Use and preparation of food

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Use and Preparation of Food is a 1919 federal vocational education bulletin, issued in the Home Economics Series by the United States Federal Board for Vocational Education. It was written as a course manual, not a household cookbook in the conventional sense, and is organized into twelve numbered units meant to guide teachers running part-time and evening classes for adult women. The text moves from basic cookery of cereals, fruits, vegetables, and eggs through fats, meats, batters and doughs, sugars, home food preservation, family nutrition, special diets for infants, children, and the elderly, and finally household food budgeting and marketing. Written in the immediate aftermath of World War I, it is saturated with the language of food conservation, fat and wheat shortages, and America's obligation to feed a hungry world. Recipes appear throughout as illustrations of technique rather than as the book's primary purpose, embedded in lessons with stated aims and teaching points. For the modern reader, this book offers a window into how nutrition science, economic necessity, and vocational pedagogy intersected in the immediate post-war period, revealing how home cooking was framed as a civic and patriotic duty as much as a domestic skill.

The book is organized into twelve instructional units (sections 1 through 18 as gated here), each divided into numbered lessons with stated aims and 'points to be brought out' for the instructor. Early units cover cereals, fruits and vegetables, eggs and dairy, fats, and meats and fish. Middle units address batters and doughs, sugar and sweets, and home preservation of food (canning, pickling, drying, salting, and meat curing). Later units shift to family nutrition, special dietary needs across the life course, and household economics including menu planning, marketing, and food budgets. Section 19 is an administrative appendix listing other Federal Board bulletins, confirming the book's identity as Bulletin No. 35 in the Home Economics Series.