Month: August 2020

1920 Tip: Use Paper Cups to Hold Picnic Salads

potato salad in a paper cupCooks have shared tips across the years. A hundred years ago Good Housekeeping magazine had a tips column called Discoveries. Readers could submit tips, and were paid one dollar for each tip that was used.

Here’s a tip for how to serve salads at a picnic:

Picnic Salad

When going on little picnic suppers – especially in a machine, where one eats by the roadside or in the car seat – individual paper drinking cups are most satisfactory as containers for salads. The salad may be packed in the individual paper cups and garnished attractively with a sprig of parsley in one side. They always call forth favorable comments and are not messy to handle and each person has his own portion easily handed out.  – Mrs. R.H., D.C.

Good Housekeeping (June, 1920)

Hundred-year-old Recipe for Boiled Corn (Corn on the Cob)

corn on the cob on plate

I see some very basic recipes (I tend to call them non-recipes) for simple foods in both modern and hundred-year-old cookbooks. Apparently both in 2020 and 1920 some cooks had simple questions – like how do you cook corn on the cob?

In 1920 corn on the cob was referred to boiled corn. And, here are directions for making it:

Recipe for boiled corn
Source: The New Royal Cook Book (1920)

When I made the recipe I skipped the suggestion to put the Boiled Corn on a napkin. Somehow it just didn’t seem necessary – and it seemed like the napkin might get soaked from any water that dripped off the corn.

Here is the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Boiled Corn (Corn on the Cob)

  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

Husk corn and remove all silk. Fill large pot 2/3’s full with water. Bring water to a boil using high heat. Place husked corn in the boiling water, and boil rapidly for 5 minutes. Use tongs to remove the corn from the water.

http://www.ahundredyearsago.com