The potential of various cooking innovations excites cooks, though they often have difficulty deciding whether to actually purchase the latest inventions. They worry about the cost and ease of use, and want to be sure that they will use the new item.

Similarly, a hundred years ago, cooks were excited about gas and electric stoves. Many people still used wood or coal stoves, but there was huge interest in modern stoves. However, cooks were concerned that they might be difficult to use, and that they would not cook foods as well as the familiar wood and coal stoves. Gas and electric stoves were also expensive to purchase (and the electricity or gas needed to operate them was costly).

Utility companies promoted the use of gas and electric stoves to increase demand for their products. For example, People’s Gas Light and Coke Company in Chicago hired Anna Peterson, who hosted the first radio cooking show, as their Director of Home Services. In this role, she conducted popular food demonstrations, often in large auditoriums, using gas stoves. She made food that looked and tasted great, while chatting about the wonders of cooking with gas.

Anna Peterson also developed a cookbook, Mrs. Peterson’s Simplified Cooking, which shared her expertise. To take the guesswork out of using a modern stove, the recipes in the cookbook included oven temperatures (which older cookbooks often excluded since people using wood and coal stoves cooked by sensing how hot the fire was, rather than based on temperature), as well as cooking times. The cookbook was very popular. The first edition as published in 1924, the second edition in 1925, and the third edition in 1926. (I have the third edition.)

Most people eat out several times a week, and many get take-out a few additional times. This differs from a hundred years ago when a much higher proportion of meals were eaten at home. Back then, most cooking was done by women, many of whom were homemakers. I’ve often heard it said that women in the early 1900s cooked 3 time a day, 365 days a year. This is an exaggeration, but probably not too far from the truth.

A hundred years ago, people sometimes ate out – at a lunch counter,  a nice restaurant, or something in between.  From time to time, people also ate at church or community picnics or pot lucks, family reunions, or holiday gatherings – though each of the women attending probably often made one or more dishes at those events. Home-packed lunches (often packed by the women in the family) were the norm for the mid-day meal for many workers and students.

The huge number of meals that many women prepared each year back then affected which dishes were made, and how they were prepared. Tasty dishes, which were also simple to make and used readily available, inexpensive ingredients, were generally preferred. Cooks also often needed to prepare meals on a very tight budget, so they planned carefully to avoid waste. Left-overs were reheated or repurposed as an ingredient in a new dish. For example, left-over potatoes might be used to make soup.

Many people today want to eat home-cooked meals, but find it challenging. They believe that they make healthier choices when they cook at home, and that it’s less expensive. They also believe that eating together improves the well-being of family member.  But there are many reasons why a lot of people don’t often make home-cooked meals. They are busy, and it takes time to cook. Family members may not have time to eat breakfast or other meals together, and they may be exhausted at dinner time after working all day. Some may find it less stressful to eat out or buy take-out. Older individuals, who once regularly cooked, sometimes “retire” from cooking and now go out or purchase prepared foods.

I don’t advocate that we go back to cooking 3 times a day, 365 days a year (frankly, that sounds boring and exhausting), but there are many health and economic benefits from cooking more meals from scratch. A friend believes that individuals today see beautifully presented dishes on blogs, Instagram, TikTok and other social media, and that they are disappointed when the dishes they make using the same recipes don’t turn out to be the “the best ever, most amazing [insert food name].” After being disappointed a few times, they decide that it’s too hard (or stressful) to cook and shift to purchasing mostly prepared foods.

Perhaps social media needs to give cooks permission to make foods that are less than perfect. Each food cooked from scratch is a learning experience. Often, they are still quite tasty, even if they don’t look perfect.

Like so many things, balance is key.  It’s important to figure out the right balance between eating out, take-out foods, and home-cooked meals. A hundred years ago, cooks generally made tasty, simple, economical dishes. We can learn something from those cooks of yore.

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!