If you use a granular wash, such as beauty grains, you will find the skin tone clarified, and the texture improved. (The New American Etiquette, 1941)
An effective routine for the care of the war worker’s skin is frequent, thorough cleansing with warm water and a medicated soap. ("No Ration on Soap," St. Petersburg Times, 27 August 1943)
After cold water is used, an astringent should be applied with cotton, allowed to dry on. Cosmetic counters are full of them. ("To Improve Defects in Facial Skin," St. Petersburg Times, 28 February 1941)
I don't know yet if I'll take them up on any of this advice, but it's nice to know there are plenty of vintage options... The soap and water thing is probably not going to work in the long term for me - at least not just soap and water. I love the clean, but it leaves my face feeling a bit stingy even a couple hours later.
Could it be that I'm getting used to cooking dinner from scratch? For the first time since I started making the vintage dinners, I actually sat down at the table last night without feeling completely exhausted. Here's the menu:
Boiled Potatoes
Buttered Carrots
French Fruit Salad
Gingerbread Square
The Boiled Potatoes and Buttered Carrots are pretty self-explanatory. The Gingerbread was a wartime recipe - made without any sugar or eggs. It was easy to make and yummy fresh from the oven. (No nudges necessary to eat those leftovers!) The superstar of this menu was definitely the French Fruit Salad. The original menu calls for a Jellied Fruit Salad made with the leftover orange, pineapple, and banana from the previous menu (see last weekend). I don't eat gelatin as it's an animal by-product, so I paged through the chapter on salads looking for something I could make using the same fruits. Here's the recipe that caught my attention:
*****
FRENCH FRUIT SALAD
1 orange
1 banana
1/2 pound Malaga grapes
1 dozen walnuts
Lettuce
French dressing
Peel the orange and cut the sections from the membrane with a sharp knife or a pair of shears. If the fruit is allowed to stand in cold water after peeling, the bitter white membrance will come off easily.
Peel the banana and cut in quarter-inch slices. Remove the skins and seeds from the grapes. Break walnuts into small pieces, but do not chop. Mix these ingredients thoroughly and place on ice. Serve on lettuce leaves with a French dressing.
*****
The trick is making the French dressing variation that's suggested for fruit salads. No garlic, no pepper, light on the mustard, paprika, and sugar, citrus juice substituted for half the vinegar. The orange, banana, grapes, and walnuts were a lovely combination. Alas, I couldn't find any Malaga grapes at the supermarket. (Malaga grapes are both red and white grapes originally cultivated in a region of southern Spain. By the '40s, they were a profitable California crop.) My grapes were Chilean. And, no, I didn't peel 'em. What's with the '40s phobia about fruit skins? They're peeling their tomatoes, peeling their grapes. It's perfectly good fiber! And I love the snap of a super fresh grape - skin intact.
7 comments:
...and peeling their mushrooms, according to my old cookbooks. Ick.
Maybe they were concered with pesticides. Seems we know much more about that today than they did then...
Jitterbug, since you live in the desert, I'm not sure you should use an astringent. We both live where it is dry, we're already dried out! (The dry air is almost an astringent in itself.) LOL
The reasons the vegetables and fruits were peeled were: The skins on some of the older varieties of fruits(tomatoes and grapes are two) were too tough to chew. Also, often the fruits and vegetables weren't pretty and blemish free like they are now.
And, there was the pesticide issue.
Would you be willing to share the gingerbread recipe?
Have you ever had sugared grapes? we have often done this at christmas, usually grapes and plums. Yummy, but certainly unnecessary.
My 1955 routine may stay with me. The cold cream, I love how soft and whipped it feels on my skin. I have to admit I feel a little glamorous at my dressing table with my cold cream on my face as I use astringent and cotton swabs to take off my eye makeup. Then a good throrough wash. I have also stared in the morning a good wash with hot water and soap followed by luke warm and cold cream and then immediately splash my face with ice cold water to close my pores. It is great to 'wake up' with!
I hadn't even thought about how the species of grapes, tomatoes, etc. might once have been less edible than varieties that have been developed since that time. I don't really think of pesticides as becoming a major issue until after the war, but that could have been a factor, too, Emer. Especially for farm families who saw what was dusted on those crops!
Peeled mushrooms, yikes! I can't even imagine...
Packrat, I definitely don't plan on using an astringent. Oil is not a problem with my complexion - just lots of sweat! I'll be sure to post the gingerbread recipe soon.
Thanks for sharing your morning dressing table routine, 50s gal. Who needs celebrities when we can feel glamorous right in our own homes!
My 1947 book on beauty The Glass of Fashion by Ira Morris also recommends soap and water for a good clean, but adds that "if your skin feels tight and dry after washing, smooth a very little cream or skin food into the skin, and leave it on overnight after your bedtime wash."
by the way, I remember peeling mushrooms for my mother when I was a child, in fact, I thought that was the normal way of preparing them until quite recently!
I had no idea peeling mushrooms was even possible before this thread! Thanks so much for the quote from your book, Piroska. Clearly, I'm not the first woman in the world with skin that's too sensitive for soap.
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