Hold the Cream

I tried to do it, I really tried. This morning's 1945 breakfast menu started out with Sliced Bananas with Cream. My arteries won the contest, though, and I ate the Bananas without the Cream:

Sliced Bananas

Poached Free Range Eggs on Toast

Cream and Top Milk were a staple fixture on the 1940s breakfast table. And not just for coffee. People laced their cooked cereals with Top Milk. They served cold cereals in bowls of Cream. Now it shows up with fruit. I guess they didn't have the constant commentary on health running through their heads that we do today. Cream and Top Milk were considered nutrient-dense foods, not cholesterol-laden substances to be used in strict moderation. I hesitated before the Cream in the dairy section at the grocery store last Wednesday. Thought I really ought to taste the dish for the sake of The Experiment. But I just couldn't do it.

At any rate, this was the last of the breakfast menus in the front of my cookbook. When I started trying 'em out a couple weeks ago, I expected these menus to be a little ritzier than the ones in the budget feature in the back of the cookbook. Fresher ingredients, maybe. So how did they measure up? Here's a bit I wrote about the budget-conscious menus:

Nearly half of the meals (43%) were built around some sort of cooked cereal. 27% of the menus were built around an egg dish. Baked goods were the main attraction for 20% of the menus, and cold cereal for the remaining 10%... I'm also a vegetarian, so I've taken any meat dishes out of the menus. This didn't take much time. These were the war years, and only 20% of the menus even include meat.

The menus in the front of the book are only built around cooked cereal 9% of the time. Nearly two-thirds of the meals (64%) feature an egg dish, and baked goods lead the way in 27% of the menus. You can see right away just how useful cooked cereals would have been to the housewife who had to be especially careful with money. Somebody who was a little more comfortable financially could count on having eggs at the breakfast table several times a week. Another major difference is that 46% of these front-of-the-book menus include meat - twice the amount as in the back of the book. The only kind of meat referenced in the budget section is bacon, while the menus in the front of the book include codfish, ham, and sausage. Another glimpse into the kind of pantry a thriftier housewife would have kept in the '40s.

I'm not done experimenting with breakfast just yet. I've been able to find eight more vintage breakfast menus in cookbooks and magazines, so I'm going to try these out and then move on to dinner. The first trio of menus is from a 1944 edition of the Good Housekeeping Cook Book (New York: Farrar and Rinehart). I'm also going to fire up my "new" Drip-O-lator for the first time. A friend bought me this lovely contraption last summer and it looks absolutely fabulous on my stovetop, but it was missing the aluminum drip unit that fits in the top. Until Christmas, that is. It's all assembled and ready to go, but I feel a bit like I'm trying out a new Bunsen burner in the lab. Will it make good coffee?

Menu Making

My breakfast menu this morning marks Day 30 in my cookbook's special feature, "How to Feed a Family of Five on $20.00 per Week." Let's see... according to a historical inflation calculator, $20 in 1945 would be the equivalent of about $230 today. That's a pretty decent weekly budget for groceries. Even for a family that size.

Sliced Bananas on
Shredded Cereal

Easy, yummy, and filling. It was so filling, in fact, that it made a small lunch feel just right. I like that. It's been a nice perk from eating breakfast again. I've found this is definitely not the case on the mornings my menu is built around Waffles, Griddlecakes, or French Toast.

Nearly half of the meals (43%) were built around some sort of cooked cereal. 27% of the menus were built around an egg dish. Baked goods were the main attraction for 20% of the menus, and cold cereal for the remaining 10%. I adapted most of the menus to leave out the third serving of carbs. This may have worked for a woman preparing breakfast for several people. She'd be able to enjoy a little serving of several different dishes. I'm cooking for one, so I've been adapting the menus a bit to make sure I don't end up with a fridge full of leftovers and some extra inches on the waistline. I'm also a vegetarian, so I've taken any meat dishes out of the menus. This didn't take much time. These were the war years, and only 20% of the menus even include meat.

So, here's the question: I'm trying to decide what to do next. There are 11 more breakfast menus in a chapter on "Menu Making" at the front of the cookbook. Presumably, these were menus designed for a housewife who didn't have to be as budget-conscious as the one with the $20 grocery bill. They'll probably be a little more elaborate. Fresher ingredients, maybe? I'm not sure. Should I pick up some of these ritzier menus? Or go back to Day 1 of the menus I've been using --- maybe drop some of the empty calorie days? (Despite her coupon clipper menus, even the author of the cookbook says "Doughnuts... jam, jelly, marmalade, and pancakes with sirup should be considered desserts... to be eaten only after more wholesome foods have been eaten.") Should I start working on some of the dinner menus. Maybe make a 1940s dinner once a week? What do you think???