Agricultural History Review, Volume 60 Part 1 (2012), p. 142

The International Commission for Research into European Food History (ICREFH) holds a symposium every two years in a different European city. In 2009 its members met in Paris to discuss ‘Food and War in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’, and from that meeting this book has emerged. It has an introduction and conclusion, and seventeen further chapters, which are almost entirely concerned with the First and Second World Wars. The exceptions are Drouard’s chapter on horsemeat, which covers the period from 1870 to 1975 when, he argues, horsemeat was at its most popular, and Alicia Guidonet Riera’s study of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. Otherwise, the book is fairly evenly balanced between the two conflicts, with Jonsson and Jonsson’s chapter on Iceland covering both, and indeed going back into the nineteenth century to explore what was then the traditional Icelandic diet, a mixture of dried fish, blood puddings, milk, and curds, all generally eaten cold, with few vegetables, cereals or potatoes.

The book is divided into four sections, the first of which is concerned with feeding soldiers. Official ration scales in the British and German armies in both the First and Second World Wars provided for an energy and protein intake that was more than adequate for an active man. However, the troops receiving these nutrients in the form of canned meat and hard biscuit suffered at best from ‘menu fatigue’ and in many cases from vitamin shortages, tooth problems, and constipation. Lummel’s chapter on German Army food in the First World War has an interesting comparison with British Army rations, which had more meat but less of almost everything else, including variety. Nevertheless, as Rachel Duffett points out in her companion chapter on British Army food, they were good enough to attract recruits from the poorer sectors of society, who would eat more, and certainly more meat, than at home. These two chapters, and a third on the problems of providing kosher food for Jewish soldiers in the German Army, provide some fascinating insights into the practical difficulties of providing industrial-scale food supplies for industrial-scale warfare. It is perhaps a pity that there is no comparative study of industrial-scale food supply in the later conflict to see if lessons were learned or mistakes repeated, or to make wider comparisons with French and American army provisioning.

The second and third parts of the book deal with the civilian experience. Shortages of meat, fats, and imported foods, increased use of rabbits, game, and more exotic animals (some Czech writers discussed the advantages of dogs, water rats, squirrels, frogs and turtles), the expanding use of substitutes for butter, cheese, milk, and coffee, and the imposition of food rationing, were all common across most European countries in both wars. What is interesting is how these common experiences varied between countries, and the effects of the differences. Ina Zweiniger- Bargielowska concludes that, although British food policy in the Second World War was, on the whole, successful, and meant that the black market was never very significant in the ‘people’s war’, it still ‘fell short of the ideal of equality of sacrifice and at times social solidarity was severely strained’ (p. 135). In France, however, it was strained to breaking point. Mouré’s chapter on the ‘cruel realities’ of the black market shows how an unsuccessful rationing system could produce desperation and evasion, and Isabelle von Bueltzingsloewen highlights the role of food shortages and malnutrition in producing opposition to the Vichy regime. In the Netherlands, den Hartog argues that food supplies were generally sufficient, if dull, until September 1944, but then came the hunger winter, in which some 16,000 people died of starvation and related diseases, and an official brochure was published on how to cook tulip bulbs. Crocus, gladioli and iris bulbs were eaten too, but hyacinths and daffodils were found to be toxic. The effects were not only physical, and Pavel Vasilyev has some intriguing data on the food-derived psychoses that arose during and after the siege of Leningrad, which lasted from September 1941 to January 1944. The final part of the book examines the role of war in producing modernization and innovation in the food industry. To choose only one example, Ulrike Thoms points out that the Second World War saw thousands of food-related patents for new products and methods in Germany, and that military requirements led to some products that are still with us, such as Nestlé’s new product, dehydrated coffee, or Nescafé.

This is a rich and varied collection of detailed studies that provides a starting point for any future research on the impact of war on food production and consumption, although it has less to say on the effects of food problems on the outcomes of war.