Zeppelin Food Was Basically Nazi Propaganda

October 27, 2017 in Daily Bulletin

Natasha Frost wrote about food during the age of the zeppelin:

  • Zeppelins were slow. It’d take three days go get from South America to Europe.
  • Passengers wiled the time away reading, looking out the window and, of course, eating.
  • Meals were frequent and lavish. Guidelines required having 7.5 pounds (3.5 kg) of food per passenger per day.
  • This required identifying weight savings elsewhere – one tactic was to provide travelers with a single napkin when they first boarded, and requiring them to use it for the entire journey.
  • The food was poorly reviewed by American and British passengers. It was quintessentially German – heavy on meat, with little in the way of vegetables.
  • This suited the Germans that ran the zeppelins just fine. They saw their airships as the height of luxury and a symbol of German ingenuity.
  • The Zeppelins were to usher in a new era of German cultural dominance – and imposing German cuisine on the world’s elite was a point of pride for people like Goebbels – who invested in them.

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