There are several foods I generally make for Easter dinner – ham, deviled eggs, rhubarb sponge pie. Other dishes vary from years to year. Some years, I’ll make an asparagus dish; other years it might be another vegetable. I usually make potatoes, but they might be mashed one year and scalloped the next.
I recently found several hundred-year-old menus for Easter dinner and Easter luncheons in the April, 1926 issue of Good Housekeeping. I was surprised that none of the menus featured ham, and somehow think that Molded Chicken and Cucumber Salad on Watercress might not be a hit at my house. But it’s hard to tell since the magazine didn’t publish any of the recipes. Instead, readers were directed to send a two-cent stamp so that the recipes could be sent to them.
Wow, it’s amazing what you could get for a two-cents in 1926. I’m guessing that a Good Housekeeping employee wrote the name and address of the person requesting the recipes on an envelope that contained the recipes. The two-cent stamp was then pasted on the envelop and it was sent out to the reader. What a deal!
Life was so much simpler back then. How special it must have been to receive that envelope containing the recipes…
I notice there’s no lamb, either. Those menus don’t look all that simple, either. There are a lot of dishes in each.
I’m curious about the rhubarb pies. I have some nice little seedlings that will hopefully provide some rhubarb ina few years. One thing that my family makes for easter is a rather strange green jello salad that has cottage cheese and horseradish in it. It’s actually not bad especially with ham.
Well the meat loaf option is a daily choice as opposed to a holiday menu.
I love how the invitation to request the recipes for a 2 cent stamp is worded. I have to agree with you about “molded chicken.” I’m not at all sure what that is!
I so very much enjoyed these Easter meal plans, Sheryl, and I also liked skating along with your imagination back to 1926 with two pennies and the recipe sending.