Hunger: How food shaped the course of the First World War

Among the numerous books that have been written about the First World War, this work stands out for its focus on the role of food in this bloodiest and most gruesome of conflicts.

Dutch historian Rick Blom, has created a fascinating and absorbing narrative from a wide range of source material, including personal diaries by active servicemen and civilians, historical accounts, interviews and conversations with the last veterans still alive at the time of writing, food manuals, and recipe books.

Direct quotes from diaries are deftly interwoven into an account of the war’s progress from the standpoint of the three principal nations involved in the conflict (Britain, France and Germany). Interlaced are vivid descriptions of the author’s own attempts at experiencing at first hand what it must have been like to be active in combat. He takes part in a re-enactment (working as a sous-chef in a recreated field kitchen) and later spends three cold, hungry, solitary days and nights in a restored trench. Throughout, the focus remains firmly on food, or rather the lack of it, and everything related to it: production, distribution, preparation, quantities and how it influenced the outcome of the war. Recipes from war-time sources conclude each chapter.

Hunger makes for a gripping, at times harrowing read. Written by a historian from a country that was neutral during the war, this work offers a new perspective on the conflict at the centenary of its end.

Rick Blom has an MA in history and worked for more than ten years as a journalist and chief editor for a national magazine in his home country of the Netherlands. He now runs a tourist marketing company established in more than twenty-five countries.

Suzanne Jansen was born and lived in the Netherlands until the age of eighteen, when she moved to London to study drama. While in college, she completed her first translation job: translating Dutch comic strips for Marvel Comics. After earning her degree, she launched her freelance translating career while working in the performing arts and sat the CIOL Diploma in Translation in 1989, the year it was launched. Recent work includes all materials for the WWII Engelandvaarders Museum (opened in 2015), Mismatch by Ronald Giphart and Mark van Vugt and Giant Tuna by Steven Adolf.