Wartime work
The College was very much involved in war work. As well as delivering training for war workers within the College, the staff and students also provided services to ensure that the public were able to get maximum nutritional value from available food resources. They worked at a national level with other organisations to ensure that the best advice was offered and provided training to cascade the information to the general public.
The Patriotic Food League was a voluntary body set up in 1915 to instruct the public in nutrition and efficient use of scarce food and fuel resources. The College worked in association with the League to provide cookery demonstrations for housewives, nurses, and other health workers. Free training in wartime cookery was also given to domestic science teachers with the remit to cascade their training to housewives in their area. Over 100 teachers attended the classes.
The Food Economy Campaign was established by the Ministry of Food in 1916 to encourage food saving through propaganda, persuasion and education. As well as demonstrations and courses in wartime cookery the College provided advice on using nutritious alternative food stuffs to replace scarce resources like flour and expensive cuts of meat.
During WWI and WWII the College provided numerous demonstrations and lectures on war cookery. Some were conducted in the College and others in public halls, womens’ clubs and other institutions across Glasgow and surrounding districts. Some classes were even delivered in homes of the poor, with the hostess being given the food that had been prepared.
The College produced a number of pamphlets on wartime cookery which incorporated their teachings in nutrition, cooking on a budget, cooking on rations, use of alternative food stuffs and food preservation.
Starting in 1940 for the duration of the war the College offered a summer canning and bottling service called the ‘Save the Fruit’ campaign. Members of the public could take their home grown fruit and vegetables to be preserved by canning, bottling, and pickling and be shown how to make their own preserves. This service was provided at the College and also toured the west of Scotland from north to south.
In 1941 the College raised funds to run a canteen for members of the armed forces at St Enoch Station. Up until 1945 the College staff managed the canteen, providing hot meals for servicemen.
The ‘Save the Fruit’ campaign was aided in 1941 with the donation of a mobile canteen to the College. When not being used for the campaign the van provided a back-up service to provide hot drinks and snacks when the St Enoch Station canteen was closed and to feed Civil Defence workers after air raids.
During WWII the College carried out research on behalf of the Ministry of Food, looking at alternative sources of. vitamins. As well as looking at ways of enhancing vitamin content in soups, Mary Andross, Head of Science, found that rosehips were a very rich source of vitamin C. All of her research findings were shared with the public through newspapers and demonstrations.
