Our distilleries are taken over by the Government for spirits for
munitions and our beer is cut down very greatly. Travelling kitchens
go out from the Ministry of Food also and do demonstrations in
villages and country districts on cooking and conservation. The
Ministry issues leaflets of recipes and instructions in cooking and
has a special Win the War Cookery Book. Articles are also published on
food values and quite a number of people begin to understand something
about calories, even though they are rather vague about what it all
means.

Naturally most of the Food speaking and work is done by women though
food control and saving is men's and women's work.

This year we saved grain by collecting the horse chestnuts, a work
that was done by the school children. These are crushed and the oil
used for munitions and it was reckoned we could save tens of thousands
of tons of grain by doing this.

A wonderful work in the use of waste materials has been the work of
the Glove Waistcoat Society, to which American women have kindly sent
old gloves. Old gloves are cleaned, the fingers are cut off, the other
big pieces stitched together and cut into waistcoats and backed by
linenette. These are sold to the soldiers and sailors for wear under
their tunics and are most beautifully light and windproof. The fingers
of kid gloves are made into glue, of wash leather gloves into rubbers
for household use. The big pieces of linenette over are made into dust
sheets and the small scraps go to stuff mattresses for a Babies' Home.
The buttons are carded and sold and the making up provides work for
distressed elderly women. It needs no funds--it is self-supporting--it
only needs old gloves.