Wartime rationing

agnurse

I believe that the rationing system was once used to help solve a crime.

It was made a requirement to have your fingerprints taken, I think it was, before you would be given your ration book. The authorities figured this approach would work because people need to eat, so everyone would need to get a ration book.

I believe it did work.

This did not happen in UK.

Wow this brings back memories. When I started school sweets were rationed and a girl in our class used to bring coupons for sweets. Guess who became her best friend?

I seem to remember sugar was still rationed and bananas had not been invented lol 😂. Hard to believe but happy days.

I was born in 1946. The main thing I remember is the lack of variety. Margarine of course instead of butter. It was years before I got used to the taste of butter. My mother used to cook Coley Fish for the cat. Sometimes she got whale meat which was revolting. Even the cat wasn't keen. I can remember us running out of milk sometimes and having to have dried milk in our tea, which I hated. And, of course, I remember sweets coming off the ration.

I was born in 1948 so would have been 6 when rationing ended.
I lived in London so no home grown veg for us but have absolutely no memories of it at all.

My Mum talked about rationing until she died at 97. She used to save butter wrappers to grease baking trays, save wrapping paper, reuse envelopes, never wasted any ingredients. I still have her little Make Do and Mend book.

1946 baby here.

I can remember the shopkeeper cutting out the coupons from the ration books. I still have one - well my daughter has it now.

I can remember 2oz of sweets in a little pointed paper bag.

Blue sugar bags. Butter pats and how the grocer folded the butter into grease proof paper.

Monica the milk lady - ladling milk from the churns into mums jug.

I don’t remember being short of anything even though my mother was not particularly creative - she never made clothes of any sort and very little knitting.

In fact childhood for me was full of sunshine, friends and play.

Oh I do remember the garden being full of soft fruit - every berry imaginable - absolutely nothing like a redcurrant and raspberry tart topped with clotted cream

has anyone watched the ‘ 1940’s Cooking’ channel on
You Tube ? with Olga packing lunches as a Land Girl
and describing recipes, with clothes and furniture
from the 1940’s?

I still have my ration book! It has been carefully updated with more addresses by my parents 😂 I was born in 1947 and sweets and material were still on the ration.

An Aunt took me out for treat and we went into M&S I chose some Rowntree’s fruit gums. The sales lady was quite perturbed that I only wanted 1 tube as I could have two with my sweet ration.
I also remember going with my grandmother to get a ration for our hen, kept in the back garden.
We used to get food parcels from Canada. which included Drinking Chocolate powder. At Grammar school I remember taking some of the powder to put in my school milk.

My grandparents told me a story about rationing. My grandmother didn't drink coffee until WW2. Grandpa told her to get her rations and he would have plenty coffee to drink. She started drinking coffee just to keep him from getting it. We all think this is funny because they were always doing things to spite each other.

Remember EU tinned beef given to pensioners.Mums friend gave it to her she didn't like it so gave it to me and even my 🐈 wouldn't eat it

BlueBelle

I was born as the war was ending but I do have my mum and dads ration books in the archives somewhere It’s amazing how little the weekly rations were

Yet that generation was generally extremely healthy and longevous.

My 86 year old mum sadly has dementia but she’s physically A1. I’m sure the wartime/post war diet and habits it grew are responsible for that.

Those little triangle pointed paper sweet bags, were they called pokey hats?

Yes, they were like the oldfashioned poke bonnets in embroideries of crinoline ladies (usually shown sideways on with the bonnets hiding their faces - that avoided having to embroider the details) or the women in "The handmaid's tale". You could buy a poke of sweets - or chips. The word was related to "pocket"

There was a saying, warning not to buy a pig in a poke - to examine what you were buying before handing over money. That came about because at markets, sellers would offer piglets secured in sacks, tied round their necks with just a head sticking out. Unscrupulous traders put a dog into a "poke" with only its shaved head visible. The buyer would only realise he had been had when he got home and released his "pig".

I was born in 1941 and do remember rationing quite well. I think that sweets coming off rationing was tried, and I was taken with by my Dad to join a very long queue to get some chocolate and sweets. Within days rationing for these was re-started.
I was given a banana whenI was a toddler by a sailor who had a bunch of these and was handing one out to each young child he saw. My Mum was very excited, but I thought it tasted horrible, and refused to finish it.
Another time (post war), my Mum got told that a nearby shop had rice and was selling a lb to each person. Long queue, and my Mum tried to get shopkeeping to treat me as a second person but he said I was too young.
Meat was a scarcity and most of our rations on that went to feed my Dad and much older brother, whereas all fruit was kept for me. Inside a shopping bag my Mum kept and I was given one piece of fruit each day.
Living in East London in the attic rooms of a large house, no home grown food, etc was possible.
When I was 6 yrs old (and the following year), I was sent for the long school break - both parents at work, to a holiday home near Hastings. Wonderful place, large garden and all sorts of home-grown food, chickens provided eggs and arrangements with local famers for extras. Gave my first real taste of what meals should be like

My Mum talks about the weekly sweet ration. 2oz every Friday. She would keep her sweets in her knicker pocket knowing full well that no one else would want them then.