The Kitchen Front

A major part of the German strategy during World War II was to create severe food shortages by attacking the British seaborne supply lines and thus potentially starving the nation into submission. This was the ‘Battle of the Atlantic’, in which convoys of merchant ships carrying food and materials suffered sustained mass submarine assaults during their long transatlantic voyages. The government dealt with what were sometimes extreme shortages by introducing a system of rationing. Each person was issued with a Ministry of Food Ration Book that restricted what items and what amount could be purchased.By August 1942 almost all foods apart from vegetables and bread were subject to rationing. Most types of imported fruit all but disappeared and what oranges were available were customarily reserved by greengrocers for children and pregnant women. The Ministry’s ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign encouraged Britons to supplement their rations by cultivating gardens and allotments and growing their own vegetables. The BBC's way of approaching the issue was unique for its a series of cookery programmes, The Kitchen Front, produced in association with the Ministry of Food, aimed at the ordinary housewife, and broadcast with no other purpose than to be helpful. In this book you’ll find over 120 recipes from the programme that enabled the wartime chef to make the most of whatever came available