As canning season swings into full gear, I’m taking inventory of my canning equipment and supplies, and figuring out what I may need to purchase. The pan I use when making jams and jellies doesn’t have a very thick bottom, and I’ve occasionally scorched jams and jellies – especially when making old recipes that don’t call for pectin and require a lot of boiling to thicken the mixture. So I found this hundred-year-old advertisement for a Wagner Cast Aluminum Preserving Kettle intriguing. I think that I need a modern version of this kettle with it’s thick bottom and sides.

Certo pectin has been around for just over 100 years. According to the Heathy Canning site, it was first advertised in 1921.

Cooks today worry about the high cost of food. They also worried about food costs a hundred years ago, and tried to save money whenever possible. For example, some cooks apparently skimmed cream from the top of a bottle of milk to save money. Back then homogenized milk was just being introduced to the consumer market, so the milk that most people drank was not homogenized. This means that the cream and milk separated, and that the cream would float to the top. The milk beneath the cream was basically skim milk. If whole milk was desired, the jar or bottle of milk needed to be shaken before using to get the cream and skim milk to recombine. The Skimit Kitchen Cream Separator sounds like it could be used to easily remove the cream from the top of the milk.  Who would have guessed that kitchen gadget drawers a hundred years ago may have contained a milk skimming tool?

 

Sometimes I’m surprised how modern things were in 1922. Until I saw this ad for a water heater in a 1922 church cookbook, I never would have guessed that homes had water heaters a hundred years ago.

Chase and Sanborn Coffee has been around for a long time – though I’m a little confused about why the advertisement refers to the “Seal Brand” or who C. H. McKim was.  Since I found this advertisement in an Alpena, Michigan church cookbook, one thought is that maybe C. H. McKim was the proprietor of a store in that town.

Sometimes hundred-year-old advertisements befuddle me. Even though money was worth a lot more in 1922, how can the company afford to send these folding stoves to people who send them 10 cents?

Who would have guessed that Spanish green olives have been imported into the United States for at least a hundred year? And, who would have guessed that there was a trade association promoting those imported olives?