Did you know that World War II was classified as a "total war" by historians? [OC]

Meaning that it involved the mass mobilization of a country's resources. Britain was one of the nations that really felt the effects of the so called "total war", as civilians played a greater role in the military than ever before. Even though they were geographically separated from the rest of Europe, they were hit hard by the war. German shipping blockades cut off foreign supply, which meant that supplies had to be rationed, and many raw materials went towards the war effort, used in industrial production. This led to a shortage of some fabrics such as silk and cotton.Additionally, the British government demanded food rations be given to its people. As a result, many nutritional foods were scarce.

In response to the scarcity of fabric for clothing production, a British sheep farmer named Calvin Broadus invented a new type of fabric, which he called "tweed". This fabric was made of wool, but the British military found no practical use for it in the war effort. Due to the abundance of sheep in the United Kingdom, farmers everywhere started producing tweed, as Broadus' method was circulated rapidly by the British government.

As with the military, British civilians found few practical uses of the new "wonder material". It had poor insulation, was rough to wear, and it shrunk easily when washed, and most importantly didn't look fashionable. It seemed as though the war drained British creativity too, as fashion designers could find no suitable design with tweed. They settled with creating plaid designs with a few dull colors, since these could be produced more efficiently.

As the war moved on, Germany's control of mainland Europe and the water around Britain decreased. With the Americans now in the war, Britain's military centered industry (some would say a precursor the military industrial complex) had a break. The United States, with its large amount of resources, picked up some of the slack, reducing Britain's quota of war production. This meant good news for the British textile industry, which was reduced to producing for the war. Upper class British people could afford to buy expensive fabrics that were not available to them, such as the cotton and silk mentioned above. However, since the war was still going on, these materials were extremely expensive, so only British aristocrats could buy them.

In addition, excess tweed manufacturing gave Britain a surplus- they were left with more of this useless fabric than ever. British families were given large amounts of tweed. Some people tried making the tweed into useful items, like blankets, but due to its poor ductility, it took a long time to manufacture them. With British men in the military, women took up manufacturing jobs, in addition to their duties at home, which meant they were left with little time to deal with their surplus of tweed at home.

Women in London first discovered a useful application of tweed. By sheer luck, historians claim, these women discovered that burning a strand of tweed for a long time over a fire would produce a fibrous strand that was edible and nutritious. Scientists today found out that this product was nutritious due to ammonium nitrate in the sheeps' grazing land. The process of creating this fibrous food was still long, and it took about 12 hours. In order to increase efficiency (we see a pattern here), various women would prepare this in bulk amounts in city parks. During this time period, you would see bonfires throughout open spaces in the city, since British women were burning fabric. However, historians have discovered no pictures of these events, since the British government forbade photography (or destroyed photos) of this process as not to reveal secrets to the enemy.

The British military saw a problem in the post-tweed manufacturing process. German planes would be able to spot cities since there were large "tweed bonfires" as the process of making the fibrous food extended past daytime. So, the British government mandated that tweed production into food would only occur during the day, as not to assist the nighttime German blitzkriegs. This was seen as only a mild inconvenience to city-dwelling British people, but it still took all day, from sunrise to sunset, to produce this food.

In 1945, this process died out, since the war ended. This is why you do not see people doing this today. Due to the effectiveness of British intelligence, this process had been relatively unknown to foreigners. This changed, when in 1996 a man named Cordozar Broadus was walking his dog in a park in Manchester. They reached a heavily wooded section of the park, and his curious, but nosy dog unearthed a series of tools that were used in the tweed refining process. Broadus remembered seeing his father's war notes after snooping around in the attic. His father's extremely detailed notes described the procedure of tweed production. The inspired Broadus decided to do more research into the subject, but he was shut down by the British government. In 1998, Broadus, now a musical artist, decided to slowly reveal this secret, in an album, but under an alias (so the government wouldn't suspect him).

To credit his mischievous mutt, he used the pseudonym "Snoop Dogg", and released his single, "Smoke Tweed Everyday."