British Rations

[Dave1346]

Hello All!

I'm new to this site and have been gathering background information for a graphic novel that I'm working on. I am not a professional graphic artist. By day, I'm a high school teacher in rural Nevada and teach Culinary Arts. 

As a trained chef, I've long been interested in all things culinary and have been fascinated by the idea of kitchen operations as they were operated by the British, French, and the Germans. In doing my background research, it would seem that most armies (at least among the German, French and the British; had some version of a gulaschkanone or field kitchen. 

In focusing on the British, I understand that the meals that were served were often regarded as both monotonous and hideous. I would suppose the monotony would come from the limited fare of stew for dinner and soup for lunch with bread or hardtack if bread was not available. 

In terms of the quality of the meals that were made in these field kitchens, I suspect the following (and would appreciate your input regarding my opinion).

Prior to 1917 when the British formed the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), and some women were assigned as cooks, the overall quality of the food was poor was because:

1) The army had assigned soldiers to serve as cooks who had no prior experience as cooks.

2) The cultural norm at this time was that cooking was women's work. 

3) The cooks had army cookbooks but lacked the experience to do anything other than to blindly adhere to a recipe. This assumes that they understood the measurements and use of culinary terms such as the difference between a boil and simmer. 

4) Food was carried to the soldiers in the front trench in latched mess containers. Given how far they had to travel from the reserve area, the food would often be cold by the time it had arrived.

5) Ingredients would have been limited. Fresh meat (when it was available) was perishable while canned food and root vegetables were much easier to transport. 

6) The senior officers prioritized feeding the troops over quality and variety. 

7) The science of food safety and sanitation would have been in its infancy. 

I understand that British troops could receive packages which often included canned sardines, HP sauce, biscuits (cookies), jam and other treats. 

Just in case anyone was interested, I have included a sample of my work. Since I am not an artist, I create my pictures using 1/6 scale (GI Joe or Barbie doll sized) action figures that I pose with green screen backgrounds. I also use a variety of hand painted military miniatures which I digitally edit prior to incorporating in a digital setting. Pictured here is a German gulaschkanone (Goulash cannon) which was so named because the smoke stack resembled the muzzle of a cannon. 

While an officer (1/6 scale action figure looks on), a cook offers a piece of meat to the dog. The two cooks and the mechanic (dark blue jacket) are all military miniatures. The nurse is a 1/6 scale action figure. 

P.S. I read this account by one Patrick MacGill who served in the 2nd London Irish Battalion. During his training while he was still in England, Recruit MacGill described a typical dinner that the battalion cooks had made.

"Sometimes a haunch of roast beef was doled out almost raw, and potatoes were generally boiled into pulp ; these when served up
looked like lumps of wet putty. Two potaoes, unwashed and embossed with particles of gravel, were allowed to each man ; all could help themselves by sticking their fingers into the doughy substance and lifting out a handful, which they placed along with the raw roast on the lid of their mess tin. This constituted dinner, but often rations were doled out so badly that several men only got half the necessary allowance for their meals. Tea was seldom sufficiently sweetened, and the men had to pay for milk."

 

[MaureenE]

The following book is available in the Internet Archive as a Book to Borrow (read online)

Bully Beef and Biscuits : Food in the Great War by John Hartley 2015

https://archive.org/details/bullybeefbiscuit0000hart/mode/2up

Maureen

[Dave1346]

Oooohhhh ... VERY NICE! Thank you!

[sueburden]

Can I also suggest Tea, Rum and Fags, Sustaining Tommy, by Alan Weeks.  This book has a wealth of information on this subject including cookers, rations, tea, canteens, shops and restaurants, egg and chips in the Estaminets and much more.

Sue

[FROGSMILE]

@Dave1346 you might find the following British Army cooking manuals of interest.

1. Manual of Army Cooking 1910 (from Army School of Cooking at Aldershot - reprinted 1914): https://ia801605.us.archive.org/17/items/b2146652x/b2146652x.pdf

Also available here: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ezsk6zhp

2. Manual of Army Cooking and Dietary - Mobilisation (1915): https://archive.org/details/McGillLibrary-rbsc_manual-military-cooking-dietary_UC725G7M371915-1597

Also accessible here: http://public-content.library.mcgill.ca/digitization/rbsc_manual-military-cooking-dietary_UC725G7M371915.pdf

3.  There was also an updated version of the Manual of Army Cooking and Dietary that incorporated useful developments and was dated 1917. It’s unclear if it’s available online?

4. Article linked to soldiers diary - Tommies, Food, and Drink: A Microhistory, 1914–18: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17526272.2021.1879455

5.  The Trench Cookbook 1917: https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-book-reviews/the-trench-cook-book-1917-western-front-recipes-from-bully-beef-stew-to-trench-tea/

 

Edited 20 June , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[stevenbecker]

I think the male - female thing is a myth.

As Aussies, we grow up in the country, where we did the cooking out in the bush, there were no women around in the deserts of Egypt or Palestine, much like home.

Our Light Horse could cook, while a cook was not a trained Cook, as such, but most when called could at lest do the job. (in many cases these had done that work in civil life

Since in the ALH, we broke into sections of four men, where one would do the cooking for the four

It was only in camp or in the rear area that a Sqn Cook would join the Regt Cooks to run a mess and Cook house.

Of cause you are after what was happening in France, but our LH did the same while in the trenches, the cooks remained in the rear to send up hot food when needed.

During operation when rations were issued, the men tended to pool there food, so a cook could do his thing.

This is just another view of service life, then the PBI

S.B

[Dave1346]

On 16/06/2023 at 20:46, stevenbecker said:

I think the male - female thing is a myth.

As Aussies, we grow up in the country, where we did the cooking out in the bush, there were no women around in the deserts of Egypt or Palestine, much like home.

I hear you. I wonder if this might be a cultural thing. I know that in the United States, while professional chefs were often male, for many years the woman was always the cook and housekeeper. Men were the bread earners and women took care of the household and raised the children.

Things started to change during WWI when so many men went to war and jobs began to open up that had hitherto been limited to being a nurse, teacher, shopkeeper's assistant, or secretary. Things really opened up during WWII when a lot of women began working in the armaments industry. 

Vestiges of these old gender roles are still reflected in pay disparities where some areas of the private sector pay men more than they pay women who have similar experience and qualifications. You especially see this at senior management positions where men outnumber women as CEOs, CFOs, and board members. 

[Dave1346]

FROGSMILE:

First thank you for all of the pictures. Those pictures really made my day. 

I should have thought about googling the army manual. Thank you for this suggestion. 

[stevenbecker]

Mate,

I surpose its in what culture your use to.

Like your west, where there so called cowboys did the cooking or when avaible a chuck wagon did the cooking.

Its only in the towns or the Stations would there be a cook.

While women did this job in many cases in towns, on a station its was hard to find a female cook

Like most men, we enjoy the female touch when it comes to cooking, while my mum was a terrible cook, but my Granny was above the best.

I known after forty old years, my wife, can still find it hard to boil an egg (joking here)

But women are not always the best cooks. so the S/type does not always work

Of cause this is just another view and after around thirty years in the Army, I had no problem will our cooks, and they were the first to befriend

And good to invite to our BBQ's

S.B

[Dave1346]

5 hours ago, stevenbecker said:

But women are not always the best cooks. so the S/type does not always work

 

Hah-hah. My mother grew up in a restaurant family and since the family ate at the restaurant where male chefs made the food, she never learned how to cook. Although she was later able to make simple meals by following Betty Crocker recipes, she never developed a feeling for cookery and never deviated from the recipes. Her food had a tendency to be bland because she never learned how to adjust her seasoning.

In my family, my father was the cook. He grew up in a poor family and began learning how to make the family meals when he was ten so that his parents could continue working in their small business. The fact that my father cooked is probably what got me interested in cooking. In time I became a professional chef and am currently employed as the chef instructor of a high school Culinary Arts program. 

You're right about the chuckwagons. Cattle drives were not considered fit places for women. The gold rush 49ers also had to cook their own food or pay exorbitant prices at local eateries. 

Most of the anecdotes I've read about WWI field kitchens have described them as wretched. The French even staged a mutiny over the quality of their food in 1917 when most of a division refused orders to attack. Complaints about their food were secondary to their issue with having so many lives wasted for little or no gain. It's my understanding that after hundreds of arrests and several executions, the mutiny ended, though the ability of the French to conduct large offensive operations was seriously diminished due to concerns about the reliability of their soldiers. It likely did not escape the attention of the French command that similar mutinies just six months later in Russia eventually led to the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas. 

In terms of food, while both the British and the French ate a lot of stew for dinner and soup for supper, while the British often had hardtack, the French usually had freshly baked bread. While the British got a daily tot of rum, the French got wine, brandy, and chocolate. 

[FROGSMILE]

11 hours ago, Dave1346 said:

Hah-hah. My mother grew up in a restaurant family and since the family ate at the restaurant where male chefs made the food, she never learned how to cook. Although she was later able to make simple meals by following Betty Crocker recipes, she never developed a feeling for cookery and never deviated from the recipes. Her food had a tendency to be bland because she never learned how to adjust her seasoning.

In my family, my father was the cook. He grew up in a poor family and began learning how to make the family meals when he was ten so that his parents could continue working in their small business. The fact that my father cooked is probably what got me interested in cooking. In time I became a professional chef and am currently employed as the chef instructor of a high school Culinary Arts program. 

You're right about the chuckwagons. Cattle drives were not considered fit places for women. The gold rush 49ers also had to cook their own food or pay exorbitant prices at local eateries. 

Most of the anecdotes I've read about WWI field kitchens have described them as wretched. The French even staged a mutiny over the quality of their food in 1917 when most of a division refused orders to attack. Complaints about their food were secondary to their issue with having so many lives wasted for little or no gain. It's my understanding that after hundreds of arrests and several executions, the mutiny ended, though the ability of the French to conduct large offensive operations was seriously diminished due to concerns about the reliability of their soldiers. It likely did not escape the attention of the French command that similar mutinies just six months later in Russia eventually led to the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas. 

In terms of food, while both the British and the French ate a lot of stew for dinner and soup for supper, while the British often had hardtack, the French usually had freshly baked bread. While the British got a daily tot of rum, the French got wine, brandy, and chocolate. 

While the British rations were not of the very highest quality, they improved greatly as the war went on and I recall reading that on the Western Front especially they deliberately had a high calorific value that was better than what many of the belligerents and some allies received (and also better than the men had experienced in civilian life prewar).  There was also a very strong culture, that still exists, for meals to be served as hot as possible, even into the frontlines.  Various ‘hay boxes’ (specially insulated, transportable containers, whose contents continued to cook), some of them designed to be man-portable and carried on the back, helped to achieve this.

Significant efforts were also made to increase the provision of fresh bread, with large field bakeries established via a mix of often older male Army bakers, local French suppliers and, increasingly towards the end of the war, female bakers from the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.  The use of hard tack biscuits was reduced concomitantly.  There was, however, a period when the overall calorific provision had to be lowered, which if I recall correctly was an effect of the U-Boat campaign affecting imported supplies to Britain.

1.https://www.vwa.co.uk/blog/food-safety-hygiene-news/the-great-war-how-great-was-the-food-ww1-warfood-diet/

2.http://aberfeldymuseum.org/exhibitions/black-watch/service-in-france-1916/feeding-the-troops

3.https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-food-that-fuelled-the-front

 

Edited 21 June , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[Pat Atkins]

Re the army biscuit, there's an interesting "taster" article here which includes Alick Ellis's heartfelt poem Revenge below (though it's only reasonable to note that grousing about food was presumably as habitual an occupation as complaining about the weather, discipline, lack of amenities, inefficiencies, bull, etc., etc.):

When this bloomin’ war is over & I reach my native land,

I shall play the role of villain with a great revenge in hand,

I may get hung for murder but just take my word I’ll risk it,

For I’m going to find the blinkin’ man who made the Army biscuit.

In fairness to the Army (which, as has been noted, went to some considerable trouble to ensure troops were provided with hot and nutritious meals) the diet of the British urban working class - from whom many of the rank-and-file were drawn prior to the voluntary enlistment surge of 1914 and the conscription from 1916 onwards - wasn't particularly great before or after the War either. In the Depression, for example, the Royal Corps of Signals actually ran a weight gain competition for new recruits.

[image courtesy of The Wire magazine, RCoS]

[Dave1346]

9 hours ago, Pat Atkins said:

In fairness to the Army (which, as has been noted, went to some considerable trouble to ensure troops were provided with hot and nutritious meals) the diet of the British urban working class - from whom many of the rank-and-file were drawn prior to the voluntary enlistment surge of 1914 and the conscription from 1916 onwards - wasn't particularly great before or after the War either. In the Depression, for example, the Royal Corps of Signals actually ran a weight gain competition for new recruits.

 

This is true. What's also sadly true is that the average soldier from the working class had bad teeth which made it challenging to eat the hardtack. There is a literal reason as to why so many soldiers referred to this food as a jawbreaker. Soldiers with bad teeth were literally breaking their teeth while trying to eat these biscuits.

These biscuits were best eaten after being crumbled up (by repeatedly bashing them with the handle of a bayonet or entrenching tool) prior to being mixed into a soup or stew. One of the more interesting recipes I've read for trench cookery was to soak these crushed biscuits in water overnight. In the morning, the soldier would add a can of condensed milk along with a ration of apple or plum jam. This created a sweet "cereal" that actually sounds palatable. 

While condensed milk was not part of the daily ration, it could be purchased in the division canteen. It could also be received through the mail. I was quite surprised to learn that many soldiers were able to receive care packages from home. Canned sardines, tea, jam, dried sausages, condensed milk, HP sauce, etc. were often sent in care packages. 

I've also learned that German hardtack was preferred to British hardtack. Although tough and chewy, German hardtack could be eaten without having to be presoaked. German iron rations would also have included pea sausage - dried pea soup with bacon and spices that were formed into tubes that resembled sausages. This soup could be rehydrated in hot war to create a tasty pea soup. 

Soldiers who had successfully stormed a German trench could (if time permitted), loot the bodies and live prisoners for German rations. 

[stevenbecker]

Its like anything, the Army gives you the rations, its then up to you how you use them.

In the Tanks we use to pool our rats and each Tank would take turns to act as the cook 

We use to always have additives with each Tank, so you could get something special each meal

Our Sgt use to like spicey meals, so we knew to be careful when it was his turn.

Fresh stuff like bread is good for jaffles, but after a week thats gone, and no resup on bread.

In the Aussie bush (just like operations OS) there's no shops to make a quick stop, so you have to make do with what you have.

After a month things can get touchie

Some blokes are good at this, while others fail, and you soon find who the better cooks are in the Troop

Sometimes they like to do this, while other times they don't, that why we spread the load.

[battle of loos]

good eveing,

here is some artefact find near the first line in Artois :

michel

Edited 22 June , 2023 by battle of loos

[FROGSMILE]

25 minutes ago, battle of loos said:

good eveing,

here is some artefact find near the first line in Artois :

michel

Very interesting Michel, thank you for posting.  The bottles for Lea & Perrin’s Worcestershire Sauce in particular made me smile.

Edited 22 June , 2023 by FROGSMILE

[schooner]

On 22/06/2023 at 06:43, Dave1346 said:

 German iron rations would also have included pea sausage - dried pea soup with bacon and spices that were formed into tubes that resembled sausages. This soup could be rehydrated in hot war to create a tasty pea soup. 

 

It was called Erbswurst and made by Knorr. I tried to find some to sample but it was sadly discontinued a few years back. If you've a mind to experiment there are recipes for it on youtube.