Americans are as crazy about food as they are about trivia, and Eater's Digest is a deliciously unique and playful book that addresses both of these passions with a practical and quirky array of flavorful folklore and facts.
The idea of food scarcity is foreign to most of us. Sure, good asparagus may be hard to find during some months of the year, but not enough coffee? Not enough sugar? Not enough hamburger? No way.
Way, during World War II.
From the spring of 1942 through the end of November 1945, government-controlled food rationing was a fact of American life, and ordinary folks had to make do with much less of some foods they’d been accustomed to having in plenty. Like coffee, sugar, and beef. Like chicken, lamb, pork, hot dogs, fats, oils, cheese, canned fruits and vegetables, canned juice, canned fish, dried beans, baked beans, ketchup, and even prepared baby food. Why? Many ships that normally transported food were being used in the massive war effort; some foods came from places cut off by the war; metal was needed for war materiel and couldn’t be spared for the production of canned goods; food (a lot of it) was needed for our fighting forces and our European allies. Factor in the vicissitudes of nature and agriculture, and severe rationing was a must.
Despite the encouragement of patriotic posters and films, many citizens found rationing a tough pill to swallow. It meant an enormous change in eating habits. A coffee drinker, for instance, had to make one pound of coffee last five weeks. Protein was in short supply, and every source of it - meat, fish, poultry, eggs, cheese - was eked out and made to stretch. Recipes had to be invented or adapted to make more use of unrationed foods - eggs, fresh produce, fresh fish, bread, cereal, milk, spaghetti and macaroni, jams and jellies, mayonnaise. No food was wasted (remember the Clean Plate Club?). The ladies’ magazines went into overdrive addressing the problems of the wartime kitchen for women already overwhelmed by war work and the absence of husbands and sons in the armed services.
The public had been generally unprepared for any sort of rationing, much less for a system that was complicated and got off to a disorganized start. War Ration Books were issued to everyone. The books held stamps (or coupons) with assigned point values and identifying letters. Points (plus money) got you food: so many points for this food item, so many points for that, and the numbers kept changing according to availability and - it was rumored - the whims of the rationing boards. To make matters worse, stamps had expiration dates, and it required enormous attention to detail to keep track of the dates, numbers, letters, amounts, what you could get with each kind of stamp, and how to get the most for the points. Consumers were in a constant state of confusion, frustration, and sometimes anger.
But rationing was immutable. Women simply had to learn to juggle the stamps (and budget the money) efficiently in order to keep their families fed. Unfortunately, all the juggling and budgeting still didn’t guarantee that you got what you wanted if that chicken or can of peaches or quarter pound of sugar was unavailable in your own local store: gasoline was rationed too, and you weren’t likely to waste it driving around to find a can of fruit. It was substitute or do without, and pray for the end of the war.
