Alexis Soyer and Military Food

For each team, the natural, national taste of their country emerges. The Americans cook big, with loud flavours, the Hungarians are honest and peasanty, the French are effortlessly the best. Far more than flags and anthems, food is the metaphor and symbol of where you come from and what you might choose to die for. The breakfast of armies is the most basic communion with what they're fighting for. Soyer was a foreigner who took to being English with an immigrant enthusiasm. He understood that armies don't just march on their stomachs; they get their camaraderie, bravery and patriotism through them.