The Kitchen Front: A Novel

In the author’s note at the end of the text, Ryan reveals that the real BBC radio program, The Kitchen Front, inspired this novel. While the cooking contest is fictional, the radio program did engage housewives with cooking tips and recipes. Many of the details on food rationing and substitutions within the text come from Ministry of Food documents, which are housed in national archives, and from interviews with people like the author’s grandmother, Eileen, the real-life namesake of Mrs. Eileen Quince. All of the specifications that the characters in the novel need to adhere to are based on real data, including the “Wartime food rations for one adult for one week” listed on the very first page.

Regulated food rationing in England ran from 1940 to 1954: People like Audrey’s young children would have grown up not knowing any other reality prior to adulthood. Although the system would have given people a hyperawareness of their food purchases, it was designed with equality in mind; the rationing stopped the rich from stockpiling scarce food supplies and made sure there was enough for everyone. However, there was a very real illicit-market culture for hard-to-find foods; this becomes pivotal in the novel as Sir Strickland and his employees flout rationing rules, but it was also a reality of which many upper-class people took advantage at the time.