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

Fine Tuning

Has it been a week already? It seems like just yesterday I was recovering from all those sore kitchen-cleaning muscles, and now I've got sore muscles and pruny fingertips all over again... I had planned on starting a new weekly mission today, but because this kitchen thing is still quite shaky - I'm giving it a second whirl tonight - I think I'll wait on the new mission for another week. The kitchen is about 2/3 of the way done and that's taken me 1 3/4 hours. Last week, the same amount of work took me about 2 hours. So I'm gaining! I've got more work to do, but it's getting late and I still have some evening chores, so I'll finish the kitchen tomorrow morning.

I'm not quite convinced that the refrigerator really needs a thorough cleaning every week, but I'm trying to stay open to the idea and see if it has any surprises for me. It really is useful to take this opportunity once a week to empty the fridge of leftovers that are past their prime, produce that needs to go, and other items that may have expired. This Friday, I wiped down the exterior as well as the interior and was pretty skeeved to find how dirty the side of the fridge had become. It's one of those surfaces I walk by several dozen times a day and had never really noticed how much it needed cleaning! The refrigerator is shining now, along with the range.

Speaking of the range, did you know some of these appliances come with a little metal thingie under the stovetop which can hold it up as you clean underneath? Just like popping up the hood of a car! I had no idea it was there - but it comes in very handy. So did the steel wool I picked up last weekend to clean the drip pans this time. They're not spotless yet, but much shinier than last time 'round.

You know, it occurs to me that housewives who cleaned the outsides of their refrigerators on a weekly basis would probably find it easier not to keep any magnets or other odds and ends stuck all over it. I've always thought refrigerators with a little decor, shall we say, made a kitchen feel more cozy, but it sure takes a heck of a lot of time to remove all that decor in order to clean what's behind it! Let's just say some of that decor didn't make the cut this week.

Taking Stock

I’m working away at the week’s ironing this evening - but I’ve got a few moments while my iron heats up from the “Nylon” setting to the “Polyester” setting, so I thought I’d share a few tips from the manual on cleaning refrigerators.

The authors of America’s Housekeeping Book (1945) acknowledged that many American kitchens still contained "ice refrigerators" and wrote up lots of instructions - completely mysterious to me - for removing accumulated "slime" from the drain pipe and refreshening the ice supply with an occasional bath of baking soda. (Boy, am I glad not to have to worry about slime in my kitchen!) Here is some welcome advice on caring for "automatic" refrigerators:

Daily:
Wipe up any spilled food at once.

Wipe top of refrigerator with a cloth wrung out in soap water. Rinse with a cloth wrung out in clear water. Dry.

Remove any fingerprints around the handle of the door with mild soap and water. Rinse and dry as above.

Weekly:
(This cleaning is usually done after defrosting. Unless your refrigerator is equipped with an automatic defrosting device, it should be defrosted whenever the accumulation of frost is ¼-inch thick.)

Empty the pan under the freezing unit, wash in warm suds, rinse thoroughly and dry. Remove freezing trays, empty and wash in hot soapsuds. Rinse with scalding water and dry. Remove racks or shelves and wash in the same way.

Remove racks or shelves and wash them in hot soapsuds. Rinse with scalding water and dry thoroughly.

Wash interior with a cloth wrung out of cool water in which borax or baking soda has been dissolved. (1 tablespoon of borax or soda to 1 pint water.)

Wash exterior with mild soapsuds. Rinse with a cloth wrung out of clean water, dry thoroughly.

Follow the manufacturer's directions for oiling the motor at regular intervals. (With most new models no oiling is necessary.)

This last Saturday morning was the first time I'd cleaned my refrigerator since the middle of last summer --- and then only because I was expecting houseguests. Though cleaning it every week still sounds a bit excessive to me, it's definitely a little easier when you empty all the food at once as well as the racks and bins. Plus it's a great chance to face your scary leftovers and get rid of any expired foods you might have forgotten about. The fact that the manual suggests that the kitchen be cleaned the day before the housewife does the bulk of her marketing makes good sense, too. She'd be able to check on the freshness of whatever produce she might still have on hand. And if she's running low on something she keeps in the fridge, here's her chance to take stock and add it to the grocery list!

Have any of you ever cleaned with borax? I've never used it before. Is it safe? Is it useful in cleaning other items?

A Wash and a Trim

Today was Marketing Day and for the first time in two weeks, I've brought some vegetables home - a bag of organic carrots, two bunches of celery hearts, and a bag of pre-shredded cabbage. (I'd have bought this by the head, but went to a smallish grocery store this evening and they didn't have any heads of cabbage.)

Those of you who've been following my blog may have noticed that the breakdown I've been keeping for "My Food Dollar" isn't exactly heavy in the fruits and veggies. Part of the reason is that I eat a lot of prepared or frozen foods and decided to clump these into the Fats, Sugar, and Miscellaneous Items category - unless they quite obviously belonged to another category.

The reason I brought home so much fresh produce today? I'm planning on preparing the first of the 1945 dinner menus in a few days. Friday, at the earliest. The difference between my usual groceries and today's groceries is pretty striking.

At any rate, one of the recommendations in The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947) is that the housewife wash and trim the fresh vegetables she brings home on Marketing Day before putting them away. That way they'll be ready to go whenever she's preparing a meal. Makes lots of sense for some veggies, I think. I puzzled a bit over what to do with the carrots. I could definitely wash them, but should I scrape and trim them now or wait until just before using them? Wouldn't the carrots get all dried out? As I was washing them, I suddenly realized something that should have been obvious. Most 1940s housewives would have brought carrots home with the leaves still attached! Trimming that bit off would have made storing carrots much easier even if you didn't do anything else. The carrots I buy these days haven't any leaves, so some of the prep has already been done for me.

When it came to the celery, I cut off the base and cleaned out all the soft yellow stalks on the inside before washing the celery. The clean veggies are drying now on a clean towel. I haven't yet decided what kind of container I'll store them in... Should I be storing them lose in the crisper? I'm embarrassed to feel so unsure of myself about such basic things. It forces me to face just how little my meals resemble whole, natural foods (breakfasts now excluded!)...

Okay, I just took a look in the fridge. The crispers are going to need a thorough cleaning before I store anything inside 'em!

Plugging In...

One of the best things I've learned at the ironing board sounds so simple: if you're a rightie (like me) and you plug in the iron to your left, you'll inevitably end up with a miserably kinked-up cord. All it takes to prevent that is just to plug in the iron to your right. And vice versa for lefties. That's it! The cord to my iron is now smooth and straight - and sooooooo much easier to use. What a difference that one little change made.

As I was doing my ironing last night, it occurred to me that the casual clothes so many of us wear these days are actually not as easy to iron as were the more formal clothes of the '40s. So many of the "blouses" (for lack of a better word) that I wear are some sort of cotton blend with a soft knit texture. And anyone who's tried to iron a tee shirt knows that you're fighting a losing battle against wrinkles. As soon as you iron 'em out, they pop up again in new places! Ironing a fabric with a little more substance to it is much more simple. It sounds kind of ironic - as I'm sure all those vintage collars and plackets and pleats took time - but the fabrics must have been much satisfying to iron.

This morning's breakfast:

Prunes

Graham Muffin (the last of the leftovers)

Baked Eggs

I've never baked eggs before, so I wasn't sure what I'd find when I opened the oven. I didn't have any of the "individual baking dishes" recommended in the recipe, so I used a mini loaf pan and they turned out just fine. A little rubbery - I think I'll bake them at a slightly lower temperature next time - but still good. Do you think I could use something like a popover pan or muffin pan to make Baked Eggs next time? Or would they turn out better in some kind of ceramic or stoneware?

I set forth on my new mission this evening as I stopped at Trader Joe's on the way home from work with a very small list in hand. The manual doesn't have any recommendations for the homecoming shopper, but there are a few words of advice in The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947):

Use all the time you need for marketing for these days and putting the food away. Wash and trim fresh vegetables and put them in the refrigerator ready for use.

That's a great idea. It'd certainly save you some time when it was time to put supper on the table or pack the family's lunch boxes. I didn't get any veggies this trip. Guess I'll have to get those crispers in my refrigerator ready for use next time...

Competing Visions

Since I still had a Grapefruit Half left over from yesterday, today's breakfast was more of the same. Once again, I ended up with citrus juice on my tablecloth. I've decided that I'm either going to have to loosen each of the segments at the kitchen countertop before bringing my grapefruit to the table or take the tablecloth off the table when grapefruits or oranges are on the menu! Maybe I'll have pick up some non-vintage table linens for just these kinds of mornings...

I came across an article in a July 1944 issue of The American Home with one woman's routine in keeping house. "I Run My Career Like a Star" was written by Celia Mattox, a mother of three. Here's the bit on her morning schedule:

Whatever day it is, it begins at 6:30. To wash, I slip into a becoming dressing gown - watch the shade, for a strong color gives a pasty look to a face without any make-up. Then I change into my blue denim outfit to prepare breakfast. [She explains earlier that while at home during the day she likes to wear a "becoming cotton blouse" with a blue denim skirt and "gay apron."] That over, the dishes are stacked, the house is aired, and I snatch a few minutes to do my exercises.

There's one woman who opted for a "dressing gown" while she spent some time in the bathroom washing up, but she was fully dressed before hitting the kitchen. I notice that she mentions stacking the dishes (maybe she doesn't wash her breakfast dishes right away either) and airing her house (fresh air is given lots of emphasis in the 1945 housekeeping manual). It sounds like Mrs. Mattox wouldn't have much to argue about with the authors of the manual - at least when it comes to her early morning routine. Heck, maybe she even owned a copy herself!



The Good Housekeeping Housekeeping Book (1947), edited by Helen W. Kendall, also contains a schedule for housework, though it's not quite as detailed as the one in the 1945 manual. Each member of the household is instructed to "hang up night clothes and put away slippers" before finishing up in their bedrooms in the morning. As soon as breakfast is over, "the dishes should be washed and the kitchen straightened up before you go about other household work."

• Remove dishes from the table, scrape, and rinse under the faucet if they need it. Stack them neatly at one side of the sink.
  
• Put away foods that belong in the refrigerator.
  
• Clear away waste food. Get rid of grounds from coffee or tea pot and empty cooking utensils which have been soaking during the meal.
  
• Clean sink so that it will be ready for dishwashing.
  
• Prepare dishwater and wash, dry, and put away dishes.

Kendall suggests that the living room be tidied up just before going to bed at night. "To start each day with the room neat, take a few minutes before going to bed to pick up newspapers and magazines, empty the ash trays, and take glasses into the kitchen." While the 1945 manual advises every member of the family to do their part in straightening up the living room at bedtime, they seem to have built this step into the post-breakfast routine just in case others hadn't done their part after Mother retired for the evening. Those crazy teenagers and their record players! As a one-woman household, I have more control over this situation, so tidying up the living room at bedtime rather than in the morning is certainly an option.

Kendall recommends that pots and pans be soaked during the meal so they're ready for dishwashing as soon as you are. A great concept, but what if your family's interested in a second serving? This would probably work out fine for me unless I had any leftovers that needed to be dispatched with beforehand. The biggest way in which Kendall's routine differs from my 1945 housekeeping manual is dishwashing. She is adamant that the breakfast dishes must be washed before doing anything else. This is not a bad idea, but the fact that I have a dishwasher which only gets filled up a couple times a week makes it kind of a moot point. I might give some thought to getting the pots and pans washed up and put away right after breakfast. If I straightened up the living room at bedtime, that'd free up some time for dishwashing in the a.m.

What do you think? Have you come across any vintage housekeeping schedules that offer advice for these early morning chores?