There are several foods I generally make for Easter dinner – ham, deviled eggs, rhubarb sponge pie. Other dishes vary from years to year. Some years, I’ll make an asparagus dish; other years it might be another vegetable. I usually make potatoes, but they might be mashed one year and scalloped the next.
I recently found several hundred-year-old menus for Easter dinner and Easter luncheons in the April, 1926 issue of Good Housekeeping. I was surprised that none of the menus featured ham, and somehow think that Molded Chicken and Cucumber Salad on Watercress might not be a hit at my house. But it’s hard to tell since the magazine didn’t publish any of the recipes. Instead, readers were directed to send a two-cent stamp so that the recipes could be sent to them.
Wow, it’s amazing what you could get for a two-cents in 1926. I’m guessing that a Good Housekeeping employee wrote the name and address of the person requesting the recipes on an envelope that contained the recipes. The two-cent stamp was then pasted on the envelop and it was sent out to the reader. What a deal!
Occasionally, a hundred-year-old recipe brings back vivid memories. I recently came across a recipe in a 1926 cookbook for a Carrot and Celery Salad. Suddenly long forgotten memories flowed back. Easter dinner and other family gatherings were often held at my parents’ home, and my mother generally served a Carrot Salad. When my brother and I were in elementary school, we assisted in preparing the big meal. Mom always found fun, but easy tasks for us. A favorite kid task was to grate carrots for Carrot Salad.
For some reason, I can’t remember much about those Carrot Salads. I don’t know what the other ingredients were or what they tasted like. I just know that it was fun grating carrots.
In any case, when I saw the old recipe for a Carrot Salad that contained carrots and celery, I immediately knew that I wanted to make it, and I’m glad I did. The Carrot and Celery Salad was quick and easy to make. It only contained three ingredients: grated carrots, chopped celery, and a little mayonnaise to bind everything together.
This salad is a winner. The slight sweetness of the carrots combined with the crunchiness of the celery, and the rich, tanginess of the mayonnaise was delightful.
Here’s the original recipe:
Source: Pennsylvania State Grange Cook Book (1926)
I decided to put the salad in a bowl rather than on lettuce leaves. The recipe does not provide any details about the salad dressing. The same cookbook also contained another recipe for “Carrot Salads” which suggests that mayonnaise should be used as the salad dressing, so I went with that when updating this recipe. Here is the old Carrot Salads recipe:
Source: Pennsylvania State Grange Cook Book (1926)
So many companies and products come and go within the course of just a few years, so I’m always amazed when I find an advertisement in a hundred-year-old magazine for a food that is still available. According to Wikipedia, in the early 1900’s, Richard Hellmann owned a delicatessen in New York City. He made a tasty mayonnaise that he served with the deli foods. It was so popular that he began selling it to other stores, and in 1913 built a factory to produce Hellmann’s Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise. The company has been sold several times, but Hellmann’s Mayonnaise (now available in several varieties) is still around.
I was flipped through a hundred-year-old cookbook, and a recipe for Chicken Wiggles caught my eye. What was this food with such a strange name?
I read the recipe, and it was a recipe for creamed chicken, peas, celery, and walnuts. Chicken Wiggles is served on toast (though it would also work well with rice). I’m always looking for tasty lunch foods, so I decided to give the recipe a try.
Chicken Wiggles was delightful. It is somewhat similar to Chicken a la King, but the walnuts added a delightful crunch. And, celery is not typically included in Chicken a la King recipes.
Intrigued by the name, I did an online search for “wiggle recipes” and discovered that there is also a dish called Shrimp Wiggle. Wiggles are quick and easy to prepare. According to The Takeout, the recipe for Shrimp Wiggle was even included in some editions of The Joy of Cooking.
Wiggles were a popular chafing dish food a hundred-year-ago, and college students sometimes made them in their dorm rooms using cans of Sterno, often for late night impromptu parties.
Here is the original recipe:
Source: 1926 cookbook compiled by the Domestic Science Class of the Peoria (IL) Women’s Club
This recipe calls for English walnuts. Years ago, regular walnuts were often referred to as English walnuts to distinguish them from black walnuts.
It worked fine to use egg yolks as the thickening agent in this recipe – though I wondered why flour wasn’t used to make a more typical white sauce. (When egg yolks are used to thicken a sauce, care needs to be used to keep the egg from curdling when added to the hot mixture.) Then I realized that this is a gluten free recipe. Gluten allergies were not a specific identified issue a hundred years ago, but people did more generally recognize food allergies. This recipe makes me wonder if the recipe author was allergic to wheat flour.
Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:
Chicken Wiggles (Creamed Chicken with Vegetables and Walnuts
Step 1. Put the cream and milk in a saucepan, and scald using medium heat while stirring continuously.
Step 2. In the meantime, put egg yolks in a small bowl; stir until smooth. Place a small amount (approximately 1 – 2 tablespoons) of hot milk mixture into the bowl with the egg yolk, stir quickly. (The egg is first combined with a little of the hot mixture to prevent it from turning into scrambled eggs when introduced into the hot combination.) Add the egg mixture to the remaining hot mixture in the saucepan; stir.
Step 3. Add butter and salt. Cook until it thickens while stirring continuously.
Step 4. Stir in peas and celery; cook until heated through.
Step 5. Add walnuts; stir, and remove from heat.
Step 6. Serve immediately on toast (Rice could be substituted for the toast.)
I have coffee with friends each Wednesday morning, and I frequently take a treat. I often make muffins. Occasionally I make hundred-year-old muffin recipes, and have my friends taste test them; but, often I make modern muffin recipes that I find online. Over time, I’ve come to the conclusion that modern muffin recipes generally are much sweeter than old-time ones.
For example, several years ago I made a hundred-year-old Blueberry Muffin recipe that called for 1 tablespoon of sugar. Most modern Blueberry Muffin recipes call for much more. The Glorious Treats Blueberry Muffins recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar. Sally’s Baking Addiction Blueberry Muffin recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups sugar (1/2 cup granulated sugar + 1/4 cup brown sugar + an additional 1/2 cup brown sugar for the topping). The exact number of muffins varied a little from recipe to recipe (mainly dependent on exactly how full the muffin cups were filled), but the recipes all made a similar number of muffins.
Similarly, modern Pumpkin Muffin recipes call for lots of sugar. The King Arthur Pumpkin Muffin recipe calls for slightly over 1 cup of sugar (3/4 cup granulated sugar + 1/4 cup brown sugar + additional granulated sugar to sprinkle on the top). Joy Food Sunshine’s recipe for Pumpkin Muffins calls for 1 1/2 cups of sugar (3/4 cup granulated sugar + 3/4 cup brown sugar. However, a hundred-year-old recipe for Squash Muffins (pumpkin could easily be substituted for the squash) only called for 1/4 cup of sugar.
Why were muffins generally less sweet a hundred years ago? I don’t know, but my hypothesis is that today they are considered a treat or sweet breakfast bread, while years ago they were frequently eaten as a dinner roll.
Delmonico Potatoes have been around for a long time. They were first served in the 1800s at the Delmonico Restaurant in New York City. Rumor has it that Abraham Lincoln enjoyed eating them at that restaurant. The Delmonico Restaurant has a long history of developing recipes that have stood the test of time. Eggs Benedict, Chicken a la King, and Lobster Newberg were also purportedly first served there.
Delmonico Potatoes are a creamy, cheesy potato dish. As might be anticipated, given its long history, there are lots of variations. Some Delmonico Potato recipes call for shredded potatoes, others for cubed potatoes, and still other recipes call for sliced potatoes. I found a recipe in a hundred-year-old cookbook that called for cubed potatoes and a little onion in a rich cheesy sauce, and decided to give it a try. That recipe also called for topping the dish with buttered cracker crumbs.
The recipe was a winner. The cheesy sauce was the perfect consistency – not too juicy and not too thick – and it nicely complemented the potatoes. I had few multi-grain table crackers that that I crushed to make the topping (though I recognize that basic round butter crackers or saltines probably were the type of crackers that were actually used a hundred years ago). I really liked the way they looked and tasted. They added a bit of crunchiness to the dish. I definitely plan on making it again – maybe as soon as next week when my daughter will be visiting.
Here’s the original recipe:
Source: Pennsylvania State Grange Cook Book (1926)
I think that the name of this recipe is misspelled in the 1926 cookbook, and that it should be “Delmonico Potatoes” rather than “Delmonica Potatoes,” so that is the spelling I used when updating the recipe.
Since I didn’t have 2 cups of left-over potatoes, I peeled and diced 4 medium potatoes. I then covered the potatoes with water and cooked them. After the diced potatoes had softened (about 10-12 minutes), I removed the potatoes from the heat and drained them. I then proceeded with assembling the recipe using the warm potatoes.
This recipe’s directions are a little difficult to understand. One place it calls for 1/4 cup melted butter (and the same sentence also refers to white sauce which would contain butter). Two sentences later, the recipe explains how to make the white sauce, indicating that 2 tablespoons butter should be used. Near the end of the recipe, it indicates that the cracker crumbs are “buttered crumbs.” I interpreted all of this to mean that the white sauce should be made using 2 tablespoons of butter, and that the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter should be melted and the cracker crumbs should then be stirred into the butter.
Over my years of doing this blog, I’ve seen many vague measurement terms (dash, pinch, etc.), but a “shaving” of onion was new for me. I decided to finely chop 3 tablespoons of onion and layer it with the potatoes and cheese – though that may not be exactly the intent of the recipe author.
2 cups potatoes (about 4 medium potatoes), peeled and diced into 1/2 inch pieces
1/3 cup grated cheddar cheese
3 tablespoons finely chopped onions
2 tablespoons butter + 2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 1/4 cups milk
paprika
1/2 cup cracker crumbs (I crushed 5 multi-grain table crackers. Classic round butter crackers would also work well.)
Step 1. Preheat oven to 400° F.
Step 2. Put the diced potatoes in a saucepan. Cover with water; bring to a boil using high heat, then reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes are soft (about 10-12 minutes). Remove from heat and drain.
Step 3. In the meantime, put 2 tablespoons of melted butter and the cracker crumbs in a small bowl. Stir to coat the cracker crumbs with the butter. Set aside.
Step 4. Additionally, in the meantime, make a white sauce. Using medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in another saucepan. Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper. Slowly add the milk while stirring continuously. Continue stirring until the liquid thickens.
Step 5. Assemble this dish by putting one-third of the cooked diced potatoes in a 1-quart baking dish. Put one-third of the chopped onions on top of the potatoes, then spread one-third of the grated cheese on top of the potatoes and onions. Repeat until all the potatoes, onions, and cheese are layered in the baking dish.
Step 6. Pour the white sauce over the layers in the baking dish, then sprinkle with paprika. Top by spreading the buttered crackers on top.
Step 7. Put in the oven and bake until the dish is hot and bubbly (about 25 – 30 minutes if warm diced potatoes were used; longer if they were cold.)
Until I saw this advertisement for Blue Whirl Egg Beaters in a hundred-year-old magazine I’d forgotten all about hand-crank beaters. I think that I once owned one, but have no idea where it is. I haven’t used it in years. The last time I used it was when my children were small and I didn’t trust them to use my electric beaters.
Does anyone still use classic hand-crank beaters? I did a quick online search and hand-crank beaters are still available, but the comments made it sound like they are difficult to find in stores and generally must be purchased online.
According to Home Grail, a commercial-sized electric mixer was invented in 1914, and home stand mixers were starting to become available in the 1920s; however, a hundred years ago, hand-cranked beaters were still the norm.
Whisks are another tool that can be used to beat eggs and do other tasks that a hand-crank beater might do. According to Wikipedia, whisks have been around for hundreds of years. The earliest ones were just bundles of twigs that were used to beat foods. Wikipedia noted that whisks were not very popular in the early 20th century and that cooks generally preferred beaters, but that they again became popular after Julia Child used them when she appeared on television.
