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I collect old cookbooks, preferably used and well worn. I buy them inexpensively at flea markets, used book stores, and yard sales. When I open the fragile pages and find an old stained recipe, grocery list, or a birthday card, I feel like I am opening a time capsule. I love scrutinizing the old recipes, noting what ingredients were popular, and what particular dishes (usually long fallen out of favor) were considered fashionable at the time. I love making fun of the old jello molds, kodachrome pictures, and fatty meat roasts. And at times, I actually learn a little more food history, and feel like a low budget archeaologist.
I have seen many editions of the Joy of Cooking at the Wiliams Grove flea market, so when I ran across one last summer for the humble price of One Dollar I couldn't resist picking it up. I was held together with duct tape, but looked like it had character and otherwise was in fairly good shape. Months later, on a quiet winter weekend I finally had the time to look more closely at the treasure. Inside I found a card, a few notes, an Exxon brochure advertising a 1970's style answering maching for the "affordable" price of $70 and a 1984 news letter from Senator John Heinz. 
Upon further investigation, I discovered the edition was from 1943. There are many editions of the Joy of Cooking, and I hope to describe some of the other versions in upcoming blogs. A further history can be found here at the on-line home of the Joy of Cooking. But the 1943 edition is particularly interesting because it was published during World War II. When editing of the edition was done in 1942, the author Irma S. Rombauer noted that the United States had no “intimation that international obligations would lead our land of plenty to ration cards.” Rationing in the United States was implemented from 1942 after Pearl Harbor and continued until 1946. The first commodity to be rationed was sugar. Citizens were allowed one half pound per week, which was half of normal consumption. Also rationed during this time period was gasoline, coffee, footwear, nylon, fuel oil, meat, cooking oil, cheese, butter, and margarine, to name just a few.
The editors of the final 1943 Joy of Cooking added a number of emergency sections to address the difficulties of the times. Topics, include: Suggestions for Left-Over Food, Sugarless and Sugar-Saving Recipes, Meat stretching, High Protein Dishes with Little or No Meat, Wartime Emergency Soups, Peanuts as a Meat Substitute. Irma S. Rombauer, in the preface, notes that "....a tradition of plenty which should always be ours, and which will be, with the intelligent use of our mightly weapon, the cooking spoon."
Currently, we are living in tough economic times in this country. No one can dispute that. But does any one of us, under 60 or so, really truly understand what The Greatest Generation went through when they lived through the Great Depression and the rationing of World War II? To not be able to go to the local grocery store and get a pound of hamburger for a few dollars? To not get a cheeseburger at McDonald's for $1? "Cutting back" these days means giving up the $4 Starbucks cappucino and brewing some at home. What would it feel like to not be able to brew coffee in the morning because your ration ran out? Or to have to use a "meat-stretching" recipe because there was not enough protein at the store to feed your children? We have no clue what it would be like to give up these things, for reasons other than we are cutting back on our budget or are on a diet - but because there are none! We talk about war, protecting our country, and fighting the enemy. But has there been a time, since World War II, where every single one of us, not just our honorable military, felt the daily consequences of that fight, to an extent that it impacted every single breakfast, lunch and dinner?
And so, my humble cookbook, purchased for only a dollar, provided not only entertainment, but a true glimpse into a different time. Although I can't appreciate what it would be like to live then, reflection upon the topic made me grateful for my life style today, and made me think how easy my life is, as far as procuring food, in the big picture of human history. And if things get tough, I know I can use the recipes in this cookbook, to lead the way to the tradition of plenty......using my mighty weapon, the cooking spoon.
Wartime Emergency Soup.
Prepare available vegetables, cook them in a pot of water until tender,
add beef or chicken bouillon cubes. Add, as on hand, bits of leftover meat or cereal, a few
teaspoons of cream or grated cheese, cooked rice, barley, oatmeal or noodles.
Other hints:
Save liquor from canned or cooked vegetable side dishes and keep in a jar in the fridge. This makes good stock and provides vitamins.
Other good protein sources include soybean and peanuts which may be substituted for meat.
Proper use of leftovers and food scraps can stretch protein and provide additional meals.
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