Victory Gardens and Ration Books

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Women's Committee, Councils of National and State Defense of California. 

Liberty Cook Book 

Los Angeles: Los Angeles Teachers Club, c. 1917

Includes recipes for breads and cakes, with a notable ‘eggless-butterless-milkless cake’ and suggestions for conservation menus. 

Click the cover to read the book

TX715.L53 1917z 

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General Mills, Inc. 

The Stars of Western Cookery Present a Round-up of Wartime Recipes 

San Francisco: Sperry Flour, c. 1944

Featured experts included were Dorothy Dean, a columnist from the Spokane Spokesman-Review, Pauline Edwards from the Fresno Bee, Marian Manners of the Los Angeles Times, Katherine Kitchen of the Sacramento Bee, Dorothy Neighbors of the Seattle Times, among others.  

TX357.S73 1944 

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Pet Milk Company 

Tempting, Thrifty, Wartime Meals for 2 and 4 and 6 

St. Louis: Pet Milk Co., 1942

A guide to meatless meals and meals with meat extenders—often cheese and evaporated milk. 

TX759.5.M54 T46 

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The Borden Co.  

374 Ways to Use Cream, or, Can War Meals Be Delicious Meals, Too? 

The Borden Co., 1942

From the introduction, “these days you’re just plain busy. Busy keeping house, or knitting sweaters, or driving a car or ambulance, or planning your Victory Garden. Busy taking courses in first aid or nutrition. This booklet offers 374 good answers to your many mealtime problems.” 

TX759.5 M54 A14 1942 

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Swans Down   

How to Bake by the Ration Book 

New York: G.F. Corp., c. 1943

Swans Down, a major producer of cake flour, published this guide to baking which opens with the promise “here’s the good news, straight…you can have cakes as light, tender, and delicious as in the good old unrationed days!” 

TX765.H84 1943 

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Martha Hunt

Delicious Nutritious Ration Aid Recipes 

United States: Albers Milling Company, c. 1943

A corporate advertisement cookbook, featuring meal stretching options using oats.

TX809.O23 H86 1943 

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Home Service Department, Potomac Edison System 

Reddy Made Recipes and Menus 

United States: Home Service Department, Potomac Edison System, c. 1943

From the introduction, “the food situation seems to change from day-to-day. We have no inside information as to what will happen, but it seems to us from our reading of many authorities that the following statements will be true for a number of months to come: sugar will be rationed. Cooking fats and oils will be scarce. Butter will be available at high prices; supply of wheat flour will be limited…eggs and poultry will be scarce and high priced. Meat supply will grow less and less. Milk may be higher in price, but do not cut down on the amount you buy.” 

TX715.R4458 1943 

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Ruth Berolzheimer (1886 -1965)

The American Woman’s Food Stretcher Cook Book 

Chicago: Published for Culinary Arts Institute by Consolidated Book Publishers, Inc., c. 1943

Ruch Berolzheimer was born in Missouri and grew up in a Jewish family in Chicago.  She attended the University of Illinois in Champaign, graduating in 1908 with a degree in chemical engineering.  She was a social worker in Milwaukee, before moving to New York where she was the managing editor of Good Eating Magazine, and later as editor and director of Consolidated Book Publishers, Inc. at the Chicago Culinary Arts Institute, one of the nation’s largest publishers of cookbooks in the early 20th century.  

TX715.A54 1943 

Victory Gardens and Ration Books