My child is learning about rationing and world war 2, only being allowed 1 egg, 2 ounces tea/butter a week etc.
When the rich went to high class restaurants, how did they dine out? I’m assuming the hotel/restaurant had some sort of growing area for veg, chickens etc, or was there a lot of black market dealing going on?
Tea at the ritz, dinner at claridges etc. what went on to allow the rich to carry on acting rich?
In: Economics
In some locations, people who ate out a lot had to give the restaurant their ration book: [Persons Eating Regularly At Cafes, Institutions, Must Pay Ration Points](http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/homefront/homefront.news.wye.19430505)
Restaurants also changed their menus to reflect the foods they could actually get. In other places, I’m sure the black market was a factor, too: [The Restaurant Industry During World War 2.](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/restaurant-industry-during-world-war-2-jay-ashton-qazpc)
[This thread from 6 years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/697hgh/how_did_rationing_affect_restaurants_and_hotels/) might help answer your question.
1. Food served in restaurants were during the entire war “off-ration”. Ie, it didn’t count for rationing.
2. Until 1942 the high-tier restaurants were serving food as usual. Which sparked quite a lot of anger until the british government cracked down on it with a law that stated that restaurants could no longer charge more than 25 pence for a meal. While some restaurants circumvented this rule to some extent by charging entrance/music fees this generally had the desired effect.
3. There sprung up some amount of black market restaurants, but in large restaurant menues adapted to using non-rationed items. Vegetables that could be grown locally (Potatoes, onions, carrots, beets etc which were not rationed) or for example spam. So much Spam.
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