What other powers from WWII would you like to see me cover in this series? Also, here is the newsreel I mentioned in the video. ua-cam.com/video/PDR0MAscaCw/v-deo.html
Born in 1941, my parents jokingly, referred to me as a "bonus baby", as my arrival meant an increase in the household's sugar and coffee rationing stamps. In fact, I still have, 80 years later, a couple of those old rationing booklets, with a few unused stamps that were left when rationing was lifted at war's end.
Sir. You've had one hell of a life. I ask that you consider writing these things down. Collecting them in a book. Be it physical or digital. Preferrably both. That way at least part of you won't be lost to those of us who haven't seen the sorts of things you have. First hand accounts are important, you might not think your life is remarkable, but consider this. you lived through: ww2 if only technically, the korean war, vietnam, Gulf War, Our excursions into afganistan and iraq (Gulf War 2.) The transition from propeller drivne aircraft to jets, to the normalization of air travel. The Patriot Act and all that entails The Red Scare The popularization and widespread adoption of TV Color TV Cable TV Streaming TV The Space Race The Birth of Computers The Shrinking of those computers first from buildings, to rooms, to refridgerators, to desks, then desktops, and now something you can put in a pocket. Artificial limbs going from wooden affairs mainly meant to make at a glance appearnace of normalcy, to nearly full articulation of whole hands with limited feedbackfrom touch and temperature. The eradication of Polio AIDS and it's turning from a death sentance, to something that can be managed to the point that it is undetectable and untransmittable if you're on proper medication. The US becoming the last country in the world to not use metric in consumer products. The Rise of Electric Vehicles. ....You've been through a lot sir. I implore you consider making this something that can be shared even if just for family or the local library.
My grandmother always talked about the emergency steak she made....for my dad. My dad would always refer to it as meatloaf, which would irritate my grandmother. Good times
!!! YES PLEASE !!! Do a video on the internment camp gardens. Not only do I think that topic would be very interesting, but also I think Americans need to be faced with the reality of that part of our history. We need to remember a more complete version of what we as Americans have done in our past so that hopefully we learn from our mistakes. Thank you Max for sharing not only your zeal for food and cooking, but also your passion for accurate knowledge of history.
My grandmother was interned at Poston II when she was about 6. She still remembers her family losing their strawberry farm, only to then be ordered to grow cantaloupes in Arizona. The internment camp victory gardens were not entirely voluntary, though my great grandparents did use it to feed their kids fresh foods. The camps were deliberately placed in "unproductive" plots of land, and were then cultivated using essentially prisoner labor.
I was puzzled at first by this, in Montana Japanese-American farmers kept their land & stayed here as they were needed for agriculture. But we crop farm here, things like wheat & barley & alfalfa, our season is too short for commercial produce beyond a few orchards. I am guessing crop farmers were prioritized over produce, which is horrible for those who just happened to live in warmer climates. I live less than 2 hrs from Heart Mountain but am just learning the story in greater detail, while families who were imprisoned did come to Montana after the war, few spoke of it, and the old local families did not experience it, which is good but can’t really celebrate that since so many others did. And it was just economics not ethics.
I would love to see a video on the Japanese internment camps! My auntie was put in the camps when she was 9. Her family had a farm in California. A neighbor bought the farm when they were forced to leave, kept it for the years they were gone, and gave it back to them when they were released. I always loved that story of kindness.
That is awesome. That level of kindness is truly exceptional. Also many Japanese-Americans from the camps enlisted in the famed 442nd Battalion to fight the Germans and served this country with honor.
My grandma used to talk about her memories of rationing. She was a teenager during WWII, and one of the things she found hardest was the shortage of nylon stockings. One time she was able to finally get a new pair, but she accidentally left them on the bus on the way home. She was still mad about that 70 years later!
People often talk about turning to hunting and fishing for meat in a situation like that, but the fact is during the Great Depression wild animals like deer, elk, and wild turkeys and wild fish like trout and bass were hunted / fished almost to extinction in many parts of the US before rationing even happened. It took decades and fish and game reintroduction and management to bring the wildlife populations back to normal.
Correct, after decades of conservation efforts we have now brought the whitetail population back to higher the population they were in North America pre Columbus. Now time to fix the elk population! Kentucky is doing it right now, hopefully the rest of the east will follow.
@@Epvil The only real threat at this point is CWD and over-population in areas. All of the Cervidae are at risk and being prion-based it can devastate a region. God help us if it finds a way to jump the species gap.
Both of my grandmothers were born in 1915. They grew up during depression and through WWII. They, and my mom taught me to cook and all about economizing when necessary. I grew up with "emergency steaks" and "meat loaf" and both were always stretched with oatmeal and an egg or two as a binder. They both had gardens and chickens. Even today, I use oatmeal and egg when I make meatloaf or burger patties. It tends to make them juicier. I think crushed Wheaties would impart a teeny bit of malted barley flavor, which would be fantastic. I am going to give that a whirl on meatloaf night. 😀
I would have begged to join the army. I can't stand any meat that's not whole, lean and tender. I normally fish because fish are lean and tender but fish needs lots of different sauce, bread and salad to be tolerable to survive in for 2 years.
My mother was English and lived there during the war. Growing up, she used to tell us how little food they had to survive on. My father was an American GI and, of course, had access to American rations. I was born in August of 45. Shortly after my birth a social worker came to my mother's house and ask why she had not picked up the imitation vitamin C drops for me. My mother brought her into the parlor and showed her a huge bowl of oranges my father had given her. Remember, they had not seen fresh oranges in several years. The social worker shyly asked if she could have one. My mother gave her a couple.
What a great story! I've been looking into my family history, but I can't know about these little moments of their lives through reading their names in a census. Thanks for keeping your family history alive by telling the stories.
Wonderful story. Thank you for sharing ❤ your mother was lovely for giving her a couple. I bet they were the best oranges that social worker ever tasted
@@Mr.56Goldtop She wouldn't have had the power to confiscate anything, even if the oranges had come from the black market rather than a legitimate source.
Reminds me of stories of Axis soldiers they knew the war was lost when they found out enlisted GIs were eating better then Axis officers with real chocolate, sugar, ice cream, and actual tobacco cigarettes
My neighborhood was built in the 40s and a lot of the houses still have old rabbit hutches that people used to raise rabbits for meat during the war. They are all just used as storage spaces around me now- most people don't know what they were for. Regarding the Japanese internment camps: the internees were not necessarily making Victory Gardens- the government wanted the camps to be self-sufficient and demanded production. The internees just happened to be so good at farming they produced big surpluses (on what was also pretty garbage land, by the way). This would be a good story to look into- it shouldn't be forgotten.
Huh, I think you just answered the mystery outcropping on my house (1941). Was thinking chicken coup but didn't look right, rabbits would make a lot more sense. Thank you.
In the great depression my grandfather raised pigeons in the garage, which was not for a car but for storing wagon and push mower and tools. And rabbits. The entire yard front and back on a city lot in Chicago was planted in vegies and the whole block grew different stuff so they shared with each other. There was plenty of horse manure in the street.
Agreed this would be a great story to share. If he wants to do more WW2 stories after covering the Japanese interment cooking rationing also occurred at restaurants and that would be another interesting homefront point of view.
@9:35 i know some fun facts about the rubber shortages! Because the US imported so much rubber, they had to develop a synthetic rubber to replace it. Once they created it, the US government contracted a company called B.F. Goodrich to convert an old oil refinery in Louisville Kentucky to a synthetic rubber plant. The location is called Rubbertown now. They chose the city because they calculated that no foreign bombers had the fuel capacity to hit it and return to a coast to land on a carrier. The plant was massive, like 2 square miles. They still have the old watch towers from the war where they would guard for air raids. There's an old submarine buried on the land that is used as file storage now. The plant sold off more than half its land to a half dozen other chemical plants, but its still one of the largest producers of synthetic rubber in America.
I've commented this on many of your videos but this series is a perfect opportunity to make a video on blockade bread from the siege of Leningrad. Somewhat sad story but my professor in undergrad told us about how there is a museum of bread in St Petersburg that she visited while studying there. Most of the workers in the museum were older women but she didn't really think much of it. Well when one of the ladies was talking to her about the blockade bread, she got very emotional and started crying. She didn't connect it until later that the lady was probably the correct age to have been a survivor of the siege, thus the exhibit probably was very personal to her.
I know you've probably gotten this suggestion a lot, but the inventor of Tiramisu just passed away, and I would love to hear his story since it ended so recently and, until he died, I was unaware that the invention of Tiramisu was even in living memory. Fantastic vid as always, can't wait to see more of this series!
I love your suggestion for a tiramisu history video from Max! If you're interested, a coffee UA-camr named James Hoffmann did a video about tiramisu with the inventor's family and I thought it was great. ua-cam.com/video/oWMbuTc7iIU/v-deo.html
My mom grew up in the '30s-early '40s, she inherited this cookbook from her mother. My dad was a POW for the 2nd half the war, his PTSD caught up with him in the '60s, when I was growing up, and his descent into alcoholism impoverished our family. My mother made the Wheaties and milk steak a lot for dinner. There were four of us kids. She would make a mushroom gravy and we'd have it with mashed potatoes and roasted carrots. We liked it, it was really quite a delicious meal. None of us complained. My mom died 30 years ago. I don't know what happened to the cookbook. One of my siblings has it probably.
It was tragic and appalling that the government did not even admit that PTSD existed - there was no counselling for trauma in those dark days after the war. No wonder men medicated themselves with alcohol - which only made their symptoms worse, and made life hell for their wives and children. The same thing happened here in Australia when the men returned from both world wars. I'm truly sorry that you witnessed your father's torment when you were a kid.
@@pollywaffledoodah3057 It's not so much a problem of the government admitting it existed though, nobody really knew about it at the time. Some would speak of "shell shock" or "battle fatigue" but only for active soldiers, not for long-term psychological consequences after their return to civil life. The research about what would be named PTSD began in the 50s, and the term "post-traumatic stress disorder" was coined in 1978.
@@pollywaffledoodah3057 I have a copy of a booklet issued by the American Airforce in June of '45 called Coming Home which was meant to help service men after the war. It talked about how to get back into regular life, to do things they used to do before the war like hobbies and also deal with their thoughts and emotions, etc. It also suggested that they get medical help and if needed to talk to a psychiatrist . There's more but these were things that jumped out at me. I'd always heard that there was no help for service men after the Second World War but this booklet showed that there was some kind of help issued in the form of this booklet. And, yes, there was no mention of PTSD in it but that would be expected of the times since I think that wording came out much later.
@@_asphobelle6887 Exactly right. My dad never spoke about his war experiences. Never. He went into the hospital in 1972 when I was 15. After a few months he started having hallucinations, and I watched him relive the moment of his capture. He was terrified. He eventually died of an alcoholic's disease. Only many years after his death did I start to research his war experiences, some of it is well-documented, and only then did I really discover what he went through in the war. It was exceedingly brutal. He was too stoic to ever seek help, that is how men of that generation were.
It's a Salisbury steak, only cosplaying as a T-bone. And it's got extra fiber so it's packed with more than just protein. I feel like as much as rationing was a hardship for some, it had lessons we could probably learn from today. I look forward to the other videos forthcoming in this series!
@@ginacirelli1581 it's not what you cook, it's what you cook with. Fresh ingredients are often better than processed, but fresh may be covered in pesticides, juiced up on chemical fertilizers and hormones, and be genetically modified. Cooking your own food is FAR cheaper and can easily be healthier than than pre-made foods and "out food". If you want to get back to basics, you would have to practically go back to homesteading. But that is a couple few hours a day minimum just in upkeep, and getting started can take even more time and labor. It's best to find a practical middle ground you can be happy with. Again, the recipe has little to do with the quality of the food, it's the quality of the ingredients.
When I was in grad school, I took a class on the history of costume (clothing) and we all had to write a paper profiling a specific garment in our university’s fashion museum. I wrote about a WWII era women’s outfit that was made without lining or decorative buttons to fit the fabric and clothing rationing imposed on manufacturers. Our library had an extant 1940s book called How To Dress In Wartime that I was able to read and check out.
Thanks to you. I’ve been able to nail down my late grandmothers meatloaf recipe. It turned out it was just emergency steak. For the first time since her passing I’ve been able to recreate her meatloaf and it’s just as delicious as I remember it!
Oh I hope he covers "Mock Fish & Chips" from the UK perspective - particularly as I remember Heston Bluthmenthal talking about and how Churchill had tried to do all he could to avoid rationing the British staple as it would impact moral, yet despite this attacks on fishermen and boats led to shortages resulting in a mock recipe to make fish fillets out things like rice, milk and anchovy paste... that or Wooten Pie, named after the Minister for Food, which is about as vegetable as you can get.
My grandmother used to make these when I was a kid in the 90's. She crushed the cereal and soaked them in the milk while she chopped the onions and got black-eyed peas started to cook. It was one of my favorite meals to eat when I was younger.
@@salaama9that is exactly how it should be done. You do the same method when making meatballs or meatloaf by soaking cut up white bread in milk then mixing the mushy bread into the ground meat.
So I was blessed to grow up not even a block away from one of the last remaining victory gardens in the US (obviously some that were by homeowners might still be around but there’s not many community victory gardens left from WW2). My family didn’t have a plot but a friends family did and it was a foundational part of my childhood experience. When I house-sit for my parents, I still take the time to walk through the gardens just to see what is being grown. Most people aren’t using their plots for food anymore so you’re guaranteed to see both beautiful flowers and big tomatoes within 20 feet of each other in two completely different plots.
My parents were both born in the 1920s. Because if the depression both sets of my grandparents already had thriving gardens and both grandmas canned like fiends when the gardens came in so they had plenty for all winter. Both kept chickens for fresh eggs and meat, and one also had access to pigs and a couple of dairy cows. They both lived near towns but had enough land to work with. My Mom's stories of having strangers with hungry families coming to their door asking for help were heartbreaking. Things like this prepared that "Greatest Generation" for the hardship and sacrifice needed during the war.
@@cv990a4 I can't find the exact one now, but there was a song from that era about eating nothing but bacon and beans. The chorus was something like, "I've eaten so much bacon and beans / I see 'em in my dreams".
My grandma has told me a story of how her dad wasn't allowed to join the army. He was a mechanic in Philadelphia who kept the buses going. The buses that everyone relied on to get to work every day. I guess he was so good at his job that he was termed essential to the war effort or something like that.
My paternal grandfather was an apothecary, and thus essential personnel. My maternal grandfather was a merchant marine in the Pacific theater. Also essential personnel, since he was providing supplies to various locations.
Reserved occupation is the phrase you're looking for. My maternal granddad was a farmer so stayed on the home front, but served in "Dad's Army" defending Northern England, and also had POWs working on his farm (he said they were hard working men caught in a bad situation).
A mechanic who actually does good work and leaves his customers satisfied? Yeah, no kidding, he was essential! An honest mechanic is as rare as a white bison.
Yeah I bet he was needed! Philly was a hive activity with the naval shipyard and the shipyard in Camden along with a few refineries and DuPont factories around!
@@Zerbey My paternal grandfather had a one man chicken farm in Southern New Jersey, might have had a few sheep and goats too and did some labor in a nearby small town and being in his early thirties by the time the US joined made him low on the draft list. I do remember him being annoyed that the army airforce pilots from the nearby training base would buzz his field scaring the chickens.
My grandma had a few ration stamps long after WWII that she showed me when I was learning about WWII. She would use only public transportation to places out of walking distance. Had her victory garden and a few chickens she raised for eggs that she'd share with her neighbours. She kept a bee hive for honey, She went mostly Vegetarian during the war. I loved hearing her stories about living during wartime. Her stories about WWII and The Great Depression taught me about history.
My parents married in 39...lived through the war and rationing. Dad was an essential worker and had a really gimpy leg but he worked building tanks...and my mother worked making munitions and repairing Tanks. They had a good income, buying a house and renting an apartment for extra. My mother hated cooking so they often ate out. But she could sew and keep house so they fare well. All her life, til she was 101 years old, she kept scraps of aluminum and anything that could be reused. Cleaning out her house when she passed required a dumpster and a year of work.
During the war, all of my grandparents were trying to feed big farm families. Both of my grandfathers and all of my great uncles became excellent trappers and small game hunters during the depression, so at least they could usually get meat on short notice. One of grandma's old cook books had notes in the margins on how to adjust recipes for everything from squirrels and gophers to muskrats and woodchucks.
As a kid in the 1960s I remember seeing Warner Bros. cartoons that showed WWII rationing. One had a woman go into a butcher shop, takes a big sniff of a steak and being charged for it. 😅
🤣 The one that sticks with me is Daffy Duck laying aluminum or steel eggs for the war instead of gold. Those cartoons were fascinating to me as a kid since the jokes offered a very unique glimpse into daily life during WWII in America.
Walking past a store and looking at some sugar and the clerk running after you like a pimp wanting his money... You looked at the goods you gotta pay!.
Tanaka Farms in Irvine, CA is one of the last Japanese-American owned farms in Southern California. Many did not survive the war for obvious reasons and the one that did have been slowly closing. Come and visit! They have strawberry and veggie picking and various events throughout the year.
Thank you so much for talking about the Japanese internment during WWII. As a Japanese American whose family was in the US and interned during WWII. It gets brushed over A LOT when talking about WWII in the US and a lot of people underestimate how much Japanese Americans contributed to US agriculture and how much they lost during the internment. The camps were built in blazing deserts with sandy soil, yet with a lot of care and hard work, many were able to make gardens flourish. I would love to hear your dive into what the Japanese Americans ate in the internment camps. I remember my Grandma telling me stories about how food was often split up between the Issei (first generation) and Nisei (second generation). The Issei tended to want more traditional Japanese foods and often tried to make substitutions (dishes like teriyaki fried spam) while the Nisei would be happy with more classical "American" foods like hot dogs. My family still enjoys spam as it was such as staple in my Grandma's childhood. An interesting area that you might want to look into is mochi. Mochi is an essential part of Japanese culture and there's pretty much no New Years celebration without mochi. Many of the interned Japanese Americans weren't given access to the glutenous rice needed for mochi, so they made due with regular steamed rice and added their sugar rations in. My Grandma remembers that what was made wasn't quite mochi, but it made her happy to have something close to familiar. If you're interested in mochi (and if I'm correct about you being in LA) then I would recommend trying to get into contact with a Japanese mochi shop called Fugetsu-Do. They've a family run business that's been in Little Tokyo in LA since 1903. During the war, they lost their business and were interned. One of the family members continued making mochi and manju for his fellow detainees. The same family still runs the shop (4th generation now) and they really love sharing the history of Japanese Americans so you may be able to get some inspiration from them.
To be fair to the US citizens at the time, if they knew where the bulk of their fresh fruit/veggies came from they would have been lynched...especially since the attack on Pearl Harbor had just happened even though those immigrants had nothing to do with it nor any knowledge of it they would have been seen as the enemy even though they were US citizens as well.
I know at least in AZ and CO, the internment camps were built on Indian reservations and partially funded with money that had been promised to the tribes kept there. I got to meet a group of survivors who grew up as kids across from the internment camps and they had some fascinating stories from the time. Several described the children from both the reservation and the camps being allowed to play together. The adults were kept separate, but would meet by the gates to exchange goods at night. They said they were all jealous of the nice new homes, which had running water and hoped that once the Japanese left, the tribe would get to use them. I think that actually happened at some of the camps, but one lady said that when the Japanese left, they locked the camps up and then set fire to them, which really upset the ppl living in the reservation.
While preparing for my dad's funeral last year, Mom and I found his and his mother's ration books, including full sheets of stamps. Dad was born in the early '30s, and I wish I could have talked to him about life under rationing. I miss him.
My dad was born in 1930, and he didn't talk much about rationing, but his mom (my grandmother) did. Dad had a friend in grade school, whose family owned a blocks-long nursery on Los Feliz Blvd in Los Angeles area. They were sent to the Internment camps by Roosevelt, and that property, to this day, is apartment buildings. Until his dying day, my dad was still angry about that.
You can learn about it online through historians. It’s probably a more accurate example instead of listening to a old bag with no brain yap on about bs lol
I had both of my great-grandparents until I was about 12. They were born in 1921 and 1920. They both lived through the Depression and my grandfather flew in WW2. I was too young to care to ask about any of that stuff when they were alive, but I have a million questions I wish I could ask them about their experiences during the Depression and WW2.
@@seevee9271 I get you entirely. Am turning 74 in a few weeks, and here I am, the current matriarch of my branch of the family and I know less than half of what I'd like to about my Grandparents, or my parents. How wonderful for you that you had your Great Grands for so long. Such a privilege...
My mom lived trough the second world war in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. They suffered badly under German occupation. Things got so bad that there was hardly anything other than dried beans to eat, and people would try to eat the grass. Housecats were eaten, in fact so often that there was an eufemistic name for them, dakhaas. ("roof hare"). But here's a recipe for tulip bulbs. (Warning, these are often treated with pesticides these days and not fit for consumption. But they are apparently quite edible otherwise) It seems the tulip bulbs were used to stretch things that were scarce, like onions and potatoes. Stew with tulip bulbs Supplies 2 kg (cleaned) tulip bulbs, 2 kg potatoes and 4 kg red cabbage. Preparation *The tulip bulbs are cooked separately. * Cook the potatoes together with the red cabbage. * Then finish the stew with the tulip bulbs and little salt or spices.
@@katierasburn9571be QUITE careful because literally half is poisonous. It is the centre I think. There's stuff on it on.the internet but you certainly don't eat them whole.
I believe the inner part of tulips are toxic but the larger outer slices are fine. My moms friend was in the same position as a kid, remembers the nazis raiding her house with their jackboots on. Once they pulled out, they took EVERY BIT of food with them. Cats and dogs of Jews taken and those who died in the war were the first to go, along with tulips. They had to wait 2 weeks before the first Americans turned up and they had access to small amounts of real food but then still very little.
We lived on a family farm in New Hampshire during the War. Large gardens, some apple, pear, peach trees, a few milk cows, quite a few chickens, couple of pigs. My mother and grandmother made real butter a few times. Mostly we used the white margarine with the little package of yellow coloring included. (As I remember, the "store-bought" colored margarine wasn't available until several years after the War was over.) We ate lots of ground beef, and meatloaf. I remember some of the "beef" was really horsemeat. (I remember hearing about the "Horsemeat Scandal" in the news shortly after the War.) My brothers and sister and I often picked wild strawberries and blue berries in the summer which my mother and grandmother would use for pies, shortcake, and muffins. We would pick red clover blossoms and dry them on newspaper in the sun, which my grandmother used to make substitute tea. Yes - The main reason for gasoline rationing was the rubber shortage. School children did a lot of scrap paper and scrap metal collecting. Another item which grew wild on the farm was milkweed. We used to collect a lot of the pods which contained very light silk like fibers with seeds. These were in demand for aircrew flotation jackets or vests for water survival. My mother, aunts, grandmother, and great-grandmother were all great cooks as I remember. Nobody ever went hungry. (At 89, I can still "taste" my grandmother's strawberry shortcake with the wild strawberries, homemade biscuit, homemade whipped cream, and homemade real butter from the cow's milk.) My dear Japanese wife of over 50 years and a year younger than I, remembers similar rationing and food shortages during the War when her family lived in Formosa. Thanks for the video - brought back a lot of memories.
I'm from Wisconsin. In our state at least, margarine was legally mandated to be white so as to make it unappealing, due to the dairy industry being so influential. For a while it was even illegal. People used to cross the border to Illinois to buy margarine. Bob Uecker has claimed that he was born on such a trip.
I am a WW2 baby, and remember rationing in Britain well. The Royal Family set a good example by having hir meals within rationing limits. Buckingham Palace turned its elegant gardens into vegetable plots. And the royal Sunday roast into Cottage Pie for Monday''s dinner. The Roosevelts stayed at Buckingham Palace, and Eleanor was shocked at the painted line in bathtubs to minimise the wastage of hot water.
@@missgoodnfilthy2243Yes, only a mindless wokey would complain that we didn’t help the enemy that started a conflict that engulfed the whole globe and caused the deaths of tens of millions. Presumably you would have had the allies share their rations with the axis forces to make it fair?
You're doing pretty good being in your 90s. My grandpa is 95 this year. He's doing pretty good as well, but they just took his license away about a year ago. And we can see the decline the last few years.
Celeriac "steak" became quite common during WW2 here in Denmark due to meat rationing. And don't let the "steak" part fool you, it was just a thick slice of celeriac root, boiled, breaded, and pan fried. There were also lots and lots of ways to stretch the food. "When the purse is empty, the flour pot is deep". We were also encouraged to grow Victory Gardens here in Denmark. There was also a flourishing black market going on here. "Sortbørshajer", literally "black market sharks" is what we called the people engaging in trade in the ration stamps, and other sundry black marketeering. And yes, my country was known as the "whipped cream front", but I assure you we did put up resistance against the Germans. On the rationing, and when it ended for us? Well, coffee, the roasted beans that is, was here in Denmark the last consumable to be taken off of the rationing plan... In 19... 55.
I've heard the same thing done with mushroom, cauliflower, and any other vegetable where you can take a thick slice. It would be easier for me, as a homestead gardener, since I can't raise livestock.
This is exactly how Salisbury steak is made, except you use the grease from the meat to make gravy. My dad was born in '43 and hamburger steak aka Salisbury steak was one of his favorite childhood meals. It was how my grandmother stretched the hamburger they bought. She didn't use cereal or milk, she used oatmeal and eggs for the binder. They always had plenty of eggs because they had chickens.
My family always made meatloaf and/or meatballs with oatmeal rather than breadcrumbs, and I continued that tradition. Growing up we always had one of those big containers of oats in the cupboard because we used it for hot cereal in the winter, oatmeal cookies, and meatloaf.
I'm 33 as of today actually haha, I cook for both my parents born in '52 and '54. I make Salisbury Steak with a nice mushroom gravy and yes, it's very similar to meatloaf, I just use a few extra seasonings in the meat. It's a delicious meal if done right!!! Cheap and tasty!
My Great Uncle was a young teen when he and his family were sent to internment camps. They're from Portland, OR. He came home from school and was told to pack a suitcase. He didn't come home for years. And honestly I have no idea if they even had anything when they were released. Since so many took property of all sorts from the interned.
One Feather the chicken: This is my favorite( or personally favorite?) rationing story: My mother was born in 1933 in London. After the war started, the women and children were relocated. My mother ended up in Luton, England. As a child, she often told me the story of "One Feather." In order to have a chicken dinner on Christmas, they would rear a chicken from a chick over the year, feeding it scraps from the Victory garden. My mother said it was the one day a year she got to eat chicken. Early on, they had a chick who was, unfortunately, and accidentally, scalded by a dropped pot of hot water by my grandmother. As a result, the little chick only grew one feather. One Feather became my mother's pet and companion. Every year, grandfather Brooks, according to my mother, always had to get a bit drunk to dispatch the Christmas chicken. My mother begged for One Feather's life, but he/she was made ready for Christmas dinner. Although it was only a once a year treat, my mother did not eat chicken that year because of her love for "One Feather."
My grandmother still has her parents' ration books. She was also lucky enough to have one of the last rubber toys available before rationing took over. She was also small enough to ride the last functional bicycle available from her local store. It happened to be the decorative one from the store sign. Apparently it worked and it was just the right size for a toddler
I would be super interested in interment camp food! So many people don't know about the camps the way they should, and having the comparison could be a really helpful learning too. My grandmother also remembers growing up during WW2. Her family never hurt for dairy because my great grandpa worked for the local dairy!
My parents (born in '39 and '41) grew up with rationing. My mom's family had a "Victory Garden" that was so they could have fresh produce, vegetables and herbs mostly, whenever they could grow through the Spring and Summer. My mom even called our family garden a "Victory Garden" when I was growing up. PBS had a television show called: "The Victory Garden" that mom watched regularly.
I remember that show! My parents moved to a small farm when I was 9, because they were worried about my dad's job. Mom wasn't taught any gardening, & was self trained for cooking, but she was determined to figure it out. We watched Victory Garden, had a subscription to Organic Gardening magazine, & had huge gardens, raised beef cows and had chickens. To this day I get edgy if I don't make at least a token effort to put something up for the winter season.
I remember as a child going through my grandma's junk drawer. She had several war ration coupon books for meat and butter. My grandparents owned a small farm and raised livestock and didn't use the coupons. My other grandpa and I were in the hardware store and a little old man from church walked past and grandpa said loud enough for him to hear "thief". The man also had a farm and sold watered down milk. Townsfolk grew sceptical of all the farmers after that. Grandpa quit selling their milk and he still resented him thirty yesrs later because all of the farmers could have used the cash from the milk.
@@MrWhateverfits Assuming you're not trolling here (which I'm pretty sure you are, but on the 1% chance you're not)- skim milk wasn't a thing at the time, afaik. Milk was either whole milk, cream, buttermilk, condensed milk, or evaporated milk. There was no skim, no 1% or 2%. Milk was either as thick as it came out of the cow or it was watered down by greedy profiteers. It'd be like paying for a shot of whiskey and getting something beer-strength, aka a scam.
@@ubervocal8777 Well then, I stand corrected! I didn't know that you could make skim milk or 1% back then. I thought it was newer, like late 50s early 60s. TIL, thanks for the info!
@@MissingmyBabbu Nah, hand cranked milk separators were a thing, my great aunt had one. Didn't get used any more, but she had it. Skim milk has been a thing as long as butter, it's what's left when you get the cream off. It's best used for making cheese, tastes horrible to drink.
My mother lived through WW2 in England. Her dad worked delivering coal and would often take delivery trips into the countryside. He would pass by orchards with no one available to pick the fruit, so they let him bring bags of it home if he would pick them. Mom had plenty to bring to school, which made her very popular.
Poor, poor, unhappy you Americans. You didn't have enough meat and sugar, you had to dilute the mince with chips. You didn't have enough tires and aluminum. And in the USSR, in the city of Leningrad, people lived 872 days during the blockade on bread and water. 500 grams of bread per day. On ration cards. 300 grams for children. 850 grams for those working in production. And they survived. And they defeated fascism.
@@Korrupted_dust English bot is a minor. If two people fight, it means an Englishman was passing by. And are you Indian or Chinese? Otherwise, there are no Englishmen left in your cock-and-bull England.
@@Korrupted_dust English bot is a minor. If two people fight, it means an Englishman was passing by. And are you Indian or Chinese? Otherwise, there are no Englishmen left in your cock-and-bull England.
This was such a fun video! WW2 is my favourite period of time to learn about. I restore old WW2 naval ships as my job, so it´s fun learning about what life was like back then, and connecting that to the ships I work on.
You have to remember that we where in the depression before the war. There where already Community Gardens where the Gov provided the seeds. Also a lot of people had gardens and raised Chickens and Rabbits. The only difference was there wasn’t a lot of money in the 30s to buy food, compared to everyone having jobs and money during the war, but limited supplies. Both scenarios required people to stretch their food.
@@HDBee My uncle, when asked about the Depression, would quip, “ Not so bad ! You could get a loaf of bread for a nickel. The problem was getting the nickel ! “ 😂
My cousin was imprisoned at Tule Lake. I would love to learn more about food in these camps-especially how farmers from California were able to grow food in the high desert environments where many of the prisons were placed.
As a high school class of 2014, this is a very limited and understated subject in American history. I'd love to see more attention towards this side of America that we literally had interment camps, and this lens would be very interesting indeed.
I helped my elderly aunt clear out her kitchen cupboards in the 1980’s for some carpenters to do some renovations (making a space for a microwave oven and installing a range hood, etc.). We found a quart canning jar full of “can keys”. Does anyone remember those ? I asked her why in the world she had kept them. “You couldn’t get those during the war” was her answer.
My great grandmother had a drawer of straightened twist ties and a drawer of washed out and neatly folded bread bags. When I asked her: it was because she didn't have Anything to put stuff in during the war.
My great-grandmother kept the box for everything she bought in the ceiling tiles in the house, and washed and reused aluminum foil and other items until she died in the early 2000's. She grew up during the Great Depression and WW2, so she saved and reused EVERYTHING for the rest of her life. She had the coolest kitchen I'd ever seen, with three gas-fired ovens stacked on top of each other so the heat from one rose and added to the heat of the one on top, increasing the efficiency, reducing the gas used, and decreasing the amount of cooking time for family dinners at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I've never seen another kitchen with that set up (apparently from the 1950's), but I've always wanted one if I had enough money and space. Her house was the only place you could make multiple roasts/baked goods in the oven at one time, and at different temperatures, efficiently. When she died, it took us 2 weeks to throw away empty boxes for things she'd kept above the ceiling tiles in the living room, den, and other rooms.
My father told stories of rations during WW2 and growing up his treat was mac and cheese. It seems like that was something his aunt could get with the rations that he enjoyed. Whenever we took him out to eat for a special meal, mac and cheese was his go to meal.
One of the reasons why the voice for the WW2 war movies and news reels sounded like looney Tunes characters was because Mel Blanc (the main voice for Looney Tunes) was the main voice actor under contract so he also did most of the War contracts
@@JohnDoe-420 yep those are still on UA-cam. Mr. Blanc does voices for those as well. I've seen ones for staying in the army after your Tour; caution against eating area foods; and censoring messages to home.
I was born within 20 years of the end of rationing in the UK. So my grandparents still had many of the recipes, pamphlets & eating habits of the period. So it was recreating war time recipes that got my interest in food history started. They say that the UK population was never healthier than when they were enduring rationing. I've cooked a lot of the dishes & enjoyed many, some making their way into my regular meal plans as they're tasty. The first one I cooked is still a favourite "Lord Woolton Pie". I had fun doing a bit of living history my only eating rationed WWII period amounts for a couple of months & felt really good on it. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
When I was growing up in my WWII Navy veteran household from 1946 to 1960 I had never tasted steak. The only meat we ever had was hamburger always stretched out with other ingredients and on very rare occasions we might have a arm or chuck roast. My mom loved to serve fried spam except she always bought Treet as her favorite brand. A holiday meal would be a canned ham or at Christmas the place my dad worked gave out food boxes with a whole ham with grapefruit, oranges and apples and candy in the huge box. It was so exciting when dad brought home that huge box of food. We ate on that ham for days after Christmas. My parents made ham and eggs, toasted ham sandwiches with barbecue sauce, ham and beans and we ate every bit. The only thing that was a little difficult was cutting the meat of the bone. My uncle bought a side of beef and gave us a huge sirloin steak in 1960 and my dad fashioned a grill by using a metal dishpan and put an oven rack over some charcoal briquettes and grilled the steak and I thought it was delicious. We would have oatmeal with raisins and toast for dinner many times. We never ate fancy. Then when I started going places with high school friends I learned about tacos and pizza and I made my parents try other foods. I was the smallest kid in my class but I never got very much good food. We were the working poor but so was everybody else.
Max, I love your channel. I'm 67 and remember my folks talking about rationing during WW2. It may explain why I grew up never wanting for anything food wise. My father loved beef, (he's been gone 27yrs today.) My Mom grew up eating lots of fish/game and it was not a regular menu item in our house. She tired of it. I feel blessed to have grown up and live in this country and never want to forget the sacrifices and ingenuity our forefathers/ancestors possessed and promulgated. Keep it coming my man!!! You're a star!!! --Mr. Dick.
Two TV series I appreciate regarding life during WWII and rationing center on the UK. First is The 1940s House, where a modern family live through rationing, preparing their home for blackouts and digging a bomb shelter. The other is Wartime Farm which follows how the government made farmers change their methods and the land girls, women who came from cities to work on farms.
My grandmother (who raised three boys during the depression and the war so had a lot of these recipes) used to make these. It was distinguished from her meatloaf mainly by not having pork, carrots or tomato sauce in it. She would use different things for the filler though, often saltines or butter/flavored crackers, or Total cereal. She used the same recipe for hamburger patties, just made them a touch thinner. It's fantastic in a patty melt with caramelized onions and a cheese like Monterey Jack on a rye bread
I really enjoyed this episode! I made the Emergency steak not just for my own family but also for my neighbors family for her birthday with a baked potato and corn on the cob on the side with the Henry VIII Tudor strawberry torte for dessert. It was a big hit with both families! Thank You and Keep up the good work!
Yes, more about the internment camps. We had a friend of my family that his parents were in one of the internment camps as children. I never talked with them about it. They spent a lot of time teaching me the joys of Japanese food and traditions. I always felt like I was one of their grandchildren when I went to visit them. May they both rest in peace.
@@kameljoe21 thank you for posting. Not many people know. If I remember correctly honey was not rationed in the same way as cane sugar, nor was sorghum molasses.
As a Japanese-American from Hawaii, I only ever learned the stories of the internment camps through my pursuit for my history degree in college. I learned about what my grandparents had to go through during Pearl Harbor when they lived on the Big Island, but I would love to see what you could find in your research on the food of the internment camps! I love your videos and your platform is such a great way to dissect the big events of history that we learn in class and factor in the human aspect of everyday life for these people that had to live it.
This reminds me of the Japanese Hamburg Steaks. Instead of Wheaties they use Panko, the breadcrumbs. Also they cook it in a pan, searing both side then adding water and covering to finish cooking by "steaming." Then you make a demi-glace out of the pan. I made it twice for my family, they really love it. The texture is definitely not "steaky" though but it's moist and a bit "bouncy?" Anyways it's really good.
My mom used to talk about rationing during WWII. Her mom raised rabbits & chickens. I remember her telling me about the sugar rationing. We were pretty frugal growing up seeing as how she was part of the Great Depression *and* WWII. Good show, Max, as always!
Как житель территории бывшего Советского Союза, практически в самом начале видео узнала рецепт (простой советской) котлеты. Вместо хлопьев мои родственники добавляют мелко тёртую картошку, а родственники партнёра - хлеб. Блюдо действительно очень вкусное, очень мясное и прекрасно насыщает на целый день. И пользуется популярностью до сих пор.
We visited the museum at the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp in Wyoming. Not only did the Japanese Americans build victory gardens, they taught the local land owners how to use irrigation techniques to make land productive for growing food instead of grassland for cattle and sheep. Their impact is still evident to this day.
Most estimates say it takes 1/2 an acre to feed one person. My war era parents always had just a 1/4 ac garden going and let me tell you, good gardening is hard work. Thank your farmers.
My grandma talked about, and later wrote, about her time growing up during the war. She was tasked with helping take care of her siblings for most of the time, her father went to a big city to work in a factory and her mother was a teacher. I have always loved the molasses crinkles that she makes and she always said it was because she made them so often because of the rationing during the war, it was easier to get molasses than sugar, and that was their sweets basically. That molasses allowed her to bake cookies for all her siblings on the farm all through the war.
I accumulate the crumbs from unsweetened breakfast cereals. Add in cracker crumbs and the odd piece of bread left to go stale. Crush it all up and add into ground meat to make meatballs and hamburg steak. I also save up the sweetened cereal to replace some of the flour and sugar to make cookies and muffins. I paid good money for those crumbs, and I am going to eat them. And maybe save the world in the process.
Great video, my parents were married during WWII and when my brother and I came along, we still ate lots of these recipes. We had a garden growing up, I learned how to grow and raise all sorts of things to eat. Nothing like the taste of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, squash, etc! The stuff we buy in stores just can't compare. If people knew how good it was, they'd be making their own 'Victory Gardens' today. Yes, I'd love to see more like this, it was very cool!😆
My grandparents always had a goat,chickens and rabbits. And had a cow. They didn’t eat the cow until she now longer produced milk. They had a smoke house for making bacon and smoking meats. They had a huge “victory” garden with fruits and vegetables. My great uncle grew corn and hay and had the cattle on his land my other great uncle had Nut trees, pecans and walnuts and apple trees. They all shared and worked the 3 farms together. My grandmother and aunts canned everything ,including meat. They lived this way before WW2. They lived in Oklahoma even durning the Dust Bowl. They lived this way until the days they got too old to work the land.
I remember stories from my Grandmother in Switzerland. Though it was neutral they also went through rationing, bicycle tires were replaced by string and public parks were used for growing potatoes.
So interesting to hear the internment camp angle. I've never considered that. My wife's parent were in the camps. Her dad worked on HIS dad's strawberry farm in Torrance, CA before the war. They made a good living. Back then they were called "truck farmers" - aka tenant farmers... My understanding is that my wife's grandfather, as a first generation Asian immigrant, by law could not own land, so tenant farming was his only option. I'd love to hear more about the food grown at the camps during the war. I heard SO MANY stories from my in-laws...
Yes to an episode about the Japanese internment camps! My Mom’s family was horrified when the Japanese-American family who owned their local corner grocery were sent to the camps. They were held in high regard and sorely missed; my Mom’s family was angered by the cruelty, and sorrowful about everyone with Japanese heritage summarily being sent to the camps. My Mom was born in the mid 1930s on the coast of California. The shoreline was covered in camouflage netting in case of attack. My grandfather was a block warden who would make his rounds to ensure that nobody had any visible lights showing after dark. Mom says that ration coupons were often traded among people in the neighborhood, depending on their needs. They always bought raw milk, and would skim the cream off the top and save it. When they had enough, they would churn their own butter with that cream. Butter substitute was also marketed during the war. It was sold with a white slab of a fat substance, which came with a packet of yellow dye. Consumers were to mix the fat and dye together until everything was uniformly yellow, like butter. Oleo, margarine.
The downside of all this, including an admission by a Japanese-American friend's grandparents, is that a lot of Japanese immigrants to America were gladly spying or sabotaging on behalf of Japan prior to internment. And I find it odd that everyone remembers Japanese interment, but little to no attention is given to German and Italian interment from the same period, which affected my family directly. My great-uncle Adolf only got out of an internment camp by volunteering for the navy in early 1942.
@@Swindle1984 Sadly a lot of people are unaware of American Internment camps entirely. It's yet another stain on our history that often goes unmentioned.
I used to live in one of the retired internment camps! Still live not too far away from it tbh but it's for sure one of the least desirable places to live ever
My mother was a UK War Bride who emigrated to Canada after marrying my father. She moved to Canada quite early...January 1945. She took the train from Halifax to Edmonton Alberta. She hadn't seen so much food for years. The porters on the train kept offering second helpings. When she finally arrived in Alberta, she thought / decided Canadian rationing was a joke.
My grandma was a war bride who moved from the UK to California in 47. The UK was still on fairly strict rations at that point. She walked into the shop and saw shelves full of butter and sugar and flour and burst into tears to see so much food available.
Canada had the advantage of being a small country, and being the silly fellas who perfected the art of 'misplacing' prisoners in a ditch with a few rounds in them.
I absolutely love the history portion and seeing the way people survived during these period. Thank you so much. I really feel how well we have it now. I think everyone should see how people pulled together and survived these difficult times.
My Mum was a war child in England, and she never forgot how she craved certain foods unobtainable during WW2. Britain was too cold to grow oranges and lemons - they used to be imported from Spain and Italy - but those import ships could no longer get through, so the British slowly began to get scurvy. The Government were extremely worried about this, and luckily, Lord Woolten, the Minister in charge of food, found a clever solution. Announcing it over the radio, he ordered all the kids in Britain to go foraging in the countryside, and along the hedgerows, for rosehips. England was full of roses, and rosehips are an even greater source of vitamin C than oranges. Mum used to talk so fondly of the Great Rosehip Hunt, when hundreds of kids from her town in Lancashire raced around in the fields looking for rosehips, filling their baskets, and competing with each other over who could gather the most. They made great fun out of a national emergency! All the mothers then boiled up the rosehips in huge copper tubs they usually used for washing clothes - everyone chipped in their tiny sugar ration, which was 2 ounces per week, into these boiling tubs, as the rosehips were too sour to eat raw - and made rosehip syrup, bottled it up, and now every family and every growing child in Britain was safe from scurvy. British ingenuity at its best! She also told me how she craved bananas, which they could no longer import from India and Africa, and Lord Woolten had a cookbook printed for all the housewives in Britain, so they could manage on their meagre rations. 'Mock Mashed Banana' was one such recipe - and my poor Mum still shuddered at the memory of it. It was mashed potato, a tiny bit of sugar, and banana essence, which was bright yellow, and tasted absolutely vile! It was meant to be a treat for the kids - but Mum said it tasted like a punishment! Hitler underestimated just how tough and determined the British were. Mum never forgot this poster, which the Government printed and was posted up all over her town - 'YOUR COURAGE, YOUR CHEERFULNESS, YOUR RESOLUTION WILL BRING US VICTORY.'
My mum as well. She never mentioned the mock banana, which sounds a revolting travesty, but no matter where she moved after coming to the states, she made sure she always had a garden, and we were (over)prepared for emergencies. And of course, all was achieved with good cheer and without complaint.
I know there was a longtime fondness for Spam in the UK that sort of baffles Americans, but when the USA was shipping food and supplies to the UK during the war, that Spam was a very welcomed commodity.
Do you know if ordinary people in England could get ice for their ice boxes during World War 2, and if they did, where from? Did ice men still deliver in towns and cities from horse-drawn wagons?
My mom said they always soaked the cereal in the milk before combining it with ground beef. They ground their own meat from cheap cuts. We were still grinding our own meat for ground beef in 1963, in The US.
Came here to say that. Where I'm from, we frequently add stale bread soaked in milk into our ground meat, to stretch it out. I imagine the idea here was similar.
U.S rationing wasn't really "We're all starving and we don't have enough, so we need to distribute it fairly" like it was in occupied Europe. It was more like, "Eat ground beef instead of steak, no sugar in your coffee, no eggs in your birthday cake, gotta eat fresh fruits and vegetables instead of processed foods". They didn't have much to complain about😅
@@Jayjay-ef2gt When people make comments about some story on UA-cam dealing with WW2 they often simply type "The Greatest Generation". That irritates me sometimes because I wonder if they really understand much about what life for home front and battlefront people was like--they simply toss out a popular phrase. It's stories like Max's that help make the situation more understandable. American consumers had it easy compared with the Brits, who lived with shortages of just about everything while being bombed and faced with the possibility of invasion. I like to remind people that The Greatest Generation has to include those people.
Yes, one of the meatloaf recipes I have talks about taking bread and soaking it in milk to soften it and make it mushy the add ground beef and the usual seasoning. There’s some reaction that happens with milk soaked bread and meat that makes meat,oaf juicier, not as dense and tastier .
@@teresahiggs4896 yeah, it's the gluten activating. it traps the water from the milk, and is what sticks the whole thing together, and gives it loft if you knead it, just like real bread.
One story my grandma told me was about how her mom (my great grandmother) would use her sugar ration for canning, while her neighbor, on the other hand, would use it to make delicious cakes and desserts! So, for my young grandma, dessert was *clearly* the better of the two, so, my grandma would often visit her neighbor, who was happy to share, for a refreshing sweet treat and some good company. My grandma would also bring her neighbor excess fruit, milk (she lived on a dairy farm), and other ingredients to help make the desserts. She also has some leftover stamp books that she's saved and they're really cool to see!
I’ve made this recipe several times since watching this video! It has a good umami flavor. I even tried frying patties. That worked, but I went back to baking it. Definitely tastes great with mashed potatoes, and mushroom gravy!
Please do an episode on the experiences of Japanese-Americans who were forced to relocate to camps. My husband’s father was interned as a young man. His family lost everything, including their small grocery store in Sacramento, California. When he was released, he went on to serve in the US Army, retired after a long career with the US Postal Service working at SFO, and fully paid off a simple row house in San Francisco. Rest in peace, Grandpa Dick.
My maternal grandfather’s family had a fruit ranch near Sacramento. His family was one of the rare one’s that actually owned the land they were farming and were able to lease it out while they were stuck at Gila River.
A local family in my town was actually fortunate. Their neighbors kept their property in a sort of unofficial trust and sold it back at severely reduced rates when they were released from the internment camps.
Yes, please do a video on the Japanese internment camps. I loved that you included them in this video. Every time I watch your videos with my family and I’m about to pause to add a footnote… you include it! Thank you for your work and not shying away from the difficult parts of history.
Growing up out here on the West Coast, the 'scars' of the relocation are not forgotten. My dad was actually involved in the construction of the Manzanar relocation camp memorial as a cost estimator (and I was involved in the Flight 93 memorial as a cost estimator, myself), and over on Bainbridge Island, there is a memorial at the location of the dock where the Japanese American citizens were loaded onto boats. It really is a painful piece of history. Also, I really need to get around to sending you something that I'd bought on my trip to England last year! When I went to Bletchley Park (codebreaker HQ for England), one of the things that they'd had in the gift shop were little sample cookbooks for wartime meals!
My hometown, Merced, CA, was the location of one of the Assembly Centers for initial interment prior to the Japanese-Americans that were held there went to a more "permanent" location. The site where it was is now the Merced Fairgrounds and there is a monument there acknowledging its role in this shameful affair.
Nice, another furry :3 But yeah, my WWII family stories are interesting. I just learned yesterday that my grandpa's giant 13 4E feet were the reason why he was sent to Engineer Corps in Burma rather than the frontlines in either of the major Theaters of WWII. The time that it took for the Army to make custom boots for him could have saved his life and led to my existence.
Was your dad prpud of building the camps. Japanophobia, Italophobia, and Germanophobia was everywhere in the 40s (and stayed in the 50s, 60s, and 70s through the 40s generation continuing their xenophobia to death most of the time) Did your dad hate Japanese, German, or Italian people, or was he part of the progressive, acceptinf minority?
Perfect! I've really wanted to understand what homeland rationing was actually like. My mother lived through that. And "Victory Gardens" . Americans grew gardens for "the duration", but sadly most people here gave up veggie gardens after the war.
OMG, that box shot of Axis and Allies at the beginning really took me back to my youth. Would LOVE to see that show about the food at the internment camps - it's a painful reminder that this was done to them, but I've so long been impressed by the resilience of those Americans in the face of that injustice.
I'm wondering what they might have been growing there. I know German POWs grew crops, and they ate as well as GIs under the Geneva Conventions. I understand that they were impressed with how well they were treated while interned. Not sure the American citizen Japanese had the same experience.
I wonder if he could swing an interview with an internment camp survivor? Interviews with George Takei have always made the experience much more visceral for me.
My dad grew up during Mao Zedongs reign in China before immigrating to the US. I remember him telling me about the rationing that took place while he was growing up. Families would save up the meat ration they got every month so that they could have one good meal a year during Chinese new years. It was the one time you could actually eat meat and sweets.
max, you are one of those rare youtubers who got pretty big (id say 2 and a half million subs is a lot) who consistently pumps out awesome videos. love the history, love the recipes, just keep on doing what you love.
My father-in-law worked for Utah-Idaho Sugar Co. in the Northwest. They were able to produce beet sugar during rationing with 3,500 Japanese citizens "imported back" from their internment camps to do paid agricultural work. Other farm workers were hired from Mexico's Bracero program as seasonal workers for U&I sugar. Even politicians and schoolchildren helped out with thinning and harvesting the sugar beets. Cane sugar was produced not just in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, but also in Texas and Louisiana, but corn syrup was a lot less labor intensive/profitable than producing regular sugar.
I am a 47 year old man and I have been very interested in World War II history for most of my adult life and have to say, you told me things that I had never heard before and that's pretty damn cool , thanks man. Consider me subscribed.
Dude you should try the British version of wartime cooking. There's a series called wartime farm on UA-cam. Hopefully you cover those. They made some really really interesting choices with what they had.
I’m not sure if you are interested. My father was Japanese and interned in high school from a small town called Mosier Oregon. They had a farm and his father (my grandfather) worked in the cafeteria. My father who is 96 may be able to answer some of your questions. Every time I pass by his property that was taken away, I always think about what they lost during the war.
It must be sad to see the very same property they lost. My father's side of the family lost their auto repair shop when they were sent to the camps, and they didn't get it back after the war. My dad was only 3 when they were taken away, but they grew up very poor into the '50s due to losing their business. My Dad still cooked some of the poverty meals from his childhood (some kind of hash with cabbage, green bell peppers, and bacon?) and he NEVER throws food away to this day. He will eat visibly moldy food and wash it down with milk that can be smelled across the room. He'll insist that it's perfectly good, and he never gets sick from it. I suppose he developed an iron stomach from having to eat ALL the food they could afford, no matter what.
The BBC did a series of documentaries about historic farming. One was about World War farms and the need to resurrect near-medieval skills in the UK. It was very clear that the US had no hardship by comparison. (One of the presenters was Ruth Goodman, if you want to look those series up.)
The same team also did a few other series set in different time periods, there’s an Edwardian Farm, Victorian Farm and Tudor farm series. Most came be found on UA-cam and I think most Max fans would enjoy them
YES, PLEASE! You mentioned doing a segment on the Internment Camp foods …. Yes, please! My father and his family were in one of those camps (Poston, AZ)……
I remember rationing, with my mother scrimping her points to buy groceries. I remember the little books, and mom guarding hers with her life! I was of course too young to fully realize what was going on. Thank you for this look back, and an episode on the Japanese internment camps will be wonderful.
The BBC series Wartime Farm is a great window into the UK's farming efforts during WWII with living historians operating a period farm from the 1940s for an entire calendar year. It's very informative and entertaining.
@@diasimcil23 I totally agree. Tudor Monastery Farm is my favorite as well. I especially love all of Ruth's segments. She's smart, industrious, and has a great sense of humor! Also, anytime Ronald Hutton shows up, you know you're going to learn so much.
in terms of ingredients, it is basically a German meatball/Frikadelle, but we use old rolls or bread, and first soak the rolls in milk so that it is easier to work with and add an egg for binding, cornflake, crushed also works as Panade/breading for crispyness
What other powers from WWII would you like to see me cover in this series?
Also, here is the newsreel I mentioned in the video. ua-cam.com/video/PDR0MAscaCw/v-deo.html
Germany and Italy
Japan!
USSR
My grandpa was eating sawdust bread on the front lines before he surrendered to the US in the Battle of the Bulge.
Kingdom of Hungary and Romania
Born in 1941, my parents jokingly, referred to me as a "bonus baby", as my arrival meant an increase in the household's sugar and coffee rationing stamps.
In fact, I still have, 80 years later, a couple of those old rationing booklets, with a few unused stamps that were left when rationing was lifted at war's end.
Man, that means big moolah
Man, how does it feel like, having lived through so many changes? I can't attest since I'm still young.
We had rationing on sweets up until my brother's fifth birthday in the 50s.
@@JamesZheyuXu Its called "living in interesting times".
Sir. You've had one hell of a life.
I ask that you consider writing these things down. Collecting them in a book. Be it physical or digital. Preferrably both. That way at least part of you won't be lost to those of us who haven't seen the sorts of things you have. First hand accounts are important, you might not think your life is remarkable, but consider this. you lived through:
ww2 if only technically, the korean war, vietnam, Gulf War, Our excursions into afganistan and iraq (Gulf War 2.)
The transition from propeller drivne aircraft to jets, to the normalization of air travel.
The Patriot Act and all that entails
The Red Scare
The popularization and widespread adoption of TV
Color TV
Cable TV
Streaming TV
The Space Race
The Birth of Computers
The Shrinking of those computers first from buildings, to rooms, to refridgerators, to desks, then desktops, and now something you can put in a pocket.
Artificial limbs going from wooden affairs mainly meant to make at a glance appearnace of normalcy, to nearly full articulation of whole hands with limited feedbackfrom touch and temperature.
The eradication of Polio
AIDS and it's turning from a death sentance, to something that can be managed to the point that it is undetectable and untransmittable if you're on proper medication.
The US becoming the last country in the world to not use metric in consumer products.
The Rise of Electric Vehicles.
....You've been through a lot sir.
I implore you consider making this something that can be shared even if just for family or the local library.
My grandmother always talked about the emergency steak she made....for my dad. My dad would always refer to it as meatloaf, which would irritate my grandmother. Good times
Limits matter,
Well, its pretty much how my Mommade meatloaf. Btw, she lived through WW2.😂😂😂😂😂😂
Max gave the description and I said it meatloaf, and put mushroom gravy on it.
I mean, your dad wasn't wrong. That's essentially a version of meat loaf. Which can be tasty when done right, but steak it ain't.
Well, he wasn’t wrong.
!!! YES PLEASE !!! Do a video on the internment camp gardens. Not only do I think that topic would be very interesting, but also I think Americans need to be faced with the reality of that part of our history. We need to remember a more complete version of what we as Americans have done in our past so that hopefully we learn from our mistakes. Thank you Max for sharing not only your zeal for food and cooking, but also your passion for accurate knowledge of history.
Agreed. I don't really have much else to add to your comment, this is just making sure there is engagement for the engagement gods.
There are still survivors, like George Takei -- so maybe a bit of a talk with them would make it even more interesting.
@@PhotonBeast I'd just add taat we sholud call them what they were: concentration camps. Truly something we sholud never forget! Great comments
Wholeheartedly agree with everything you said.
@@hallarempt183 geez I did not know that about him!
My grandmother was interned at Poston II when she was about 6. She still remembers her family losing their strawberry farm, only to then be ordered to grow cantaloupes in Arizona. The internment camp victory gardens were not entirely voluntary, though my great grandparents did use it to feed their kids fresh foods. The camps were deliberately placed in "unproductive" plots of land, and were then cultivated using essentially prisoner labor.
I was puzzled at first by this, in Montana Japanese-American farmers kept their land & stayed here as they were needed for agriculture. But we crop farm here, things like wheat & barley & alfalfa, our season is too short for commercial produce beyond a few orchards. I am guessing crop farmers were prioritized over produce, which is horrible for those who just happened to live in warmer climates. I live less than 2 hrs from Heart Mountain but am just learning the story in greater detail, while families who were imprisoned did come to Montana after the war, few spoke of it, and the old local families did not experience it, which is good but can’t really celebrate that since so many others did. And it was just economics not ethics.
I would love to see a video on the Japanese internment camps! My auntie was put in the camps when she was 9. Her family had a farm in California. A neighbor bought the farm when they were forced to leave, kept it for the years they were gone, and gave it back to them when they were released. I always loved that story of kindness.
Some people have beautiful souls, their stories should be cherished, especially with what is an extremely dark mark on our American heritage.
That is awesome. That level of kindness is truly exceptional. Also many Japanese-Americans from the camps enlisted in the famed 442nd Battalion to fight the Germans and served this country with honor.
Max, if you do this video it might be informative to include information for the Canadian camps as well.
dang she got lucky. my grandma's family had their farm near Seattle stolen and they all got displaced to the east coast
They got lucky. Many didnt get their property back.
My grandma used to talk about her memories of rationing. She was a teenager during WWII, and one of the things she found hardest was the shortage of nylon stockings. One time she was able to finally get a new pair, but she accidentally left them on the bus on the way home. She was still mad about that 70 years later!
I once read that girls used to use gravy to paint their legs to look like they were wearing nylon stockings
My mum (UK) told me they used to paint a line on the back of their legs with gravy browning to pretend they were wearing stockings.
Dang, now I'M mad about it, for her. Let's see if we can keep it going for another 70 years. XD
@@Moonpearl121 In the US, they used eyebrow pencil.
Even I'm pissed off for her. Can imagine how she felt
People often talk about turning to hunting and fishing for meat in a situation like that, but the fact is during the Great Depression wild animals like deer, elk, and wild turkeys and wild fish like trout and bass were hunted / fished almost to extinction in many parts of the US before rationing even happened. It took decades and fish and game reintroduction and management to bring the wildlife populations back to normal.
Correct, after decades of conservation efforts we have now brought the whitetail population back to higher the population they were in North America pre Columbus. Now time to fix the elk population! Kentucky is doing it right now, hopefully the rest of the east will follow.
I did not know that. Thank you.
Perhaps we ought to control our own population while we're at it.
If alpha predators aren't part of the reintroduction equation, then you'll never have a healthy ecosystem.
@@Epvil The only real threat at this point is CWD and over-population in areas. All of the Cervidae are at risk and being prion-based it can devastate a region. God help us if it finds a way to jump the species gap.
Both of my grandmothers were born in 1915. They grew up during depression and through WWII. They, and my mom taught me to cook and all about economizing when necessary. I grew up with "emergency steaks" and "meat loaf" and both were always stretched with oatmeal and an egg or two as a binder. They both had gardens and chickens. Even today, I use oatmeal and egg when I make meatloaf or burger patties. It tends to make them juicier. I think crushed Wheaties would impart a teeny bit of malted barley flavor, which would be fantastic. I am going to give that a whirl on meatloaf night. 😀
I would have begged to join the army. I can't stand any meat that's not whole, lean and tender. I normally fish because fish are lean and tender but fish needs lots of different sauce, bread and salad to be tolerable to survive in for 2 years.
My mother was English and lived there during the war. Growing up, she used to tell us how little food they had to survive on. My father was an American GI and, of course, had access to American rations. I was born in August of 45. Shortly after my birth a social worker came to my mother's house and ask why she had not picked up the imitation vitamin C drops for me. My mother brought her into the parlor and showed her a huge bowl of oranges my father had given her. Remember, they had not seen fresh oranges in several years. The social worker shyly asked if she could have one. My mother gave her a couple.
What a great story! I've been looking into my family history, but I can't know about these little moments of their lives through reading their names in a census. Thanks for keeping your family history alive by telling the stories.
Wonderful story. Thank you for sharing ❤ your mother was lovely for giving her a couple. I bet they were the best oranges that social worker ever tasted
@@Mr.56Goldtop She wouldn't have had the power to confiscate anything, even if the oranges had come from the black market rather than a legitimate source.
@@Mr.56Goldtop no how, no way could they confiscate them. Plus taking someone's good like that is a great way to get shot.
Reminds me of stories of Axis soldiers they knew the war was lost when they found out enlisted GIs were eating better then Axis officers with real chocolate, sugar, ice cream, and actual tobacco cigarettes
My neighborhood was built in the 40s and a lot of the houses still have old rabbit hutches that people used to raise rabbits for meat during the war. They are all just used as storage spaces around me now- most people don't know what they were for. Regarding the Japanese internment camps: the internees were not necessarily making Victory Gardens- the government wanted the camps to be self-sufficient and demanded production. The internees just happened to be so good at farming they produced big surpluses (on what was also pretty garbage land, by the way). This would be a good story to look into- it shouldn't be forgotten.
Yes it is vital we shed light on this part of our history. It never gets more than a passing mention in history classes!
@@stickychocolate8155 Almost everything gets a passing mention in school, especially in regards to history.
Huh, I think you just answered the mystery outcropping on my house (1941). Was thinking chicken coup but didn't look right, rabbits would make a lot more sense.
Thank you.
In the great depression my grandfather raised pigeons in the garage, which was not for a car but for storing wagon and push mower and tools. And rabbits. The entire yard front and back on a city lot in Chicago was planted in vegies and the whole block grew different stuff so they shared with each other. There was plenty of horse manure in the street.
Agreed this would be a great story to share. If he wants to do more WW2 stories after covering the Japanese interment cooking rationing also occurred at restaurants and that would be another interesting homefront point of view.
@9:35 i know some fun facts about the rubber shortages! Because the US imported so much rubber, they had to develop a synthetic rubber to replace it. Once they created it, the US government contracted a company called B.F. Goodrich to convert an old oil refinery in Louisville Kentucky to a synthetic rubber plant. The location is called Rubbertown now. They chose the city because they calculated that no foreign bombers had the fuel capacity to hit it and return to a coast to land on a carrier. The plant was massive, like 2 square miles. They still have the old watch towers from the war where they would guard for air raids. There's an old submarine buried on the land that is used as file storage now. The plant sold off more than half its land to a half dozen other chemical plants, but its still one of the largest producers of synthetic rubber in America.
Thanks, for the history of Rubbertown! I live near Louisville and have known people who work there but didn't know it started up in WWII.
I've commented this on many of your videos but this series is a perfect opportunity to make a video on blockade bread from the siege of Leningrad.
Somewhat sad story but my professor in undergrad told us about how there is a museum of bread in St Petersburg that she visited while studying there. Most of the workers in the museum were older women but she didn't really think much of it. Well when one of the ladies was talking to her about the blockade bread, she got very emotional and started crying.
She didn't connect it until later that the lady was probably the correct age to have been a survivor of the siege, thus the exhibit probably was very personal to her.
I know you've probably gotten this suggestion a lot, but the inventor of Tiramisu just passed away, and I would love to hear his story since it ended so recently and, until he died, I was unaware that the invention of Tiramisu was even in living memory. Fantastic vid as always, can't wait to see more of this series!
This would be excellent. Like you, I had no idea it was so recent.
I love your suggestion for a tiramisu history video from Max! If you're interested, a coffee UA-camr named James Hoffmann did a video about tiramisu with the inventor's family and I thought it was great. ua-cam.com/video/oWMbuTc7iIU/v-deo.html
My mom grew up in the '30s-early '40s, she inherited this cookbook from her mother. My dad was a POW for the 2nd half the war, his PTSD caught up with him in the '60s, when I was growing up, and his descent into alcoholism impoverished our family. My mother made the Wheaties and milk steak a lot for dinner. There were four of us kids. She would make a mushroom gravy and we'd have it with mashed potatoes and roasted carrots. We liked it, it was really quite a delicious meal. None of us complained. My mom died 30 years ago. I don't know what happened to the cookbook. One of my siblings has it probably.
It was tragic and appalling that the government did not even admit that PTSD existed - there was no counselling for trauma in those dark days after the war.
No wonder men medicated themselves with alcohol - which only made their symptoms worse, and made life hell for their wives and children. The same thing happened here in Australia when the men returned from both world wars. I'm truly sorry that you witnessed your father's torment when you were a kid.
@@pollywaffledoodah3057 You are spot on. You totally get it.
@@pollywaffledoodah3057 It's not so much a problem of the government admitting it existed though, nobody really knew about it at the time. Some would speak of "shell shock" or "battle fatigue" but only for active soldiers, not for long-term psychological consequences after their return to civil life.
The research about what would be named PTSD began in the 50s, and the term "post-traumatic stress disorder" was coined in 1978.
@@pollywaffledoodah3057 I have a copy of a booklet issued by the American Airforce in June of '45 called Coming Home which was meant to help service men after the war. It talked about how to get back into regular life, to do things they used to do before the war like hobbies and also deal with their thoughts and emotions, etc. It also suggested that they get medical help and if needed to talk to a psychiatrist . There's more but these were things that jumped out at me. I'd always heard that there was no help for service men after the Second World War but this booklet showed that there was some kind of help issued in the form of this booklet. And, yes, there was no mention of PTSD in it but that would be expected of the times since I think that wording came out much later.
@@_asphobelle6887 Exactly right. My dad never spoke about his war experiences. Never. He went into the hospital in 1972 when I was 15. After a few months he started having hallucinations, and I watched him relive the moment of his capture. He was terrified. He eventually died of an alcoholic's disease. Only many years after his death did I start to research his war experiences, some of it is well-documented, and only then did I really discover what he went through in the war. It was exceedingly brutal. He was too stoic to ever seek help, that is how men of that generation were.
It's a Salisbury steak, only cosplaying as a T-bone. And it's got extra fiber so it's packed with more than just protein. I feel like as much as rationing was a hardship for some, it had lessons we could probably learn from today.
I look forward to the other videos forthcoming in this series!
I really love Salisbury steak. That one is a keeper in my family.
I'm tempted to start cooking with one of those booklets. That food has got to be more healthy than the garbage we eat today.
@@ginacirelli1581With sugar rationed it would have to have been!
With the extra. Arms and onion, it's more like a flat meatloaf.
@@ginacirelli1581 it's not what you cook, it's what you cook with. Fresh ingredients are often better than processed, but fresh may be covered in pesticides, juiced up on chemical fertilizers and hormones, and be genetically modified. Cooking your own food is FAR cheaper and can easily be healthier than than pre-made foods and "out food". If you want to get back to basics, you would have to practically go back to homesteading. But that is a couple few hours a day minimum just in upkeep, and getting started can take even more time and labor. It's best to find a practical middle ground you can be happy with. Again, the recipe has little to do with the quality of the food, it's the quality of the ingredients.
When I was in grad school, I took a class on the history of costume (clothing) and we all had to write a paper profiling a specific garment in our university’s fashion museum. I wrote about a WWII era women’s outfit that was made without lining or decorative buttons to fit the fabric and clothing rationing imposed on manufacturers. Our library had an extant 1940s book called How To Dress In Wartime that I was able to read and check out.
Thanks to you. I’ve been able to nail down my late grandmothers meatloaf recipe. It turned out it was just emergency steak. For the first time since her passing I’ve been able to recreate her meatloaf and it’s just as delicious as I remember it!
Oh I hope he covers "Mock Fish & Chips" from the UK perspective - particularly as I remember Heston Bluthmenthal talking about and how Churchill had tried to do all he could to avoid rationing the British staple as it would impact moral, yet despite this attacks on fishermen and boats led to shortages resulting in a mock recipe to make fish fillets out things like rice, milk and anchovy paste... that or Wooten Pie, named after the Minister for Food, which is about as vegetable as you can get.
I honestly love British ration recipes. Cause they're super healthy. Sometimes miserable tasting if followed to the letter though.
But this pie actually sounds delicious 🤔
Slight typo - it's Woolton pie.
My grandmother used to make these when I was a kid in the 90's. She crushed the cereal and soaked them in the milk while she chopped the onions and got black-eyed peas started to cook. It was one of my favorite meals to eat when I was younger.
Makes sense to soak the cereal in the milk rather than pour it in to the meat and cereal.
😊❤
@@salaama9that is exactly how it should be done. You do the same method when making meatballs or meatloaf by soaking cut up white bread in milk then mixing the mushy bread into the ground meat.
@@abcdef20no you don’t because you don’t need to
Smart grandmother, making a panade. Classically used in meatloaf & meatball recipes.
So I was blessed to grow up not even a block away from one of the last remaining victory gardens in the US (obviously some that were by homeowners might still be around but there’s not many community victory gardens left from WW2). My family didn’t have a plot but a friends family did and it was a foundational part of my childhood experience. When I house-sit for my parents, I still take the time to walk through the gardens just to see what is being grown. Most people aren’t using their plots for food anymore so you’re guaranteed to see both beautiful flowers and big tomatoes within 20 feet of each other in two completely different plots.
My parents were both born in the 1920s. Because if the depression both sets of my grandparents already had thriving gardens and both grandmas canned like fiends when the gardens came in so they had plenty for all winter. Both kept chickens for fresh eggs and meat, and one also had access to pigs and a couple of dairy cows. They both lived near towns but had enough land to work with.
My Mom's stories of having strangers with hungry families coming to their door asking for help were heartbreaking. Things like this prepared that "Greatest Generation" for the hardship and sacrifice needed during the war.
Depression recipes... people ate a lot of beans.
In Britain we had no cans we used glass bottles. I still bottle a lot of fruit.
@@cv990a4 I can't find the exact one now, but there was a song from that era about eating nothing but bacon and beans. The chorus was something like, "I've eaten so much bacon and beans / I see 'em in my dreams".
My grandma has told me a story of how her dad wasn't allowed to join the army. He was a mechanic in Philadelphia who kept the buses going. The buses that everyone relied on to get to work every day. I guess he was so good at his job that he was termed essential to the war effort or something like that.
My paternal grandfather was an apothecary, and thus essential personnel. My maternal grandfather was a merchant marine in the Pacific theater. Also essential personnel, since he was providing supplies to various locations.
Reserved occupation is the phrase you're looking for. My maternal granddad was a farmer so stayed on the home front, but served in "Dad's Army" defending Northern England, and also had POWs working on his farm (he said they were hard working men caught in a bad situation).
A mechanic who actually does good work and leaves his customers satisfied?
Yeah, no kidding, he was essential!
An honest mechanic is as rare as a white bison.
Yeah I bet he was needed! Philly was a hive activity with the naval shipyard and the shipyard in Camden along with a few refineries and DuPont factories around!
@@Zerbey My paternal grandfather had a one man chicken farm in Southern New Jersey, might have had a few sheep and goats too and did some labor in a nearby small town and being in his early thirties by the time the US joined made him low on the draft list. I do remember him being annoyed that the army airforce pilots from the nearby training base would buzz his field scaring the chickens.
My grandma had a few ration stamps long after WWII that she showed me when I was learning about WWII. She would use only public transportation to places out of walking distance. Had her victory garden and a few chickens she raised for eggs that she'd share with her neighbours. She kept a bee hive for honey, She went mostly Vegetarian during the war. I loved hearing her stories about living during wartime. Her stories about WWII and The Great Depression taught me about history.
She sounds like an awesome lady and I’m glad she shared that history with you!
My parents married in 39...lived through the war and rationing. Dad was an essential worker and had a really gimpy leg but he worked building tanks...and my mother worked making munitions and repairing Tanks. They had a good income, buying a house and renting an apartment for extra. My mother hated cooking so they often ate out. But she could sew and keep house so they fare well. All her life, til she was 101 years old, she kept scraps of aluminum and anything that could be reused. Cleaning out her house when she passed required a dumpster and a year of work.
I hope you are saving these oral histories for the next generations.
During the war, all of my grandparents were trying to feed big farm families. Both of my grandfathers and all of my great uncles became excellent trappers and small game hunters during the depression, so at least they could usually get meat on short notice. One of grandma's old cook books had notes in the margins on how to adjust recipes for everything from squirrels and gophers to muskrats and woodchucks.
As a kid in the 1960s I remember seeing Warner Bros. cartoons that showed WWII rationing. One had a woman go into a butcher shop, takes a big sniff of a steak and being charged for it. 😅
🤣 The one that sticks with me is Daffy Duck laying aluminum or steel eggs for the war instead of gold.
Those cartoons were fascinating to me as a kid since the jokes offered a very unique glimpse into daily life during WWII in America.
@@missgoodnfilthy2243 my brother in christ you need to take your meds
Walking past a store and looking at some sugar and the clerk running after you like a pimp wanting his money...
You looked at the goods you gotta pay!.
I remember that cartoon!
@@missgoodnfilthy2243my brother in Christ who pays for ten likes on a comment
Tanaka Farms in Irvine, CA is one of the last Japanese-American owned farms in Southern California. Many did not survive the war for obvious reasons and the one that did have been slowly closing. Come and visit! They have strawberry and veggie picking and various events throughout the year.
❤❤❤
They have yellow watermelon too, nice and sweet!
Thank you so much for talking about the Japanese internment during WWII. As a Japanese American whose family was in the US and interned during WWII. It gets brushed over A LOT when talking about WWII in the US and a lot of people underestimate how much Japanese Americans contributed to US agriculture and how much they lost during the internment. The camps were built in blazing deserts with sandy soil, yet with a lot of care and hard work, many were able to make gardens flourish.
I would love to hear your dive into what the Japanese Americans ate in the internment camps. I remember my Grandma telling me stories about how food was often split up between the Issei (first generation) and Nisei (second generation). The Issei tended to want more traditional Japanese foods and often tried to make substitutions (dishes like teriyaki fried spam) while the Nisei would be happy with more classical "American" foods like hot dogs. My family still enjoys spam as it was such as staple in my Grandma's childhood.
An interesting area that you might want to look into is mochi. Mochi is an essential part of Japanese culture and there's pretty much no New Years celebration without mochi. Many of the interned Japanese Americans weren't given access to the glutenous rice needed for mochi, so they made due with regular steamed rice and added their sugar rations in. My Grandma remembers that what was made wasn't quite mochi, but it made her happy to have something close to familiar.
If you're interested in mochi (and if I'm correct about you being in LA) then I would recommend trying to get into contact with a Japanese mochi shop called Fugetsu-Do. They've a family run business that's been in Little Tokyo in LA since 1903. During the war, they lost their business and were interned. One of the family members continued making mochi and manju for his fellow detainees. The same family still runs the shop (4th generation now) and they really love sharing the history of Japanese Americans so you may be able to get some inspiration from them.
❤ love this very interesting and detailed reading
To be fair to the US citizens at the time, if they knew where the bulk of their fresh fruit/veggies came from they would have been lynched...especially since the attack on Pearl Harbor had just happened even though those immigrants had nothing to do with it nor any knowledge of it they would have been seen as the enemy even though they were US citizens as well.
Here here we need this video for public knowledge ❤
I know at least in AZ and CO, the internment camps were built on Indian reservations and partially funded with money that had been promised to the tribes kept there. I got to meet a group of survivors who grew up as kids across from the internment camps and they had some fascinating stories from the time.
Several described the children from both the reservation and the camps being allowed to play together. The adults were kept separate, but would meet by the gates to exchange goods at night.
They said they were all jealous of the nice new homes, which had running water and hoped that once the Japanese left, the tribe would get to use them. I think that actually happened at some of the camps, but one lady said that when the Japanese left, they locked the camps up and then set fire to them, which really upset the ppl living in the reservation.
Fugetsu-Do ❤❤❤
This is so much more than a cooking channel. I actually learned a great deal I never learned in history class.
While preparing for my dad's funeral last year, Mom and I found his and his mother's ration books, including full sheets of stamps. Dad was born in the early '30s, and I wish I could have talked to him about life under rationing. I miss him.
My dad was born in 1930, and he didn't talk much about rationing, but his mom (my grandmother) did.
Dad had a friend in grade school, whose family owned a blocks-long nursery on Los Feliz Blvd in Los Angeles area. They were sent to the Internment camps by Roosevelt, and that property, to this day, is apartment buildings.
Until his dying day, my dad was still angry about that.
You can learn about it online through historians. It’s probably a more accurate example instead of listening to a old bag with no brain yap on about bs lol
I had both of my great-grandparents until I was about 12. They were born in 1921 and 1920. They both lived through the Depression and my grandfather flew in WW2. I was too young to care to ask about any of that stuff when they were alive, but I have a million questions I wish I could ask them about their experiences during the Depression and WW2.
@@seevee9271 I get you entirely. Am turning 74 in a few weeks, and here I am, the current matriarch of my branch of the family and I know less than half of what I'd like to about my Grandparents, or my parents. How wonderful for you that you had your Great Grands for so long. Such a privilege...
My mom lived trough the second world war in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. They suffered badly under German occupation. Things got so bad that there was hardly anything other than dried beans to eat, and people would try to eat the grass. Housecats were eaten, in fact so often that there was an eufemistic name for them, dakhaas. ("roof hare").
But here's a recipe for tulip bulbs. (Warning, these are often treated with pesticides these days and not fit for consumption. But they are apparently quite edible otherwise) It seems the tulip bulbs were used to stretch things that were scarce, like onions and potatoes.
Stew with tulip bulbs
Supplies
2 kg (cleaned) tulip bulbs, 2 kg potatoes and 4 kg red cabbage.
Preparation
*The tulip bulbs are cooked separately.
* Cook the potatoes together with the red cabbage.
* Then finish the stew with the tulip bulbs and little salt or spices.
This is absolutely fascinating and i would love to know what (safe to eat) tulip bulbs taste like
@@katierasburn9571 Not great, by all accounts!
@@katierasburn9571be QUITE careful because literally half is poisonous. It is the centre I think. There's stuff on it on.the internet but you certainly don't eat them whole.
I believe the inner part of tulips are toxic but the larger outer slices are fine. My moms friend was in the same position as a kid, remembers the nazis raiding her house with their jackboots on. Once they pulled out, they took EVERY BIT of food with them. Cats and dogs of Jews taken and those who died in the war were the first to go, along with tulips. They had to wait 2 weeks before the first Americans turned up and they had access to small amounts of real food but then still very little.
The "Dutch famine" (the winter of 1944-1945) was especially hard (I understand).
We lived on a family farm in New Hampshire during the War. Large gardens, some apple, pear, peach trees, a few milk cows, quite a few chickens, couple of pigs. My mother and grandmother made real butter a few times. Mostly we used the white margarine with the little package of yellow coloring included. (As I remember, the "store-bought" colored margarine wasn't available until several years after the War was over.) We ate lots of ground beef, and meatloaf. I remember some of the "beef" was really horsemeat. (I remember hearing about the "Horsemeat Scandal" in the news shortly after the War.)
My brothers and sister and I often picked wild strawberries and blue berries in the summer which my mother and grandmother would use for pies, shortcake, and muffins. We would pick red clover blossoms and dry them on newspaper in the sun, which my grandmother used to make substitute tea.
Yes - The main reason for gasoline rationing was the rubber shortage. School children did a lot of scrap paper and scrap metal collecting. Another item which grew wild on the farm was milkweed. We used to collect a lot of the pods which contained very light silk like fibers with seeds. These were in demand for aircrew flotation jackets or vests for water survival.
My mother, aunts, grandmother, and great-grandmother were all great cooks as I remember. Nobody ever went hungry. (At 89, I can still "taste" my grandmother's strawberry shortcake with the wild strawberries, homemade biscuit, homemade whipped cream, and homemade real butter from the cow's milk.)
My dear Japanese wife of over 50 years and a year younger than I, remembers similar rationing and food shortages during the War when her family lived in Formosa.
Thanks for the video - brought back a lot of memories.
Thanks for your comment sir, it is written very vividly
I'm from Wisconsin. In our state at least, margarine was legally mandated to be white so as to make it unappealing, due to the dairy industry being so influential. For a while it was even illegal. People used to cross the border to Illinois to buy margarine. Bob Uecker has claimed that he was born on such a trip.
REALLY enjoyed that bit of history. Still learning things about WWII even at the age of 63 & after listening to my dad's war stories.
I am a WW2 baby, and remember rationing in Britain well. The Royal Family set a good example by having hir meals within rationing limits. Buckingham Palace turned its elegant gardens into vegetable plots. And the royal Sunday roast into Cottage Pie for Monday''s dinner. The Roosevelts stayed at Buckingham Palace, and Eleanor was shocked at the painted line in bathtubs to minimise the wastage of hot water.
@@missgoodnfilthy2243Yes, only a mindless wokey would complain that we didn’t help the enemy that started a conflict that engulfed the whole globe and caused the deaths of tens of millions.
Presumably you would have had the allies share their rations with the axis forces to make it fair?
You're doing pretty good in your 90s. My grandpa is 95 this year. He's doing pretty good as well, but they just took his license away.
You're doing pretty good being in your 90s. My grandpa is 95 this year. He's doing pretty good as well, but they just took his license away about a year ago. And we can see the decline the last few years.
@@missgoodnfilthy2243 Are you alright, you seem to be fighting pretty desperately in a youtube food comment section
@@gruffy4967now hold on, we don't want this psycho any more than you do
Celeriac "steak" became quite common during WW2 here in Denmark due to meat rationing.
And don't let the "steak" part fool you, it was just a thick slice of celeriac root, boiled, breaded, and pan fried.
There were also lots and lots of ways to stretch the food.
"When the purse is empty, the flour pot is deep".
We were also encouraged to grow Victory Gardens here in Denmark.
There was also a flourishing black market going on here.
"Sortbørshajer", literally "black market sharks" is what we called the people engaging in trade in the ration stamps, and other sundry black marketeering.
And yes, my country was known as the "whipped cream front", but I assure you we did put up resistance against the Germans.
On the rationing, and when it ended for us?
Well, coffee, the roasted beans that is, was here in Denmark the last consumable to be taken off of the rationing plan... In 19... 55.
I'd love to try celery root like that. I hope you see this so you can answer if it's boiled whole, then sliced, or sliced first.
And yes, you did put up quite a resistance. My mother told me the King wore a Juden star. Now, that's something!
It is easier to first slice the celeriac root, then boil it.
I've heard the same thing done with mushroom, cauliflower, and any other vegetable where you can take a thick slice. It would be easier for me, as a homestead gardener, since I can't raise livestock.
😱 OMG
This is exactly how Salisbury steak is made, except you use the grease from the meat to make gravy. My dad was born in '43 and hamburger steak aka Salisbury steak was one of his favorite childhood meals. It was how my grandmother stretched the hamburger they bought. She didn't use cereal or milk, she used oatmeal and eggs for the binder. They always had plenty of eggs because they had chickens.
My family always made meatloaf and/or meatballs with oatmeal rather than breadcrumbs, and I continued that tradition. Growing up we always had one of those big containers of oats in the cupboard because we used it for hot cereal in the winter, oatmeal cookies, and meatloaf.
Yup, I saw the ingredients and though immediately to a Salisbury steak or Japanese hamburger steak.
I'm 33 as of today actually haha, I cook for both my parents born in '52 and '54. I make Salisbury Steak with a nice mushroom gravy and yes, it's very similar to meatloaf, I just use a few extra seasonings in the meat. It's a delicious meal if done right!!! Cheap and tasty!
I’ll have to try this! Meat is expensive and I’m allergic to wheat so I can’t use bread crumbs like most people do. If oatmeal works that’s perfect! ❤
@@OvercomingPOTS Salisbury steak was a TV dinner growing up for me. If you make it home made, it's actually delicious
Seeing this studly, normal dude cook and take part in history - it just rocks.
My Great Uncle was a young teen when he and his family were sent to internment camps. They're from Portland, OR.
He came home from school and was told to pack a suitcase. He didn't come home for years. And honestly I have no idea if they even had anything when they were released. Since so many took property of all sorts from the interned.
One Feather the chicken: This is my favorite( or personally favorite?) rationing story:
My mother was born in 1933 in London. After the war started, the women and children were relocated. My mother ended up in Luton, England.
As a child, she often told me the story of "One Feather."
In order to have a chicken dinner on Christmas, they would rear a chicken from a chick over the year, feeding it scraps from the Victory garden. My mother said it was the one day a year she got to eat chicken. Early on, they had a chick who was, unfortunately, and accidentally, scalded by a dropped pot of hot water by my grandmother. As a result, the little chick only grew one feather. One Feather became my mother's pet and companion. Every year, grandfather Brooks, according to my mother, always had to get a bit drunk to dispatch the Christmas chicken. My mother begged for One Feather's life, but he/she was made ready for Christmas dinner.
Although it was only a once a year treat, my mother did not eat chicken that year because of her love for "One Feather."
My grandmother still has her parents' ration books. She was also lucky enough to have one of the last rubber toys available before rationing took over. She was also small enough to ride the last functional bicycle available from her local store. It happened to be the decorative one from the store sign. Apparently it worked and it was just the right size for a toddler
I would be super interested in interment camp food! So many people don't know about the camps the way they should, and having the comparison could be a really helpful learning too.
My grandmother also remembers growing up during WW2. Her family never hurt for dairy because my great grandpa worked for the local dairy!
My parents (born in '39 and '41) grew up with rationing. My mom's family had a "Victory Garden" that was so they could have fresh produce, vegetables and herbs mostly, whenever they could grow through the Spring and Summer.
My mom even called our family garden a "Victory Garden" when I was growing up.
PBS had a television show called: "The Victory Garden" that mom watched regularly.
We would watch The Victory Garden every week at my house back in the 80's. My Grandparents always kept a garden growing.
I remember that show! My grandmother used to keep PBS on most of the day. She was also an amazing gardener.
I remember that show! My parents moved to a small farm when I was 9, because they were worried about my dad's job.
Mom wasn't taught any gardening, & was self trained for cooking, but she was determined to figure it out.
We watched Victory Garden, had a subscription to Organic Gardening magazine, & had huge gardens, raised beef cows and had chickens.
To this day I get edgy if I don't make at least a token effort to put something up for the winter season.
I remember as a child going through my grandma's junk drawer. She had several war ration coupon books for meat and butter. My grandparents owned a small farm and raised livestock and didn't use the coupons. My other grandpa and I were in the hardware store and a little old man from church walked past and grandpa said loud enough for him to hear "thief". The man also had a farm and sold watered down milk. Townsfolk grew sceptical of all the farmers after that. Grandpa quit selling their milk and he still resented him thirty yesrs later because all of the farmers could have used the cash from the milk.
What if he was just selling Skim Milk and their hatred of it is what its about.
@@MrWhateverfits Assuming you're not trolling here (which I'm pretty sure you are, but on the 1% chance you're not)- skim milk wasn't a thing at the time, afaik. Milk was either whole milk, cream, buttermilk, condensed milk, or evaporated milk. There was no skim, no 1% or 2%. Milk was either as thick as it came out of the cow or it was watered down by greedy profiteers.
It'd be like paying for a shot of whiskey and getting something beer-strength, aka a scam.
@@MissingmyBabbu There was a skim milk during WWII. My grandparents owned a farm and they sold the cream for cash and the kids drank skim or 1%.
@@ubervocal8777 Well then, I stand corrected! I didn't know that you could make skim milk or 1% back then. I thought it was newer, like late 50s early 60s. TIL, thanks for the info!
@@MissingmyBabbu Nah, hand cranked milk separators were a thing, my great aunt had one. Didn't get used any more, but she had it. Skim milk has been a thing as long as butter, it's what's left when you get the cream off. It's best used for making cheese, tastes horrible to drink.
My mother lived through WW2 in England. Her dad worked delivering coal and would often take delivery trips into the countryside. He would pass by orchards with no one available to pick the fruit, so they let him bring bags of it home if he would pick them. Mom had plenty to bring to school, which made her very popular.
Poor, poor, unhappy you Americans. You didn't have enough meat and sugar, you had to dilute the mince with chips. You didn't have enough tires and aluminum. And in the USSR, in the city of Leningrad, people lived 872 days during the blockade on bread and water. 500 grams of bread per day. On ration cards. 300 grams for children. 850 grams for those working in production. And they survived. And they defeated fascism.
@@yourtraining9709”you Americans” and the first sentence of their comment said IN ENGLAND you goof.
@@Korrupted_dust English bot is a minor. If two people fight, it means an Englishman was passing by. And are you Indian or Chinese? Otherwise, there are no Englishmen left in your cock-and-bull England.
@@Korrupted_dust English bot is a minor. If two people fight, it means an Englishman was passing by. And are you Indian or Chinese? Otherwise, there are no Englishmen left in your cock-and-bull England.
@@yourtraining9709 Cry harder
This was such a fun video! WW2 is my favourite period of time to learn about. I restore old WW2 naval ships as my job, so it´s fun learning about what life was like back then, and connecting that to the ships I work on.
You have to remember that we where in the depression before the war.
There where already Community Gardens where the Gov provided the seeds.
Also a lot of people had gardens and raised Chickens and Rabbits.
The only difference was there wasn’t a lot of money in the 30s to buy food, compared to everyone having jobs and money during the war, but limited supplies.
Both scenarios required people to stretch their food.
@@HDBee My uncle, when asked about the Depression, would quip, “ Not so bad ! You could get a loaf of bread for a nickel. The problem was getting the nickel ! “ 😂
My cousin was imprisoned at Tule Lake. I would love to learn more about food in these camps-especially how farmers from California were able to grow food in the high desert environments where many of the prisons were placed.
Would definitely enjoy hearing about food in the camps.
As a high school class of 2014, this is a very limited and understated subject in American history. I'd love to see more attention towards this side of America that we literally had interment camps, and this lens would be very interesting indeed.
I helped my elderly aunt clear out her kitchen cupboards in the 1980’s for some carpenters to do some renovations (making a space for a microwave oven and installing a range hood, etc.). We found a quart canning jar full of “can keys”. Does anyone remember those ? I asked her why in the world she had kept them. “You couldn’t get those during the war” was her answer.
My great grandmother had a drawer of straightened twist ties and a drawer of washed out and neatly folded bread bags. When I asked her: it was because she didn't have Anything to put stuff in during the war.
My great-grandmother kept the box for everything she bought in the ceiling tiles in the house, and washed and reused aluminum foil and other items until she died in the early 2000's. She grew up during the Great Depression and WW2, so she saved and reused EVERYTHING for the rest of her life. She had the coolest kitchen I'd ever seen, with three gas-fired ovens stacked on top of each other so the heat from one rose and added to the heat of the one on top, increasing the efficiency, reducing the gas used, and decreasing the amount of cooking time for family dinners at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I've never seen another kitchen with that set up (apparently from the 1950's), but I've always wanted one if I had enough money and space. Her house was the only place you could make multiple roasts/baked goods in the oven at one time, and at different temperatures, efficiently.
When she died, it took us 2 weeks to throw away empty boxes for things she'd kept above the ceiling tiles in the living room, den, and other rooms.
We still have can keys here in Australia I believe. They're used only on corned beef.
@@OffGridInvestor … and still on imported corned beef here and I believe on Spam.
@@phil2u48 Spam is a pop top in the US now. Corned beef is about the only place I still see can keys, but they're on pretty much all corned beef cans.
My father told stories of rations during WW2 and growing up his treat was mac and cheese. It seems like that was something his aunt could get with the rations that he enjoyed. Whenever we took him out to eat for a special meal, mac and cheese was his go to meal.
One of the reasons why the voice for the WW2 war movies and news reels sounded like looney Tunes characters was because Mel Blanc (the main voice for Looney Tunes) was the main voice actor under contract so he also did most of the War contracts
Blanc is legendary for a reason.
And they had cartoonists making army training videos. I saw one for aircraft gunnery here on UA-cam once.
@@JohnDoe-420 yep those are still on UA-cam. Mr. Blanc does voices for those as well. I've seen ones for staying in the army after your Tour; caution against eating area foods; and censoring messages to home.
I was born within 20 years of the end of rationing in the UK. So my grandparents still had many of the recipes, pamphlets & eating habits of the period. So it was recreating war time recipes that got my interest in food history started. They say that the UK population was never healthier than when they were enduring rationing. I've cooked a lot of the dishes & enjoyed many, some making their way into my regular meal plans as they're tasty. The first one I cooked is still a favourite "Lord Woolton Pie". I had fun doing a bit of living history my only eating rationed WWII period amounts for a couple of months & felt really good on it. Looking forward to the rest of the series.
When I was growing up in my WWII Navy veteran household from 1946 to 1960 I had never tasted steak. The only meat we ever had was hamburger always stretched out with other ingredients and on very rare occasions we might have a arm or chuck roast. My mom loved to serve fried spam except she always bought Treet as her favorite brand. A holiday meal would be a canned ham or at Christmas the place my dad worked gave out food boxes with a whole ham with grapefruit, oranges and apples and candy in the huge box. It was so exciting when dad brought home that huge box of food. We ate on that ham for days after Christmas. My parents made ham and eggs, toasted ham sandwiches with barbecue sauce, ham and beans and we ate every bit. The only thing that was a little difficult was cutting the meat of the bone. My uncle bought a side of beef and gave us a huge sirloin steak in 1960 and my dad fashioned a grill by using a metal dishpan and put an oven rack over some charcoal briquettes and grilled the steak and I thought it was delicious. We would have oatmeal with raisins and toast for dinner many times. We never ate fancy. Then when I started going places with high school friends I learned about tacos and pizza and I made my parents try other foods. I was the smallest kid in my class but I never got very much good food. We were the working poor but so was everybody else.
Max, I love your channel. I'm 67 and remember my folks talking about rationing during WW2. It may explain why I grew up never wanting for anything food wise. My father loved beef, (he's been gone 27yrs today.) My Mom grew up eating lots of fish/game and it was not a regular menu item in our house. She tired of it. I feel blessed to have grown up and live in this country and never want to forget the sacrifices and ingenuity our forefathers/ancestors possessed and promulgated. Keep it coming my man!!! You're a star!!! --Mr. Dick.
Two TV series I appreciate regarding life during WWII and rationing center on the UK. First is The 1940s House, where a modern family live through rationing, preparing their home for blackouts and digging a bomb shelter. The other is Wartime Farm which follows how the government made farmers change their methods and the land girls, women who came from cities to work on farms.
My grandmother (who raised three boys during the depression and the war so had a lot of these recipes) used to make these. It was distinguished from her meatloaf mainly by not having pork, carrots or tomato sauce in it. She would use different things for the filler though, often saltines or butter/flavored crackers, or Total cereal. She used the same recipe for hamburger patties, just made them a touch thinner. It's fantastic in a patty melt with caramelized onions and a cheese like Monterey Jack on a rye bread
I was imagining the same thing. That would go great as a burger or maybe a caballo (with a soft fried egg on top)
This month with Max Miller is going to be awesome
Every month is.
I really enjoyed this episode! I made the Emergency steak not just for my own family but also for my neighbors family for her birthday with a baked potato and corn on the cob on the side with the Henry VIII Tudor strawberry torte for dessert. It was a big hit with both families! Thank You and Keep up the good work!
Yes, more about the internment camps. We had a friend of my family that his parents were in one of the internment camps as children. I never talked with them about it. They spent a lot of time teaching me the joys of Japanese food and traditions. I always felt like I was one of their grandchildren when I went to visit them. May they both rest in peace.
What memories and experiences
Quick history lesson sugar was used to make industrial alcohol which was used in a lot of product for the war which is why it was rationed heavily.
The alternative of beet sugar became more of a commodity during the war.
@@kameljoe21 thank you for posting. Not many people know. If I remember correctly honey was not rationed in the same way as cane sugar, nor was sorghum molasses.
We also Imported it so didn’t have enough
As a Japanese-American from Hawaii, I only ever learned the stories of the internment camps through my pursuit for my history degree in college. I learned about what my grandparents had to go through during Pearl Harbor when they lived on the Big Island, but I would love to see what you could find in your research on the food of the internment camps! I love your videos and your platform is such a great way to dissect the big events of history that we learn in class and factor in the human aspect of everyday life for these people that had to live it.
This reminds me of the Japanese Hamburg Steaks. Instead of Wheaties they use Panko, the breadcrumbs. Also they cook it in a pan, searing both side then adding water and covering to finish cooking by "steaming." Then you make a demi-glace out of the pan. I made it twice for my family, they really love it. The texture is definitely not "steaky" though but it's moist and a bit "bouncy?" Anyways it's really good.
Yeah it's a lot more like a quickly-done meatloaf than it is an actual steak. But quite good nonetheless.
My mom used to talk about rationing during WWII. Her mom raised rabbits & chickens. I remember her telling me about the sugar rationing. We were pretty frugal growing up seeing as how she was part of the Great Depression *and* WWII. Good show, Max, as always!
Как житель территории бывшего Советского Союза, практически в самом начале видео узнала рецепт (простой советской) котлеты. Вместо хлопьев мои родственники добавляют мелко тёртую картошку, а родственники партнёра - хлеб. Блюдо действительно очень вкусное, очень мясное и прекрасно насыщает на целый день. И пользуется популярностью до сих пор.
That sounds tasty! What's it called?
Thank you for sharing that with us all. A finely grated potato, to make this recipe, sounds just wonderful 😊❤
Burger and fries in one.
I would like to try that with potatoes!
My mother makes her meatloaf with bread. Sounds sort of similar.
We visited the museum at the Heart Mountain Relocation Camp in Wyoming. Not only did the Japanese Americans build victory gardens, they taught the local land owners how to use irrigation techniques to make land productive for growing food instead of grassland for cattle and sheep. Their impact is still evident to this day.
Most estimates say it takes 1/2 an acre to feed one person. My war era parents always had just a 1/4 ac garden going and let me tell you, good gardening is hard work. Thank your farmers.
My grandma talked about, and later wrote, about her time growing up during the war. She was tasked with helping take care of her siblings for most of the time, her father went to a big city to work in a factory and her mother was a teacher. I have always loved the molasses crinkles that she makes and she always said it was because she made them so often because of the rationing during the war, it was easier to get molasses than sugar, and that was their sweets basically. That molasses allowed her to bake cookies for all her siblings on the farm all through the war.
I accumulate the crumbs from unsweetened breakfast cereals. Add in cracker crumbs and the odd piece of bread left to go stale. Crush it all up and add into ground meat to make meatballs and hamburg steak. I also save up the sweetened cereal to replace some of the flour and sugar to make cookies and muffins. I paid good money for those crumbs, and I am going to eat them. And maybe save the world in the process.
Great video, my parents were married during WWII and when my brother and I came along, we still ate lots of these recipes. We had a garden growing up, I learned how to grow and raise all sorts of things to eat. Nothing like the taste of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, squash, etc! The stuff we buy in stores just can't compare. If people knew how good it was, they'd be making their own 'Victory Gardens' today. Yes, I'd love to see more like this, it was very cool!😆
I would love to see one of your videos on Japanese internment camp cooking…especially on how close the families could get to their own styles. Please!
My grandparents always had a goat,chickens and rabbits. And had a cow. They didn’t eat the cow until she now longer produced milk. They had a smoke house for making bacon and smoking meats.
They had a huge “victory” garden with fruits and vegetables. My great uncle grew corn and hay and had the cattle on his land my other great uncle had Nut trees, pecans and walnuts and apple trees. They all shared and worked the 3 farms together. My grandmother and aunts canned everything ,including meat. They lived this way before
WW2. They lived in Oklahoma even durning the Dust Bowl. They lived this way until the days they got too old to work the land.
I remember stories from my Grandmother in Switzerland. Though it was neutral they also went through rationing, bicycle tires were replaced by string and public parks were used for growing potatoes.
So interesting to hear the internment camp angle. I've never considered that. My wife's parent were in the camps. Her dad worked on HIS dad's strawberry farm in Torrance, CA before the war. They made a good living. Back then they were called "truck farmers" - aka tenant farmers... My understanding is that my wife's grandfather, as a first generation Asian immigrant, by law could not own land, so tenant farming was his only option. I'd love to hear more about the food grown at the camps during the war. I heard SO MANY stories from my in-laws...
I am so excited about this! Teaching a homeschool class on ww2 and was looking for food classes!!!!!!! Thank you so much! Can’t wait for the rest!
Yes to an episode about the Japanese internment camps! My Mom’s family was horrified when the Japanese-American family who owned their local corner grocery were sent to the camps. They were held in high regard and sorely missed; my Mom’s family was angered by the cruelty, and sorrowful about everyone with Japanese heritage summarily being sent to the camps. My Mom was born in the mid 1930s on the coast of California. The shoreline was covered in camouflage netting in case of attack. My grandfather was a block warden who would make his rounds to ensure that nobody had any visible lights showing after dark. Mom says that ration coupons were often traded among people in the neighborhood, depending on their needs. They always bought raw milk, and would skim the cream off the top and save it. When they had enough, they would churn their own butter with that cream. Butter substitute was also marketed during the war. It was sold with a white slab of a fat substance, which came with a packet of yellow dye. Consumers were to mix the fat and dye together until everything was uniformly yellow, like butter. Oleo, margarine.
Yes, second on this - research may be hard but would enjoy this
The downside of all this, including an admission by a Japanese-American friend's grandparents, is that a lot of Japanese immigrants to America were gladly spying or sabotaging on behalf of Japan prior to internment. And I find it odd that everyone remembers Japanese interment, but little to no attention is given to German and Italian interment from the same period, which affected my family directly. My great-uncle Adolf only got out of an internment camp by volunteering for the navy in early 1942.
@@Swindle1984 Sadly a lot of people are unaware of American Internment camps entirely. It's yet another stain on our history that often goes unmentioned.
I used to live in one of the retired internment camps! Still live not too far away from it tbh but it's for sure one of the least desirable places to live ever
Yes please!
21:25 Let's put that on a tray. Nice...
Ok, cool. See ya.
Haha great reference. Love it
Steve is the greatest.
Steve🤤
Steve the botulism bypasser
My mother was a UK War Bride who emigrated to Canada after marrying my father. She moved to Canada quite early...January 1945. She took the train from Halifax to Edmonton Alberta. She hadn't seen so much food for years. The porters on the train kept offering second helpings. When she finally arrived in Alberta, she thought / decided Canadian rationing was a joke.
My grandma was a war bride who moved from the UK to California in 47. The UK was still on fairly strict rations at that point. She walked into the shop and saw shelves full of butter and sugar and flour and burst into tears to see so much food available.
Meanwhile Tommy Nolegs was sitting in London wondering where the sweetheart he fought to protect had run off to lol.
It's meatloaf, much better if you use oatmeal instead of brainflakes.
Canada had the advantage of being a small country, and being the silly fellas who perfected the art of 'misplacing' prisoners in a ditch with a few rounds in them.
@@Chonkemssmall, relative to?
I absolutely love the history portion and seeing the way people survived during these period. Thank you so much. I really feel how well we have it now. I think everyone should see how people pulled together and survived these difficult times.
My Mum was a war child in England, and she never forgot how she craved certain foods unobtainable during WW2. Britain was too cold to grow oranges and lemons - they used to be imported from Spain and Italy - but those import ships could no longer get through, so the British slowly began to get scurvy. The Government were extremely worried about this, and luckily, Lord Woolten, the Minister in charge of food, found a clever solution. Announcing it over the radio, he ordered all the kids in Britain to go foraging in the countryside, and along the hedgerows, for rosehips. England was full of roses, and rosehips are an even greater source of vitamin C than oranges. Mum used to talk so fondly of the Great Rosehip Hunt, when hundreds of kids from her town in Lancashire raced around in the fields looking for rosehips, filling their baskets, and competing with each other over who could gather the most. They made great fun out of a national emergency! All the mothers then boiled up the rosehips in huge copper tubs they usually used for washing clothes - everyone chipped in their tiny sugar ration, which was 2 ounces per week, into these boiling tubs, as the rosehips were too sour to eat raw - and made rosehip syrup, bottled it up, and now every family and every growing child in Britain was safe from scurvy. British ingenuity at its best! She also told me how she craved bananas, which they could no longer import from India and Africa, and Lord Woolten had a cookbook printed for all the housewives in Britain, so they could manage on their meagre rations. 'Mock Mashed Banana' was one such recipe - and my poor Mum still shuddered at the memory of it. It was mashed potato, a tiny bit of sugar, and banana essence, which was bright yellow, and tasted absolutely vile! It was meant to be a treat for the kids - but Mum said it tasted like a punishment! Hitler underestimated just how tough and determined the British were. Mum never forgot this poster, which the Government printed and was posted up all over her town -
'YOUR COURAGE, YOUR CHEERFULNESS, YOUR RESOLUTION WILL BRING US VICTORY.'
That is AMAZING! Thank you so much for sharing that.
My mum as well. She never mentioned the mock banana, which sounds a revolting travesty, but no matter where she moved after coming to the states, she made sure she always had a garden, and we were (over)prepared for emergencies. And of course, all was achieved with good cheer and without complaint.
Thank you for sharing this. I always found British WW2 stories so fascinating
I know there was a longtime fondness for Spam in the UK that sort of baffles Americans, but when the USA was shipping food and supplies to the UK during the war, that Spam was a very welcomed commodity.
Do you know if ordinary people in England could get ice for their ice boxes during World War 2, and if they did, where from? Did ice men still deliver in towns and cities from horse-drawn wagons?
My mom said they always soaked the cereal in the milk before combining it with ground beef. They ground their own meat from cheap cuts. We were still grinding our own meat for ground beef in 1963, in The US.
Came here to say that. Where I'm from, we frequently add stale bread soaked in milk into our ground meat, to stretch it out. I imagine the idea here was similar.
U.S rationing wasn't really "We're all starving and we don't have enough, so we need to distribute it fairly" like it was in occupied Europe. It was more like, "Eat ground beef instead of steak, no sugar in your coffee, no eggs in your birthday cake, gotta eat fresh fruits and vegetables instead of processed foods". They didn't have much to complain about😅
@@Jayjay-ef2gt When people make comments about some story on UA-cam dealing with WW2 they often simply type "The Greatest Generation". That irritates me sometimes because I wonder if they really understand much about what life for home front and battlefront people was like--they simply toss out a popular phrase. It's stories like Max's that help make the situation more understandable. American consumers had it easy compared with the Brits, who lived with shortages of just about everything while being bombed and faced with the possibility of invasion. I like to remind people that The Greatest Generation has to include those people.
Yes, one of the meatloaf recipes I have talks about taking bread and soaking it in milk to soften it and make it mushy the add ground beef and the usual seasoning. There’s some reaction that happens with milk soaked bread and meat that makes meat,oaf juicier, not as dense and tastier .
@@teresahiggs4896 yeah, it's the gluten activating. it traps the water from the milk, and is what sticks the whole thing together, and gives it loft if you knead it, just like real bread.
One story my grandma told me was about how her mom (my great grandmother) would use her sugar ration for canning, while her neighbor, on the other hand, would use it to make delicious cakes and desserts! So, for my young grandma, dessert was *clearly* the better of the two, so, my grandma would often visit her neighbor, who was happy to share, for a refreshing sweet treat and some good company. My grandma would also bring her neighbor excess fruit, milk (she lived on a dairy farm), and other ingredients to help make the desserts.
She also has some leftover stamp books that she's saved and they're really cool to see!
I’ve made this recipe several times since watching this video!
It has a good umami flavor.
I even tried frying patties. That worked, but I went back to baking it. Definitely tastes great with mashed potatoes, and mushroom gravy!
Please do an episode on the experiences of Japanese-Americans who were forced to relocate to camps. My husband’s father was interned as a young man. His family lost everything, including their small grocery store in Sacramento, California. When he was released, he went on to serve in the US Army, retired after a long career with the US Postal Service working at SFO, and fully paid off a simple row house in San Francisco. Rest in peace, Grandpa Dick.
That simple row house is worth millions now.
My maternal grandfather’s family had a fruit ranch near Sacramento. His family was one of the rare one’s that actually owned the land they were farming and were able to lease it out while they were stuck at Gila River.
A local family in my town was actually fortunate. Their neighbors kept their property in a sort of unofficial trust and sold it back at severely reduced rates when they were released from the internment camps.
I second this request - the story of the internment camps are sadly not shared as widely as they should be. PLEASE Max, make this video!!!
Yes!
Yes, please do a video on the Japanese internment camps. I loved that you included them in this video. Every time I watch your videos with my family and I’m about to pause to add a footnote… you include it! Thank you for your work and not shying away from the difficult parts of history.
Growing up out here on the West Coast, the 'scars' of the relocation are not forgotten. My dad was actually involved in the construction of the Manzanar relocation camp memorial as a cost estimator (and I was involved in the Flight 93 memorial as a cost estimator, myself), and over on Bainbridge Island, there is a memorial at the location of the dock where the Japanese American citizens were loaded onto boats. It really is a painful piece of history.
Also, I really need to get around to sending you something that I'd bought on my trip to England last year! When I went to Bletchley Park (codebreaker HQ for England), one of the things that they'd had in the gift shop were little sample cookbooks for wartime meals!
I hope a video about the interment camps is made.
My hometown, Merced, CA, was the location of one of the Assembly Centers for initial interment prior to the Japanese-Americans that were held there went to a more "permanent" location. The site where it was is now the Merced Fairgrounds and there is a monument there acknowledging its role in this shameful affair.
Nice, another furry :3
But yeah, my WWII family stories are interesting. I just learned yesterday that my grandpa's giant 13 4E feet were the reason why he was sent to Engineer Corps in Burma rather than the frontlines in either of the major Theaters of WWII. The time that it took for the Army to make custom boots for him could have saved his life and led to my existence.
Was your dad prpud of building the camps. Japanophobia, Italophobia, and Germanophobia was everywhere in the 40s (and stayed in the 50s, 60s, and 70s through the 40s generation continuing their xenophobia to death most of the time) Did your dad hate Japanese, German, or Italian people, or was he part of the progressive, acceptinf minority?
I'm sure the 'scars' of Pearl Harbor are not forgotten either.
Perfect! I've really wanted to understand what homeland rationing was actually like. My mother lived through that. And "Victory Gardens" . Americans grew gardens for "the duration", but sadly most people here gave up veggie gardens after the war.
My former inlaws baked a chocolate cake a few years back out of mayonnaise. It was a WWII recipe from rationing. It was actually quite good.
That has always been my family's favorite - my brother always requests it on his b-day! I did not realize it came out of rationing.
OMG, that box shot of Axis and Allies at the beginning really took me back to my youth.
Would LOVE to see that show about the food at the internment camps - it's a painful reminder that this was done to them, but I've so long been impressed by the resilience of those Americans in the face of that injustice.
I would LOVE to see a video on the foods of the Japanese Internment Camps please. I do not know enough about that part of history
I'm wondering what they might have been growing there. I know German POWs grew crops, and they ate as well as GIs under the Geneva Conventions. I understand that they were impressed with how well they were treated while interned. Not sure the American citizen Japanese had the same experience.
And don't forget the interned Japanese Canadians either. Canada interned it's citizens of Japanese descent.
I wonder if he could swing an interview with an internment camp survivor? Interviews with George Takei have always made the experience much more visceral for me.
It’s mostly resources they stole from the locals
@@AcmeRacingMore people walked out of those camps than went in initially, I’d say having enough privacy to bang is pretty good treatment.
I just found this channel, this is amazing. Watching history while cooking history is sick
My dad grew up during Mao Zedongs reign in China before immigrating to the US. I remember him telling me about the rationing that took place while he was growing up. Families would save up the meat ration they got every month so that they could have one good meal a year during Chinese new years. It was the one time you could actually eat meat and sweets.
max, you are one of those rare youtubers who got pretty big (id say 2 and a half million subs is a lot) who consistently pumps out awesome videos. love the history, love the recipes, just keep on doing what you love.
My father-in-law worked for Utah-Idaho Sugar Co. in the Northwest. They were able to produce beet sugar during rationing with 3,500 Japanese citizens "imported back" from their internment camps to do paid agricultural work. Other farm workers were hired from Mexico's Bracero program as seasonal workers for U&I sugar. Even politicians and schoolchildren helped out with thinning and harvesting the sugar beets. Cane sugar was produced not just in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, but also in Texas and Louisiana, but corn syrup was a lot less labor intensive/profitable than producing regular sugar.
Yes. I'm from western Nebraska and sugarcane is definitely not the only way to produce sugar. Lots of sugar beets here.
@@TheRedleg69most sugar these days comes from beets unless labeled otherwise.
I am a 47 year old man and I have been very interested in World War II history for most of my adult life and have to say, you told me things that I had never heard before and that's pretty damn cool , thanks man. Consider me subscribed.
Dude you should try the British version of wartime cooking. There's a series called wartime farm on UA-cam. Hopefully you cover those. They made some really really interesting choices with what they had.
The Brits STILL eat like the Blitz is still going on xD
I'd love to see Max try his hand at Woolton Pie.
@@fenfrostpaws2000 We only push that on tourists, we all eat Mediterranean Thai fusion, Cantonese cuisine or classic Indian curries.
I'd enjoy this. British food history is interesting.
@@fenfrostpaws2000 ...since when?
I’m not sure if you are interested. My father was Japanese and interned in high school from a small town called Mosier Oregon. They had a farm and his father (my grandfather) worked in the cafeteria. My father who is 96 may be able to answer some of your questions. Every time I pass by his property that was taken away, I always think about what they lost during the war.
It must be sad to see the very same property they lost.
My father's side of the family lost their auto repair shop when they were sent to the camps, and they didn't get it back after the war. My dad was only 3 when they were taken away, but they grew up very poor into the '50s due to losing their business. My Dad still cooked some of the poverty meals from his childhood (some kind of hash with cabbage, green bell peppers, and bacon?) and he NEVER throws food away to this day. He will eat visibly moldy food and wash it down with milk that can be smelled across the room. He'll insist that it's perfectly good, and he never gets sick from it. I suppose he developed an iron stomach from having to eat ALL the food they could afford, no matter what.
These are the stories that need to be told.
The BBC did a series of documentaries about historic farming. One was about World War farms and the need to resurrect near-medieval skills in the UK. It was very clear that the US had no hardship by comparison. (One of the presenters was Ruth Goodman, if you want to look those series up.)
Oh that sounds so interesting, do you have any idea what it might be called?
@@katierasburn9571 The series is called “Wartime Farm” there are 8 episodes. Excellent production, I learned so much.
The same team also did a few other series set in different time periods, there’s an Edwardian Farm, Victorian Farm and Tudor farm series. Most came be found on UA-cam and I think most Max fans would enjoy them
Excellent series!!
@@katierasburn9571 There is Tudor Monastery Farm, Victorian Farm, Edwardian Farm and Wartime Farm.
YES, PLEASE! You mentioned doing a segment on the Internment Camp foods …. Yes, please! My father and his family were in one of those camps (Poston, AZ)……
I remember rationing, with my mother scrimping her points to buy groceries. I remember the little books, and mom guarding hers with her life! I was of course too young to fully realize what was going on. Thank you for this look back, and an episode on the Japanese internment camps will be wonderful.
The BBC series Wartime Farm is a great window into the UK's farming efforts during WWII with living historians operating a period farm from the 1940s for an entire calendar year. It's very informative and entertaining.
Yes. I have binged out on this series, and other historical ones by the same crew. Just fabulous.
I love the entire Series of Farm shows! My favorite is actually the Tudor Monastery Farm but the Wartime Farm is also really good!
@@diasimcil23 I totally agree. Tudor Monastery Farm is my favorite as well. I especially love all of Ruth's segments. She's smart, industrious, and has a great sense of humor! Also, anytime Ronald Hutton shows up, you know you're going to learn so much.
in terms of ingredients, it is basically a German meatball/Frikadelle, but we use old rolls or bread, and first soak the rolls in milk so that it is easier to work with and add an egg for binding, cornflake, crushed also works as Panade/breading for crispyness
Was looking for this. It would have been easier to soak the wheaties in the milk before adding to the meat
Yes, also a good method for the polpette in Italian-American style spaghetti and meatballs