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)
On hot summer days many cookies seem too heavy, so I browsed through my hundred-year-old cookbooks for a light, summer cookie. And, I think that I found the perfect recipe. Sponge Drops are the “angel food” of cookies. They are light and airy with a hint of vanilla.
Though I didn’t try it, I think that these cookies would work well to make ice cream sandwiches.
I’m still intrigued by how many desserts a hundred years ago had the word “sponge” in the title. There were sponge cakes, sponge pies, this sponge cookie recipe – and two weeks ago, I made a recipe for Apricot Sponge. I think that sponge refers to desserts with lots of beaten eggs that give them a certain lightness or creaminess.
Here is the original recipe:
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 400° F. Sift together flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda; set aside.
In a mixing bowl beat eggs, then add sugar and beat. Stir in flour mixture and vanilla. Drop by rounded teaspoons on greased baking sheet. (The teaspoons should just be round – not heaping. These cookies spread out quite a bit.) Bake about 10 minutes or until lightly browned.
Did you ever wonder whether broths are nourishing? Well, I found the answer in a hundred-year-old magazine. Here’s the question posed by a reader and the response:
Q: I should like to ask you about the advisability of giving canned broths to invalids and children. I am speaking particularly of a child fourteen months old that is taking broths every day. Are such broths as nutritious as if freshly made? Is there any nutritive value left in the used meat?
Mrs. A.K.H., Mass.
A: Broths are usually made from meats, sometimes with the addition of vegetables, and contain only those food materials which are soluble in hot water, or, like starch, diffusible in water. Sugars and meat bases, such as creatin, are soluble in water. A part of the mineral substances in the foods is also soluble. The nutritive value of broths is necessarily limited. It is the opinion of many physicians and physiologists that the food stuffs in broths, especially the nitrogenous bases, are not equal in value to the ordinary proteins which are not soluble in water. It is a common opinion that the food materials in broths are more easily assimilated and therefore are preferable in many diseased conditions to more nutritious foods, which the impaired digestive apparatus is unable to utilize. I should regard broths of any kind as a poor substitute for milk for a child of fourteen months. Canned broths, when they are first made, are perhaps as desirable as home-made broths. They are likely to dissolve some of the tin from the container, and soluble tin salts are not particularly useful in the stomach of a child. It is not possible, in my opinion, to nourish a child on broths of kinds. It should be milk.
Good Housekeeping ( June, 1919)
I’m sometimes asked how I decide which hundred-year-old recipes to make. Often I make recipes that sound like something I think I might like; other times I select recipes because I’m intrigued by an unusual combination of ingredients or preparation methods.
This week, was a first. Another blogger’s post inspired me to select a particular hundred-year-old recipe.
I recently read Automatic Gardening and Real Gluten Free Food’s recipe for Cold Chicken Rice Salad – and thought, “I think that I’ve seen a similar recipe in a hundred-year-old cookbook.” Next thing I knew, I was making a 1919 recipe for Chicken, Rice, and Celery Salad.
Chicken, Rice, and Celery Salad has a nice texture, and is packed with flavor. Both a hundred years ago and now, this salad is perfect for a summer lunch or picnic.
Here is the original recipe:
When I made the recipe, I used some lettuce, but not an entire head. Similarly I used less mayonnaise than the old recipe called for.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
2 cups cooked chicken, chopped
1 cup cold long-grain cooked rice
1 cup celery, chopped
1 cup lettuce, shredded
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika
Put chicken, rice, celery, and lettuce in a bowl, then gently mix together.
In a separate small bowl, stir together mayonnaise, salt, and paprika, then add to the chicken mixture and gently stir to combine.
I’m often amazed by the advertisements that I find in hundred-year-old magazines. Some of the most fascinating ones are the small advertisements in the back of a magazine that individuals with entrepreneurial aspirations place. For example, I never would have thought about selling a recipe for toothpaste . . . but maybe I lack imagination. I wonder how many recipes he sold.
