The Ministry of Food

When World War II came to an end it didn't mean rationing was over. It continued until 1954 and the Imperial War Museum's temporary exhibition shows in detail how - and what - the population of Britain was fed for 14 long, hard years. Along with photographs, posters, original paintings, sound recordings and film footage, the displays include walk-in reconstructions of both a 1950s kitchen and an atmospheric grocer's shop stocked with wartime Weetabix, loose biscuits, bottle brushes, fly swats, mop buckets and drums of Vim for 'safe, smooth cleaning' that conjure up the period of shortage and frugality that resulted, impressively, in a marked improvement in child health.

With Lord Woolton - appointed Minister of Food in 1940 - in command, an army of farmers, made up of land girls, prisoners of war, school children and people vacationing at 'Farming Holiday Camps', was mobilised. Their efforts helped to halve the nation's reliance on food imports and increase the acreage of land under cultivation by 22 per cent. New efficiencies saw arable farming given precedence over animal rearing and wheat give way to potatoes.

So persuasive was the Ministry of Food when it came to convincing the population that it was their patriotic duty to get on and eat what was available - and waste absolutely nothing - that many of those who experienced the rationing years were rendered permanently incapable of wasting anything. Listening to a typical radio broadcast in which Lord Woolton addresses the nation's housewives, it's easy to understand why those good old habits linger. 'I tell you in plain and direct language that you are risking the lives of our fighting men if you waste food,' he says, going on to urge his audience not to eat new bread - because if you keep it a day longer, it cuts more easily and goes further. Urgent, straightforward and consistent, if couched rather patronisingly, the arguments were convincing - and they were backed up by action. The Ministry of Food, which at it's peak employed 50,000 staff, included 900 inspectors responsible for making sure that 415 statutory orders were obeyed by customers, retailers and wholesalers. People were fined for wasting crusts.

The importance of tea to the British psyche is a given and Wooten knew that the wartime ration of two ounces a week was a particular hardship. Turning tradition on its head he advised housewives to use 'none for the pot' - and took the precaution of storing tea stocks in more than 500 different locations in order to minimise the chance of their destruction by air raids. There are some surprises: I knew that oranges and bananas were scarce but I hadn't realised that, although they were never rationed, onions, the basis of so many economical meals, were in very short supply throughout the war. Fortunately, good advice was readily available and not only from the Ministry of War. In a wartime edition, Vogue, celebrated today for its glamour, told its readers pragmatically, 'No need to wash saucepans after each use: the one in which luncheon meat or vegetables were cooked will come in handy at dinnertime for vegetables or meat with added flavour'.

The contemporary relevance of growing your own food, eating produce that has not had to travel halfway round the world and avoiding waste is obvious and the exhibition display brings the era of rationing vividly to life: the replica food is realistic enough to make you wonder if a member of museum staff has absent mindedly abandoned their lunch.

For nostalgic visitors and those keen to learn from the gardening and eating habits of World War II there's a book, 'The Ministry of Food' by Jane Fearnley Wittingstall, to accompany the exhibition. And for the duration of the show, time has been rewound at the museum's cafe, transformed to become 'Kitchen Front' and offering 1940s treats such as pork belly, cabbage and apple stew, and rhubarb and custard.