This morning's menu:
Stewed Prunes (saving the juice for another breakfast)
Corn-meal Mush
Coffee
Isn't it funny how we've almost completely removed the prune from modern cookery? There are all kinds of recipes for desserts and salads involving prunes in vintage cookbooks, but the prune has gotten a completely bad rap today. They've been relegated to a bad joke on the playground. I'm just flipping through the index of my 1945 cookbook, and I see Prune Apricot Upside-down Cake, Prune Blanc Mange, Prune Ice Cream, Prune Pie, Prune Chiffon Pie, Prune Rye Bread, Prune Turnovers, Prune Whip, Spiced Prunes, Stuffed Prunes, Stewed Prunes. What happened... when did Americans decide that prunes were to be shunned from our tables?
We still love plums - why not their wrinkly brothers?
Adaptations:
The menu recommended flavoring the Corn-meal Mush with Bits of Cooked Bacon, and this was a no-go for me as a vegetarian. I served the Stewed Prunes on top of the Mush, so they added some flavoring to the cereal. The menu also included Toasted Buns, but the added carbs didn't seem necessary, so I skipped the course.
Lessons Learned:
1.) The Stewed Prunes turned out deliciously, the Corn-meal Mush not so much. I've never made this before so I was flying blind on this one. The cookbook recommended using the recipe on your package of cornmeal. Mine didn't have a recipe for mush, so I had to rely on the proportions suggested in the cookbook. I boiled the water and stirred in the cornmeal slowly. The cornmeal almost instantly turned to mush, but there were already lumps which I was never able to remove. I thought that it would take 15-20 minutes to be ready for the table, so had to leave it on low heat while I waited for the prunes to be ready.
2.) I found myself wondering today how the stewed fruit in this morning's breakfast and in last Sunday's breakfast would have been served. I've dished them up on top of the cooked cereal each day, but I wonder if it'd be more appropriate to the period if the fruit and cereal were served in separate bowls. My mother, who grew up during the '50s, used to serve stewed prunes occasionally and it seems to me that they were always in a separate dish. The dishwashing hater in me is sounding off all kinds of alarms that I don't need to create any extra, unnecessary dishes to wash, but I suspect that the everyone-in-one-bowl approach is not truly vintage. On the mornings I've made breakfast at home, I've consciously used my grandmother's small cups and saucers to try and find a more '40s feel for my breakfast table. They hold a lot less coffee than do modern coffee mugs.
4 comments:
i haven't had prunes in years... i remeber that they were yummy, and had really cool pits in them...
cornmeal mush doesn't sound that appetising though, glad the prunes added something to it
It's been decades for me - until yesterday! - but I can remember chewing around the pits when I was little. It was a fine art to get all the flesh off without biting into the pit. My mother must have served them cold or warm, not fresh from the stewpot as mine were yesterday morning. They may not have looked very pretty, but they made a nice rosy-colored juice. The cornmeal mush, on the other hand, had very little flavor to it. Maybe I need to add a bit more salt next time...
I had very old parents ( i was born when my mother was in her mid 40's) and they were actually a 1950's couple. Having been teens in the war (WWII) they were full of old recipes and things that they simply stuck with. I have had corn meal mush with bacon (I am not a vegetarian and I LOVE bacon) believe me it's much better with bacon and bacon fat. I also LOVE the prune whip from my 1950s betty crokcer cook book. Yeah, why are prunes so bad. I saw some prunes 'newly packaged' in the store the other day and was appaled. The new approach seems to be individually wrap each prune! Juat what we need MORE PACKAGING!
Oh, I am sure there are all kinds of ways I could season the corn-meal mush to make it tastier --- and none of them involve meat. Maybe some sun-dried tomato paste, or fresh basil and oregano, or just a pat of organic butter with salt and pepper. I'm trying to stick as closely to the cookbook's serving suggestions as possible to get a feel for the flavors enjoyed during these times.
When I was buying prunes, I noticed that they're even being labeled differently these days. They're now "Dried Plums."
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