What Italian Soldiers Ate in World War II

During World War II the Italian military was not always the best equipped and their early victories were typically overshadowed by their later defeats, but when it came to food they couldn't be beat, at least at the very beginning of the war. So today I'm going to be cooking from a World War II era Italian military cookbook to put together an ideal meal for a soldier near the front. So thank you to Wild Grain for sponsoring this video as we cook for the Italian troops, this time on Tasting History. Today I'm continuing my series on military rations from World War II and since I've now covered the United States I figured that I would move on to Italy, and I chose Italy to be the first non-US country that I cover because I always feel like they're kind of neglected when people talk about World War II. They are the Gen X of the Axis powers. In fact in my favorite board game growing up, Axis and Allies, they didn't even mention Italy. You couldn't even play them. Also speaking of board games, just a heads up that the Tasting History board game is actually going to become a thing. I love board games. It's one of my favorite pastimes and so having a Tasting History board game, I'm very, very excited. It's still in pretty early stages. I'm going to have a lot more to talk about in about a month, but if you want to follow the progress I will put a link in the description to where you can do that. Anyway the book that I'm going to be cooking from today is called Il Cuciniere Militare, or The Military Cook, and it was compiled in the years before the war as Mussolini tried to build up his army, and it pretty much starts laying out the daily ration of an average soldier. It gets 700 grams of bread, 200 grams of beef, 200 grams of pasta or 150 of rice, then 50 grams of legumes or 100 of potatoes, plus some roast coffee and sugar or cocoa and sugar, then a selection of lard or oil, tomato paste or fresh tomato, grated cheese, and some salt. Now this was definitely the ideal ration and not necessarily indicative of what they would be getting later on in the war, but for today we can pretend that it's day one of the war, and so we can make ourselves some pasta. This is a recipe for pasta sciuta alla militare, or military style pasta. Sauce quantities for a hundred men. After giving a list of ingredients it says put the lard and onion well mixed together into a pan, let them saute stirring continuously so that the onions brown evenly. Moisten with the tomato paste diluted in about four liters of hot water. Add the pepper, let it boil for 20 minutes and the sauce is ready. Practical and simple but certainly inferior to the first two methods described. For variety this sauce may be made with garlic instead of onion, or with both garlic and onion together, and flavored with 100 grams of rosemary. In that case increase the pepper to 15 grams. I should probably also mention that at this time Italy actually had a complicated relationship with pasta, partly because Mussolini had done his level best to get people to switch from pasta to rice since it was easier to grow. His efforts were not very successful but there was definitely a heavy emphasis on rice recipes during the period. Also while this recipe is for a sauce laden pasta, many of the troops especially when not in a garrison would have eaten their pasta simply by adding it to soup as a thickener. This was a common way of eating it especially because it's saved on water. So again this is an ideal garrison ration and not at all like the field ration that the average Italian soldier would have been eating more often throughout the war because that would have relied more heavily on soups and galetta or hardtack. Now since this is for a hundred people I'm going to cut it way back to about a twentieth so you can make enough for about five people for which you will need 75 grams of lard. The book also says you can use olive oil. Then 100 grams of diced onion, 75 grams tomato paste, a half teaspoon or 0.75 grams of pepper, 10 grams of crushed garlic. This is optional as is the 5 grams of rosemary, and then about 50 grams of grated parmesan cheese. Then of course you'll also need to cook some dried pasta. They mention all sorts of pasta being served to the troops so it's really up to you. I decided on bucatini because that's what I decided on, but you do want to make sure it is dried pasta. The troops were not getting any fresh pasta but they did sometimes get fresh bread. They would have some ovens near the front so you can bake some bread using the bread that you get from today's sponsor Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box that gathers up breads, and pastas, and pastries from all sorts of artisanal bakeries around the country, and the quality of these baked goods is exquisite. The sourdough bread is always so flavorful and chewy, and the pastries are wonderfully flaky. I love everything I get from them. I especially love the chocolate chip cookies. I've mentioned this before. I used to bake all six at once but then I found myself eating all six within like a half a day which is not great so now I bake two at a time, but I really enjoy this time of year because now we get all those baked goods that are seasonal like their apple cider donuts. People loved these last year and so they brought them back just for the fall, and they do tend to sell out so don't sleep on those donuts. Now if you want to try Wild Grain, and I really think that you should because they are absolutely wonderful, then just check out my link in the description or head to wildgrain.com slash tasting history. You can also scan this QR code and use my code tasting history and you'll get $30 off of your first box plus free croissants for life. That's wildgrain.com slash tasting history, and now let's get back to some World War II era Italian pasta. So start by heating the lard in a pan and then add in the onion, and I immediately realized that there is so much lard in this recipe. Even if you're using oil it's going to be the same amount. It is so much. For that amount of onions I would probably use like a third as much, but this is what the recipe says so this is what I'm doing. Maybe it was a way to get more calories to the troops, I don't know. Let the onions fry in this pool of lard for about five minutes until they start to brown, and then add in the garlic and continue to cook for one minute or so, and then you add in the tomato paste, and here I made a mistake, and I was going to start over but then I'd be wasting a lot of food so I didn't. You were supposed to take the tomato paste and dilute it in about 200 milliliters of water for this amount of pasta that we're making. I didn't do that so I just poured the water in, some hot water, and I figured that that didn't screw it up too bad. I don't know but when you make this you want to dilute the tomato paste in the water first. Mix everything up and then add in the pepper and let it simmer for 15 minutes, and then you can add in the rosemary and let it simmer for another five minutes, and as I expected with this amount of lard it has to be one of the oiliest pasta sauces I've ever seen, but oily or not once it is simmered for about 20 minutes you can add in your cooked pasta and it is ready to serve, but before I serve it I'm going to make another dish of a vegetable dish because our Italian soldiers need to eat their veggies, but before we do that I want to talk a little bit more about what else the Italian soldier was eating during World War II. On May 22nd, 1939 Italy signed the Pact of Steel with Germany. Essentially this obliged either country to come to the military aid of the other in the event that war broke out, but Italy entered it under the assumption that war would not occur within three years. Well as Mussolini began to prepare for an eventual war sometime in the far-off future, Hitler pulled a Leroy Jenkins and just rushed in invading Poland three months after the pact was signed. Oh my god he just ran in. Well Mussolini who had not been told that this was going to happen was like ah I am not ready to go to war and he was not. Mussolini would boast that he would be able to raise 8 million bayonets, however the Italian force even at its height barely crossed 2.5 million, but as unprepared as they were in June of 1940 Italy declared war on France and the United Kingdom, and very soon they found themselves fighting in Alpine France and North and East Africa, and these early campaigns were where the idea that the Italian military ate so well came from. First there was the garrison ration. This was the ration that one would be fed if they were in a garrison, and it was based off of the amounts that the cookbook that we're cooking from today gave except it was actually a little bit higher. They gave even more food, and it was mostly, it was about 3,500 calories a day, mostly of meat, and fat, and bread, and pasta. Often there were heavy stews filled with fresh vegetables and lots of fresh meat, and these were paired with cakes and sweet pastries for dinner, while breakfast was typically cereal or oatmeal with milk and honey, sliced meats, more bread, and copious amounts of cheese. In addition wine was expected at least several times a week though often the men would water it down to make it last longer. Then there was the field ration which was meant to be cooked on rolling wagon kitchens. Now unfortunately these mobile kitchens had really not been updated much since World War I, so yes you could still cook on them but they moved basically at the speed of horse. Now the rations cooked in these mobile kitchens were meant to mimic the garrison ration but everything was typically made as a single pot meal. All of the meat and the vegetables, fat, rice, potatoes, pasta, everything was tossed into one pot to make a stew. Then they had fruits and vegetables that were meant to last like canned olives, dried dates and figs, and most common melons. In France and Albania with this food they typically drank coffee, and in North Africa it was usually tea because it was felt that tea was better at quenching thirst. Now when the men were actually going into combat they were given a different set of rations depending on what unit you were in but generally it was something like the ratione personale or personal ration. These required no cooking and were typically made up of a can of tuna, a can of prosciutto, two tablets of bouillon so you could make a broth, one sweet biscotti, and two packs of panne duri or galetta which was hard tech, but it was that first ration the garrison ration which impressed both their German allies as well as their British foes. While they were fighting in North Africa the Germans who were fighting alongside them, at least the officers, would often try to score an invitation to the mess tent of the Italians because they knew the food was going to be better there was pasta and wine and whatnot, and later on after a British soldier and his squadron captured several Italian tanks he wrote their tanks were loaded inside and out with crates of cherries, Macedonian cigarettes, cigars, and wine, some straw jacketed Italian Chianti issue, some champagne, and a bottle or two of brandy, even some Liebfrau milk. Unfortunately this good eating was rather short-lived. The first issue was the pasta or rather the water that it was going to be boiled in because you know North Africa not known for a lot of water sources and so most of their water had to be coming from the sea and it was desalinized but it made it so that the water tasted weird and so then the pasta would taste weird after you boiled it in it, and then they ended up reducing the amount of water that a person got to one liter a day so really you had to drink it and you couldn't use any for pasta, and eventually in September of 1942 in Egypt the ration was cut to half a liter, and the food that was coming in was beginning to suffer as well because in Italy they changed the way that they were making the cans that they were shipping the food in. They reduced the amount of tin and this made it so on the crossing over the Mediterranean they were subject to rust and so very often the can would get there and the food inside would now be be spoiled and so they weren't getting even all the food that was being sent over, and then things got really bad because the food that was being sent over now had to be divided up against more fronts because Italy started fighting absolutely everywhere. See in June 1941 Hitler invaded the Soviet Union but this time he at least let Mussolini know. It was about two hours before he did it but he let him know. Well Mussolini being rather insecure decided we need to be there too so he wrote to his general Francesco Zingales saying get to the Russian front as quickly as possible. Our presence in numbers in Russia is essential. This is where Hitler believes he will win the war. Should we be absent even the fact that I was the first one to fight communism will not count in the face of the realization that the Italians were not present in Russia. This sudden expansion of the war led them to have to cut the bread ration from 700 grams per day to 200. That's an extreme cut. Also Mussolini immediately decided that to save on food the officers would no longer get the special rations that they had been getting, and now their mess would serve the same rations as all the other soldiers, and the officers did not like that. One of them wrote the mess restores the officer and puts him in the physical and mental condition necessary to properly carry out his difficult task. A differentiation for the sake of the officer's morale must absolutely exist. The bread ration, indeed all of the rations began to dwindle as Italy faced more military issues especially logistical issues just getting food to different places, and Italy itself was starting to have real issues even producing enough food to feed itself. Things like white chocolate, and jam, and cognac had been given out every once in a while for morale. Those were pretty much gone at this point, and even the regular food, the fresh food, and a lot of the canned foods even were now replaced with the Razione di Riserva or the reserve ration. Now this reserve ration was not meant to be eaten for more than a few days but very often they ended up eating it for weeks on end, and it consisted of 400 grams of hard bread, the galetta, as well as usually a can of Chiarizia soup which was a vegetable soup invented in 1929 by then colonel, later major general Ettore Chiarizia. Then you would also get about 200 grams of canned meat. Now this canned meat was despised. It had the letters AM written on it, and that stood for Amministrazione Militare or military administration, but it's been said that they would often make up new words that it would have stood for like Casino Mutilato or mutilated donkey. The original calorie count of 3,500 calories per day had dwindled to 2,500 at best. Very often many soldiers were receiving less even this early on in the war 1942-1943, and that was actually something that a U.S. military handbook on Italy commented on. It was written in 1943 kind of as a way to prepare American troops for the invasion of Italy. It said while the individual initiative of the Italian soldier is not remarkable, he has been raised under a type of government that makes discipline seem simple and natural. He is tough and hardy, and is able to endure cold, exposure, and insufficient food. He is an extremely good worker who will lay aside his arms and do 14 hours of hard labor a day without complaint. Now perhaps the lowest point for the Italian military, at least when it came to food and in many other ways actually, was when the Alpini mountain troops, the elite troops, kind of the best that Italy had to offer became embroiled during the Battle of Stalingrad. Rations would have been sufficient for living and working in normal conditions but were actually reduced due to the almost complete absence of fresh vegetables and potatoes. Comfort foods, chocolate, sugar, candies, vitamins, cognac were rarely distributed and in insufficient amounts. Some troops did say that they still had a little bit of pasta that they could then add to their beet and cabbage soup but it was just never enough. As Romano Gallo put it, when I finish eating my rations I feel like sitting down at a table for a dinner, and what food they did have during that autumn of 1942 was always served cold. Here the kitchens are far behind us and when rations arrive on the lines they are always cold. Even the coffee in the morning which would be nice to drink hot is always cold. It got so bad that there are stories of troops having to use hatchets to cut up their pasta, to slice their bread, and even to shave off wine that had frozen into blocks of wine ice. Most of the letters that were going home to Italy from the front end requesting that their loved ones send them food and it's nothing extravagant. It's garlic, bread, salt, and if you can't send anything else send a package of two kilos of dried or white chestnuts but it seems that very little of that ever ended up making it to the front lines. In fact it was more often going the other way. Other packages from Russia reach Italy. They are the packages of the thieves in the rear lines and contain cigarettes, sugar, coffee, comfort foods, and rations of the soldier who is on the lines. That's because back in Italy a flourishing black market had arisen as the home front starved along with the troops, and I did a whole video on that last year all about the food of the Italian home front so if you want to see more about that I will put a link to that in the description. Now the people on the home front and the troops were about to go from bad to worse in many ways because in July 1943 Mussolini was arrested by King Victor Emanuele III and shortly afterward Italy or at least the royal government signed a treaty with the allies to take up arms against Germany. They also had to fight the puppet government in the north that was now run by the newly escaped Mussolini. Now you'd think that that was a good thing that now they're fighting against Germany but Germany basically took everything they possibly could from Italy now at this time. One to keep it out of the hands of the allies, and two because now they were starting to have trouble feeding their own people on the German home front. I did a video on that as well, and so they were shipping everything north leaving the Italian peninsula to absolutely starve, and this was in many ways the worst part of the war for many of the people in Italy, and it's around this time that you start to see the American K ration start to be eaten by not only a lot of the Italian troops but also by the citizens, but I'm not going to go into depth on the K ration because I've already done that. Instead I'm going to make a vegetable dish from our World War II Italian military cookbook. So this recipe is for military style turnips but it turns out it is not turnip season where I'm at. I didn't even, I don't think I've ever not noticed turnips around but I don't eat a lot, but it is carrot season. It's always carrot season and the book does say that you can use carrots instead of turnips. So for this recipe what you'll need is 1.6 pounds or 750 grams sliced orange and purple carrots, 2 tablespoons or 25 grams of lard, 1 clove or 3 grams of crushed garlic, a cup or 25 grams minced parsley, and some salt and pepper to taste. So start by salting a big pot of water and then boil the carrots for 15 minutes. Then drain them and melt the lard in a pan and add in the crushed garlic and saute just for a minute not letting the garlic get too dark. Then you want to remove the garlic and toss it out and then you add the partially cooked carrots and coat them in the garlic flavored lard stirring frequently and let them cook for 15 minutes. Then you can add that chopped parsley, the salt, and the pepper and cook for another couple minutes and then they're ready to serve. And I got this off of eBay. This is an actual mess kit. It comes apart like that from Italy. So you could have one dish in here. I'm going to put the pasta in there. One dish in here. I'm going to put the carrots in there and then this would have been mostly for like a liquid so some watered down wine. So serve up the pasta and the carrots in your Italian mess kit or just on some regular plates and top with plenty of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Then water down your wine or wind down your water and here we are. An ideal meal for Italian troops during the early days of World War II. So I'm going to start with these carrots. Also you want to make sure there's a lot of cheese on there. They used a lot of parmesan cheese especially in the early part of the war. The ration was and there's this great video from I want to say it's the National World War II Museum in New Orleans where they're going through essentially it's a mess kit for Italian officers that an American had taken from North Africa and it has a parmesan cheese grater in there. So there ain't a lot of cheese. Anyway here we go. Let's get some purple. Let's get some orange. That's delicious. Lots of cheese. But the flavor of the carrot is what's coming through. That's really really good. Who would have known that cooking carrots in lard makes them even better than they originally are and I like carrots so. All right I am now regretting that I chose bucatini because now I have to eat bucatini on camera. Why didn't I choose fusilli? Because I'm freaking fusilli. Here we go. Is it oily? Yes. Do I care? Not a little bit. That's so good. So here's an interesting thing. I was a little surprised and there's no meat. I do have some like sausage salami or something. Soppressata? I'm not sure. They don't add any salt. Other pasta recipes in the book do add salt. So this one didn't mention salt so I didn't add any salt. Doesn't need it. It's a little sweet. That tomato paste is wonderful. Not diluting it. Making that mistake. Didn't seem to matter. I am a mess. I can't do this on camera. Yeah that's fantastic. No notes. 10 out of 10 on both of these. Absolutely wonderful. Now was this what most of the troops were eating? No, not for most of the war. Maybe at the beginning. Maybe when they were in the garrison and even then only for the first year or so because things went downhill really fast for the Italians. We have lots more though to cover. I got USSR, Britain, Japan, Germany, France, Australia, China. Let me know who else you want to see in there, and who knows how long this this will take me, but I'm here until the bitter end, and I will see you next time on Tasting History.