Pilots Fed Soya Links During the Berlin Airlift

[Joe]

I was listening to a BBC radio program about the Berlin Airlift (ca. 1948-49). The interviewer asked one of the (former) pilots what kind of food they were fed. The pilot said they were given dried this that and the other (for fruits and vegetables) "and for meat soya links."

We were not told why they were given soya links instead of actual meat or meat products. Perhaps these were more available at the time, since Britain was still under food rationing. But I thought this was interesting and noteworthy.

 

[Second Summer]

Interesting. What is a soya link, though?

 

[Joe]

Interesting. What is a soya link, though?

AFAIK a sausage or small sausage made from soy/soya instead of pork or beef.

2. something analogous to a link of chain as a(1): one of the segments into which sausage in continuous casing is usually constricted (as by tying) at regular intervals (2): a small sausage resembling one of the links of a chain of sausage but not being part of a chain ...

Source: Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2000).

 

[Moll Flanders]

The veggie sausage was meant to have been invented in WW1 in Germany, it was called the Friedenswurst or "peace sausage".

10 inventions that owe their success to World War One - BBC News

 

[Amy SF]

That's interesting. Since soy has long been used as "filler" in a lot of products, it makes sense that it was probably considered cheaper to make sausage links from it and serve it to pilots at a time when meat was still scarce and expensive.

I sometimes think about civilians on the homefront who had to deal with food rationing during WWII. They must have had to cut back on their meat consumption. Did some families go completely vegetarian during that time? When the war was over, did they go back to their pre-war meat consumption, or maintain diets either meat-free or low in meat consumption, simply because they got used to it and perhaps even felt healthier as a result? I should also note that some families had "Victory Gardens" where they grew some of their own produce (seeds apparently being cheaper and easier to get than produce) to save money. That certainly would have contributed to a diet that was more plant-based than meat-based.

 

[ledboots]

The soy probably was shelf stable for longer than meat would have been, so less likely to get the soldiers sick.

And my parents' families both had Victory Gardens during WWII. My mom was a great gardener.

 

[Joe]

The veggie sausage was meant to have been invented in WW1 in Germany, it was called the Friedenswurst or "peace sausage".

10 inventions that owe their success to World War One - BBC News

That's fascinating, MF. Let me quote part of the article:

You might imagine that soy sausages were invented by some hippy, probably in the 1960s and probably in California. You would be wrong. Soy sausages were invented by Konrad Adenauer, the first German chancellor after World War Two, and a byword for steady probity - dullness would be an unkind word.

During WW1, Adenauer was mayor of Cologne and as the British blockade of Germany began to bite, starvation set in badly in the city. Adenauer had an ingenious mind - an inventive mind - and researched ways of substituting available materials for scarce items, such as meat. ...

[H]e turned to the search for a new sausage and came up with soy as the meatless ingredient. It was dubbed the Friedenswurst or "peace sausage". Adenauer applied for a patent with the Imperial Patent Office in Germany but was denied one. Apparently, it was contrary to German regulations about the proper content of a sausage - if it didn't contain meat it couldn't be a sausage.

Oddly, he had better luck with Britain, Germany's enemy at the time. King George V granted the soy sausage a patent on 26 June 1918.

Vegetarians everywhere should raise a glass of bio-wine to toast the rather quiet chancellor of Germany for making their plates a bit more palatable.

 

[Joe]

I sometimes think about civilians on the homefront who had to deal with food rationing during WWII.

Please remember that food rationing was discontinued in the US in 1946, but it persisted in Britain until 1953 or 1954 (believe it or not).

Much of the book 84 Charing Cross Road was about Helene Hanff sending food parcels to the staff in her favorite British bookstore for several years during the early 1950s. They were absolutely delighted to get these parcels. (I believe they were shipped from Denmark.)

One other thing: within two years of the attack on Pearl Harbor, forty (40) percent of the produce grown in the US came from backyard "victory gardens."