Oils are a component of most salad dressings, but in 1918 cooks were urged to reduce their use of fats to support the troops in World War I. And, even if they could get olive oil, it was expensive. An article that year in Good Housekeeping recommended that cooks use the “new” salad oils. Here’s some excerpts:

New Salad Oils

This is the time of year, above all others, when the palate craves the coolness and pungency of salads. Since the salad dressing is often the making of the salad, it is the chief consideration. The main ingredient of most salad dressings is the fat. We have been asked to be sparing in our use of all fats, but fortunately for us the new vegetable oils have come to our rescue.

Olive oil is becoming scarce in this country, and is, in consequence, high in price, but there are plenty of good substitutes in the cottonseed, peanut and corn oils which have been placed on the markets.

While to the lover of olive oil none of these makes quite so good a dressing as the olive oil itself, it is not difficult to prepare satisfactory dressings, and the untrained palate often finds them even better. The more refined and desirable these vegetable oils are for salad oils, the more tasteless they are. They are, therefore, excellent conveyors of condiment. If the flavor of olive oil has become a necessary and fixed habit, a dressing can be made by using one-third olive oil to two-thirds of any substitute oil. For this purpose purchase a heavy, highly-flavored oil oil.

Good Housekeeping (August, 1918)

 

I’ve dieted over the years for many reasons: to look better, to be healthier, to be a good example for others. But there’s one reason I never considered: dieting to support our soldiers.

According to a hundred-year-old issue of Good Housekeeping, we should diet to support the troops. During World War I, a lot of food needed to be shipped to Europe to feed the troops, and there were food shortages in the U.S. The magazine had a regular feature with Kewpie cartoons. The Kewpies were supposed to be baby cupid figures and were very popular at the time. (There also are Kewpie dolls.)  The title of the Kewpie cartoons in the September, 1918 issue was “The Kewpies and Food Conservation.”

When shopping for meat, do you ever find it difficult to select the “best” meat? Here’s some hundred-year-old advice:

Selecting Meat

In selecting meat one must consider: (1) the taste of the family with regard to kind and cut; (2) the cost, being sure to note carefully the amount of waste, such as bone, rind, and rough fiber, or fat that cannot be used; (3) the fuel that will be required in cooking; (4) time and labor required for preparation.

The number of individuals in a family influences one in the choice of cuts and the method of cooking. Steaks for broiling should be comparatively thick; therefore, if the family is small a sirloin steak is too large unless only half of it is cooked at a time. A large roast may be used if carefully reheated in various forms.

In addition to the cut, there are certain standards of quality to be observed. The meat from fat animals is of higher food value and of better flavor than that from thin animals. If a cut of meat is excessively fat, there is, of course, a waste, but meat from a comparatively fat animal will be of the best quality. A cut from the round of the best beef is better than the choicest cuts of inferior animals.

Good meat is odorless except for a certain fleshy smell, not tainted, strong, or musty. Meat must be dry on the surface – thick plump, and firm, but not hard to the touch or coarse in fiber; it should feel like velvet and should be easy to cut with a sharp knife. The bones of old animals are white and hard; of young ones, reddish and soft.

Good meat should be well marbled with fat; roasts and chops from mature animals should have a layer of fat on the outside from one-fourth to one-half inch thick.

The Science of Home Making: A Textbook in Home Economics (1915) by Emma M. Pirie