Sketch: Breads from page 425 of “The Boston
Cooking School magazine of culinary science
and domestic economics, by Janet McKenzie
Hill (1896) at the Internet Archive.
I recently wrote an article about the Hoover Pledge, a voluntary commitment for Americans to conserve during World War I. A writer-friend Elizabeth Gauffreau commented that she was curious about conservation food. This article offers a variety of both wheat-less and meatless recipes as presented in newspapers between 1917-1919.
The book, A History of the United States by Henry Eldridge Bourne, in the chapter The United States in the world War there is a concise explanation of food conservation as follows: “Raising Food For All. — The soldiers at the front or in the camps were only part of the great army America was organizing to help win the war. The workmen in the mills and the farmers in the fields were equally needed. America was asked to send food to the Allies, for so many of the English, French, and Italian farmers had fallen in battle or were still fighting that food was scarce. To decide how much should be sent abroad and to see that the rest should be fairly distributed at home, the Government appointed Herbert C. Hoover as Food Administrator. He had already been very successful in distributing food among the suffering Belgians. Continue reading
