Rae Katherine Eighmey

With the entry of the US into World War I in 1917, it became necessary to refocus American eating habits in order to send as much food as possible across the Atlantic to support our soldiers and European populations. This book, based on a wide variety of archival sources, describes how the War affected Minnesotan eating habits and agriculture. One gains a sense of the willing personal sacrifices that Americans made for the larger purpose of winning the War. Part of the fascination of reading this book is seeing how alike, yet totally unlike eating and living patterns were in what was, after all, only my grandparents' day. This book is competently, if not quite professionally written; the reader is only too aware of the stacks of notecards, each turned into a paragraph, that shaped this book. Having said this, the research is wide-ranging and the discoveries fascinating.… (more)