Tuesday 21 June 2011

Living on a wartime diet

When we set out to be self-sufficient, we quickly realised that the way people sourced and used food during the years of wartime and postwar rationing could give us valuable information in our quest to provide our own food. Digging for victory, cutting down on meat, ensuring every scrap of food was used - these all struck a chord with us. And as a historian myself, I decided it would be interesting to spend a couple of weeks on a wartime diet. We are planning to do this at the end of July.

Our regional newspaper, the Evening Chronicle, has already taken a great deal of interest in my decision to give up my job and become self-sufficient. And they are equally interested in the wartime diet plans. Yesterday they featured it, having spent Sunday evening with me on the allotment to take the photos. Here's the link: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/evening-chronicle-news/2011/06/20/gateshead-historian-to-try-ration-book-diet-72703-28907776/

Given the notoriety of Spam as a wartime food, this is an excuse to play the Monty Python classic Spam sketch:

2 comments:

elfriide tramm said...

have you watched youtube channel great depression cooking? an old lady clara is showing some receipes from years of great depression in states. it's not wartime and not uk, but may give some good ideas - dandelion salad for example etc. and some of these videos are just interesting.

Jonathan Wallace said...

I've seen the dandelion salad video she has made but not any others. I'll take a look.