We'll Eat Again - A Collection of recipes From The War Years. Marguerite Patten

Rationing and austerity hardly seem promising subjects for a book and the bleak days of food shortages during the Second World War might appear to be of little relevance to us today. Yet a lot of people look back on those days with considerable nostalgia, remembering how they coped with the meagre rations of meat, eggs, and butter and the total absence of many foods that we now take for granted.

This book is an exercise in nostalgia, but it is arguably more than that. The health of the nation was surprisingly good during the war years, despite the physical and emotional stresses so many had to endure. Infant mortality declined and the average age of death from natural causes increased. Part of the reason for this may have been the new eating patterns which were forced on the British public by the war. For many of the poorer sections of the community, rationing introduced more protein and vitamins, while for others it involved a reduction in the consumption of meat, fats, eggs, and sugar. The diet imposed by necessity was very much in line with the message of many doctors and nutritionists today, who campaign against high cholesterol and for high fibre in our food. The link between food and health is now generally recognised, so perhaps it is a good time to look again at the wartime recommendations of Lord Woolton, Potato Pete and Dr Carrot.

Some of their tips and suggestions are now taken for granted, while others appear amusing or even lunatic. But the overriding intention, stressed by the Ministry of Food's newspaper advertisements and Kitchen Front radio broad-casts, was to make the best of what was available and to provide a simple healthy diet.
This book of recipes, illustrations, and cartoons taken from the Imperial War Museum's collections of Ministry of Food material, recalls how the housewives of Britain helped the war effort and kept the nation 'fighting fit'.