HISTORY: Preserved

Being that it's Halloween and people dress up as things that they're not, I thought it would be fun to try a recipe for making something that was posing as something else - in this case whipped cream.

                                          This week is the Battle of the Whipped Creams!

During the war, I imagine that heavy cream that was ideal for making whipped cream was hard to come by, especially for the British. So, they came up with ways to make whipped cream.
I wanted to compare the British recipe with the American recipe to see which one tasted and functioned as a whipped cream better.

The criteria I was looking for was:
1) Taste
2) Texture
3) Usability (how well I was able to use it for its intended purpose)

When comparing the two recipes, I think it's apparent which one will be most likely to win:


 First up was the British recipe. It was important to establish some definitions.
1) Cornflour = Cornstarch
2) Margarine is not the same as vegetable spread, even if i…

I took our kids to a spur-of-the-moment Revolutionary War event this past Saturday at Mount Harmon Plantation in Earleville, Cecil County, MD. Two hours from us, it's a pretty house on a lovely spot by the Sassafrass River. This was our second Rev War event and my main mission was to find a unit we could hook up with. I tried looking for the unit that I've been communicating with, but no one had heard of them and couldn't tell me where to find them. That was pretty frustrating! So, instead, I looked around and found a tent fly that had several children and women cleaning up from the lunch hour. I got to talking with them and they were really friendly, answering my questions and listening as I explained my situation about finding a unit to join. It turns out that their unit is based not very far from us, are a family-friendly unit, and best of all they are open to men portraying civilians. I even met one of the men in their group who does a civilian impression. This was re…

Ration recipes come to the rescue again! I didn't know what to make for dinner tonight, but I found this great recipe in my "Eating for Victory" book which is a compilation of British reproduction pamphlets from WWII. There are a whole lot of things I love about this recipe for Vegetable Pie with Cheese & Oatmeal Crust.

1) It's fast and easy. You only have to make a top crust.
2) If you cheat like I did, you can use mixed frozen vegetables - already prepared. Or you can just use whatever veggies you have on hand.
3) It has creative ways to make your flour and fats stretch.
4) It offers a healthy dose of veggies.
5) The recipe is a meatless meal, which would have obviously saved on your meat ration.

Okay, first of all I have to defend myself about the frozen veggies. You might think they didn't have frozen veg back then, but actually they did! Alright, so maybe they weren't that available in Britain, but frozen vegetables were available in America and had…