Cooking with Rations!

Cooking with rations did not sound appealing to me especially when I usually do not like to cook in the first place.  When I looked at the list of recipes with rations, I could not find anything that sounded too appealing to me.   I honestly just decided on cornstarch pudding due to simplicity of ingredients along with the fact that I already had all of the items, except for cornstarch, on hand at home.  Upon reading how to make the recipe, I realized that I had no idea what a double boiler is and thanks to a friend’s help I was able to make one as close as possible.  I had little faith that cornstarch pudding would turn out right let alone taste well enough to eat.  I was hesitant to taste my creation but once I did I was shocked by its resemblance to the typical pudding I eat.  Out of excitement and pure curiosity I grabbed a pudding out of my pantry and discovered that many of the ingredients were similar.  The best thing I could compare the cornstarch pudding and normal pudding is the similarity between name brand and off brand items.  A lot of the difference was the amount of sweetener that was used in rationed item; rations included sugar so many food items lacked the typical sweetness Americans are used to.  Rations also limited the weekly food intake that people could consume.  Americans are not use to limitations on how much food they can enjoy which makes rations even more difficult.  In Amy Bentley’s article “Islands of Serenity, Gender, Race, and Ordered Meals during World War II”, Bentley states that as Americans there is an “expectation of abundance” when it comes to food consumption (Bentley 172).  Prior to entering college and being forced to live on a tight budget, I had never thought about limiting how much I consume.  As Americans, limitations towards food consumption are not typical; we have all you can eat buffets and buying items in bulk are cheaper that smaller portions.  Our culture encourages our unlimited consumption via bulk items and buffets and because of this, it is hard to stop and understand how individuals were able to have little to no meat, sugar, butter and other items that I can easily go to the store and purchase with minimal effort.  During times of ration, like World War II, ration books were handed out and people were limited by these books.   I could not imagine having to not only pay for an item but also have to plan out how to use my ration stamps in order to survive.