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