Cooking for King and Country

The War chest cookery book

Following Australia’s entry into the First World War cookbook authors and publishers responded as befitted their patriotic duty and which was reflected in the titles of their publications. The War Chest Cookery Book, published in 1917 for the Australian Comforts Fund, featured an Australian soldier in full uniform on the cover. The foreword to the book declared that all profits from the sale of the book would benefit the ‘fighting men who have gone out in defence of their country’.

The Australian Comforts Fund was one of a number of organisations created to provide aid and relief to soldiers in the frontlines as well as those impacted by the war on the home front. These organisations also played an important role in allowing women to feel as if they were taking an active and important role in the war effort and fulfilling their patriotic duties. The Comfort’s Fund legacy has been a long lasting one, at least to the nation’s culinary landscape. Members of the Victorian branch of the fund requested biscuits in sealed tins that could be sent to the front. Historian Sian Supski argues that given that these biscuits needed to be easy and cheap to make and needed to survive the long journey to the front that this is the most likely birthplace for that Australian icon-the Anzac Biscuit.