The Historically Significant Reason You Should Make Cake Sweet remembrances of rationing and Canada’s ‘housoldiers’
W
ith every wave of a thousand brave young men marching to foreign fronts, so too were a thousand women left behind with the task of preserving some shred of normalcy on the home front. In Canada, most households were maintained by women, and so the duty of feeding the home front population became one of Canadian women’s sacred war-time efforts. The ‘housoldier’ was born. But this new reality was met with much tribulation. Rationing and congested transportation networks meant supplies were limited, and unpredictable fluctuations in prices meant the access of supplies was often choked. Staples, as much as luxuries, were rationed including meat, flour, butter, eggs, milk, tea, and coffee, and following in close order was the task of adjusting recipes and palates to accommodate these war-time food restrictions. Soon, propaganda campaigns emerged urging the public to use only one’s fair share of food. Sound familiar? Yeast? Gone. Flour? Sold out. Sugar? Nowhere to be found. Spotty shelves and one per customer notices are a new reality for us during the COVID-19 pandemic. But it’s also a small taste of the types of rationing Canadians were once faced with that remind us that rationing times really mean sharing times. One notable culinary artifact from the World Wars is “Poor Man’s Cake,” or “Eggless, Butter-less, and Milk-less Cake” — an answer to the question of cake during the war. Trivial at face-value, this popular recipe with small variations became a feature of Canadians’ home front reality and is evidence
20 Culinaire | July/August 2020
BY SABRINA KOOISTRA
of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of those attempting to preserve normalcy at the dinner table when many baking essentials were in short supply. And so, with little knowledge of the strife of war, we look to the Canadian women who carried on with wooden spoons in hand to enjoy what little they could with what little they had. The recipe below is called, “Eggless Spice Cake,” a form of the so-called “Poor Man’s Cake,” sourced from “Economy Recipes for Canada’s ‘Housoldiers.’” Indeed, the process required to prepare this cake might arouse suspicion, given that step two involves boiling a dark brown concoction with raisins swirling about with every stir. It’s unexpected territory for cake
preparation admittedly, but curiosity did abound. A saccharine aroma will soon waft through your kitchen but is surely not an unwelcome side effect of your dalliance in Canadian war-time baking. As it turns out, cake during war (or at least this cake) is more like a loaf than cake. More on the dense side, it lacks the light and fluffy consistency of most traditional cakes, but it’s forgivable given the circumstances. By nature of the ingredients used, this is also extremely inexpensive to prepare, which makes it great for times when our budgets are tightened. In a small way, preparing this cake offers an opportunity to connect with our history in a unique way and to understand the sacrifices, big and small, that were made by Canadians to bolster the war effort. On the surface, the act of removing eggs and butter from recipes seems a far-cry from war experience, however, every effort to preserve resources to support the servicemen abroad was viewed as an act of patriotism. Every year on Canada Day, we are reminded of the events, people, and spirit that contributed to this wonderful country we all call home. While the pandemic has put stress on all of us in many unseen ways, we know the resiliency of the past is in no way extinct. Canadians, together, have survived and thrived. We will do so again. Take the opportunity to prepare this cake, to satisfy your culinary curiosity, and to experiment with this unlikely baked good. This sweet cake is great for a backyard “high tea” amongst friends and the sunshine, and can be elevated with some whipped cream and fresh summer berries (raspberries or strawberries will do nicely.)
