LOCAL food historian Helen Harding looks back at wartime food shortages and how the humble potato came to the rescue
IT’S the time of year when the majority of Britain goes bonkers for baking following the final of the Great British Bake Off.
However, it’s not only in 2020 and during lockdown that Britain has been fixated on baked goods. Bread, cakes and pastries, caused a similar buzz on the Home Front during the First World War.
The difference is that while today’s Bake Off fever seems to bring about an increased intake of baked goods, a century ago there was a concerted effort to reduce Britons’ consumption of wheat.
Poor harvests at home and abroad, a lack of food imports caused by shipping losses and low foreign currency reserves, and the drain of manpower from Britain’s farms to the military, all left the country’s food supply in very real peril.
On December 8 1916, just two days after he became Prime Minister, Lloyd George established the Ministry of Food, with its chief position, Food Controller, filled by Lord Davenport, whose own fortune was derived from a successful grocery business.
The Ministry of Food presided over many initiatives to increase Britain’s food production, promoting more efficient agricultural methods and establishing the Women’s Land Army in 1917 to make up for the labour shortfall in agriculture.
Food was still a daily concern for the government though, with Davenport explaining to the War Cabinet that feeding the nation after September 1917 presented, ‘a difficult problem’, and mooting the idea of compulsory rationing.
Rationing was eventually introduced in early 1918 by Lord Rhondda, but before that the Ministry of Food tried many ways to limit the consumption of wheat and other cereals.
One initiative used by the Ministry was the creation of ‘standard bread’, made using Government Regulation flour. This flour was milled coarser than its pre-war equivalent, so that less grain could be used to make the same amount of flour. However, while this flour increased the quantity available, it was quality that suffered.
Not only was bread in the First World War made of lower quality flour, it was also likely to not be made entirely of wheat flour. Maize, rice and other cereals were a regular feature in wartime, but the government’s main substitute was the humble potato.
The Ministry of Food campaigned for the compulsory use of potatoes in bread and published a report by Janet Elizabeth Lane-Claypon, who had been testing potato-filled baked goods.
Not only did she find that potato bread was very agreeable, she also asserted that pastry made with equal parts flour and potato, ‘bakes well and is very good’, allowing that ‘there is perhaps a slightly heavy taste … this is not at all unpleasant’.
Moreover, puddings made with half-flour, half-mashed potato, were not only ‘indistinguishable from ordinary puddings’, they were ‘perhaps, even somewhat lighter than the usual recipe’.
So, if you feel the grip of Bake Off fever any time soon, and you have a bag of sad-looking spuds, perhaps you could try this authentic wartime bake.
Potato & Chocolate Biscuits
Ingredients
3oz ground rice
2oz flour
1.5oz margarine
Pinch of salt
4oz cooked, sieved potatoes
1 teaspoon cocoa
1 teaspoon treacle
half a dried egg
vanilla essence
1 teaspoon baking powder
Method
Mix the ground rice with flour and rub in the margarine
Add salt, potatoes and the cocoa
Mix well adding the treacle and egg
Beat till all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed together then add the vanilla essence and baking powder
Roll out then cut into desired shapes. Bake for about 20 minutes in a quick oven
• Helen Harding is a food historian with local education company, Discover History.
Helen has a passion for the recreating the history of food and drink and likes nothing better than experimenting with historical recipes and bringing them back to life.
An avid collector of cook books, she is quite often seen at visitor attractions portraying a historic cook, performing on the main stage at a food festival, or giving talks to groups and societies. Her work can be found at A Taste of yesterday on Facebook and on Twitter and Instagram at @tasteyesterday.
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