Tag: mock dishes

Soy flour as meat substitute during World War I

Government pamphlets during World War I were published to help housewives adapt to wartime food rationing. Many recipes use substitutions to make “mock” versions of traditional dishes. These recipes use soybean flour as a substitute for meat, a technique also used in early vegetarian cookbooks . Modern vegetarian cooking continues this practice with recipes using soy products such as tofu, tempeh, and textured vegetable protein.

Recipe from Use soy-bean flour to save wheat, meat, and fat (Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Office of the Secretary, 1918). 

soy-bean-flour-as-meat-substitute

Whale a la mode

While “a la mode” commonly means topped with ice cream in modern recipes, early cookbooks often used the term to describe a method of cooking beef by larding it and braising it with vegetables and herbs. This recipe for “whale a la mode” comes from a United Statues Bureau of Fisheries published in 1918. The report offers several recipes using whale and porpoise meat instead of beef and suggests that food production may become the future of the declining whale fishery. 

Recipe from Whales and porpoises as food by Lewis Radcliffe (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918)

whale-a-la-mode

Camouflage cookery

Camouflage cookery, or the art of using money-saving substitutions to make “mock” versions of traditional dishes, became very popular during World War I. Wartime food rationing was the rationale for this book of recipes, but mock recipes have a long history in American cooking. Recipes for mock turtle soup can be found throughout the collection. The recipe below is quite similar to one in The Cook’s Oracle (1822).

Recipe from Camouflage cookery: a book of mock dishes, written and compiled by Helen Watkeys Moore (New York: Duffield & Co., 1918).

mock-turtle-soup