The Ministry of Food, the latest exhibition to open at London's Imperial War Museum, is sponsored by the Company of Cooks. It marks the seventieth anniversary of the introduction of food rationing and pays tribute to the men, women and children who helped feed the population during the Second World War.
Life On the Home Front
The exhibition looks at life on the Home Front when the population was exhorted to 'Dig for Victory' and 'Lend a Hand on the Land'. The 'War on Waste' and ‘Make do and Mend’ meant every conceivable item, from food scraps to fabrics, was recycled.
'The Kitchen Front' – Food Rationing
The exhibition includes a typical kitchen with a gas cooker, larder, cooking implements, and a choice of recipe books based on wartime availability. Housewives became frugal and innovative with the food that was available, often with help from the Ministry of Food. Between March 1942 and November 1946 the Ministry issued over 200 short films reaching cinema audiences of up to 20 million. Posters and adverts, featuring characters such as 'Potato Pete' and 'Dr Carrot', offered help in making the little that was available, go as far as possible.
Life on 'The Kitchen Front' was tough. The housewife's daily timetable included several hours queueing at the grocery store, the butcher or the fishmonger. Shopping around was not possible, since shoppers had to be registered with specific stores.
Every person was issued with a ration book allocating precise amounts of meat, dairy products and tea. In 1943 the weekly allowance per person was:
- 4oz (100g) bacon and ham
- 3oz (75g) cheese
- 2oz (50g) cooking fat
- 2oz (50g) butter
- 8oz (225g) sugar
- 2oz (50g) tea
- 1 egg per week
- 1 packet of dried eggs - equal to 12 shell eggs
- 12oz (300g) sweets a month
There was a monthly points scheme for fish and meat. 1s 2d (approximately £0.06 pence) might have bought two lamb chops. This amount may not sound like much, but in the war years it was a considerable sum of money.
Vegetables and fruit were not rationed but many items, such as bananas, onions or oranges, were impossible to find.
Bread was available throughout the war, but rationing was introduced in 1946 and remained in force for about two years. People were encouraged to eat wheatmeal bread and to make the most of new foodstuffs such as dried eggs, Spam and snoek, a fish similar to Barracuda, which proved to be extremely unpopular! The last item to come off the ration was meat and bacon in 1954.
'Dig for Victory' and Cut Imports
The installation features a typical wartime greenhouse with gardening books, tools and machinery. Video footage relays adverts and instructions for growing fruits and vegetables.
In 1939 almost two-thirds of our food requirements were imported, but bringing food, and other supplies, to the UK cost the country dearly. Thirty thousand British Merchant Seamen died, and another 10,000 were wounded or taken prisoner. More than 160,000 tons of food were sunk by enemy action in March 1943 alone. This had to change!
In 1939, the Minister of Agriculture, Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, launched the 'Dig for Victory' campaign. Every scrap of land was harnessed to the war effort; lawns became vegetable plots, playing fields became wheat fields, and the number of allotments increased from 850,000 in 1939 to 1,750,000 by 1943. Poultry, rabbit and pig breeding clubs abounded, with club members producing 6,000 tons of meat a year.
The Women's Land Army, founded in June 1939, had over 80,000 members at its peak. The Land Girls were volunteers, but from December 1941 members were conscripted, earning £1.2s.6d (£1.13p) for a 48-hour week. Jobs ranged from rat catching to ploughing the land. Thirtyseven thousand prisoners of war, and over 60,000 school children, helped with the harvest. As result, by 1945, food imports had been halved.
‘War on Waste’ and the Communal Pig Bin
In the ‘war on waste’ people saved kitchen scraps for the communal pig bin or to feed hens for eggs. A Ministry of Food advertisement summed up the situation in this poem about pigs:
‘Because of the pail, the scraps were saved,
Because of the scraps, the pigs were saved,
Because of the pigs, the rations were saved,
Because of the rations, the ships were saved,
Because of the ships, the island was saved,
Because of the island, the Empire was saved,
And all because of the housewife's pail.
Ministry of Food – Official Publication and Blog
Hodder & Stoughton have released a 224-page book by Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall, writer and garden designer. The Foreword is written by Marguerite Patten, wartime Food Advisor at the Ministry of Food, later TV cook and author of many cookery books. The publication provides a record of the exhibition featuring a selection of wartime recipes, instructions for planting fruit and vegetables, together with artwork, leaflets, posters, and advertisements. (ISBN: 978 1 444 70035 0, £18.99.)
Ministry of Food will be open until 3rd January 2011. There will be a comprehensive programme of public events and a blog featuring contributions from guest contributors. Further details are available from the Imperial War Museum.
Source:
- Imperial War Museum
Frances Spiegel - Frances Spiegel, B.A. Hons. (Open)., Dip.Eur.Hum., read Art History/European Modern History at the Open University.
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