Dinner and a Book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

What was the impact on British Society of the Great War?

Let's discuss the Great War in Modern Memory by Paul Fussell with my guest, Doug Farmwald, who is no stranger to the literary history of war.

Welcome.

How are you?

I'm great.

Thanks for having me.

I wanted to ask you, you know, this book has such an impact on people that love history and particularly history of war and the literature and the cultural impact of war.

How did you discover this book?

Well, around a couple of years ago, around the centennial of the World War One, I was reading more on it.

And this book popped up as as a good resource.

And I have a cousin in law who teaches English at the University of Texas.

And one of the things she teaches is Great War literature.

And she highly recommended the book.

So it's been on my to read list for a while.

Oh, my gosh, I'm glad you suggested it.

At first I thought, oh, this is going to be a slog.

And then I got pulled into it.

And that's why you don't give up on books.

The first 10 pages, you keep going.

Right.

And it is so interesting.

This American writer is drawn to British.

He's an Anglophile.

and for the longest time.

I presumed he was British.

I did too.

I kept thinking,is he teaching at Rutgers?

But is he because he kind of becomes British in a way?

I think so Yes.

And a lot of Americans like that.

They did flowed into the you know, the accent and the history.

I can't do the accent.

Well, let's talk about what we're making today.

Let's talk about your broad approach.

Well, basically, I thought, you know, let's do comfort food.

Yes.

Because so much of this is about the the juxtaposition of life at the front and life at home, because the soldiers would cycle through there on a rotation.

And so periodically they would get home.

What would what were they longing for home?

Because there's a lot of discussion in the book about the difference and the really stark difference between the two.

They the one chapter is titled A Troglodyte World, where all they can see is that little strip of sky above the trench.

Trench yes And then when they get home, they can't adjust.

They they can't.

The trees are beautiful.

The birds are singing and they've just come from a horrific, horrific scene.

Trench life is new.

Right.

And it is what's horrendous.

And it's new to the it's new to Europeans.

I think Americans had a little bit of this or at least a foreshadowing of this in the Civil War, because the trenches around Petersburg and in Cold Harbor were really not very different than the trenches around Verdun or Passchendaele.

Well, we're talking about comfort food and we'll come back to this idea of what was actually happening.

I'm going to be making what is a dish that we call it in our family comfort food.

It's some chuck roast that you cook and cook and then you add chopped potatoes and carrots.

And then I put it in some chunks of onion and we cook that down.

And when my children come home, that's what they want, when they're visiting.

So that's what I mean.

So I think that came from this whole concept.

The British.

I think so.

Food, too.

So tell us what you're doing.

I'm going to be making a cheese and lentil savory, which is sort of similar to a hummus, but it was a way to add filling protein to a ration menu.

And it was usually used sort of as a sandwich filling, but it also works as a dip on crackers or something like that.

I'm going to make a mock black pudding, which again is adapting to rationing and then what was called cottage cheese, which is go to the store now and buy old English cheese spread.

This is sort of the origins of it,.

Alright.

Which is a way to use up the last little bits of cheese they had.

OK, good, let's get started.

I did some pre cooking of my meat because this is a kind of a tough cut and you want to cook it for a period of time.

And I even pre cooked the potatoes because sometimes you wait and then the potatoes are crunchy and if you're really hungry, it doesn't matter.

So tell us your steps here.

What are you doing?

Well I am putting in a cup of oats just rolled oats in two cups of beef broth.

You could use vegetable broth if you like, or you could use chicken stock if you like.

And I'm going to cook that down with some browned onions.

I browned these ahead of time.

I'm going to be browning some more for the other dish and we're just going to let that cook till it gets really, really thick.

And that's the first stage as well.

This one is a two stage recipe.

A two stage rest.

So the first stage.

This is just cooking it down.

Alright.

No lentil.

And cheese savory.

I love the savory.

And you know, this one, the the mock black pudding could be sweet or savory, depending what you put on.

I'm putting in onions and some spices going for savory, but you could put in apples and cinnamon and allspice and make a sweet version of it as well.

And so when you use the word savory in the in the English, use it to cover many descriptions of food.

It's not sweet.

It's the opposite.

Right.

It could be what intense.

How would you just use the word savory?

How would you describe it and say what it is.

With not just spicy but not sweet and not hot?

OK, there are more savory.

More Umami.

Somebody might call you in Britain as they come over for a drink and we'll have some savorys.

And that would be something like you're making on crackers or bread and this sort of thing.

I'm getting this meat warmed up again.

I'm going to add I have a little butter in here, which they might have had.

Of course, as the war went on, rations became the food was rationed.

And so all the ingredients are very simple.

The techniques are very simple.

But the food was always good.

Hearty and tasty.

We don't have any peas in this meal.

We did a show which we talked about making peas of the usual color, which meant.

That was Psmith in the city.

Yes.

Which was pre-war.

Yes.

Quite novel by Wodehouse.

Well,.

And that was something they talk about in this was how idyllic the world seemed right before the war.

Yes.

Some of these major writers that wrote poetry and critiques and novels, but particularly poetry of the war time and we don't think about that is here that war engendered poetry.

But we, as you mentioned to me, like the Civil War, brought out writing books.

A lot of it and you have you do have some poetry that comes out of the civil war.

Walt Whitman was writing about that time.

Yes.

But where I see the literary the American literary tradition from war that's similar to this is in the letters that people wrote home.

If you watch the Ken Burns.

Oh yes.

Civil War, they use letters that they wrote were lyric prose.

And they use them so effectively.

And the book has a lot of the poetry that came out of the war, the writings from World War One.

And who were the four writers?

They sort of tracked down this.

Seigfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves were the main ones.

And there are several others that were mentioned, but they spent a lot of time on Graves.

And I've read Graves goodbye to All That, which is a memoir from the war, which is fascinating.

And I got into that because I read Robert Graves I. Claudius novels.

Oh, that's right.

Oh, my goodness.

He went from one extreme to the other, didn't he?

Actually, it is fascinating Fussell likes British writers and before he wrote this book, he wanted to show the impact of this, these hostilities on the thought process and the expression.

But remember, these writers were not you're the man, you know, the common soldier.

These were a class.

Right and that's a big difference, particularly in England.

Class was much more overt.

Americans have always tried to at least pretend to be egalitarian.

But there's very much a class system in the United States as well,.

It's based on several other things,.

Right.

It's not necessarily hereditary.

You know, it's interesting how all these men, the leaders went to certain schools and some of them were really poor leaders.

When you talk about, hey, I guess I shouldn't be so hard on him, but he was a Scotsman who he didn't see seem to be very practical.

Well.

Or maybe he was too practical did you remember that.

He had a plan to win the war.

And when it didn't work out as he had hoped, he just figured, well, we'll do more of it.

Oh, gosh.

If we keep getting them, something will eventually happen.

Yeah.

But then he he is kind of moved out of that and somebody else comes in who is a little better at it, or the portly man with the white beard.

He was a subsidiary commander.

He was in charge of the names escaping you right now.

He was in charge of the mines at Messines.

Well.

One of the big successes of the war,.

We have.

Yes, there was not there was not a lot of value placed on improvization and outside the box thinking.

It was the sort of tail end of let's walk in lines across the fields and just be mowed down and we'll try to move them down first,.

Which, you know, again, I think the Americans saw a lot of that in the Civil War.

Yeah.

And learned that, you know, we're not going to fight that way anymore.

That just doesn't work.

It's instant death.

And it's interesting, the the main German complaint in the war, the one time they registered what they considered a violation of the Hague Convention.

Yeah.

You know, because the Geneva Conventions came after that was against the Americans.

What were we doing?

We were supposed to do.

And this was the Europeans, not just the Germans, but the British and the French still had been using poison gas, had been.

Yes.

Torpedoing ships, you know, since almost the start of the war.

They complained about the Americans using shotguns in the trenches and they considered that counter to the rules of war.

So they had these rules and you had to stick by it.

You really couldn't improvise, as you say.

And of course, I don't know how far you go in improvising and and following the plan.

Now, our plan is to continue.

We're going to take a break.

We want to come back and talk about the cover of the book.

It has a very plaintive cover.

We're going to talk about that.

And that also explains a little bit about the thinking about war.

So we'll be right back.

And welcome back, our book is The Great War in Modern Memory by Paul Fussell and we are stirring, pouring and chopping.

Tell me what you're doing.

I've cooked down our mock black pudding, which is really just oatmeal and beef broth with some sage and time and salt and pepper were cooked it down so much it's almost a dough.

So I'm putting that in some wax paper and we're just going to wrap it up tight and twist the ends off rather like a sausage.

And it is a good to do that the day before.

Yes.

Alright.

And this would need to cool.

And so I did one last night.

I'm just gonna sit this one aside.

So what I did last night and was it cools to finish it.

You just unwrap it.

And there it is.

A little bit sticky.

Yes.

But he's going to slice it properly.

Going to slice.

You know what, I just poured some glasses of of Kodachrome for us.

So, you know, the French were involved in this war and like you say, the Serbs and the Germans and the Austrians.

And then we came.

Russians and the Japanese.

And and we finally discussed with, well, how did this war start and what was the purpose of it?

I mean, somebody shot the archduke and the duchess of which country?

Austria.

Austria.

And so everybody gets in a in a real dither about this.

And it's a chain of all these countries jumping into supporting each other.

Right.

Based on treaties that have been established earlier to sort of create a balance of power.

Yes.

And none of it really meant much of anything to the average person and hence to the average soldier in the trenches.

Well, they probably didn't even know what was going on.

Well, we'll be fine here.

We'll take care of this.

And so we'll just do a little.

This happens all the time at home.

It's real cooking at home.

Yes, this is it.

Exactly.

And that's why I'm here to assist.

So before and I haven't even had any wine yet.

No I can just.

Lentils are cooking down.

So I'm adding the cheese.

And that's just the final bit here.

And the nice thing about lentils is they will cook right down to a taste and you don't have to really measure the water.

Like with rice.

There's a specific proportion.

Yes.

There is not with lentils.

You just keep adding water until you get the texture you want.

Oh, I was going to hold up.

I am going to hold up.

You have a picture of this to the cover of the book, The Great War in Modern Memory.

This is not the picture of a victorious warrior soldier leader.

This is a picture of the young men that went in at age 16.

And there's always a few that would lie about their age.

And by the time the war is over, they have the brains and they have grown up and they've become negative and pessimistic.

And this has been horrible because there was no strategy in this war, as you were mentioning to me, no strategy.

And people just took sides and started fighting.

And the technology had really outdistance the tactics.

Now, this was the war where you had chemical weapons, you had tanks, you had airplanes used for the first time in mass.

It was the British brought in the the tanks and then the Americans came in and they really weren't outfitted.

I think they had uniforms from the Civil War.

And it was just well, Fussell said we just we really kind of stayed out of the way.

Well, because for most of the war, we were making money.

Yes.

And isn't that the case very often?

Now, let's put this I'm going to be careful with this one.

So your elbow doesn't get into that.

Well, I'm done with you with that.

And you know, people have often said and I just hadn't thought about this, but Germany and France and Britain have, and particularly Germany and France have been fighting since 1870, probably even before that with the Franco Prussian war and then World War One.

And then years later we have World War Two with the same players.

And much of it is the same unfinished business,.

Which is.

Well, it's who's in charge,.

Who's in charge.

And now, finally, Europe, at least for the last most of the last fifty years, has seemed to figure out, OK, we can share now.

All of a sudden, Britain's decide, you know, we don't want to play that game.

We want to be our own, making our own treaties and our own contacts.

And that may or may not work.

I don't know.

We'll see how that goes.

That's a really interesting thing.

I want to give you a toast for your your to Doug Farmwald in his great dinner today of comfort food.

And so.

Almost done.

We have French Cote du Rhone because, you know, as I said before, they were they were involved here.

Well and there in the British drink French wine.

They did.

They did.

And they still go to the opening.

They take the the ferries across the channel.

They buy their wine in France and they come back.

And I did that with an English lady.

It was great fun.

Yeah.

So this just seems to fly until it's nice and crisp and brown and that is a mock black pudding.

Now, if you're actually British and had black pudding, it's not a great substitute, but it is kind of close.

Black pudding, I thought had to do with a lot of blood.

Right.

Yeah.

OK.

This is just the the gets browned on the outside.

So this this author is so taken up with England, its culture, its writing.

I think he's one of the Americans.

It's really more British than the British.

And I think he loves the poetry and the poetry of the war that came out of it.

He brings also in Second World War to writers like James Jones and.

Norman Mailer.

Mailer.

Joseph Heller.

Yes.

And these are the more literary authors, not just the memoirs, because you've got great combat memoirs from like Eugene Sledge with the Old Breed and writers like that.

But Norman Mailer is a novelist, but he wrote The Naked and the Dead.

Joseph Heller wrote a lot of other things.

Yes.

Aside from Catch-22.

Kurt Vonnegut.

Oh Kurt Vonnegut.

But I guess the Slaughterhouse Five.

Yes,.

But those all directly.

Made such an impact.

Can I get you a better spatula?

Are you OK?

No that one's fine.

You seem to be doing just fine?

Well, so we have a book of wonderful poetry and I got a little bogged down in reading it after a while.

And I thought, well, I better read it through the first time.

But this writer is so imbued with everything British.

But at the end, after the what do you call that?

Not the forward.

It's it's the afterword.

Yeah, right.

He writes, maybe the next time wouldn't put so much English literature.

Right.

Because when you think about it, if you if you ask the average person what novel or what literature from World War One have you read, most people will say All Quiet on the Western Front.

Yes.

And it's German.

A movie.

And it is that the one with Kirk Douglas?

I've not seen the movie.

Oh, that this the movie is excellent.

But then again, it's this stark reality of Mendi.

And war is not a sport.

And they were all schoolboys.

Yes.

And this is how we brought into our vocabulary, into the sporting world war of aggression and war terms.

We're going to smash them.

We're going to kill them on this next move.

And it's just to me, amazing how they go together.

And they talk about how many yards we're going to take.

And it sounds almost like an American football.

Yes.

How many yards are we going to take from from the other guys?

Yes, from from the German.

And that but that was only for people on the staff and at home the soldiers in the trenches never viewed it like that.

And it's amazing to see how much they evolved because in 1914 you have the spontaneous Christmas truce.

Oh but that was a wonderful concept.

And I saw that movie, too.

I love the way these things are brought into movies, but I read that both the German and the British and the French, they had a toast on New Year's Eve and then the fighting.

Exchange gifts they sang carols.

They stop fighting.

And this was unplanned.

Yes.

And the high commands on both sides were horrified because if you can't betray your enemy as something other than human, if you humanize them, it's hard to shoot them.

Yes, exactly.

And I think I had read at one point that these British and French, they were court martialed.

And because of this.

Not at first.

Not at first?

Because at first the the high command, as it were, just had no idea what to do.

This is too friendly.

It had never occured to them.

With the war will end.

Maybe nothing will happen.

Now, what are we going to do?

I've been training at Sandhurst for years and it's just you can see why Heller is so our our American writer is so negative about war.

And Kurt Vonnegut, they see the behinds of it.

They see what's going on underneath.

And the British writers just come out in his book as well.

He talks about the juxtaposition between soldiers at the front and staff, soldiers who still have fancy uniforms, you know, with red flashing at the end of the cuffs and on the collars, which the first thing you do is get rid of that on the on the front line because a sniper will pick that off.

You could see the color.

Yes.

And so I'm getting ready to the last thing.

This is.

All right.

Going to be our potted cheese, which is a traditional English.

This is leftover cheese.

And this is not the kind of, you know, a little square that I might finish off in the kitchen.

Right cause this is the last little bits of cheese.

But it might be the last the the thing that I don't eat, I put it make this.

And so it's the cheese is a little bit stale.

You can still do this.

So this is six tablespoons of butter and then about eight to 10 ounces of whatever cheese you like.

I just happen to have some Monterey Jack and some cheddar.

And then this is a basil tomato something.

I'm not even sure what kind of cheese it is, but you put it all in here with some mustard and cayenne splash of Worcestershire, and in researching these recipes, nothing really was measured.

Well that is.

They were cooked.

Well, you know, that is another interesting aspect.

Over time,.

Little splash ale.

Splash of ale.

Over time, we had to measure, have just the right amount and just not do it by sight or smell.

Because we want to sell cookbooks.

We want to tell women, you know, you have to know how many teaspoons and tablespoons and women became afraid to cook.

I mean, there was so much put into it.

And up until the post-World War Two time, there was someone in the house who was cooking from scratch every single day.

And they didn't do any mise en en plus.

I mean, measure it out and put it a little spoons.

And so it was I've got I've got to get dinner on the table by six and you kind of get a feel for how long to cook things, how much you need, what spices go together.

Now we're cheating a little bit because I've got a food processor.

Normally.

Alright.

You have to melt the cheese down in a double boiler.

Here he goes in like that.

I'm just going to toss this.

We've got two minutes Doug.

Now, if you wanted, you could also put in some walnuts.

Yes,.

Do you want a different do you want a bowl like this for that?

I'll put it right in here.

In here.

I mean, this is amazing.

So it's a very small food processor, but it's good.

It's strong.

It's not one of these wobbly things.

And now you spread this on.

On crackers or bread on brats and some baguettes.

I think this is amazing.

It's great.

Even today, if you go to the British Isles, they put everything on a baguette.

1016 00:24:40,710 --> 00:24:41,750 I'm going to do a little garnish.

Alright.

Onions,.

All right.

That over the top.

And so we want to get a shot of the of the comfort food here close up.

And I'm going to do a little wiping here.

So we look nice and tidy for your TV set.

And we've had quite a time on this side, haven't we?

This has been.

I'm an enthusiastic cook, but not always the tidiest.

So I just mean that the wine got in the way.

Now, isn't that wonderful?

Look at these savories.

And for the Mock Black Pudding I would like to finish not just a little drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

OK, look at this.

So we we have the shots.

We have the food.

We have Doug Farmwald here today who always does a great job because you are a student of the world.

You like so many topics.

When it was fun researching the recipes.

It's not how I normally cook at home, but finding some contemporary recipes of the time and making those was actually great fun.

Good.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

It's a learning experience and we want to say another bon appetit.

We want to say thank you.

And I want to say thank you to you.

Pleasure being here.

It's always a pleasure having you, Doug.

Thank you.

Always and still remember good food, good friends, good books, good history, make for a great life.

Good guests make for a good life.

We'll see you next time.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you Dinner and a Book is supported by the Rex and Alice A.. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.