Birthday Onions

生日洋葱

What can we learn from wartime rationing?

我们能从战时定量配给制度中学到什么？

By Lizzie Collingham

文/莉齐·科林厄姆

 

In 1939 Britain was dependent on 22 million tons of food imports a year. It was not U-boats that were the greatest threat to the food supply, however, but rather a new lack of shipping space. For the government, which had expected neutral shipping to be widely available as it had been during the First World War, the scarcity came as a surprise. Within a year, as ships were diverted to troopcarrying duties and industrial raw materials increasingly claimed cargo space, food imports fell to 11 million tons.

1939年，英国一年要进口2200万吨食品。然而，对食物供应构成最大威胁的并不是德国U 型潜艇，而是缺少舱位的新问题。英国政府本来寄希望于一战期间那样充足的中立国航运，对舱位的欠缺感到意外。这一年内，由于船只被用于运载军队，而且工业原料不断占据货舱，英国的食品进口量下降到1100万吨。

As soon as war was declared in September 1939 Neville Chamberlain’s government took over the food supply. Thus, the government immediately took responsibility for ensuring that every member of society was able to access sufficient food. Although the War Cabinet, and in particular the First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, were reluctant to restrict civil liberties, the government brought in rationing. The Ministry of Food was determined not to repeat the mistake of the First World War, when rationing had been introduced only after shortages had already become a problem. By the summer of 1940 meat, fats, dairy products, eggs, sugar and tea were all rationed. For the first eighteen months, however, the government lacked a clear food supply strategy, and found itself solving one food shortage at a time. The recommendation to eke out the meat ration with oatmeal, for example, created a secondary shortage as it failed to take into account the limited facilities for milling oats. Wheat stocks fell first and eggs became scarce as the government prioritized milk production. Two-thirds of Britain’s farmland was pasture and the country’s livestock was also dependent on imports of feed. Cabinet Office economists warned that livestock was “eating shipping space”. Beef and mutton shortages became a serious problem. By the end of 1940 the government was forced to make up the meat ration with offal, which until then had been unrationed.

1939年9月英国宣战后，尼维尔·张伯伦政府就接管了食品供应。于是，政府立即承担起确保每个社会成员都能获得充足食物的责任。尽管战时内阁，尤其是海军大臣温斯顿·丘吉尔，不愿意限制公民自由，政府还是推行了定量配给制度。食品部决心不重蹈一战的覆辙，那时定量配给制度是在短缺已经成为难题之后才实行的。到1940年夏天，肉类、脂油、乳制品、鸡蛋、糖和茶都实行了定量配给。然而，在头18个月里，政府没有明确的食品供应战略，一次只能解决一种食品短缺的问题。例如，由于政府没有考虑到燕麦研磨设施的有限，用燕麦来补肉类配给不足的建议，造成了另一重短缺。由于政府优先生产牛奶，小麦库存首先下降，鸡蛋变得稀缺。英国三分之二的农田是牧场，牲畜依赖进口饲料。内阁办公厅的经济学家警告说，牲畜正在“吃掉舱位”。牛肉和羊肉短缺成为严重的问题。到1940年年底，政府被迫用动物内脏补充肉类配给，而在此之前，动物内脏一直是不配给的。

In January 1941, the journalist Maggie Joy Blunt wrote:

1941年1月，记者玛吉·乔伊·布伦特写道：

We are not starving, we are not even underfed but our usually well-stocked food shops have an empty and anxious air. Cheese, eggs, onions, oranges, luxury fruits and vegetables are practically unobtainable… Housewives are having to queue for essential foods. We live on potatoes, carrots, sprouts, swedes, turnips, artichokes and watercress… The meat ration was cut at the beginning of the month… Prices are rising.

我们没有挨饿，我们甚至没有吃不饱，但平常存货充足的食品店却空空荡荡，有种焦虑的气氛。奶酪、鸡蛋、洋葱、橙子、高档水果和蔬菜几乎都买不到……家庭主妇不得不排队购买必需食品。我们主要吃土豆、胡萝卜、甘蓝、大头菜、萝卜、菊芋和豆瓣菜……月初，肉的配给减少了……价格在上涨。

At first the working classes were suspicious of the government’s talk of sacrifice, fearing that the poorest would bear the brunt. (Then as now, Britain was riven by social inequality.) During the painful period of initial adjustment it was indeed the poorest and those in low-priority occupations who were worst affected.

起初，工人阶级对政府关于牺牲的言论持怀疑态度，担心最穷的人会首当其冲。（当时同现在一样，英国因社会不平等而四分五裂。）在初始调整的艰难时日，最贫困的人和职业地位低的人的确受影响最为严重。

After the anxious winter of 1940–41, the Ministries of Agriculture, Food and Health finally developed a comprehensive food strategy. Price controls were introduced to prevent inflation, pasture was ploughed up to grow wheat and potatoes, and the importation of condensed, high-calorie foods was prioritized. The ability to draw on the food resources of Britain’s trading empire was the real strength of the wartime food policy. Canadian bacon, New Zealand butter and cheese, West African palm oil, Argentinian de-boned and corned beef, American Spam, sausage meat, condensed milk and dried egg all provided 56 per cent of the population’s calories. And in order to secure 2 million tons of these crucial imports, Churchill cut shipping to the Indian Ocean by 60 per cent. This exported hunger to the colonies, where a reduction in supplies left millions of Mauritians, East Africans and Indians to face malnutrition and famine.

1940年至1941年令人焦虑的冬季之后，农业部、食品部和卫生部最终制定了一项全面的食品战略。为了防止通货膨胀，实行了价格管控，开垦牧场以种植小麦和土豆，并优先进口高热量浓缩食品。战时食品政策的真正优势在于能够利用英国贸易帝国的食品资源。加拿大的培根，新西兰的黄油和奶酪，西非的棕榈油，阿根廷的去骨咸牛肉，美国的斯帕姆午餐肉、香肠肉馅、炼乳和干燥蛋制品，这些食物为英国人提供了56%的热量。为确保这些重要商品有200万吨的进口量，丘吉尔将前往印度洋的航运削减了60%。此举将饥馑输出给了殖民地，由于供应减少，数百万毛里求斯人、东非人和印度人面临营养不良和饥荒问题。

 

Goods for which there was an erratic supply, such as tinned meat, fish and fruit, rice and biscuits, were given a price in points. The government was able to steer consumer choices by adjusting the number of points an item was worth. At the same time the system gave shoppers a psychologically beneficial illusion of control. Each ration-book holder was allocated sixteen points for four weeks. They could be sensible and spend everything on a pound of tinned sausage meat, enough to create several main meals, with the bonus of a thick layer of nearly half a pound of fat; or they could splurge eight points on a packet of biscuits. Indeed, the knowledge that the government felt responsible for ensuring a reliable and fairly distributed food supply made a significant contribution to wartime morale.

对于那些供应不稳定的商品，如罐头肉、鱼、水果、大米和饼干，都以点数定价。政府能够通过调整商品的价值点数来引导消费者的选择。与此同时，该制度让购物者产生在心理上有益的控制错觉。每位配给证持有者分到16个点数，为期4周。他们可以明智地把所有点数都花在一磅罐装香肠肉馅上，这些足够制作几顿主食，运气好的还能得着一层厚厚的肥肉，将近半磅；或者，他们可以挥霍8个点数买一包饼干。确实，政府为确保可靠公平的食物配给负起责任，这极大鼓舞了战时士气。

Lord Woolton was a gifted speaker. He recognized that if rationing was to work the government needed to be seen to distribute food equitably across the population. For this reason every adult no matter what his or her occupation received the same allocation. The wartime diet replicated the prewar working-class diet in that it relied heavily on bread and potatoes, which were not rationed. The idea was to stave off hunger by filling up on starchy staples. Rationing and rising wages gave even the poorest access to adequate quantities of meat, egg (albeit dried), butter and milk. Indeed, pregnant and nursing women as well as children were given priority access to milk. Children were allocated cod liver oil, orange juice and tins of blackcurrant purée. The health of the poorest third of British society markedly improved, and by 1945 the stubborn pockets of deprivation in the industrial areas worst hit by the Depression had been virtually eradicated.

伍尔顿勋爵是位天才演说家。他认识到，定量配给要想起作用，人们需要看到政府为全民公平地分配食物。因此，无论从事什么职业，每个成年人都得到了同样的配给。战时饮食仿照了战前工人阶级饮食，很大程度上依赖不限量供应的面包和土豆。其想法是通过食用富含淀粉的主食来抵御饥饿。定量配给制度和不断上涨的工资让即使最贫穷的人也能获得足够数量的肉、蛋（尽管是脱水的）、黄油和牛奶。实际上，孕妇、哺乳期妇女及儿童能够优先获得牛奶。孩子们分到鱼肝油、橙汁和罐装黑加仑酱。英国社会中最贫穷的三分之一人口的健康状况显著改善，到1945年，在受大萧条打击最严重的工业地区，顽固的群体贫困问题几乎已被消除。

Rationing had the effect of levelling out the diet of everyone in the country to the standard of the prewar skilled worker. The dinner of lamb, potatoes and cabbage followed by date roll and custard that a lab technician enjoyed in September 1942 was remarkably similar to meals he had enjoyed in the 1930s. But while this kind of meal represented an improvement for the poor, used to scraping by on bread and margarine, a bit of bacon or cheese and copious amounts of sweet tea, to the upper and middle classes meals of this kind were a form of deprivation. The rich were able to circumvent rationing by buying expensive unrationed foods, including lobster and salmon. The middle classes experienced the most restrictions and complained the most. The government’s call to “Dig for Victory” was patchily received: while the working classes tended to grow root vegetables and a few runner beans in their allotments, the rural middle classes cultivated the spinach and peas they missed, and bemoaned the lack of anchovies and lemons.

定量配给制度的效果是消除差异，使全国每个人的饮食都处于战前熟练工人的标准。1942年9月，实验室技术人员享用的晚餐是羊肉、土豆和卷心菜，餐后甜点是红枣卷和蛋奶沙司，和他在20世纪30年代吃的饭菜非常相似。不过，虽然这样的一顿饭代表着穷人生活的改善——他们习惯靠面包、人造黄油、一点儿培根或奶酪，以及大量的甜茶勉强度日，但对于中上层阶级来说，这种饭菜很寒酸。富人能够通过购买昂贵的非定量食品（包括龙虾和鲑鱼）来规避定量配给制度。中产阶级受到的限制最多，他们抱怨也最多。政府“为胜利而种地”的号召得到的是零零星星的响应：工人阶级一般会在他们租用的小块菜地里种植根茎类蔬菜和一些豆角，而农村的中产阶级则种植他们想念的菠菜和豌豆，抱怨没有鳀鱼和柠檬。

The wartime British were as removed from the danger of starvation as the panic buyers of today, who have the means to empty supermarket shelves. Which is not to say that wartime food was not stodgy and monotonous. In March 1943 one diarist complained, “How I grow sick of never-ending starch – bread, bread, bread”. The small luxuries – such as ice cream, imported oranges and bananas and, most importantly, onions – disappeared. Onions, the majority imported from France, had been British cookery’s ubiquitous flavouring, but when the crops planted by British farmers were afflicted by blight, onions became sufficiently rare that people considered them a delightful birthday present.

与如今有能力清空超市货架的抢购者一样，战时的英国人摆脱了饥饿的危险。这并不是说战时的食物不乏味、不单调。1943年3月， 有个人在日记里抱怨道：“我真是厌倦了没完没了的淀粉——面包、面包、面包”。小奢侈品不见了，如冰激凌、进口橙子和香蕉，以及最重要的洋葱。洋葱主要从法国进口，是英国烹饪中无处不在的调味菜，但是，当英国农民种植的这种作物得了枯萎病时，洋葱变得非常稀有，人们将其视为一件令人愉快的生日礼物。

（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获奖者；单位：南京大学外国语学院）