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First World War Recipes

First World War recipes from American cookbooks of 1918, made without wheat or with margarine, and the French Senate’s lunch for the peacemakers in 1919.

These First World War recipes come from American kitchens asked to save wheat, meat, fats and sugar, and from the table where the war’s end was negotiated. In January 1918 the US Food Administration, headed by Herbert Hoover, asked the whole country to go without wheat two days a week and at one meal every day, in public eating places as well as at home. Bertha E. Nettleton, who ran a lunch room at Teachers College in New York, published every recipe that year sized for a hundred portions: chowders thickened with rice flour, loaves of dried peas and rice where the meat would have been, breads of barley and oats, and cornmeal puddings. How Did You Feed a Hundred People Without Wheat in 1918? follows her book, and our versions are cut down for a family.

Fat was the other shortage. American cookbooks of 1918 put oleomargarine where butter had been, in sauces, cakes and baked apples, and the story of why yellow margarine cost so much more than white begins with a tax and a Supreme Court case of 1904: Why Did Butter Make Margarine Expensive?

The peace had its own table. On January 20, 1919, two days after the Paris Peace Conference opened, the French Senate gave Woodrow Wilson and some 250 guests lunch at the Palais du Luxembourg: sea bass in the Venetian style, a saddle of Pauillac lamb and artichoke bottoms in velouté. Escoffier’s guide gives all three dishes, and What Did the Peacemakers Eat in Paris in 1919? gives the whole menu.

How Did You Feed a Hundred People Without Wheat in 1918?

  • A thick white hotel-ware bowl of pale, creamy corn chowder with kernels of yellow corn and small cubes of potato, on a plain counter.
    Corn chowder

    Soups & Broths · 1 hr 15 min total

    Corn Chowder (1918) 

    A wheatless corn chowder from a 1918 lunch-room book: corn and potato in a celery-leaf stock thickened with rice flour and cornstarch and finished with milk.

  • A brown, rough-topped loaf of quick bread on a wooden board, several slices cut to show a close, oat-flecked crumb studded with walnut pieces.
    Barley nut bread

    Breads & Cakes · 11 hr 5 min total

    Barley Nut Bread (1918) 

    Barley nut bread from a 1918 lunch-room book: a wheatless, yeastless loaf of barley flour, rolled oats and walnuts, raised with baking powder, with no added fat.

Why Did Butter Make Margarine Expensive?

  • A white sauceboat of pale drawn butter sauce with chopped parsley, some poured over a piece of boiled white fish on a white plate with two small boiled potatoes, on a linen tablecloth.
    Drawn Butter Sauce

    Vegetables & Sides · 15 min total

    Drawn Butter Sauce (1918) 

    Drawn butter sauce from a First World War cookbook of 1918: a plain white sauce for fish and vegetables made with margarine in place of butter, sharpened with cayenne and parsley, the last of the fat stirred in just before serving.

  • Four cored baked red apples, scored around the middle and dusted with cinnamon, in bubbling honey syrup in a brown earthenware dish on a worn wooden table.
    Baked Honey Apples

    Desserts & Sweets · 1 hr 10 min total

    Baked Honey Apples (1918) 

    Baked honey apples from a Pittsburgh club’s cookbook of the First World War: whole apples scored and cored, baked in honey syrup thickened with a little flour, dotted with oleomargarine and dusted with cinnamon.

  • A dark chocolate loaf cake on a cream-glazed plate with two thick slices cut, beside a small glass dish of pale hard sauce, on a wooden table.
    Chocolate Cake

    Breads & Cakes · 2 hr 15 min total

    Chocolate Potato Cake (1918) 

    Chocolate potato cake from Carolyn Putnam Webber’s war-time recipes of 1918: a loaf made with oleomargarine, mashed potato and barley flour, half sweetened with corn syrup.

  • A cut-glass dish of pale ivory hard sauce swirled with a spoon, beside a baked apple in honey syrup with hard sauce melting over it, on a pale wooden table.
    Hard Sauce

    Desserts & Sweets · 40 min total

    Hard Sauce (1918) 

    Hard sauce remade for the First World War: margarine in place of butter and corn syrup doing the work of two-thirds of the sugar, flavored with vanilla, from a wartime cookbook of 1918.

More recipes

  • A round biscuit shortcake split in two, with crushed red strawberries between the layers and soft whipped cream on top heaped with more crushed berries, on a pale stoneware plate.
    Strawberry shortcake

    Desserts & Sweets · 45 min total

    Strawberry Shortcake (1918) 

    Fannie Farmer’s strawberry shortcake: biscuit dough baked in two pans, split and buttered, with warm crushed strawberries and her whipped Cream Sauce I.

  • A small cut-glass dish heaped with pale golden fried whole almonds, glossy and dusted with fine salt.
    Salted nuts

    Starter · 35 min total

    Salted Almonds (1918) 

    Salted almonds Fannie Farmer’s way, for the cocktail list’s salted nuts: blanched almonds fried a handful at a time in olive oil until pale gold, drained on paper and salted.

What were wheatless days?

Days without wheat, asked of every American from late January 1918: two days a week and one meal every day, at home and in restaurants. Cooks used corn, barley, rice, oats and dried peas instead, as in Barley Nut Bread, raised with baking powder and made with no wheat at all, and Corn Chowder thickened with rice flour.

What did people eat at home in WW1?

In America, meals built around what the Food Administration asked people to save. Meat gave way to loaves like the Carrot and Green Pea Loaf, puddings used cornmeal and molasses, as in Baked Indian Pudding, and cakes used mashed potato, barley flour and corn syrup, as in the Chocolate Potato Cake.

What was on the peacemakers’ lunch menu in 1919?

At the French Senate’s lunch for Wilson: sea bass in the Venetian style, a saddle of Pauillac lamb, young turkey roasted on the spit, artichoke bottoms in velouté, a fruit dessert with kirsch, petits fours, fruit, cheese and coffee. Our Bass with Venetian Sauce and Pot-Roasted Saddle of Lamb follow Escoffier.

What they drank with it

In Britain the war rationed the pub as well as the bread: from 1915, in much of the country, buying someone else a drink was an offense, though a cup of tea stayed legal. Forgotten Drink, our sister site, tells how in No Rounds Allowed: The Wartime Treating Orders of 1915 (opens in a new tab).