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Food and Drink

Remembering the home front

George V, then King of England, declared Remembrance Day in 1919, one year after the signing of the armistice on November 11 that officially ended World War I. The original intent was to commemorate throughout the British Commonwealth the sacrifices made by civilians and members of the armed forces.

A mere 20 years after Remembrance Day was created, much was forgotten and the horrific conflict of World War II began. Canada joined the Allied war effort in 1939, one week after Britain did, and stuck it out until the end in 1945.

Over time, the spotlight of Remembrance Day has been on the battlefield. Other than the private pain of those who have had loved ones hurt or killed in war, remembering the home front, as King George intended, has pretty much been overshadowed.

So here, to ameliorate that, is a wee peek at life, namely the food end of things, during the second great war. Our main guides are two sources I promise you we can trust who've been there, done that, namely my mom and dad, along with a little booklet my mom still has.

Called Fifty Nifty Years of Cooking with Gas, 1923-1973 , it was published by the Blue Flame Kitchen, the home service department of Alberta's natural gas company. Aimed at housewives on farms and in small towns, as most Canadians were during the war, as well as those in cities, it neatly reflects what the home front faced during the war, a nation of people who had lived through the depression of the Dirty 30s by surviving on their gardens, their wits and a good measure of Canada's wilderness - hunting and fishing - and had learned to "make do or do without."

Like Britain, Canada issued food rations during WWII for staples such as butter, meat, sugar and coffee, and for other necessities like gasoline and soap, to direct supplies to the war effort and lessen the need for shipping. Canada alone had 1.1 million people to feed in the armed forces, and Britain had quickly learned during the first great war that the enemy would restrict food supplies by shelling ships.

"A coupon book was given to each member of the family," recalls my mom. "That way if you had six children to feed you automatically got more food. If there were only two of you, you didn't need so much."

Many of the war years' recipes in the booklet reflect the restricted supply of goods. For instance, thimble cookies, small simple cookies made by pressing down in the middle of the cookie with a thimble, or your thumb, to create a hollow for homemade jam, were made with 1/4 c. of brown sugar, 1/2 c. shortening, 1 egg, 1 c. of flour and 1 tsp. of baking powder - that's it.

Families were already used to the plain, farm-style cooking that was the mainstay of most Canadian meals.

"Everybody had a garden because in those days hardly any fresh vegetables were in the stores. You might find celery and lettuce - that was about the extent of it, as I remember. Everybody grew their own carrots and beets and whatever. Even in the city, the yards were long and narrow and everybody had a garden at the back," mom says.

Surpluses of garden-grown fruits and vegetables were canned at home for year-round use. And the Blue Flame Kitchen reminded housewives that "the special sugar allowed for canning fruit has been issued to you in trust so that you may keep good food from going to waste. Every jar of fruit you put up helps lighten the load on commercial canneries and helps relieve overworked transportation facilities."

Other than milk and cheese products, protein was definitely in short supply before and during the war, so housewives came up with innovative substitutes for meat dishes, like adding cottage cheese to jelly salads. My mom's family was lucky because my grandfather was a good hunter and fisher, bringing home ducks, pheasant, partridge, lake trout and jackfish to supplement meals.

As for packaged, processed foods, forget it. They didn't appear until the post-war prosperity took hold. Even tinned goods were scarce because metal was vital for the war and canning factories were focused on producing rations for men on the front lines. Kids even gathered wire coat hangers and took them to school where they were collected for war supplies.

Housewives were also encouraged to carefully save and re-use fat since it was needed for the production of nitroglycerine, which is used in explosives and cordite, a replacement for gunpowder to propel bullets and shells.

My dad's diet at home during the war was pretty much the same as mom's, even though he was a city boy.

"It was basically vegetables. Money was short so everybody was in the same boat - that's why you had big gardens," he says. "If you got eggs a couple of times a week that was a treat, and if you were lucky, you saw meat once a week."

Like many of his buddies in North Edmonton, he signed up for the navy. But he was only 17, a few months shy of the enlistment age of 18. It makes me think about how little we really know about life when we are 17.

Even though the war ended before he saw active duty as a submarine detector, he spent nearly a year in training. There they had ordinary food but in small amounts - usually porridge for breakfast, with one prune for an appetizer to keep you regular, and maybe pork chops or goulash for lunch or supper.

"Nobody ever starved to death, but we were always crabbing that we were hungry, " he says.

"But when you came off guard duty at four in the morning, the messes were open and those cooks would load our plates. But regular eating hours, forget it, the dieticians were always standing behind the cooks and made damn sure you only got small portions."

The men could also pay for a meal at the rec centre, which they often did. The whole dinner was maybe a buck.

During the war, a big lesson on healthy eating was ingrained into my dad, one that's stayed with him throughout his life and we kids often heard, one worth remembering in our prosperous Canadian world today where obesity is epidemic.

One of the navy doctors explained that you should always leave the table feeling a little bit hungry - when you aren't really hungry but just feel hungry - because that's a sure ticket to good health.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who was one of those lucky, post-war booming babies.