My View from the Pilot house By Mike Boys Pilot News Consultant
I‘m going to put on my chef’s hat and cooking apron and share with you some of the meals I ate, or should I say “had” to eat during the war, when I was a kid. I am not an expert cook, by any means, because I have trouble boiling a hot dog correctly. At the time I didn’t realize that some of the meals that mom prepared didn’t have some ingredients that we would expect. Some meals were meatless and desserts were sugarless. With the nation at war —  lifestyles were changed in every family. It was very hard for the housewife to plan menus. Women had to be inventive and use “substitutes” for ingredients that were scarce or were rationed, to make various tasty cuisines for her family. But, if you planned and saved your ration stamps and tokens, you could get most of the items from your local grocer or from your farmer friends. As I remember, the ration stamp books were about the size of a post card; this small booklet was a very valuable possession to have. I remember mom had a coin purse where she kept the red and blue tokens.