Case of Mrs. F. . . .

I started off the day with a breakfast menu straight from the pages of the February 1947 issue of Better Homes and Gardens. It's one of three menus in an article called "Why Don't You Eat a Good Breakfast?" The author presents profiles of three fictional Americans - the reasons they don't eat breakfast and some purportedly practical and tasty solutions. Here's an excerpt from the first profile:

Case of Mrs. F. . . .

Mrs. F. is overweight, yet has many colds. Her usual breakfast of coffee, frosted sweet rolls (350 calories each) is short of proteins, vitamins, minerals...

While hanging wash, Mrs. F. feels chilled, starts sneezing. Her resistance is low (studies show possible relation between resistance to tuberculosis and foods rich in protein, Vitamins A and C). [Way to scare the skirts off your readers!] A breakfast of fruit, enriched cereal, and egg would have given her food essentials for morning tasks.

Interested in a dieting fad, she decides to skip breakfast entirely, has to draw on her reserves of fat for heat and energy every morning. In a short time she suffers from a fat shortage, marked by constant hunger, lack of pep, vague discomfort...

Woman weighing 130 pounds, keeping house, has a daily energy requirement of about 2,300 calories. Milk is a must.

Suggested breakfast
1 slice canned pineapple with sirup
2/3 cup oatmeal
1 cup whole milk for cereal
1/4 cup coffee cream
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon butter
2 slices toast (enriched white bread)
Coffee

I did make a couple adaptations. Used 1% instead of whole milk with my oatmeal and coffee. Skipped the buttered toast entirely. But then I'm not yet doing the kinds of hard physical labor Mrs. F. was doing in 1947. After my morning chores, I was free today 'til this evening. Stay tuned for Mr. F.'s breakfast issues in an upcoming post...

My routine is going to see a few adaptations of its own during the next two weeks. My sister is taking her youngest home on Wednesday to spend several days with our parents, so I'm going to be playing substitute mom for my older niece. On weeknights, I'll be picking her up at her grandmother's when I get out of work and staying at her house until my brother-in-law gets home from work around 10:30. And because of the way his work schedule falls, I'll have her both days next weekend from 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. It's going to be lovely to spend so much one-on-one time with her, but I am going to be one tired chickadee by the time I crawl into bed each night. (She's only two years old and a ball of energy!) As for housework --- my goal is just to keep things running at the level they have been while all this extra work is afoot. No more new missions until my sister is home and I've had a day or two to recover. If I can keep everything running "as is" for the next two weeks, I'll be very proud.

I may have to shift some of my daily chores around a bit, though. Which is something I need to be able to do with any routine. I want to be sure that I still have some empty-ish time slots left over in every week so that I can make some adjustments when something social comes up or when family calls. As comforting as it is to have an appointed day and time for every chore - and as critical as that is while I'm trying to make habits of these chores - I need to build some flexibility into my schedule so that unexpected things don't trip me up. I think that's going to be key to getting through the next two weeks and getting through life, period. A 1940s housewife would have needed some flexibility herself for that monthly club meeting or when her spouse or child was sick at home and needed extra tending. The daily stuff needs to get done no matter what, but the weekly stuff needs to be more portable. What do you think?

Freshly Roasted. Ground to Order.

Did you see Consumer Reports in the headlines the other day? They did an investigation to see which brand of Columbian coffee was The Best. They tested nineteen brands - everything from Folgers and Maxwell House to Starbucks and Gloria Jean's - and the winner... Eight O'Clock Coffee!

The judges - who tasted all the coffees black - called the coffee a "complex blend of earthy and fruity, with a bright, pleasing sourness."

I guess there's a reason it's been around for 150 years. Eight O'Clock Coffee was once the house brand of the old A&P. They finally gave the brand a name in 1919, after learning from a survey that the two most popular times of day for drinking coffee were 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. By the 1930s, 25% of all coffee consumed in the United States was Eight O'Clock. It was the #1 brand through the 1950s.

Eight O'Clock sells for about $6 per pound. From what I can understand, you can still buy the coffee in whole bean variety, but it's also been available as grounds since 2003.

Isn't it great that a popular 1940s breakfast item is still wowing people today? A coworker told me that her parents used to drink nothing but Eight O'Clock Coffee. It was their house blend, so to speak. I'm going to pick up a bag of Eight O'Clock next time I need some coffee and taste test it for myself. It would make my vintage breakfast table complete.

The Rewards of Minimalism

My breakfast menus for the last two days were published in November 1943 by Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co. in a booklet titled Meal Planning Guide. It was probably one of those giveaway-type things you send for with a self-addressed stamped envelope and a dime. Thursday's menu was super simple:

Tomato Juice

Ready-prepared Whole Grain Cereal

I tried the Weetabix again that I bought last month when I was looking for a whole-grain cereal I could serve hot. It's much, much better cold! Today's menu:

Applesauce

Corn Meal Griddle Cakes

Syrup

The Griddle Cakes were a little tricky. It was a very leisurely kind of recipe, with lots of stop and go. After boiling water, you poured it over a bowl of Corn Meal and set that to one side to wait for it to "swell." Then you added milk to the mixture and waited for it to cool down. Finally, it was time to add your dry goods, and - just before pouring it onto the griddle - fold a beaten egg into the batter. Corn Meal Griddle Cakes also took a bit longer on the griddle than did your plain ol' everyday Griddle Cakes. Like I said, a leisurely recipe. By the time my first batch was finished, it was almost time to leave for work. I think I must have inhaled my breakfast... I hardly remember what they tasted like! Well, I've got plenty of leftovers, so I'll take my time to enjoy them tomorrow morning.

Cleaning the bedroom last night was surprisingly easy. Yep, you heard it here first --- easy! I followed the steps recommended by the manual to a tee. You can kind of break the routine down into five parts. 1) Emptying the room out - hanging the bed covers outside to air, removing the sheets, bringing all the bric-a-brac out to the kitchen for dusting. 2) Bringing equipment into the room - vacuum cleaner, cleaning basket, clean linens. 3) Doing up the bed. 4) Dusting and vacumming. 5) Bringing the bric-a-brac back into the room and giving things a final straightening.

Not so bad. Of course it helps that I don't have very many things in the way of furnishings to clean. I moved cross-country two years ago and didn't bring anything that I couldn't fit in my car. So my apartment isn't exactly overstuffed these days. The manual attends to all kinds of items I didn't have to dust or brush or polish last night: no lamps, no dresser scarves, no draperies, no woodwork, no radiators, no baseboard, no upholstered furniture, no glass table tops, no shades, no curtains, no ash trays. That certainly made things easier. (And to think how much time I've spent wishing I could afford to have my stuff shipped out here!)

My bedroom doesn't feel all that much cleaner than normal, but the sheets have been changed, the carpet's been vacuumed, and the dust has been shooed back into the corners. And just doing that much every week - week in and week out - will be a big improvement. I think I'm going to add one or two of those "if necessarys" next Thursday, though, and step this up a notch.

Making a Schedule

I've just taken the linens off my bed and I'm getting ready to launch my new mission. So in lieu of a post of my own tonight, I thought I'd share an interesting bit on creating a housekeeping schedule from America's Housekeeping Book (1945). It strikes me that the 1940s housewife was probably not quite as overachieving as the housewife we envision during the '50s (or the Super Moms of the '80s, for that matter). She didn't expect to be able to do it all herself and to have a perfect home at every phase of her life.

How to go about making a schedule? First write down the jobs that need to be done every day. Next write down the tasks that need to be done on a particular day of the week. Then make a simple chart, and write down each job at the day and hour when it is most convenient to work it in...

No two homes are exactly alike, and different conditions affect the work schedule. If there is a small baby, the whole household schedule must be built around the schedule which the doctor prescribes for the baby, and more often than not there is very little time left for housework, particularly if household help is not employed. A recent study showed that the care of a new baby takes 5 hours and 41 minutes every day. But after all, baby's well-being is of far more importance than any other phase of housekeeping, and if some other work has to be neglected or done less thoroughly, this state of affairs should be accepted philosophically.

Young children, children of school age, an invalid or elderly person to be cared for all necessitate special adjustments in work schedules. If one or more household helpers are employed, their work schedules must dovetail with the homemaker's.

Investing in the Home

The serving of fruit in my 1944 breakfast menu this morning was a berry-licious first!

Strawberries
Poached Eggs on Toast

Tomorrow, I'm heading one more year back in time to a menu published in 1943...

It's Wednesday - which here in the Jitterbug household means I did a little marketing. I made a couple stops on the way home from work. Picked up a few groceries, and started collecting some of the items I'll need to build my cleaning basket: a large cellulose sponge, a flannel polishing cloth, and a new pair of scissors (so I don't have to keep using the scissors from my mending basket on household jobs!). These "light" marketing trips on Wednesdays haven't done much yet to make my pantry more organized, and I suspect they're not going to make a real difference until I've added a longer trip to the supermarket on Saturdays. For now, I'm just content to try and make a shopping on Wednesday evenings a matter of routine.



As I was taking another look at the bedroom cleaning routine today, I realized that the manual recommends using either a carpet sweeper or vacuum cleaner when giving each room in the house its daily once-over, but when you clean each room more thoroughly once a week only a vac will do. Boy, do they make good use of the attachments. Mine can go untouched for a year, but the authors of the manual advise using your attachments every time you turn around! The vacuum is used to brush fabrics, dust in all those tall or hard-to-reach places - and of course to clean the carpet. Housewives in the '40s who were able to invest in a vacuum cleaner must have felt as if the appliance replaced several hours of work per week that hired help might have provided their mothers a generation before. Vacuum cleaners were a hefty investment. The $48.50 price tag on the Hoover above (plus trade) would be equivalent to more than $700 today!

Irons in the Fire

No sooner did I get home from work this evening and it's almost time for bed! I don't know how the time away from work slips by so quickly on these weekday evenings... It's going to make some of my weekday housecleaning missions loom large. (Can you tell I'm getting the jitters about the mission ahead on Thursday evening?)

On the other side of the equation, I've noticed that ironing my laundry in one fell swoop has actually created some time in my mornings. How cool is that? I pick out my clothes for the day and just pluck them from their hangers. Ready to go. No lugging out the ironing board. No heating the iron for one or two items. One of the reasons I never used to iron everything at once is because I thought the clothes would be wrinkled again by the time I went to wear them. That they'd get wrinkled while they were hanging in the closet. That's actually not the case - which has been a wonderful surprise. It's been a couple weeks, but it's nice to see some payoff from the ironing mission.

And speaking of ironing, I'm getting ready to do just that tonight. The manual advises me to arrange my ironing area with an eye toward moving the clothes from left to right: "Place the clothesbasket at your left, a clothes rack at your right, and be sure there are coat hangers near at hand." Here are a few of the Top Ten tips I'm still striving to be mindful about:

2. When you straighten material on the ironing board or roll of a rotary ironer, use the palms of your hands and smooth from the center out. Your fingers are apt to stretch the fabrics and pull them out of shape.

3. Iron with straight strokes, with the thread of the fabric.

5. Collars, cuffs, sleeves, belts and trimmings are ironed first, then the flat sections of the garment.

My breakfast menu for the last two days has been another of the trio from the 1944 edition of the Good Housekeeping Cook Book:

Half of Grapefruit
Omelet
Toasted English Muffins

The secret I've discovered to making a lovely, golden omelet is keeping the heat at a steady medium. A shade hotter and the omelet starts to brown. At least that's how it works on my stovetop. They're all a little different!

A-Tisket, A-Tasket

One of the guiding principles of housecleaning in the 1940s seems to be that you make as few trips back and forth from one room to another. You carry about your tools and equipment, dirty dishes, or bric-a-brac on trays or in baskets. Whatever it takes to save you an extra step. And so one of the first steps in cleaning bedrooms on Thursdays is to tote your vacuum cleaner and basket of supplies into the bedroom. "With a cleaning basket, there will be no need for hurried trips back to the source of supply for forgotten items." This certainly saves some time with one bedroom, but it'd be an extra big help if you had several bedrooms and maybe a nursery to clean!

The authors of the manual suggest using a "small inexpensive open market basket with a handle." To fit all your supplies comfortably, it should be at least 12 inches in length, 10 1/2 inches wide, and 8 inches deep. Here's a list of recommended tools and supplies:

Whisk broom or upholstery brush (for brushing draperies and upholstery)
Small soft brush (for dusting carving, etc.)
1 treated dustcloth (for daily dusting)
2 cheesecloth squares (for washing and drying woodwork)
Cotton waste (for applying polishes and cleansers)
1 flannel polishing cloth (for rubbing or polishing)
1 cellulose sponge (for washing woodwork, walls, etc.)
Art-gum eraser (for removing soiled spots from walls or from lampshades)
Wallpaper cleanser (dough-type or pad)
Furniture polish or lemon oil or wax
Mild scouring powder or whiting
Paint cleaner
Carbon tetrachloride (4-ounce bottle)
Oil of peppermint
Scissors

Are you stocked up? I'm not sure if I even have a basket to my name, but I'll rummage about a bit and see what I can find. As for supplies, I've got a sponge, some scouring powder (Comet), and a pair of scissors. That's it. I'm clearly underprepared for housekeeping. Hey, maybe that's why it's so painful to me... Interested in making some of your own treated dustcloths? Here's a recipe:

Treated Dusters

1 pint hot water
1/4 cup lemon oil

Combine hot water and lemon oil. Dip 4-5 cheesecloth squares (20" by 20") in solution. Press solution through cloth thoroughly. Squeeze out all excess moisture. Dry thoroughly.

Confession Time

So it turns out that I'm a bit of a streaker.

I suppose it's natural when you live by yourself... You just stop bothering to put on a robe and slippers every time you leave the bedroom. And though it really isn't a problem if my blinds are closed, I don't think it's very vintage-minded of me to be running about with only my nightclothes on.

Every time I see a movie from these years, the heroine (or villainess) always seems to wake in the morning with her slippers on the floor by her bed and her bathrobe draped over the foot of the bed. Before she steps away from her bedside, she's gracefully attired in robe and slippers. Even in her own home, it's kind of improper that anybody see your nightgown but your mirror and your spouse.

Should I really be treating my home like it's one big bedroom?

Java Jive

My apron is on, my hair is pinned up, and it’s time to get breakfast started. This morning’s mini-mission? Use my Drip-O-lator for the first time. First, let me warm up the kitchen radio. Here’s my 1944 breakfast menu:

Orange Juice
Scramble Eggs with Cheese
Whole Wheat Toast
Coffee

The only Cheese I’ve got in the house is grated parmesan, so I'll use that. My 1945 cookbook does suggest a few more “adds” for scrambled eggs: onion-juice with parsley, sweet green peppers, or canned pimientos.

The Drip-O-lator (patented in 1921 with revisions in 1930) looks like it works very much like your typical drip coffee maker today, except that the water reservoir is fitted on top instead of behind the coffee pot. The biggest difference is that you have to heat up your water separately. The 1940s housewife probably used a tea kettle. I don’t have one, so I’m just going to run some water through my Mr. Coffee - without the grounds (sounds pretty silly, doesn’t it!).

Deep inside the aluminum fixture is a small well for the coffee grounds. My friend tells me that they didn’t use any coffee filters in the Drip-O-lator, but suggested I use a small filter in there if I didn’t want to end up with any stray grounds in my cup. A perforated metal cap with a tall rod for a handle fits down in there on top of the well. You fill the top of the fixture with hot water and it drips down through the well and into the coffee pot. My water’s heated, but I’m not sure how long I can expect the coffee in the Drip-O-lator to stay warm, so I’m going to start my Scramble Eggs with Cheese first…

The water has been added. It looks like it’s going to take some time for 5 cups’ worth to work its way through the well and down into the coffeepot. While we're waiting, here are a few early ‘40s pictures of the Drip-O-lator in action:

Okay, breakfast is ready, but the coffee’s not. The Drip-O-lator works nowhere near as quickly as my Mr. Coffee. Will the coffee be richer? I’m going to go ahead and eat. Coffee later…

It looks like coffee. It’s not as hot as the coffee I’d pour from my modern coffee maker. (And they didn’t have any microwaves for a quick re-heat!) I gather percolators cooled down real quickly, too. Tastes about the same as the coffee made in the modern coffee maker. It may be tinge richer. Can't quite put my finger on the difference. There must have been housewives trying to keep the coffee warm by putting the pot on a burner, because there's a warning stamped inside the pot. The pot will explode if you heat it on a burner or over an open flame.

I love coffee, I love tea.

I love the java jive and it loves me.

Coffee and tea and the java and me.

A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup!