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I found this in my youtube list. It was REALLY interesting. It's the first section (approx 57 minutes) that is based on 1939-1945, it then goes to the 60s.  Now, it is set in Britain, so Americans may have experienced different rationing. They took actual store keepers/butchers/dressmakers/bakers/blacksmith of today and set them up throughout different eras. This is the WW2 one. The visual display of the actual rationing they had was stunning to me. I have read about it but seeing it was crazy. We put more cheese in one salad nowadays then they had for the week for all! There were shopkeepers that "held back items" and then sold them for a premium (and got in lots of trouble like they would have back then and caused a bit of resentment among the townspeople who were not offered anything) Just fascinating. The people in the town are participating as well and living on the rations and wear it out/use it up or do without premise too. They also do air sirens and other era appropriate situations. Love today's blog and thank you so much for putting it up! I am going to re read it again, because I get so excited I tend to skim it the first time through...lol

I don't really know how links work, so if the video isn't there above, it is on youtube and called "Can modern people survive on WW2 rationing? presented by the Absolute History Channel.

Do you have a recipe for the roasted vegetables you eat in the first image? It looks delicious.

Would you share where you have found your old recipe books and diaries

Donna, indeed, if you are willing to post recipes along with your blog posts, I would certainly appreciate it!  Thanks.  Gayle

Grandma Donna wrote,  Thank you Michelle L, for the link, Britain had very strict rationing and for much longer than it was here in the United States.  We need to learn from all of this information because we never know if something will happen like this.  

Eve, everything was sautéed in a skillet because of the heat this summer we are trying to not use the oven as much.  This is sautéed fresh green beans from the grocery store and sautéed in olive oil and a bit of fresh garlic,  sautéed thick sliced zucchini in a bit of bacon fat, sautéed onions with some leftover chicken cut up and added to the onions.  It was all done in the same skillet. It was very good. :)

Tara L, over the years I walk through thrift stores, antique stores and keep my eye out on ebay and etsy and online for handwritten diaries and books and journals.  I have purchased a few searching on google and also estate sales.  They have gotten pretty expensive now but still an occasional bargain.  I have not purchased any in quite awhile because I feel I have what I need for our studies.  There was a local antique store that had boxes of old photos and a few diaries occasionally.  I found old ration stamps the same way.  I hope this helps.  

Gayle H, I will be happy to do that. :)

that would be very beneficial/helpful.

I would love to see more receipes please as I have some from the 1930 but all they say is eggs, flour etc no measurements. Love reading your posts  (Sandy from Wales

Yes please to some of the old recipes GDonna, I have a couple of old cookbooks from the 1960’s & 70’s but nothing earlier so that would be very interesting.

Yes, the rationing was much stricter here in the UK and that’s why I’m not imposing that on my husband as I may well have a mutiny on my hands ha ha. I know from speaking to my Grandma when she was alive that they had it slightly easier living in the countryside as they could to least keep a few hens and grow a vegetable garden, those living in the cities weren’t so lucky and relied heavily on the meagre rations allowed.

I think the bit that I found the hardest was when the pets were taken away and pts as they couldn’t afford to provide food to the animals, that was in 1939 after war was declared. So sad and I look to my own sweet little dog & can just imagine having to hand her over, absolutely heartbreaking ???? 

Wonderful post! So many things were buzzing around in my head after reading it. 

I tried the days of the week and did pretty well. It's the first time I worked off this schedule and even though I didn't do it perfectly, an interesting thing happened; I felt more at peace! Having a plan or schedule actually is something that works well for me, so I'm going to keep doing it. :) I remember my grandmother working according to this schedule and her house was always neat and tidy, organized and a happy place to be in. Speaking of my grandmother, she was of the generation that always had something to serve people when they came "calling". There was no such thing as "naked coffee" (just a cup of coffee and nothing to eat with it). On her baking day she would make cookies, cakes etc. and also make and then bake and freeze an Oil Pastry shell. Then when she knows she's going to have company, she would take the shell out the freezer and make a quick filling for it, and presto! a pie. She got this recipe in 1940 and it worked well later on when butter or lard was rationed. So I'll share it here in case anyone wants to give it a try. 

Thursday night I went to my Classic movie group and we watched Citizen Kane. The movie was made in 1940 and released in 1941. Even though it was in black and white I could still enjoy the clothing and homes, vehicles etc. I also started reading a book that is  actually the diary entries of a teenage girl and wouldn't you know it, she mentioned going to see Citizen Kane! :) 

Thanks for everyone's comments, I learned so much.  

PS. I divided the photo of the recipe in 2 to enlarge it so it's easier to see.

Hello!

I enjoy reading the recipes, but I noticed that there are no directions for pan size, oven temperature and how long to bake in the hand written old recipes!  How do you do it?

I am not doing a day of the week for laundry, primarily because I try to hang out as much as I can and am looking for good weather to do so.  I am guessing they didn't have the luxury of seeing what the weather forecast would be for the week in 1940!  If I had to, I could hang it all in the basement, but it doesn't get that fresh outdoor scent then!

Thank you!

~Debbie

Grandma Donna Wrote, Eve & Sandy H, thank you for the input, that helps me to know that there is an interest for the recipes.  

Lainey T, since that was long ago we now understand what it was like before during and after, when they were living through the war and rationing it must have been tense not knowing how bad it would get or would the food run out.

Tandi S, I am so happy that you are trying to do some of the things how they did it in the past, I completely understand that feeling of peace, it really happens when we start doing things like they did in this era of the 1940's, I cannot explain it. Thank you for sharing about the movie and the recipe. :)

Debbie in PA, (And other bakers) in answering Debbie's question, and a very good question too.  I have some old recipes from very old books that are not hand written and most of the older books do not tell the size of pan or temperature, As Sandy H up here in the forum mentioned sometimes no measurements. This  seems to be the normal way back then.  Sometimes it says lard the size of an egg or a teacup of flour, that one always gets me due to tea cups today are in all sizes. I guess that depends on the era.

I normally go with the basic 350 degrees when baking, and with bread I normally look at similar bread recipes today and see what temperature they are baking the bread. In the past young ladies learned from their parents and grandparents and is seems that it was just known and also many times they were baking in wood stoves.   I look at the measurements and guess at what size they must be making and compare that as well with a modern recipe I have to figure out the size.  

I just made that chocolate cake that I posted and it called for 2 and 1/2 cups of flour, 1 & 1/2 cup of sugar, 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 & 1/4 cup milk, 1/2 cup light oil, 1 stick of butter, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, and 3 large eggs.  This cake is a 3 layer cake using 9 inch pan cake pans.  The layers are thin compared to a two layer.    

The Devils food cake posted in this post calls for only 1 cup of flour, only 1 egg and lesser ingredients so I know I need to use a smaller pan maybe much smaller. I would bake it at 350.  It is all just guessing and if it turns out, write it in your book. :)  A good friend of mine makes the old fashioned dinette cakes which are smaller as were many cakes long ago, I had never heard of a dinette cake but sounds delicious. :) 

The cake I made yesterday is for a birthday so I made a larger cake. I hope this helps, and if you get stumped, just ask more details and I, or others here on the blog will try our best to help. Anyone that bakes a lot, please jump right in to this conversation if you would like, I have room to learn more too. :)

I think this may be the most fascinating study yet.

      This study has given, both, my husband and myself a lot of food for thought. My grandparents owned a grocery store during the 40's and my dad was in WWII. As a child, seeing my grandmothers journals, I saw where anyone that took food out of the refrigerator or pantry had to write what they took down. Now, it makes sense. 

       I wish I had those journals now and more of my beloved grandmothers sewing items. Sadly, a close family member grabbed everything she could out of my grandmother's house and my mother let her. I realize it is only stuff, but since I grew up with my grandparents that "stuff" held great memories for me. The family member only wanted the Victorian furniture for the monetary value. Pretty sure my grandfather's Revolutionary War Guns were worth a pretty penney for resale. I do hope whoever ended up with them did a beautiful display as I would have done.

        Sorry for the side tale. As I mentioned, going back to another time can bring up a lot of thoughts. ????

I enjoyed looking at the brand names in the grocery ad. I remember the Whitehouse & Stokely brand from my childhood. My grandmother occasionally bought Camay soap. I think the company has recently stopped selling Camay in the US. I also noted that many of the companies in the ad are still in business selling brands like Ivory soap and Oxydol. My grandmother, who was born in 1898 always used Palmolive bar soap which stores still carry. Bayer aspirin has also been around a long time. My grandma was brand loyal for many items

Hi Donna, lovely to read your blog, as always. I was wondering if you had seen a Facebook page I belong to concerning WW2 food and rations, make do and mend etc. It is called Living on WW2 rations, it's very informative and useful, mainly British, American and Canadian. It was created by a lady named Carolyn Hyland who has a website called the1940sexperiment where she lives on rations and has uploaded over 200 recipes. I think you would find it very interesting.

Thank you so much! I can't wait to start exploring.

I found this short video about my tiny little town in the '40s. Apparently there is also a book, which I have ordered.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WYDD9dhtgaA

I would like about 50# of bacon at 19 cents/lb. please ????

We ended up with a family emergency this week so it kinda threw us off kilter, but I was still able to hang my clothes and preserve some foods.

I love and appreciate that you are showing the journal pages.  I like to see how they wrote - sorta adds character to the person writing.  Were they in a hurry?  Was it thoughtful?  How did they spell &/or abbreviate things?  It's golden information.  Thank you.

I adapted my mother-in-law's (b. 1912, d. 1985) recipe for her holiday cake that called for "enough flour to batter" and "bake till done" with no temperature or pan sizes.  What I did was look up similar cakes.  Hers mostly relied on stiffly beaten egg whites for lift, but I found similar recipes that added a little baking powder, so I did too, and I think I landed on 3 cups of flour for the batter.  I'd have to check it again to be sure.  I followed the recommendations of other similar recipes for layer sizes ( as in, 8" or 9") and the time and temperature, and discovered they almost all differed a bit.  It seems some cakes don't have to be quite so persnickety about the temperature or time as long as the times and temps we use are pretty close.  I'd say don't get too worried if you can't find an exact match for your recipes.  I make this one every Christmas and get raves from my family every year. 

I hope this helps, too.

I love reading these posts on days gone by. May sound silly but if you've ever been to Disney and seen the Carousel of Progress, I love the first two periods, the third in the 50s is okay and cringe at  the future one, which is really already the past. 

I wanted to ask about  the white cake recipe, as it doesn't seem to have any fat in it, or maybe I'm missing it. Is sweet milk, just whole milk. I seemed to recall reading that it's not the sweetened milk we have today in cans, but just regular milk, but wasn't sure if it was 2% or whole and wondered if maybe the whole milk was all the fat it has. 

I was thinking the same thing!

I'm thankful I'm not the only one who finds this study absolutely fascinating. This is surely bringing me a lot of peace. I told my husband I'm behind on my grandma Donna posts and said I know it's not a big deal, but this is really helping me in a stressful time to feel more grounded and to have things to read about and just enjoy. There's much stress in each of our lives and I find it funny how this study feels right to so many of us. I'm going to make a cake with the boiled chocolate frosting tonight. It just sounds good especially since it's supposed to be storm here in a bit. The recipes and journals I love to look at as the handwriting reminds me of my grandmothers and great grandmothers. Our Nana took 1st place in a contest for her handwriting because it was so straight across looked like it had been done with a ruler under it. Found out in her 80's that was her favorite class in school. I can't remember who shared the pastry with oil recipe, but I saved it to try. Years ago I made one and it was a ball of goo. Never could get it to be half way decent.