Random Recipe Monday - WWII cake

Veterans' Day is tomorrow. Right now, the population of new veterans seems to be growing and the population of old veterans declining. No matter the war front, we are grateful for their service and I hope everyone can thank their veterans or remember the ones that are now gone.

In that spirit, I thought a recipe from the past might be interesting and for those who are lucky to still have WWII vets in their lives, perhaps a bit nostalgic. I found this recipe at recipecurio, which is a new site to me but one I'll be checking out frequently - she has done a great job preserving older recipes.

This particular recipe was written in the time of rationing so you'll notice the absence of butter or shortening. Not such a bad idea from a cholesterol standpoint anyway. I think the "milk" should be whole milk though. The cake recipe is called "spring beauty" but lemon flavor in November sounds fine by me.

SWANS DOWN’S SPRING BEAUTY CAKE

1 cup sifted Swans Down Cake Flour
1 teaspoon Calumet Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
6 tablespoons hot milk.

Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift together three times. Beat eggs with rotary egg beater until thick enough to stand up in soft peaks (5 to 7 minutes); add sugar gradually, beating constantly. Add lemon juice. Fold in flour, a small amount at a time. Add hot milk and stir quickly until thoroughly blended. Turn at once into ungreased tube pan and bake in moderate oven (350° F.) 35 minutes, or until done. Remove from oven and invert pan, 1 hour, or until cold. Remove from pan.

Remember K-TEL?

Back when music came on records, did anybody else buy those "greatest hits" compilations put out by K-TEL? I know that I had a few of them in the 80s, back when I was awfully fond of Lionel Richie, Thriller and Wham. Thank goodness tastes change. Although, strangely, I'm still usually listening to 70s and 80s music. Hmmm.

I mention K-TEL because my one year blogiversary is coming up in a couple of days and I thought that I would look back to what I posted way way way back last year (forever on the Internets, don't you know...). Unlike K-TEL, I don't know that I'd call these greatest hits, but it's fun to look through the bargain bin just the same.

For those who are long time readers (Hi, Mom and B) you might recognize my various fads; for the rest, I'm spinning some of the oldies:

My fascination with France: Onion Soup, scrambled eggs and a little peek into homemaking in la maison.

To Russia with love: a stew (see the comments for the recipe) and tea.

Waxing Nostalgic: brigadoon, June Cleaver, and aprons.

Thanks to all of you for visiting my blog and posting your wonderful comments. I really appreciate it.

An Inconvenience Truth

Living on a food budget takes the whim out of whimsy. When you can't toss items willy-nilly into your cart, (and who doesn't like a good willy-nilly) then you must make a plan. That plan can't include too many "convenience" foods or the budget will be blown.

Convenience foods are the latest, greatest, add water and stir, microwave for 30 seconds and serve kind of foods that have grown exponentially in the last few decades. Used to be that Hamburger Helper was as convenient as you could get but no more. Now everything from "homestyle" chicken and biscuits in a box, precooked waffles, frozen bread dough, warm gooey desserts that take tablespoons of water (akin to your old Easy Bake Oven desserts) and pot roast in Styrofoam are ready for you to take home.

Grocery stores are getting to be more and more like restaurants; baked chicken and meatloaf under warming lights, hot french bread out at 4pm, fried chicken and deli salads at the ready. All of these things are there because people want them. Those on a 9-5 schedule like the convenience of picking up dinner partially (or totally) made for them at the store, leaving just minutes of cooking time when they get home. But with convenience comes a price.

A price I cannot pay on my new food budget. And so, I put into practice a rule I read somewhere that suggested only shopping the outer edges of the grocery store. The inner aisles are where all the convenient and expensive things reside - things like ding dongs, boxed casseroles, cake mixes, instant thai noodles. The outer aisles tend to be the dairy, meat and produce aisles. The stuff that you actually have to cook and the stuff that tends to be cheaper when you price it per pound. Now of course, one must foray into dangerous territory for staples; flour and sugar are neighbors to instant scone mixes, but going in and getting out seems to help curb the whimsy shopping.

So is convenience bad? No, just expensive. I would also say that most of the "tastes like home" stuff in a box tastes more like home siding than home cooking, but there are some good products out there. I can take a couple of hours to make dinner from scratch because I am home and can build that time into my day. For those folks working outside the home though, it doesn't have to be deli chicken either. There are tons of 30 minute meal ideas that don't use a lot of convenience food. The trick with them (and all recipes, really) is having a plan. Making a menu a week out, getting the groceries lined up, prepping what you can before you make it. Sounds harder than just picking up a pot roast in a box, doesn't it. But it is cheaper, tastier and probably better for you.

You can save your whimsy for shopping at the shoe store or hardware store, or wherever it is that makes your coin purse go pitter patter. Plus, think how proud Al Gore will be if you cut your carbon footprint by eliminating all those pizza boxes, plastic chicken containers and Styrofoam cartons. Bet Tipper cooks from scratch.

Bounce? Not so much

I've always used dryer sheets. You know,those white slips you put in your dryer to keep the static off your clothes and add spring rain fragrance to your socks; those gossamer gremlins that end up stuck to a pant leg and unseen until you are at Starbucks for a mocha. Those sheets.

Always been a fan because heck, adding one of those is just what you do, right? You can't dry clothes in a dryer without one because...well, it just isn't done.

Until you move, and you don't have any, and you are drying a load of towels. Then you check out alternatives to your favorite chemical sheet. It came as a surprise to me that laundry can be static free without them. Surprising but true.

Adding just a splash of white vinegar to the fabric softener dispenser helps diffuse the static and nothing comes out of the dryer smelling like boiled eggs. I have a front loading machine, so I use about a tablespoon of vinegar in the dispenser. For top loaders, I have read that 1/2 cup of vinegar is needed, but I would test this out with a load or two.

I would not recommend this if you use bleach in your wash - bad high school chem lab experiments come to mind. But for normal loads, a little dab will do ya. I've washed towels, socks, everything that used to get a dryer sheet (heck, sometimes two sheets) and haven't noticed anything - no vinegar smell, no static. What I have noticed is less lint in the dryer, no annoying shriveled white sheets stuck onto socks and less money spent on laundry supplies.

So necessity was the mother of invention on this one (not like I invented anything, just searched out an option) and I'm sticking with it. A jug o' white vinegar is a dollar or so, versus four bucks for a small box of sheets. The jug will last for ages and losing the sheets might help prevent build up in the dryer lint trap, which could wear out your machine faster (some people think dryer sheets cause this). Vinegar might even help keep colors from running, so that's an added benefit.

I'll just gladly spend the four bucks somewhere else. Like on a mocha at Starbucks.

How I roll, Pin

Most people, at some time in their lives, own a rolling pin. Whether you cook or not, you seem to have one in your drawer. Likely made of wood, with little handles on the end, your pin languishes in that drawer until you drag it out to make a pie at Thanksgiving or sugar cookies in December. That's a lot of prime drawer real estate taken up by something not used that often. So should you ditch the pin? Nope. These babies have history and style. Put that pin to greater use.

Word around the web is that the Etruscans (those folks that were around pre-Rome in the future Italy) invented the pin. There are artifacts that show cooks proudly brandishing their pins.

Time moved on and with it, pins changed. Marble, clay, wood, glass, and porcelain were all options. Glass and porcelain had the advantage of being hollow so cold water could keep the pin cool while working with pastry. Heck, I'm going to find a porcelain one to try out on pie dough.

The trusty old wooden pin with the handles, the one your grandma probably used and you probably have in your own drawer, came about in the 19th century. The evolution of the pin hasn't changed much since then but new ideas are coming around. Chrome and silicone coatings are things that are making a showing in the world of pins.

Ok, so now you know the 2 minute history of rolling pins. And so what, you may be thinking. Well, there is no necessity for pins in this modern world - unless you count really good tasting things as a necessity. You can buy ready-made pie crusts at the store, you can buy frozen cookie dough and pre-rolled slabs of sugar cookie dough too. So, technically, no one has to have a pin to make their bread, to make their pastry, to live. But the same can be said for every appliance in your kitchen. Just because food exists in some ready-made, pre-packaged, pre-measured, pre-digested form doesn't mean it is any good or any good for you. The old pin, hopefully worn from some use, is your ticket to some tasty food and a hand held reminder of centuries of cooks.

Ok, so some of you aren't buying that argument. Well, if all else fails, you can also collect them. There are some gorgeous examples out there that make some lovely decorative objects. Painted porcelain, cherry wood, decorative handles. Much as with aprons, pins can be collected rather than used. Personally, I say collect and use them. Become the preeminent pie maker in your family. Wow the PTA with your astonishingly thin cookies. Pound those cutlets to within an inch of their meaty lives. Obliterate those crackers for that cheesecake crust. Get that pin out of the drawer and into your hands. You'll never go pre-fab again.

For advice on picking out a great pin (and yes, the kind of pin makes a difference) here is a place to start. For the expanded history of rolling pins, check out Answers.com.

Rebel without a pin

*
I've been thinking about installing a retractable clothesline when we move to the new house. I know that I won't use it all the time; northwest weather is just too unpredictable and wet for that, but on sunny days, I thought I could save a little energy and get my towels and sheets dry in the sun. My idea has met with some skepticism.

The first thing mentioned was "crunchy towels". It's true that towels get stiffer and scratchier on the line than in the dryer, but for me, that doesn't seem like a big deal. I don't wear the towel, after all - it just sucks up water, so the stiffness doesn't seem like a big deal.

Lugging wet towels outside and making sure they don't get rained on was also a concern. I agree the rain might be an issue and lugging towels isn't anyone's idea of fun, but the new clothesline won't be that far from the dryer and Lord knows I could use some exercise.

The skeptics also mentioned how the clothesline will look like the Clampetts (a la The Beverly HillBillies). The line will be in the backyard, so I don't think the neighbors will care - but that argument has some legs. Apparently, there is a legal controversy over home associations that have banned clotheslines, presumably for lowering property values. Some courts have ruled that these restrictions are illegal. The humble clothesline appears to be a line drawn in the air for some folks. Project Laundry has a place where you can register if your community won't allow clotheslines, as well as advocacy information.

I pick my battles and taking on my HOA over a clothesline probably isn't one I would launch, especially since my use is something that would have to be seasonal. I just find it interesting that something as simple as drying clothing in the sun can be an issue that folks have to fight for and about.

Hmmmm...well, we'll see if I get the line or not (and if I use it or not). I'm still researching the crunchy towels angle. Anyone using a radical, rebellious clothesline?

*Another great photo from the Library of Congress collection on Flickr

Talk about Nostalgic Homemaking

*
It was news to me that during the Works projects of the FDR administration, photographers were sent out to capture everyday American life. I suppose I knew those black and white photos of roadstands, farms, city streets had to come from somewhere, but I never bothered to think about it, I suppose. Well, even more surprising than an agency created for the purpose of collecting and preserving Americana during the dark days of the Depression and WWII, is the fact that some of these rare images are in color. Yep, Kodachrome color - brand new technology.

Most of us think in terms of black and white when we think of that time period. Dustbowl departees, desolate farmers, aprons in shades of gray. But a fraction of the photos taken were in color and those photos are accessible now from the Library of Congress. Even the government has gotten into Flickr, because you can find the images there for free. For those who want a more streamline, edited version, with commentary, the book Bound for Glory does a nice job explaining the projects and the photographers who did the work, as well as highliging some of the best images from the collection.

I've found several photos that I have really enjoyed and a few surprises. Bet you wouldn't have guessed how popular dusky peach nail polish was for women during the Depression, women who worked the fields with their barefoot kids along side them, chipped nail polish clearly visible in the photos. The photos of Pie Town are especially poignant and worth a look.

*Photo found here, taken in Pie Town, New Mexico no less.

With a saucepan over the sea

My second foray into the cookbooks of the past is a 1902 volume titled "With a saucepan over the sea..." by Adelaide Keen. Miss Keen claims to have presented recipes from around the world and it does appear that she has found samples from all over Europe (which in 1902 represented the "world" to most Americans).

Ms. Keen may have been ahead of her time with her ideas about eating healthfully. "If we ate freely of greens, in salads and fresh vegetables, all of which are cheaper here than in Europe, we should not need blood purifiers nor quinine; fruit replaces liver pills, olive oil is more easily assimilated than cod liver oil, and strengthening soups are the best tonics. And it may be said that false hair and false teeth are not seen nearly so much abroad as they are here, because the people are better nourished."

Unfortunately for the modern cook, most of Ms Keen's recipes involve parts of animals that we aren't all comfortable eating today. But, that said, she has some recipes with names so curious that I had to include a few.

ANGELS ON HORSEBACK. (English supper dish.)
Cut 2 ounces of bacon into very thin slices, wrap each around a fat oyster, put three on a skewer, using all required, and fry in butter; serve that way on toast, with slices of lemon.

LEMON CAKES, OR KING HENRY'S SHOE STRINGS. (England.)
Beat the yolks of 6 eggs well, add 1/2 pound sifted sugar, the grated rind of a lemon, and 2 tablespoonfuls of orange-flower water. Beat all well, add slowly 6 ounces flour, then whites of eggs beaten stiff, and the juice of a lemon. Pour into ladyfinger tins or on a large pan, very thin; bake 1 hour slowly, and cut in strips.

RICHMOND MAIDS OF HONOR. (England.)
THESE celebrated cakes, or tarts, were invented by Queen Elizabeth, and are still sold at Richmond.

Beat 2 eggs, add 1 quart of milk, and the juice of a lemon. Set in a pan and skim off the curd. Drain it, mix with yolks of 4 eggs, beaten with the grated rind of the lemon, some sugar to taste,- the lemon can be rubbed on it, in two lumps, - a little cinnamon and nutmeg, 6 ounces currants and 1 glass of brandy. Mix well and fill shells of puff paste. Bake 20 minutes.

Jennie June's American Cookery Book

There is something intriguing (for me at least) about reading through recipe books of the past. I find the ones that included household advice to be especially interesting because the now irrelevant and often forgotten advice that was once so vital to the reader really gives me a picture into her daily life. Most people today don't need to know how to stoke the fire in their kitchen stove. We don't apply oil cloth to our floors, use lye around the house (except soap makers) or need to worry if our water pails are painted on the inside (they shouldn't be, by the way). It might be easy to view these earlier works as trivial but in their time, they provided invaluable information to the young women often ill equipped for managing their own households. Authors like Jane Cunningham Croly not only gave relevant information but they preserved recipes and traditions that would otherwise be lost to later generations.

Now granted, the vast majority of the recipes in these books are things I wouldn't want to eat (calf's head cake, anyone? I thought not) but sometimes you can find things worth a try (Susan B. Anthony's apple tapioca pudding, for example). More importantly, you can get a window into the kitchens of women with amazing histories - former slaves, suffragettes, pioneers, sophisticates and farmers. In the case of the Jennie June book, Ms Croly's work was popular enough in the 1870s for six printings. She covered such varied topics as Jewish recipes, the feeding of children, the care of home furnishings, and a thousand or so recipes. Over a hundred and thirty eight years later, I found her Rules for Eating to be as applicable today as they were then:

RULES FOR EATING.
1. Eat slowly as if it was a pleasure you desired to prolong, rather than a duty to be got rid of as quickly as possible.


2. Don't bring your prejudices, your dislikes, your annoyances, your past misfortunes, or future forebodings, to the table--they would spoil the best dinner.


3. Respect the hours of meals, you have no right to injure the temper of the cook, destroy the flavor of the viands, and the comfort of the family, by your want of punctuality.


4. Have as much variety in your food as possible, but not many dishes served at one time.


5. Find as little fault with the food prepared as possible, and praise whenever you can.


6. Finally, be thankful, if you have not meat, that you have at least an appetite, and hope for something more and better in the future.

I'm spending some time reviewing these books from the past and hope to share some tidbits along the way. If anyone knows of a good one, please let me know so I can add it to my list.

Good to the last...coffee

It is said, by the famous "they", that coffee is the world's number two trading commodity, just behind oil. It might be true; coffee rivals older beverages like tea or wine for most-favorite drink status. Coffee arrived on the scene in the 800s in the middle east, though not in a form we would recognize until much later. From Kings to civil war soldiers, coffee has found a place in most cups. Today's coffee is often a triple grande non-fat half-caff no-foam soy latte or some such variation, but straight up java and the many companies that sold it, were fixtures in our homes and restaurants.

As the song goes, "I like java, sweet and hot. Whoops, Mr. Moto, I'm a coffee pot." My grandpa liked to drink Taster's Choice, with cream. You might remember this instant coffee from the popular serialized commercials from the 1990s featuring the British couple. Yuban also made a showing in our house, as did Folger's with the "flavor crystals". I have no idea what those crystals were really made of, but I remember them sparkling in the glass jar.

Maxwell House, of "good to the last drop" fame, started as a coffee for the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, in the early 1890s. Time moved on and the famous slogan began appearing in advertising in 1917. The coffee and the slogan continue to be popular with the percolator set.

Sanka, first marketed in the US in the 1920s, is a type of decaffinated coffee. The company sponsored the first run of the I Love Lucy show and marketed its beverage as a means to bring down blood pressure and decrease nervousness and irritability. I suppose that would be an accurate claim compared with someone pounding back cup after cup of fully caffeinated coffee.

As popular as these brands are, there are many others, some of which are still operating. Hills Brother, Eight O'Clock Coffee, MJB, Red Circle Coffee, State House Coffee and Chock Full O' Nuts.

Coffee's influence is everywhere - where would Niles and Frasier have gone without it or Phoebe and her Smelly Cat song? Joe DiMaggio is remembered as Mr. Coffee as well as a famous ball player. The Andrew Sisters sang for a "Proper Cup of Coffee" and Ella Fitzgerald extoled "Black Coffee". Coffee tins are big in the collectibles market and many a garage has one or two full of nails or screws.

As popular as espresso beverages might be, there are folks that still prefer drip coffee (or french press or percolator, or even instant) to the fancy stuff. I like lattes myself, but more often than not I'd rather have a cup of strong black coffee in a mug, maybe with a slice of pie or starting my day first thing in the morning.

Radio Homemakers - Neighboring over the air

From the 1920s through the 1970s, women in the mid-west could tune into AM broadcasts of fellow homemakers sharing their lives, their recipes and their plugs for certain products. These ladies were among the first female broadcasters. They had regular sponsors and loyal listeners. Isolated farm wives often compared these broadcasters to friends and came to count upon their folksy stories and advice. One of the famous personalities, Evelyn Birkby, considered it "neighboring over the air".

Radio homemakers reached their zenith in the 1950s, with regular newsletter subscribers and publicity photos. Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes, authored another book with Neighbor Dorothy, a radio homemaker, as the main character (Check out Standing in the Rainbow).

It's an obvious comparison to say that bloggers are the new radio homemakers. I think that there are similarities, but I don't totally agree with that comparison. In my mind, bloggers are more like traders on Wall Street - thousands of voices clamoring to be heard, a cacophony of sounds that readers need to sift through to find the blogs that are interesting to them. The radio homemakers operated in a time before FM radio, before television. Their audience were mostly isolated by geography and distance. Rather than Wall Street, these ladies and their fans were Main Street, neighbors chatting over the clothesline, after Sunday services, at the post office. It was more personal because of the voices, the sounds involved. Some of the radio homemakers did their broadcasting from their own kitchens, involving their families in the songs and stories. Listeners came to know them and their lives.

There couldn't be a true revival of radio homemakers because the world has gotten so much smaller. As connected as the Internet has made things, it has also made it far less personal and more anonymous. I still think that blogs have given a voice to every interest and they can serve as modern coffee klatches or homemaking clubs to those who yearn for connection, but the participants have to work to overcome the anonymity and impersonal nature of the Internet. I try to visit the blogs of every commenter and I check in daily with the blogs I consider part of my circle. I also venture forth and look for new blogs, new people that might want to join in for some cyber coffee and a virtual slice of pie. It might not be the same as neighboring over the air, but many bloggers are my friends just the same.

Wedding showers - gifts that last

When I was married, I adamantly refused to have a wedding shower. I have always felt that wedding showers were just a way to hit guests up for yet another gift. I'm weird like that. I absolutely, positively, in no way shape or form wanted one. So of course, I had one. My mom and sis threw a lovely party for me and it was loads of fun. But back before the party, my dear dad let it slip that a party was in the works. Now, recall how much I made it clear that I didn't want one, and you'll understand why my dad was panic-stricken that he had let the cat out of the bag. My sister, ever the resourceful one, salvaged the surprise by claiming it was only a recipe shower. Surely, I couldn't object to our family bringing copies of recipes over to share with me. No, of course I couldn't object to that - that seemed like a great idea. Grandmas, aunts, cousins converging on my mom's house for a bit of cake and bringing a favorite recipe for me. I thought the idea was grand.

As it turns out, this was a cover - the shower was a bonafide shower with gifts, games, punch - the works. And, as I said, it was a glorious party, even if it went against my grain to receive actual gifts. But the cool thing about this party is that most of the guests did bring a recipe. My sis spread the word about dad's faux pas, and the accomodating guests reached into their recipe files and brought along something to share. The recipes were all put inside a little binder for me, dated and autographed by the cook.

Funny thing is, I don't think I have one of my original shower gifts left - except the recipes. I'd be hard pressed to make a list of what I received, if I didn't cheat and look it up in my wedding album. Cookware, I'm sure. A nightie or two were probably in the mix, but all I really remember are those recipes. What means more is that some of the cooks are no longer near to me, some of the recipes gone from memory or practice. These recipes are something that I hang on to, that I pack up and take with me when I move, that I dust off every once and awhile and just read.

My plan this year is to take these recipes and add them to a larger whole. I'm going to make a book of recipes to give to my son when he's older, so he'll have the recipe for our favorite pie, our favorite cupcakes, our favorite Christmas breakfast. Maybe someday, his lucky partner will want to see these recipes and try making them, for old time's sake.

You say catsup, I say ketchup

Ketchup - the tomato kind - used to be the number one condiment in the US. The honor anecdotally belongs to salsa now, but ketchup is still tops with the junior set. My son orders his "ketchup burger" when we eat out and there better be a pile of it on his plate to go with fries.

Ketchup itself though doesn't have to be made with tomatoes. The condiment was made with fish brine, according to Answers.com. I'm not sure I'd love fishy ketchup, but I do like fish sauce in some things, so who knows. There are plenty of recipes on the Internets that offer apples, onions and other unexpected bits in the sauce. For those who garden, making your own ketchup might be a good way to use up a bumper crop. And just remember that great scene in "Meet me in St. Louis" with Judy Garland's family making ketchup. That's about as close to Judy as I'm going to get (well, I did sing Over the Rainbow at graduation, but that is another, embarrassing story...).

If you are inspired to try your hand at making a batch, you might as well give the famous
Fog City Ketchup recipe a try. If the diner is good enough for Mike Meyers in "So I married an Axe Murderer", it is good enough for me.

If you are like my sister and don't care for dear old ketchup, try using it to clean your copper pots and utensils. Oh, and don't think your ketchup lasts forever in your fridge. I've seen it reported that ketchup only lasts one month once the bottle has been opened. My goodness, I'm still using some from summer of 2007, but I guess I'll be picking up a new bottle. Perhaps it was a rumor started by a certain company that starts with H.

Salad as therapy

Holiday Salad found here

What constitutes a salad? Well, that question isn't a simple one, really. It depends entirely on when the person asking the question lived. A salad in the 1920s would have looked like Tomato aspic or boiled vegetables. A 1950s salad would likely have included gelatin, cream and perhaps corned beef. Salads in the 1980s were big, full of chopped meats. Then we discovered baby lettuce and bags of tiny spinach leaves. And so it goes, as the stomach churns, so too turn the days of our salads.

As with many things, we are enjoying a resurgence in popularity for retro things. Retro recipes are coming back and folks are enjoying simple foods from their memories. Potato salads, fruit gelatin molds, shiny foods in technicolor as if right out of Betty Crocker's dreams. What to make of this? Well, I'm certainly not the first to think that all this nostalgia has much to do with our feelings about our country, our lives, in this modern age. Nothing feels as comfortable as tupperware bowls full of creamy salads and shimmery fruit molds, foods at home on our grandmother's tables.

Sure, there are some salads that I am just not ready for the return of - the corned beef gelatin is one - but I'll be giving some of the older molded salads another look. Cheaper than a shrink, a little salad therapy might be just the thing.

American Eats

For those who get the History channel on their tvs, you might want to check out a show called American Eats. There are many "history of food" shows, but this one has some interesting facts and images from our culinary past. I liked it right away when I heard the narrator comment that worrying about nutrition is a luxury. That certainly is the truth, as it is true about organic food, local food, or any other limitations we put on our diets. Eating junk food and crummy fast food is easy. Eating well is the trick.

The show doesn't just hit on food itself; it explores the work of the creators and the times in which the food was born. We learned about the unusual ideas practiced at Dr. John Kellogg's Battle Creek Sanitarium (see the film, Road to Wellville, for an exaggerated idea of Kellogg health regimes.) Just imagine yogurt enemas - no, I'm not kidding. I can just guess how Dr. Kellogg would feel about frosted flakes.

There is some great history on truly American foods like chop suey, chimichangas, hamburgers, even Chef Boyardee canned pasta. (Just think, there actually was a real Chef Boiardi who was a famous chef in the 1920s, known for his amazing Italian cuisine. Wow, hard to picture that when opening up a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti.)

I love hearing the stories of immigrant populations that came to America, found ways of cooking that were assimilated into American culture, and those very foods became part and parcel to our diets. I can't imagine a better illustration for a melting pot culture.

Sure, a lot of the food we think of quintessentially American can be crap - hot dog, anyone - but much of it is more than just the sum of its common parts.

Check it out, if you get a chance. Some of it will make you scratch your head in wonder, but some of it is just plain interesting.

Grandma's sheets

My grandmother's house burned down in July. It was a horrific experience, one that our family is still coping with, even now. Thankfully, only her possessions were destroyed, but those possessions included family photos and keepsakes.

I've been keeping flannel sheets on my bed this winter but the other night I changed my sheets and didn't get the flannels washed in time for bed. Out came my warmer weather sheets, the ones with the insanely high thread count. It's been awhile since I used these so slipping into the sheets, I was surprised at how soft they really were, especially compared to flannel. While marveling at the softness of the sheets, I thought about the sheets my grandma used to keep on the spare bed in her home.

Lord knows that those sheets weren't high thread count. They were basic cotton, but they were worn to a smoothness that rivals silk. Instead of getting nubby, as sheets usually do with frequent use, they were soft. Grandma's bed had these soft old sheets, a scratchy wool blanket topped with a quilt that too was soft from use, and feather pillows. The old wood bedframe creaked and the clock in the living room chimed way too often. Waking up in the morning in that bed, the scent of bacon and coffee wafting under the bedroom door, those sheets felt as soft as anything.

Those sheets, that bed, that clock, everything is gone. It had been years since I'd slept in that bed. Grandpa was still alive then, I was probably still a teenager. I can't even remember why I would have been staying in her house since it was right next door to my parents' home, but I was there.

Funny the small things you remember. Something as simple as sheets can prompt a memory.

*For those wanting to soften up new sheets, try a 1/4 cup of white vinegar in the rinse cycle. It helps removing the sizing and other chemicals added to new sheets.

No butter, no sugar, no taste?

I've mentioned rationing during World War II before, the special quality of sugar when it is scarce. Recipes from the early and mid-20th century interest me and I frequently hang out at Foodtimeline.org to get my fix on foods from our past. Beyond just the rationing of sugar, cooks during The Great War, The Great(er) Depression and Dubba Dubba II, found ways to still have their cake and eat it too. Recipes for cakes calling for no milk, no sugar, no eggs came on the scene.

Does it sound unappetizing? Um, yeah, a little. Substituting tomato soup for milk or mayonnaise for eggs does make me a bit squeamish. Heck, I've heard of chocolate cakes that take sauerkraut for moisture. Some of those "make do" kind of recipes belong in the past, quaint but not revived, I think. But others are handy reminders of what you can do with a little ingenuity.

Take that mayonnaise cake, for example. Plenty of people swear that chocolate mayonnaise cakes are deliciously moist. The newer book, America's Best Lost Recipes, put out by those venerable folks at Cook's Country magazine, holds a recipe for this cake (and the sauerkraut cake too.../shudder) so you know at least some folks are still partial to this concept of making do with what you have.

It's funny, at least to a odd duck like me, in this time of celeb chefs and pancultural dishes, that a niche of the lucrative cookbook market is celebrating the recipes that have long thrived in dusty recipe boxes. These unfussy, unpretentious, dowdy recipes never are as glamorous as their TopChef-fusion style cousins, but here they stay. Collected, recorded by various food historians and passed along.

I'm glad to see it. I'd rather see these recipes get more attention, rather than the glitzy stuff that shows up on celeb cooking shows. They are homely and homey, and that's ok. I don't want them every night, but it's nice to have them there when all you have in your pantry is a jar of mayonnaise and a dream for chocolate cake.

Praying to the porcelain god

I had a religious experience yesterday. Well, religious in that "pause to meditate on the moment, Zen-ish" sort of way. As you know from reading my posts last week, I have been in a funk of late. One sad side of effect of a funk for me is letting housework slide. This was especially true in the kitchen. Dirty dishes as far as the eye could see. Well, yesterday I surfaced from my funk with renewed vim and vigor. It was time to tackle the mess, within and without. The kitchen was first on the list.

The dishwasher was loaded and yet there were plenty of dishes left to be cleaned. Now normally, I would leave those dishes in the sink until the dishwasher is done; after all, that's its job, not mine. But yesterday I couldn't stand to leave them sitting around. So I did the rare thing and filled up the sink with scalding water to handwash them.

I stood at my big farm sink, staring out my window at the large maple in the backyard, wet and soggy leaves piled at the trunk. My hands dipped from the lavender and lemon dishwater, hot enough to turn my fingers red, to cool water for the rinse. Hot and cold, hot and cold. It could have been fifty years ago as I washed those dishes, the timeless act repeated by so many; the simple act of scrubbing away the left-over bits of yesterday's dishes.

I finished the last dish, disappointed that there weren't more to wash, to rhythmically transform from dirty to clean. I drained out the dirty water and then scrubbed down the sink. The last dregs of the funk seemed to flow down the drain with the water. I felt better than I had in days.

I'm still going to use my dishwasher but it was nice to remember the restorative power of clean. For a few minutes, it was prayerful.

The new homemaking club?

I've read that homemaking clubs began to appear in the 1920s. I don't know when they started to decline, but at least in the years when the idea of "modern homemaking" came into being, groups would gather to discuss, at least in theory, ways to make homemaking easier. I imagine it was more about socializing and sharing a bit of gossip than anything else, but the idea of these clubs got me thinking.

Is blogging the new homemaking club? I think, in a way, it is. Now granted, there are plenty of groups of people that meet in person - church groups, farmgirl groups, community activists - but the Internet and blogging has opened up a forum for people with specialized interests to meet up virtually.

I've been impressed with blogging since I first discovered it, waaaaay after those on the cutting edge were already into it. I love the democratic nature of it, the ability for anybody anywhere to get out a soapbox and speak their mind. Sure, a lot of it is crap, but I'd rather wade through the crap then have people restricted in what they can say. (I say that even after getting a nasty and stupid spam comment the other day...)

Blogging, at least for me, serves as my homemaking club. I find out all kinds of information from visiting other sites, reading stories from other homemakers, sharing things that work and don't work for me. But as much as I like the virtual nature of blogging, I think there is something to be said for meeting folks in person. I dream of meeting up around a kitchen table, sharing coffee and life's ups and downs. A regular old coffee klatch, as it were.

But in person or online, I do think there is value in community, in sharing our stories - whether they are about homemaking or not - and making our lives a little more than just the daily grind. I hope you think so too. Have a cup of virtual coffee and take a seat at our Internet table. I'm excited to hear what everyone has to say.

Oh Fudge (Random Recipe Monday)

Three cheers for the folks that put together foodtimeline.org. What a great resource for those of us crazy for food history trivia. Ever wondered how candies came into our holiday lives? Well, maybe not. But fudge is one of those treats that I'm glad to see grace the plastic tree-shaped dishes so prevalent right now. It's one of those things that I don't keep around because I'd eat the whole thing. But with get-togethers on the horizon, I have an excuse to make some up and a reason not to eat it all.

There are many fudge recipes, and I'm no expert candymaker, that's for sure. But I'm going to be trying out Mrs. Mamie Eisenhower's Miracle Fudge this week. According to wikipedia, this was a favorite treat of Ike's and was served at dinners at the White House. I can't quite imagine such a straightforward little treat surving in today's White House.
Here's wiki's version of Mamie's fudge:
4-1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1 pinch of salt
1 tall can evaporated milk
12 ounces semisweet chocolate bits
12 ounces German sweet chocolate
1 pint marshmallow cream
2 cups chopped nutmeats
Heat the sugar, butter, salt, and evaporated milk over low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and boil for 6 minutes. Put chocolate bits, German chocolate, marshmallow cream, and nutmeats in a bowl. Pour the boiling syrup over the ingredients. Beat until the chocolate is all melted, then pour in a pan. Let stand for a few hours before cutting. Remember it is better the second day.

Oh, and the origin of fudge? Foodtimeline.org says that college girls in the late 19th century cooked it up as a way to stay up past their bedtimes. My, how times have changed.

Photo courtesy of AllRecipes.com. Click
here for advice on fudgemaking.