35 community cooking was finished or before it began the top of the stove was covered with small jam tins boiling water, or recooking rice with a little dried fruit to make "puddings." The police were forever making rice or cheese cakes. By adding a little curry powder to mashed cold rice and shaping it and then toasting it we made "saffron cakes." The favourite recipe was mashed rice and oil shaped into cakes and baked. The police had the wherewithal to make pancakes. One lady managed, by waiting somewhere for two hours, (she wouldn't tell where) to get an egg for which she paid 50 cents. She cooked it with the naive remark that her husband did like a fresh egg for his breakfast! Everyone stood about and goggle-eyed it. On three successive Sundays we were given an egg apiece for our rations instead of soup. Our head cook, Mrs. Hall, must have had a witch in her ancestry. With the flour rations and the bits of meat, she occasionally made us each a meat pasty. She also managed to get and make yeast from yeast tablets and turned our flour ration into bread that was so good it needed no butter. After several months, our neutral friends were allowed to send us parcels. Each time I scraped the bottom of the powdered milk tin I received a parcel with more milk. Even so I used it very carefully. I believe that the supply would have stopped if it had not been shared-carefully of course. The children remembered that on the last May Day they had played the flower basket game of ringing the bell and running away. They wanted to give May baskets, but it was too late to make them without a great deal of effort. We received a parcel from our Norwegian friends containing a five pound tin of jam, so they had great pleasure in taking this round and giving a spoonful to each person. A number hadn't tasted jam for months, but their appreciation in no way equaled the childrens' joy in going around with their "May basket."
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