Dining in the trenches

[centurion]

I thought it might be instructive to try and collect info on what was eaten in the trenches ( not behind them). I'll start with an extract from a letter of a Canadian officer of the 15th Btn haing just arrived in the Trenches at the end of Feb 1915.

.. the officers we are with had me in to dinner with them (In a dug out) We had bully beef and potatoes, welsh rabbit,cake, jam,bread and butter, whisky, and coffee with cherry brandy and cigarettes to follow. Then we went round the sentries...

Another Canadian 23rd April 1915

This is the 5th day of battle ...... I breakfasted on hard tack and jam with a mixture of rum, water and tea that I had in my canteen. Yesterday I had tea and a box of sardines

[janecavell]

Some extracts from the letters of Sgt J. Harold Early (1st/4th Oxon & Bucks Light Infantry)

27 May 1915

‘Our ingress and egress to and from the trench get more ungainly every time we do them. It may be partly that a good many of us are well looked after from home, and the difficulty in getting condensed milk, tinned fruit, potted meat, and the like into one’s kit as well as blanket, ground-sheet, overcoat, and all the rest of it, results in bags, boxes, and other irregularities.’

Leafy Lane, 16 June 1915

‘...light luncheon (bread and cheese and cold water lemonade, and Mother’s tinned pears and juice)'

[same day]‘One result of the situation and the time of year is that our hot meals (which must be sent up to us and that during darkness) are 10 p.m. dinner and 1 p.m. breakfast.’

[letter to his wife], August Bank Holiday, 1915

‘breakfast was brought up from the cooker in the village – a dixey of hot tea with condensed milk as usual now, and a pan of cold boiled bacon ready sliced, the quantity made up with cold beef; at the same time bread, jam, cheese, etc. was served out to Section Commanders. . . ‘Dinner (serving these things in a trench takes some manoeuvring) of shackles, augmented by your pineapple chunks etc.’

[earlier, when billetted at a farm, he explained what ‘shackles’ was: ‘hot broth you know – good if it is good and middling if it isn’t’]

[CarylW]

Source: the The First Hundred Thousand; Ian Hay

"....As for food, we grumble at times, just as people at home are grumbling at the Savoy, or Lockhart's. It is the Briton's habit so to do. But in moments of repletion we are fain to confess that the organisation of our commissariat is wonderful. Of course the quality of the menu varies, according to the immunity of the communication-trenches from shell fire, or the benevolence of the Quartermaster and the mysterious powers behind him, or the facilities for cooking offered by the time and place in which we find ourselves.

No large fires are permitted: the smoke would give too good a ranging-mark to Minnie and her relatives. Still, it is surprising how quickly you can boil a canteen over a few chips. There is also, for those who can afford half-a-crown, that invaluable contrivance, "Tommy's Cooker"; and occasionally we get a ration of coke. When times are bad, we live on bully, biscuit, cheese, and water, strongly impregnated with chloride of lime. The water is conveyed to us in petrol-tins--the old familiar friends, Shell and Pratt--hundreds of them. Motorists at home must be feeling the shortage.

In normal times we can reckon on plenty of hot,strong tea; possibly some bread; probably an allowance of bacon and jam. And sometimes, when the ration parties arrive, mud-stained and weary, in the dead of night, and throw down their bursting sacks, our eyes feast upon such revelations as tinned butter, condensed milk, raisins, and a consignment of that great chieftain of the ration race, The Maconochie of Maconochie. On these occasions Private Mucklewame

collects his share, retires to his kennel, and has a gala-day........".

Caryl

[IPT]

Passez-vous le ketchup

[CarylW]

Source:Tommy: Richard Holmes

"...Troops in trenches might either be issued exclusively with cold rations, tinned or fresh, which they would have to cook themselves

or be partially fed by hot food prepared behind the lines in horse drawn wheeled cookers, one per company, fitted with dixies large metal cooking pots heated by a fire below. Although dixies were often used to deliver food over short distances, hay boxes, oblong -double-skinned containers like huge oblong thermos flasks which preserved the heat were always preferred

.

Neither method however admitted of much culinary subtlety and even centrally cooked meals popular because they had more variety and involved less front-line labour, generally consisted of stew with pea soup and porridge as occasional alternatives. Stuart Dolden of the London Scottish was a former public school boy and had been a solicitor before the war, but found himself manning a cooker in 1916

He describes how central cooking worked in his battalion

"When the company were in the trenches, the cooker remained at the transport lines, and two cooks stayed with it and daily cooked meat, bacon and vegetables, whcih were sent up to the trenches nightly with the rations The other two cooks went up with the Company and made tea for the troops during the Company's spell in the line and also served the rations. Then on the next occasion we used to reverse the role and the two cooks who had been in the line previously stayed with the cooker and the other two went up"

A snippet about food transport to the front at the Somme

Source: An Onlooker in France 1917-1919: Sir William Orpen

"....I shall never forget my first sight of the Somme battlefields. It was snowing fast, but the ground was not covered, and there was this endless waste of mud, holes and water. Nothing but mud, water, crosses and broken Tanks; miles and miles of it, horrible and terrible, but with a noble dignity of its own, and, running through it, the great artery, the Albert-Bapaume Road, with its endless stream of men, guns, food lorries, mules and cars, all pressing along with apparently unceasing energy towards the front"

Caryl

[CarylW]

More threads on rations and food in the trenches, with some excellent contributions

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=86753&hl=\bully+beef\

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=59509&hl=\bully+beef\

Post #18 in this thread has more links to more threads

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=138753&st=0&p=1323947&hl=rations&fromsearch=1entry1323947

More quotes

Source: The Australians, their final campaign, 1918

an account of the concluding operations of the Australian divisions in France: F. M. Cutlack

"The 42nd Battalion speaks of this fight with special memory of a mutton-stew which was brought into the firing line to at least one of the companies during the course of the fight. To the diggers, cheering and making bets with each other as they shot down the Huns, the appearance of the cook with this stew was a mighty tonic, though of tonic they needed none. The incident hinges on to the particular regard the battalions had for Sailly-le-Sec village in those days. They would have fought to the last gasp to defend it. The shooting the men had of the Huns was not the only attraction, though the position was admirably situated for that. The departed villagers had left their sheep, rabbits, and a few cows as well in Sailly, and the result was that each company staked out its own little area in the village and appropriated as extra to rations the livestock and vegetables found in that area. The line had grilled chops and rabbit or mutton stew, such as Generals in most exalted messes never saw, and civilians in most countries beyond the zone of war would find impossible to obtain.........

A sudden and pertinent thought occurred to Mr Bogle, who possessed a Martha-like nature. " What way, sir, will a body get his dinner, if we are to be fighting for twa- three days on end ? " " Every man," replied Angus, will be issued, I expect, with two days' rations. But the Colonel tells me that during hard fighting a man does not feel the desire for food — or

sleep either, for that matter. Perhaps, during a lull, it may occur to him that be has not eaten since yesterday, and he may pull out a bit of biscuit or chocolate from his pocket,

just to nibble. Or he remembers that he has had no sleep for twenty-four hours — so he just drops down and sleeps for ten minutes while there is time. But generally, matters of ordinary routine drop out of a man's thoughts altogether." " That's a queer-like thing, a body forgetting his dinner ! " murmurred Bogle.

.......................They had fresh cows' milk for their tea. They regaled on succulent beefsteaks — and chuckled over them as they read in the newspapers of the Lord Mayor's

appreciation of whaleflesh at a Mansion House luncheon. The result was that they worked day and night as few battalions were ever known to work. In the defence of that little valley

of milk and honey they dug defence lines, support lines, switch lines, they built strong points and erected wire entanglements, and it is credibly stated that for the number of men

engaged the length of line dug and wired in the time is near a record on the western front.

Their patrols roamed Nomansland every night and swept it of all Germans who should as much

as gaze upon this Australian valley. One battalion declares that when a brother battalion came in to relieve it, the men hid the cows in cellars, well camouflaged with debris, and milked them stealthily by night ; and in similar dark recesses they pastured what remained of the sheep and rabbits........."

Another one

Source: East Yorkshire Regiment Journal The Snapper 1926

A request had been made at an Old Comrades dinner for anecdotes to be included in the journal. This was one contribution from a former EYR soldier, by then a Mr W. J Gardiner Jun.

Most probably to supplement the rations

"On the 16th June 1915 we were in some support trenches at Ypres Behind the trench there was a farmhouse, in which there was a live cow. Permission was given for the cow to be killed, so we obtained the services of Corporal Ike Croft 'C' Company (who was on the Barr and Stroud and carried a revolver) to do the trick. Ike shot the cow through the head but finding he hadn't killed it, he put on a field dressing and went back to the trench for more ammunition....."

Caryl.

[centurion]

Passez-vous le ketchup

Of course some trenches were better organised

But what were they eating?

[Dragon]

Chasseurs Alpins dans les Vosges: repas du soir sur les bords de la Fecht

Vosges: Chassuers Alpins' evening meal by the [river] Fecht

One from my collection.

Gwyn

[CarylW]

Found these French soldiers 'dining at the front'

Caryl

[CarylW]

I'm sure I've seen a restored one of these somewhere, at least I think it was one of these, in a museum but can't remember where

Caryl

[SiegeGunner]

"On New Year's Day another of my neighbours, a French gunner captain from the Basque country, who inhabited the interior of a nearby dune and was noted far and wide for the excellence of his table, asked me to celebrate with him the Jour de l'An. He was somewhat of a gourmet and had the good fortune to enjoy the services of an hotel chef from Paris as batman. The five-course meal, deliciously cooked and ending with dessert and overmuch sweet champagne, left me prostrate for the rest of the day. The soul of politeness, when he subsequently came to return the call, the marine cook had chosen, to my consternation and alarm, curried bully beef as the plat du jour, followed by a bizarre specimen of la cuisine anglaise known to sailors as 'figgy duff'. With Gallic fortitude he did his best to stifle fears for his digestion when confronted with these formidable gastronomic obstacles, but I felt that the Anglo-French entente had been put to severe test.

'All in the Day's Work', Cmdr Charles Kerr RN, Royal Naval Siege Guns

[CarylW]

Are these the old petrol tins often mentioned?

"The water is conveyed to us in petrol-tins--the old familiar friends, Shell and Pratt--hundreds of them. Motorists at home must be feeling the shortage" The First Hundred Thousand: Ian Hay

Caryl

[TEW]

Probably not the average Trench menus, how the other half ate.

Not sure what 'Haze Pudding A La Recess' is all about

[sueburden]

You might enjoy reading Tea Rum and Fags, Sustaining Tommy, by Alan Weeks. Accounts of supplies to the trenches.

Food scrounged and meals in cafes.

Sue

[headgardener]

Not sure what 'Haze Pudding A La Recess' is all about

Nor am I, but I see 'Recess' and 'Haze' get another mention in that red circle at the bottom left. Seems to be something to do with the unit. I wonder what it refers to?

[TEW]

Yes, I noticed that. Some sort of private battalion joke??

[dennisjnelson]

From a letter from my greatuncle, Fred Peters #3955 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade

22 April 1915 (near Neuve Chapelle)

"We can always get plenty of grub and buy bread, sugar, butter and eggs to take into the trenches with us. The usual thing is to form small 'schools' of five or six men, and then one buys one thing and one the other. This is known as 'mucking in'. Coal, wood, flour, fat, potatoes, quaker oats, etc, are all lugged into the trenches in sacks. I get plenty to eat and very seldom touch bully or biscuits now. The meat and vegetable ration, issued sometimes in the place of bully, and consisting of preserved beef, potatoes, onions, carrots, beans and gravy, can be made very tasty if it is boiled in water, while one or two packets of peaflour improves it further. Bacon, cheese, jam and more often than not, bread, are issued daily."

[centurion]

"The water is conveyed to us in petrol-tins--the old familiar friends, Shell and Pratt--hundreds of them. Motorists at home must be feeling the shortage" The First Hundred Thousand: Ian Hay

Are these the old petrol tins often mentioned?

No - too heavy when full to be man handled. What is being referred to is the "Flimsy" which persisted into WW2 until replaced by the German designed Jerry Can

http://warrelics.eu/forum/military_photos/attic-old-barn-finds/49217d1249410665t-british-flimsy-carboot-find-restoration-project-dsc04445.jpg

[CarylW]

No - too heavy when full to be man handled. What is being referred to is the "Flimsy" which persisted into WW2 until replaced by the German designed Jerry Can

http://warrelics.eu/...ct-dsc04445.jpg

Thanks for that found a recipe for haze pudding here http://reciperiddle.com/puddings.aspx.........sounds like a cloudy jelly? Dennis, interesting letter and the fact that they all 'mucked in' to buy what was needed

[CarylW]

Here is the recipe for Lemon Haze pudding http://reciperiddle.com/puddings.aspx the URL above doesnt work.

[John_Hartley]

Fascinating subject. I've been toying with the idea of some detailed research about matters foody during the war. This might spur me on.

This from the battalion history of the 6th Cheshires, referring to Christmas Day 1914:

"We saw the Boche coming out of his trenches and we wondered whether it was an attack.~ The Germans were waving their arms, and immediately our men went out to meet them in No Man’s Land, where we fraternised. We ate their Saukeraut, and they our chocolate, cakes, etc. We had killed a pig just behind our lines. There were quite a lot of creatures rambling about the lines, including an old sow with a litter and lots of cattle and poultry. We cooked the pig in No Man’s Land, sharing it with the Boche. We also buried several dead Frenchmen who were lying out there."

[TEW]

Tony Ashworth's 'Trench Warfare, 1914-1918: The Live and let Live System' has the following information.

For instance, hares and partridges and the like were shot in no-man's land and retrieved by daylight'

....some units of the 5th Division 'had a most peaceful time – so peaceful indeed that in the millpool at the Moulin de Farguy, which was in our front line, fishing was indulged in'

A battalion of the 18th Division were said to have 'very good potatoes from a patch in no-man's land', elsewhere a Gunner noted of a cushy sector, 'There are even seed cabbages in no-man's land. They are not actually cultivated there but I'm sure the infantry don't let them go to waste'.

There are 5 recorded cases of trench cows with the 5th, 18th, 30th, 48th, and 51st Divisions. Usually each cow had its own dug-out and was grazed at night and had to be handed over to the incoming battalion along with other stores. One private of the 30th Division was a full-time but unofficial cow-man for two months.

'……as a private soldier of the 33rd Division indicated: 'Sometimes the trenches were cushy as at Pommiers, the line was so quite that each afternoon one of their party slipped down to the village for eggs, oats and fresh milk and fruit. Every morning they had freshly made porridge for breakfast.

Elsewhere the 42nd divisional history makes clear this sector was quiet – there was a village 2000yds from the trenches where the civilians provided light lunches for the troops who called the sector the 'egg and chips front'

TEW

Edited 15 December , 2023 by TEW
Fomatting

[CarylW]

"Trench cows"! Haven't heard of those before. Fascinating stuff!!

[centurion]

I've come across a number of units that kept cows. One was in a dug out (which must have got pretty whiffy) and was led out at night to graze on the top behind the forward trench. Another was in a Canadian signal post located in ruined farm buildings (it escaped initiating a search party).

At least one Austro Hungarian unit kept pigs

[centurion]

Entry in a book on regional Belgian dishes

Water Rabbit (Muskus Rat, actually very tasty, stems from creative cooking in the trenches of WW1)