Old Lemonade, Iced Tea, and Currant Punch Recipes

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Saturday, June 29, 1912: Put the hammock up this morning after having quite a time with Ruthie. She’s my boss absolute. It’s gotten very hot now.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Sisters! Was the disagreement about the hammock or something else?

Grandma’s mother bought the hammock the previous day. With the weather turning hot—it sounds like she bought it at the perfect time.

Laying in the hammock with a cool drink sounds like the perfect way to spend a hot summer day.

Here’s a couple recipes for cold drinks from a 1912 cookbook:

Lemonade

Boil two cups of sugar and four cups water until a rich sirup is formed. Add one cup lemon juice. Dilute with ice water.

Iced Tea

Make tea. Serve in glasses with crushed ice, with one tablespoon lemon juice in each glass.

Current Punch

4 cups currant juice

4 cups sugar

12 cups water

6 lemons

6 oranges

2 cups tea

Boil sugar and water five minutes; add tea, juice, lemons and oranges sliced, and a large piece of ice.

Lowney’s Cook Book (1912)

A Hammock!

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Friday, June 28, 1912: Mother went to Milton this morning. I had been talking hammock to her for the last couple weeks at least, and behold you when she came home if she didn’t have one.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Awe–It would feel good to relax in a hammock right now.

After all the work harvesting hay, it’s awesome that Grandma’s mother bought her something fun that she really wanted.

Based on the previous day’s entry, it seems has if hay harvesting was in full swing. A hammock must have seemed like the perfect thing to relax in after a hot day of making hay.

An aside—I’m a little surprised that you could buy hammocks in rural Pennsylvania in 1912. Sometimes I tend to think that stores had fewer products than they actually had a hundred years ago.

Making Hay

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Thursday, June 27, 1912: I worked all afternoon out in the hay field, and my hands which were bad enough now take on a deeper shade every day.

DSC04218.crop3 — Click on photo to enlarge (Photo Source: Farm Implement Magazine: July 30,1911)

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Harvesting hay was hot, dirty, hard work. The sun was hot. Horses needed to be led; hay needed to be lifted and stacked . . .

For a previous post on hay making, see Hay Pulleys and Ropes.

DSC04218.crop — Source: Farm Implement Magazine (July 30, 1911)

How to Play the Game of Life: Hundred-Year-Old Advice

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Wednesday, June 25, 1912: Nothing extraordinary done.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

I think that Grandma was in a rut when she wrote this entry.

Here’s some advice hundred –year –old advice about how to get out of a rut:

Dare to be different; dare to take a decisive step to carry out your plans and ideas yourself. Fight your own battle, make a new road if necessary.

Ask no favor of anyone and you will succeed a thousand times better than one who sticks in the old beaten path, and who is always beseeching someone’s influence and patronage.

Aren’t you tired of the rut, tired of walking in file as convicts walk together in stripes? Cultivate enough individuality to refuse to be sewed up in the universal patchwork. The onward sweep of progress in this age has prepared the way for nonconformists. Why not get into line?

As in a game of cards, so in the game of life. We must play what is dealt to us, and the glory consists not so much in winning as in playing a poor hand well. Do not ask for a new deal, but play the cards given you.

You were not born to solve the problems of the universe, but to find out what you have to do and then do it with all your might, because it should be your duty, your enjoyment, or the very necessity of your being.

How many of us exhaust ourselves and wear out our friends by chafing against the chains of the unalterable, by complaining of the cards that are dealt to us in the game of life.

Play the game the best you know how to play it, give your life, your energy, your enthusiasm to the game.

National Food Magazine (June, 1912)

A Chicken for Supper

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Tuesday, June 25, 1912: My Daddy gave me a lecture today. The cause was the killing of a hen whose death I might have prevented had I made more use of my eyes. We had her for supper.

The chicken that we had last night for supper.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

What happened? How did Grandma not notice something that led to the death of a chicken?

I asked my father about this entry. He thinks that the chicken might have been injured by a dog.

In rural areas dogs often are allowed to roam free—and perhaps a neighbor’s dog wondered onto the Muffly farm and attacked a hen. Maybe Grandma didn’t notice the dog –or ignored it.

In any case chicken for supper sounds good—so good in fact that I decided to roast a chicken for dinner last night.

An aside—When my children were in soccer and little league, I often put a chicken or roast in the oven before games (as well as some baking potatoes)—and the meal would be ready to eat when we home.

1912 Flower Gardens

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Monday, June 24, 1912: I got so tired a working today. I am about well nigh used up.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Sounds like Grandma had a rough day. After hard days I enjoy relaxing in my yard and enjoying my flowers.

I know that Grandma enjoyed gardening when she was older. Maybe she also enjoyed relaxing amongst flowers when she was young.

Here are some hundred-year-old drawings of flower gardens in the April, 1912 issue of Ladies Home Journal.

Angel Food Cake with Black Raspberries Recipe

17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Sunday, June 23, 1912: Went to Sunday School this morning. Tweet came home with me. Ma and Pa had gone away and we had the place to ourselves. Miss Carrie was over after dinner.Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Sounds like a fun Sunday with visits from two friends—Helen “Tweet” Wesner and Carrie Stout.

I wonder if Grandma made any deserts to serve her friends. Black raspberries would have been in season.

Maybe Grandma made Angel Food Cake with Black Raspberries.

Angel Food Cake with Black Raspberries

Cake

12 egg whites

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar plus an additional 3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Separate egg whites and bring the egg whites to room temperature. Meanwhile stir together the flour and 3/4 cup of sugar in a medium bowl.

After egg whites have reached room temperature, put the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt into a large bowl. Beat until foamy. Slowly add the 3/4 cup of sugar (about 2 tablespoons at a time) while beating. Continue beating until the mixture holds stiff straight peaks. Gently stir in the vanilla and almond extract.

[Note: In Grandma’s day, they would have beaten the eggs by hand. I feel tired just thinking about it.]

Sprinkle a small amount of the flour and sugar mixture (about 2 tablespoons) onto the whipped egg mixture; and then fold it in. Continue sprinkling and folding the flour and sugar mixture until it all is folded in.

Gently spoon the batter into an ungreased 10 X 4 tube pan (angel food cake pan). Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the cake is lightly browned and the top springs back when lightly touched.

Invert pan until cool (at least 1 hour) and then remove cake from pan.

Black Raspberries

Crush a few black raspberries; stir in several tablespoons of sugar, and add enough water to make the consistency of medium sauce. Refrigerate for at least one hour to give the sugar in the sauce enough time to lose its granularity. Serve over the cake. Sprinkle which whole black raspberries.

An aside—When I was a child I loved the black raspberries that grew in the hedgerows. These days I never can find them in stores.

Two years ago my husband and I planted several black raspberry plants, and this is the first summer that we have lots of berries.

The black raspberries are awesome—even better than I’d remembered them.