Win-the-War Exhibition

Beaudesert Boys School Group c.1925 [Z1432/3/6/5]

Saturday 26th May 1917: The Win-the-War Exhibition held this week at Leighton Buzzard Institute has been a great success, as housewives flocked to the Institute to discover new ways to economise on food. Miss Cobon of the cookery school gave lectures on war time cookery twice daily to large audiences, with accompanying demonstrations – hay box cookery was of particular interest. Two large rooms were filled with a collection of food substitutes, all labelled and with recipes attached to the cakes. The Council Chamber held the work of elementary school children. Boys from Beaudesert showed examples of the bed rests and splints they have been making for the war depot. The also exhibited a collection of coal, wood and match substitutes, with novelties including the use of dried potato peelings as fire-lighters. Girls from the cookery school demonstrated bread substitutes, including rice bread, oat cakes, sugarless maize pudding, eggless cakes, and oatmeal biscuits.

In the second room Miss Draper of the High School showed eighteen varieties of vegetables which could be used instead of potatoes. These were mostly grown in her own garden and included the rarely used but excellent root salsify. There were also mixtures of potatoes and parsnips, potatoes and rice, and so on. Pupils from the High School had a stall of wartime dishes, puddings and cakes, decorated with carnations from Ascott. Another large stall featured economical cakes made by a group of ladies using only a small amount of flour and sugar, including a date cake which used neither. Carefully weighed and measured daily and weekly rations were on display, and hints and methods for preserving and bottling fruit were provided. Mr. Herbert Turney of the Vandyke Road bakery also exhibited bread and cakes made from flour substitutes.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 29th May 1917