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Roger Rabbits with |
You don’t achieve a body mass index like mine without being a slave to cake. See cake, want cake, scoff cake.
So when “war cake” cropped up in an Anzac discussion, the antennae twitched, started scanning, seeking, smelling…for cake.
In fact “war cake” is not “war cake”, but then it was. For a while. The confusion was over global calamities. “War cake” is sometimes known as impossible cake, crazy cake, lazy cake, whacky cake…or “depression cake”.
“Depression” is right – whacky is right – a cake made without butter, eggs or milk. Why bother? “Depression cake anyone? No thank you, I am already feeling down.”
Cake can be depressing and deadly. Marie Antoinette, the last French Queen, infamously said, or nobly didn’t say: “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” – “let them eat brioche”, or cake, when told the peasants were starving. Brioche is way fancier than bread. But style accounted for nothing and they cut off Marie’s head for her cake indiscretion. That’s depressing.
Actually war cake has its origins in the Great Depression. But Kiwis didn’t need some highfalutin European royal to tell us to eat “war cake”. Necessity being the mother of invention, inspired chefs came up with creative solutions to shortages – like a delicious, cheap, moist dairy-free and vegan chocolate cake without the scarce butter, eggs and milk. You didn’t have to go without, you just had to compromise.
‘Something in the tins’
There were much bigger problems at the time – the invasion of Poland, Pearl Harbour, Nippon creeping in the Pacific, Dunkirk and atomic bombs. But New Zealand was absorbed with maintaining a supply line of make-do chocolate cake.
Afterall, even in war, there had to be ”something in the tins” – just in case Aunty Ruby and uncle dropped in for a cuppa and a fag. Before the Japanese did.
Then during World War II – when essentials were siphoned off to support the war effort abroad – Depression Cake was re-popularised. It was probably one of the few good things to come out of war. Perhaps then, it warrants being called “war cake”. It gives meaning and gravitas to a chocolate cake without butter, eggs or milk. War cake sounds strong and assertive, “depression cake” sounds submissive. I’d buy one, but not the other, even if they’re the same thing.
That’s when we got thinking about other wartime offerings.
A crap pie
Like Woolton pie, named for the wartime British Minister of Food. A pie of root veggies and oats – but people couldn’t get their heads around a pie devoid of meat. People hated the eponymous Woolton pie. That’s the man’s legacy – a crap pie.
Recipe books contained, out of necessity, a lot of vegetarian dishes.
These will have you slavering – parsnip or mock oyster soup, vegetarian corn roast, lettuce and egg soup, mock hearts and celery custard.
When the real thing was unavailable, they mimicked the taste and texture by substituting other stuff. Mock chicken, for example, had never been within a cluck of a chicken coop. It was a meat-free stuffing mixture made to look like chicken. Why call it something it wasn’t? And can you imagine hankering for a mock fish and mock banana sandwich? Nuh!
Mock fish was ground rice, milk, onion or leek, margarine, and seasoning, cut into fish shapes, and deep-fried. Mmm!
Uncle John
“Popular creative wartime cooking” reminded a good friend of his “Uncle John”, a prisoner of war chef who joined a large family holiday in the south of France just after the war. He assigned himself to the one-man cooking detail for the duration which meant everyone ate “POW food” for a fortnight. Like his signature dish of hard-boiled eggs and chopped raw onion mixed together. And in an area famous for bouillabaisse and cassoulet. “Sacre bleu!”
A World War II cookbook author suggested there was no shame in giving up flesh-food. “They can’t be labelled ‘vegetarian’ the author re-assured red-blooded Kiwi males. “They’re just would-be meat-eaters who can’t afford to eat meat.” Or there was no meat.
Extending stuff
Extending food, making things go further, tested cooking and meal planning like the World War II grandparents who’d make a “sausage stew” with just two sausages to feed a family of six.
Wartime cooking suggestions always aimed at extracting the most from rations. For example – “How to extend butter” which involved gelatine and top milk – non-homogenised milk which produces great globs of yellowish cream rising to top. Feel the aorta clogging?
Or “Butter Spread that Looks Convincing” but doesn’t sound convincing.
Think 1/2lb of vegetable fat, full cream milk powder, salt and food colouring. Needs must, I suppose.
And there was the old fallback – spam. “Spam egg spam spam bacon and spam.” The wonderful Monty Python spam skit later became more famous than spam itself. Spam – processed pork in a tin, high in sodium and saturated fat. So check this World War II ration favourite. “My mum sliced spam, dipped it in batter and fried it, made great butties, or as a meal with chips.” Break out the defibrillator. Now. Please.