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    The Eat-Less Meat Book - War Ration Housekeeping
    The Eat-Less Meat Book - War Ration Housekeeping
    The Eat-Less Meat Book - War Ration Housekeeping
    Ebook140 pages1 hour

    The Eat-Less Meat Book - War Ration Housekeeping

    By C. S. Peel

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    About this ebook

    “The Eat-Less Meat Book” is a vintage cookbook written during the First World War. As such, it focuses on meals that can be put together using only few ingredients, and ingredients that can be commonly found— even in war time. This volume is ideal for those with an interest in economical cookery, and it would make for a fantastic addition to all culinary collections. Contents Include: “I. War Ration Housekeeping”, “II. Stocks and Soups”, “III. Some Useful Sauces”, “IV. Some Semi-Meatless Dishes”, “V. Pulse Dishes”, “VI. Cereal Dishes”, “VII. Vegetable Dishes”, “VIII. Nut Dishes”, “IX. Cheese Dishes”, “X. War Economy Breads and Scones”, “XI. The Economical use of Sugar”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on vegetarianism.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateJul 7, 2014
    ISBN9781473394858
    The Eat-Less Meat Book - War Ration Housekeeping

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      Book preview

      The Eat-Less Meat Book - War Ration Housekeeping - C. S. Peel

      I

      WAR RATION HOUSEKEEPING

      I DO not write this book from the point of view of the food reformer (though I think the diet of both rich and poor needs reforming), neither do I write as a vegetarian (though I sympathize with many of their views); but I do write it hoping that I may thereby help those people who wish to do their duty to their country, to utilize every atom of food as intelligently as possible.

      It is confidently expected that a prompt response to the Food Controller’s recommendations will avert a national food disaster, but only by a great and a united effort can we ensure that the rising generationand the generation yet unborn shall receive their proper nourishment in the months ahead of us.

      Eat Less Meat

      To judge by letters which have appeared in the daily press and from private conversations it would seem that many people think that to abstain from meat on one or two days a week and to limit their total consumption to 2 1/2lb. per head per week is a restriction which may seriously affect their health. To be quite frank, it may affect their greed, but it certainly will not adversely affect their health; indeed, there seems good reason to think that less meat-eating would improve the health of the well-to-do.

      The really poor have never been able to afford too much meat (or, indeed, according to various authorities, quite enough food of any kind), and now, owing to the increase in the price of food, it is no longer easy for people of moderate income to provide what they are accustomed to regard as a sufficiency of the expensive kinds of food with the money which they can afford to devote to that object.

      In pre-war days 10s. to 12s. a head per week paid for an ample and varied plain diet, and a share of the cleaning materials required by the household—which means, I think, that about 8s. 6d. to 10s. 6d. per head per week was spent on food, tea, coffee, and cocoa.

      The Rise in Prices

      The latest Board of Trade figures available show in large towns a rise of 93 per cent., in small towns and villages 85 per cent., and an average rise of 89 per cent., on the food prices of the United Kingdom compared with 1914 prices, and since then various articles have become still dearer, notably meat. But, as a matter of fact, the housekeeper has to reckon on a still greater increase, because the articles of which she needs most are by far the most expensive—bread, sugar, eggs, potatoes, meat, and fish, for instance. Therefore, roughly, I think the town housekeeper must count that the cost of food has now doubled.

      Those folk who have their own garden and farm produce do not suffer so much from high prices, because they can preserve eggs, fruit, and vegetables when plentiful, and so level up the cost of the year’s living, and although pig and poultry food, garden requisites, and labour are up, the producer saves the wholesale and retail profits and cost of distribution, which add quite 100 per cent. to the town customer’s bill. But putting aside these favoured persons, and allowing for the prices which obtain in large towns, the housekeeper, if she lived in the style possible on a 10s. a head pre-war allowance, would now have to spend practically £1 per head.

      Needless to say, persons whose income never allowed of any but a small surplus, and who have also to meet increased taxation, as well as an increase in the total cost of living (clothing, wages, washing, fuel, light, etc.), cannot possibly afford for each person some 18s. worth of food per week (omitting the cost of cleaning materials), so they are obliged to cut down their standard of living.

      What must we Eat? and How much must we Eat?

      The questions which now present themselves are, What amount of food per day is necessary to keep people in health? and What kind of food must it be? These questions are not easy to answer, for even the great authorities differ in their conclusions. The average reader will have neither the time nor perhaps the desire to study the many scientific works which have been written on diet, nor is it necessary that he should, because we take it for granted here that he is not proposing to become a vegetarian, or even a non-meat eater, but that he desires merely to adopt a diet containing less meat, wheat-flour, and sugar, and to substitute to some degree cheap for costly foods, and it becomes quite evident from a study of the following budgets that even if we eat meat but four times a week, and then only once a day, making up with cheaper though no less nourishing foods, our health need not suffer.

      In Poverty, A Study of Town Life, by Seebohm Rowntree, the author, after most careful inquiry into the conditions of life amongst the poor in York (and Mr. Charles Booth in his Life and Labour of the People in London seems to arrive at similar conclusions), is of the opinion that "(1) The diet of the middle classes is generally more than adequate; (2) that of the well-to-do artisan is on the whole adequate; but (3) that of the labouring class is seriously inadequate."

      Many interesting budgets are given in Poverty, amongst others those of some middle-class (servant-keeping) families. Here, for example, is one:

      Budget No. 23. Six Adults and Three Children

      List of Food-stuffs used during Week ending June 10, 1901

      2lb. currants, 1s.; 6oz, raisins, 4d.; 1 3/4 stone flour, 2s. 6d.; yeast, 3d.; 7lb. moist sugar, 1s. 5 1/2d.; 11lb. loaf sugar, 2s. 3d.; 1 tin Neave’s food, 8 1/2d.; 4lb. butter, 4s.; 1lb. cheese, 8d.; 1lb. tea, 2s.; 5lb. fresh haddock, 2s. 6d.; 1/2lb. cocoa, 1s. 5d.; 1lb. coffee, 1s. 4d.; 2lb. biscuits, 1s. 4d.; 1 tin sardines, 1s. 3d.; 2 rabbits, 2s. 6d.; 2 stone potatoes, 1s. 6d.; 8lb. green gooseberries, 2s. 6d.; 30 eggs, 2s.; 1/2lb. rice, 1 1/2d.; 15lb. marmalade, 3s. 9d.; 16lb. sirloin beef, 13s.; 3 1/2lb. beefsteak, 3s. 6d.; cauliflower, 3d.; tea cakes, 8d.; 9lb. bacon, 5s. 8d.; l 1/2lb. salmon, 2s. 6d.; 2lb. jam, 8d.; 2lb. tomatoes, 1s. 4d.; lettuce, 10d.; 1/2lb. sponge cakes, 4d.; 8 1/2lb. mutton, 7s.; 1 tin sardines, 1s. 4d.; 2lb. chicken and tongue, 2s. 6d.

      Menu of Meals provided during Week ending June 10, 1901

      FRIDAY.—Breakfast: Fish cakes, sardines, fried bacon, bread, butter, marmalade, tea, coffee. Dinner: Rabbits, potatoes, gooseberry tart, rice pudding, cream, sugar. Tea: Bread, butter, jam, cakes, tea. Supper: Cheese, biscuits, bread, butter, cakes, cocoa.

      SATURDAY.—Breakfast: Fish, sardines, fried bacon, bread, butter, marmalade, tea, coffee. Dinner: Beefsteak, potatoes, cauliflower, queen of puddings, rice pudding, cream. Tea: Bread, butter, marmalade, cakes, tea. Supper: Cheese, biscuits, bread, butter, cakes, cocoa, milk, coffee.

      SUNDAY.—Breakfast: Bacon, poached eggs, bread, butter, marmalade, tea, coffee. Dinner: Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, rice pudding, gooseberry tart, cream, sugar. Tea: Bread, butter, jam, cakes, tea. Supper: Cheese, biscuits, bread, butter, cake, cocoa, milk.

      MONDAY.—Breakfast: Bacon, sardines, bread, butter, marmalade, tea, coffee. Dinner: Cold beef, salad, potatoes, sponge cake, custard pudding, rice. Tea: Bread, butter, cakes, marmalade, tea. Supper: Eggs, biscuits, bread, butter, cakes, cocoa, milk.

      TUESDAY.—Breakfast: Fried bacon, poached eggs, bread, butter, marmalade, tea, coffee. Dinner: Cold beef, salad, hashed beef, potatoes, stewed fruit, rice pudding. Tea: Bread, butter, cakes, marmalade, tea. Supper: Cheese, biscuits, bread, butter, cakes, cocoa, coffee, milk.

      WENDESDAY.—Breakfast: Fried bacon, sardines, bread, butter, marmalade, tea, coffee. Dinner: Roast mutton, jelly, potatoes, cabbage, gooseberry tart, pancakes. Tea: Bread, butter, cakes, jam, marmalade, tea. Supper: Cheese, biscuits, bread, butter, cakes, cocoa, milk.

      THURSDAY.—Breakfast: Chicken and tongue mould, bread, butter, marmalade, tea, coffee. Dinner: Cold mutton, potatoes, salad, curry, rice pudding, stewed fruit. Tea: Bread, butter, cakes, jam, marmalade, tea. Supper: Cheese, biscuits, bread, butter, cakes, cocoa, milk.

      The total cost of food at pre-war prices is £3 14s. 0 1/2d., and if instead of supper we add late dinner for three or four adults, that would certainly increase the food bill to 10s. a head, or at present nearly £1 per head per week, for food only. Yet this diet, even if late dinner of a simple kind is added, would not have been considered at all unusual in a well-to-do middle-class household before the year 1914. In rich households it is improbable that more food would have been consumed (when we allow for late dinner), but it would be of a more varied and more costly kind with extravagant adjuncts.

      Let us now compare the bill

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