Some time ago we were at my parents home and I saw that my Mom had put some things out on a shelf that I did not recognize. I picked the little booklets up to leaf through them and this is what they were! They were my Meemaw's old Ration Books.... a holder, a book and some stamps that were left over after the rationing ended. I told you guys before that she saved EVERYTHING! LOL
This was the one that belonged to my Meemaw but there were three. There was one for her and my grandfather and my MOTHER! She was born in 1939 so she was very little but still had her own ration book. It was very cool!
This is what the stamps looked like and they were numbered and had different values to cover cost of different priced items.
So, this sent me on a mission and I looked a few things up. Here are some links and info on rations in the USA.... they were also happening in the UK and other countries, too.
(there is a yummy looking recipe for Apple Brown Betty at the end of this article)
A Smithsonian section on Rationing during WW2... lots to see here
This is a great page with reasons why rationing was used and products that were chosen for rationing.
(Me for Halloween at Cub Scouts about three years ago)
I dare say that rationing changed the way Americans began to eat and still affects our diets today. I grew up on many caned, bottled, frozen and box mix items like many that were introduced during that time. It is what many of our parents and/or grandparents grew up with and what they passed on to us.
There are skills, though, that many Americans don't have anymore. Canning, sewing, yarn arts, using dried items or root cellars to store food up for the leaner times... all seem like something foreign to many in our nation today. They are lost arts in some regard but they don't have to stay that way. I was delighted to find that there are resources available for learning many of these things now that our parents did not have. I have had to teach myself using videos on YouTube and by reading articles and books about many of these things. I have recently been part of a group of ladies learning some of these skills. (See my recent article on Canning Pickled Veggies) I much prefer the circle of women to a cold impersonal internet, though. Wouldn't it be cool if every community had such an opportunity to bring people together to learn these skills. You could start one in your community if you know several people that have skills they can share with a crowd. Maybe we should be teaching our children these things, too.
Do you have skills? LOL
Do you have a group of people you meet with to learn skills like this?
Do you have a favorite video or book on these frugal skills that you would be willing to share with us?
Leave us a comment below and share with us!
A few cool videos you food history buffs might love!
(I have her book, too)
This is one video among many fun Vintage lifestyle videos....
the channel is called Vintagious
I still want to learn to can, or get a small freezer for the basement and flash-freeze veggies. Quilting is one of those "frugal skills", though not the way many modern quilters do it, LOL. No piece of fabric is too small to go into a scrap quilt, to get new life keeping the family warm.
ReplyDeleteI try to stay away from boxed and canned stuff as much as possible. Always having dried milk on hand makes it easy to make my own "cream" of whatever soup to use in recipes. On the rare occasions I bake, I do so from scratch.