100 years ago next week the Great War ended. 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. 2018 is a big year, a big anniversary. Time to be thankful and a time to reflect.
As you sit and eat your way through three meals and various snacks each day, take a moment to think what a WW1 soldier would have eaten in a cold, wet, Autumn day in 1918. Well, not a lot actually! Before the war ended, a soldier’s daily rations consisted of just 6oz of fatty corned beef and similar quantities of vegetables, or a virtually inedible Maconochie meat stew. But, if out on the front line they didn’t even get that much. 
Flour was hard to come by, so bread was made with alternatives such as ground turnip, dried potato, oats and barley. Front line troops were given biscuits – if they can even be described as that. They were simply flour, salt and water. They were very hard, and often were soaked in tea to make them edible. They did get small quantities of cheese, jam, sugar and tea with condensed milk.
Fancy trying a typical war-time recipe? Give ‘brown stew’ a go:
The recipe is simply described as ‘meat, mixed vegetables, onions, flour, salt and pepper, stock’.
Chop the meat into small 1oz pieces. Place the flour, salt and pepper into a bowl and mix. Chop the onions and vegetables. Dredge the meat in the flour, and pop in a pot with the stock. Add the vegetables, mix well and cook for up to 3 hours.
Bear in mind, as time went on, the meat became sparser and more fat than anything, and the flour virtually ran out. The stock would have been primarily water, so your stew would have been pretty much a vegetable soup with fatty lumps. Would you like to sit and eat that, in the cold, wet, muddy fields? Appetising? Add to this the biscuits – think thin square dog biscuits and you’ll be on the right track! They must have been so incredibly grateful for the food parcels from loved ones at home – imagine the joy of receiving a simple bar of milk chocolate!!
I sit here, having had a decent breakfast and enjoying a hot cup of coffee, with my gas heating keeping me warm. I have the freedom to write this blog. I work, I have a reasonable income that provides me a comfortable home, sufficient food to eat and can buy sweet treats whenever I want. I thank those that fought for my freedoms, and those of my children and grandchildren, to make this possible.
“With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.”
‘For The Fallen’ Laurence Binyon 1914
Lest We Forget
Love
Maggie x