Fish during the War Years - Frugal and Healthy for You!

Fish was one of the foods during the wartime that wasn't rationed but sometimes in short supply and the variety was limited. If you had good access to fish, you could have as much as you wanted or could afford. In the UK many fisherman were away serving in the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy so the available fisherman would have been either too old for service or unable to fight for a variety of reasons. Fish was often not as fresh as it could be as it had to be transported to the fish shops throughout the country. Therefore a lot of the recipes from this time use strong flavourings such as spices to add flavour and disguise any lack of freshness.

Here in New Zealand, fish availability dropped significantly as the government required fishing vessels for the military and defence purposes but if you had access to fish yourself it certainly would have made a nice change in the diet.

There is certainly no shortage of fish recipes from the wartime era in British recipe books.

"Our Sailors don't mind risking their lives to feed you and your family, but they do mind if you help the U-boats by wasting food."

Wartime cooking was all about frugality, no waste and creativity with recipes depending on what you had available to you.  These recipes are also quite easy and most are not time consuming. Housewives in the 1940's were busy and actually didn't have hours to spend in the kitchen at meal times. Queuing for groceries, housework, looking after young children and doing some local volunteer work took up most of the day, plus there was gardening and tending to a vegetable patch. So when it was dinner time, meals needed to be easy and on the table quickly.

A housewife living close to the sea would have different ingredients available to her from a housewife living in the city or on a farm. 

"We''ll Eat Again" wartime recipe book has 17 recipes for fish main meals and the one I chose to cook for dinner this week is:

 Fish Bake.

Cooking time: 45 minutes            Quantity feeds: 4 people

1lb potatoes (approximately 450 grams)

salt and pepper

2 large onions

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1 1/2 lb fish, cooked and flaked - cod, haddock, hake or mackerel

1/4 pint milk

Method: 

Grease a shallow casserole well. Put a layer of grated potato on the bottom, season well, add a sprinkling of the onion and parsley, then a layer of fish; continue filling the casserole like this ending with potato. Pour over the milk. Cover with a piece of greased paper, then put on the lid, ( or use tinfoil as I did ). Bake in the centre of a moderately hot oven for a good 30 minutes. This may be served hot or cold.

This can be served with your choice of salad or vegetables.

This recipe was definitely tasty and easy to cook and my family enjoyed it. To make it even more cost effective, I used a large tin of smoked fish fillets as fresh fish is expensive. It worked really well and the smoke flavour really added a little extra to the flavour of this dish.

I hope you all have a blessed week and thanks for being here.

Love, Fiona

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble." Psalm 46:1