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Each issue has a free cookbook link — the first issue has a link for this handwritten cookbook…
Food distribution from 600 AD to the 1700s appears to have had more human dynamism than after the Industrial Revolution. Producers of the food items, loudly hawked their specialty foods door-to-door, walking in the streets, or at a public market (similar to our Farmer’s Markets)–often using song or rhymed verse. Here are pictures of our past “supermarkets,” food prep, and dining experiences in the English-speaking world from the book, Short History of the English People…. Hover your cursor over each photo for a description, and click on the picture for an enlargement.
Retro Ruth is a sport for re-creating one recipe per week from mid-century modern cookbooks.
What was the composition of blacking mixture for a wood-burning iron cook stove? I noticed some working museums don’t polish their wood-burning stoves, probably a weekly activity in a Victorian home. What do you think they could use today? …from Google books, at least 10 old formulas. From one of these we should be able to extract a healthy modern-day polish for antique stoves…. List was found in The Scientific American Cyclopedia of Receipts, Notes and Queries, edited by Albert Allis Hopkin, page 7.
Blacking; and Polishes for Stoves.— Graphite (often misnamed black-lead) is the foundation ingredient in a stove polish. Lampblack is frequently added to deepen the color, but the latter form of carbon is of course more readily burned off than the former.
The powder variety of stove polish is merely purified and ground graphite, with or without the addition of lampblack, which is applied to the stove by being first mixed with a little water.
The paste is made by the addition of glycerine or paraffine oil to the powder.
The following formula gives a liquid stove blacking:
1.
Graphite in fine powder, 1 lb.;
lampblack, 1 oz.;
rosin, 4 oz.;
turpentine, 1 gal.This form may be esteemed a convenience by some, but the rosin will, of course, give rise to some disagreeable odor on first heating the stove, after the liquid is applied.
The mixture must be kept well shaken while in use, and must not be applied when there is a fire or light near on account of the inflammability of the vapor.
The solid cakes of polish are said to be made by subjecting the powdered graphite, mixed with spirit of turpentine, to great pressure. It has to be reduced to powder and mixed with water before being applied.
Any of them has to be well rubbed with a brush after application to give a handsome polish.-—from the Druggist Circular, circa 1900.
2.
A correspondent of The Pharmaceutical Era [c. 1900] submits the following formula for a preparation which lie says his company advertises as a “dustless paste stove polish:”Animal charcoal, 8 parts;
blacklead, 8 parts;
molasses, 4 parts;
sulphuric acid, 2 parts;
hydrochloric acid, 1 part;
water, enough to make a paste.He says he allows the acids to act on the charcoal and molasses for twenty-four hours, after which the graphite is added with enough water to form a paste.
He says that the trouble with this paste is that “it forms a layer on the cloth when applied, and this layer in contact with a warm stove falls as dust to the floor.”
The French stove polish which is used for blackening and polishing iron stoves is produced in the following manner:
3.
Turpentine oil, French or American, 23’0 kilos.:
American lampblack, 3’0 kilos.;
prime black, fat, finely elutriated graphite, 2’0 kilos.4.
Ceresine, 3’0 kilos.; carnuba wax, 0’5 kilo.Melt the ceresine and carnauba wax in a tinned or enameled kettle over a moderate fire and add mixture 3, previously stirred cold, to the fusion. 4, but only at a distance from the fire, with stirring.
Pour this mixture through a fine metal sieve into a second vessel, and next, for a more intimate mixture, from one kettle into another until it begins to thicken, and only then fill into tin cans.
If the paste should have become a little too cold during the filling of the tins, so that it interferes with the pouring, all that is necessary is to put the vessel into a larger one containing boiling water, whereby it is rendered more liquid again.—-from Scifensieder Zeitung, circa 1900.
5.
Ceresine…. 120 grams.
Japanese vegetable wax…. 100 grams.
Turpentine oil…. 1,000 grams.
Fine lampblack…. 120 grams.
Graphite…. 100 grams.Unite ceresine and wax by melting, add to the half cooled, liquid mass the lampblack and graphite ground in the oil of turpentine and stir until completely cool.—from Farben Zeitung, circa 1900.
6.
For a liquid stove polish try the following:Copperas…. 10 parts.
Boneblack…. 5 parts.
Graphite, in powder…. 5 parts.Water sufficient to make a paste. The addition of a small amount of alum to this is said to improve it.
Another cheaper formula is as follows:
Soap, common yellow…. 10 parts.
Resin, in powder…. 5 parts.
Water, sufficientBoneblack or plumbago, sufficient. Mix the resin and the soap (the latter finely shaved), add 40 parts of boiling water and heat until a homogeneous mixture is obtained.
Stir in the blacking material and remove from the fire. Test a small portion, and then dilute with boiling water to suit.
7.
If cost is no object, the following will prove all that can be desired:Bayberry wax…. 10 parts.
Plumbago, in fine powder…. 200 parts.
Coal oil, sufficient.Melt the mineral wax with a portion of the oil over a water bath, and pour the product into the rest of the oil, stirring well. Grind up the plumbago with the product, adding a little at a time, until you arrive at the desired consistency.—-from National Druggist, circa 1900.
Paste Stove Polish.—
8.
Plumbago…. 2 lb.
Water…. 8 oz.
Turpentine…. 8 oz.
Sugar… 2 oz.Knead thoroughly and keep in tin boxes. Apply with a brush.
Here are several other formulas:
9.
Mix:
2 parts of black-lead,
4 parts of copperas, and 2 parts of boneblack,
with water, so as to form a creamy paste.This is an excellent polish, as the copperas produces a jet black enamel, causing the black lead to adhere to the iron.
10. Moisten plumbago with turpentine in which resin has been dissolved, to make it adhesive, and subject it to strong pressure in appropriate moulds.–from Pharmaceutical Era, circa 1900.
See wonderful photos at Food History Jottings
Fabrics.net posted an excellent visual history of the tablecloth, Victorian-era to 1950s mid-century modern.
PastryJoe, while writing about the history of Irish Sourdough Bread, traced the history of chemical leavening agents, potash –> pearl ash –> saleratus (as opposed to the more ancient technique of only yeast as leavening agent). Visit his first entry and then click his upper right links to finish at saleratus. Great reflections on history!
Then you can pick up the timeline of chemical leavening agents at History of Baking Powder by Whats Cooking America. Additionally, Rumford Baking Powder was first available in stores in 1859.
Baking powder has been made with different ingredients at different times: now baking powder is made with sodium bicarbonate and monocalcium phosphate, or, sodium bicarbonate and sodium aluminum sulfate, or just calcium acid phosphate. Corn starch is often an ingredient added to postpone activity if the baking powder is in contact with moisture, allowing the baking powder to be active later when it is heated in the oven.
Note from wikipedia: “…In times past, when chemically manufactured baking soda was not available, ash water was used instead, especially in confectionery. Wood ash is also weakly alkaline. To prepare ash water, one used a fistful of ash from the fireplace in a big pot of water. Ash from solid woods, such as the olive tree, is preferred, whereas resinous woods, like pine, cannot be used. The ash water is given a boil, then left overnight to settle. The water is then filtered through a cloth and is ready to use. Many traditional recipes call for ash water instead of baking soda, because of some unique qualities: for example, ash water dripped on hot vegetable oils congeals into a gel-like mixture…”
Asides:
Check out the Researching Food History blog. We linked to this blog before, but it is worth linking to again!
Other discoveries:
Enjoy Old Time Radio Catalog’s mp3 of a 1945 episode of “Betty Crocker Cooking Show of the Air” The voice behind Betty Crocker was Marjorie Child Husted (1892-1986) of the Gold Medal Home Service Department at Washburn Crosby milling company in Minneapolis. The milling company was no stranger to dramatic promotions — they previously hired the famous Maria Parloa to author one of their promotional cookbooks. Around 1924 when the Betty Crocker radio show began, Washburn Crosby joined General Mills.
Betty Crocker links
Misty makes homemade butter look easy. God bless Misty with her informative youtube channel.
Wendi Dunlap was researching historic kitchens to redesign her kitchen more authentically in her Arts & Crafts bungalow home. She shared her research of kitchen images from c. 1905 to 1925 so we can all benefit. You’ll love it. She also linked to another great historic kitchen image site, shorpy, with their funny post:
“Speaking as someone who needs to go lie down after microwaving a bag of broccoli, just looking at all this [1921] food preparation makes me dizzy with fatigue.“
Harry & Edna present interactive talks and reenactment videos of rationing in the UK during WWII.
Besides an eBay countdown for a vintage electric stove, the above video has a shortened history of electric cook stoves, or what people in the early 1900s would call “cooking with wire.”
The electric motor was invented in 1837, but it wasn’t until the late 1800s that the improved motor found its way into the kitchen.
Stoves
There was a patent awarded in 1859 for an electric cooking device, and there were a number of electric ovens invented in the 1890s, but none of these became commercially viable. In 1906 there were about 50 electric stoves produced in Australia, but they too weren’t a commercially success.
Electric hotplate, photo published in 1915.
Freestanding hotplates were the first electric stoves, slowly coming on the market circa 1906-1908; many advertisements appeared in 1911. Above is a picture of an early electric hotplate “stove” patented in 1914. One of the first electric ovens, modeled after the fireless cookers of the time, was invented in 1909 by Lloyd Copeman near Detroit. The ovens were slow in selling, so Copeman sold his company to Westinghouse between 1914-1917. Westinghouse is also said to have invented the toaster oven in 1910. Another early electric stove, circa 1910, had an oven with what looked like hotplates attached to the top surface.
Automatic oven controls were invented in 1915 and installed in most electric stoves in the 1920s. Before then the cook would shut the oven on and off to regulate oven temperature. In the mid-1920s a clock-timer was added to some electric stoves to automatically turn on and shut off the stove at specified times to cook meals while away from the stove.
Because not all homes were wired for electricity, electric stoves weren’t in common use until the 1930s. The microwave oven was invented in 1945, but it wasn’t until 1967 that the countertop version was available for the home. Self-cleaning electric ovens were first available in 1963, and the electric bread machine in 1992.
Toasting
The first electric toaster was invented in 1872, but its distribution was limited to England. The first commercially successful electric toaster was invented in 1909, and may have been one of the more popular electric kitchen gadgets. The pop-up toaster was invented in 1919 but waited until the Toastmaster 1926 to be introduced to the marketplace. The Marshmallow Toaster was invented in 1920.
Refrigerators
The first electric refrigerator was invented in 1872, but not for home use. The first electric refrigerator for the home was a plumbed unit perched on top of the old icebox, invented in 1913 and introduced in 1916. The electric refrigeration unit before 1925 was made to retrofit the existing icebox. The hermetically-sealed standalone refrigerator was invented in 1925, at the same time that refrigerators were being made of steel and porcelain cabinets. The first refrigerator that was widely used was the GE “Monitor-Top” released to the market in 1927, but the mass production of electric refrigerators didn’t really begin until 1945.
Coffee-making
By 1914 the electric percolator was proudly being used in wired homes, and the first automated electric percolator was introduced in 1952. It wasn’t until Mr. Coffee arrived in 1972 that the drip process was automated and there was a built-in automatic cut-off control.
Grinding, Mixing and Blending
The electric coffee grinder was one of the first electric appliances in the kitchen, being introduced in the 1890s. Although there was a patent for a food mixer in the 1885, the stand mixer was the first to be widely available for the home. The first stand mixer was invented c. 1920 for commercial soda fountains, and within a few years the stand mixer was available for the home, along with the electric blender which was invented in 1922.
Most of us have a great appreciation for many of the electric conveniences in the kitchen, particularly the electric dishwasher because it saves so much time. Blenders are a big help in creating quick, healthy, and refreshing drinks within seconds; and, for certain recipes we thank our lucky stars for the electric mixer! We take these for granted, but electric appliances and gadgets weren’t always here, and are now part of kitchen history.
See the updated list of vintage stove stores.
Resources:
Great Achievements
PartSelect
Idea Finder
Canada Science and Technology Museum
Oysters were popular in the 1800s. What happened? According to The Independent in the UK, oysters were popular in the 1860s because they were affordable, and bulked up expensive dishes, such as meat pies. By the late 1800s oysters were more expensive and popular. Meat was now the ingredient bulking oyster pies. People consumed oysters that should have been used to re-seed oysters beds, and during war, oyster-beds were neglected. Here is an oyster cookbook from 1913 on facebook claiming that oysters weren’t as expensive as they seemed.
Because they take on the taste of the water whence they’ve come, oysters are the perfect vehicle for reflecting the ocean quality. Drew Smith wrote a guide to tastes of oysters from different locations in Europe, located at the end of The Independent‘s informative oyster article. And a quick google search pulls up a company who ships fresh oysters overnight.
3 helpful videos to watch before ordering your fresh oysters:
Dr Mile’s Candy Cook Book was published circa 1911, no later than 1914. It has recipes for Salted Almonds, Candy Eggs for Easter, Cocoanut Taffy, Popcorn Balls, Cough Candy, Coffee Fudge, Popcorn Fudge, Maple Wax (made with snow or ice), Rose Drops and Jujube Paste (both recipes call for cochineal to color), and more. Much of the text is a call to try Dr Mile’s medicines.
Dr Franklin Miles was born in 1845 and graduated from Rush Medical College in 1874, and Chicago Medical College in 1875. He practiced medicine for ten years and in c. 1885 established the “Miles Medical Company” in Elkhart, Indiana to make and distribute his patent medicines.
Born five years before the Civil War as the daughter of an enslaved cook, little Emma Wilson wanted to go to school with her white friends. She was told she couldn’t because of her race, and after the Civil War she was told she couldn’t because she was a girl. Through her determination, she kept pace with the class outside of school. When the time finally came that she could attend school, she was placed within her grade.
Wilson’s commitment to education and her great desire to assist others of her locale and race made her change her plans from ministering in Africa to building a local school in her hometown of Maysville, South Carolina. The school began in the kitchen of her mother’s cabin in 1885. It quickly grew and was incorporated as the Maysville Industrial and Educational Institute. After a few years Wilson became committed to teaching not only liberal arts, but also skills such as blacksmithing, sewing, and cooking.
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Select the History Cookbook tab on Cookit! for quick educational references. Enjoy food facts and cooking videos from different time periods including:
Skip the introduction to 4:00 minutes into the video, and listen to the enjoyable lecture by Dr Megan Elias about the history of lunch.
American Cookery article from 1920–
“If some fine day, all housewives awoke to the fact that most of the trouble in the world originates in the kitchen, there would shortly be a little more interest in kitchen problems and not so much distaste for and neglect of this important part of the house.
“Of course, women will cry out that we have never in our lives been so intent on just that one subject, kitchens, as we are today.
“I admit that there is a good deal of talk going on which might lead one to believe that vacuum cleaners and electric-washing machines, etc., are to bring about the millennium for housekeepers; and there is also a good work going forward to make of housework a real profession.
“But, until in the average home there comes the feeling that the kitchen—the room itself—is just as much an expression of the family life and aims and ideals as the living room or any other room, we shall be only beating about the bush in our endeavor to find a remedy for some of our perplexing troubles.
“Nowadays, women who are doing much work out in the big world—the so-called “enfranchised” women—are many of them proving that they find housework no detriment to their careers and some even admit that they enjoy it.
“But so far most of them have standardized their work and systematized it, with the mere idea of doing what they have to do “efficiently” and well, with the least expenditure of time and energy. And they have more than succeeded in proving the “drudgery” plea unfounded.
“Now, however, we need something more. We need to make housework attractive; in other words, to put charm in the kitchen.
“There is one very simple way of doing this, that is to make kitchens good to look at, and inviting as a place to stay and work.
“For the professional, scientifically inclined houseworker, the most beautiful kitchen may be the white porcelain one, with cold, snowy cleanliness suggesting sterilized utensils and carefully measured food calories.
“But to the woman whose cooking and dishwashing are just more or less pleasant incidents in a pleasant round of home and social duties, the kitchen must suggest another kind of beauty—not necessarily a beauty which harbors germs, nor makes the work less conveniently done, but a beauty of kindly associations with furniture and arrangements.
“Who could grow fond of a white-tiled floor or a porcelain sink as they exist in so many modern kitchens! And as for the bulgy and top-heavy cook stoves, badly proportioned refrigerators, and kitchen cabinets—well, we should have to like cooking very well indeed before we could feel any pleasure in the mere presence of these necessary but unnecessarily ugly accompaniments to our work.
We have come to think of cleanliness as not only next to godliness, but as something which takes the place of beauty—is beauty.
“This attitude is laziness on our part, for we need sacrifice nothing to utility and convenience, yet may still contrive our kitchen furniture so that it, also, pleases the senses. With a little conscientious reflection on the subject we may make kitchens which have all the charm of the old, combined with all the convenience of the new; and woman will have found a place to reconcile her old and new selves, the housewife and the suffragist, the mother-by-the-fireside and the participator in public affairs. The family will have found a new-old place of reunion—the kitchen!
“Granted then that our tiny house has a kitchen-with-charm, and an “other room,” the rest of the available space may be divided into the requisite number of bed and living rooms, according to the needs of the family.
“KITCHEN FOR THATCHED-STYLE COTTAGE
“There is only one other very important thing to look out for; that is the matter of closets. There is no rule for the number of closets which will make the tiny house livable, but I should say, the more the merrier. If there is ever question of sacrificing a small room and gaining a large closet, by all means do it, for absolute neatness is the saving grace of small quarters, and storage places are essential, if one does not wish to live in a vortex of yesterday’s and tomorrow’s affairs with no room to concentrate on the present.
“FIRST-FLOOR PLAN OF THATCHED COTTAGE
“Inside and outside the tiny house must conform to one law—elimination of non-essentials; and the person who has a clear idea of his individual needs and has also the strength of will to limit his needs to his circumstances, will find in his tiny house a satisfaction more than compensating for any sacrifices he may have made.”
Pray what do they do at the club?
Tis ever the question they ask; But to answer it fully, I fear, Were rather a serious task; And yet, if you’ll listen to me, And pardon my rhyming with “grub,” I’ll venture a bit of a song To tell what they do at the club.
Imprimis, I’ll tell you they cook.
Oh, thoughtful and careful the eyes
That study the recipe book.
With glances so eager and wise!
Or they listen, as if In a trance,
To lectures and hints and the rules
From their sisters, their cousins and aunts
Who have learned in experience schools.
Then they measure, they pound and they sift,
They bake and they stew and they fry;
They roast and they stir and they lift,
They mold and they shake and they try–
Till from cellars and pantries and fire,
From kitchens and ovens and shelves
Come dainties I’m sure you’d admire.
And say they were made by the elves.
With a flutter of fans and of lace,
They meet for their “six o’clock tea”
With a smile of content on each face
And appetites startling to see.
They have jellies that melt like a dream
And patties and salads and meat
And coffee and biscuit and cream
And pickles and “sweets for the sweet.”
Then the cooks all laughingly chat.
As the moments so merrily fly.
Not forgetting their duty and-—that
Is to taste every dish passing by.
And they talk upon frivolous fun,
Or on subjects as grave as the “Hub,”
And they eat and they eat and they eat
And that’s what they do at the club.
– from Cook book of the Young Ladies Cooking Club, Monroe, Michigan,
Pyrex was invented in 1913, and Corning Glass started selling it in 1915. It was promoted by Sarah Tyson Rover, editor of Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping. Rover used demonstrations across the nation to help people get accustomed to cooking with PYREX, a clear borosilicate glass. Now PYREX is made with tempered soda-lime glass. Read The History of Pyrex Glass
When you see Pyrex from 1883, there may be a discrepancy! eBay Auctions
We hear the Mystery Chef’s 1938 biscuit recipe is great. Does anyone have it? Comment here. Then we can put the following Mystery Chef’s butter on it! The Mystery Chef’s butter recipe is contained within this script of one of his radio cooking shows between 1932 to 1945: You have to register to hear the audio version. Meanwhile, here is a partial script:
[Intro music]
“Good Day! This is the Mystery Chef. Thank you for honoring me by inviting me into your home. And what’s more let me thank you for your very delightful and very helpful letter. As promised, I shall start my little chat on the art of…cooking by giving you the “Butter Stretcher” recipe for the benefit of those who have missed it.
“With butter recently raised to 10 red points, I believe this butter recipe should be in every home in America, and Canada. Letters include the actual praising the recipe are still arriving by every mail. Here are actualy quotations: “The best butter I ever tasted.” “I wouldn’t take a hundred dollars for your Butter Stretcher recipe.” Another: “Now I can give the children all the bread and butter they want without saying, ‘Go easy on the butter.’” Still another: “Your Butter Stretcher recipe has solved my greatest breaking problem, as my family will not use anything but butter at the table. Now they can have it, and they all like it better than the ordinary butter. Thanks a million to you!”
“A thousand of enthusiastic letters have been received. But still there are many who have missed the recipe and have asked that I give it again. There’s countless radio friends who can not find any substitute for butter that they care to use; would rather eat their bread without butter than spread it with any butter substitute. Now, by using the recipe I shall give you now, you can continue to give the children all the enriched bread and butter they should have, to give them the energy they all need, used up in their strenuous play. As a matter of fact we should all eat plenty of enriched bread and butter for needed energy.
“Here’s the recipe. Please listen carefully. It’s a very easy recipe. You’ll have absolutely no difficulty in remembering it, even if you do not have writing materials handy.
“Listen:
“Take half a pound of butter and cream it. Now that means to stir it and stir it with a large spoon until the butter is soft and quite creamy. Then you break a whole egg into the creamed butter and you beat it with a rotary egg beater. Now you can use an electric beater if it has a slow speed. And when the whole egg is beaten into the butter, you warm a half pint of cream to body temperature. Now that is a half pint of light cream. One cup and you heat it only to body temperature. Then you add one tablespoon full of the warm cream to the butter and beat it in. And then add another tablespoon of warm cream and beat it in. Continue to add the warm cream one tablespoon at a time; and you must beat each tablespoon in before you add the next. When all is added the whole mixture will be very soft. Place it in your refrigerator and it will be hard and ready to serve in less than an hour. Okay, so if light cream can not be obtained, then use evaporated milk in place of the cream.
“Butter contains Vitamen A and D. And fresh butter vitamen A, B, C, D and G. Also contains calcium phosphate and iron, The last treatment will be contained in the egg.
“And if you have been using one of the other butter stretcher recipes, such as mixing butter and margarine, or by using gelatine, then compare the butter made by the recipe I’ve just given you, which dairy products only are used. You’ll find it so much better. There really is no comparison!
“Now before I give you my recipe for the day, I think I better say, now a word to all who have asked me to give my “Easy Fruit Canning” recipe….”
