story by Cale Herreman | photos by Brie Martin | republished from the Winter 2010-11 print issue | XYZ Magazine

It is Historical Recipe Night in the Rational Living household.  In the center of the dining room table is a plate with a dozen small brown patties.  Phoebe, 9, squints her eyes at it.  She’s the picky one.  Her sister Zosia, 7 going on 8, loads up her plate and eats quietly.  Her mother, Michelle Stottlemire, keeps referring to her as “adventuresome.”

This meal, this journey into America’s history, is anchored by nutburgers.  The recipe came from Michelle’s trusty 1943 Betty Crocker cookbook.  “Many of the dishes call for ‘white sauce,’” she says.  “It took me a while to figure out just what that was!”  White sauce is on the table, as are green beans and squash.  It all smells good enough to overcome skepticism.

While they don’t eat a vintage recipe every night, the Stottlemire family is living in the past.  They spent all of  2010 subject to the restrictions of World War II-era rationing: meat, cheese, oils, canned goods, and gasoline are limited.  At the time, this was done to ensure that there would be enough material for the war effort, and enough food for both soldiers and civilians.  Without rationing, there could have been famine or hyperinflation; with it, America’s millions had enough, most of the time.

So why would a modern family put itself under those restrictions?  They wanted to see if they could limit themselves to “enough.”

Glenn, the father, says, “It’s not such a bad life, to get by on enough.  You give up a little bit of convenience, but it’s not really hardship.”  Knowing that there are many people in the country, and so many more in the world, who are facing true hardship, puts it in perspective for them.  Glenn ponders “Maybe if more people made little changes…”

“We wouldn’t have to talk about poverty in our society as much,” Michelle finishes.  Each household limiting their intake would leave more resources for others, just as it did in wartime.

The family has restricted some things that weren’t formally rationed, either for the sake of historical accuracy or nutrition.  They try to use only seasonally-available produce, and eschew processed foods.  They also have restricted making big purchases.  New appliances wouldn’t have been available during the war, since the factories had been converted to making war materiel.  This became an issue over the summer, when the family’s propane grill was on the fritz.  Just buying a new one would violate the spirit of the rationing project.  So Michelle went online.  “We got a new part for twenty bucks,”  thus extending its useful life.

This rationing experiment has meant a lot of food adventures and misadventures.  When they started last winter, the available produce was cabbage and potatoes.  “We tried Cabbage Del Monica,” Michelle says.  “Cabbage in a white sauce, and it was horrible.”  Then there was the liver debacle.  The less said of that, the better.

On the flip side of that, Phoebe had a definite favorite of the historical recipes: Jellied ham loaf.  The picky eater loved that for its resemblance to Spam.  Glenn speculates, “I guess if you’ve been on a diet that is low in meat and oil, those are the things that hit the spot.”

Zosia offers that her favorite part of this project is, “Trying new things.”  But then admits that when rationing is over, she’d like a Totino’s frozen pizza.  Her parents wilt a bit at that, as Glenn wonders about a “rubber band effect.”

“I suspect that some things will creep back into us,” he says.  “The convenience: no planning, no preparing, no rolling dough.”

“No nutrition,” Michelle groans.

Their continuing adventures can be seen at rationalliving.blogspot.com. [Spoiler: Zosia gets her Totino's frozen pizza. We hope it was all you dreamed it would be, Zosia.]

[ originally published in print, Dec. 2010 | Jan. 2011 | Cale Herreman | Brie Martin | photo at top via rational living blog ]