Page 18 - Life in Langham 1914-1919
        P. 18
     Food and Rationing
                By the time war broke out in 1914 Britain was importing large
                quantities of food. This led to shortages once German U-boats
                gained a hold over shipping.
                In February 1917 voluntary
                rationing was introduced and by
                1918, butter, margarine, lard,
                flour, meat and sugar were
                rationed. Fresh fruit and
                vegetables became harder to
                come by, with bread and flour
                in particularly short supply.
                Langham villagers were
                certainly growing their own
                produce where possible as the
                letters to the parish council                                          Langham Parish Council minutes 16 April 1915
                requesting allotments show.
                                                                                       They could also obtain food from
                                                                                       the local butcher, baker and
                                                                                       grocer, although Ben Walker was
                                                                                       certainly unimpressed with the
                                                                                       dripping substitute sold in Tidd's
                                                                                       Shop: my mother made some pastry
                                                                                       with the dripping. Anyway, that was the
                                                                                       intention; the resulting pie was just like
                                                                                       concrete. It turned out that the
                                                                                       substitute was mainly potato and
                                                                                       gravy salt.
                        Mr Tidd’s shop, Church Street Langham
                As the war progressed and staple foodstuffs became ever harder to
                come by, much ingenuity was employed in stretching the rations such
                as adding maize or barley to bread  and economizing on butter by
                whipping in warm milk.
                Despite the obvious difficulties, people made the best of what they had
                as a Christmas dinner of 1918 shows: I think this was rather a wartime
                Christmas although we had a right good dinner, but not the usual calculated to
                make one ill for a week after. This was the menu. Roast pork over Yorkshire pudding
                with two vegetables, one mince pie added. The usual plum pudding was
                conspicuous by its absence. This was the first Christmas we have
                passed since our marriage that we have not had a plum pudding for
                dinner. This year we could not get the material that a plum
                pudding is composed of.





