LADIES’ PAGE
Food shortage will try many of our souls worse than bombs, because it prevents us from ministering properly to our families. No kitchen skill and no ingenuity in catering can make adequate food out of insufficient supplies. I see Dr. Hinhede's cheap menus, published by the Danish Government, often now referred to in newspapers. But those menus, as well as the usual vegetarian cookery-books, are quite useless for present circumstances. Denmark was a great butter-exporting country; therefore it had left over quantities of skimmed milk to dispose of at home at very low prices; and eggs were produced and marketed there by a great organisation, which made them abundant and cheap. Recipes like Dr. Hinhede's— which are based on freely flowing skim milk, on eggs at three-farthings each, and on margarine at eightpence per pound, with plenty of cheap wheaten flour and rye flour—are, unfortunately, of no use to us now. What we have— potatoes and other roots, green vegetables, dried peas and beans, oatmeal, the farinaceous foods, such as rice, sago. tapioca—suffice partially to "fill the vacuum," so far as feeling goes, but it is not possible to make them either nice and palatable or adequately nourishing with-out the use of fats, or milk, eggs, and wheaten flour. I know a number of recipes for making nice dishes from potatoes, but all need either frying in fat (and we know that margarine, even if we got enough, does not fry things properly), or mashing up with butter or with eggs, or coating with beaten egg and crumbs or flour. Still, we must do the best we can, and use all available flavourings, diversified as much as possible.
I strongly advise my sister housewives to put aside prejudice and try the family with garlic, without saying anything about it and without overdoing that strong flavour—a very tiny bit suffices. Here is a ragout of potatoes. Boil in their skins, not too soft, peel, and cut in moderate-sized chunks. Have ready a sauce, of milk if possible, but otherwise of water, made to the consistence of double cream with flour or cornflour; season, and stir in a bit of garlic the size of a pea crushed up to mash on a plate. Put potatoes in till hot again, and serve as a dish by itself. If the family say, "Ugh, how horrid!"— well, you must give it up; but very likely they'll love it.
Another dish is the same, without garlic, and the sauce —made rather thicker—spread over the sliced potatoes in a pie-dish, well sprinkled with grated cheese, and browned in the oven or under the gas-grill. A good variation of this is to omit the cheese, but flavour the sauce with dried thyme rubbed to powder, and sprinkle fresh finely chopped parsley over the surface after taking from the oven. Potage Perigord, a delicious soup, is made by boiling a clove or two of garlic and either fresh or tinned tomatoes together in water till the flavour is extracted, strain them out, and thicken the liquor with cornflour, allowing one beaten egg in the tureen for each pint.
[Here's a quote from Wikipedia about Dr. Hinhede: "Hindhede was the manager of the Danish National Laboratory for Nutrition Research in Copenhagen 1910 – 32 and food advisor to the Danish government during World War I.
On his suggestion, much of the pigs were sold off and the number of cows for dairy was reduced by one third. Alcohol production was also limited. The agricultural food freed that way was used for human consumption. With these measures, not only could famines be completely avoided during the allied blockade in 1917 and 1918, the death rate also sank to the lowest number ever. Germany had more food per capita, but a larger share was used for animal production, and famine was widespread in 1918.
I am surprised to read the advice to use garlic, and that garlic was available in 1918. It was viewed with great suspicion in British cookery later on (see here, for instance) and not commonly used in kitchens, even after World War II, as far as I know.]
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