10 years ago a friend and I hosted a fundraising supper club on the theme of the First World War (which had broken out 100 years previously); all the food served had a connection with the Great War; you can read more about the supper club here
A couple of the dishes we served – pea soup and beef stew – were ones eaten by soldiers in the trenches, though we were pretty certain that the versions we served in November 2014 were much tastier than the ones the poor soldiers had!
The grimness of food, and more generally life, in the trenches in World War One is highlighted in Alice Winn’s debut novel In Memoriam. Winner of the 2023 Waterstones Debut Fiction prize, In Memoriam focuses on the relationship between two young men, Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood, who first meet at boarding school and then end up on the frontline when war breaks out. Both Gaunt and Ellwood – as is common in the English public school tradition the boys are referred to, and call each other by, their surnames – are gay, at a time when homosexuality was illegal. They are in love with one another, but are unaware of each other’s feelings so assume their love is unrequited.
Gaunt and Ellwood attend Preshute College, which is based on Marlborough College, a famous public school in Wiltshire, founded in 1843, which Winn herself attended (as did Kate Middleton, now the Princess of Wales); Preshute is the name of one of the boarding houses at Marlborough.
The English public schools – and their pupils – played a significant role in the First World War, and there are two contrasting views of this role. Probably the more popular view – at least nowadays – is that those educated in public schools were responsible for the folly of England entering the war, with ordinary soldiers being sacrificed whilst the public school alumni avoided the worst of the conflict and ultimately had ‘a rather … spiffing time‘ (Seldon, 2013, see link below). This is the view articulated in Joan Littlewood’s 1963 musical Oh, What a Lovely War! (subsequently made into a film in 1969) where those in authority manage the diplomatic maneouvrings in a comfortable location far removed from the horror of the trenches. Similarly the 1989 British comedy series Blackadder goes forth! uses humour to criticise the public school-educated senior military officers who put all their efforts into protecting themselves at the expense of the ordinary soldier.
However, a counter-argument was presented by the historian and educator Anthony Seldon in an article in The New Statesman in December 2013 where he points out that ‘[p]ublic school alumni suffered disproportionately heavy losses during the Great War‘. Taking issue with the views expounded above, Seldon argues that in fact whilst 11 per cent of those who served in the war died directly as a result of the fighting, amongst public school alumni the proportion was higher at 18 per cent.
Whilst there is almost certainly truth on both sides, Marlborough College (Winn’s Preshute College) suffered significant losses in the First World War, with the school website recording that 749 pupils, teachers and other staff lost their lives. Their stories are included in College records, including the Rolls of Honour which have been digitised and can be searched via a link from the webpage.
The loss of the boys from Preshute is reiterated throughout Winn’s novel. She includes a fictional roll of honour, as published in the school paper (The Preshutian, in the vein of Marlborough College’s The Marlburian) at four points in the narrative, which lists the dead and injured. And the impact of the war on the pupils is made clear from the outset. The novel opens in October 1914 with Gaunt reading the roll of honour in The Preshutian published on 17th October 1914 (just over 2 months after the UK joined the war on 4th August). In that first roll of honour 9 boys from Preshute are listed as having died (either in action or from wounds), and 5 as wounded. Gaunt ‘had known seven of the nine boys killed‘.
Despite his asserted opposition to the War (stated in the first chapter) Gaunt signs up when he is handed a white feather (a symbol of cowardice) by some girls in the town, swiftly followed by Ellwood (although he is only 17).
Winn spares no punches when describing the conditions the soldiers face on the Western Front: mud, gas attacks, dying soldiers, body parts and corpses. All is relayed without emotion in a matter of fact way: ‘At nine, they went over the top. West’s head was shot off before they had gone two feet. Ellwood paused to look at his brains. Pritchard had always said he didn’t have any, but there they were, grey and throbbing and clotted with blood.’ And the misery of life in the trenches is encapsulated in the food. Flies feast on both the dead soldiers and the living soldiers’ food rations, getting quite literally ‘stuck in the jam, which was always plum and apple‘.
Plum and apple jam was a real thing in the trenches. The Grimsby-based fruit growers and preserves business T. G. Tickler Ltd, owned by the businessman and Conservative MP Tommy Tickler, won a contract with the British government to supply troops on the front line with supplies of plum and apple jam, with the empty jam tins being recycled as makeshift grenades and referred to as ‘Tickler’s artillery’. Why that combination of fruit was chosen is unclear, though both apple and plum trees are widespread in the UK so presumably there was an abundance of fruit in war time.
In In Memoriam the jam is certainly not welcomed by the soldiers; in fact Ellwood finds it repulsive:
‘Ellwood had never liked plum jam, but before two days had passed, he felt quite certain that if he ever saw a plum in the flesh he would be sick. As to apples, the sour, fly-covered substance that they ate with bread at five each evening had as little relation to them as the “meat cutlets” had to meat.’
Daniels, the men’s servant – yes, apparently officers like Ellwood would have had a servant in the trenches whose responsibilities included cooking – does try his best to provide some variety in the meals. One evening he announces, ‘”There’ll be cake for dessert“‘. The men are suspicious and ask ‘”What sort of cake?“‘, and are not impressed by Daniels’ reply – ‘”Plum and apple“‘ . And any hope that it could still be a real cake is quickly dispelled when Daniels admits that he has ‘”baked some bread with sugar and jam”‘ .
Whilst making an actual cake would almost certainly have been a challenge in the trenches, I felt it was only right that I make one in honour of the huge numbers of soldiers who endured such difficult conditions in the Great War. So an apple and plum cake, with real fruit and not a spoonful of Tickler jam in sight.
FIRST WORLD WAR APPLE AND PLUM CAKE
Ingredients (makes one loaf cake):
1 large eating apple, grated + 4 plums, chopped into small pieces (you want about 500g fruit in total)
125g self-raising flour/ plain flour plus 1 teaspoon baking powder (I used gluten-free flour and baking powder and it turned out well)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
75g ground almonds
125g unsalted butter, softened
125g soft light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
Method:
Grease and line a loaf tin, and then preheat the oven to 170C / 150C fan / Gas mark 3.
Mix together the flour, baking powder and ground almonds.
In a separate bowl cream together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs one at a time and beat in well, adding one tablespoon of the flour mixture after each one.
Beat in the almond extract, then fold in the remaining flour and the grated and chopped fruit.
Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin and bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes until the top springs back when lightly depressed and the mixture is starting to come away from the sides of the tin. Leave to cool in the tin for about 15 minutes, before turning out to cool completely on a wire rack.
