Cooking in the Golden Era

[hubbit]

I have a copy of Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Tried and True Recipes, including the original form of those famous chocolate chip cookies, made without chocolate chips, which weren't on the market yet - the recipe calls for chopping up a bar of Nestle's semisweet baking chocolate into pieces the size of a pea.

But I think the one I really love is my 1951 edition of The Settlement Cook Book, which was the last edition published before The Settlement Association sold the rights to a major publisher and the book underwent an overhaul to modernize it. This version presumes that the person reading it knows nothing, so the first chapter or two are devoted to the kitchen and its components (including how to use a fireless cooker), household hints (how to air out a room), table etiquette, the art of the place setting, and how to plan menus.

Even as late as 1951 the presumption of what was by then considered antiquated equipment is there, and it's a fascinating glimpse into how food preparation must have been in the early decades of the 20th century.

 

[virgi]

I have one cookbook from the late 30s which collected recipes from around the country and divided it into sections based on different regions (mid west, southwest, south, new england, etc.). I know there was a recipe in there from Virginia (I think) about cooking possum and if I remember correctly squirrel. So if anyone needs the recipe let me know....

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Possum should be a California regional dish as I'm always encountering the roadkill variety around here.

 

[Bluebird Marsha]

The only recipe I inherited from my grandmother was one for fruitcake, which is really just a common recipe from the early-mid 20th century, but is pretty good in my opinion, as long as you substitute in fruit you like instead of using evil citron! I did get the fruitcake pan, - it and a couple of cast-iron pans. Plus the silver- no matter how much I botch a meal, it tastes better off good china and silver.

I wish I had her Sunbeam mixer- it was yellow. stand She also had a Chambers stove that she used from the late 40's till she moved to Florida in the mid-80's. I'm hunting for a similar mixer, and once I buy a house I WILL have the Chambers stove!

But a confession is in order. My dear grandmother, a woman of many talents and virtues, was also flawed. For someone who was married in the 30's and raised a family into the 50's, she was strangely lacking in the ability to cook. Her cooking was so ... unfortunate... that my grandfather hired a lady to come in and cook in self-defense. She was also intensely possessive of her kitchen. My mom does a good job of cooking, but can't teach. So here I am acquiring cookbooks and teaching myself how to cook. It's much easier now that I'm an adult with her own kitchen. Attempting to cook at my grandmother's usually ended up with me sulking in the living room with a drink in my hand and telling her and mom to do it themselves!

 

[Yeps]

My great grandmother used to buy ten loaves of bread from the Italian baker down the street, and she also had a deal with the guy who had the fruit cart that he would save the best for her, since she always got it by the bushel. My grandmother also says that she used to always make everything with a red sauce, no white sauce, except for occasionally pasta tossed with olive oil and cheese. Also, she was a stickler for quality olive oil, and despite being a lower class immigrant, she would only buy the good, imported virgin olive oil. They also made their own wine (possibly during prohibition). My grandmother had one uncle who was a bootlegger, but her immediate family was very careful not to get involved in that business, or with those people.

 

[St.Ignatz]

"The American Woman's Cookbook" is readily available on the bay. It was revised and reissued from 1927 on into the early 70's at least. Everything from rendering fat to "entertaining without a maid". Lots of creamed vegetables of course the later editions were very heavy on sweet's and treat's. The 72 revision is 800+ pages.
I highly recommend.
Tom D.

 

[Mae Croft]

My mother is a great business woman, but she was unfortunately not cut out to be a wife, mother or homemaker so there are no heirlooms or knowledge handed down from her - except for the extraordinary ability my siblings and I developed at a very young age for taking care of ourselves!

But my Grandmothers were a different story. I've got four from a mix of marriages - Ginny, Mae, Alison and Micki - and they were all big characters with big, odd personalities and a love of collecting so all of our heirlooms skipped a generation and handed right down to us! In fact, my two most precious possessions are from my Grandma Ginny - a pristine 1930s circus elephant teapot (one of 6 that were scattered among the grandkids), and a copy of A Little Cookbook for a Little Girl (1917 print, I believe, but I'd have to dig it out and check).

I love that book! She gave it to me when I was 9 and I used it to learn to cook, imagine my surprise when I got to home ec at the end of grade school and no one was measuring butter out to 'the size of an egg'! I still do a lot of cooking from it as well as several other antique cookbooks and am in the process of scanning the pages of these books on the off chance that something happens to them. A few years ago we lost a lot of antique books and other possessions in a bad flood, so I'm extremely paranoid now!

 

[rotebander]

Yeah, my collection of vintage cookbooks really took off on a family trip to Iowa. We stayed at my great aunt's house, and I wound up asking her if she had any old cookbooks, and she got a smile a mile wide. She hobbled over to the kitchen, opened the cupboard, and watched my eyes turn into saucers at the overflowing cupboard of cookbooks! I found books from the mid thirties to the seventies (including wartime books!), mostly in lovely condition, then she directed me to the midcentury oven in the basement filled with all her old kitchen gear from the same era. Boy, did I have a field day!! It really instilled in me an obsession with everything vintage cooking; plus, I've never tasted a better cream puff from a modern recipe

 

[TidiousTed]

I have run a "Fifties Chow and Drinks" series on my blog for the last year. Most of the recepies are Scandinavian and from my collection of magazines and weeklies.

http://retrorambling.wordpress.com/articles/fifties-chow-drinks/

 

[Yeps]

Today I tried a very old fashioned recipe. I put pigs feet in my spaghetti sauce, the way my grandma says she had it growing up. It was amazing. It baffles me that more people don't eat the extra parts (feet, tails, necks, insides). They taste so good, and make such fantastic sauce.

 

[Cricket]

Today I tried a very old fashioned recipe. I put pigs feet in my spaghetti sauce, the way my grandma says she had it growing up. It was amazing. It baffles me that more people don't eat the extra parts (feet, tails, necks, insides). They taste so good, and make such fantastic sauce.

Then you must come down here. We find ways to use every part of the pig.

My Paw Paw passed down several recipes using every part you can imagine, but it stems from the era when you didn't waste anything. A pig in the winter was used to feed the family through the cold season. There are even several photographs in the old family album with the family showing off the season's hog. It was a social thing for all within a certain radius.

Paw Paw enjoyed having hog head cheese over crackers. It's not actually cheese but rather a meat jelly and sometimes referred to as souse. I can't force myself to try it but he loved it and ate it almost everyday.

 

[fortworthgal]

At an estate sale this weekend I picked up a set of Worth Food Market (grocery chain back in the 40s) cooking school booklets. I got lessons 1-5, each a separate booklet. There was a Worth Market very close to our home. The sponsors, whose products are used in many of the recipes, are mostly Texas-based companies like Gebhardt, Ranch Style, Vandervoort's.

 

[Cricket]

Bartenders, feel free to move this if it is in the wrong thread.

Along the lines of Golden Era cooking, a believe grilling takes me back. The smell, the socialism, simplicity that comes with grilling reminds me another time. Along those lines, just thought I would share a pic of what we were around this weekend. Heaven.

 

[TidiousTed]

Here's a few converting tables that can come in handy when using old cookbooks. I made these for two handmade cookbooks I made for my daughter. They got them when they moved away from home.

 

[TheNightingale]

Oh, what a fun thread! I've oodles of vintage cookbooks and have such fun with them, especially since as a traditional food eater, using all that fat doesn't bother me a bit. There have been a few failures, but lots of wonderful meals have come from my finds! I think my favourite, though, is a 1930s Sunset cookbook that must have been some sort of subscriber promo...It has the prettiest illustrations inside.

My dad's mother was an incredible cook, and her stepmother was as well. When I moved into my first apartment, my grandfather gave me several of Grandma Sally's cooking bowls (she had passed away several years before, and he said, "You're definitely the one who loves to cook most, like your grandmother"—I about bawled, because she could have won every cooking contest in the world); my great-grandmother donated a few items to my new kitchen as well. Great-Grandma died a few years afterwards. But I still have their cooking things—bowls, utensils, even dishtowels—and smile every time I use them. It's like they are cooking right along with me. What a treasure they are.

Ted, thank you for posting those—as others have mentioned, sometimes the cookbooks can be a bit vague!

 

[Story]

A 64-year-old tub of American lard has been deemed fit for human consumption by food safety authorities in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120201-40487.html

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Bland" lard isn't *supposed* to have any taste -- doesn't have anything to do with it being old.

If I were that fellow, I'd be miffed the scientists didn't give the lard back. Somebody from the lab had a really good pie crust that night.

 

[sheeplady]

A 64-year-old tub of American lard has been deemed fit for human consumption by food safety authorities in the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120201-40487.html

That really speaks to that's canner's standards. Seeing since I've had 2-year old cans burst open on my shelves, I've got to wonder about today's standards. Although, pure fat doesn't seem too likely to actually be likely to get contaminated anyway.

I agree with Lizzie, I'd be upset they took my lard. If it's safe to eat, then it's safe to eat!

 

[Mrs.Williams]

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but good homemade gravy ommediately reminds me of my grandparents' cooking. I was just informed that my gravy is as good as theirs, which made me pretty happy.
I was given 2 Mrs. Smiths tin pie pans by my grandmother before she died. I really need to put away my glass ones and give them a try.

 

[Flicka]

I love old cookbooks! Right now, I'm cooking nothing but old-fashioned food and honestly, I've never felt better. Never ate better, either!