We'll Eat Again

by Marguerite Patten

This is a nostalgic look at wartime food and rationing, with authentic recipes from the time, illustrated with authentic photographs, illustrations and cartoons, aiming to give an insight into the spirit and history of the period.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Cookbooks, World War II, Cooking, History, War

Paperback

First published June 15, 1985

About the author

Hilda Marguerite Patten was a home econonomist, food writer and broadcaster.
Marguerite Patten fresh from the Ministry of Food during World War II represented post-war austerity cookery books; many selling in huge quantities and produced in colour by Paul Hamlyn. She was one of the early TV cooks to have her own programme.

She was awarded an OBE in 1991.

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is as much a social history as it is a cookery book. It is a collection of recipes taken from the Imperial War Museum archives of Ministry of Food materials selected by Marguerite Patton. During the autumn of 2012 the BBC put on a television programme called Wartime Farm about how farmers coped with the demands of feeding the nation when as an island we needed to be more or less self sufficient in food and this got me interested in what people did eat and how they managed despite rationing . Much like a more conventional cook book We’ll eat again is divided into sections covering soups, main meals, vegetable dishes, puddings, snacks and supper dishes, cakes and baking, preserving and making do. The book is threaded with cartoons of the time and extracts from information leaflets and you will discover how much or rather how little the weekly adult food ration was – e.g. 4oz bacon, 2 oz butter. Vegetables do not appear to have been rationed and as Marguerite Patton says in the introduction people ate lots of vegetables and home-produced fruits but little fat, sugar or meat. The book provides a fascinating glimpse of what people were encouraged to eat, potatoes instead of bread which used imported wheat for example.

So can you actually use this book as a cook book? Well yes you can. In fact the reason I’m writing this review is because I’ve just got it out for ideas on how to make use of some left over mashed potato – the potato drop scones went down a treat. Obviously it is at the other end of the spectrum from contemporary chefs book which often require all manner of exotic ingredients but for straight forward down to earth things like potato and watercress soup or Rhubarb sponge it works fine.

[Christi]

This is a collection of recipes that were designed to help people cook during WWII rationing in England. It's fascinating to see how cooks coped with stretching severely reduced amounts of formerly staple foods (such as cheese, meat, white flour, and sugar), how they attempted to replicate familiar prewar meals, how they worked for variety in their meals despite a limited set of ingredients, and how they experimented with new dishes that featured foods that were more plentiful at the time. I am not tempted to try things like "Fish Paste," "Vinegar Cake," or whale meat steaks, but I am curious as to how margarine, reconstituted dry eggs, grated cheese, and salad dressing can be turned into mock crab. I might actually try making the recipe for mock goose, though, which calls for potatoes, apples, cheese, and sage.

[Igenlode Wordsmith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating volume that is both a very useful and economical cook-book -- some of the recipes, like potato pastry, are among the reference staples of my cookery shelf -- and a practical social history, thanks to the author's introductory articles for each section and the many period advertisements and government advisory snippets reproduced among the recipes. (I've always remembered the dietary poster showing the silhouettes of a little girl and a huge muscular navvy, with the caution that they both require the same amount of protein daily.)

For modern-day cooks, it gives an insight into how to cope with shortages, how to achieve variety out of a limited palette of home-grown vegetables and small quantities of meat, and how to eat in theory more healthily -- although from that perspective it has to be borne in mind that these main course dishes were in the main designed to fill up hungry bellies with large amounts of stodge while being served alongside additional raw or cooked vegetables! Reading through the recipes tends to make me long to try them out (some have been disappointing, some merely dull, some amazingly successful), although pages on ways to cook snoek or salt cod remainin a matter of historical curiosity... and, alas, modern bacon exudes water and not fat when put in the pan, which means that all the recipes that rely on bacon fat have to be supplemented with less flavoursome substitutes.

I was given this as a birthday present about twenty years ago (I'm not quite sure on what logic!), and in fact it has been one of the most successful presents ever.

[Hannah Meiklejohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

We’ll Eat Again by Marguerite Patten is a collection of wartime recipes including tips on preserving and ‘making do’, to save and use food wisely. The main meal types covered are soups, main meals, vegetable dishes, puddings, snacks and supper dishes, and cakes & baking. Each chapter begins with little nuggets of information (or dare I say; food for thought) from the wartime period. For example:

Cakes and baking

“We could all manage without cakes, biscuits and scones but these helped to makes meals more enjoyable. But the Ministry of Food used to remind us that it was important that all the family ate protective foods first before they enjoyed these home-made treats.”

Even though this book explains how cooking was done during the Second World War, when times were tough and food was rationed, her recipes and tips can still be applied in today’s kitchen.

The photos and illustrated adverts from the era add a certain charm to the book.

The book includes recipes for American pin wheels, honeycomb toffee, cheese pancakes, eggless sponge pudding, and many more delicious fancies.

[Sonja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting read, I want to try some of these recipes.

[Beatrice Drury · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting view of what eating during WWII was like in England. Rationing was much stricter in the UK than the US and lasted much longer.

I must admit that I didn't find many of the recipes appetizing enough to make. There also were ingredients no longer available or desirable (powdered eggs). There were however helpful instructions and conversions for modern day cooks.

Not much interest in duplicating recipes but worth reading for the historical value.