ABSTRACT
Truth be told, the end of the war—or rather the surrender of the Germans on 8 May 1945—maybe marked the end of the Home Front as such, but by no means a return to normality. To begin with, demobilisation took ages at home and abroad. Eighteen months passed before all military were able to come back, with consequences for the morale of the troops still mobilised and the civilians waiting for them. Obviously, the post-war food situation was noticed and commented on by the diarists who went on writing for Mass Observation after the war was over. While they all discussed D-Day, the election, the atomic bomb and various personal topics between May and August 1945, food issues did not disappear from their testimonies. Two commodities were especially important that summer in the diaries: corned beef, which seemed to be everywhere, and ice cream back in town for the first time in years.
