Georgia Magazine - January 2015 - 42

Stepping up to the stove
UGA Extension in the kitchen
BY JACKIE KENNEDY

COURTESY JACKSON EMC

hen electricity ﬁnally came buzzing through overhead power
lines into rural Georgia communities in the late 1930s, there was
a learning curve for farm families
who'd never used electric appliances.
Farm wives accustomed to cooking
on wood-burning stoves had to ﬁgure out how to use their newfangled
electric ranges.
The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Service, now UGA
Extension, and the state's electric
membership corporations (EMCs)
stepped up to the stove.
Since 1914, Extension agents had
helped men and youth with farming
methods and 4-H demonstrations.
With the advent of rural electricity,
the need to provide guidance and
education to homemakers became
evident, and the void was ﬁlled with
Extension home economists and electric cooperative home advisers.
"The home economist played a
key role," says Elizabeth L. Andress,
Extension food safety specialist with

Home demonstration clubs met throughout the counties served by Jackson EMC in the
middle decades of the 20th century. Jackson EMC home advisers were routine guests at the
meetings, where they shared knowhow on the use of electric appliances and tips on cooking, freezing, laundering and more.

UGA's College of Family and Consumer Sciences. "Extension often brought
the only science-based objective
view on things. We helped rural farm
families by bringing people
along with technology as
it developed-but in a very
practical manner. The role
of the home economist was
to relate to what people
faced in their home in dayto-day life and make sure
new developments were
translated into practical information they could use
to improve their quality
of life."
The electric cooperatives and Extension Service often
That practical informateamed up to present cooking classes throughout
tion included lessons on
the state. In 1960, named the "Silver Jubilee of Rural
child care, cooking, sewing
Electriﬁcation" in honor of the REA's 25th anniversary,
and gardening, but instrucMyron Luttrell, home economist with W.D. Alexander
tions on freezing and canCo. of Atlanta, demonstrated freezing and cooking with
ning foods were the most
electric appliances at Jackson EMC in Jefferson.
popular with rural families,
42

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according to Andress. Today, her primary role is to develop, implement
and evaluate food safety and quality programs for UGA Extension,
with emphasis on food preservation
which, she says, has made a comeback in recent years as community
and backyard gardens have gained
in popularity. She hopes to develop
a master food preservation program
similar to UGA's Master Gardeners
Extension Volunteer program.
"We've been inundated with
people wanting to can again," says
Andress, co-author of "So Easy to
Preserve," UGA's ofﬁcial food preservation guide, and manager of the
National Center for Home Food Preservation's website at nchfp.uga.edu.
"It's all about preserving food, and
our site gets about 5 million visits
per year."
This rising interest goes hand
in hand with increased attraction
GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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Georgia Magazine - January 2015

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