I am looking for some old recipes
 

I am looking for some of our grand mas recipes, maybe ggreatgrandmas, 1940's era
something they cooked for a meal. I have been doing some research on this era. It is sooo amazing what they had to use, get by on and so on, and we complain if we don't have things in our cupboards!

what to fix for supper? SPAM, any recipes for it? old fashioned home made biscuits? chicken pot pie? rationing this stuff, even children had rationing booklets. coffee and tea? sugar?

oopps sorry going on a tangent there.
But was and am curious how foods were prepared with the little they had. any thoughts on this? oh, any recipes on this?

When Mom died, she still had all the ration books for her 3 older children, Dad, his Mom and Dad, and one of Dad's brothers. They all lived together during WWII. They gave up the car during the war, and Dad never had another one.
My brother (15 yrs older than I) loved her butter rolls and he'd have one for lunch at school in his lunch pail (syrup bucket). It was homemade biscuit dough fried in a cast iron skillet like a fried pie, with a dollop of butter and sprinkle of suger inside.

Most of Mom's recipes and canning recipes listed ingredients only. No instructions.

Here's a banana nut cake that I remember with fondness. The "filling" was more of a glaze made in the cast iron skillet.

1 1/2 cup flour
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 T. sweet milk
1/2 cup shortening
2 bananas, crushed with fork
1 t. soda
1/2 t. salt
1 t. vanilla
1 cup crushed pecans
2 eggs

Blend sugars and shortening. Add eggs, milk, and sifted flour, soda, and salt. Put in crushed bananas and pecans. Put in moderate oven to cook.

Filling:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup canned milk
pinch salt
few drops vanilla
Cook 1 minute. Thicken with powdered sugar and spread on cake. Put pecans on, if desired.

When husband was in College, we had spam a lot. Put it in egg wash then dipped it is cracker crumbs and fried it. We thought it was pretty good, but I sure don't want it now.

I don't have any old recipes but I do remember ration books during WWII. I did most of our family's food shopping and used the coupon books. Early Saturday mornings I would be on line at the butchers with my list of meats and coupon book. After the butchers I stopped at the open air fruit and veggies market and after lunch went to the A&P and Teddy's, our local market. We did try Spam but no one lived it as it was too salty. Meat servings were small and my mother did make a lot of starch dishes, rice with veggies, beans and greens, etc. and we always had bread to fill ourselves up with.

Sugar was rationed so we made due with brown sugarfor cake recipes, evaporated and/or condensed milk for coffee and Karo cane syrup for our pancakes. My Aunt Mary would call my mother to inform her that the sugar or coffee truck was making a delivery to her A&P and our A&P was the truck's next stop. My mother would send me runnig to our A&P to save her a space on line in front to the store.

We also missed having a chocolate bar every once in awhile.

Here's one that was popular during WWII, there are several versions - make it with nuts or without as most times we didn't have nuts. It's also called Depression Cake.

WAR CAKE

2 cups dark brown sugar
2 cups hot water
2 tbsp shortening
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger
1 lb raisins
1/2 lb chopped walnuts and/or almonds (optional)
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 tsp (5 mL) hot water

Boil together all ingredients but flour and soda in water, 5 minutes. Set aside to cool, stirring often, gradually mix in flour and soda. Batter is thick. Bake 45 minutes at 350°F in two loaf pans.

My mom's go-to cookbook, which I still have, was the Lily Wallace New American Cook Book. Has a section on ration cooking. Fascinating reading!! I notice the cake recipe has no eggs, that was a big thing in WW2.

That War Cake sounds scrumptious! I LOVE dark brown sugar. I may have to try that this weekend. Thank you SO much for sharing! :thumbup:

We used to eat spam camping. I bough some the other day. Slice and fry it, or grill it. Put it on a bun with lettuce, tomato etc like a burger. My husband requested it. We haven't had any since we sold our camper 12 years ago.

My mom used to make a scalloped potato type casserole with the spam. Peel then slice potatoes into a casserole dish. Cut spam into small cubes and mix into potatoes. Mix cream of mushroom soup with a little milk then mix into potato/spam. Cover. Bake at 350 for about an hour. Check if done by poking potatoes with fork (same way you check them for potato salad).

We had spam growing up. Mother would slice it about 1/3 inch thick, place it on a baking sheet, put a dollop of mashed potatoes on top, with a pat of butter on the potatoes and would sprinkle the top of potatoes with grated cheese. BTW, she didn't put salt in the potatoes because the spam was real salty.

Well this isn't a main dish but its a dessert that I grew up with, and continue to make to this day.
Its great for road trips as it "ripens" and becomes better each day. One improvement mom made and i also do is to take and food process half the raisins, it creates a moister bar.

Old Fashioned Boiled Rasin Bar:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...rs&FORM=IDFRIR