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
7 comments:
I'm wondering if the cake boxes were for storing fruit cakes?? I'm guessing the vegetable bins where for the root vegetables (turnips, potatoes, onions, etc.) or even apples that didn't need refrigerating. The cook probably stored just enough for a few days then cleaned the bins before replenishing from the store or the cellar.
I have no idea what a cake box is, either.
I'll ask my mom and/or mother-in-law. Maybe they know. I have an elderly neighbor lady who might know, too.
In two houses I lived in when growing up (one in Idaho and one in Michigan)each had a small metal door on the outside of the house by the back door. This door opened into a cupboard in the house near the kitchen. The milk man could deliver milk (raw with the cream on top), cottage cheese, buttermilk (if wanted), cheese, and sometimes ice cream without having to knock on the door. It was nicer than just having the items left on the step in the weather. In Michigan, in the winter, the cupboard was cold enough to keep the ice cream frozen. We had to remember it was milk delivery day and get the milk into the house or the milk would freeze.
My current kitchen has a built in bread box in a drawer. The lid was gone when we bought the house, but the drawer is still lined with white enameled metal. I use it to storing the bread.
My Mum has several cake tins (or boxes). They are just round tins for storing cakes in to keep them fresh. You could also store a pie in there if you wanted. Hers is a set of three in graduating sizes, the smaller one fitting inside the larger one so you just end up with one (did I explain that right?). I think her cake tin set also matches her cookie tin (or biscuit barrel as she calls it).
So kind of a hat box-shaped tin for cakes? With a nested set, I guess you could clear up a little counter space when you didn't have very many cakes, etc. on hand.
Packrat, I bet you're right about the vegetable bins being designed for root vegetables. They would have been handy, too, for folks who lived in city apartments or here in the Southwest where nobody has cellars.
I love the story about your milk chute. Coal was delivered into the house via a chute as well. Old homes have all kinds of odd chutes and cubbies and built-ins!
oh, i have a cake box.. or at least an aluminium cake tin with "Cakes" written on the top... it's round so it would fit a whole cake inside of it.
I have a vegetable basket in my pantry as well... habit I picked up from my parents house, where they actually have a cupboard with three basket drawers... mostly for potatoes and onions
My exciting housekeeping moment of the week - when I discovered that both my refrigerator vegie crispers fit in the dishwasher. The fun don't stop.
*is a bit gobsmacked* American's keep cake-like things in the fridge??? But... they're supposed to be stored at room temperature, and... cold and damp.. and..... *baffled*
Cake boxes (tins mostly) are common here :) Strange the differences between countries :)
"American's keep cake-like things in the fridge???"
*raises hand* I usually keep my cakes in the refrigerator so they don't go bad before we can eat them up. I live in climate very similar to Jitterbug's though.
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