Food is expensive – both a hundred years ago and now. It’s interesting to see how a 1918 advertisement for Quaker Oats framed the cost of meals around calories. Back then, apparently getting more calories per amount spent was considered a good thing. Today, are people willing to spend more to get fewer calories?
The dog days of summer are upon us, but the good news is that delectable garden-fresh tomatoes are plentiful. So I was thrilled to recently find a hundred-year-old recipe for Tomato and Nut Salad. This is really a stuffed tomato recipe. The tomato is stuffed with a mixture of chopped tomatoes, walnuts, and green pepper, with a little mayonnaise for added flavor and to bind everything together. The crunchy stuffing reminds me of Waldorf salad – though that isn’t exactly an accurate description since there are no apples in this recipe.
The recipe calls for peeling the tomato. I almost skipped this step- but it’s worth doing. The peeled tomato has a lovely velvety surface which adds to the presentation.
Here’s the original recipe:
And, here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
For each serving use the following ingredients:
1 medium tomato
2 teaspoons walnuts, chopped
2 teaspoons green pepper, chopped
2 teaspoons mayonnaise
lettuce leaves, optional
Put a pan of water on the stove; bring to a boil. Drop the tomato into the water for about 15 seconds: remove from heat and gently slip the skin off the tomato. Using a knife remove the stem end and the firm core from the tomato and discard. Scoop out the tomato pulp and seeds, place in a strainer and drain off any excess liquid. Place pulp in a bowl; add the walnuts and green pepper. Stir in the mayonnaise, then stuff the tomato with the mixture. If desired serve on lettuce leaves.
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)
Why do we almost always eat some vegetables raw, while others are typically cooked? I don’t have an answer, but I know that I was surprised when I recently saw a hundred-year-recipe for Scalloped Cucumbers. And, since it’s cucumber season, I decided to give the recipe a try.
The Scalloped Cucumbers were delightful. The cooked cucumbers still had a hint of crispness, and when mixed with onion slices in a creamy sauce, and topped with cheese and breadcrumbs, this makes a perfect vegetable side dish. Cucumbers are a tasty vegetable . . . regardless of whether eaten raw or cooked.
And, here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
4 large cucumbers
6 medium onions
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
3/4 cup cheddar cheese, grated*
1/2 cup fine bread crumbs*
Preheat oven to 375° F. Peel cucumbers, and quarter length-wise. Remove the seeds, and then dice the cucumbers into bite-sized chunks. Place in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook until tender (about 10 – 15 minutes). (Cucumbers are still somewhat firm even when cooked.)
Remove the skins from the onions, and then thinly slice. Place in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook until tender (about 10 – 15 minutes).
In the meantime, in another pan, using medium heat, melt butter; then stir in the flour, salt, and pepper. Gradually, add the milk while stirring constantly. Continue stirring until the white sauce thickens.
In a large buttered casserole dish, layer the white sauce, cucumbers, and onions. End with a layer of white sauce. Then sprinkle the grated cheese and breadcrumbs on the top. Bake in the oven for 20 – 30 minutes or until hot and bubbly.
*The original hundred-year-old recipe also indicated that nuts or cereal could be used as a topping.
I didn’t salt the water when I cooked the cucumbers and onions: instead I put some salt in the white sauce. And, I didn’t “butter and crumb” my casserole dish; I just buttered the dish. It worked fine with the crumbs just sprinkled on top of the dish.
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.”
Plums are coming into season, and are relatively inexpensive at the store, so I was pleased to find a hundred-year-old recipe for Plum Conserve. Conserves are a type of jam or marmalade that often includes citrus fruit, raisins, and nuts.
In addition to plums, this Plum Conserve contains a peach, an orange (including the peel), raisins, and pecans. It has a beautiful purple hue and is delightful on scones, baguettes, and other breads. It is also lovely with cheese (think brie and crackers).
Here’s the original recipe:
This recipe makes a lot of conserve. When I made the recipe, I halved it and I still got about 8 half-pints of Plum Conserve.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
2 quarts tart purple plums (about 2 pounds) – Plums that are not quite ripe work well in this recipe.
1 peach
1 orange
1/2 cup raisins
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
Remove stones from plums and coarsely chop. Remove skin and stone from peach (I dipped the peach in boiling water for about 30 seconds, then slipped the skin off.); coarsely chop. Remove peel (and any excess white pith) from orange, and coarsely chop. Finely chop the orange peel.
Place the chopped plums, peach, orange, orange peel, and raisins in a dutch oven or large saucepan. Bring to a boil using medium heat while stirring occasionally. Reduce heat and cook for 5 minutes, then stir in the sugar and pecans.
Continue to boil gently for 30-40 minutes or until the mixture is the consistency of jam. Stir frequently — especially towards the end of the cooking time.
A good way to tell if the mixture is the right consistency is to lay the spoon that is used for stirring on a plate. Allow the liquid clinging to the spoon to cool for a few seconds, and see if it has a jam-like consistency.
Pour mixture into hot one-half pint jars to within 1/4 inch of the top. Wipe jar rim and adjust lids. Process in boiling water bath for 5 minutes.
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
