Let Them Eat Cake!

I've been struggling with the same 2 lbs. for about a month now... Weighed in at 147 - again - this morning. Could this be the dreaded plateau? Or is it just that my body's been through the wringer during the last few days and I'm retaining water? All I know is that I weighed in at 143 before going into surgery on Thursday. (It was a great moment!) I'm slowly but surely taking up my exercises again. The walking feels good, but I'm being extra careful with any of the stretches, etc. that involve my chest or arms. I indulged in a little bit of "comfort eating" on Thursday evening and Friday, so I'm trying to rein that in as well. I'm not beating myself up about it. These 2 lbs. may disappear just as quickly as they reappeared.

Otherwise, I seem to be healing normally. I'm still taking the ibuprofen and using cold compresses to keep the swelling down, but there doesn't seem to be any bruising yet at the site of the incision. And I don't look lopsided either! I was a little worried at the news that this mass was 2 cm. in diameter --- my breasts aren't big enough these days for 2 cm. to go unnoticed.

Hmmm. I wonder if there's a fun way to segue from breast size to oven temperatures...

I've been baking a cake this morning for my father's birthday. My folks arrived in town yesterday afternoon for the winter. I'm not sure they're feeling very festive - it hasn't yet been two weeks since we lost Nana - but I know they're relieved to be here and we'd like to mark the occasion in some way. It's not a fancy cake. I'd love to have had the energy to try some vintage cake and icing recipes. It's just a Betty Crocker mix for a butter pecan cake with some coconut pecan frosting. From a can. Eek! Sacrilege. I am baking it in a chiffon cake pan, though, and that's a very '40s shape.

The thing I wanted to say was that I noticed that the times and temperatures given on the back of the cake mix box are right on the money when it comes to my oven. Now this definitely isn't the case for me when it comes to vintage recipes. My oven always seems to run too hot for recipes from my 1945 cookbook. I invariably have to set the temperature about 25 degrees less than the vintage recipes instruct me to and remove whatever I'm baking from the oven about five minutes ahead of time --- or risk ending up with something burnt and dried out. I used to think it was my oven, but now I'm thinking that the ovens of yesteryear just weren't as well insulated as modern ovens. So they had to bake things at higher temperatures and for longer periods of time. That's my theory, anyway. Have any of you who regularly bake using recipes from this era found this to be the case?

Some of the fine ingredients that go into this sensational Betty Crocker Cake Mix can't be bought in stores. So a woman simply couldn't put them in her own cake! What's more, in her own kitchen, a woman can't duplicate the scientific measuring and blending of ingredients that go into the mix. And, remember, this isn't just a cake mix, it's a Betty Crocker Cake Mix!

Actually, cake mixes aren't entirely un-vintage. General Mills introduced three Betty Crocker cake mixes in 1948: GingerCake, Devil's Food, and PartyCake. The PartyCake mix could be used to bake a white cake, yellow cake, or spice cake - depending on whether you added egg whites, whole eggs, or spices to the mix. Cake mixes cost 35 to 37 cents per box - which translates to just over $3 today. With faith that science and new technologies could solve all problems, the post-war era was prime for the success of such products as cake mixes. What you and I know with hindsight is that no cake mix on the market beats the taste and texture of a cake made from scratch, but 60 years ago there was great hope that the cake mix would someday be perfected and produce a cake even better than that.

Cake mix or no cake mix, I'll be enjoying a very small portion myself!

It's Eight O'Clock Somewhere

Do you remember when Consumer Reports ranked Eight O'Clock Coffee the best brand of Colombian coffee? I don't make coffee at home very often - it's free at work - but I've been impatiently waiting for my supply to run out so I could try some Eight O'Clock for myself. When I finally reached the bottom of the can, I put coffee on my grocery list and picked up a bag of Eight O'Clock in whole bean form, grinding it at the supermarket. It was priced somewhere in the neighborhood of $7. More than I'd usually pay for coffee, but an affordable luxury if I'm only making coffee at home once or twice a week. There was an air of excitement about the Jitterbug place yesterday morning as I measured the Eight O'Clock into my Drip-O-lator... Well, it turned out to be a great cup o' joe! A very smooth flavor without any of the aftertaste I've gotten used to with store brand coffee. In honor of the occasion, I thought I'd post some tips on coffee making from The American Woman's Cook Book (1945). First, the all-important measurement:

For weak coffee, use 1 level tablespoon coffee to 1 cup water.

For medium coffee, use 2 level tablespoons coffee to 1 cup water.

For strong coffee, use 3 level tablespoons coffee to 1 cup water.

There were all kinds of methods for making coffee in the '40s. Drip coffee makers - the ancestors to our modern Mr. Coffee - seem to have been the most popular as the cookbook addresses these first:

FILTERED OR DRIP COFFEE - There are many coffee-pots on the market for making filtered coffee. They all contain some sort of a strainer which allows the water to drip through the coffee very slowly. Pulverized coffee should be used for this method. Place the coffee in the strainer and pour boiling hot water over it. If the infusion is not strong enough, refilter it. Serve immediately. Glass tricolators of oven glass ware are excellent for making filtered coffee, as they hold the heat well.

BOILED COFFEE - Put the coffee into the pot with the white of an egg or some egg-shells and a little cold water and stir all together thoroughly. Pour boiling water over it and place on the stove. Cover the spout of the coffee-pot or stuff it will paper to preserve the aroma. As soon as it boils up, reduce the heat and allow it to settle. A quarter of a cup of cold water poured in will cause the coffee to settle more quickly. Do not allow it to become muddy by careless pouring. To avoid this, decant it into a hot serving-pot.

PERCOLATED COFFEE - Use the correct size percolator for the number to be served. Measure fresh-running cold water into pot to same number of cups. Measure coffee, finely ground or pulverized into the basket, using 1 heaping tablespoonful to cup of water. Use medium hot or flame until percolating begins, then lower flame and continue for 8 to 10 minutes, when the liquid in the glass cap is light brown or deep amber. Serve at once. Prolonged percolating dissipates the fine aroma and flavor.

Has it really been a week since my last vintage dinner? I don't think I've shared the results yet. Here's the menu:

Peanut Roast

Pennsylvania Cabbage Slaw with Sour Cream Dressing

Dried Apricot Cake

The recipe for Peanut Roast was clearly the dream of some well-intentioned person with a misconception that protein can come from a limited variety of sources. Desperate to put some protein on the table during wartime, the author combined a whole mess of chopped peanuts with onions, garlic, bread crumbs, egg, and "pea pulp" (I used a can of condensed green pea soup). They suggested serving it with a cream sauce --- and I can see why. It's a very dry dish. You'd definitely want to smother it with something creamy and flavorful! This one didn't even get turned into leftovers, but I tried to finish my plate and thanked God that we've discovered soy since Peanut Roast was dreamed up.

The Pennsylvania Cabbage Slaw was absolutely lovely! A quick and dirty version of cole slaw, and a cool side dish that'd be perfect for a summer evening. The Dried Apricot Cake was very good as well. I chose it from the cookbook when I realized the Apricot Whip originally on the menu was made with raw egg whites. The Dried Apricot Cake was sweet and moist and pretty easy to make once I'd finished stewing the apricots. It's funny to me still that I can actually leaf through a cookbook now and find any number of recipes where I've already got all the ingredients at hand. The bennies of a well-stocked pantry! I'm going to post the Pennsylvania Cabbage Slaw recipe as it was definitely the star of the show last week. Any Keystone Staters out there who know why this dish is named after Pennsylvania?

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PENNSYLVANIA CABBAGE SLAW

2 cups shredded cabbage

1 green or red pepper, cut fine

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup Sour Cream Salad Dressing [see below]

Mix shredded cabbage, pepper and salt; pour dressing over cabbage and mix well. Makes 6 portions.

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SOUR CREAM SALAD DRESSING

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon cayenne

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons vinegar [I used apple cider vinegar]

1 cup sour cream

Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. Makes 1 cup.

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Bins and Boxes

Both my vintage housekeeping manuals are in agreement. Once a week, the housewife should:

Clean, scald and sun vegetable bins, bread and cake boxes.

At first, I thought they were referring to the vegetable crispers in my refrigerator. But they're not. Though vintage refrigerators also contained a bin for vegetables, the authors of America's Housekeeping Book (1945) recommend that the ideal kitchen include ventilated vegetable bins located near the sink. If I had a scanner, I'd scan the illustration for you - but I don't, so I'll try to describe them. Imagine a sink with a double basin. Under the left basin, is a slim door which opens to reveal two metal drawers with mesh sides that slide out on rollers. I wonder what kinds of vegetables would be stored in bins like these... Were these a holdout from the days when iceboxes didn't have storage space for any but the most perishable of vegetables?

I don't have one myself, but I've seen plenty of bread boxes. Usually the type with the rolling or flip-up top. I've taken to freezing the bread I buy so that it won't go stale before I eat more than a few pieces, but I can certainly see how handy a bread box would have been to a livelier household where all meals were made at home. Here are a couple of darling enamel-coated bread boxes:





I don't think I've ever seen a "cake box," though. Plenty of covered cake trays and cake stands. Do you think that's the kind of thing the manuals are referring to or something completely different? Now, I grew up with a mom at home and a cookie jar always stocked with homemade treats, but even I can't fathom having such a supply of cakes that you needed to keep a separate container for 'em on the countertop at all times! Maybe - like the vegetable bins under the sink - these were found primarily in older homes or rural homes where iceboxes or small refrigerators just didn't have the space to store cakes and other baked goods.

I finished cleaning my kitchen today, so it's full steam ahead for another of my 1945 dinner menus tomorrow night. Here's the plan:

Pie with Carrots, Potatoes, Peas, Potato Crust
Cucumber, Lettuce Salad
Bread Pudding
Lemon Sauce

Commercially Prepared Foods

So here's the plan for the week ahead... I've made it through the last two - going on three - days with all my chores intact. If I can get through the next three to four days and am able to keep up with everything I was doing before I got sick, I'm going to go ahead and add a new mission to my routine at the end of the week. I've just got to talk myself through each day and focus very hard on what needs to be done each morning or evening and what I need in order to get started the following day. This evening? I've got laundry to sort in preparation for tomorrow's wash and, of course, my usual evening chores.

As I was writing about dinner last night, I started thinking about the balance between prepared foods and whole foods which made up a 1940s pantry. No mistake, commercially prepared foods were out there and becoming cheaper all the time. And I don't want to make my meal preparations take any longer than necessary if I'm making things from scratch that no busy housewife would have been making herself by the '40s. The only trick is deciding which items were commonly being purchased instead of prepared at home. Here are some of the foods I'm still puzzling over:

Juice
Orange juice still seems to have been served fresh squeezed, while grapefruit, apple, prune, tomato and other juices were usually purchased canned or bottled. Orange juice is the only time juice appears on my 1945 menus as "Chilled," so it's as if they're prompting readers to squeeze this one first thing in the morning and chill it in the refrigerator until breakfast time.

Bread
Sandwich bread was certainly available from grocers, though there was probably still a smaller group of housewives who still baked their own bread. Quick breads were still made at home. Rolls? Probably made at home unless you lived in the city where there were lots of bakeries. People living in small towns and rural areas certainly made their own rolls. Middle to upper class folks in larger towns? I'm not so sure.

Salad Dressings
Hmmm... I have never seen any ads for prepared salad dressings in the '40s, but I suspect there were a very few dressings out there - probably not available though in your typical suburban or small town grocery. In one of the new supermarkets in the city? Perhaps. Maybe even by mail order. Here's the puzzler: check out this photo from the early '40s. That totally looks like a bottle of prepared salad dressing!



Preserves and Pickles
Another fine line here. I've seen lots of ads for grape jelly, orange marmalade, and grapelade. Some of the basic items, like strawberry jam and apple jelly, were probably starting to become available. Anything fancier? I'd guess you either bought it from a speciality supplier or made it yourself. Canning and making preserves and pickles was still a popular activity anywhere people had enough land for gardens.

Cookies
Totally available, but I'd venture to say that most families ate homemade cookies.

Crackers
No longer made at home.

Cakes
I can remember from reading a "biography" of Betty Crocker that cake mixes took a while to catch on. It wasn't considered very feminine to use a shortcut like this one if you were going to go to the trouble to make a cake. I'd venture to say that almost every housewife made her cakes from scratch.

Soup
Canned soups seem to have been considered pretty gourmet during the '40s, especially tomato and cream of mushroom. I'm guessing that working class families and rural families might have stuck to homemade soups, but it wouldn't be long before they could afford or had access to canned soups as well.

What do you think? Can you think of any other food items where commercially prepared substitutes were becoming available, but may or may not yet have become "acceptable" in middle class households? There are probably a zillion things that haven't even occurred to me!