The Ministry of Food, an exhibition currently running at the Imperial War Museum, is a fascinating insight into the way the British dealt with food shortages during World War Two.

Reducing food wastage, growing your own, keeping an allotment, eating seasonal produce, reducing imports and eating healthily could easily be focal points of an exhibition about food trends in 2010 but during the 1940s it was the War that necessitated a complete change in attitude, behaviour and eating habits. And so The Ministry of Food was formed.

This exhibition shows how the nation was advised to be frugal and inventive ‘on the Kitchen Front’, and covers everything from land girls and allotments to rationing and the WI – plus a great deal more besides. One radio recording features a Government Minister of the time in suitably clipped Home Counties English: “Aim a velly beesy men maysailf but even aye faind tame for some diggeeng” (or words to that effect).

Vogue gives advice on saving fuel in the kitchen, which seems to centre around not washing up too often (I must remember that) and there are endless persuasive posters with emotive slogans like ‘Get fit not fat’, ‘Turn over a new leaf’, ‘Go easy with bread – eat potatoes instead’, ‘Dig for victory’ and ‘Our waste is Hitler’s weapon’.

The most recent issue of Spectator Scoff includes a piece about Abundance, set up in 2007 by Stephen Watts and formed of a group of volunteers who pick neglected fruit from the hedgerows, make jam and chutney together and then redistribute it to deserving communities. But the good old WI got there first: this exhibition describes the Women’s Institute’s 5,800 Preservation Centres, which were established in the 1940s as part of a Government-sponsored initiative where volunteers made jam from excess produce, which was then sent to depots to be added to the rations. Jam and Jerusalem indeed.

And of course, there was Marguerite Patten, who was the Home Economist for the Ministry of Food, ran the Food Advice Bureau at Harrods and suggested nourishing and inventive recipes using the rationed food that was available via the BBC radio programme The Kitchen Front. She’s still going strong, aged 94.

Forget Delia’s Frugal Food – this exhibition highlights the fact that what the people who lived through the war couldn’t tell you about getting on with life, making the best of things and making everything go just that little bit further simply wouldn’t be worth knowing.

The Ministry of Food at the Imperial War Museum runs until 3 January 2011.

Celia