Busy planning menus for holiday gatherings? Maybe some hundred-year-old December menus for special occasions might give you some ideas.
1922 December Menus for Special Occasions
Busy planning menus for holiday gatherings? Maybe some hundred-year-old December menus for special occasions might give you some ideas.
A Hundred Years Ago 
Goodness me. I’d be asleep under the table after that little lot! A happy Christmas to you, with much delicious food!
Merry Christmas!
That is a lot of food. I’m thinking about stewed celery. Have a good Christmas.
Celery has grown on me in recent years. The stewed celery sounds intriguing. Merry Christmas.
My mother put celery in her beef stew, and it was fine there. This makes me want to try all these recipes!
Wonderful to see this 100-year-old holiday menu, Sheryl. A nice variety of special foods, fruits and vegetables.
It fun to see which foods were considered special a hundred years ago. Some are now out-of-fashion (or considered old-fashioned or mundane).
And how many staff did they have to prepare it all?
It does seem like a menu for a wealthy family – not a typical family.
Such intriguing names for some of the dishes! I think I will look up some of them to find out what they were, and, how one can devil a drumstick!
If you figure out how to devil a drumstick you’ll have to let me know.
I am on it, Sheryl! Nothing like a challenge to motivate me. LOL
This was a fun search! I first tried to find the American Cookery December volume online, but none of them had the recipe. By using the newspaper archives, I found one version from Pennsylvania in 1923, one from California in 1925, and one from Washington, D. C. in 1926. I wanted to stay as close to 1922 as possible, since there are abundant deviled drumstick recipes currently on line. The 1923 version required 4 cooked drum sticks, 1 Tbs each of flour, catsup, Worcestershire sauce, Chili sauce, and chopped parsley, and 2 Tbs butter, salt and pepper to taste and a 1/2 cup of stock.. The butter was browned, flour added and browned, and all seasonings except parsley and mixed until heated. Gashes were cut in the drumsticks and the “deviled sauce mix” put in each cut. The drumsticks were then placed in the blazer, stock added, and cooked covered for five minutes. Sprinkle parsley and serve.
The 1925 recipe called for 4 drumsticks, half an ounce of butter heated in a frying pan. Drumsticks were placed and dusted with “a little red pepper and about half a teaspoonful of curry powder. Roll over and over in the butter and serve.” I assume this means to use cooked drumsticks as well.
The 1926 recipe used 2 roasted chickens with the legs removed and set aside. The following day, “rub together 1 tsp made mustard, 1/4 tsp salt, dash of cayenne, 10 drops of Worcestershire sauce, and 1 tsp melted butter. Score deeply each leg with a sharp knife (photo showed X cuts) and rub the mixture into the cuts. Brush on the melted butter and broil over a clear fire or dip in beaten egg, roll in fine crumbs and fry in smoking hot deep fat.
It seems as if this was a common recipe for using the legs of the chicken or other fowl, after it was roasted. The recipes of today are similar in fashion. Interesting that it has lasted this long, and yet I never heard of it! I doubt if we ever had 2 left over drumsticks!
Thanks for researching. The deviled drumsticks sound really good. It makes me want to buy a package of drumsticks and give one of these recipes a try. Like you, I’d never heard of deviled drumsticks before doing this post. It’s interesting that it apparently is still a commonly made recipe.
I think you should and then report back!
🙂
I think the broiled oysters and bacon on toast sounds like a winner!!
mmm. . . There are a lot more oyster recipes in hundred-year-old cookbooks than in the typical modern cookbook. I think that oysters were less expensive and more readily available back then.
Woe, fish and potato Puffs, Broiled Oysters with Bacon, What unusual offerings. But probably the norm back then.
This is really a fascinating look into the diets way-back-when. I bet it was a feast to be to be proud of for the holidays.
Wishing you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas!
These menus made me realize how much holiday meals may have changed over the years. I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas. Happy New Year!
It is so much fun to look back at all the recipes and menus you share with us. It seems that 100 years later, we eat much more casual meals.
I think that you are right that we eat much more casual meals. Sometimes I miss the more formal meals. I have some lovely china plates with gold trim that I haven’t used in years. I thought about getting them out this year – but I don’t think that they can go into the dishwasher so decided against it.