#rationing — Public Fediverse posts

How will universities ration internal access to LLMs?

I’m increasingly preoccupied by the question of how universities will cope with the impending reality of inference rationing. These firms are facing what Mills and Whittle describe as the AI pricing problem: “the prices generative AI companies must charge are higher than the prices consumers are likely willing to pay, given the value consumers receive from these products”. I’m increasingly convinced that inference is effectively being offered at a loss in ways that need to be at the centre of how we see LLMs within organisations: our access to AI is being subsidised and that subsidy is likely to end soon. Mills and Whittle break down the cost structure of labs providing access to their models:

• The cost of developing the models: the cost of building the infrastructure to train the models, the compute used in training and the labour costs of the developers
• The costs of making the models available: the development and labour costs of making the models available as software, building the infrastructure required for inference and the inference costs of how users utilise the models

When I’ve tried to raise this problem (in my own possibly less authoritative sociological register) I’ve inevitably met the belief that ‘technology will make it cheaper’. The most frequent example is DeepSeek but my understanding is that the aggressive use of synthetic data from frontier models was a huge part of reducing their training costs. They effectively skipped one of the costliest bits of the process by relying on other firms who had already done it. While there are undoubtedly technological developments which can reduce costs of training and inference, the parallel imperative towards pushing the frontier means bigger and more expensive models over time, at least for the large AI labs. That is the closest thing they have to a ‘moat’. So while technology will plausible reduce fixed costs in some dimensions, there are countervailing trends pushing up fixed costs in other dimensions. In other words it just seems obviously implausible to me that we see a significant reduction across the entire cost structure. It will remain extremely expensive to build, train and operate these models. Even if cost-per-token falls the labs will still have to claw back huge capital investments through inference pricing.

These aren’t reflected in huge subsidies at the moment to institutional users across public sector organisations, including the American government:

The GSA (2025b) has struck agreements with OpenAI and Anthropic to access their technologies for only $1 per agency, while Google will provide its Gemini for Government product at a cost of only $0.47 per agency, with xAI’s technologies costing only $0.42 per agency (GSA, 2025c). Microsoft is providing its Copilot product for free (GSA, 2025d).

If they are correct that profitable firms would have to charge more than consumers are willing to pay, that is a huge problem for the labs. It also means we’re likely to see a period of intense volatility when all manner of explicit and opaque strategies are used in order to experiment with different ways of fiddling with the overall cost structure. The nearest term one is going to be a shift from pricing by seat to pricing by inference at least once current contracts come to an end. But there will be other modes as well because AI labs are currently selling an extremely expensive service to organisations at a significant loss.

What does this mean for universities who have subscribed to enterprise AI? I can see three potential pathways here:

1. They exit from the space entirely leaving LLM-access a matter of staff and student individual preference. The information governance problem remains and the potential to work on culture and integrity is lost, but a huge cost is removed.
2. They pivot towards adapting open-weights models for sector-specific purposes. This would likely need to be consortium based due to the costs involved in getting it right, but it could be the best of both words in a sense.
3. They develop internal processes to distinguish between better or worse uses of LLMs which would ultimately entail a form of internal inference rationing. I suspect this would be just guidance initially but if normative prompting isn’t sufficient to reduce costs then at some point someone is going to start mapping inference onto cost centres within the university. An awful lot could flow from that, none of it good.

The easiest way out of this dilemma would be if staff and students simply don’t engage with the platform in the first place. There’s enough evidence of polarisation around enterprise AI and reluctance to trust in house provision of AI that enterprise platforms might just not take off in the first place. But if they do then I struggle to see any options other than the other three but this is a first speculative attempt to map out the issues here.

I’m thinking of organising a workshop about this. If you’re interested please get in touch!

Microsoft starts rationing AI tokens for its own engineers

Share if you found this interesting.

https://1ban.news/microsoft-token-rationing-engineers-2026/

#1ban #microsoft #token #rationing #engineers #tech

Thanks #Bibi!

Major #OilCompanies reap massive profits as US and Iran fighting drives energy prices higher

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ
Updated 11:11 AM EDT, July 31, 2026

NEW YORK (AP) — "American oil and gas giants raked in massive spring profits while fighting between Iran and the U.S. impeded petroleum shipments and consumers around the world paid more for fuel and confronted shortages.

"The conflict, now in its sixth month, halted most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that previously served as a delivery route for a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas. With global supplies constrained, prices for Brent crude, the international standard, soared from about $70 to above $100 a barrel for much of March, April and May, and at one point reached $126.

"The money that oil companies accrued between the beginning of April and the end of June could receive extra scrutiny this year. Gasoline, diesel and jet fuel prices climbed sharply during that period, increasing costs for drivers and airline passengers. Supplies ran low in some countries, leading to sporadic fuel rationing in #Australia and government office closures in #Nepal and #SriLanka.

" #ExxonMobil on Friday reported that its second quarter profits doubled to $14.53 billion, boosted by record diesel production. The oil giant, based in Spring, Texas, brought in $116.02 billion in revenue, up 42%.

" #Chevron, based in Houston, nearly quadrupled its profits to $12.07 billion and revenue jumped 56% to $70.06 billion.

"Six of #Europe’s largest oil companies posted combined first-quarter profits of $22 billion, more than 40% higher than last year.

" 'There are constituencies around the world who are having a very good crisis, and the oil producers are one of them,' said Patrick Galey, #FossilFuels lead at #GlobalWitness, a nonprofit organization that investigates environmental issues. 'When you compare that to the hundreds of millions of people who are struggling with #RollingBlackouts, with #ElectricityCurbs, #rationing, waiting in line for #FoodQueues, or the disruption to fertilizers and the potential impact that that has on food prices, we don’t think that it’s a justifiable price for the rest of the world to be paying.' "

Source:
https://apnews.com/article/oil-companies-profits-exxon-chevron-9375fbf8f6f40426f7428e07d54000c7

#USPol #WorldPol #USWarOnIran #EndlessWar #TrumpsWar #BibisWar #BibiIsAWarCriminal #TrumpIsAWarCriminal #BigOilAndGas #Oiligarchy #CorporateCriminals #CorporateColonialism

Thanks #Bibi!

Major #OilCompanies reap massive profits as US and Iran fighting drives energy prices higher

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ
Updated 11:11 AM EDT, July 31, 2026

NEW YORK (AP) — "American oil and gas giants raked in massive spring profits while fighting between Iran and the U.S. impeded petroleum shipments and consumers around the world paid more for fuel and confronted shortages.

"The conflict, now in its sixth month, halted most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that previously served as a delivery route for a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas. With global supplies constrained, prices for Brent crude, the international standard, soared from about $70 to above $100 a barrel for much of March, April and May, and at one point reached $126.

"The money that oil companies accrued between the beginning of April and the end of June could receive extra scrutiny this year. Gasoline, diesel and jet fuel prices climbed sharply during that period, increasing costs for drivers and airline passengers. Supplies ran low in some countries, leading to sporadic fuel rationing in #Australia and government office closures in #Nepal and #SriLanka.

" #ExxonMobil on Friday reported that its second quarter profits doubled to $14.53 billion, boosted by record diesel production. The oil giant, based in Spring, Texas, brought in $116.02 billion in revenue, up 42%.

" #Chevron, based in Houston, nearly quadrupled its profits to $12.07 billion and revenue jumped 56% to $70.06 billion.

"Six of #Europe’s largest oil companies posted combined first-quarter profits of $22 billion, more than 40% higher than last year.

" 'There are constituencies around the world who are having a very good crisis, and the oil producers are one of them,' said Patrick Galey, #FossilFuels lead at #GlobalWitness, a nonprofit organization that investigates environmental issues. 'When you compare that to the hundreds of millions of people who are struggling with #RollingBlackouts, with #ElectricityCurbs, #rationing, waiting in line for #FoodQueues, or the disruption to fertilizers and the potential impact that that has on food prices, we don’t think that it’s a justifiable price for the rest of the world to be paying.' "

Source:
https://apnews.com/article/oil-companies-profits-exxon-chevron-9375fbf8f6f40426f7428e07d54000c7

#USPol #WorldPol #USWarOnIran #EndlessWar #TrumpsWar #BibisWar #BibiIsAWarCriminal #TrumpIsAWarCriminal #BigOilAndGas #Oiligarchy #CorporateCriminals #CorporateColonialism

“When you compare that to the hundreds of millions of people who are struggling with rolling #blackouts, with #electricity curbs, #rationing, waiting in line for #food queues, or the disruption to #fertilizers & the potential impact that that has on food #prices, we don’t think that it’s a justifiable price for the rest of the world to be paying,” Galey added.
#BigOil #WarProfiteering #FossilFuels #ClimateChange #TrumpsWar #IranWar #US #Iran #Trump #economy #inflation #affordability #oil #energy

“When you compare that to the hundreds of millions of people who are struggling with rolling #blackouts, with #electricity curbs, #rationing, waiting in line for #food queues, or the disruption to #fertilizers & the potential impact that that has on food #prices, we don’t think that it’s a justifiable price for the rest of the world to be paying,” Galey added.
#BigOil #WarProfiteering #FossilFuels #ClimateChange #TrumpsWar #IranWar #US #Iran #Trump #economy #inflation #affordability #oil #energy

The money that #oil companies accrued between the beginning of April & the end of June could receive extra scrutiny this year. #Gasoline, #diesel & #JetFuel prices climbed sharply during that period, increasing costs for drivers & airline passengers. Supplies ran low in some countries, leading to sporadic #fuel #rationing in Australia & government office closures in Nepal & Sri Lanka.

#BigOil #WarProfiteering #ClimateChange #TrumpsWar #IranWar #US #Iran #Trump #economy #affordability #energy

The money that #oil companies accrued between the beginning of April & the end of June could receive extra scrutiny this year. #Gasoline, #diesel & #JetFuel prices climbed sharply during that period, increasing costs for drivers & airline passengers. Supplies ran low in some countries, leading to sporadic #fuel #rationing in Australia & government office closures in Nepal & Sri Lanka.

#BigOil #WarProfiteering #ClimateChange #TrumpsWar #IranWar #US #Iran #Trump #economy #affordability #energy

I 100% guarantee the #rich #wealthy #millionaires #billionaires are getting the drugs before we plebs.

Shortage of #Chemotherapy #Drugs Brings #Rationing Fears

Doctors are contending with low supplies & unfilled orders of generic chemotherapy infusions that are crucial to the treatment of a long list of #cancers.

#FDT #Trump #tariffs #sanctions #law #healthcare #medicine #cancer #BigC
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/health/chemotherapy-drug-shortage.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

I 100% guarantee the #rich #wealthy #millionaires #billionaires are getting the drugs before we plebs.

Shortage of #Chemotherapy #Drugs Brings #Rationing Fears

Doctors are contending with low supplies & unfilled orders of generic chemotherapy infusions that are crucial to the treatment of a long list of #cancers.

#FDT #Trump #tariffs #sanctions #law #healthcare #medicine #cancer #BigC
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/health/chemotherapy-drug-shortage.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

😂 Uber's #AI #budget went poof in four months, so now they're #rationing #AI #tokens like it's the apocalypse! 💸 Because clearly, advanced AI needs to be managed like a #digital #lemonade #stand. 🍋🚗
https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/3/uber-caps-usage/ #Uber #comedy #HackerNews #ngated

😂 Uber's #AI #budget went poof in four months, so now they're #rationing #AI #tokens like it's the apocalypse! 💸 Because clearly, advanced AI needs to be managed like a #digital #lemonade #stand. 🍋🚗
https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/3/uber-caps-usage/ #Uber #comedy #HackerNews #ngated

Corporate America Is Starting to Ration AI as Cost Skyrockets

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/corporate-america-is-starting-to-ration-ai-as-cost-skyrockets-1eb99d7a

#HackerNews #CorporateAmerica #AI #Rationing #CostSkyrockets #TechTrends

Corporate America Is Starting to Ration AI as Cost Skyrockets

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/corporate-america-is-starting-to-ration-ai-as-cost-skyrockets-1eb99d7a

#HackerNews #CorporateAmerica #AI #Rationing #CostSkyrockets #TechTrends

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/18/nhs-nurses-believe-lack-of-staff-putting-patients-at-risk-survey-finds. I'm quite sure it is - but then, the #NHS has been underfunded for years, & I speak as someone who wrote an MA dissertation & PhD thesis on the subject of #healthcare #rationing in the #UK, @ChrisMayLA6.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/18/nhs-nurses-believe-lack-of-staff-putting-patients-at-risk-survey-finds. I'm quite sure it is - but then, the #NHS has been underfunded for years, & I speak as someone who wrote an MA dissertation & PhD thesis on the subject of #healthcare #rationing in the #UK, @ChrisMayLA6.

Some of you might be interested in this.. a blog with a lot of recipes based on UK wartime food rations with copies of the original leaflets from Ministry of Food. #1940s #1940sExperiment #recipes #FrugalFood #WW2 #rationing https://the1940sexperiment.com/

Some of you might be interested in this.. a blog with a lot of recipes based on UK wartime food rations with copies of the original leaflets from Ministry of Food. #1940s #1940sExperiment #recipes #FrugalFood #WW2 #rationing https://the1940sexperiment.com/

Even if Americans can somehow wrestle Donald Trump to end the #usisraelwaroniran next week, it is possible #fuel #rationing could be in by autumn, and supply chain failures could follow. We are already in trouble, but it’s not visible yet.

And to make it worse, I think the far right thinks it will win when people revolt and there is chaos, so it’s pushing ahead with this delayed-onset crisis nevertheless.

My advice is to learn to cook with potatoes and cabbage for next winter.. 🤔😕

Even if Americans can somehow wrestle Donald Trump to end the #usisraelwaroniran next week, it is possible #fuel #rationing could be in by autumn, and supply chain failures could follow. We are already in trouble, but it’s not visible yet.

And to make it worse, I think the far right thinks it will win when people revolt and there is chaos, so it’s pushing ahead with this delayed-onset crisis nevertheless.

My advice is to learn to cook with potatoes and cabbage for next winter.. 🤔😕

UK businesses brace for jet fuel rationing

https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/uk-jet-fuel-shortage-rationing-goldman-sachs-warning/

#HackerNews #UKbusinesses #jetfuel #rationing #news #GoldmanSachs #warning #fuelshortage

UK businesses brace for jet fuel rationing

https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/uk-jet-fuel-shortage-rationing-goldman-sachs-warning/

#HackerNews #UKbusinesses #jetfuel #rationing #news #GoldmanSachs #warning #fuelshortage

Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c77m4zx6zvmo

#HackerNews #Slovenia #Fuel #Rationing #EU #News #FuelCrisis #Sustainability

Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c77m4zx6zvmo

#HackerNews #Slovenia #Fuel #Rationing #EU #News #FuelCrisis #Sustainability

'If America has a recognizable food culture, Elizabeth David is its inspiration.' https://werehistory.org/the-evolution-of-american-foodie-culture/ #foodhistory #MFKFisher #ElizabethDavid #JamesBeard #JuliaChild #rationing #postWWII #foodmovements #UK #US

'If America has a recognizable food culture, Elizabeth David is its inspiration.' https://werehistory.org/the-evolution-of-american-foodie-culture/ #foodhistory #MFKFisher #ElizabethDavid #JamesBeard #JuliaChild #rationing #postWWII #foodmovements #UK #US

'If America has a recognizable food culture, Elizabeth David is its inspiration.' https://werehistory.org/the-evolution-of-american-foodie-culture/ #foodhistory #MFKFisher #ElizabethDavid #JamesBeard #JuliaChild #rationing #postWWII #foodmovements #UK #US

The joy you didn't know you needed today: a 1943 guide to stretching meat with a full-page introduction by none other than Betty Crocker!

https://www.erosblog.com/2025/12/12/stretching-meat-the-betty-crocker-way/

#StretchingMeat #Innuendo #Humor #WWII #Vintage #Food #Cooking #Masturbation #Joke #Comedy #GeneralMills #1940s #Funny #Illustration #Housewife #Wife #HomeEconomics #BettyCrocker #Rationing #FoodRationing

The joy you didn't know you needed today: a 1943 guide to stretching meat with a full-page introduction by none other than Betty Crocker!

https://www.erosblog.com/2025/12/12/stretching-meat-the-betty-crocker-way/

#StretchingMeat #Innuendo #Humor #WWII #Vintage #Food #Cooking #Masturbation #Joke #Comedy #GeneralMills #1940s #Funny #Illustration #Housewife #Wife #HomeEconomics #BettyCrocker #Rationing #FoodRationing

Medicare to use AI to pre-authorize certain treatments in 6 states including NJ in 2026. Why? To reduce costs.

Also known as rationing healthcare. By a computer.

#medicare #AI #rationing #CMS #GOP #Trump #USPol #DeathPanels

https://www.elderlawanswers.com/6-states-to-pilot-prior-authorizations-for-original-medicare-21225#:~:text=Takeaways%20*%20A%20new%20pilot%20program%20will,an%20increased%20burden%20on%20health%20care%20providers.

Medicare to use AI to pre-authorize certain treatments in 6 states including NJ in 2026. Why? To reduce costs.

Also known as rationing healthcare. By a computer.

#medicare #AI #rationing #CMS #GOP #Trump #USPol #DeathPanels

https://www.elderlawanswers.com/6-states-to-pilot-prior-authorizations-for-original-medicare-21225#:~:text=Takeaways%20*%20A%20new%20pilot%20program%20will,an%20increased%20burden%20on%20health%20care%20providers.

To keep warming at a manageable level, heroic measures are required. To make a sustainable future work, rapid and fundamental changes are needed in behaviour, in industry and in how our lives and societies are organized.
Going on equal itemised rations while also closing superfluous companies until global CO2zero is achieved, is a big chunk of getting the changes done in-budget. Would you get behind rationing?

#ClimateChange #ClimateAction #WartimeEconomy #Rationing #Degrowth #Sustainability

To keep warming at a manageable level, heroic measures are required. To make a sustainable future work, rapid and fundamental changes are needed in behaviour, in industry and in how our lives and societies are organized.
Going on equal itemised rations while also closing superfluous companies until global CO2zero is achieved, is a big chunk of getting the changes done in-budget. Would you get behind rationing?

#ClimateChange #ClimateAction #WartimeEconomy #Rationing #Degrowth #Sustainability

“All the sweeter” for not being German: the thread about the Empire Biscuit

I usually write about Edinburgh and Leith local history, indeed that’s probably how you came to be here, but regular listeners will probably know by now that I occasionally like to foray into the realms of Scottish cuisine. Today’s topic is that quintessential teatime treat, the Empire Biscuit.
You probably have a vague inkling of its origins as the German Biscuit, but shall we get a bit more specific about its origins? Yes. Let’s.

In mid-1889 a recipe for German Biscuits were published in papers across the UK in a syndicated column called “Nice Dishes” – you’ll find it sandwiched between the Potato Cakes and a Cod Curry. With the exception of there being no cherry on top and the cinnamon in the dough, they are recognisable to us today; two softly-baked shortcake biscuits (not shortbread, they always include milk, egg and a raising agent) sandwiched with jam and given a sugar icing. They likely derive from the Austrian Linzer Auge, a similar shortcake and jam sandwich but one which has a hole in the top and is dusted with icing sugar. These weren’t the first British German Biscuit recipes however, the previous year the Eastbourne Gazette provided an altogether different sweet treat with much more egg and milk in the dough and served as a single layer flavoured with caraway seeds.

It is in 1896 recipe that we first find the glacé cherry being added as a decoration in the centre, in a Daily Record column called “Woman’s World (for ‘Fashion, Chit Chat and Home Hints’)”. But the cherry is not alone as a suggested garnish, this recipe also suggests pieces of candied angelica as an alternative. This recipe is repeated in London papers and over the following decade the garnish evolves to include chopped pistachios and the icing may be varied to include vanilla essence or cocoa powder.

At this time there is nothing particularly Scottish about these German Biscuits, between 1889 and 1914 of the recipes for them which appear in the papers 66% are English publications and only 15% are Scottish. The popular story goes that it was the outbreak of WW1 that caused the re-christening of them to the Empire Biscuit in amongst the fit of patriotic pique to sign-up and de-Battenburg the county. And what do you know that’s actually true. Well, mostly. It is true that the papers were happily printing recipes for “German” biscuits right up until the declaration of war itself and only a month after the outbreak it fell to an unlikely source – the Campbeltown Courier – to announce the change of name for what another paper referred to as “a naturalised British subject“:

What’s in a name? The edible hitherto known as a “German” biscuit has been rechristened, and tastes all the sweeter as an “Empire” biscuit

Campbeltown Courier, 12th September 1914

So that part is true. But it wasn’t the only variant and in November the papers were also printing the recipe under the name Belgian Biscuit as a wave of national sympathy for the wartime plight of that country. “Lady Edith’s Household Column” of the Belfast Newsletter confirms in 1915 that Belgian Biscuits were “formerly called German Biscuits”. It also gives what seems to be a peculiarly Northern Irish variation on the recipe, with carmine-died sugar sprinkled in the centre of the wet icing to stain in. A key difference seems to be the Belgian Biscuit recipes never seem to include a cherry on top. They weren’t the only biscuit of this name on the market – in Glasgow, Macfarlane, Lang and Co. launched a “biscuit of short-eating character, moderately sweet, rich and mellow in flavour“.

British bakers suffered during WW1 as imported wheat supplies dwindled and what was available was reserved for bread and heavily adulterated with the flours of other grains. As a result there is relatively little mention of biscuit recipes in the wartime press, but postwar they biscuits returned with renewed popularity and this is when they seem to establish themselves as a peculiarly Scottish delicacy, predominantly under the Empire Biscuit name. Of recipes printed in the papers post-WW1, 326 are in Scottish publications and only 13 are English. Looking at both recipes and the published results of baking competitions in Scottish print columns we can see the name emerges in the 1890s as the German biscuit, that Belgian and Imperial briefly replace it after 1914 but the Empire name is clearly dominant thereafter.

Recipes in Scottish publications throughout the interwar period always give the Empire Biscuit as the shortcake and jam sandwich with water icing and glacé cherry garnish which we know today. English versions are rare but include adulterants such as mimosa or violet to garnish and coffee, chocolate or orange-flavoured icing! Back in Belfast, Lady Edith’s column was still going in 1938 when it printed the recipe under the heading “German or Imperial Biscuits“. By this time the entire icing was stained pink, not just the centre, and instead of a cherry she suggests a garnish of 3 slivered pistachios “to form a shamrock in the centre”. The Imperial Biscuit moniker was a rare variant; in 1921 December People’s Friend gives a recipe of that name in “Xmas Fare” section, complete with a cherry topping, and In 1925 Dundee Courier files it under “old Fashioned Recipes“.

Come World War 2, rationing and food control once again did for the availability of the Empire Biscuit. In 1942 the Midlothian Advertiser printed a recipe using dried eggs or “egg substitute” (I think this is a trick mentioned with respect to the Scottish Women’s Rural Institute of a teaspoon of custard powder) and had no jam, icing or cherry. These “war-time Empire Biscuits” are mentioned in occasional results for baking competitions in the papers. Post-war the SWRI, that bastion of the provincial baking competition and county show, included the Empire Biscuit as a staple in their cookbooks

The Empire Biscuit managed to escape from Scotland – there are recipes for it in a WW2 New Zealand rationing cookbook. In 1958 the Gourmet magazine in California describes it as a “jam-filled cookie, iced and cherry-topped” amongst what it called “Scotch baked goods“. American Betty Crocker cookbooks printed recipes for them in the 1960s but altered to suit American tastes and baking practice by using a vanilla cookie dough for the biscuit and a sugar cream icing. Canadian “Empire Biscuits” seem to be an altogether different, chocolate-based creation. In 1975 the Yorkshire Federation of Women’s Institutes lists it under shortbreads and describes them as being “called German Biscuits until the ’14-18′ war when the name was patriotically changed“

Cinnamon seems to finally die out in the recipes in the 1960s, the Aberdeen Press and Journal being the last to include it. Another regional Aberdonian peculiarity seems to be the alternative name of “iced double shortbreads“. Staying in the northeast, a 1984 recipe in the Grampian Cookbook by Gladys Menhinick is doubly interesting as it suggests the Empire name came from a push to use only imperial produce in the ingredients and – importantly – is the first I can find that includes a Ju-jube (or Jelly Tot) as garnish rather than a cherry. You’ll find this latter version is increasingly dominant these days. You can ignore the BBC version which uses a chocolate Smartie, that’s just nonsense.

Domestically, there must be a thousand and more variant recipes for Empire Biscuits that have handed down through the generations, with everyone swearing that it was their Granny who made the best! By kind permission, Heather Clark has allowed me to share her grandmother’s recipe from the mid 20th century here as an example.

The Empire Biscuit has proved itself a convenient cultural touchstone for a number of Scottish authors and has entered the lore. Bill Paterson’s autobiography recalls Empire Biscuits from the City Bakeries in Glasgow and in Billy Connoly’s biography a sundae called a “McCallum” is described from the York Café in Hyndland that is made from vanilla ice-cream, raspberry sauce and Empire Biscuits. Any Scottish bakery worth its salt (the traditional ones that also sell pies, not the gentrified type that make you queue for a £10 donut) will sell you an Empire biscuit and they are made for shelf sale too. I’m also told they are popular in northeast England. So why not go treat yourself?

If you liked this deep-dive into Scottish popular cuisine then please check out my other threads about Macaroni Pies, Plain Breid, Morning Rolls, Lorne Sausage, Creamola Foam and more…

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https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000006_en

#StayGrounded Please share also if you're non-EU citizen. Your followers might be. Thank you!

Official petition to the EU Commission to enact tradable personal annual CO2 credits specifically for air travel, starting with
500kg CO2 and declining x% each year.
500kg =~2300km, Frankfurt-Oslo return.

(see this good CO2calculator by German EPA Umweltbundesamt https://uba.co2-rechner.de/de_DE/mobility-flight-calculator#panel-calc)

These aviation credits for 500kg CO2 are handed to households at the beginning of the first year.
Each year thereafter, the credits decline by x% – unless climate-neutral fuels become available.
Leftover credits can be traded.

I like when you sell your leftovers, you can't use the money for flying.

Apparently, the petition was originally proposed in France for French household's general carbon use, where it proposed starting at 9t credits and by declining 6% every year, ending at 2t in 2050. https://register.eci.ec.europa.eu/core/api/register/document/11165

2t in 2050 is a lot, considering each ton has to be removed by negative emission tech...

#EUpetition #Rationing #Aviation

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000006_en

#StayGrounded Please share also if you're non-EU citizen. Your followers might be. Thank you!

Official petition to the EU Commission to enact tradable personal annual CO2 credits specifically for air travel, starting with
500kg CO2 and declining x% each year.
500kg =~2300km, Frankfurt-Oslo return.

(see this good CO2calculator by German EPA Umweltbundesamt https://uba.co2-rechner.de/de_DE/mobility-flight-calculator#panel-calc)

These aviation credits for 500kg CO2 are handed to households at the beginning of the first year.
Each year thereafter, the credits decline by x% – unless climate-neutral fuels become available.
Leftover credits can be traded.

I like when you sell your leftovers, you can't use the money for flying.

Apparently, the petition was originally proposed in France for French household's general carbon use, where it proposed starting at 9t credits and by declining 6% every year, ending at 2t in 2050. https://register.eci.ec.europa.eu/core/api/register/document/11165

2t in 2050 is a lot, considering each ton has to be removed by negative emission tech...

#EUpetition #Rationing #Aviation

Does anyone here know anything about how restaurants worked during wartime rationing? How did they get supplies, could people eat outside of their ration allowance etc?

We can't find anything specific online.

#History #Rationing #wartime

'...[B]lack markets were not a major feature of life in wartime Canada. However, at war’s end limited black markets, especially in meat, emerged as consumer expectations outstripped supply.' https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20549547.2024.2400021 #foodhistory #WWII #Canada #rationing #blackmarkets #meat

'...[B]lack markets were not a major feature of life in wartime Canada. However, at war’s end limited black markets, especially in meat, emerged as consumer expectations outstripped supply.' https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/20549547.2024.2400021 #foodhistory #WWII #Canada #rationing #blackmarkets #meat

St Kitts and #Nevis is now in the peak of the dry season and in a bid to ensure water access to all consumers, the St Kitts #Water Services Department has issued a water #rationing schedule with the listed time when water will be unavailable in areas. https://tinyurl.com/4fsws92w

The #Nevis Water Department has announced #rationing schedules for the parishes of St. John’s, St. George’s and St. James’, effective Monday, April 08. https://tinyurl.com/2zjavzar

New Water Accounting Reveals Why The Colorado River No Longer Reaches The Sea
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01291-0 <-- shared paper
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #ColoradoRiver #ColoradoRiverBasin #CRB #USA #waterresources #USWest #irrigation #crops #feed #grass #hay #alfalfa #SaudiArabia #watersecurity #wateruse #water #hydrology #waterrights #overuse #magicwater #extraction #rationing #cropland #watercrisis #accounting #volumetric #model #river #watersupply #modeling #riparian #wetland #ET #evapotranspiration #waterbudget #regional #municipal #agriculture #commercial #industrial #cattle #cattlefeed #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal

New Water Accounting Reveals Why The Colorado River No Longer Reaches The Sea
--
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01291-0 <-- shared paper
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #ColoradoRiver #ColoradoRiverBasin #CRB #USA #waterresources #USWest #irrigation #crops #feed #grass #hay #alfalfa #SaudiArabia #watersecurity #wateruse #water #hydrology #waterrights #overuse #magicwater #extraction #rationing #cropland #watercrisis #accounting #volumetric #model #river #watersupply #modeling #riparian #wetland #ET #evapotranspiration #waterbudget #regional #municipal #agriculture #commercial #industrial #cattle #cattlefeed #spatialanalysis #spatiotemporal

The thread about the Lorne, Square, Slicing and the Sliced Sausage: neither square nor from Lorn

We have looked at Plain Bread. We have delved into the depths of the Macaroni pie. We have examined the origins of Neeps and Haggis. So now we must turn our gaze upon that other stalwart of Scottish cuisine; the Lorne aka Square aka Sliced aka Slicing sausage. For the purposes of this thread we’ll just called it Lorne sausage. So what is this delicacy? In essence it’s a log of mince beef and suet, breadcrumb and some seasoning, moulded in a tin and then cut into slices for frying. You can see from the picture that the cross-section of the “square” sausage is actually trapezoid, a result of it being formed by pressing into loaf tins. When it cooks, the perimeter contracts and it takes on a more rounded, irregular shape.

The Lorne is a high fat sausage – traditionally 20-25% additional fat is added on top of the fat already in the meat. It sheds much of this when cooked, but the end result is still a very succulent slab of beefy hangover cure, particularly with the addition of brown sauce. This sausage is not so much an invention as an evolution of aspects of traditional Scottish cookery so no precise date can be put on it coming into existence, but by the 1880s it begins to come up in advertising. More on that later, but lets focus on its roots. I would put the predecessor of the Lorne not in sausagemaking but in another old Scots favourite; the Collop. Collops (from the French Escalope) were thinly sliced meat served akin to veal scalopini; floured and fried and served in a rich, creamy, winey sauce. The Minced Collop was meat first put through the mincer with seasoning and formed into a patty to fry.

While the collop fell out of favour, nearly analogous caseless sausages are quite common in 19th century cookbooks.

Or in the wonderfully titled “The Cook and Housewife’s Manual; Containing the Most Approved Modern Receipts for Making Soups, Gravies, Sauces, Ragouts, And Made-Dishes; And for Pies Puddings, Pastry, Pickles, and Preserves; …” of 1826 by Margaret Dods of Edinburgh.

Although any type of meat can go into a sausage, in Scotland they preferred beef, and pork was not a particularly common foodstuff anyway. They also favoured using good meat in sausages, not just the scraps and unmentionables.

In England, the best steaks are cut from the middle of the rump. In Scotland, steaks which are thought more delicate, are cut, like chops, from the sirloin or spare rib, trimming off the superfluous fat and chopping away the bone. This is the piece of meat usually cut up in to steaks in the shops in Edinburgh and Glasgow, rump beef being used for minced collops and beef sausage.

Margaret Dods on steaks for sausages, 1826

But such caseless sausages were not just a Scottish thing. Mrs Beeton gives a recipe in 1861 of something very close to a pork and beef Lorne when not put into skins.

So by the 2nd half of the 19th century, caseless, fatty, beefy sausages were nothing particularly new to Scottish cuisine. The earliest references I can turn up specifically to Lorne are butcher adverts in Greenock in 1884 and 1885 as “slice” and “slicing” sausages. Grant’s Stores of Renton can take the award for the earliest mention I can find of the name “Lorne” in reference to this sausage. Clearly sausages were big business in Renton; as the advert says,
“OUR SAUSAGE DEPARTMENT
IS QUITE A SUCCESS“
Note also that they minced collops for sale, so clearly the Lorne and minced collops are recognised as separate items.

But at this time, the name is much more frequently “sliced” or “slicing” sausage. In 1896 a case came up in Coatbridge where a woman, Ellen McLauchlan, was charged with “throwing a large quantity of sliced sausage on the street”. She was fined 5s or offered 3 days imprisonment.

In 1900 in Motherwell, Edwards’ was selling Slicing Sausages using the slogan “A treat. Try them!” at 8d. The business did not trouble to give its address. So what about the name? As I say, sliced and slicing is much more common in newspaper archive search hits. Lorne comes up much less frequently, and is almost entirely confined to the locality of Kirriemuir and Angus. 173 of 234 (almost 3 quarters) of the search results pre-1950 come from that locality.

There’s something of a legend that the Lorne sausage was invented by – or named after – Glaswegian stage comedian Tommy Lorne. He certainly used jokes about it in his routines. But that’s cobblers, he was only 2 years old when it was first advertised. There’s also the small issue of Tommy Lorne being just a stage name for a man whose real name was Hugh Corcoran

Alternative theories for the name include some sort of connection to the Marquis of Lorne – but I can’t find any – or to a butcher in the district of Lorn, but there is no evidence from newspaper archives that such a product was being advertised there, it seems to be a product docussed on the central belt and east coast of Scotland. Interestingly although sliced/slicing/square/Lorne sausages almost never come up in archival English newspapers, the very first recipe I can find for something called Lorne Sausage is from a 1913 issue of the Nottingham and Midland Catholic News.

The Lorne sausage went to war in 1917 when – in order to save on imported flour – the military authorities in Scotland ordered that soldiers stationed in the country have a diet with less bread and – amongst other things – more Lorne Sausages.

The Lorne Sausage clearly had a place in military catering; it appears in the 1933 Manual of Military Cooking & Dietary published by the HMSO for army caterers, again it is something almost instantly recognisable as the product we today call a Lorne Sausage.

Wartime restrictions – in place between 1917 and 1920 – caught out at least 1 butcher. Charles McGown appeared before the Sheriff in Glasgow in June 1919 charged with selling “slicing sausage” as “steak sausage“. The defence of “a Lorne sausage isn’t actually a sausage, your honour” failed. Fine – £3.

Lorne Sausage went to war again in 1939. In 1942 due to the perilous food situation, the Ministry of Food licensed the use of soya flour instead of bread rusk in its production (and also that of Scottish favourites Haggis and black pudding) .

Later the same year the quality of Lorne again took a hit when Lord Woolton (of Woolton Pie) at the Ministry of Food ordered the meat content of sausages, including specifically “slicing sausage” dropped to between 30 and 43%. The price was fixed at 8d per lb, the same as beef links. These sausages were therefore about 50-60% suet and soya flour rusk… Good news was announced to suffering consumers in 1945 though when the meat content of beef slicing sausage was increased by 10% (at the cost of 1 1/2d more per lb).

Bad news came in 1947 though as the worsening post-war supply situation saw a shortage of dripping and the Ministry of Food ordered that the fat would now be mixed with vegetable fats, and that such fat was now considered part of the meat content. Back to rusky sausages! 4,000 butchers of the Scottish Federation of Meat Traders complained to the government in 1948 that they were being treated unfairly and getting short allocations of meat ration. They alleged that this was the result of the supply calculations being based on English butchery habits, where sausages were typically made in factories and supplied to the butcher, whereas in Scotland the butchers still typically made their own. In a thinly veiled attack on the high rusk sausages they were forced to produce, they stated “Flour confectionery is a poor substitute for the breakfast sausage“. The Lorne sausage crossed the Atlantic in the 1950s with waves of Scottish emigration from the land of postwar austerity and rusky sausages to the opportunity of the new world. Ontario newspapers are full of adverts at this time.

In more recent times, both Aldi and a company called Cottam Foods from Cheshire have humiliated themselves in public by bringing (pork) square sausages to the market and making wild claims that they have invented them. The Cottam’s Squig looks like it might be a pressed patty, whereas the ALDI “square pork sausage” has a texture more akin to SPAM and looks to be sliced off of a compressed block by a very sharp blade.

While beef remains traditional, pork and beef mixes, or pork Lorne have long been available, and the discerning customer can select steak Lorne. A recent innovation is the Blackeye or Blackheart Lorne, with a core of back pudding (📷)

So let’s hear it for the humble Lorne Sausage, it’s much more than just a hangover cure, it’s the sausage that we don’t know why it is called “Lorne”. And lets hear it for the Square Sausage, the sausage that is definitively trapezoid and not square. At least it is actually sliced.

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