Have you ever poached an egg? I haven’t, so this morning’s 1945 breakfast menu was truly an experiment. I had no idea whether I’d end up with something edible or not. To start, here’s the menu:
Tomato Juice
Poached Free-Range Eggs on Toast
The menu originally included a serving of Prepared Cereal, but the first two courses were filling enough. I like my eggs over hard, so I knew it was going to take a long time for them to do more than just “set.” Thirty minutes later, they were still several shades less done than I like, but it was almost time for me to head to work and I had a living room to tend to this morning! (I think I should have used a smaller pan.) They tasted pretty good - a very rich egg flavor - but it’s probably going to take a while to get this recipe down.
Pick up and replace small articles belonging in the room, such as books, magazines…
My vintage housekeeping manual advises the 1940s housewife to treat each of the kinds of reading material she might find scattered about the living room in a different way. Newspapers were just “picked up” and probably soon recycled into one housekeeping use or another. Magazines were returned “to table or rack.” They could be enjoyed for several months and then cut up for Patty’s paper dolls or, for those with a penchant for saving things, tied up in twine and tucked away in the attic. Books, however, merited several pages of advice. And, in fact, the schedule even allots time in the late afternoon for every housewife to enjoy reading or another quiet activity before the rush of the dinner hour. Even the layout of your bookcases was broken down to a science:
Bookshelves should never be crowded, because, if the books are jammed together, bindings may be injured or even split, from pressure. On the other hand, books should stand straight on the shelves, and not be allowed to lean, no matter how much space there is, for leaning subjects the binding to severe strain. If the shelves are only partly filled, support the books with bookends. If books are too large to stand upright on the shelves, lay them flat. Never put them at an angle. The shelves should be several inches deeper than the books and the books should be set well to the front of the shelves, to allow circulation of air around them. Never stack books in unsteady piles from which they may fall and be badly broken.
Check out some of the titles you might find on the carefully stacked shelves of a ’40s home. These are the four bestselling novels of the decade:
The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas (1943)
The Big Fisherman by Lloyd C. Douglas (1948)
Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor (1945)
The Miracle of the Bells by Russell Janney (1947)
…and the four bestselling pieces of non-fiction:
The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald (1945)
Peace of Mind by Joshua L. Liebman (1946)
Speaking Frankly by James F. Byrnes (1947)
Under Cover by John Roy Carlson (1943)
Drat. Eggs again! I just can’t get away from them today. I’d better take a look at tomorrow’s menu.
5 comments:
wow! you successfully poached an egg! mine always come out swirly and broken
My eggs were nowhere near as neat as the illustration in the book, but they were fairly oval-shaped and the yolks stayed in place. I lost a little of the white around the edges of the pan at the beginning of the poaching process.
The cookbook includes one very strange-sounding alternative method for poaching eggs. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Form them into little nests. Drop a yolk into the middle of each nest, and drop the whole nest into boiling water.
That is my favorite breakfast ever. Except I don't poach, I fry.
well, i was inspired, so gave poaching another try... 1 out of 2 isn't too bad
Congratulations!
It's beginning to sound like poaching eggs is a fine art.
According to my cookbook, they were also once called Dropped Eggs.
Post a Comment