Understandably, Bert devotes a fair amount of his letters to grumbling about the hardships he faces. Food is a particular refrain.
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The normal view of food in the army is of substandard fare. And historical research proves this was all too often the case. A study by Massey University and University of Otago researchers in 2013, published in the NZ Medical Journal, showed Kiwi soldiers' diets in Gallipoli consisted mainly of canned corned beef and biscuits which was so nutritionally deficient it was likely to have caused serious illness such as scurvy, dysentery, typhoid and night blindness amongst the troops and could even have been responsible for some deaths. The researchers said the bad nutrition was symptomatic of poor planning throughout the campaign.
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But by the time the Kiwis had reached France, the New Zealand army had improved its meals – perhaps because they were less dependent on British Army supply lines, perhaps because there was more local produce in France that could be purchased in contrast to the aridity of the Gallipoli peninsula.
And here is a fact that may prove surprising. Bert’s weight was taken fairly regularly during his service. At the time of signing up in 1916 he is recorded as weighing 126lb, 9 stone exactly or in modern measurement just over 57kg. His weight doesn’t change much while in the various training camps. But by March 1918 after a year of service in France he notes in his diary that he weighs 148lb, 10 stone 8lb which is 67kg. He has gained 10kg. You can imagine that is unlikely to be fat. Bert may have found much of the army food unpalatable - it was basic - but it was designed to meet nutritional needs (one of Bert’s complaints is the lack of sugar, something which modern health academics would laud). So, given that plain diet and all the hard physical work he endured, from digging trenches, to building roads and endless route marches, it is most probable that the weight gain is pure muscle. After a year in the army he is actually fitter and stronger.
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It was not necessarily something Bert appreciated however, and he provides some colourful insights into his view of WWI cuisine.
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His early encounters with army food, in the camps in Wellington, are clearly better than what was offered to the troops in Gallipoli, though they met with a mixed reaction from Bert, still fresh from mum’s home cooking:
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“I suppose you have heard of the fame of the Trentham Stew. We get it every morning for breakfast, bread and jam for lunch and beef or mutton and spuds cooked with their jackets on, for tea.”
There were moments of superior tucker however, including the most unlikely of places, while at sea on the voyage to Blighty:
“We get good food and much better than in camp.”
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Even at Sling, so disliked for so many things, food at least seems to have been one, slight bright spot. Bert writes in a letter:
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“The training is altogether different to that in NZ. The kai is better here but the climate is not. Nothing is wasted here, and they make use of all the scraps of bread and bones.”
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But despite the improvements to army rations, the infamous bully beef and biscuits were still an inescapable feature at times. Bert gives an unflattering description in March 1917 of the haute cuisine at Etaples in France as he waited to join the front-line troops.
“There is no pampering up in this camp. A man has to sleep on the hard boards in the tents, but we do not mind being without paillasses, as we are now used to it. The cold is intense, and if it is not snowing, a cold biting wind is blowing. Our food consists mostly of army rations, (bully beef and biscuits), butter and margarine we get occasionally, once a blue moon, and we consider ourselves fortunate if bread is on the table. The army biscuits are as hard as iron, and one must have good teeth to crack them.”
FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD
He also writes of Etaples: “It costs us half a franc a day each man to buy extra bread etc. While we are in this camp, I have the job as tent orderly, whose duties are to look after the tent and to keep it clean, and to look after the meals, but he does not drill with the rest. Once a day I draw rations for the tent; tinned beans, bully beef, army biscuits etc, and the only way we have of getting a hot meal is to steal the boxes and use them for firewood as no fuel is supplied. I see some great dishes being cooked; a piece of fat bacon, (pinched from the cookhouse) being fried in a mess-tin, another chap boiling tea in a jam tin, and some trying to fry onions without grease. Sugar I can’t buy, but butter can be obtained at the modest price 4 francs 20 centimes, about 3 bob a lb. I wish you would post a weekly now and then, and if you ever send a parcel don’t forget to put some sugar in it, as we are obliged to drink the tea or cocoa we make without sugar.”
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Once at the front, and being rotated from trenches to rest billets and reserve camps, the food improved, but the blandness leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He ends a recitation of what he has to haul around on his back in his field kit with a lament for the memory of butter.
“I will just give you an idea what our kit consists of. I don’t mean my kit bag, as I have said goodbye to that long ago. It runs thus, 1 blanket, oilsheet, overcoat, change of under-clothing, towels, hold-all, housewife, cholera belt, which we have absolutely no use for except to show at kit inspection, socks, field dressing and the pack consists of, water bottle, entrenching tool, bayonet and scabbard, cartridge pouches, valise and haversack which hold all clothing etc, and mess-tin, which does the duties of a frying pan, drinking mug, plate etc. On top of this comes a steel helmet, 1 pair of goggles for tear shells and 2 gas helmets, besides a rifle. I have forgotten what butter tastes like, and bread and jam are luxuries; so thank your lucky stars you are in NZ, which is one of the luckiest countries under the sun.”
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And he gives a rundown of his daily fare: “Don’t believe all the rot that is printed in the papers how well the British solider is fed and treated. Our daily ration consists of one third of a 10 ounce two pound loaf a man to a one pound tin of jam and two ounces of cheese, so you can see there is no chance of a chap making a glutton of himself on that, and it works out at one slice of bread each meal, which is less than an ordinary child eats. We get the usual army stew every evening without change. I hear some people in New Zealand [two words obscured by torn bottom of page] …. about the price of food; they don’t know their good fortune. We cannot buy bread in France for love of money. I have billeted in numberless stables and barns during the time I have been at the front and I can’t remember all the names of the villages we have stopped at. I received the first gift – a pair of socks, the other day, the first since I joined the army, and it came in a ‘buckshee’ parcel together with a packet of soup powder and goodness knows what we are expected to do with it, as it is no easy thing to get fresh water besides wood to boil it with.”
Of course, there was the option for individual soldiers to supplement their food by eating at the local cafes when off duty. He says in one letter “every second house in the street is a estaminet or cafe this or cafe that.” Or they could buy direct from French farmers or at markets, though Bert claims that was well-nigh impossible.
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“I am beginning to understand a little French; just enough to make myself understood if I want anything. Bread and unknown things such as sugar etc. cannot be bought as the Froggies are rationed. They put the price on over here and I could buy French goods such as chocolate, pipes etc over in NZ much cheaper than here where they are manufactured. If you grumble about the price, they blame it on to the war and say ‘C’est la guerre’.”
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Despite the grumbling that no food was available, he evidently could pick up some goods because he devotes an entry in his diary to noting down the prices – clearly planning how to budget his pay to spend on some ‘luxuries.’
In his diary of April 14, he records:
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Prices 1lb butter 4.20; bread 1.30; 1lb jam 1.50; 1 milk 1.35 francs.
And he comments in a letter: “The bread here is a coarse brown, and the loaves are about a yard long.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
He also provides a commentary on French farming techniques – it seems we Kiwis have always rated ourselves as superior farming innovators – and includes a note on the scarcity of tea. “The French people have some very antique methods of farming and most of the work now is done by old men and women as most of the men are fighting. The landscape is dotted with windmills, which are still used, and the farmers grow their own tobacco and hang it all round the house to let the sun dry it. The Froggies know how to brew a good cup of ‘cafe’, which is their national drink (next to wine and ‘bierre’) and tea seems to be an unknown article.”
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He reserves his chief grumbling for civvie food however, noticeably in this excoriating letter about a rare visit to a restaurant. “After waiting something like half an hour they condescended to serve me. The first thing they brought me was a roll of bread like a scone, without butter, and the first course, was a dark fluid, which I took to be soup. Fish came next, but I had some trouble locating it, but finally found it hiding behind a small bit of potato. Steak pudding came next, and that was built on the same scale as the fish, and the chap next to me had a piece of meat, which looked like a crack in the plate. We ordered pudding, but they had run out of it, no doubt through having given such large quantities to the customers, but they brought a small slice of jam roll on a plate, with a silver knife and fork to eat it with. A small cup of tea, one of these ladies afternoon tea sorts, brought up the rear. This food sampling cost me one shilling six pence and I was just beginning to feel hungry when it was over.”