An excellent cake for the troops

6 oz. margarine.
6 oz. brown sugar, or granulated can be used.
2 oz. chopped peel (optional).
¾ lb. mixed fruit.
¾ lb. flour.
1 ½ teaspoonsful bi-carbonate of soda.
Nearly ½ pint milk.

METHOD: Cream the margarine and sugar. Warm the milk and pour on to the soda. Add the prepared fruit, the milk and the flour. Mix well. Bake in a moderate oven for about 2 hours in a 7-inch cake-tin, or in slabs, for about 1 hour.

From A Kitchen Goes to War: Famous People Contribute 150 Recipes to a Ration-Time Cookery Book (John Miles, Ltd: London, 1940), which has a neat blue and white cover with a steaming tureen a little bit off center. Illustrations by Walter Holz. The book itself is small—almost exactly the size of a second-hand paperback. It smelled like the old Nancy Drew mystery books my aunt used to send; nothing really like the kitchen. Neither was it particularly militaristic. It was mostly strikingly clean, unlike most of the cookbooks in my kitchen. Library books are almost always immaculate, but it was funny that this was a clean cookbook. No sauces dripped upon it; the spine unbroken.

This cookbook is part of Yale’s Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, which meant that I had to examine it in a closed reading room—and very seriously—alongside other scholars. This made the book almost dematerialized in my hands. It seemed a very improper thing to do: forcing it to perform as a historical source like any other. Things were better once I started baking and returned it to its original purpose.

The introduction explains that

Cabinet Ministers or their wives, authors, actors, sportsmen, famous chefs and food experts have sent the recipes in the hope that they may help the housewife to plan interesting meals in wartime. Using our food supplies to the best advantage will help us to win the war. We can avoid waste and keep ourselves fit. We need variety and a well-balanced diet. These recipes give you both, suggestions for a number of balanced meals for various seasons being included in the book. Many of the dishes are novel, the majority economical. But because every household feels the need to celebrate now and then, even in wartime, a few party dishes have been included. The fatted calf may be rationed, but other festive foods are not, and some of the recipes show how workaday dishes may be transformed by party trimmings.

A Kitchen Goes to War was published at the very onset of the war, thrown together with patriotic enthusiasm, but too early to truly take rationing into account. Instead, it is clear that lessons from the First World War (the idea that “food will win the war”) guided author Rebecca West as she sampled recipes. Most of the cakes avoid sugar, eggs or butter. Most of the recipes use drippings as their fat. Fish-based recipes are plentiful. Butter and sugar were rationed in early January 1940, but this particular recipe uses relatively vast amount of both.

The book’s propagandistic tone is light and happy. The wartime kitchen is here not a dire place. Jovial headers introduce each recipe and its author. “John Gatrell, like most men, likes scones.” Gertrude Jennings proposes “A really good cake for hungry people.” These famous people are unknown today, making the book’s premise amusing.

This recipe was submitted by Eva Turner. Dame Turner was a famous soprano who lived a very long time (1892-1990). She sang and then taught. Her “excellent cake for the troops” is “a cake that has had adventures.” The book’s author explains that “A slab of this cake was sent to the Front, traveled round France, chasing the owner, missed him and came back. Other things in the parcel were spoilt, but this was good after 10 weeks. It finally went out again and was much appreciated.”

The first thing that is striking about this recipe is that, while in English, it is written in a different language. The translation follows:

12 Tbs margarine.
1 ¼ C packed brown sugar.
2 oz. chopped peel (peel from one large lemon).
¾ lb. mixed fruit (a Trader Joe’s bag of apricots weighs an even 1 lb.; I used ¾ of the bag by eye).
2 ½ C + 2 Tbs flour.
1 ½ tsp baking soda.
Nearly 1 C milk.

The manner of writing the Method (aside from sounding more scientific) leaves much up to the cook. I baked my interpretation in a 325 degree oven, in an 8x8in. brownie pan. I used apricots, an unlikely fruit for the period, and creamed the margarine and sugar with an electric mixer. I baked it for about an hour, which produced a moist, heavy cake that came readily from my greased pan. It had swelled to about twice its size.

It was markedly not the fruitcake from the neighbors that I expected. Nor was it untasty. It would be much more fair to call it a bread (and necessary to note that we slathered it in “Country Crock” and it was quite delicious). The chopped peel was essential, even though the recipe calls it optional; almost all the flavor came from the lemon zest I used.

We kept portions of the cake out for almost a week, loosely covered. It did not harden or dry out.

Paul, who is a biologist and comes from a wise family, suggested that we douse it in booze and serve it flaming, like a Christmas pudding. Of course “every household feels the need to celebrate now and then, even in wartime.” The recipe cheated the rationing system, and I cheated on the recipe a bit, but in the end:

“It needs no eggs and makes a good-sized cake.”

About the illustrations: Advertisements for the Parkinson Crown Gas Cooker. I could not find the their exact date, but they were published as a pamphlet by the Barnet District Gas & Water Company. This places them before nationalization (1949). These images come from the Museum of London and can be found in their original context here.