It is not strange that the best-liked poster in our Food Crusade,
and the one people want everywhere, is a simple drawing of a merchant
seaman, and under it the words, "We risk our lives to bring you food.
It is up to you not to waste it."
The countries that can succeed best in solving the food question are
the countries that will win, and the food problem will not cease, any
more than many others, when peace is declared.
Very early in the war, existing organizations, such as the National
Food Reform Association, and newly created ones, the National Food
Economy League and the Patriotic Food League of Scotland, did a great
deal of active work on food saving. They aimed at instructing in
the scientific principles of the economical use of food, and issued
admirable leaflets and Handbooks for Housewives and Cookery Books.
A series of Exhibitions, often described as "Patriotic Housekeeping
Exhibitions" were held in different parts of the country, organized
generally by women's societies. One of the early ones I organized
in Salisbury. Later, the Public Trustee was chairman of an Official
Committee, which organized large Exhibitions in London and throughout
the country. These Exhibitions had stalls showing food values with
specimens, had exhibits of the most economical cooking stoves and
arrangements, and exhibited every manner of time and labour saving
device. They had wonderful exhibits of clothes for children made from
old clothes of grown-ups, of marvellous dresses and little jerseys and
caps and scarfs made from legs of old stockings. There were charming
dresses and underclothing made of the very simplest materials and
decorated artistically with stitching and embroidery. These were made
by school girls of seven and upwards for themselves, and the Glasgow
School of Art's work, done in schools there, was perfectly beautiful.
The cost was shown and it was incredibly small. All sorts of things
for the household in simple carpentry and upholstery, using up boxes
and wood, were shown, and old tins were converted into all sorts of
useful household things. Facts as to waste were made as striking as
possible by demonstration. Every exhibition had a War Savings Stall
and Certificates were often sold at these in large numbers, the Queen
buying the first sold at the first London Exhibition.
The great feature of the Exhibitions was Food Saving and Conservation.
Demonstrations in cooking and in hay-box cooking, were given and these
were attended by thousands of women, Miss Petty, "The Pudding Lady,"
being a specially attractive demonstrator. She was called "The Pudding
Lady," first by little children in London in the East End, where she
used to go into the homes, and show them how to cook on their own
fires, and with their own meagre possessions. When she came there was
pudding, so her title came as a result.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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