re: Camp Coffee

A while back I said that I couldn't remember the story about Camp Coffee having to change their label. While looking for something else I stumbled across a few related articles:

"UK Coffee Logo Stirs Racism Row" BBC News 1999 (BBC News)

"Camp Coffee forced to change label by PC brigade" (Daily Mail)


Interesting!


Old logo (or one of them):



New logo:

That's all!

Holly and Barbed Wire/Suggested Reading

Not much going on in the WW2 arena right now--I'm back to writing (in an experimental voice) but am still mainly researching. I keep getting caught up in related but basically irrelevant things--planes, dogfights, women in uniform and, of late, Canadians in the war. Fascinating as these things are they aren't exactly what I'm writing about. I toyed with the idea of having L's brother be a fighter pilot just to justify reading about it but it feels like it's straying too much out of the main cast, besides which I'm splitting energy into too many directions. So it's back to the Home Front, which is where my main interest and goals lie.

I'm going to end up having an enormous bibliography by the end of it, though unfortunately a lot of books have pretty much the same information. I've narrowed my searches a lot and have come up with some fascinating books (listed below). The real trouble I'm having is that there seems to be very limited information on the ARP (Air Raid Precautions), which was one of the many possible Civil Defence jobs. I'm trying to edge away from personal reminiscences--despite my want to stay up all night reading selections from Mass Observation, etc--because I don't want to unintentionally plagiarize anyone's real experiences; the story I'm writing isn't supposed to be far-fetched or amazing in terms of some kind of insane adventure bordering on the ridiculous (i.e. a spy story). It's supposed to be just something that could have been someone's life, and those everyday things make up most reminiscences.

Carol Harris and Mike Brown, whom I discovered individually, both have some fantastic books to their credit. Weirdly enough it turns out they are a (married?) couple who both write these WW2-related books (plus some other fringy things). I think they've collaborated on one or two, even. Amazing. I think, if I were in the market for dating (which I am NOT), an interest in the British Home Front would be a requirement. That, on the other hand, might require me moving TO Britain.

Anyway.

As it's approaching That Time of Year I've decided to force myself into the Xmas spirit a little by reading Christmas on the Home Front by Mike Brown (Thanks to LB for getting it out of the U of T Library for me. Us riff-raff don't have access to the stacks, sadly). Simply organized, it's written in chronological chapters, i.e. '1940: The Second Christmas' and so on. As many of these books do, it's thankfully full of pictures--adverts and private photos alike--plus recipes, stuff about evacuees, and some personal reminiscences. I can't wait to finish this one.

There's a similar, but very condensed, page on the BBC website enitled 'Christmas Under Fire' if you just want a summary. I'm wondering if it's derived from Mike Brown's book; some of it is word for word. Click here for the link.

The other Mike Brown book I've got out (thanks to LB as well for getting this one!) is Put That Light Out!: Britain's Civil Defence Services at War, 1939-1945. The overtly long title is pretty much self-explanatory. Again, lots of pictures of rescue teams and so on, it's well researched and presented and--the best thing--it's got a TON of ARP information that I've been craving so badly.

Next up is a Carol Harris book that, unfortunately, I had to return to the library before finishing it (I tend to put a million things on hold and they all come in at once, for some reason). Women at War: The Home Front, 1939-1945 is so full of information that it's almost difficult to read--well, difficult to absorb. There's a similar book, Women at War in Uniform: 1939-1945 that I'm interested in reading but probably won't for the above reasons.

I'm getting sleepy so I'm cutting the books short and moving onto some links before I hit the hay.

First--homepage of the 1940s Society: www.1940.co.uk
Loads of info that I haven't even delved into yet--links to meetings (again, I'm not IN England, unfortunately so I can't attend), articles, personal memories, etc. plus an online shop of absolutely awesome stuff (i.e. blank ration books to fill out yourself. What?!)

Finally, two videos from Quentin Reynolds, an American war correspondent/journalist in England. These types of things are so intentionally sentimental that I can't do anything but react in a really genuine way. These types of things that are done now seem cheesy in a whole different way, though I guess they really are the same thing. Maybe it's just my nostalgia for a time I have never known but these 10-minute shorts are both touching and terrifying.
The first is a Christmas Under Fire; the second is London Can Take it!, which is a slogan/title I keep coming across. Apparently they could and did take it but if I had been around then I think I might have resented that idea for some reason, though I'm not quite sure why. Maybe the attempt to tag what was going on in some succint, catchy phrase kind of cheapened the experience? I don't know. At any rate, here are the two videos.

Christmas Under Fire - 1941



London Can Take it! - 1940

Ration Week part 7

Just quick note:

Last night's dinner/today's lunch (leftovers): Slice of roast beef, smashed potatoes, peas, boiled carrot (the carrot was eaten last night). I thought that after all these peas I'd learn to like them, but I still haven't.



On a more exciting note, my dad got back from his trip to England and he brought back--Camp Coffee! I can't wait to try this stuff tomorrow. Part of me really hopes it's as disgusting as one would think. The flash from my camera makes the image hard to see, but the label looks slightly different--the Scotsman's servent is no longer standing beside him serving him coffee but is enjoying it beside him. Interesting! The Aunt Jemima logo has changed over the years as well. Actually I read a thing about people wanting the Camp Coffee people to change the label because it's kind of offensive--I didn't realize they actually had changed it.



Dad also brought back a little Supermarine Spitfire MkIIA. Well, a model one. It's very small--I never thought an aeroplane could be cute before, but there it is. You can't tell from this horrible, blurry picture how dear it is. Thanks, Dad!

Oranges and Lemons

I came across a WW2 version of 'Oranges and Lemons' which I thought kind of a laugh. Unfortunately I have no idea if it's real or if it's been written more recently, but it's still funny.

Spitfires and Blenheims
Said the bells of St Clements
Aren’t built for five farthings
Said the bells of St Martins
Donations I pray ye
Said the bells of Old Bailey
On account o' the blitz
Said the bells of Shoreditch
Downhearted? Not we
Said the bells of Stepney
Lord love yer no, no,
Boomed the big bell of Bow.

Ration Week part 6

Last night I made some kind of shepherd's pie (it was intended to be Woolton Pie but it was a little late in the evening to be starting on the pastry) with the moral support of my brother over the phone. It's his birthday, by the way--happy birthday, Brother!


I used the smallest baking dish I could find but it still wasn't very full. It turned out quite well nevertheless and I was able to use up a lot of odds and ends, which of course is the point of shepherd's pie.

I'll be the first to admit that this looks a little gross, particularly with the nearly fluorescent SPAM poking through. I promise it wasn't as repellent as it looks here!


When I got to mixing everything together, I realized I was really low on meat (used up the other half of my ration, which was one pork sausage); my brother suggested frying up a bit of bread to put in. I did that, but not having much left the broken-up bread still left it wanting...so I threw in some SPAM (gag). Thankfully it doesn't actually taste like much--it seems to really just be filler, and cut up small enough you can't really tell it's there. In the end, the lack of meat (or meat-like substances) worked in my favour. I love shepherd's pie but I've always found it tremendously heavy and consequently a little dissatisfying, even if one only has a small piece. In this case, it was mainly vegetables that made up the lower portion so it didn't have that horrible density which can be so sickening. I think I still need to fiddle with the proportions in the future, but it was good enough.



I have this weird habit of eating everything off really small plates, which I shouldn't have done in this case; it was a kind of messy dish and the gravy was at risk of sliding off the plate altogether once I actually cut into it! Ah, well. It was very tasty. I'm excited to make this again, and next time, to try filling up the whole dish.






As usual, let's end this thing off with a few links.

The first is a film from 1939 about what the hell to do with your ration books in the event that rationing would come into force (food rationing started Jan 8, 1940). It's 'hosted' by W.S. Morrison, who was the Food Minister from Sept 1939 to April 1940. After him came Lord Woolton, who was Food Minister until sometime in 1943, I think (I don't know why, but this strikes me as kind of funny--Lord Woolton on the cover of Time Magazine--March 26, 1945).

In the same video, there's a thing about sending off all your waste (paper, metal, bones, rubber, etc) for the war effort. Obviously I have no idea if these films originally followed one another, but the second part is cool--it's kind of stop-animation with bits of paper and metal piling up and a parcel apparently wrapping itself. Plus it's narrated as though it were a children's book which is very funny in a way that perhaps wasn't intended.


Finally, something about planes! There's a dude who's uploaded several episodes of "Dogfights" (among other things) onto YouTube. It's obviously in several parts because it's an hour-long program. Anyway, I found one of my favourites, which was about the Tuskeegee Airmen (those guys were AWESOME). If you have 44 minutes to watch the episode, here are the embedded videos in order (Insert disclaimer here--this is the property of the History Channel and I am not hosting these videos, merely providing links). I haven't watched it on YouTube, but I assume it's all there and working.


Part One:


Part Two:


Part Three:



Part Four:



Part Five:

Ration Week part 5

Nothing terribly exciting today, either. Breakfast: finished off that egg from the other day...again, that one little egg went really far (It was on the bland side because I bulked it up with some other liquids (and one solid: imitation SPAM!), but hey, it's breakfast). Two pieces of toast, one buttered, one with jam. I'm reminded of what my mother always used to joke about--'bread and scrape' instead of bread and butter or bread and jam. All these years later it still makes me laugh.
Clearly I have more jam than butter, so the jam one wasn't bread and scrape! I haven't had toast and jam in a while, I don't think... I should have that more often.

Lunch: Leftovers from last night's cooked vegetables. From sitting all night in the water they were cooked in, there's a strong-looking broth now and I'm wondering what use I should put that to.

I don't know about dinner yet...there are some more vegetables left (since I'm only one person, a potato, a carrot, some cabbage and cauliflower seem to go an awfully long way!) and some baked beans as well. Mmm, beans on toast!

Bread isn't something I eat a whole lot of in my 'normal' life, so I'm finding all this toast to be kind of a treat, as dull as that sounds. Also, I'm usually pretty unenthusiastic about food in general (unless it's really spicy and crazy), but somehow these simple little recipes seem to be just the thing. Maybe English cooking is the way for me to go! For some reason I'm anxious to try all sorts of things that sound revolting...yet appeal to me at the same time, like steak and kidney pie. That does sound awful. I've tried steak once or twice and didn't like it, and to my knowledge I've never had kidney. I do, however, like pie--savory or otherwise. I'm not going to attempt to make it, but it's one of those fabled dishes that pops into my head sometimes...

Gosh, it seems there are a lot of people trying this out. Here's a ration menu from a fellow who ate the total opposite--Diet Coke first thing in the morning (yuk, that's worse than SPAM, in my opinion--at least SPAM doesn't give me gut rot), frozen dinners all the time, etc.--and found it to be a challenge but perhaps worth the effort in the end as he dropped a few pounds by the end of his week.

One more link. This is a brilliant, really low-key animation about an air raid during a class called 'The Longest School Day.' In the words of its animator: "In WW2 England, a boy's fanciful notions of war are shattered when his school lesson is interrupted by a Luftwaffe air raid." It's really worth watching as it's both simple and chilling.

Ration Week part 4

Ok, just a little update about the dinner + SPAM situation.

I thought I'd have to get drunk in order to work up the guts to go buy SPAM, which of course I didn't do. When I got to the store (sober!) I ended up just buying imitation SPAM--believe it or not, it does exist. And, unsurprisingly, it's cheaper.


So for dinner I had some mixed cooked vegetables (cabbage, potato, carrot, cauliflower) and a lovely little salad (mostly radish with some cabbage, parsley and a spring onion). The salad dressing in that little egg cup is just vinegar, a touch of oil, some sage and parsley.






For protein I made up some baked beans and thew in some of the imitation SPAM. The key that opens the tin came off so I had to use a tin opener. Here's what I found lurking inside...


Lovely. Made me wonder why I'm not still a vegetarian, or at least why on earth I would use the macro function when taking pictures of SPAM.

Anyway, the baked beans masked the SPAM-ish taste pretty well, but in the end it was the texture that was most alarming. Notice how the SPAM knock-off glows in the pan...

All in all, it was a pretty fine meal!

I'd forgotten how much I really like baked beans. Well, in this case I guess they're fried beans, but whatever. The only thing is that I have almost an entire tin of SPAM left. I realize this is a self-imposed regiment so I have no real right to complain it, but I'm just wondering how I can use the rest of it and hide the taste at the same time? It seems a little self-evident in sandwiches and salads, but I expect I'll have to use it in one or the other at some point... waste not, want not!

I've just realized that my tablecloth is getting a lot of attention in these pictures...

YouTube has corrected itself, so the sliding SPAM out of tin video is up now. Pardon the gagging in the background!

Ration Week part 3

Nothing terribly interesting to report--today is, I think, a day of recycled leftovers and some kind of salad. Salad never seems a very English thing to me--my parents had an anecdote about visiting England on their honeymoon in '69 and having eaten so much meat and starch that when they finally found a vegetarian restaurant and wolfed down several salads, they were both literally glowing. I mean, their cheeks were rosy and whatnot. In all events, whatever unfair stereotypes I might have about the culinary habits of my British ancestors, there was a lot of vegetable-eating going in WW2, as meat was rationed vegetables were very important, and of course Victory Gardens played a huge part...






"Dig for Victory" was one of the most successful campaigns of the time--people were strongly encouraged to grow whatever they could in their own gardens (things that grew well in England, like potatoes, carrots, cabbage, etc). Even some public parks were dug up to contribute to the effort. Even in the 18 inches of topsoil that covered the roof of Anderson shelters, people would plant vegetables.

Anyway, before I go make a salad (radishes, lettuce/cabbage, SPAM...ew) and some baked beans on the side, here's something I came across while looking for other recipes... looks as though I'm not the only one who's wanting the challenge of a Ration Week, though my motives are perhaps a little different. I confess I only skimmed through the article, but it seems quite interesting.

Ration Week part 2

This morning was a grueling one... okay, it wasn't, but I had porridge for breakfast (in this picture it looks suspiciously like fish paste!). I guess it's not really a pun since porridge and gruel aren't the same thing exactly, but anyway. The easiest thing to make and somehow I mucked it up--it was all rubbery and gross. I think some kind of sweetener might have helped, but I haven't anything appropriate (i.e. treacle, Golden Syrup) aside from sugar, but I'm hoping to use some of that for some other stuff (like parsley honey).

Before I move onto dinner, here's a picture of my staple rations this week (since this photo/blog idea came kind of late in the game, some of them have evidently been dipped into already). I have to confess that some of this isn't 100% accurate; the proportions of rations went up and down (mostly down, I expect) throughout and following the war, so I have a few different 'eras' of rationing to choose from. Here's what I've got:
Sugar: 8 oz
Tea: 2 oz
Butter/Margarine: 2 oz
Sausage/ham/bacon (uncooked): 4 oz
Eggs: 1
Cheese: 4 oz

(I have butter instead of margarine and sausage instead of bacon or ham)
Again, the numbers went up and down so this is sort of a general amalgam of possible amounts.

Lunch/dinner (either a very late lunch or an early dinner) was amazing. I found a recipe for 'Sausage en Surprise' from Bombers and Mash, which has quickly become one of my favourite books. Essentially it's mashed potato wrapped around sausage. I'm not sure what the surprise is supposed to be--that it's bloody amazing, perhaps. Here's what you do:

Grill and skin sausages. Let them cool. Mix an egg into some mashed potato. Wrap the mashed potato around the sausage. Let everything cool and set, then either throw it in a pan or brush it with egg and cover it with bread crumbs and stick it in the oven.

Like the other meals so far, I've adapted them slightly to what I've got--and of course, ww2 cooking was all about adapting, right? So. I'm only one person so the recipe has been reduced (though there were no specific proportions suggested in the first place), but anyway, I used one sausage instead of both of them. I only had one potato left; I considered bulking it up with some cabbage or carrot or something, but in the end it turned out there was more than enough potato (I'd added milk to it since the milk is about to turn) to cover the cut-up sausage, so I covered the rest of yesterday's sardine fish paste, which I was really dubious about.

(By the way, I realized I'd left out an ingredient in the fish paste--I put in the vinegar it called for but forgot to add margarine (though my ration is butter, not margarine). I wonder if that would have made a difference? It sounds worse to me, but whatever.)

Instead of bread crumbs I crumbled up some stale crackers after first brushing them with some of the remaining egg (actually, there's still some egg left over so I can use that for breakfast! I'm impressed by how far one single egg can go). Even after they were set they were a little damp and runny, so instead of skillet-ing the mess it all went into the oven for about 20 minutes. Here's the result:


The picture is a little dark, but you get the idea. I'm pretty sure they don't look right but-- crumbs!--were they ever good. Even the sardines were outstanding. I have two left over (one fish and one sausage), which will hopefully keep for tomorrow.

There is a similar recipe specifically for fish, by the way, which involves tinned tomatoes (I haven't any tinned tomatoes, however), so I guess this is a mixture of both recipes. It's similar as well to Pigs in a Blanket, though I think that's bacon in pastry, but it's the same idea, particularly since a lot of pastries used potatoes as substitutes for various other ingredients.

All I can say is that I'm super excited to finish these tomorrow, and even after this experiment concludes I can imagine eating this again very happily.

And, in case you're wondering, yes I have been scraping the fat off of everything to reuse it for cooking lard later on. I realize this is totally gross, but it's also totally useful. The only thing is that it's annoying to get all the bits out and also I don't know how long I can keep it without getting, I don't know, lard poisoning or something. I'm not actually that neurotic, don't worry (In case you didn't know, if you click on the pictures you can see larger versions. Click on this with the warning that it looks like some kind of alien residue from The X-Files).


The thing I am really happy about is that I've gained some sort of confidence when it comes to cooking. In the first post I mentioned Woolton Pie, which is a big deal to make, at least to me, but I'm still hoping I can manage it, even if it has to be done after this week.

Here is a brilliant video: Tea Making Tips

Another video, Kay Kyer's band featuring "Gorgeous" Georgia Carroll and some other folks. Awesome. I wish we still lived in days when cigarette companies could sponsor bands.

Ration Week part 1

Just for shits and giggles (or bubbles and squeaks...), I've decided to try a week of eating what I might have been consuming had I lived in WW2 Britain (and beyond that--they had rationing in to the '50s). It's something I've been meaning to do for a while and I'm finally getting around to it.

Here are some of the meals so far:
Some kind of stew (carrots, potatoes, cabbage, onion in chicken broth). This wasn't so bad--or even WW2-specific-- but it was really, really bland. I blame this on the cabbage, which seems to suck the flavour right out of everything! Anyway, it was sort of a modified/simplified version of Emergency Meal no. 2 for 100 People; I've used chicken instead of beef, fewer vegetables (no cauliflower, for instance) and there's no bread in it because I didn't have any when I made it. Oh, and I only made it for one person! Actually, there turned out to be far more than I would have thought, largely owing to the amount of broth I ended up with. So, maybe not enough for 100 people, but several. Needless to say, I got numerous meals out of it. Soup was strongly encouraged, not only because it was easy and you could dump all your leftovers in, but because it was the easiest thing to heat up and eat for people running out to do shifts early in the morning or late at night.



Today's lunch was much more characteristic of the era and location: Fish paste sandwich (sardine). I can't think of a more revolting phrase than 'fish paste,' and it tasted dreadful on its own. I made a sandwich filler common of the time: two parts grated carrot to one part grated cabbage, bound by mustard. Other binding options I found were chutney and/or sweet pickle, neither of which I had. The filler was gross on its own as well, but all assembled together it was a pretty fine sandwich, although strictly speaking I don't like sardines--they're just way too salty. There's some left over for tomorrow's lunch.




(Above: sandwich filler and fish paste; Left: open-faced fish paste sandwich)










Some other things I'm hoping to try are Woolton Pie (named after the food minister, Lord Woolton--it was apparently a very unpopular dish though there remains a great deal of reference to it), carrot fudge, various cakes with weird supplements. I have a feeling I'll be sick of cabbage very soon. I keep expecting everything to be on the disgusting side, though the approximate five meals I've had so far have been fine and dandy--they're the sorts of things that sound worse than they taste--but maybe it's because I haven't reached SPAM recipes yet.

The real problem I'm having is rationing coffee, cigarettes and beer (I'm pretty much cutting out the latter altogether which, if you know me, is surprising). Although coffee wasn't rationed, it was quite expensive, which of course meant that it was rationed because of that fact. There are a lot of things that I can't find over here, like Camp coffee, a coffee substitute made, to my memory, from coffee, sugar and chicory (it's still sold today, by the by; it's been in production since 1885).

Also--and I fully realize that this is stupid of me--I'm embarrassed to go buy SPAM! I'd want to say to anyone who looks in my shopping basket, 'Look, I don't actually like SPAM, it's just that I'm pretending that there's nothing else to eat,' which of course would be ridiculous.

If anyone stumbles across this and has some suggestions for recipes, send them along!

On a note unrelated to culinary adventures, here's a news story I thought was cool.