The Joy of Cooking - 1946 & a Recipe

My cute little WWII ration cookbook collection!

I've had another recent, fun addition to my rationing cookbook collection! I was browsing at my favorite used book shop, WonderBook, when I came across this The Joy of Cooking edition, published, I believe, in 1946. While it is one year after the end of WWII, it had the most interesting preface from their 1943 edition! (I wish I could find that edition too!) I'm not sure why it's included in this copy in this way, and it's not very clear what the 'emergency chapters' refer to, but it's still interesting.

In this preface it states, "When the revision of this book was begun a year ago we had no intimation that international obligations would lead our land of plenty to ration cards. It now goes to print with a number of emergency chapters added, written to make the difficulties that beset the present-day cook.
"It has been a pleasure to compile this record of our American way of life. Tradition speaks to us in its pages, a tradition of plenty which should always be ours, and which will be, with the intelligent use of our mighty weapon, the cooking spoon."

Cool!



 From what I can see the 'emergency chapters' they refer to that aid the wartime home cook might be "Invalid and Convalescent Cookery", "Recipes and Suggestions for Left-Over Foods", "Suggestions for Streamlined Menu-Making", "Streamlined Menus", "Health Chart", "Vitamin Chart", "Calorie Chart", "Menus". It's just not really clear. The real way to tell would be to find the earlier edition, before 1943 and compare. Sounds like a fun, sleuthing job!


On another note, as I need to bake or cook different things, I've been trying to turn to my ration recipes first. For example, a few weeks ago I got a bunch of strawberries on sale and wanted to make Strawberry Shortcake. I usually use my '90s edition of Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, but this time I found a recipe in my 1944 H-for-V booklet. It turned out quite delicious and some of the best shortcake I've ever made!


Basic Special Shortcake
1944 Year 'Round Edition
Westinghouse Health for Victory Cookbook