During World War II, a homemaker needed to know not only the ingredients of a holiday dish, but also what it took to get them, because food was rationed.
Residents of the 46th Ward “draw out” sugar, coffee and fuel ration coupons instead of money at the old Belmont-Sheffield Bank at 1008 Belmont Ave. on Jan. 21, 1943, which had recently been transformed into quarters for the ration board for Wards 40-46. Editors note: This historic print has some hand painting on it.
Homemakers found ingenious ways to make do with what was available. Several Tribune readers touted watermelon, a warm weather fruit missing from Charles Dickens’ vision of Christmas. The hurdle was keeping it from going bad before Dec. 25, but Tribune reader S.T. Kimbell wrote in with a solution: That didn’t prove literally true, although American GIs in German prisoner of war camps did receive food parcels delivered by the Red Cross. The World War II Museum in New Orleans has a collection of recipes soldiers scribbled out upon receiving those parcels.Substitutes fill in for sugar in candy recipes provided by Tribune food writer Mary Meade’s “Ration Roundup” column published in 1945.
On Christmas Eve of 1942, Mary Meade, the Tribune’s food writer, was contemplating shortages: “Perhaps the time will come when we’ll have to include in our dinner invitations: ‘Please bring your ration books for coffee, sugar, meat, butter, etc.’” Girls in the home economics classes at Cicero’s Morton High School brought 30 quarts of “Morton Relish” to Chicago’s U.S.O., a hospitality center for. The tomato relish was created in a 1943 class on what to do with leftovers, a vital wartime skill. The Tribune provided the recipe.
To make a dent in America’s short supply, homemakers were implored not to flush cooking oil down the drain after frying chicken or hamburgers. As an incentive, the government paid 2 red rationing points and 4 cents for a pound of grease. “Mrs. John Kellogg is presenting her younger daughter, Joan, at a tea dance at the Racquet Club at 5 o’clock, and the junior Carter Harrisons are giving a dinner-dance for their debutant daughter, Edith, at the Ambassador East Hotel,” the Tribune reported.
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