Porridge and peas: C. Stanton Hicks and Australian army rations

In 1942 Australian troops came back from fighting the Japanese in New Guinea exhausted and malnourished. The army rations of bully beef and biscuits were insufficiently rich in vitamins to sustain men in combat in tropical conditions. The nutritionist C. Stanton Hicks was one of a vast army of scientists who worked behind the scenes to maximize the war effort. He made it his mission to improve the army diet. He set up the Australian Army Catering Corps, invented combat ration packs and tried to introduce vitamin-rich foods into the soldiers’ diet. Two of his more idiosyncratic innovations were wheat porridge and Tasmanian blue peas.