Today some people believe that coconut milk has health benefits. A hundred years ago, advertisers were also promoting the use of coconut milk – but to save milk and shortening. Coconut milk could be substituted for the milk and some of the fat in recipes. Back then coconut apparently came in cans which contained a mixture of shredded coconut and coconut milk – and cooks had to drain the coconut (and find uses for the coconut milk).
Sometimes simple desserts are the best. I recently found an easy-to-make, hundred-year-old recipe for Coconut and Orange Dessert that fits the bill. It is light and refreshing, and is just right on hot summer days.
Here is the original recipe:
And, here is the recipe updated for modern cooks:
4 oranges
1/3 cup shredded coconut
Peel oranges, and remove white inner skin. Separate oranges into segments, and remove any seeds. Cut each segment into 1-inch pieces. Place orange pieces in a bowl and gently stir in most of the coconut (reserve about 2 tablespoons). Put orange and coconut mixture in serving bowl. Garnish with reserved coconut.
When I make bacon, it sometimes turns out better than other times, so I was pleased to find tips for making perfect bacon in a Swift’s Premium Bacon advertisement in a hundred-year-old magazine.
I recently came across a delightful and very versatile hundred-year-old muffin recipe. Sour Milk or Sour Cream Muffins are quick and easy to make. They are tasty with butter – and even better with a little jelly or jam. They also can serve as the basis for a plethora of other muffins; just stir in blueberries, raisins, nuts or other add-ins.
Here is the original recipe:
And, here is the recipe updated for modern cooks:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg, beaten
3 tablespoons shortening or butter, melted
1 cup sour milk or sour cream (I used sour cream. If milk is used, it can be “soured” by adding 1 tablespoon vinegar.)
Preheat oven to 400° F. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Add egg, shortening or butter, and sour milk or sour cream; stir to combine. Grease muffin tins (or use paper liners), and then fill each muffin cup 3/4th full with batter. Bake for approximately 20 – 25 minutes or until lightly browned.
I was surprised to see an advertisement for refrigerators in a 1919 issue of Ladies Home Journal. Was the refrigerator electric? And, was the electricity dependable enough to ensure that food stayed cold in the refrigerator?
Looking for the perfect summer mocktail? I found a great recipe in a hundred-year-old magazine that fits the bill. Country Club Shake combines orange juice, white grape juice, and ginger ale to create a sunny, sophisticated, nonalcoholic drink.
1919 was the heyday of mocktails, and Country Club Shake is one of the best. Prohibition was slated to begin in January, 1920 – and, in preparation, magazines contained lots of nonalcoholic drink options.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
1 cup orange juice
1 cup white grape juice
1 cup ginger ale
2 tablespoons sugar syrup (see recipe below)
4 tablespoons cracked ice
orange slices or other fruit for garnishing, optional
Combine all ingredients, and serve. If desired, serve on ice, and garnish with orange slices or other fruit.
Sugar Syrup
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water
Put the sugar in a sauce pan. Pour the warm water over the sugar, and stir. Let sit a few minutes until the sugar is dissolved, then using medium heat bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Store in a covered jar for use when needed.
What was it like to pick wild strawberries a hundred years ago? Here’s a description that appeared in a 1919 magazine:
One might manage April and May, or even July, in the city, but a wild strawberry June belongs only in the heart of the country.
Do you know where these, the sweetest of wild berries, thrive? Up a hill road strewn with leaves, where an ovenbird calls and the red squirrel scolds, over a wall in a mowing, shut away from the rest of the world by pines and birches. A towhee hops on a crumbled stone fence. From remote woods is the trill of a thrush. A squirrel speaks out of the abundance of his irascible nature. The trees sway, the clouds trail their shadow across the slopes of the mountain.
Gathering wild strawberries is exceeding intimate work. Here they grow in a wide patch, to the exclusion of other plants, so thick that when you lean close to them and peek under the leaves you see a red-spotted carpet. Continued bending is painful. Continued squatting is impossible. You select a less fruited section and kneel. Then, preferring stains to stiff joints, you sit. Basket full, you cover the delicious sweetness with ferns and, then, there at the foot of the hill is the brook in which to dip your arms to the elbow and lave your hot face.
Excerpt from “Berrying” by Beulah Rector (American Cookery, June/July, 1919)
