Calling on Dr Carrot and Potato Pete

During wartime rationing the British became both inventive and green-fingered. Culinary skills we are, perhaps, appreciating today

- SARAH PRATLEY

State diktats on what we may or may not purchase might seem unacceptable to the modern shopper. But a rationing system was almost welcome when confronted with bare supermarket shelves amid coronavirus-induced panic shopping. A few weeks after despairing at empty aisles, I selected three tubes of toothpaste from a loaded shelf only to be told – politely but firmly – to put one back.

When we think of food rationing our thoughts turn to Britain during World War II but, actually, what happened then was quite different to the situation we have found ourselves in today. “People are buying more than they would do normally because they’re not eating their lunch at Pret and the supply chains are struggling to cope,” says Dr. Annie Gray, food historian and author of Victory in the Kitchen: The Life of Churchill’s Cook. “It’s very different to World War II.”

Struggling to buy loo roll pales in comparison to 1940s rationing. On 8 January 1940, bacon, butter, and sugar were the first items of food to ‘on the ration’. Meat followed shortly after in March 1940 and by the summer of 1942, almost all food was rationed, apart from fresh fruit, vegetables, and bread. Items that were not on the ration were generally unavailable or unappetising. Bananas famously disappeared, as did lemons, and oranges became a rare treat. In 1942, the National Loaf was introduced. Made from wholemeal flour, it was grey, gritty, and promptly forgotten when white bread returned in the 1950s.