The 2007 WWII Rationing Project

We live in a time and a place where food is more plentiful, more available, and more cheap than it has ever been. The supermarket stocks not only the meat-and-veg basics, but also exotic ingredients and specialty items that have only proliferated on U.S. menus within my lifetime. It also provides more processed and precooked foods, making it easier for people to avoid cooking altogether. It's become more infrequent to have family meals, and cooking from scratch is practically on the endangered list.

Sixty-five years ago, in 1942, things were very different. The world was at war, and most countries involved (on both sides) had introduced rationing to eke out food, gasoline, etc. at home while also adequately supplying troops in the field. Although the U.S. experienced rationing and shortages, the U.K. government imposed even more strict rationing, due in part to the fact that the shipping lanes that supplied the U.K. with imported goods were hounded by U-boats. Meat, bacon, milk, cheese, cooking fats and oils, and other food items were rationed for the duration of the war -- and beyond, because the shortages didn't end when the war did.

I've always been interested in historical cookery, particularly because I feel it is a sort of time travel -- with some limitations, you can eat the same foods that the Romans did, or the medieval French, or the Elizabethan English. My husband has done World War II re-enactment, and I've joined him on occasion for a USO dance. So perhaps it's not surprising that when I said, "I think... it might be an interesting experiment to try and live on World War II rationing rules for a month," he didn't say, "Are you crazy?" but instead replied, "Hey, that does sound interesting. Let's do it."