbooks too.)
Swedes are still called swedes here. In fact I bought one two days ago.
Maybe it’s just a US vs the rest of the world thing?
Though the idiot in the WH might think it’s a bunch of semi-naked girls…
Thanks for this. Now I understand my parents a little better. My father came from Northern Ireland, and my mom from Scotland. They arrived in the US in 1940 and I was born in 1941. I grew up eating this type of food.
I always thought that my mom was just a lousy cook. Now I know why she cooked the way she did.
My parents and maternal grandparents moved from the farm in Arkansas to Portland, OR during WWII to work in the shipyards. That worked out well since they could send sugar ration coupons to the folk left on the farm, and in return get meat and butter ones. It was technically not allowed, but everyone did it. My dad had an “X” windshielf sticker because he drove a car pool to and from work, so he could buy gasoline with little restriction.
My mum told a story about going into the bathroom and watching in horror as my elder brother, just a toddler at the time, flushed down the sugar coupons just before she could save them. Warmest regards, Doc.
Thanks for this essay, AAF. My favorite cookbook is one called “Simply Heavenly! The Monastery Vegetarian Cookbook” by Abbot George Burke, published by McMillan in 1997. As best I know it is out of print now, and I had to pay over a hundred bucks to get my used copy five years ago. But it is that good, if you like vegan-vegetarian cooking. His whole monastery was devoted to developing and taste-testing recipies for the cookbook. The goal was to attract as many meat eaters as possible to switch to vegan, and they did a marvelous job of it. Some of the recipies had my monastic brothers complaining that they tasted too much like meat, although they were entirely vegan! As an interesting aside, I may have met the author when I was a child. My dad got called on a Sunday to come fix a water pump at the local monastery and took me with him for company and what little help I could provide, and Abbot George was there at the time. That history comes from a previous version of the cookbook which was self-published by his monastery. Either version of the cookbook is good.
Thanks for that info, I wasn’t aware of Abbot G Burke. I’ll google it later at work (on dialup now) and see if I can locate a copy. If not you could post a few of his recipes, it might come handy.
Interesting information. Thanks, allep10! Warmest regards, Doc.