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Famine food of vegetal origin consumed in the Netherlands during World War II
3,4Associated Data
- Data Availability Statement
- All the data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this article. The individually filled-in questionnaire forms are available upon request to the corresponding author (tinde.vanandel@naturalis.nl).
Abstract
Background
Periods
of extreme food shortages during war force people to eat food that they
normally do not consider edible. The last time that countries in
Western Europe experienced severe scarcities was during World War II.
The so-called Dutch famine or Hunger Winter (1944–1945) made at least
25,000 victims. The Dutch government took action by opening soup
kitchens and providing information on wild plants and other famine food
sources in “wartime cookbooks.” The Dutch wartime diet has never been
examined from an ethnobotanical perspective.
Methods
We
interviewed 78 elderly Dutch citizens to verify what they remembered of
the consumption of vegetal and fungal famine food during World War II
by them and their close surroundings. We asked whether they experienced
any adverse effects from consuming famine food plants and how they knew
they were edible. We identified plant species mentioned during
interviews by their local Dutch names and illustrated field guides and
floras. We hypothesized that people living in rural areas consumed more
wild species than urban people. A Welch t test was performed to verify whether the number of wild and cultivated species differed between urban and rural citizens.
Results
A
total number of 38 emergency food species (14 cultivated and 21 wild
plants, three wild fungi) were mentioned during interviews. Sugar beets,
tulip bulbs, and potato peels were most frequently consumed. Regularly
eaten wild species were common nettle, blackberry, and beechnuts. Almost
one third of our interviewees explicitly described to have experienced
extreme hunger during the war. People from rural areas listed
significantly more wild species than urban people. The number of
cultivated species consumed by both groups was similar. Negative effects
were limited to sore throats and stomachache from the consumption of
sugar beets and tulip bulbs. Knowledge on the edibility of famine food
was obtained largely by oral transmission; few people remembered the
written recipes in wartime cookbooks.
Conclusion
This
research shows that 71 years after the Second World War, knowledge on
famine food species, once crucial for people’s survival, is still
present in the Dutch society. The information on famine food sources
supplied by several institutions was not distributed widely. For the
necessary revival of famine food knowledge during the 1940s, people
needed to consult a small group of elders. Presumed toxicity was a major
reason given by our participants to explain why they did not collect
wild plants or mushrooms during the war.
Keywords: Dutch famine, Emergency food, Recipes, Tulip bulbs, Wild plant collection, World War II
Background
Famine
has been part of human history since the foundation of agriculture.
During periods of severe hunger, people resort to unconventional food
that they do not or hardly eat in “normal” times, so-called famine or
emergency’ foods [1, 2].
Generally, this means plants, animals, and mushrooms collected from the
wild and repulsive or unfamiliar food that is normally not considered
suitable for human consumption, such as fodder and vegetable waste [3–5].
A revert to famine foods, however, implies that knowledge on wild or
otherwise unconventional edible species is still present in the
community. In industrialized, Western European societies, where people
have become less reliant on their natural surroundings for the past
century, this may pose a problem. The last time that Western Europe had
to cope with extreme food shortages was in the Second World War [6].
This was particularly severe in certain parts of the Netherlands, an
urbanized country with relatively little natural vegetation and a high
percentage of agricultural grounds. While foraging for wild food was
still common in eastern and southern Europe around the 1940s [7–9], it had long been abandoned in the Netherlands.
In
the winter and early spring of 1944–1945, food shortages were so severe
that the period is known as the Dutch famine or Hunger Winter [10, 11].
During the military operation “Market Garden,” the allied troops had
liberated the southern Dutch provinces, but they failed to advance
towards Arnhem and cross the Rhine River. This left the northeastern
Dutch provinces occupied till April 1945 and the northwestern until in
the beginning of May 1945 [12, 13].
Aggravated by a simultaneously initiated Dutch railway strike on 17
September 1944 and a temporary German embargo on inland shipping that
lasted several weeks, food in the densely populated western parts of the
Netherlands became scarcer. However, it is hard to point out a single
causing event for the famine. A complex accumulation of various events
altogether led to this hunger. The extreme fuel shortages after the only
domestic mining area was liberated the summer before, the rise of
clandestine trade and production, the relatively severe frost from late
December 1944 until the end of January 1945, and the seizing of scant
resources of vegetables, fruit, cereals, fat, and livestock all worsened
the situation for the urban Dutch citizens [14, 15]. The Hunger Winter made approximately 25,000 victims, mostly elder males, comparable to the Greek famine of 1941–1944 [16, 17].
The real number of victims as result of the Dutch food crisis was
likely higher, as many diseases broke out due to the general lack of
nutrition [18]. Consequences of prenatal exposure to malnutrition are still visible in adult health status today [19–29].
Based
on the experiences with food coupons during the First World War, the
Dutch government distributed provision in the form of ration slips to be
exchanged for food, clothing, and other products. Initially in October
1944, the rations had a caloric value of 1400 per day, but this dropped
to 500 kcal in January 1945 [30]. For many Dutch citizens, the Hunger Winter is inseparably associated with tulip bulbs and sugar beets (Fig. 1).
Normally
used for sugar production, sugar beets were distributed in early 1945
under this food distribution system and processed with tulip bulbs and
potato peels in soup kitchens to feed severely exhausted citizens [31, 32].
Despite the fact that this system saved a substantial number of lives,
it was not airtight in distributing the scarce food resources to those
in highest need. Over 40% of the agricultural production disappeared
into non-documented or illegal circuits, leaving less food to people
without connections or the money to buy or barter food on the black
market [33–35].
Collecting
wild food was another way to complement the official food distribution
system. Wild plants and mushrooms provide a welcome source of
micronutrients in times where cultivated crops are scarce and food is
unvarying [36].
Anecdotal evidence exists from letters and diaries on wild collection
during the World War II by people who normally did not do this [37, 38].
During
previous conflicts and their accompanying shortages, like in Germany
during the First World War, programmes were set up to inform the public
about dealing with famine and to suggest alternative food sources [39]. The Dutch government distributed illustrated folders [40] on the collection and preparation of wild plants and mushrooms, such as common nettle (Urtica dioica L.), common chickweed (Stellaria media (L.) Vill.), and sorrel (Rumex spp.) (Fig. 2).
These booklets suggest that at least some Dutch were knowledgeable
about their natural environment as a resource for food. Whether these
booklets reached large parts of the Dutch society remains unknown.
No
previous ethnobotanical research exits on the collection and
consumption of wild plant species or unconventional crops as emergency
food by Dutch citizens during World War II. People living in rural areas
generally have more knowledge on edible wild food than urban citizens [36, 41].
However, during 1940–1945, the need to collect wild food must have been
higher among urban people, as they had no vegetable gardens or
livestock as means of subsistence.
The aim of this
study was to find out whether survivors of the Dutch famine still
remember the species of famine food consumed by themselves or people in
their near surroundings (family, friends, neighbors) in periods of
severe hunger throughout the war. Our research questions were the
following: (1) Which wild plants and mushrooms or other cultivated crops
not primarily meant for human consumption were eaten as famine food in
the period 1940–1945?; (2) Did people use the wartime cookbooks and
pamphlets for preparing food with unfamiliar and/or wild collected
ingredients?; and (3) Did people living in rural areas during 1940–1945
consume more species of wild plants, mushrooms, or cultivated famine
food than people living in urban areas?; Do war survivors remember any
adverse effects of the consumption of famine food?
We
hypothesized that people who lived in rural areas during World War II
consumed more species of wild food plants or mushrooms than those who
spent the war years in urban areas, as the latter were less
knowledgeable on these species and had limited access to nature areas to
collect them.
Methods
Data collection
We
defined famine food as species of vegetal and fungal source, collected
in the wild, waste material of edible crops, fodder, and other
cultivated crops not meant for (direct) human consumption, like
ornamental plants. The species of famine food should have been collected
predominantly during the war to be categorized as emergency food. We
constructed a preliminary list of emergency food plants (Table 1)
using documentation on food distribution, recipe pamphlets, and wartime
cookbooks, digitized letters, and diaries archived in the library of
the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies [17, 42–57].
Local names, distribution, and prevalence of plant species in the 1940s
were checked with recent and historic floristic literature [58, 59].
Table 1.
List
of famine food species from published literature, unpublished personal
diaries, and letters, pamphlets, and wartime cookbooks archived in the
library of the Dutch National Institute of War Documentation (NIOD),
personal war collections, and online sources, with scientific name,
English and Dutch name, family, and distribution in 1942
| Scientific name | English name | Dutch name | Family | Distribution around 1942 [47] | Source(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aegopodium podagraria L.a | Ground elder | Zevenblad | Apiaceae | Common | – |
| Aesculus hippocastanum L.a | Horse chestnut | Wilde kastanje | Sapindaceae | Cultivated | – |
| Agaricus campestris | Field mushroom | Gewone weidechampignon | Agaricaceae | – | [45] |
| Atriplex hortensis L. | Garden orache | Tuinmelde | Amaranthaceae | Cultivated and wild | [40, 48] |
| Bellis perennis L.a | Common daisy | Madeliefje | Asteraceae | Very common | – |
| Beta vulgaris L. subsp. vulgaris var. altissima a | Sugar beet | Suikerbiet | Brassicaceae | Cultivated | [17, 52–54] |
| Betula ssp. L.a | Birch (leaves) | Berk | Betulaceae | Common | [42] |
| Boletus edulis | Porcini | Eekhoorntjesbrood | Boletaceae | – | [45] |
| Brassica oleracea L. convar. botrytis var. botrytis | Cauliflower (foliage) | Bloemkoolblad | Brassicaceae | Cultivated | [48, 51] |
| Cantharellus cibarius | Chanterelle | Cantharellen | Cantharellaceae | – | [40, 42, 45] |
| Castanea sativa Mill.a | Sweet chestnut | Tamme kastanje | Fagaceae | – | [40, 42, 45, 55] |
| Cichorium intybus L. var. sativum a | Chicory | Koffiecichorei | Asteraceae | Fairly common in river areas, elsewhere escaped from cultivation | [17, 45] |
| Coryllus avellana L. | Hazelnut | Hazelnoot | Betulaceae | Common, sometimes cultivated | [43, 45] |
| Crataegus sp. Tourn. ex L.a | Hawthorn | Meidoorn | Rosaceae | C. monogyna, common, C. oxyacantha, fairly rare | [42] |
| Crocus ssp. L.a | Crocus | Krokus | Iridaceae | Cultivated | [17] |
| Dahlia ssp. Cav.a | Dahlia | Dahlia | Asteraceae | Cultivated | [47] |
| Daucus carota L. subsp. sativus a | Carrot (foliage) | Wortel (loof) | Apiaceae | Cultivated and common | [42, 45, 48, 51] |
| Fagus sylvatica L.a | European beech | Beuk | Fagaceae | Common in the southeast | [42, 45] |
| Fragaria vesca L. | Woodland strawberry | Wilde aardbei | Rosaceae | Common | [45] |
| Galium aparine L.a | Cleavers | Kleefkruid | Rubiaceae | Common | – |
| Galium odoratum L.a | Sweetcented woodruff | Lievevrouwebedstro | Rubiaceae | Common in the extreme south | [41] |
| Gladiolus ssp. L.a | Gladiola | Gladiool | Iridaceae | Cultivated | [17, 56, 57] |
| Glechoma hederacea L.a | Ground-ivy | Hondsdraf | Lamiaceae | Very common | – |
| Helianthus tuberosus L.b | Jerusalem artichoke | Aardpeer | Asteraceae | Cultivated | [17] |
| Hyacinthus orientalis L.a | Common hyacinth | Hyacint | Asparagaceae | Cultivated | [17] |
| Iris ssp. L.a | Iris | Iris | Iridaceae | Cultivated | [17] |
| Juglans regia L.a | English walnut | Walnoot | Juglandaceae | Often cultivated | [17, 40, 43, 45] |
| Lamium sp. L. | Dead-nettle | Dovenetel | Lamiaceae | Common | [51] |
| Limonium vulgare Mill. | Common sea lavender | Lamsoor | Plumbaginaceae | Fairly common; coastal areas | [39] |
| Malus baccata (L.) Borkh.a | Wild apple | Kersappel | Rosaceae | Cultivated | [40] |
| Malus domestica Borkh. | Apple (kernel/peels) | Appel | Rosaceae | Cultivated | [42, 45, 46, 57, 87] |
| Malus floribunda Siebold ex. Van Houtte | Japanese crabapple | Japanse sierappel | Rosaceae | Cultivated | [39] |
| Petasites hybridus ( L.) G.Gaertn., B.Mey. & Scherb.a | Butterbur | Groot hoefblad | Asteraceae | Fairly common | – |
| Plantago lanceolata L.a | English plantain | Smalle weegbree | Plantaginaceae | Very common | – |
| Plantago major L.a | Broadleaf plantain | Brede weegbree | Plantaginaceae | Very common | – |
| Portulaca oleracea L.a/Claytonia perfoliata Donn ex. Willd | Summer purslane/winter purslane | Postelein | Portulacaceae/montiaceae | Cultivated, sometimes abundant | [46, 87] |
| Prunus avium L. | Cherry (fruit stems) | Kersen | Rosaceae | Cultivated | [42] |
| Quercus robur L. | English oak | Eik (eikels) | Fagaceae | Common; also cultivated | [86] |
| Raphanus sativus L. | Radish (foliage) | Radijs (loof) | Brassicaceae | Cultivated | [48] |
| Raphanus sativus L. subsp. niger b | Black radish | Rammenas | Brassicaceae | Cultivated | – |
| Ribes nigrum L. | Blackcurrant | Zwarte bes | Grossulariaceae | Culivated and wild | [17, 50] |
| Ribes rubrum L. | Redcurrant | Aalbes | Grossulariaceae | Culivated and wild; mostly in the south | [45] |
| Ribes uva-crispa L. | Gooseberry | Kruisbes | Grossulariaceae | Cultivated and wild | [43] |
| Rosa ssp. L. | Rose (hips) | Rozenbottel | Rosaceae | Common | [42, 45, 50] |
| Rubus ssp. L. | Blackberry | Braam | Rosaceae | Common | [40, 42, 43, 45] |
| Rumex acetosa L./Rumex crispus L. | Common sorrel/curly dock | Veldzuring/krulzuring | Polygonaceae | Very common on grasslands/common on fertile grounds | [17, 40, 42, 45] |
| Salicornia europaea L. | Common glasswort | Zeekraal | Amaranthaceae | Common; coastal areas | [40, 45] |
| Sambucus nigra L. | Black elder | Vlier | adoxaceae | Common; also in dunes | [42, 45] |
| Stellaria media (L.) Vill. | Common chickweed | Vogelmuur | Caryophyllaceae | Very common in grassland and open grounds | [40, 51] |
| Taraxacum officinale L. | Common dandelion | Paardenbloem | Asteraceae | Common | [40, 45, 51] |
| Tilia ssp. L. | Linden (blossom) | Lindebloesem | Malvaceae | Cultivated and wild | [17, 42, 43, 45, 87] |
| Trifolium ssp. L. | Clover | Klaver | Fabaceae | Very common | - |
| Tulipa ssp. L. | Tulip | Tulp | Liliaceae | Cultivated | [17, 56, 85] |
| Typha latifolia L. | Broadleaf cattail | Lisdodde | Typhaceae | Common | – |
| Urtica dioica L. | Common nettle | Brandnetel | Urticaceae | Very common | [40, 45, 48, 51] |
| Vaccinium myrtylis | European blueberry | Bosbes | Ericaceae | Common in forests | [40, 45] |
| Vaccinium oxycoccus Hill | Cranberry | Veenbes | Ericaceae | Rare | [40] |
| Vaccinium vitis-idea L. | Cowberry | Vossenbes | Ericaceae | Fairly common, rare in the west | [40, 45] |
| Valerianella locusta L. DC. | Common cornsalad | Veldsla | Caprifoliaceae | Common | [87] |
aSpecies on list discussed with participants
bExcluded from results as species were not wild harvested but sold commercially during the Second World War
We
conducted interviews with World War II survivors, their descendants,
and close relatives from February to April 2016. We pre-tested the
questionnaires among retired botanists working as honorary staff at the
Naturalis herbarium in Leiden (L). After this test phase, requests for
performing interviews were sent out to several elderly homes. Most
interviews were held among inhabitants of elderly homes in the major
cities in the western Netherlands. Participants had to remember at least
one species of emergency food consumed during 1940–1945 to be included
in our analysis. The questionnaires started with inquiries on people’s
age, residence during the war, whether they experienced severe hunger
during this period, and whether they were familiar with wartime
cookbooks and pamphlets. The questionnaire continued with a free-listing
exercise to name as many plant or mushroom species that were eaten by
themselves or by others in their close surroundings and that were not
consumed outside wartime. Other questions included: If you ate things
like sugar beets and tulip bulbs, how did you or your relatives know
these were edible? Do you remember if the consumption of emergency food
resulted in uneasiness or illness?
Finally, we showed
the participants our preliminary list of emergency food species to
verify whether they remembered to have eaten any of those during the
war. As participants mostly mentioned plants by their common Dutch
names, we used illustrated field guides of the Dutch flora to assist the
participants in clarifying the species they had consumed and to verify
scientific names [60, 61].
Only emergency foods that could be linked to a specific genus or
species were included in our quantitative analysis. Famine food
described as “flower bulbs” and “mushrooms” were noted, but excluded
from our quantitative analysis.
Apart
from face-to-face interviews, we emailed questionnaires to amateur
historical discussion groups throughout the Netherlands. Questionnaires
were also handed out in the city of Leiden during a meeting of the
historic association “Oud Leiden”. We created an online survey tool by
using Surveymonkey Inc. [62]
and posted the link to this survey on Facebook pages of Dutch
historical societies and war museums. The face-to-face questionnaires,
printed forms, and online survey consisted of exactly the same
questions, so they could be processed in a similar way. The requests to
elderly homes led to face-to-face interview sessions in the cities
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, the major cities located in the west of
the country, and Utrecht, in the center of the Netherlands (Fig. 3).
The wartime conditions in these cities were the most severe, due to
their population density, which made it more likely that people ate
famine food [63].
Finally, the first author gave a public lecture at Naturalis
Biodiversity Center to present his preliminary findings. He invited
several interview participants and other wartime survivors. After the
lecture, group discussions were held on the identification of freshly
collected emergency food specimens and flower bulbs purchased at a
tourist market in Amsterdam.
Data analysis
To
test whether people from rural areas had more knowledge on edible wild
plants and mushrooms than people who had spent the war in the city, we
compared the number of wild plant species mentioned by the two groups.
The urban group included people that lived between 1940 and 1945 in
municipalities with a population over 50,000, as was the case in
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Schiedam, and Leiden (Fig. 3). Population numbers for 1 January 1945 were taken as reference [63].
The rural group consisted of people living during the war in
municipalities with a population under 50,000, in addition to Amersfoort
and Utrecht. The east of Utrecht borders a large forested area called
the “Utrechtse Heuvelrug” (Utrecht hills), while the other larger
western cities lack extensive woody vegetation close by [64]. For this reason and the reports of people collecting in these forests during the war [37],
Utrecht citizens were placed in the rural group. The same accounts for
Amersfoort, located on the other side of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug.
The
number of wild and cultivated species was scored for every interviewee.
When a species was cultivated as well as growing in the wild, as is the
case with English walnut (Juglans regia L.) or blackberry (Rubus spp.),
it was verified whether the collecting related to wild individuals (for
only these were considered as emergency foods). To calculate citation
frequency, we counted the number and percentage of interviews in which a
specific species was mentioned. We did not take into account how many
times a certain species was mentioned within a single interview. We
separately analyzed the most frequently mentioned species during the
free-listing exercise only and calculated a cognitive salience index [65], which ranges from 0 (never mentioned) to 1 (mentioned by all participants) and calculated as follows:
S = F/(NmP)
A Welch t
test (one-tailed) was applied three times on these data under the
assumption that the two groups had unequal variances. Differences were
considered significant when p values were smaller than 0.05. The statistical analysis was performed with R studio version 0.98.1091 [66].
The first test verified whether there was a significant difference in
the number of wild species eaten by people from rural or urban areas.
The second tested whether there was a difference in number of cultivated
famine food species eaten by rural vs. urban groups. The third test was
applied to see whether there was a difference in the overall number of
famine food species consumed by people from rural and urban areas.
Results
A
total of 78 interviews were completed (41 face-to-face interviews, 13
digital questionnaires from our online survey, 19 hand-filled
questionnaires sent by post, three by e-mail, and two telephone
interviews). Four incomplete online-survey responses were discarded. Of
our urban group (n = 52), nine persons or their parents lived
in Rotterdam, The Hague (23), Leiden (13), Amsterdam (6), and Schiedam
(1) at the time of the liberation in 1945. Our rural group (n = 26)
consisted of six persons from Utrecht, one from Amersfoort and 19
persons that lived in other municipalities with less than 50,000 people
on the 1 of January in 1945. The average age of the participants at the
time of liberation was 12, with birth dates of the interviewees between
1910 and 1947. Three interviews were completely “second-hand,” as
participants were either very young during the war or born afterwards,
but remembered stories from their parents on famine food consumption
during the war. Not all war survivors experienced similar food
shortages: 24 interviewees explicitly described extreme hunger, while 14
people said they did not remember to have suffered from severe hunger.
Four of these latter claims, however, were highly contradictory to their
stories that followed the question on personal experience of hunger
during the war (e.g., “having to go to bed often without any food” or
“living on one sandwich a day”.
The 78 interviews
resulted in a list of 14 cultivated species (including four fodder
species, six ornamental species, and three species of waste material),
21 wild plant species, and three wild fungal species. The complete list
of emergency food species mentioned during our interview is listed with
scientific and author names, families, vernacular names in Dutch and
specific uses in Table 2. Emergency food species include common nettle (Urtica dioica), “that everyone was looking for in Amsterdam,” according to one participant. Horse chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum L.) were “ground and sold as coffee powder, but had to be thrown away because it tasted completely rancid”. Dahlia bulbs (Dahlia spp.)
were consumed, although they had “no caloric value, but did give a
satisfactory feeling”. The 16 most frequently mentioned species are
listed in Table 3.
Table 2.
List of all emergency food species mentioned during the 78 interviews
| Scientific name | Vernacular names | Family | Citation frequency | Domestication status | Parts used | Mode of consumption |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beta vulgaris L. subsp. vulgaris var. altissima | Sugar beet (en), suikerbiet (du) | Amaranthaceae | 66 (85%) | Cultivated | Root | Raw Boiled Pancakes Juice Birthday cake Bread Nasi goreng Foam |
| Tulipa spp. L. | Tulip (en), tulp (du) | Liliaceae | 49 (59%) | Cultivated | Bulb | Boiled Mash Bread Soup |
| Solanum tuberosum L. | Potato (en), aardappel (du) | Solanaceae | 35 (45%) | Cultivated | Tuber skin | Soup Dried; used as fuel |
| Cichorium intybus L. var. sativum a | Chicory (en), cichorei (du) | Asteraceae | 15 (19%) | Cultivatedb | Root | Dried and ground to coffee powder |
| Urtica dioica L. | Common nettle (en), brandnetel (du) | Urticaceae | 13 (17%) | Wild | Leaves | Soup Put in mash Sautéed |
| Rubus ssp. L. | Blackberry (en), braam (du) | Rosaceae | 12 (15%) | Wild | Fruit | Raw Jam |
| Fagus sylvatica L. | Beech (en), beuk (du) | Fagaceae | 9 (12%) | Wild | Nut | Raw Baked |
| Raphanus sativus L. | Radish (en), radijs (du) | Brassicaceae | 7 (9%) | Cultivated | Leaves | Put in mash Soup |
| Rosa ssp. | Rose (en), roos (du) | Rosaceae | 7 (9%) | Wild | Fruit | Raw Jam |
| Juglans regia L. | English walnut (en), walnoot (du) | Juglandaceae | 6 (8%) | Wild | Seed | Raw Roasted |
| Castanea sativa Mill. | Sweet chestnut (en), tamme kastanje (du) | Fagaceae | 6 (8%) | Wild | Seed | Roasted |
| Rumex ssp. | Sorrel (en), zuring (du) | Polygonaceae | 6 (8%) | Wild | Leaves | Soup Sautéed |
| Taraxacum officinale L. | Common dandelion (en), paardenbloem (du) | Asteraceae | 5 (6%) | Wild | Leaves | Raw Sautéed |
| Daucus carota L. ssp. sativus | Carrot (en), wortel (du) | Apiaceae | 4 (5%) | Cultivated | Leaves | Put in mash Sautéed |
| Beta vulgaris L. ssp. vulgaris var. crassa | Fodder beet (en), voederbiet (du) | Brassicaceae | 4 (5%) | Cultivated | Root | Cooking |
| Brassica oleracea L. convar. oleracea var. gemmifera | Brussel sprouts (en), spruitkool (du) | Brassicaceae | 4 (5%) | Cultivated | Leaves and stems | Boiled |
| Dahlia sp. | Dahlia (en), dahlia (du) | Asteraceae | 3 (4%) | Cultivated | Roots | Boiled |
| Gladiolus sp. | Gladiolus (en), gladiool (du) | Iridaceae | 3 (4%) | Cultivated | Bulb | Boiled |
| a Petasites hybridus ( L.) G.Gaertn., B.Mey. & Scherb. | Butterbur (en), groot hoefblad (du) | Asteraceae | 3 (4%) | Wild | Leaves | Dried and smoked |
| a | Flower bulbs (en), bloembollen (du) | – | 3 (4%) | Cultivated | Bulbs | Cooking |
| a | Mushrooms (en), paddenstoelen (du) | – | 2 (3%) | Wild | Fruiting body | Baking |
| Zea mays subsp. mays L. | Fodder maize (en), voedermais (du) | Poaceae | 2 (3%) | Cultivated | Kernel | Boiled |
| Crocus ssp. | Crocus (en), krokus (du) | Iridaceae | 2 (3%) | Cultivated | Bulb | Boiled |
| Galium odoratum (L.) Scop. | Sweetcented woodruff (en), lievevrouwebedstro (du) | Rubiaceae | 2 (3%) | Wild | Leaves | Put in wine |
| Quercus robur L. | English oak (en), zomereik (du) | Fagaceae | 2 (3%) | Wild | Nut | Roasted |
| Claytonia perfoliata Donn ex Willd. | Winter purslane (en), winterpostelein (du) | Portulacaceae | 2 (3%) | Wild | Leaves | Vegetable |
| Aesculus hippocastanum L. | Horse chestnut (en), witte paardenkastanje (du) | Sapindaceae | 2 (3%) | Wild | Seed | Roasted and ground into coffee powder |
| Trifolium ssp. | Clover (en), klaver (du) | Fabaceae | 2 (3%) | Wild | Leaves | Soup |
| Aegopodium podagraria L. | ground elder (en), zevenblad (du) | Apiaceae | 2 (3%) | Wild | Foliage | Sautéed Soup |
| Cantharellus cibarius Fr. | Chanterelle (en), cantharel (du) | Cantharellacea | 2 (3%) | Wild | Fruiting body | – |
| Agaricus campestris L. | Field mushroom (en), gewone weidechampignon (du) | Agaricaceae | 2 (3%) | Wild | Fruiting body | – |
| Solanum tuberosum L. | Potato (fodder) (en), aardappel (veevoer) (du) | Solanaceae | 2 (3%) | Cultivated | Tuber | Boiled |
| Sambucus nigra L. | Black elder (en), vlier (du) | Adoxaceae | 2 (3%) | Wild | Fruit and flowers | Juice from berries Cooking berries |
| Iris ssp. | Iris (en), iris (du) | Iridaceae | 1 (1%) | Cultivated | Rhizome | – |
| Typha latifolia L. | Broadleaf cattail (en), lisdodde (du) | Typhaceae | 1 (1%) | Wild | Roots and leaves | – |
| Malus baccata (L.) Borkh. | Wild apple (en), kersappel (du) | Rosaceae | 1 (1%) | Cultivated | Fruit | Jam |
| Vaccinium myrtillus L. | European blueberry (en), bosbes (du) | Ericaceae | 1 (1%) | Wild | Fruit | – |
| Boletus edulis Bull. | Porcini (en), eekhoorntjesbrood (du) | Boletaceae | 1 (1%) | Wild | Fruiting body | – |
| Rubus idaeus L. | Raspberry (en), framboos (du) | Rosaceae | 1 (1%) | Wild | Leaves | Tea |
| Rosa rubiginosa L. | Sweet briar (en), egelantier (du) | Rosaceae | 1 (1%) | Wild | Leaves | Tea |
| Bellis perennis L. | Common daisy (en), madeliefje (du) | Asteraceae | 1 (1%) | Wild | Leaves, flowers | – |
| Stellaria media (L.) Vill.a (NC) | Commom chickweed (en), vogelmuur (du) | Caryophyllaceae | 1 (1%) | Wild | Whole plant | Salad |
aNot included in statistical analysis
bOrigin could not be determined with certainty
NC
Not confirmed. The species is based on the description made by the
interviewed person, but the name of the plant was not mentioned
en English, du Dutch
Table 3
The
16 most frequently mentioned famine food species during the 78
interviews, drawn from the combined data of the free-listing and the
checks with the preliminary list of famine food species
| Scientific name | Common name (English) | Parts used | Citation frequency [%] |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beta vulgaris ssp. vulgaris var. altissima | Sugar beet | Tuber | 85 |
| Tulipa spp. | Tulip | Bulb | 59 |
| Solanum tuberosum | Potato | Tuber peel | 45 |
| Cichorium intybus var. sativum a | Chicory | Root | 19 |
| Urtica dioica | Common nettle | Leaves | 17 |
| Rubus spp. b | Blackberry | Fruit | 15 |
| Fagus sylvatica | Beech | Nut | 12 |
| Rosa spp. b | Rose | Fruit | 9 |
| Raphanus sativus | Radish | Foliage | 9 |
| Juglans regia | English walnut | Seed | 8 |
| Castanea sativa | Sweet chestnut | Seed | 8 |
| Rumex spp. b | Sorrel | Leaves | 8 |
| Taraxacum officinale | Common dandelion | Leaves | 6 |
| Daucus carota subsp. sativum | Carrot | Leaves | 5 |
| Brassica oleracea convar. oleracea var. gemmifera | Brussel sprouts (fodder) | Leaves, stems | 5 |
| Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris var. crassa | Fodder beet | Tuber | 5 |
aExcluded from our statistical analysis because it was unclear whether this coffee substitute was of wild or cultivated origin
bProbably more than one species in this genus was consumed
On
average, 3.4 emergency food species were mentioned during the
interviews. The number of species ranged from 1 to 10. Not all species
from the written sources listed in Table 1
(wartime cookbooks, leaflets, or pamphlets) were mentioned during the
interviews. Whether our participants (or their families) had not
consumed them or whether they had forgotten them or were unaware of this
because of their young age during the war can no longer be traced. The
war survivors mentioned to have consumed 27 of the 45 species or
varieties described in the cookbooks and literature. A total of 18
species or specific plant parts were only listed in written sources but
not reported by our respondents. However, an additional 11 species were
mentioned during our interviews but could not be traced as being
consumed as emergency food in the literature.
When we analyzed the results of the free-listing exercise only (Table 4), the three most frequently mentioned famine species were the same as in the combined dataset (Table 3).
Sugar beet had a by far the highest salience index, followed from a
distance to tulip bulbs and the by potato peels and stinging nettles.
Table 4
Most
frequently mentioned famine food species during the free-listing
exercise, weighed by their frequency and mean position according to the
Cognitive Salience Index [65]
| Scientific name | F | OR | mP | S | NR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beta vulgaris ssp. vulgaris var. altissima | 47 | 1 | 1.489 | 0.406 | 1 |
| Tulipa ssp. | 24 | 2 | 1.625 | 0.189 | 2 |
| Solanum tuberosum (peels) | 7 | 3 | 1.714 | 0.052 | 3 |
| Urtica dioica | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0.051 | 4 |
| Rumex acetosa | 2 | 8.5 | 1 | 0.026 | 5.5 |
| Cantharellus cibarius | 2 | 8.5 | 1 | 0.0261 | 5.5 |
| Agaricus campestris | 2 | 8.5 | 1.5 | 0.017 | 7 |
| Brassica oleracea convar. oleracea var. gemmifera | 3 | 5.5 | 2.333 | 0.016 | 8 |
| Rubus fruticosus | 2 | 8.5 | 2 | 0.013 | 9.5 |
| Fagus sylvatica | 3 | 5.5 | 3 | 0.013 | 9.5 |
F frequency, OR old rank based on frequency, mP mean position of mentioning, S salience index, NR new rank with weighed position
The data of all groups indeed had unequal variances (Table 5). Rural people consumed higher numbers of wild species than urban people (Fig. 4). War survivors in rural areas ate significantly more famine food species than people in urban areas (Fig. 5).
No significant difference was found between the number of cultivated
famine food species consumed by urban and rural people (Fig. 6).
Table 5
Total number of famine food species consumed by participants from urban and rural areas
| Urban (n = 52) | Rural (n = 26) | t value | p value | Power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. of wild species | 0.6 ± 1.14a | 2.0 ± 2.76 | − 2.5204 | 0.0087 | 0.93 |
| No. of cultivated species | 2.3 ± 1.06 | 2.3 ± 1.70 | − 0.1058 | 0.4582b | 0.08 |
| No. of total species | 2.9 ± 1.66 | 4.4 ± 2.82 | − 2.4443 | 0.0099 | 1.00 |
aAll values represent means ± standard deviations
bNo significant differences
Boxplot showing the number of wild species consumed by urban and rural respondents. Differences are significant (p = 0.0087)
Boxplot showing the total number of species (cultivated and wild) consumed by rural (n = 52) and urban respondents (n = 26). Differences are significant (p = 0.0099)
Boxplot showing the number of cultivated species consumed by urban (n = 52) and rural respondents (n = 26). No significant difference was found (p = 0.4582)
Only
three of the 78 respondents were familiar with wartime cookbooks and
pamphlets. Another three (relatives of) war survivors learned about the
possibility to consume products like tulip bulbs and sugar beets from
newspaper articles. The majority of the participants said they or their
families knew what to eat from other people in their surroundings:
“everybody suddenly knew that products like tulip bulbs were edible.”
When
war survivors were asked about any illness or adverse effects due to
eating certain famine food species, the majority (76%) could not recall
this anymore. The few ailments resulting from eating famine food were
sore throats from the consumption of (raw) sugar beets (n = 8) and tulip bulbs (n = 3).
Three participants also reported stomachache after eating sugar beets
and tulip bulbs. Two persons remembered that the bad quality food from
the soup kitchen made them vomit. Nearly all participants explicitly
expressed negative opinions about the food served in soup kitchens,
calling it “revolting,” “utterly disgusting,” or “making people sick.”
Several persons said that even long after the war, the scent of the
sugar beet processing plants in the Dutch countryside still made them
nauseous, as it reminded them of the war. Although we did not explicitly
ask for it, seven participants (9%) said their family possessed a
garden in which they grew their own food. The rapid transformation of
land into family vegetable plots is also described in literature [37]. Several participants mentioned that they or their family members had stolen food.
Not
only vegetables and starch crops were scarce: luxury goods like coffee,
tea, and tobacco were also unavailable for normal prices. People’s
ingenuity was not limited to primary food sources, as they also
substituted coffee, tobacco, and tea by surrogates of natural origin.
Chicory root was mentioned 15 times as a common coffee substitute during
the war. The root was roasted and ground to make a powder that could be
used to brew coffee. Leaves of blackberry (Rubus spp.) were one of the many species served as a tea replacement. The large leaves of butterbur (Petasites hybridus (L.) G.Gaertn., B.Mey. & Scherb) were dried and smoked to substitute tobacco.
Discussion
Limitations of this research
We
are fully aware that people’s memories about the Second World War have
faded 71 years after date. The extensive time period between the war and
the moment our interviews took place means that we certainly have not
captured all famine food species consumed by our participants. They were
chiefly quite young at the time of liberation, so our results partly
rely on the information they received from parents, older siblings,
other family members, acquaintances, or friends. Still, our participants
brought up detailed memories of their own experiences and the stories
told by their relatives. The repetitive encounter of statements in the
interviews provided a solid base for their validity. Archival data
further supported the evidence of the consumption of certain species as
famine foods. The generation of our participants is the last to have
first-hand experiences of World War II, and therefore, our research can
be considered as a case of “salvage ethnobotany,” described as
“recovering plant knowledge that otherwise might be lost” [2].
We generally encountered eagerness among our elder participants to
share their memories on the war. Perhaps the focus on food and plants,
instead of personal tragedies, made the sensitive subject easier to
share.
Suggestions for further research
We
were approached by several survivors of Japanese internment camps in
the former Dutch colony of Indonesia. They told us that they remembered
eating grasshoppers, raw Capsicum peppers, waste material, and
wild plants. Although we limited our research to the Netherlands, famine
foods consumed during the Japanese occupation in Indonesia may have
been documented in published diaries [67]
but have never been examined from an ethnobotanical perspective. As
fewer survivors are left every year, there is an urgent need for
specific research on this subject, with additional fieldwork in
Indonesia to verify the identifications of local plant names.
Although
not included in our interviews, several participants mentioned to have
caught and eaten wild animals and sacrificed their pets for consumption.
Two persons ate cat meat, which reminded them of rabbit in flavor. A
woman told about her father making a cat-trap from a barrel dug into the
ground with a wooden board put over it. A piece of rope with a dead
mouse on the end was attached to this board so it would dangle in the
middle of the barrel. When a cat reached for the bait it would fall in.
She said her family “collected many cats this way.” A man supposedly ate
dog after his family bought a piece of meat from the local store. He
reported that the meat tasted “horrible” and that “after that day the
dog of the store owner was suddenly gone.” Other reported eaten animals
are pheasants, earthworms, and house sparrows. In all the major cities,
war survivors talked about the cutting of trees, “until there were no
more trees left standing.” Some people were sent out as kids to collect
coals and timber. One interviewee said he “sneaked onto the train yard
to look for still usable coals in piles of used train fuel.” There is
still a wealth of information available in these personal childhood
memories on animal and fuel collection during World War II.
Sugar beets and flower bulbs
Sugar beet was by far the most frequently consumed famine food species during World War II (Fig. 7).
This is not surprising, given the fact that this crop was included in
the ration distributed by the government and processed into soup kitchen
meals [32]. Some stores sold foam made of whisked water sweetened with sugar beet [68].
A brother and sister who remembered eating this foam said that “you had
to eat it really quick, otherwise it would completely dissolve in your
hands.” One respondent remembered a recipe for a birthday cake made out
of sugar beets, “which surprisingly tasted like the real thing.” Tulip
bulbs, which had been actively promoted as edible, also formed a
considerable amount of extra nutrition in the wartime diet of the Dutch.
The high number of ornamental species consumed as famine food is
explained by the importance of the Netherlands in the ornamental flower
trade [69].
The export of tulip bulbs dropped to almost zero during the war. The
large surplus of bulbs that could not be sold stimulated the government
to promote it actively in newspapers and public restaurants. As a result
of their wide availability, flower bulbs were among the most consumed
wartime foods [68].
The stomachache caused by the
consumption of tulip bulbs, as reported during the interviews, can be
explained by their poisonous compounds. Despite the fact that tulip
bulbs were officially confirmed to be suitable for human consumption by a
Dutch doctor in 1944, they contain amounts of a DNA-synthesis
inhibiting protein named tulipin [46, 70].
Toxicity was often given as a reason by our participants to explain why
they or their relatives did not collect wild plants or mushrooms. Some
native, edible Dutch wild fungi strongly resemble toxic species, so this
fear of poisoning is well placed [71].
Although none of the participants experienced a fatality in their
surroundings, evidence for poisoning during the wartime period is found
in toxicological reports of patients caused by the consumption of
hyacinth bulbs and high quantities of beechnuts [72, 73]. It is also possible that fatal accidents occurred with poisonous Narcissus bulbs, considering that they closely resemble other edible bulbs [38].
The wartime cookbooks (Fig. 8)
were not used as widespread as anticipated. Although recipes for
preparing tulip bulbs and sugar beets did reach people, most
ethnobotanical information on edible species and preparation methods was
passed orally within families and among neighbors. Some participants
said the edibility of sugar beets and tulip bulbs became common
knowledge at a certain point. However, as most participants were not old
enough to read or cook with famine food species themselves, the actual
use of this written information may have been higher than our data
suggest.
A
logical explanation for the higher number of consumed wild species can
be that people who live in rural areas are more frequently exposed to
wild plants and therefore more conscious about their edibility [74].
Being surrounded by famine food species repeatedly later in life
reminds people of their use during the war, keeping their memory alive.
Consumption of famine food after the war
Lately, a revival of wild collection has taken place in Western Europe [7]. The increasing aversion towards processed foods has caused a rise in self-grown and wild-collected plant foods [75, 76].
Foraging in the Netherlands, however, is not as common as in other
European countries like Poland, Croatia, Italy, and Belarus [39, 41],
where knowledge on wild food collection is still passed on from
generation to generation. This tradition vanished early on from the
Netherlands, probably due to the relatively small areas with natural
vegetation in the Netherlands, the high population density,
urbanization, and relative wealth, compared to elsewhere in Europe [63, 77, 78].
While
in Western Europe the last serious food shortages occurred during the
Second World War, hunger still posed a serious problem in the Balkan
from 1992 to 1995. The 3-year siege of the city of Sarajevo during the
Bosnian War caused an outbreak of massive famine. The Bosnian botanist
Sulejman Redžić educated his fellow citizens on wild plant utility in a
similar manner as the Dutch government did in the 1940s [79, 80].
The three most consumed mushrooms found in his research are the same
three species as appear in our data. The Yugoslavian military had
already done extensive research in the 1960s on famine food consumption
during WWI and WWII with the aim to use this knowledge on wild edible
plants and animals for survival training of their army [39].
One of our participants in the Netherlands, a retired botanist, was
also asked to use his knowledge on wartime wild plant consumption to
give a training to Dutch soldiers in the 1950s.
The economic crisis of 2007–2009 in Greece triggered a comeback of wild plant foraging among impoverished Greeks [81].
A book containing “starvation recipes” published by Greek newspapers
during World War II called the attention of money-strapped Greeks [82].
Outside Europe, life-threatening starvation is still going on today, as
reports of Syrian citizens eating grass and wild plants during the
siege of Aleppo [83].
Hunger is as old as humanity itself and will most likely not become a
thing of the past. Knowledge on famine food species still contributes to
people’s survival, today and in the future.
Conclusion
Our
research shows that the once crucial knowledge on wild edible plants
and famine food sources is still present among elder Dutch citizens.
Even after 71 years, this knowledge has not yet disappeared from the
Dutch society and probably will not vanish anymore with the current
widespread access to information on wild food sources. Plant
identification, however, is still a skill that has to be taught in
practice. The information on famine food sources supplied by several
institutions was not distributed widely. For the necessary revival of
this knowledge during the 1940s, people needed to consult a small group
of mostly elderly people who still had the know-how. Inhabitants of
rural areas listed more wild-collected plants than people who had spent
the war in cities, while the number of cultivated famine food species
they consumed during World War II did not differ. Rural people consumed
more famine food altogether than urban citizens. Apart from some written
reports on poisoning by wild-collected food or ornamental bulbs, our
participants did not remember major complications caused by the
consumption of famine foods, as long as they were well prepared or at
least the hunger greatly overruled the possible uneasiness caused by
them.
Acknowledgements
The
authors are very grateful to our participants who were willing to share
their memories of the war. André de Rijck facilitated access to his
personal war collection and documentation on wartime cooking. The
“Historische Vereniging Oud Leiden” provided an opportunity to collect
results in the city of Leiden. We express our thanks to the elderly
homes Transwijk Woonzorgcentrum (Utrecht), Osira Woonzorgcentrum De
Bogt-Westerbeer (Amsterdam), WZH Waterhof (Den Haag), and Woonzorg en
Verpleeghuis Siloam (Rotterdam) for their cooperation. Dr. Mike Balick
(New York Botanical Garden) urged the last author to conduct this
research before the last survivors of WW II in the Netherlands would
have passed away.
Credits: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5693569/
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