Right. But especially in the kitchen. World War 2 had a definite effect on what we ate.
In what way?
A couple of ways. First, there were shortages because a lot of the food was going to feed the troops doing the fighting. Second, because there were German submarines off our coast. In the Caribbean, for instance. They prevented shipping from South and Central America. I’ll give you one example: bananas.
Bananas?
Yep. Any boats carrying them could be torpedoed.
So you went without them?
Yes, but not without the taste. The flavor people came up with a powder that tasted like bananas.
We sprinkled it on our cereal in the morning. Wasn’t too bad. But it was good to get the real thing back after the war.
I guess.
Then there was butter. A lot of it was going to the troops, including the animal fat that went with it. So margarine took its place. Margarine, from vegetable oil, had been around for a long time, but the war forced us to use it. However, there was one problem.
What was that?
The color. The dairy industry lobbied the powers that be so that the margarine we bought wouldn’t be yellow like butter. It had to be white.
White margarine?
Right. But the margarine people got around it, with the help of us at home. They packaged a capsule of dye with the margarine, which was in a plastic bag. Red, or very dark orange. So we would break the capsule and then squeeze and squeeze the bag until the mixture looked like the yellow we were used to. I colored many a bag.
A lot of work.
Yeah. But what else could we do? It was what we had to work with. There was a popular phrase back then. If anybody complained about those kinds of things, the answer would be, “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”
I think I’ve heard that one.
It was true. We all had to sacrifice in some ways. And on top of that there was food rationing.
How did that work?
Families were issued books of stamps. Or coupons. Critical foods on the shelves had ration points listed in addition to the price. Got to where we looked at the points first, before the price. Meat took red stamps, I remember. Canned goods — because of the metal for the war effort — were rationed too. They took another color. And coffee another. So when we bought an item, we would have to tear off and turn in a number of stamps that added up to the listed number of points.
How did it all work out?
Pretty well. Except for the Black Market.
What was that?
It was cheating. And greed. Occasionally a merchant would suggest to a customer that, if we slipped him a few extra bucks under the table, he would look the other way when it came to the rationing points. My mom told me about a butcher who said that to her. She wouldn’t do it. But, anyway, the government tried to campaign against that practice.
In general, the government would appeal to our patriotism.
Overall, it worked pretty well. But it sure was a relief when the war ended and we could get back to normal.
I guess so.
Got time for one more food-related recollection?
Sure.
So that more veggies could go to the troops, and to save on metal cans, the government urged us to grow our own vegetables as much as possible. To have backyard vegetable gardens. They called them Victory Gardens. My dad had one.
That’s Dad in the photo. I helped some, but he did most of the work. And my Mom did a lot of canning. Had a pressure cooker.
Tomatoes my mom could can in boiling water; because of the acid, I think. But other veggies like beans had to reach a higher temperature to kill the bacteria or whatever. The pressure cooker let the water reach a higher temp.
Mom would also preserve fruits as jams or jellies. Dad grew strawberries and boysenberries. But also we picked blackberries in the wild. Where we went on vacation, the day before we would come home, we went to the field and picked a lot. This is Mom and Dad picking the blackberries.
Well, that’s enough about food. Next time I want to talk about some other effects of the war.
Okay. See you then.