Food, Glorious Food!

It doesn't take long for my blog posts to return to the age old favourite subject of food. Notified as I was that today was another cancelled Veterans' Lunch, my mind was immediately drawn to sustinence. No getting away from it, today had to be a 'foody' post.

My weekly shop has become a highlight for me. An escape from the house with the grandest of shopping lists added to throughout the week by the other inhabitants of the household. From sweets to vegetables, milk to cereal, my weekly shop is the outline of our weekly meals. Spaghetti bolognaise or curry? Chips or roast potatoes? The list is an insight into Wooding Towers kitchen delights.

Of course, throughout lockdown my intake of snacks has increased. It is so easy to snuffle a packet of crisps whilst typing this blog or have just another cake with my numerous cups of coffee. Luckily, these are still widely available. Whilst planning (what, plan how she writes this blog, I hear you gasp...) today's offering, I wanted to add a relevant photo. Another black and white composition of soldiers round a boiling pot  full of some indistinguishable content or officers celebrating at a mess function complete with mess dress and silver on the table? It was at this point that I came across the ration books sitting in one of my files waiting, no shouting, to be used. Today is their day.

Politicians and the media are constantly making wartime references linking the current coronavirus situation to the Second World War. I think queueing outside the supermarket is the only similarity to the wartime food situation, and then it is only the one queue, whereas during the war women queued up outside the respective shops that they were registered with (ie Butchers, grocers etc). There maybe some shortages (toilet rolls, pasta) but on the whole we can still pick up pot noodles and bars of chocolate. I still leave the supermarket with a trolley full of food, whereas during the war, shortages meant you were limited to the amount of food you could buy. It might be tough during lockdown but we are still able to get food.

I realise that this is not the case for everyone and some folk are really struggling. I am drawn to the rise in the use of foodbanks and images of volunteers depositing food parcels outside the doors of people that are unable to go out. Situations like this bring out the best in people who offer to help where-ever they can. That was the same during the war, when families and neighbours helped each other out in times of crises. It has only been two months in this lockdown restricted situation although the impact will surely be with us for many more. The war affected the nation for nearly six years and the impact was felt by folk for many more years after that. Including food. Rationing officially finished on the 4 July 1954, almost nine years after the end of the war. 

The impact of food restrictions over 75 years ago has no real connection to the current situation. Before the war, Britain imported 55 million tons of food, a month after the war started it had dropped to 12 million. Although we may have run out of certain products (mainly due to the initial panic buying) we are still able to get the majority of things that we want, sometimes with an occasional wait for the product to re-emerge. This wasn't the case during the war, there wasn't the variety of foodstuffs and some items just weren't available. Thankfully it hasn't really got to that stage, and we can still pick up most things on a weekly shop. Oh, and don't forget, we are still able to get wine...