Can you imagine living on wartime rations? Obviously, I've thought about it a lot over the years and have marveled at how anyone could possibly survive on an egg and a rasher of bacon a week.
So yesterday we too Mrs F-C mother to the Imperial War Museum's wartime food exhibition. Well, it's something to do, isn't it. And very interesting it was too.
Wartime propaganda was so to the point. No use beating about the bush I suppose. If you were told to dig for victory that's just what you did. And if you were told there would be no more exotic foreign fruits and all we had was apples then you just got on with it and made apple pie. I just wonder how many people today would do what they're told. No likes to be told what to do anymore, somehow they feel it undermines them as people and instead they need constant praise and adoration. A war on the scale of WWII would come as an almighty shock. It could be just what we need. If all you had to live on was ounce of meat, lard hotpot and the national loaf you'd soon count your blessings. Living on benefits would be like a dream come true.
Anyhoo, once we'd been round and got a taste for Woolton pie and hunter's stew, we hotfooted it to the cafe they were doing wartime food. We had to. So I had the cheese and yellow lentil pie with mushy peas. I paid for that later. Mrs F-C had a jacket potato ("let Mr Potato be your friend!"), which doesn't seem very wartime but they'd done something to it that made it so. Mrs F-C senior had what I had, but she had the rhubarb and custard and I had the orange compote-topped blancmange. I've always loved blanmange. I'd kill for a Symington's Table Cream.
The IWM is great. I lived opposite it for about eight months in 1988 and never went in once. The exhibitions are well worth a look: there's the Holocaust one and the Children's War one, each heartbreaking. It's got a great shop and of course we bought. Sometimes we bypass the museum entirely and head straight for shop. Nto this time though. The place was packed. There were lots of children who seemed really interested and engaged, which restores your faith in youth. They're not all slumped obesely in front of Machette Murders IV contemplating their next miaow miaow fix.
So, who wants an allotment?
