In recent years scholars have noted what seems to be a growing preoccupation with food in far-right communities. Dietary discipline and food ethics have been found to constitute tools for racial and gendered identity construction in a variety of groups, from tradwives to neo-nazis. This present phenomenon has a long history however, which has yet to be acknowledged by the current literature. This paper examines the origins and nature of so-called porridge fascism, using historic publications and archival material to analyse the affinity between food and the far right.
The focus is the Swedish dietician and popular philosopher Are Waerland (1876-1955), who was emblematic of a nexus of food, race, and nationalism, with a literary career that spanned romantic nationalist poetry, philosophy, history, and cook books. Among his innovations was a particular porridge, kruska, which promoted jaw muscle development that was tied to the physiognomy of the Nordic race. In the interwar period his ideas were picked up by fascist leaders in Scandinavia – firstly Sven Olov Lindholm, leader of the Swedish National Socialist Labour Party, and by Norwegian Nazi veterans after WW2.
The fascist embrace of dietary disciplines such as ‘Waerlandism’ has roots in a much broader body culture dating back to the Nineteenth Century, and the intersection of nation- and body-building in the gymnastics movement. Porridge fascism was a particularly radical development of this meeting, which continued into the postwar era, largely unseen, and ultimately, undisturbed. As such, it elucidates the far right’s curious interest in food today.
