As war threatened in the 1930’s, the home-delivery spice merchant W.T. Rawleigh maneuvered to stockpile exotic foodstuffs from around the world in North American warehouses. Like many governments, companies, and organizations, Rawleigh published guides for homemakers to cope with restricted or unavailable products. Americans have not used such guides on a large scale in almost sixty years.

During the Second World War, dehydrated, condensed, canned and frozen foods became a way of life for the armed forces as well as for wives and mothers who worked in factories and were no longer full-time homemakers. In thousands of booklets published during the war, manufacturers’ associations promoted prepared foods in general as well as specific products such as “war lard.”