Food Drying Progress and Importance, issued by the National War Garden Commission in 1919, is a short illustrated booklet about conserving surplus produce through drying. Its subtitle explains its purpose: how people in America could help develop the use of dried vegetables. This free PDF brings together the food-conservation argument, examples of drying equipment, suggestions for community organization, and recipes showing how dried products could return to the table.
Food conservation after the First World War
The opening pages place drying in the food shortages and rebuilding needs that followed the war. The commission argues that preserving a seasonal surplus can reduce waste and help make food available beyond the harvest period. It also considers the smaller storage volume and lower shipping weight of dried foods, connecting a household practice with a wider supply problem.
This background is an important part of the booklet’s character. It is both an educational publication and a campaign to encourage participation. Short slogans and lively drawings reinforce the message, while the main text explains why the commission wanted families, gardeners, and local organizations to take drying seriously.
What the booklet says about drying
The discussion introduces the removal of moisture and the role of heat and moving air. It considers the importance of preparing produce well and keeping the resulting food suitable for later use. A section on blanching describes its place in the historical process. The explanations are brief, providing an overview rather than a comprehensive technical manual for every fruit and vegetable.
Illustrations make the equipment side particularly interesting. Simple trays, stove arrangements, a cabinet-style homemade dryer, a sun dryer, and the use of a fan appear in the pages. These examples show the range of small-scale approaches being promoted at the time and help readers visualize the connection between trays, airflow, heat, and the food being dried.
Neighborhood and community drying
A substantial section turns from the individual kitchen to shared work. The commission describes neighborhood drying groups and larger community centers, including the idea of using an available building, arranging equipment, dividing tasks, and finding someone to supervise the operation. The emphasis is on handling produce that might otherwise be wasted.
The booklet considers practical organization as well as machinery. Securing supplies, keeping accounts, arranging labor, covering expenses, and finding a place to work all matter to the proposed enterprise. A summary of organized drying gathers these responsibilities into an outline. For readers studying cooperative food preservation, this material offers a compact picture of how an early conservation campaign tried to turn a general goal into local action.
Cooking with dried vegetables and fruit
The later pages address the other half of the process: using the food once it has been dried. The booklet discusses soaking and cooking dried vegetables and offers recipes for dishes such as scalloped corn, vegetable souffle, corn pudding, creamed potatoes, soups, and other preparations. The recipes show how dried ingredients were expected to fit into ordinary meals rather than remain an unused store of supplies.
A section on dried fruits follows, with discussion of preparing them for the table and using them in cooked dishes. Potato flour receives a separate page, including historical preparation notes and recipes in which it appears. Together, these pages make the publication useful as a record of domestic cooking and ingredient substitution as well as preservation history.
How to use this historical reference
The booklet suits readers exploring self-sufficiency references, garden-surplus management, and the history of household food conservation. Its combination of simple equipment illustrations, community planning, and kitchen use can help frame questions about the whole preservation cycle: what is available, how it can be handled, where it will be stored, and how it will eventually be eaten.
Its procedures, temperatures, storage assumptions, and recipes date from 1919. Use current tested food-preservation guidance for actual drying and storage, rather than treating this campaign booklet as a modern food-safety standard. The PDF preserves the original page images, cartoons, and illustrations and has no searchable text layer. It is short enough to browse in full and can complement a broader homestead library.
Book details
- Title: Food Drying Progress and Importance
- Issuing organization: National War Garden Commission
- Publication: Copyright 1919; no numbered edition stated
- Place: Washington, D.C.
- Language: English
- Format: Illustrated scanned PDF, 27 digital pages
- File size: 1.73 MB (1,730,238 bytes)
- Subjects: Food drying, surplus produce, community preservation, drying equipment, dried-food cookery
