Looking for some good Christmas gift ideas? Here are three “practical gift ideas” in a hundred-year-old magazine.

Mother Goose Cereal Set

Waffle Outfit

Some ideas that seemed promising in 1922 just never happened. The November, 1922 issue of Good Housekeeping had an advertisement for the current issue of another magazine called Hearst’s International Magazine. The ad listed the feature articles, including one article titled “A ‘Dry’ World?”.

People have known for a long time that fruit is an important part of a healthy diet. Here’s what it said in a hundred-year-old cookbook:

Fruit Essential in the Daily Diet 

Fruit is really indispensable in a well regulated diet. Formerly it was considered an accessory, rather than an essential food, and was eaten mainly for its flavor and refreshing qualities. The food value of most fruits is not high, but the mineral salts they contain are necessary to good health. A person who eats quantities of fruit is usually in excellent health, and has a clear complexion, due to the body regulating qualities of the various mineral salts and organic acids contained in fruit. These organic acids import an agreeable acid flavor and help to keep the blood in good condition. Most fruits contain a large proportion of water, also of value in the diet.

If the family does not care for fruits between meals, which is really one the best times to eat them, see that fruit in some form is furnished for at least one meal a day, for it is a necessary part of the daily diet. Do not consider fruit an extravagance and accessory. If we are to have healthy bodies, fruit is an essential, and although its actual food value, if fresh, is not high, its health-giving properties are a necessity.

Mrs. DeGraf’s Cook Book (1922)

 

HHere’s some information in a hundred-year-old cookbook about making cocoa and chocolate. Not quite sure how cocoa differs from chocolate.

Cocoa and Chocolate

Theobromine is the stimulating element in cocoa beans, and is much less pronounced in its effect than the corresponding principles in tea and coffee. The high percentage of fat, together with other food principles, places this bevarage in the class with foods. As a rule, when making cocoa or chocolate, follow the recipes found on the package. It will be well to bear in mind, however, that boiling will greatly improve it. Beating constantly with an egg beater while cooking will thoroughly mix the ingredients and prevent a thin skin from rising to the surface.

Mrs. DeGraf’s Cook Book (1922)

Here’s advice on a “Helpful Hints” page in a hundred-year-old church cookbook for how to cure a nervous headache:

To cure a nervous headache use two or three slices of lemon in a cup of strong tea.

Cement City Cook Book (1922) published by the First Baptist Church, Alpena, Michigan

A 1922 cookbook,  Good Housekeeping’s Book of Menus, Recipes, and Household Discoveries, contains sample menus for each month of the year. It’s fascinating how the word “dinner” is used in two different ways on a page with October menus. In the Sunday menu, it is the noon meal; while on the Monday menu, it’s the evening meal.

Here’s some advice in a 1922 issue of American Cookery magazine on how to keep a husband interested and in love.

The Spice of Life

To keep a husband interested and in love with her, a wife must vary her costumes, argues every woman. A simple blue gown one evening, and a somewhat vampish green one the next, is what keeps hubby fascinated.

Undoubtably that is true. But let me ask that same woman how much thought she has given to the old adage, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” How often does she change her menus? Or, is it pork and beans every Saturday night in the year, and the proverbial stew of Sunday’s left-over dinner every Monday night? Fish, of course on Fridays, and always Wednesdays a delicatessen dinner, because she goes to play bridge every Wednesday afternoon, so hasn’t the time to prepare anything else. Not much chance for variety of diet there.

Or, perhaps, she hasn’t definite nights for definite things, but her range of recipes is so narrow. I have see the statement given as a fact by those who have made a study of it, that the average woman, in an American home, uses less than thirty separate recipes. Think of it, when the number of cookbooks is legion, and the magazines and newspapers print, each week, more than two thousand recipes.

Get out of your recipe rut! Give your family a change. Try adding, for instance, two new recipes a week to your menus. Even if you have your favorite way of making pie crust, and your special recipe for layer cake, experiment with a new one once in a while.

The culinary art is not behind the other arts in its progress. Benefit by it. A new dish is just as gratifying and alluring to your husband’s palate, as a new dress is to his eye. Try it and see. And wouldn’t it take the monotony out of planning three meals a day for every day for you, if you varied the menus with a new dish occasionally?

American Cookery (August/September, 1922)