A hundred-year-old cookbook emphasized the importance of breakfast. Here are a few excerpts:

Breakfast – One of the Important Events of the Day

Breakfast in most homes is, without doubt, the simplest meal of the day and the one requiring the least thought and effort in preparation. But when we consider the fact that breakfast is also the first meal of the day and is the one that should furnish the necessary food principles to the body to aid it in starting and carrying on the work for the day, we can readily understand the importance of this meal and why it is necessary to begin the day with proper food. 

The right kind of food, properly prepared, keeps the body in a healthful condition. And a healthy body is able to resist and throw off disease; an undernourished body is very susceptible to germs and will not recover from a severe illness so readily as one that is properly nourished and kept in a resistant condition.

Many persons consider breakfast of so little importance that they omit this meal entirely. This seems a mistake, for in the morning the stomach is practically empty and, in order “to start the day right,” some food should be taken unless for some good reason a physician has advised otherwise.

Again, breakfasts are often eaten very hurriedly, which is wrong. In order to receive the greatest benefit from the food, it should be thoroughly broken up in the mouth so that the digestive juices may begin their action. If food is not broken up before entering the stomach it must done there and this means a strain on that organ. Overwork will gradually cause it to weaken; so in time the stomach will not be able to perform its functions properly.

It may seem difficult to get the variety in our breakfast menus that the large number of luncheon and dinner dishes afford, because there is a limited number of so-called typical breakfast dishes. But there is an endless variety of methods of preparing these different foods, so that there is really no need of monotony at this meal.

Mrs. DeGraf’s Cook Book (1922)

Ever wonder how many pounds of various fruits and vegetables are in a bushel? Apparently this was considered important for cooks to know a hundred years ago because it was on page 10 of the 1922 edition of the Good Housekeeping cookbook.

Now that I think about it, when was the last time I bought a bushel of anything? . . . . hmm, maybe I bought a bushel of apples 3 or 4 years ago.

Sometimes time seems to fly by and I get little accomplished. Maybe I need a “time budget.” A hundred-year-old magazine had an article written by a homemaker who described how she used a time budget to keep organized:

The Time Budget 

Before I discovered the magic secret of the time budget my housekeeping drove me to despair. There was always a mob of duties clamoring for my attention at the same time, and not enough hours in the day for half of them, to say nothing of opportunity for needed rest and recreation.

A magazine article opened my eyes to the possibilities of a definite plan for the housewife’s working day. At once I adapted the suggested schedule to my particular needs and began to follow it. And, what a transformation it worked!

Formerly, on some days, I would drudge from morning till night, not even taking time to put on a fresh dress for evening, and sometimes I would give up the unequal struggle and simply loaf through the day. Now, instead of either dawdling along aimlessly, or desperately attacking anything I happened to think of, everything goes by the clock. There was a definite time for getting breakfast, washing dishes, cleaning the kitchen, setting other rooms to rights, bedmaking, each day’s special task, lunch, washing dishes, rest period, dressing for the afternoon, several hours for recreation or congenial employment, dinner, and an outing or a restful evening at home.

The daily time budget involves several other worry-saving methods. One is the children’s schedule, by which the routine of their day is fitted into my plans. Another is the making of menus for a week at a time. The plan which contributes most to my own health and happiness is the weekly schedule, by which the various tasks necessary for the upkeep of the house are allotted to particular days. I no longer bear the burden all at once, but do each days’ allowance- clearning the kitchen, polishing the silver, or mending – and everything is kept in order with a minimum of worry and drudgery.

The use of a time budget is a financial blessing as well. Supplies can be bought more economically for a week or a month, than if someone is sent in frantic haste for a can of something or other a few minutes before the meal. Then, too, the practice of economizing, in time leads, to a greater care in the expenditure of the household money.

In my case the time budget has proved to be an undoubted success, and I am sure my family now enjoys my society more than when they sed to find me discouraged, cross, and – I may as well admit it – untidy, at the end of a far form perfect day. H.S.S.

American Cookery (August/September, 1922)

The weather is delightful. It’s time for a picnic. Here are some hundred-year-old tips for an automobile picnic.

For picnics the beverages and hot dishes may be prepared at home and carried in thermos food jars. The cold dishes may be packed in a small portable refrigerator. The biscuits, sandwiches, cakes, and cookies should be carefully wrapped in wax paper and packed in boxes. Ice creams may be taken in the freezer. Hot sandwiches and bacon may be cooked over the coals or on a portable oil or alcohol stove. In some menus it may be desirable to omit or modify a few of the dishes, if the food is to be carried several miles.

For Luncheon and Supper Guests (1922) by Alice Bradley

Sometimes nothing seems to go quite right. Here’s a hundred-year-old poem that offers a couple suggestions for those times.

Sometimes when I make a cake it rises very unevenly. A hundred-year-old cookbook gave me a clue about what might cause the problem:

A moderate oven will give the best results for nearly all cakes.

If the batter rises in a cone in the center you are using too hot an oven, and a crust has formed before the mixture has had time to rise; or too much flour has been used.

Mrs. DeGraf’s Cook Book (1922)

Decorating styles seem like they are constantly changing and evolving. Here is some 1922 advice for how to decorate your kitchen:

We come to realize what a big part color has to play in the attractiveness of the kitchen. Anyone who has both practical and theoretical knowledge of color, as well as of kitchens, knows that the pure white kitchen is a long way from perfection in either looks or cleanliness. The whiteness, no matter how clean it really is, takes on, after a time, a darkening and stained appearance, as though it got tired of being dazzling, with nothing for contrast. So if we want a kitchen to look as clean as it should be, let us give it contrasts of both color and tone. This will need to be done with the advice of someone who really know the technical properties of color combinations, but most of us can make a pretty satisfactory effect, if we use our eyes and copy the tones in nature, which seem to give a particularly clean and clear-cut impression – the beach against blue water, for instance, or a wet tree trunk against green leaves. Is it sensible to try to bring nature into the kitchen? Why not if it is to make life in the kitchen more worth living?

American Cookery (March, 1922)