How would you define food? Here’s what a 1921 cookbook called The Science of Food and Cookery had to say:
Foods are substances which, when taken into the body, supply the necessary elements for promoting growth, repairing its broken-down tissue, and furnishing it with heat and power for muscular work. True foods contain the same elements as are found in the human body, and thus they are able to build and maintain the body.
Some ingredients languish in my pantry during the summer months, and then, as the weather cools, I again begin to regularly use them. Rye flour and molasses are two such ingredients. I hadn’t used either in months, but when I came across a hundred-year-old recipe for Rye Gems (Muffins) that called for both ingredients, I just had to try it.
The rustic sweetness of the molasses merges beautifully to create a hearty muffin. The Rye Gems make a nice dinner muffin. I served them with butter. They nicely complemented the roast beef and baked winter squash that I served with them.
Here’s the original recipe:
Gem pans traditionally were made of cast iron, but I just used my usual muffin pans and it worked fine.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
1 2/3 cups rye flour
1 1/3 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup molasses
1 1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
3 tablespoons melted butter
Preheat oven to 400° F. Sift together rye flour, flour, baking powder and salt. Add molasses, milk, eggs, and melted butter; stir to combine. Grease gem pans (muffin pans), and then fill each gem 3/4th full with batter. Bake for approximately 20 – 25 minutes or until an inserted wood pick comes out clean.
Advertisements provide a window into the culture (or at least an idealized culture) of the times. This advertisement for White House Coffee makes me glad that I live in 2021 instead of 1921. The role of women was definitely different a hundred years ago.
Pears are a wonderful Fall fruit that often get overshadowed by apples, so I was pleased to find a hundred-year-old recipe for Baked Pears. The pear halves were easy to make and very tasty. The Baked Pears were coated with a buttery brown sugar sauce.
I was surprised how little sauce this recipe made – just enough to coat the pear halves. There was not enough to spoon extra over the pears when serving. I did not really miss the extra sauce, but extra sauce would have made a nice presentation.
Here’s the original recipe:
I skipped the whipped cream when I made this recipe.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
8 pears (Use pears that are ripe, but still firm.)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter
whipped cream (optional)
Preheat oven to 350° F. Cut the pears in half lengthwise, and then core the pears. Arrange the pear halves in a large baking dish (such as a lasagna dish or a rectangular cake pan). Sprinkle each pear (2 halves) with one tablespoon sugar, and dot each half with 2 or 3 small pieces of butter. Place in oven and bake until tender (about 30-35 minutes). Increase heat (425° F.) to lightly brown the pears. (The pears can be browned using the broiler, if a dish is used that can go under the broiler.)
Remove from oven. Best when served warm. If desired, serve with whipped cream.
Smaller versions of this recipe could easily be made. For each pear, just use a tablespoon of brown sugar, and a little butter.
When my children were younger, I always worried that they would get sick from eating too much candy after trick or treating. I wondered – how much candy is too much? And, should I be firm and ration the candy they’d collected? . . . or was it okay if I let them binge? Here’s what a hundred-year-old home economics textbook says:
Small children are better without candy, but it may be used by older persons if it is eaten in reasonable amounts. Candy is more easily digested at the end of a meal than between meals. Candy contains a large proportion of sugar, and sugar when eaten alone is irritating to the digestive organs.
Elementary Home Economics (1921) by Mary Lockwood Edwards
I’m always looking for looking for nice breakfast foods, so decided to try a hundred-year-old recipe for Jelly Omelet. For the omelet, the eggs are separated and the whiten beaten, which results in a light and fluffy omelet. I’ve seen many recipes in old cookbooks that call for beating the egg whites when making an omelet, and I’ve previously made several of them – and they always turn out wonderfully. By comparison modern omelets seem heavy. Modern recipes seldom call for beating egg whites. I can’t figure out why the older method of making omelets seems to have largely been lost over time.
To make a Jelly Omelet, the cooked eggs are spread with jelly prior to folding to make the omelet. I used currant jelly – though other jams, jellies, or marmalades could be used. The sweet tartness of the currant jelly was a nice complement to the eggs.
This recipe is a keeper, and I anticipate that I’ll make it again. I have lots of jellies that I made last summer, and this is a tasty way to use some of the jelly.
Here is the original recipe:
I did not garnish with a “thin white sauce.”
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
4 eggs, separated
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
4 tablespoons hot water
1 tablespoon butter, melted
jam, jelly, or marmalade
additional sugar to sprinkle on top of omelet (optional)
Preheat oven to 375° F. Place egg whites in a bowl, and beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Set aside.
In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks, then stir in the salt, sugar, hot water, and melted butter. Fold in the beaten egg whites.
Heat a large oven-proof skillet (or use an omelet pan) on the top of the stove using medium-low heat. (If needed to prevent sticking, liberally grease the skillet before heating.) Pour the egg mixture into skillet, and gently cook for 1 minute. Turn the pan 90° to help ensure that the omelet cooks evenly, and gently cook for another minute. Then move the skillet to the oven, and bake for about 8 – 10 minutes or until the egg mixture is set. Remove from oven, and loosen the edges of the omelet from the skillet with a knife or spatula, then turn onto a plate. Thickly spread jam, jelly, or marmalade onto one half of the omelet, and then fold in half. If desired, sprinkle sugar on top of the omelet. Serve immediately.
A hundred years ago people believed that food should be well-chewed before swallowing, and that eating food too rapidly was not healthy. Here is what it said in a 1921 book:
Hasty Eating
Digestion begins in the mouth. But when food is improperly masticated, it enters the stomach with only slight alteration. The ptyalin of saliva is not present in sufficient quantity, under such conditions to produce any effect on the preliminary digestion of starches, with the result that the food passes through the duodenum practically unchanged, and in coarse particles, where it is likely to produce irritation. One authority says:
“Although much of the mechanical preparation and mixing of foods is of a necessity done in the stomach, some of it may advantageously be done in the mouth. The stomach should not be required to perform the function of the gizzard of a fowl.” –Human Foods, page 227.
Hasty eating, or bolting of food, is a fruitful cause of over-eating. The food does not remain in the mouth long enough under this condition, to give the satisfaction that it gives when thoroughly masticated; so, in an effort to satisfy the craving for food, more is taken than the body requires. This habit leads, moreover, to the taking of too large a quantity in too short a time, which serves to paralyze, as it were, the nerve impulses that communicate with the brain, and as a result the important message “Enough” does not reach the brain until an excess of food has been consumed.
When farinaceous foods (breads, cereals, potato, etc.) are well chewed and intimately mixed with saliva, they are more efficiently digested, and go farther, less food being required than when not well digested. Bread made from the entire grain requires more mastication before it can be swallowed than does spongy white bread, and itself promotes good digestion. Dry foods, which induce mastication should have a prominent place in the history.
The Science of Food and Cookery (1921) by H.S. Anderson
