Mock Dishes

Today, many people use alternative foods when they are allergic to common, mainstream foods such as milk, peanuts or the like. Many products made out of soy, almond or coconut serve as substitute foods in lieu of milk. Vegans also substitute foods, such as vegan bacon or vegan cheese, which are made from ingredients that simulate but do not contain meat or dairy products.

In World War II, foods which substituted for other consumables were called “mock” foods in Britain. Such foods were constructed by those living on the home front to simulate the actual ingredient or dish, which was difficult or impossible to purchase in shops because of the food rationing system that the British government had put in place. Mock recipes existed for foods such as mayonnaise, marzipan, cream, sausage, and duck. Many mock recipes were written in wartime by Britain’s Ministry of Food to promote the use of substitute foods in place of the actual foods.

Before the war, the British diet was a heavily meat-based one. The 1936-37 average of meat consumed per head in a middle-class British home was approximately 44.1 ounces, while in the working-class home, the consumption rate per head was 33.8 ounces of meat was consumed.[1] In the lean years leading up to the war, Britain, and indeed the world faced the Great Depression, reducing the amount and type of meat that many could afford to eat daily. In a study conducted of the British diet before the war by Crawford and Broadley, the level and range of meat consumption across the British classes was evident. Meat and other protein consumption shifted across classes as well as varied by meal type.[2]

In WWII, meat, including hamburger and duck, was rationed by cost rather than weight. Although values varied throughout the war, according to supply, on average, individuals were allocated 1s1d. worth of meat per week. Bacon and ham fell under a different level of ration, which on average amounted to 4oz per week. The rationing of meat was a contentious issue. While the British Wartime Social Survey, “Food”, found that individuals working in lighter industries such as offices did not feel the need for more meat in their wartime diet, many of those workers in heavy industry protested the level allocated to them and advocated for a higher meat rationed based on their perceived need for more calories to carry out their work.[3] Government officials, acquiesced to heavy industrial workers’ demands and released additional amounts of meat to the workers’ canteens.[4]         

To counteract the reduction of meat and other rationed goods such as milk, eggs, sugar, cheese, the British government sought to provide families with alternative food options and “mock” ingredients and recipes to fill the void. But simply naming a recipe “mock duck”, for example, did not ensure that it looked or tasted like the real thing. Indeed, often the recipes had no resemblance, and often little similarity in taste to the actual food or dish that it sought to imitate. But naming and structuring of dishes to resemble absent quantities of food symbolizes Britain’s real longing for pre-war consumption practices, where meat and two veg predominated. In a way, it is similar to modern-day practices of creating vegan bacon, which is meant to simulate the look and taste of real bacon, rarely ever does. Or the simulated beef burgers, which have the look, and in some cases a similar taste to meat. People consume these fake foods for a myriad of reasons, including health, commitment to vegan/vegetarian lifestyle, etc. But in the end, people want to stick to what they know, even if it takes on a different form. Consuming foods with the same name, but different ingredients and different tastes, enables people not to have to change their consumption habits, to eat what they have, in name anyways, always eaten.

At some level, not changing the name of a dish, even when the actual ingredients have changed, brings some level of comfort and continuity. For the British people living under wartime conditions of bombardment, separation, threat of death and loss, comfort through food, even in small measure, such as the preservation of name, if not taste of food, would have offered some level of reassurance in dark times.

Pandemic and Mock Dishes

Much can be learned from these mock dishes, which would be useful during the current pandemic. Early on in the public health crisis, people engaged in panic buying. As in wartime, where supplies ran low and demand far outstripped stocks, during the pandemic, store and warehouse supplies were quickly reduced, leaving shelves bare of many food supplies, including flour, meat, etc. People shifted cookery and consumption practices to meet these new realities. Often trying out new dishes and making substitutions based on available stock in shops and in their pantries. Mock recipes, such as “mock duck”, could be easily utilized in this situation, enabling families to provide a healthy, filling meal on limited, and substitute resources. Indeed, the ingredients required for this recipe would have been obtainable and inexpensive in stores, making it an ideal dish for cash strapped families, facing potentially long-term unemployment and rising food insecurity. It has the added benefit of being environmentally friendly, amenable to making consumer types, and healthy. If available, curry masala, cheese or kimchee could be added to enliven the dish for twenty-first century taste buds.

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Reference List

[1] I. Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls and Consumption, 1939-1955 (Oxford, 2000), 40-41. Consumption levels taken from W. Crawford, and H. Broadley, The People’s Food (London, 1938).

[2] See W. Crawford, and H. Broadley, The People’s Food (London, 1938), 52, 61-62.

[3] See table taken from Wartime Social Survey, “Food”, in I. Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls and Consumption, 1939-1955 (Oxford, 2000), 75.

[4] See TNA/MAF 223/28-‘The Feeding of the Industrial Workers’, Appendix A ‘Scale of Allowances of Food to Industrial Catering’, 1943.