WWII Christmas Recipes

Christmas 1941 was the first Christmas holiday celebrated under the year-old food and supply rationing program in the U.S. Many of the ingredients that could normally be purchased for Christmas recipes – butter, sugar, eggs, lard, milk – were only available to families in small amounts or not at all. However, two changes were made at holiday time in 1941. The tea ration was doubled and the sugar ration was increased to 12 ounces in the week before Christmas. I had been as low as 8-16 ounces per month before this.

American ingenuity and creativity shone through in the recipes created for a rationed Christmas. Women cooked Christmas meals with recipes from “Wartime Christmas Pudding” to “Mock Turkey” made with sausage. “Mock Marzipan” was made with soya flour (made by grinding soyabeans). This marzipan could then be used to cover a “Mock Christmas Cake” (eggless) and covered with icing. There were many iterations of Christmas recipes during wartime in the U.S.

Take a look at these recipes and maybe give one a try! See if you can find a recipe for the mock Christmas cake to cover with the mock marzipan below.

Wartime Christmas Pudding:

Source: http://long-may-she-rain.blogspot.com/

Wartime Marzipan Paste (1942)

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons mashed potato (*different from the soya flour recipe!) 1 teaspoon white of egg 1 tablespoon sugar Few drops of almond essence

Method:

Mix all ingredients well together. Spread top of cake while still hot with honey or a little blackberry jelly, press marzipan out to size of cake, put on top and press into shape. Pinch up round the edges and score with a fork.

Put back into oven and brown up. While still hot sprinkle a circle of grated chocolate in the centre.

Source: http://www.recipespastandpresent.org.uk