Food - Bee Wilson revels in an epicurean response to wartime austerity
Sixty years ago this month Britain went to war, but it wasn't until the following year that rationing began. Until January 1940, it was as if there were a phoney war of food. Rich housewives greedily bought up sacks of sugar. Butter was running short, but its cost remained stable, thanks to government subsidy. Theoretically, you could still buy as much as you wanted, but resentment mounted against shopkeepers who favoured some customers over others. On 8 January, despite outcries in the right-wing press, butter, bacon and sugar were put on the ration books. Meat rationing followed on 11 March.
What happened next has become part of our national consciousness. There are certain things that we all "know" about rationing. First, that in purely nutritional terms, the great British public ate better during the austerity years than ever before: not too much meat and sugar for the rich and not too little for the poor. Second, that in pure gourmet terms, these years were disastrous. Dried egg, marrow jam, "prem" luncheon meat, offal fritters, margarine sandwiches: these are the disagreeable but patriotic tastes we associate with the second world war.
We do not, by contrast, imagine lobster tempura, roasted truffles, smoked goose, buttered samphire or bilberry tart as forming part of the war effort. Yet recipes for these - and more like them - were included in a book by the Viscount de Mauduit published in 1940, delightfully entitled They Can't Ration These. Lloyd George wrote the foreword: "Days may lie ahead when it will be a matter of life and death to secure the maximum food supply from those things which grow in our countryside." The viscount's ideas about squeezing the maximum food supply from unrationed flora and fauna were ingenious - and epicurean (though who knows how many cooks actually followed them).
For pastry, he has "marrow-butter", cleverly produced by extracting the "creamy white fat" from beef bones, which is "just as good as butter and better than dripping or margarine". He makes "ham" from mutton and "coffee" from asparagus plant and suggests growing your own sugar for use at table: "There is no reason why it could not advantageously replace the dismal aspidistra of the Victorian era in the homes of Britain today." Mauduit even has a remedy "for a sad heart": an infusion of rose petals, violets, borage and anchusa flowers.
The viscount's advice is at its most exotic when it comes to meat. Rook pie, roast sparrow, stewed starling and baked snipe are all dishes that elude the ration book. Squirrel, it transpires, is "more tasty and tender" than chicken. Grill the skinned squirrel and then use its tail for soup. Or to remove the prickles from a hedgehog - "a delicacy" - bake it in moist clay, then crack open and enjoy.
Other recipes in They Can't Ration These are more obviously appealing. There is a chapter on growing and cooking vegetables, including sea kale puree, baked beetroot, fried artichokes, leek pie and suchlike. And the chapter on "Food from the Lakes, Rivers and Seas" smacks of plenty, not deprivation. The viscount's baked John Dory on fennel twigs is rather "now", as is his crawfish swimming in tarragon broth. As for the following, it would do nicely for a Nigel Slater-ish supper. Oh, what a lovely war.
Trout Denise
Prepare the trout, season and roll it in flour. Fry very slowly in hot butter three to four minutes on each side. During this time melt a little butter, add a few capers and the juice of half a lemon. Dish up the fish, sprinkle over it some finely chopped fennel (or parsley), place a slice of lemon on each fish and cover with the hot sauce. A tip: make the capers yourself by picking nasturtium buds.
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