The Look Back

Fallout Shelter Cuisine: Survival Food in the Cold War

– Stephen Kercher: Who would ever know that there’s a fallout shelter in the backyard of this home in Neenah, Wisconsin?

[Sergio groans] Wow.

– Sergio Gonzlez: Oh, my gosh, look at that!

[upbeat music] Oh, yeah, that’s the good stuff.

Oh, hey, Nick.

Just in time to try my new, very scientific lunch.

Got all the nutrients, vitamins, anything you need.

– Nick Hoffman: Hard pass.

Why don’t we just go down the street, find a restaurant, get some real food?

– A restaurant?

What are you living in, the past?

This isn’t the year 2000.

We’re in the future, man!

This has everything you need not only to survive, but thrive.

– What are you talking about?

That is the past.

People have been engineering food for a long time.

– Wait, how long?

– Well, I know some folks at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

They might be able to help us research and learn about it.

– Oh, I love it.

Hey, before we go, may I interest you in our brand-new Soy-O Lent beverage?

Now with food-like flavor.

[sad trombone] Nick?

Nick!

– This looks like jars of paint.

– Joe Kapler: Boy, Nick, it really does.

One-gallon aluminum can Multi-Purpose Food.

This can here is from about 1960.

And this is the latest in decades’ worth of food science.

How to bring in strong nutrients like protein, vitamins, and minerals in a really compact form that can last a very long time.

Starting in the early 1900s, so over 100 years ago, people are developing these formulas.

– Multi-Purpose Food was the idea of California restaurant owner named Clifford E. Clinton.

In 1944, Clinton hired a biochemistry professor named Dr. Henry Borsook to work on a product to address problems of malnutrition and starvation.

Clinton had a few requirements.

He wanted something that could cover all your basic nutritional needs in just three servings a day, while also being easy to mix, easy to store for a long period of time, and tasty.

Borsook worked with a French cook named Madame Soulange Berczeller, and they developed a powder composed of soy grits, dehydrated vegetables, and seasonings.

Yum!

In 1959, the food company General Mills took over the production and selling of Multi-Purpose Food.

While it was sent overseas for famine relief in huge quantities, in the United States, it was marketed as a solution for families wanting to store food for emergencies.

– Joe, can you tell me why they would’ve decided to put this in something that looks like a paint can?

I mean, I’d be worried I’d confuse it.

I’m looking to paint the walls and I grab the MPF instead.

– That’s a great question, Sergio.

As a curator, I really look at the materials of objects, and there’s always an intentionality.

So aluminum being lightweight and really strong.

Now, imagine 50,000 of these gallon cans being put into a ship to go overseas, or a train to go across the country and then ending up in all kinds of places.

– So they were really– This is all about function.

Let’s imagine that I could open this up.

What would we find inside?

– So it’s a powdery substance.

The idea is that you would mix it in with water or milk or soup, but even in an emergency, two ounces in a spoon could help give you the basic nutrients to survive.

– Oh, yeah, I see in the back, it’s got a list of all of your different meals, even snacks, and what you might mix with it to make it maybe a little bit tastier.

– Can you tell us a little bit where these came from?

I mean, I’m not imagining we just kind of found them laying on the street.

– These came out of a homemade bomb shelter in Racine, Wisconsin, made in 1960.

The family, Paul and Edith Sobel, had relocated from Chicago to Racine, and Paul was a aviator in World War II, and he knew firsthand the destruction that bombing could cause.

And so Paul and Edith built this shelter.

– So, Joe, if someone’s building a shelter, how would they learn about these different types of foods to stock?

– That’s a great question, Nick.

So, all kinds of people were concerned about this.

And so the government made these brochures with all the information of what you would need to stockpile in your shelter.

– And this one looks like it’s coming from our state government, Racine County Extension Services.

– Sergio: Today, people might jump on the internet to look for any information they needed.

Really, back then, they’re looking to the government for a sense of safety and a sense of information for what they would need to feel like they’re secure.

– You know, it gets me thinking, though.

I remember hearing that there was a fallout shelter found in Neenah.

– Oh, let’s go visit it right now.

– I’m a little claustrophobic, and these are really small spaces.

Why don’t you just go?

– Okay, I’ll take care of that.

Hey, before we go, Joe, can I offer you some of our Soy-O Lent, now with real food-like flavor?

– I ate just before you guys came over, so I think I’m gonna go ahead and pass on this.

– Well, you know what, I’ll take it.

Maybe our next guest will like it.

– Yeah.

– Let’s go.

Hey, Stephen, thanks for having us here.

I thought you told me we were coming to a fallout shelter, though.

This just looks like a box in the middle of the ground.

– Who would ever know that there’s a fallout shelter in the backyard of this home in Neenah, Wisconsin?

– Sergio: Well, can we lift this and see what’s underneath?

– Stephen: Let’s do it.

– All right.

All right, oh, that’s heavy.

Well, let’s take a look.

All right, you get that side, I’ll get this.

– Okay.

[Sergio groans] Wow.

– Oh, my gosh, look at that!

The stairs go down how many feet, do you think?

– Uh, probably 15 feet or so.

That would be your living space for about two weeks.

– Sergio: Oh, my goodness.

– Stephen: Yeah.

That is not somewhere I’d like to be for two weeks, that’s for sure.

– Me neither.

And what do we see here down right now?

– Stephen: Lots of water that’s seeped in over the years.

I wouldn’t go down there, would you?

– No, no, I’m good, thank you, though.

– The whole idea was that a family of four or five would take enough supplies to last two weeks.

There were shelves and there was a bed, a cot.

They’d have food, they’d have medicines, games for the kids, whatever they did back in 1960, and survive for about two weeks where the idea was after two weeks, hopefully they could open the door again and return to a world that was safe for them.

– [sighs] Well, World War II ended in 1945, with the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, Hiroshima on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9.

Just two bombs cost tens of thousands of civilian deaths.

The world had entered the nuclear age, and suddenly we had weapons capable of destroying society as we know it.

By the end of the 1940s and the 1950s, people started worrying about a nuclear attack on the United States.

Well, that was when the Soviet Union tested their first atomic bomb in 1949, tested an even more powerful hydrogen bomb in 1953, and launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957.

These events, and the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, known as the Cold War, led many people to think that nuclear destruction was almost inevitable.

By 1960, the U.S. had tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and the Soviet Union had several thousand of their own.

All this helped spur a wave of books, movies, news articles, and comic books about nuclear weapons, radiation, and the possibility of the end of the world.

Now, there were some efforts by the government to prepare for a nuclear attack, but the U.S. system of federalism, that is, states having lots of power, meant that there was never a very strong national program of civil defense.

There were informational pamphlets, some public shelters, and even educational films like 1951’s Duck and Cover featuring Bert the Turtle, meant to teach children what to do in the event of a nuclear attack.

– When danger threatened him, he never got hurt He knew just what to do He’d duck and cover – What did most Americans think about fallout shelters?

– People believed in fallout shelters.

They thought the best idea was to have a fallout shelter in a community, at a bank, or in a government building, or in a school.

But building something like this in a home or in the backyard was a little bit unusual.

– You don’t usually find these in backyards, I’m guessing?

– No, they were very uncommon.

I think there was maybe only 1% of the population ever made a backyard bomb shelter.

They cost a lot of money, and a lot of people couldn’t afford to build something like this.

So it was a question of why is it possible for some people with more financial means to build something like this, while other people didn’t have the means to do it?

And then this really uncomfortable question of what would happen if there was a nuclear attack, and you and your family were down in your bunker safe from the possibility of harm, while neighbors in the neighborhood were on the doors pounding to get in?

What would you say to them?

– Stephen, listen, thanks so much for hosting us and telling us all about this fallout shelter.

As a sign of appreciation, I brought you our brand-new Soy-O Lent drink.

Now with food-like flavor.

Would you like to take a sip?

– I think I’m gonna pass.

– Okay.

A hundred years of food science right here in our backyard.

Amazing stuff.

– And it’s really incredible to take this and apply it to people in places like Neenah who are afraid of a global war.

But they were relying on this potentially to save their lives.

– Yeah, I mean, you can really imagine being in a fallout shelter, maybe a little bit more concrete than this and just being worried about what could happen.

It really does make me grateful for this really nice meal that we have here.

Multi-Purpose Food and fallout shelters were both responses to World War II and the years following the war’s end.

This was a time of belief in science’s ability to solve problems like hunger and malnutrition, as well as concern over the destructive power of science.

Luckily for everyone, we managed to avoid a nuclear war during the Cold War era, but many people here and all over the world still face man-made and natural disasters, often without adequate government protection or preparation.

Would you like to spend two weeks living in a fallout shelter?

What would you want to bring with you to pass the time?

Share your answers with your friends and classmates.

And don’t forget to include some science-based soy drinks.

Ugh.

Ugh.

[laughs] Are these, like, I know they’re metal rods, but… – Producer: Yeah, they’re a little… – A little– little– a little shaky.

Yeah.