The Food Companions: Studies in Popular Culture

Combining archival research, detailed film analysis, and the extensive use of contemporary documents and resources, this book is the first to fully address the extensive propaganda work of the Ministry of Food both inside and outside the cinema. It also explores the tensions contained in images of communal dining, investigating the role that food played in Gainsborough's narratives of excess and identifying and analysing a cycle of black-market feature films. Lively and illuminating, The food companions will be welcomed by film scholars, historians, students, and anyone who has ever wondered about the important contribution that tea made during the war to shaping ideas of Britishness.