In Jan 1940 rationing in the UK began. People were encouraged to grow their own vegetables, pig societies were set up so communities could club together and buy pigs to eat and breading rabbits in your own back garden became a necessity.
The Ministry of Food wanted people to keep chickens too for eggs and meat. There was a slight problem with this though. Chickens will eat almost anything but to produce good eggs they need a good supply of calcium and other nutrients. You could give up some of your egg ration to get special chicken food but only when you had bought 6 chickens.
So do you buy the chickens, give up some of your egg ration, get some specialised food and hope they produce enough eggs or do you keep your money and your egg ration, knowing that at least you'll get some eggs? Of course there was also powdered egg to fall back on- at a push!
One reason to take the plunge and get chickens is that you could have one for Christmas dinner, since Turkeys were nigh on impossible to get! A lot of people decided though, that there was too much risk and had to come up with other ideas for the Christmas Dinner. Recipes using one type of food to mimic another or replace an ingredient entirely were developed and released by the Ministry of Food.
Above: our multi era picnic including mayonnaise made with potatoes during WWII
Potatoes were pushed by the Ministry of Food as a super food and a replacement for almost anything. High in Vit C and easy to grow, even in tubs if you didn't have a garden.
Recipes were produced for such dishes as potatoes in curry sauce, potato stew, potato sandwich spread, potato biscuits, potato pastry and potato mayonnaise. In our multi era picnic (available on this site under extras) we have a recipe for potato mayonnaise. It's not unpleasant but its not something we will make often! Having potatoes as part of your Christmas dinner is a tradition but during rationing many people done away with the roast potato preferring to have them baked. This was due to many homes not having enough fat to make roast potatoes
Above:Potatoes stuffed with left over meat, one of the many ways to use potatoes during WWII
What about the main part of the dish though? If you were lucky enough to live in the country, you may have been able to get pork or mutton for Christmas dinner but a lot of people decided, or in fact had no choice, to make a Mock Turkey or Murkey as it became known. A Murkey is essentially sausagemeat mixed with sage, grated apples and onions and shaped to look like a turkey with parsnips as legs. If you had managed to save up coupons and get extra bacon, the Murkey could be wrapped in bacon. Sausagemeat was not rationed during the war but you might not always have been able to get enough to feed the whole family, so quite often breadcrumbs were added to make the Murkey go further.
Mock sausage rolls were also made, sometimes with normal pastry and sometimes with potato pastry. The mock part was usually the filling since the sausagemeat that would normally be used was being kept for the Murkey. Haricot beans were used as the filling. The were cooked and mashed and then any left over scraps of meat were mixed in. Herbs and seasoning were added to try and make it taste like a normal sausage roll. Haricot beans were also used to make a fake marzipan. They were cooked, mashed and mixed with ground rice, sugar and almond oil, then rolled out.
For the Christmas cake, people saved coupons and food for months so they could at least have a traditional pudding, even though it may have to be made with powdered egg, less dried fruit and bulked up with breadcrumbs. Of course then you covered it with the mock marzipan and if you liked, a mock chocolate icing too made from cocoa powder and golden syrup.
The Ministry of Food even gave instructions to help decorate your Christmas pudding or Cake. They advised taking some sprigs of holly and dipping them into a strong solution of Epsom salts and when the holly dried it would shimmer as though covered in frost.
Tea rations were increased at Christmas to help people feel things were more normal but what about kids? Well they could have mock orange juice. Take a swede and slice it thinly. Sprinkle with 2 or 3 teaspoons of sugar and let sit for a while. The swede would produce a liquid which was then strained and added to carrot juice, resulting in a tangy sweet drink. It was of course nothing like orange juice!
And just to end here is a non food fact.
The Ministry of Supply passed a law that said " No retailer shall supply paper for packing or wrapping except for food" Basically Christmas wrapping paper was made illegal!