Will Whole-Wheat Flour Keep?: Hundred-year-old Advice

It’s fun to read household advice columns in hundred-year-old magazines. Ever wonder whether whole-wheat flour keeps as well as white flour? Well, here’s an old Q&A which answers that very question:

Will Whole-Wheat Flour Keep?

Is it true that whole-wheat four becomes rancid a few days after milling? This statement was made in public by a representative of a well-known milling company. Why is not this flour more generally milled and why is the price higher than that of white flour?
L.W.L., New Mexico

It is not true that whole-wheat flour becomes rancid a few days after milling. I have kept whole-wheat flour more than four months in hot weather without damage. It should be kept in a cool, dry place, such as a well-ventilated cellar, in a heavy wood container. The same remark is true of whole corn-meal. Whole-wheat flour is not more generally milled because so few people ask for it. Just as soon as people demand whole-wheat flour and whole corn-meal, the mills and the grocers will supply it. It costs more than white flour because there is so little demand for it. The price should be considerably less than that of white flour.

Good Housekeeping (September, 1917)

Old-fashioned String Beans with Bacon Recipe

String Beans with Bacon (and onions) are delicious, and they are quick and easy to make. This hundred-year-old recipe brings back vague memories of string bean dishes from my childhood.

The recipe calls for cooking the beans until they are tender – and I cooked them for about 20 minutes. They weren’t crisp like the beans often prepared using modern recipes – but I found them to be a refreshing change, and enjoyed this dish’s old-fashioned goodness. The recipe is definitely a keeper.

Here’s the original recipe:

Source: Larkin Housewives’ Cook Book (1917)

Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:

String Beans with Bacon

Servings: 3
Time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: easy
Print

1 pound string beans (use either yellow or green beans)

2 small onions, thinly sliced

1 slice bacon, chopped

water

1/8 teaspoon salt

dash cayenne (red) pepper

Clean string beans, remove tips, and snap into 1-inch pieces. Place in a saucepan. Add the sliced onions and chopped bacon; then just barely cover with water, and add the salt and cayenne pepper. Place on the stove and bring to a boil using high heat; then reduce to a simmer. Cook for approximately 20 minutes, then remove from heat, drain any excess liquid (a little is okay), and serve.

Are Bananas Good for Us?

Sometimes I’m amazed by the things that people worried about a hundred years ago. For example, they worried about whether bananas were good for them. Here some excerpts from a hundred-year-old magazine article:

Consider the Banana

Perhaps no staple article of food is more the subject of strange fancies or more misunderstood – more overpraised for qualities which it does not posses and blamed for defects not its own – than that standby of the corner fruit stand, the banana.

“Is it true that a banana contains as much nutritive value as a half-pound of steak?” “Is it true that a raw banana is as indigestible as a raw potato, and must be cooked before it is eaten?” “Is it true that the combination of bananas and milk is poisonous?”

In spite of prejudice and misunderstanding, however, the majority of people accept its worth, for the consumption of bananas has increased by leaps and bounds. Less than fifty years ago the first bananas were brought to Boston. Today it is estimated that seven billion are consumed annually in the United States – an average of six dozen of this fruit for each man, woman, and child in the land.

Do not chose bananas that look pretty rather than those that are ripe. The banana of a clear lemon-yellow color, which brings the best price in the market, is most certainly not yet a ripe fruit. The pulp of such a banana is composed very largely of starch, and while it is an exaggeration to say that it is as difficult to digest as the starch of a raw potato, it is greatly improved in this respect by permitting the ripening processes.

When the banana is perfectly ripe, the clear yellow peeling has changed to brown or black, and more of the starch in the pulp has been converted into sugar. Such bananas have a far better flavor and aroma than the unripe yellow fruit.

Whatever bad reputation the fruit has acquired as regards to its indigestibility is due, undoubtedly to the fact that many people eat the unripe fruit. Then there is the tendency to eat the whole banana quickly without sufficient mastication.

Nature has given us in the banana a sanitary, sealed package. The banana is cheap; when properly ripened it is easy to digest; moreover, it contains sufficient roughage and laxative properties to be free from the constipating tendency of which many highly concentrated modern foods are guilty.

Its flavor is bland and characteristic, yet not sufficiently pronounced to become tiresome.

Good Housekeeping (October, 1917)

Hundred-Year-Old Lamb Curry with Rice Recipe

When browsing through hundred-year-old magazines, I’m sometimes surprised by the recipes I find. This is one of those times. I was amazed to find a recipe for Lamb Curry with Rice (East Indian) in the April, 1917 issue of Good Housekeeping that had been submitted by a reader.

This recipe makes a very credible Lamb Curry. I’m not an expert on Indian foods (and feel free to disagree), but to me, it tasted similar to some of the milder lamb curries that I’ve eaten in restaurants over the years. Which led me to wonder, who was the woman who submitted this recipe to the magazine? Did she have friends from India? Had she visited India?

Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Lamb Curry with Rice

Servings: 3-4
Time: 2 1/2 hours
Difficulty: moderate
Print

2 pounds stewing lamb

water

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon allspice

2 tablespoons shredded coconut

juice from 1 small lemon

cooked rice

Place the lamb in a dutch oven or large saucepan and cover with water; add salt. Cover, and bring to a boil using high heat; reduce heat and simmer for 1 1/2 hours or until the lamb is tender. Remove from heat. Cut the lamb into small pieces, removing any fat, bones, or gristle, then set aside. Reserve 2 cups of broth, and skim excess fat from the top of the broth. (The broth may be chilled to make it easier to remove the fat.)

Melt the butter in a skillet using medium heat, and stir in the onion and garlic. Cook until the onion and garlic are soft; then add the cooked lamb. Stir in the flour, pepper, curry powder, cloves, and allspice. Slowly add the lamb broth while stirring constantly; bring to a boil. Add the coconut and lemon juice. Then reduce heat and simmer until the sauce has a thick gravy-like consistency. Remove from heat and serve with rice.

Hundred-Year-Old Rapid Fireless Cooker Advertisement

Source: Ladies Home Journal (March, 1916)

When browsing through hundred-year-old cookbooks, I sometimes see fireless cooker recipes. Until I saw this 1916 advertisement for a Rapid Fireless Cooker I couldn’t quite figure out how they worked.

Fireless cookers were the crockpots of their day, and were quite popular in the early 1900’s. Food was first heated on the stove and then placed into a heavily insulated container to continue cooking.

Hundred-year-old Porcupine Salad Recipe

I have warm memories of making Raggedy Ann Salad and other character-shaped salads using canned fruits when I was a child, so I was thrilled to see a recipe for Porcupine Salad in a hundred-year-old cookbook.

Porcupine Salad was fun and easy to make, and it turned out beautifully. Almond slices are inserted into a canned pear half, and whole cloves are used to make the eyes.

Here’s the original recipe:

Source: The Housewife’s Cook Book by Lilia Frich (1917)

When I made the recipe I didn’t serve it on a lettuce leaf, and I skipped the fruit salad dressing, but they could be added if desired. I found this recipe in the same cookbook that contained the Fruit Salad Dressing Made with Honey that I made last week, so that dressing could be used to replicate the original recipe’s serving suggestion.

Porcupine Salad

Servings: 1
Time: 10 minutes
Difficulty: easy
Print

For each serving:

1 canned pear half

sliced almonds

2 whole cloves

Insert the almond slices into the larger part of the pear half, then stick the two cloves into the small end for the eyes.

Hundred-Year-Old List of Calorie Requirements by Job

Source: *A Textbook of Cooking* by Carlotta Greer (1915)

For more than a hundred years people have known about calories. Cooks a century ago worried about providing enough calories for people who did hard physical labor. A 1915 home economics textbook showed that a lumberman needed more than twice as many calories each day than a shoemaker.

According to the book:

The man who is working at hard physical labor needs more food than the man who sits quietly at his work. Moreover, one working actively out of doors can take foods which are difficult of digestion for the person of sedentary occupation.

A Textbook of Cooking