If you think geopolitics is a tinderbox right now, it’s got nothing on 1914. The First World War broke out, a horrorshow that would see 60,000 men torn apart by German machine guns on day one of the Somme.
The ever-brilliant Back in Time for Dinner (BBC2, 31 January, 9pm) captured the period in detailed fashion. There was lots of meat. Tinned tomato soup was sophisticated. And ironically, given what was about to happen, the craze at the time was for Brits to ‘go out for a German’ and eat sausages. Let’s hope the current craze for dumbass American food isn’t some portent of another despot hellbent on world destruction.
It’s also curious we loved them so much given the inferiority of German sausages to British bangers. But in 1910 Britain wasn’t the epicurean epicentre it is now. As the show pointed out, as well as loads of meat - so much that the first vegetarians were born as a reaction against it - we also ate brains and “pudding in soup”.
Then the war wreaked havoc on the nation’s plates. There was a “real fear the country could starve to death”. Panic buying ensued. German zeppelins floated menacingly overhead, dropping bombs and killing thousands. If that wasn’t depressing enough, there was “no meat, no wine”.
Government snoops checked dustbins for binned food and wastrels were threatened with prison. Basic food prices rose by 80% as the years went by. And then, after four years, it was over and the “long hard slog” to get back to normal began. “Things can only get better” was the mantra. Where have we heard that before?
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