I know that when I eat soup, I’m supposed to use my spoon to scoop it away from me in the bowl, but that’s one, of many, etiquette “do’s and don’ts” that I don’t always follow. Directions for eating soup haven’t changed in a hundred years:
When using a spoon for serving, or for sipping soup, there is less danger of spilling the food if the spoon is moved away from, rather than toward, oneself (see Figure 38).
School and Home Cooking by Carlotta c. Greer (1925)
Want a cross between a cracker and a cookie? If so, I have just the recipe for you. I recently was browsing through a hundred-year-old cooking magazine and came across a recipe for Honey Tea Crackers. The name of the recipe made me salivate, and I was ready to give the it a try. But, when I looked at the recipe a little more, I was a little confused. The recipe called for putting an almond or walnut half on top of each cracker. Crackers don’t generally have nuts on top of them. And, when I thought about it, I realized that most crackers are salty or savory, not sweet.
The more I looked at the recipe, the more I was intrigued I became – and I soon was mixing up a batch of the crackers. Since it seemed unusual to put nuts on crackers, I did not put a nut on top of some of the crackers.
The recipe turned out well, though Honey Tea Crackers are not typical of modern crackers. In addition to honey, the crackers contain allspice as well as some lemon juice and grated lemon rind. The crackers were sweet with the complex undertones of honey and lemon, and a hint of allspice. They have the texture of a cut-out cookie that had been rolled out very thin. I put almonds on some crackers and walnuts on others. Both types of nuts worked well, and I don’t have a preference, but I definitely preferred the crackers that had a nut on top over the plain ones. In hindsight, I wish that had just followed the old recipe and put a nut on top of all of them.
Here’s the original recipe:
I did not dissolve the baking soda prior to adding to the other ingredients, and it worked fine. The mixture, however, seemed very dry, so I added a little more than the 1 teaspoon of water called for in the recipe.
The recipe calls for pricking the crackers “all over.” I was surprised how long it took to prick a lot of crackers, so be sure to allow sufficient time.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 eggs
grated rind of 1/2 lemon
juice from 1/2 lemon
3 tablespoons honey + 2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon water (add more if needed) + 2 tablespoons water
almonds or walnut halves (if desired)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons honey and 2 tablespoons water. Set aside.
Sift together flour, salt, allspice and baking soda. Add eggs, grated lemon rind, lemon juice, 3 tablespoons honey, and 1 teaspoon water; stir to mix. If the dough is too dry, add additional water. On a prepared surface, roll the dough out until it is very thin (1/4 inch or a little less). Cut into circles using a round cutter. (I used a cutter that was 2 inches in diameter.) Put the crackers on a lightly greased baking sheet. Prick all over each cracker with a fork. Brush the crackers with the honey and water mixture. If desired, press an almond or walnut half into the center of each cracker. Put into oven, and bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned.
Whew! It’s fascinating that this 1925 Karo advertisement focuses on the supposed health benefits of the product.
When browsing through hundred-year-old cookbooks, I came across a recipe for Pound Cake Waffles. The title intrigued me. The recipe called for lots of butter and sugar, and was very similar to actual Pound Cake recipes. I decided to give it a try. The recipe indicated that either lemon or vanilla flavoring could be used in the recipe. I went with lemon extract.
The waffles were lovely with a sunny lemon flavor that worked nicely with the maple syrup that I put on the waffles.
Here’s the original recipe:
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs, separated
1/4 cup milk
1 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon extract or vanilla (I used lemon extract.)
Beat egg whites, then set aside. Put butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, then beat until creamed. Add the egg yolks and milk, then beat. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, and lemon extract or vanilla; beat until combined. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Ladle batter onto a hot waffle iron and cook, following the waffle iron directions.
A 1925 home economics textbook provides recommendations for how to divide each dollar spent on food across the various food groups.
How Much to Spend on Food
Whether one is purchasing food for all the meals of a family or is only selecting a luncheon or one meal, it is desirable to spend money wisely.
The five food groups may serve as a basis for the purchase of foods. It has been suggested that each dollar used in buying foods be divided into 5 parts of 20 cents each.
Out of each dollar use:
- 20 cents, more or less, for vegetables and fruits
- 20 cents, more or less, for milk and cheese
- 20 cents, more or less, for meat, fish, eggs, etc.
- 20 cents, more or less, for bread and cereals
- 20 cents, more or less, for sugar, fat, tea, coffee, chocolate, flavoring
(A footnote indicates that this is from the United States Thrift Leaflet #15.)
School and Home Cooking by Carlotta C. Greer (1925)
Sometimes I wonder if I spend too much on food, but I’ve never really thought about how it should be divided across food groups. I wonder if the hundred-year-old breakdown still holds, or if the division across food groups should be different now.
I recently had some friends over and wanted to serve a nice dessert (and, of course, I wanted to make a hundred-year-old recipe), so I pulled out my 1925 recipe books and found a lovely recipe for Maraschino Cherry Cake.
The cake was colorful with cherry fragments throughout that gave it a delightful sweet, yet tart, flavor.
Here’s the original recipe:
This recipe calls for 1 cup of liquid. When, I made it, I used 1/4 cup of liquid from a jar of Maraschino cherries and 3/4 cup of milk.
The stores where I shop do not carry pastry flour, so I used all-purpose flour. It worked fine.
When I updated this recipe, I reduced the amount of baking powder from 4 teaspoons to 3 teaspoons. Four teaspoons seems like a lot, and I had a little difficulty with the cake falling. A possible cause is the use of too much baking powder, so I decided to reduce the amount.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
4 egg whites
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup liquid from jar of Maraschino cherries
3/4 milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups pastry (or all-purpose) flour
1/2 cup Maraschino cherries, chopped
Preheat oven to 350◦ F. Beat egg whites until stiff, then set aside.
Put butter and sugar in a mixing bowl, then cream. Stir in Maraschino cherry liquid and milk. Add salt, baking powder, and flour; beat until smooth. Stir in the chopped Maraschino cherries, then fold in the beaten egg whites. Put into prepared pans. A large loaf pan, round layer cake pans, or a rectangular cake pan may be used. Bake until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean (about 35 minutes for cake pans or 45 minutes for a loaf pan). If desired, ice. (I iced the cake with a buttercream frosting. I substitute liquid from a jar of Maraschino cherries for some of the milk when making the frosting.)
Old-cookbooks occasionally refer to recipes as “receipts.” A hundred years ago, “receipt” was already considered an archaic term. Here’s what it said in a 1925 magazine:
“Receipt” or “Recipe”?
When our grandmothers wrote out the ingredients for any dish and the method of making it, they called this “a receipt,” and in their times the apothecaries had a monopoly of the word “recipe,” which meant to them the physician’s prescription. The tendency, today, is towards the use of the word “recipe” for the cooking formula, while “receipt” is more logically reserved for the written form of acknowledging payment, or the receiving of money.
American Cookery (April, 1925)
