Ian Mosby on the food Canadians ate during WWII

Ian Mosby is a food historian. His latest book, Food Will Win the War, explores the role food played during Canada's efforts in the Second World War.

HOW OUR BELIEFS ABOUT 'WARTIME FOOD' ARE MOSTLY WRONG

That's something I went into this expecting: that war recipes were something people had to do out of necessity, that rationing was going to be this really huge imposition on people. But, really, it turned out that wartime recipes looked a lot like Depression-era recipes. Recipes during Depression called "Economy Cake" would simply be re-named as "War Cake." The people who really had to cut back during the war were middle- and upper-class Canadians, whereas for low income Canadians, dealing with rationing of sugar and butter and meat looked a lot like dealing with low wages and unemployment during the Depression.

HOW FOOD HELPED THE WAR EFFORT

Canada was a food exporting nation, it always had been. Britain, in particular, depended on Canada for much of its food imports. At one point, experts estimated that 57 percent of British wheat and flour consumption during the war was Canadian wheat and flour. The British relied on Canada for its survival. But another way food was important during the war was they needed healthy soldiers, they needed healthy workers. Part of this was because during the early years of the war, a lot of Canadian soldiers were being rejected for medical reasons and this was a concern for the government. They connected it to malnutrition, in particular.