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
