Food in Postwar Britain

Question 1

Food in Postwar Britain Primary Literature

Derek Cooper, Kicking a Habit

Answer 1

• Listener, 1985. Short entry. Outlines abundance of sugar in diet - both ignorance to in 1950s and 1960s, and sensitivity in 1980s.
• Cooper was a regular presenter on R4’s The Food Programme, and former contributor to the Today Programme. Used to regularly contribute to the Listener with scathing interviews with Food Ministers and representatives of manufacturers. Published a book called The Bad Food Guide in 1967. His view was that food should be close to nature, should have as few chemicals involved either in its creation or subsequent processing as possible and that big business was generally (exceptions were allowed) inimical to good eating.

Question 2

Food in Postwar Britain Primary Literature

MO Directive on Food

Answer 2

• MO shows balanced/ pragmatic arrangements on the ground – lives not scripted by gender divisions
• MO diaries show continuity – changes, yes – coffee, freezing food, etc.; but other than that – people still use small shops – man who drives into town, goes into butchers to buy liver for cat – not dissimilar to the 1940s – probably more continuity – cooked breakfast, large lunch – more continuous than the narrative suggests.
• MO does not reach out to minority groups.

Question 3

Food in Postwar Britain Primary Literature

Stella Bingham, Margaret Bingham, ‘So Do You Really Need Health Food?’ – Nov 1973

Answer 3

• NOVA, 1973. Bingham was a Law student and freelance journalist.
• Points towards excessive consumption, with too much food, cigarettes and drink - far-cry from Ryan and thrift. Obesity seen as problem, vegetarianism as minor fad. Suggests protein is destroyed by freezing. Suggests class aspect to food - that the poor are fed with sub-standard goods. Increasingly scientific - looking at molecular level changes, the biological impact of wholemeal bread, acid production etc. To develop aura of authority.

Question 4

Food in Postwar Britain Primary Literature

David Elliston Allen, ‘The North East: Yorkshire and Tyne-Tees’ in British Tastes: An Enquiry into the Likes and Dislikes of the Regional Consumer –1968

Answer 4

• Book, 1968. Written by a male botanist, naturalist. Bit odd.
• Examines the county in terms of food output and the ‘Yorkshireman’ . Creates regional stereotypes- ranging from the ‘Teutonic’ demeanour of the Yorkshireman, his backwardness (vacuums slow to take off), isolation from the South, hostility to incomers; and gender dynamics. Women seen as more domesticated resultant of heavy industry - low availability of jobs for women. “Above all, however, it is as a cook, as a supreme virtuoso of the oven, that the Yorkshire wife expects to excel - and to be recognised and praised for that excellence.” Suggests heavily working class by composition of manual workers. Much more than a book on food. Suggests a different type of MC in York - a southern MC is small in York, shown in Labour voting trends. Political value as class allegiance. Argues the industrial belt is teetotal, and more Methodist.
• ‘The place for women here, very firmly and definitely, is in the home’

Question 5

Food in Postwar Britain Primary Literature

Dennis Curtis

Answer 5

• NOVA, 1968
• Discredits British food. Class oriented, somewhat jingoistic.
• I could never understand why strange foreigners resisted their gentle paternalism and murdered planters in their beds or burned hotels around their ears.
• “l was appalled by the females who straddled the tail-boards of shooting-brakes and dispensed sustenance:-congealed chicken and flaccid lettuce leaves-and warm, warm gin with the finesse of a quartermaster issuing tack-from a bully wagon.”
• Shattered I took a look at the eating habits -of the rest of our nation. My rosy image of properly hung sirloin roasted with sealing heat, so that the blood would run from the centre cut, faded when I found behind the holly-hocked, clematis-smothered front doors, frozen fish fingers.
• Fresh vegetables were usually ignored in favour of frozen or tinned: or if fresh, boiled at full gas until thoroughly cooked: by which time it represented a sludge of green no matter whether cabbage, pea or bean.
• Luckily, a new classless English seem to be bringing back from their foreign travel more than just bad manners. Classless, foreign travel, hmm…
• Recipes show range of foodstuff available
• Exotic fruit suggests middle class denby-owning housewives favoured this layout.

Question 6

Food in Postwar Britain Primary Literature

Katherine Whitehorn, Kitchen in a Corner (1961)

Answer 6

• Book, 1961 - by Whitehorn, CBE journalist, writer and columnist from Newnham. Sub-editor for women’s mag in 1956. Got big break from modelling lucozade. Wrote for Picture Post, The Observer. In the Obs, 1963, referred to herself as a ‘slut’, ‘slovenly woman’, which was liberating and groundbreaking. Talks about bringing soldiers back to Newnham bedsit. She thinks the microwave has done away with the need for the book.
• Book - bestseller in 61, about her experience in Notting Hill. When she wrote, she was not in a bedsit, rather, the publisher wanted tips as no books out considered lacking a kitchen. Her selection was by random.

Question 7

Food in Postwar Britain Primary Literature

Margaret Ryan, The Listener 1956

Answer 7

• The Listener, 1956. Still rationing mindset – ‘skilful seasoning is the greatest help in cheering up economical dishes’. Points to salt – v economical source. Also very classical materials used – sugar, mustard, pepper – all ‘non-exotic’ material as far as the 1950s palette goes. “For the Housewife”

Question 8

Food in Postwar Britain Secondary Literature

Summarise the key findings of Derek Oddy, ‘The Revival of Choice: Food technology, retailing and eating in postwar Britain’

Answer 8

Refrigeration as the major innovation, but not without hiccups. Evidences the opulence of food post-war, with the likes of Dairy Bars from Fortnum and Mason, and also the rise of Findus and Bird’s Eye. Seasonal goods were no longer seasonal.