Feeding Tommy

Feeding Tommy

2013 • 192 pages

Interesting book, poorly organized.
Some takeaways:
Typical British working-class diet in lead-up to war was appalling. Army diet was much better calorically and w/regard to protein intake.Challenges of providing cooking ovens for the scale needed, and then moving them over and over (Soyer stoves, Aldershot ovens, ovens built in the sides of trenches), were huge.
Transporting food long distances while keeping it hot/cold.Scale of food needed - 2 million men time 1lb meat/bread/tea/sugar/cigs/etc etc EVERY DAY - railway challenges.
*And don't forget the HAY for the tens of thousands of HORSES.
This was an interesting read in a “pull the curtain back” way, but it read very disjointedly - diary excerpts and drawings and so on are scattered heavily throughout the text in a way that I found very distracting.

April 25, 2015Report this review