Food in Wartime Britain

Testimonies from the Kitchen Front (1939–1945)

Natacha Chevalier

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781138368408
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429769399
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Based on deep analysis of Mass Observation wartime diaries, Food in Wartime Britain explores the food experience of the British middle classes in their own words throughout the course of the Second World War. It reveals that, while the food practices of the population were modified by rationing and food scarcity, social class and personal circumstances were key dimensions of the wartime food experience that demand to be taken into account in the historical narrative of the Home Front.

Part I

The British and their food

1 British eating habits

A short history

Food reflects everything; it is a microcosm of what is shaping the world at the time.¹

Colin Spencer

1.1 The 16th to 18th centuries

While this history could begin in the Anglo-Saxon or even the Roman period, this succinct account begins with the emergence the transatlantic trade that took place from the 16th century onward. Food in the 16th century reflects the essentiality of foreign trade and social class in the development and recognition of a specifically English culinary culture. The population increased, as did the variety of food, its availability and distribution. More people had access to more food. New crops developed. The production of fruits and vegetables increased, with regard to both local species and foreign ones with the adoption of ‘exotic’ varieties such as cucumber, melon and radish from the New World, white beans from Central America, or orange carrots introduced by Protestant refugees from the Low Countries. Potatoes and tomatoes were introduced in the same period, but were received with great suspicion, and it took two centuries before they became common fare in the British diet. Sugar, citrus, dried fruits and nuts were also more available, at least for the wealthy, as was white bread, a significant status symbol. The use of ingredients and cooking methods changed as well. Eggs would now be boiled instead of roasted in ashes, and the 16th century saw the emergence of the ancestor of scrambled eggs. Eggs were also used for sweet dishes and pastry, including what became the famous hot cross bun. The use of cream became fashionable with dishes such as trifle and fool (which kept their names although their recipes changed drastically over time). ‘Marmelada’, a thick preserve made from all sorts of fruit, could now be made with bitter oranges from Seville, reflecting the passion for citrus that would develop in the coming decades. These emerging tendencies went on into the 17th century: evolution of cooking methods and materials, increase in production and availability of foodstuffs, and the arrival of new food, bananas and sweet oranges in particular, but also new beverages, coffee, cocoa and what became a national symbol, tea. Coffee, considered masculine and related to business, politics and the upper classes, was first drunk in coffee houses from the mid-17th century. By the end of the century it had become the breakfast and after-dinner drink of aristocratic and wealthy households. On the other hand, chocolate, at first an alternative to coffee in coffee houses, eventually became associated with lower classes. As for (sweetened) tea, it went from the elegant and fashionable drink of the upper class, to a symbol of bourgeois respectability. Then, in only a few decades, it became the primary drink of the masses and a hallmark of English food culture.

The 18th century saw other commodities become a hallmark of Englishness. Roast beef, to begin with, was strongly associated with the English diet to the point that French used the term to caricature Britons as ‘les rosbifs’. Boiled puddings, more and more popular, were also considered typically English. Regarding British eating habits, the consumption of white bread increased as it replaced the rye and barley bread of the lower classes. Potatoes finally took off, probably for pragmatic reasons on both sides of the trade. The crops were inexpensive, easy to grow and sell in growing industrial towns and provided cheap and filling meals to the workers. The catastrophic wheat harvest of the 1790s and the propaganda aimed at the poor helped the previously despised tuber that had been waiting for two centuries to be recognised as valuable. Tomatoes, also known for two hundred years, were adopted as well. Asparagus, French beans, cauliflowers and garden peas joined the ranks of carrots, turnips, parsnips, cabbages and onions. New tastes and new dishes appeared. Curry powder, ice cream and modern trifle were now part of English food culture. The same can be said about the Empire with the inclusion of imperial products in the daily life of the whole population and as a part of their culinary identity.²

Innovative improvements in the kitchen made cooking, baking and food preservation easier. Iron ovens replaced an open fire; the ice house and the greater availability of glass jars allowed keeping food longer; and so on. Innovation was not the monopoly of the domestic sphere. The 18th century saw a rise in manufactured foods and goods, conserves and preserves (including the famous marmalade), but also dried and condensed milk, as well as (the infamous) margarine. Improved road networks and the creation of a canal system made it possible to transport food across the country.

1.2 The 19th century

Technological innovations were the essence of 19th century modernisation and globalisation. Transportation, communications, refrigeration and mechanisation, coupled with the opening of new trade routes, changes in tax policies and the adaptation of the retail system permitted a massive extension of global and imperial trade and a transformation of consumption from the mid-19th century onward. At the end of the century food and goods prices decreased while their variety and availability increased, offering new purchase opportunities to Victorian society and its rising middle class.

The railway revolutionised the transportation system by connecting the hinterland to seaports and considerably speeding up travelling time. In less than a century the railway network went from about 5,000 miles (8,000km) in the 1840s mainly in Britain, to a global network of 675,000 miles (1,090,000km) in the 1920s.³ The shift from sailboat to steamers was another revolution in transportation, especially with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. As for the telegraph, it transformed communication and consequently business practices. Food transformation and preservation were the other dimension of 19th century food trade expansion. Mechanisation not only led to mass production, but also to new products and new perceptions of British food. Chocolate for instance, which was an expensive drink up to the mid-19th century, was transformed into a solid bar. Marketing and very low prices made it a success in no time.⁴ Mustard, sauces, sweets and biscuits underwent the same process, with the same success, joining other processed products such as margarine, meat extract, dried soup, custard powder and condensed milk on the market. Even if hazardous at first, canned food was also made available to the population from the second half of the 19th century on, and tinned salmon, corned beef and sardines became part of British food practices. However, it is refrigeration that revolutionised the food trade. Natural ice had been used to store fresh food for a long time, but the development of techniques of artificial refrigeration permitted the storage and transportation of foreign fresh meat, fish, vegetables and fruit, making all these commodities available and affordable to British consumers by the end of the 19th century.

Altogether these innovations and improvements, the reduction of transport costs, the drastic decrease of freight rates (~70% between 1840 and 1910) and the abolition of duties in 1860 created the right conditions for a phenomenal expansion of global and imperial trade.⁵ While the volume of world trade had already increased two and a half times in the first half of the 19th century, it exploded in the second half with a tenfold increase in a few decades.⁶ The value of the volume of overseas trade in Britain went from circa £100 million in 1850 to circa £200 million in 1860, then to circa £700 million in 1910.⁷ The change in the kind of foodstuffs imported was also a major dimension of the food trade. While in the 1820s and 1830s tropical or semi-tropical expensive commodities represented 75% of food imports, from the mid-19th century they included commodities commonly consumed in most households. Sugar for instance went from a luxury to an everyday commodity in less than a century as its consumption rose from 29 kilos (per person, per year) in 1880 to 43.5 kilos in 1934–8.⁸ Sugar modified eating habits and tastes. In addition to sweetening beverages, it was used in confectionery, cakes, biscuits, jam, syrup and custard. Sweet puddings became a middle-class course at lunch-time and at dinner, pastry replaced bread at tea-time, and biscuits served with tea became a mark of hospitality. Sugar was also a major ingredient in the mass production of fruit preserves such as cheap jam and conserves that became a part of the normal diet of the poorest sections of society, as it could replace prepared meals while providing an important intake of calories.⁹ Similarly to other exotic commodities raw sugar was imported to be processed and packaged in industrial centres of the metropolis and sold under British or European brands, leading to national identification as these exotic commodities became a part of British food culture.¹⁰ Yet, imports were not limited to exotic food. Between the 1850s and 1913, the volume of imported meat went from £1.7 million to £56.4 million, the importation of wheat considerably increased (£11.7 to £60.5 million), as did fresh fruit and nut imports (£0.78 to £35.5 million), butter (£2.2 to £24.1 million) and cheese (£0.9 to £13.9 million) – put simply, by 1913, 80% of the wheat, 45% of the meat and 45% ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction, sources and methodology
• Part I: The British and their food
• Part II: Testimonies from the Kitchen Front
• Epilogue and conclusion
• Index