Feeding Tommy

"I found to my delight that I had stumbled across a kind of soup kitchen. The Tommy in charge was stirring a copperful of ‘Shackles’ (soup made from the very dregs of army cooking and stirred with a stick). I must have looked in need of extra nourishment for he said ‘D’yer want a drop, son?’ ‘Yes please’ I replied if you can spare it.’ The warmth and zest from that beefy liquid, unexpected as it was, compelled me to accept a second bowlful which I drank with the same enthusiasm as the first." - George Coppard, from With A Machine Gun to Cambrai.

From bully beef to Tickler’s jam, explore what kept Tommy Atkins fed in the trenches by reading recipes and learning how meals were made just yards from the enemy. In this book Andrew Robertshaw combines history, recipes and historical experiments to reveal how Army Cooks in the First World War fed millions of men everyday against the odds.