bollywood current news: War Time Britain, Elizabeth David and the Foodie Renaissance ...

: Food Poster British War Museum - Vivien Young

Elizabeth David was a key figure in re-introducing the culinary use of many foodstuffs to British cooks and kitchens after World War ll

The British people have always cherished their status as an island race, but living on an island is not always an advantage when it comes to providing food for the population during wartime.

In the years between 1940 and 1954, Britain was forced to introduce a system of rationing for most foodstuffs. This was because the outbreak of the Second World War meant that it was impossible for the United KIngdom to continue to import supplies of food as it had been accustomed to do in the days when the North Sea was unaffected either by blockades or by the depradations of the German U-boats.

Food Shortages in the United Kingdom

During the war years, food shortages were commonplace in the United Kingdom, and the British government introduced rationing in order to make sure that scarce supplies of food were fairly distributed. The weekly rations of essential items included (for example) 4oz of bacon or ham, 2 oz of cheese and 2 oz butter per person per week.

The government urged the British people to "Dig for Victory". Prized lawns and rose beds were planted with potatoes, carrots and cabbages, families would keep chickens, rabbits and sometimes even pigs to supplement the meagre food rations and good food was something to dream about rather than to hope for. The quotation below illustrates vividly the meagre provisions available to most British people during the long days of World War ll and its dreary aftermath.

"Meat ration lasts only for three evenings. Cannot be made to go further, that is, Saturday,Sunday and Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday I cook a handful of rice, dodged up in some way with curry or cheese. But the cheese ration is so small there is little left. Thursday I have an order with the dairy for a pound of sausage. These make do for Thursday, friday and part of Saturday. Don't taste much of sausage, but (they) are of soyabean flour. We just pretend they are the real thing ... All rather monotonous, but we are not hungry." (from Vere Hodgson's Few Eggs and No Oranges).

Elizabeth David and the Post War Food Renaissance

Elizabeth David's wartime experiences were radically different from those described above. The outbreak of WWll found her exploring the Mediterranean with her lover; after a variety of adventures in France, Corsica, Sicily and Yugoslavia David managed to reach Egypt, where she spent most of the war working in the naval cipher office. Incidentally, she became increasingly enamoured of the scents, flavours and cuisine of the Mediterranean.

" ........circumstances had landed me in Alexandria and subsequently in Cairo. In my turn I fell under the spell of the beautiful food of the Levant - the warm flat bread, the freshly pressed tomato juice, the charcoal grilled lamb, the oniony salads, the mint and yoghurt sauces, the sesame seed paste, the pistachios and the pomegranates and the apricots, the rosewater and the scented sweetmeats, and everywhere the warm spicy smell of cumin." (from Spices,Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen, Elizabeth David).

She returned to Britain towards the end of the war and was appalled by the food shortages and the depressing, unimaginative cuisine which seemed to be endemic in post-war Britain.

Magical Food Writing

Overcome with memories of more exotic cuisines and nostalgia for warmer, more colourful climes, Elizabeth David began to write food articles for Harper's Bazaar in an attempt to express her longing for food made with care and fresh ingredients and her frustration at the miserable culinary conditions which prevailed in Britain. The war seemed to have drained all the life and energy out of the country, taking with it imagination and the will to make the most of what ingredients were to hand, or so it seemed to Elizabeth David at the time.

"I sat down and started working out an agonised craving for the sun and a furious revolt against that terrible cheerless, heartless food by writing down descriptions of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking..." she wrote in Spices, Salt and Aromatic in the English Kitchen, adding "Even to write words like apricots, olives and butter, rice and lemons, oil and almonds , produced assuagement. Later I came to realise that in the England of 1947 those were dirty words I was putting down."

Her beautifully written articles, and later books such as A Book of Mediterranean Food sung the praises of ingredients such as garlic, lemons and olive oil and paved the way for Britain's gradual rediscovery of good food, well cooked using simple, seasonal ingredients.

It might not be too fanciful to argue that without the works of Elizabeth David, our twenty first century love affair with food might never have happened. Her beautiful evocative prose and enthusiasm for the subject must make even the most unenthusiastic cook long for a well stocked kitchen and time to experiment with new recipes and ingredients.