16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, August 7, 1911: I wound up my driving this afternoon, and I’m not sorry either. Carrie was over this evening. We did some planning for that picnic, which we wish to have some time next week if we can.
Pickled Beets and Eggs at the 2011 McEwensville Community Picnic
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma began driving horses five days ago. As discussed in the August 2 entry, she probably was operating a horse-drawn roller that leveled the plowed ground in preparation for planting winter wheat.
As Grandma planned for the picnic, she may have thought about foods that she could take. Beets are in season, so a hundred years ago Grandma may have thought about taking Pickled Beets and Eggs to the upcoming picnic. Here’s an old recipe that I use to make pickled beets and eggs.
Pickled Beets and Eggs
2 cups apple cider vinegar
1 cup reserved beet water from cooking beets
1 1/3 cup sugar
1 piece stick cinnamon
2 cups cooked beets, sliced (leave beets whole if small)*
12 hard-cooked eggs, peeled
Combine vinegar, beet water, sugar, and piece of stick cinnamon in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved then remove from heat.
Put sliced beets and hard-boiled eggs in a glass jar or other container. Pour cooked liquid over the beets and eggs. Chill overnight to marinate. (For darker eggs, chill for several days before serving.).
*Peel beets before cooking (or canned beets may be used–though that’s probably less authentic).
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, July 17, 1911: It rained real hard this morning. I don’t know whether that kept me from doing anything of any account or something else—any way it isn’t here to read.Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t have much to say a hundred years ago today, I flipped through the July 1911 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine. It contained a recipe for Tomato Rarebit. A rarebit is a cheese sauce that is served over toast or other similar foods. I like Welsh Rarebit so thought that I’d give this recipe a try.
Tomato Rarebit
Cook one tablespoon chopped onion in one tablespoon butter five minutes. Add one cup tomatoes, cook two minutes, and strain. In a saucepan, or the blazer of the chafing dish, melt two tablespoons butter, add two tablespoons flour, and three-fourths of a cup of thin cream. Cook until thickened, then add two cups cheese cut in dice or thinly shaved, the tomato, and one-half teaspoon each mustard and salt, and one-fourth teaspoon paprika. Stir until cheese is melted and the mixture is smooth. Serve on toast or heated crackers.
The Tomato Rarebit had a zestier taste than Welsh Rarebit, and was excellent. The recipe is a keeper.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, July 14, 1911: The entries for this month look, as if they won’t require much space. Can’t help it though.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t have much to say a hundred years ago today, I flipped through the July 1911 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine. It included sample menus.
The Friday menu is below:
An asterisk meant that the magazine contained the recipe. For the Friday dinner menu, the included recipe was for Beet and Pepper Salad:
Beet and Pepper Salad
Thinly slice four small boiled beets. Remove the seeds from and parboil two green peppers five minutes, then cut in strips. When very cold serve in nests of lettuce with a French dressing made as follows: Mix together four tablespoons olive oil, one tablespoon vinegar, one teaspoon tarragon vinegar, one teaspoon salt, one-fourth teaspoon paprika, one-eighth teaspoon pepper, and if liked one teaspoon finely chopped onion or shallots.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Sunday, July 9, 1911: Went to Sunday school this morning. Was over to see my friend this evening. Besse and Curt were here when I came home.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Based on previous diary entries this Sunday sounds like a very typical Sunday at the Muffly’s. Grandma went to Sunday School, her married sister and brother-in-law came to visit, and she visited with a friend.
Since Grandma didn’t write much today, I’d like to tell you a little more about how jellies and jams were made a hundred years ago.
Several days ago I had an entry about making currant jelly using both modern and hundred-year-old recipes. My daughter and I filled miscellaneous jelly jars that I found in my cabinets, and then took a photo to illustrate the posting. The jars in the photo didn’t match—and at first I thought that I should have been more careful to use matching jars for both the modern and traditional recipes when I filled them so that I would have ended up with a better photo.
Some of the jars we filled with current jelly.
But then I realized that my photo probably was more typical of what they would have actually done in 1911—the family would have re-used whatever jars they had and there probably would have been several different types and styles.
A hundred years ago, people generally saved “real” canning jars and lids for canning; and instead often just re-used jars and lids that purchased foods had come in for jellies, jams, and preserves.
The description of filling and sealing jelly jars in the 1907 Lowney’s Cook Book is below:
Have jelly glasses standing in hot water; pour jelly into them; let stand until hard and cover first with paper or melted paraffin, and the tin cover, or paste white paper over the glass. Keep all jellies in cool, dry, dark place.
Hmm, I can’t quite picture sealing a jar with paper—though I can remember pouring melted paraffin on top of jelly to seal it when I was younger and think that some people still use that method.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Wednesday, July 5, 1911: No news for today, not the smallest pinch, excepting that I got drenched during a rain storm.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma doesn’t give many clues about what she did a hundred years ago today. I wish that she’d written more about mundane events. For example–Which vegetables were ripe in the garden? . . . Which fruits?
This past week-end my husband, daughter, and I picked some red currants at a u-pick farm. I wonder if Grandma’s family had currant bushes and if they made currant jelly.
The jar on the left contains the currant jelly made with the old-time recipe. The jelly on the right was made using the modern recipe.
Bottom line: My daughter’s currant jelly turned out fantastic. Mine ended up being more like fruit leather than jelly. I obviously didn’t interpret and adapt the recipe for use with a modern range, but my jelly had more wonderfully complex flavors than the modern recipe I think that I learned from my mistakes and hope to pick some more currants next week-end—and try again to get the consistency right.
The old recipe is below:
Currant Jelly
Wash and drain currants thoroughly. Do not remove stems. Mash a few in the bottom of the kettle. Cook until the juice seems to be extracted from the currants and the currents look white. Press through a coarse colander, then drip through a jelly bag, but do not squeeze.
Allow one pound of sugar for each pint of juice. Boil juice twenty minutes. Add hot sugar and boil hard three minutes; skim when necessary. Strain into hot glasses.
Lowney’s Cook Book (1907)
I obviously over-cooked the juice—and substantially less cooking time was needed. I think it’s one of those things where with practice—or advice from a more experienced cook—you just learn how thick the boiling juice should be when the sugar is added.
Don't laugh, but here's a photo of the jelly made with the old recipe (left) and the modern recipe (right). The consistency is obviously much better with the modern recipe--but the intense fruit taste of the old recipe was awesome. (I really want to do some more experimenting with old pre--commercial pectin era jelly recipes and try to figure out how to make them properly.)
The cooking process reminded me of boiling maple syrup—and the juice naturally thickened as some of the water evaporated. I just boiled it way too long.
Another old cookbook that I have says that slightly under-ripe currants should be used because they naturally contain more pectin.
The recipe calls for adding hot sugar. Elsewhere in the cookbook it indicates that sugar should be heated in the oven prior to adding to the boiling juice. I guess this reduces the amount of time needed for the liquid to return to a boil after the sugar is added.
An aside: Currants were a popular berry in the US in the early 20th century. A few years after this diary entry was written currant plants were banned in the US. From 1916-1966 Federal laws restricted currant plants because they were an alternate host for a tree fungus called the White Pine Blister Rust. Some states still have laws restricting currants, but they generally are not enforced because there are varieties that aren’t very susceptible to the fungus.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Monday, June 26, 1911: Felt so terrible this morning, so did Ruth. Picked cherries nearly all afternoon! There were sour ones, so there was no danger of spoiling my hands to any considerable extent.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
How did the Muffly family use the sour cherries? In pies? . . . jam?. . . fruit compote? . . . cherry pudding?
I can remember cherry pudding tasting awesome on hot summer evenings after a hard day of making hay. Here’s the old family recipe that I use to make Cherry Pudding.
Cherry Pudding
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups pitted sour cherries*
1/2 cup water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put into a mixing bowl: butter, sugar, baking powder, salt, egg, milk, flour, and vanilla; beat until smooth. Pour into a 7 1/2 X 12 X 2 inch rectangular casserole dish, or similarly sized dish.
Make sauce by heating the 3/4 cup of sugar, cherries (including any juice), and water. Bring to a boil; then pour the cherry sauce over the batter. Place in oven and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until pudding just begins to shrink from sides of dish, and the top is golden brown. When baked, cherries and sauce will be on the bottom. Serve warm. If desired, may be served with milk.
*Frozen or canned cherries may be used. Do not drain frozen or canned cherries; and include juice when measuring cherries. It works okay to use a 1 pound can of cherries—there just will be somewhat fewer cherries in the dish than if fresh or frozen cherries were used. Reduce amount of sugar, if using cherries canned or frozen in sugar syrup.
16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Friday, June 23, 1911: Was to pick strawberries this afternoon, but decided that it would be too hot. I’m going to stop now, as the season is over, having earned a snug sum of $2.65.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma had begun picking strawberries on June 12. $2.65 in 1911 would be worth about $75 today.
When I was young we ate strawberries day in and day out during June—and ate black raspberries day in and day out during early July, and corn on the cob later in July and August. For each fruit or vegetable there was a season, and it tasted so wonderful the first time it was served each year—and we were so tired of it that we thought we never wanted to see it again by the time the season ended. But we were always thrilled when strawberries (or raspberries or corn) was again available the following year.
