The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

This evening's 1945 dinner menu was fairly regrettable. Though I can't say it wasn't a learning experience.

Pie of Carrots, Potatoes, Peas, Potato Crust
Cucumber, Lettuce Salad
French Dressing
Bread Pudding
Lemon Sauce

The Good
Okay, the pie turned out pretty good. My nod to commercially prepared foods was in the canned peas I used in the pie. It was basically a vegetarian version of a shepherd's pie. Instead of flavoring the white sauce for the filling with Worcestershire sauce, I used an herb seasoning salt - and the pie smelled so good! Tasted yummy, too. You know what's funny about the recipe for the Mashed Potatoes that topped this dish? They're seasoned with salt and white pepper. And I think the only reason it's not black pepper is esthetic. That they wanted the Mashed Potatoes to be as pure in color as possible.

My cookbook contained a recipe for a Cucumber Salad and a Tomato, Lettuce Salad, so I combined the two to make a Cucumber, Lettuce Salad. 1940s tastebuds leaned toward salt, so the sliced cucumber was salted and refrigerated before being served on a bed of iceberg lettuce. I prefer my cucumber straight up, but I think that a preference for that fresh, veggie taste is probably a more modern sensibility. '40s cooks tended to really mix things up when it comes to their produce.

The Bad
I think I've only eaten Bread Pudding once before and it was very good. A little moist for my taste, but nice, big cubes of bread with cherries and cinnamon. My mom may even have added nuts. My Bread Pudding? Not so delicious. The recipe called for bread crumbs rather than cubed bread, so I ended up with more of a very thick cake batter. The Pudding was flavored with vanilla, nutmeg, and raisins. When I first read through the recipe, it mentioned setting the baking pan in a pan of hot water and baking the whole affair in a moderate oven. Sounds like steaming, right? I jumped at the chance to do some steaming again, but I think the author of the cookbook actually meant that I should bake the Pudding in a steamy oven. In any event, it was far from finished after an hour in the steamer. I popped it in the oven, but I'd honestly forgotten just how moist a Bread Pudding is supposed to be, so it was two hours later before I decided the Pudding was never going to be dry in the center... Blech! It was tough and rubbery on the outside, mushy on the inside, and the raisins and nutmeg - they're an acquired taste. A very vintage taste, I suppose.

The Ugly
My Lemon Sauce was pure, unmitigated disaster. I've never used a double boiler - never even owned a double boiler - but a larger saucepan set on top of a smaller saucepan did a decent job. I should give the recipe the props it deserves. It looked like it might have been a nice sauce. Unfortunately, I started it in my only remaining pot with that old "non-stick" coating. You know... the kind where the black coating eventually flakes off into your food. (All my other pots and pans are stainless steel.) The recipe instructed me to beat the butter into the sauce and - I could kick myself! - but I reached right for the electric beater I'd taken out for the mashed potato topping on my pie and hadn't used. I soooooooooo should've used a whisk. My lovely Lemon Sauce ended up with all these little black specks floating about in it! Completely inedible.

Time to do a little decluttering of the cookware cabinet.

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.

Adoration

Have I mentioned lately how much I adore ironed - and ironing - sheets?

It's so satisfying to smooth away those wrinkles. To smell the scent of lily of the valley rising from your hot sheets all because you tucked them away in the linen closet last time with a floral sachet. To see a nice, neat stack of sharply creased sheets and pillowcases ready to be put away until the next time you use them on the bed.

DISCLAIMER: I still haven't gotten the trick of ironing fitted sheets. They're still a fairly wrinkly mess by the time I put them away. (My linen closet shrieks when it sees 'em!) Maybe it's time to return to using nothing but flat sheets again. Maybe these new-fangled fitted sheets aren't worth it...

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?

Love Story

Remember how I said after making my first 1945 dinner menu how much better the food I prepared for myself tasted? Well, I think I'm gonna have to take that back. Two dinners later, I'm finding myself so tired from the workout in the kitchen that I can hardly taste my meal.

And it is such a workout. Balancing a great pot of potatoes as you carry them over to drain in the sink. Twisting about between the pots on your stovetop so you can lift the lid on one without injuring yourself with steam from another. Just working in all that heat is a challenge. I turned my air conditioning up and pulled my hair back simply to try and feel a little more cool. By the time I sat down to dinner, I was wiped - and almost not even hungry enough to enjoy the meal.

Whipped Potatoes

Buttered Beets

Tossed Greens Salad

Chiffonade Dressing

Chocolate Pudding

I suppose this is the same kind of curve anybody goes through as they're getting in shape. Toning the muscles, learning the moves... I have to remind myself that the most I've done in "making dinner" for years has been: Open box. Heat in oven. This is a whole new world for me, and it's going to take some time. I hope! It really makes me wonder what dinner was like for Mother back in the '40s. Could she really enjoy a meal as much as might her husband and children when she had worked sooooooooo hard to plan it, shop it, and prepare it?

The 1940s seem to have been an era when home-cooked and commercially prepared foods both found a home at the dinner table. I'm trying to keep that tradition myself, including at least one item that's somewhat ready-to-eat. Last week: Canned Green Beans. This week: boxed Chocolate Pudding mix. These items were both readily available to most American households and - for a "bachelor girl" like myself - would have been particularly important. What a blessing they must have seemed to a busy '40s housewife! Even one course - made one or two steps easier --- what a gift. We see prepared foods today with such an overlay of their nutritional dangers. The MSG, the sodium, the preservatives and additives, the trans-saturated fats. It's hard to remember how wonderful they must once have seemed. And in their infancy, prepared foods weren't quite as chock full of the not-so-good stuff as they are today. They were still relatively basic, but what a help to knock even a quarter-hour off the time it took to prepare dinner...

Another miracle - the dishwasher. This was an appliance available only in the '40s to those with some serious cash. As hard as you work towards preparing a meal - and as nice as it would be to relax at the table and enjoy your meal - the dirty pots and pans and cooking utensils can absolutely haunt you! In my case, it was the red water from my pot of beets that had splattered all over my nice, clean stovetop. All I could think about was how nice it had been to see my reflection in my stovetop the day before. Would the beet juice stain? What about the cutting board? Would it be forever pink? There was still some milk left in a saucepan since I'd overestimated how much I needed for the Whipped Potatoes. Would it stick terribly to the pan?

Having worked so hard over this meal, it was great to scrape and rinse and whisk those dishes out of sight. I used to think of my dishwasher as my archnemesis. It didn't seem to clean the dishes very thoroughly. There was always that nasty crumb tray to clean out. And I never understood the whole rinse/don't rinse debate. "Of course you don't rinse," I thought. "What good does it do to have a dishwasher if it's not going to do the job for you?" Well, I'm here to tell you... it's all about the rinse. Since I started rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher (per the manual), I've found that only an occasional dish or utensil has a bit of residue and needs to be soaked and re-washed. The crumb tray? I haven't had to clean it in weeks. 1940s housewives who were lucky enough to own a dishwasher must have cleaned 'em 'til they shone and kissed 'em when no one was looking!

What a Fabulous Surprise!

What a treat to learn this morning that Weenie_Elise had given me the "Your Blog is Fabulous" award! Especially since I've so enjoyed reading her own blog, Ode to Mrs. Beeton: Fun and Frivolity from Housewifery's Greatest Patroness. I'm still new to this whole blogging thing, so I hope I'll follow the rules correctly:

1. You must pass it on to 5 other Fabulous bloggers in a post.
2. You must include the person who gave the award to you and a link back to their blog.
3. You must list 5 of your Fabulous Addictions in the post.
4. You must copy and post these rules in the post.

I have lots of Fabulous Addictions, so these are just a sampling:

1. Playing with my darling nieces. Seeing the light in their eyes and hearing the sound of their laughter... They make me feel like a little girl all over again!

2. Vintage radio programs - from music to drama to classic comedies like Fibber McGee and Molly and The Great Gildersleeve. What a treat to get a glimpse of my grandparents' world through these programs.

3. Playing the piano. I don't own one right now, so I'll take my chances anytime, anywhere. I can storm out all my passions and leave the keyboard relaxed and refreshed.

4. Pad Thai with Vegetables and Tofu. Yum-a-licious!

5. New England. It took moving away to realize that I'm a New Englander down to the marrow of my bones. I miss the woods, I miss the trees, I miss the lakes and rivers and streams, I miss the brick factories with their hundreds upon hundreds of windows, I miss the beach. What I wouldn't give to be able to magically transport my nieces (see Fabulous Addiction #1) back there to live. Oh, I suppose their parents can come along, too. :)

So I'm also allowed to bestow this fabulous suprise on five other people. It's like Christmas in March!

from laura ingalls wilder to cyberbessie... for scouring the Little House books with a historian's eye.

Vintage123... for sharing the quirky, wonderful goodness of vintage ads.

Roxanne at The Haven of Home... for making me look at my pantry with a whole new perspective.

Things Your Grandmother Knew... for reviving the home economics that can add so much to our homes in 2009.

And last, but certainly not least:

Stuff White People Like... for regularly making me laugh 'til I cry.

Dressing with a Twist

While reading up on kitchen cleaning during the last few days, I came across a bit of advice in the manual that I hadn't seen before. The authors of America's Housekeeping Book (1945) recommend that the housewife complete all possible preparations for lunch and dinner before giving the kitchen its daily cleaning. In other words, after giving each of the other rooms its daily tidying - but before cleaning the kitchen - she "put away all cleaning equipment except that needed for kitchen, and carry out any necessary food preparation for lunch or dinner." That way, she has as little to clean up as possible after lunch and dinner. Anything that can be prepared beforehand and tucked away in the oven or refrigerator can be cleaned up after during this mid-morning cleaning. Once the kitchen is tidy, she sets to work on whatever her weekly chore for the day might be - wash, ironing, etc.

That's the plan, anyway. I'm sure much of this work was kind of staggered, especially the laundry - as you needed to get it out on the line as early in the day as possible. And if you were going to be giving the bathroom, for instance, its weekly cleaning on Thursdays, you might skip giving it a daily once-over that particular day since you'd be spending plenty of time in the bathroom later on.

My vintage dinner menu for this evening contains a couple items I can make beforehand and refrigerate. So in the spirit of making those last few minutes before my meal as easy as possible, I'm going to set to work on them this morning. As a dressing for my salad, I've chosen a Chiffonade Dressing - a variation on the basic French Dressing recipe which looks like it might be a good match for my rather plain Tossed Greens Salad. (I haven't yet figured out where this dressing recipe gets its name. Any ideas?) The French Dressing recipe is included in the following post:

http://destination1940.blogspot.com/2009/03/of-cabbages-and-kings.html

Here's the twist for this evening's dinner. I'm going to try and cut this recipe in eighths so I don't end up with too many leftovers:

*****

CHIFFONADE

Add 2 tablespoons each of chopped green pepper, olives, parsley, pimiento and 1 hard-cooked egg, chopped. Add chopped red peppers and cooked beets, if desired.

*****

The other dish I can prepare in advance is the Chocolate Pudding. My cookbook includes recipes for a Steamed Chocolate Pudding and a Molded Chocolate Pudding, but nowhere does it mention a recipe for a plain and simple Chocolate Pudding - as the dessert's described in the menu. Since the menus are supposed to be budget-conscious, I'm going to guess that the author intended for her readers to purchase a boxed chocolate pudding mix. Not the instant kind - I'm not sure they were around in the '40s. The kind which still needs to be cooked then refrigerated.

Too Tired for Titles

My, oh-me, oh-my... What a day! I spent in total about three hours working on my kitchen. Most of it this morning - then I cut out at noon as I had some place to be - then I was back to work this evening to finish the job. Thus far, cleaning the kitchen has easily been the most physically demanding chore. I took a couple breaks to drink some water and, once, to lay down on my bed and close my eyes for a few minutes.

The basic layout of the routine is organized around the three major appliances. First, the refrigerator. Second, the range. Third, the sink. Which makes sense - as you use the sink so much in cleaning things - from the crisper bins and racks in the refrigerator to the drip trays on the range. By the time you're finished cleaning everything else, the sink gets a final scrub and polish and you're finished. I'm actually not quite finished. My garbage can is airing dry outdoors on my landing. I'll bring it in in a few hours and throw a clean bag inside.

What was interesting was how few cleansers I needed in a room that gets as dirty as the kitchen. Per the manual, I used baking soda dissolved in cool water to clean out the inside of the refrigerator. Scouring powder to clean the drip trays. And lots of hot water, scalding water, and soapsuds. The only tools I needed: a sponge, a few clean dish towels (I put these in the wash as they got soiled), and a nylon scrubby thing. Some steel wool would have done a better job on the drip trays, though, so I picked up a box of those at the grocery store for next week. You really can do an amazing job with just a very few simple tools and cleansers. The disinfectant habit is so ingrained in me that it was tough not to use some of the stronger cleansers I had on hand. For a finishing touch, I guess. We've been so bombarded with ads promoting antibacterial cleansers and disinfectant wipes that it's tough to figure out whether these things are truly important in housekeeping or not. The only time the manual recommends using a disinfectant is occasionally in cleaning the garbage can.

Although I didn't even notice when I typed up the list of chores for the kitchen, there are several major items missing! The floor, for one. Which is strange, as the manual mentions floor care for every other room in the house. They do mention in a chapter on "Floors" that the "kitchen floors may need to be damp-mopped every day" and "may require washing once a week or oftener." They just leave this item out of the daily and weekly routine entirely. The authors of the manual never mention cleaning up smaller appliances. And they neglect entirely any care needed to a breakfast nook or dining alcove in the kitchen. These kinds of things are certainly covered in other chapters, it's just odd that they are aren't mentioned specifically in daily or weekly chores for the kitchen. The authors are usually so detailed!

I'm so tired I can't even think in a straight line, so I'll leave you with my 1945 dinner menu for tomorrow evening and call it a night:

Whipped Potatoes
Buttered Beets
Tossed Greens Salad
Chocolate Pudding