Tag: 1908

Family Meals for a Week

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Transcribed from the Sunday edition of the The Buffalo Sunday Morning News from December 27, 1908.

Sunday.

Breakfast.
Grapefruit, oatmeal porridge and cream, sausages and fried apples, corn bread, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Beef loaf, Boston brown bread (steamed), thin bread and butter, celery and orange salad, cream cheese and crackers, floating island, tea.

Dinner.
Cream of celery soup, roast veal, cranberry sauce, stewed carrots, shredded oyster plant sauce, pumpkin pie and American cheese, black coffee.

Monday.

Breakfast.
Oranges, cornmeal mush and cream, bacon, boiled eggs, French rolls (reheated), graham bread, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Tomato omelet with Parmesan cheese strewed over it, fried mush (a left-over), peanut butter sandwiches, brown bread and butter, canned fruit and cake, cocoa.

Dinner.
Noodle soup, veal loaf (a left-over) garnished with link sausages, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stewed Spanish chestnuts, apple pie and cream, black coffee.

Tuesday.

Breakfast.
Baked apples and cream, bacon and fried sweet peppers, English muffins (toasted), toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Scalloped oysters, cream cheese and graham bread sandwiches, tea biscuits, potato salad, crackers, baked custards, tea.

Dinner.
Potato cream soup (a left-over), lamb’s liver en casserole, stewed tomatoes, spaghetti, sweet potato pudding, black coffee.

Wednesday.

Breakfast.
Oranges, cereal and cream, fried smelts, stewed potatoes, brown and white bread toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Eggs a la Beauregard, celery salad, baked cream toast, potatoes au naturel, cream puffs, tea.

Dinner.
Ox-tail soup, pork tenderloins, apple sauce, scalloped sweet potatoes, mashed turnips, suet dumplings, baked wine sauce, black coffee.

Thursday.

Breakfast.
Cereal and dates with cream, bacon and eggs, quick biscuits, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Mince of liver on toast, souffle of turnips (a left-over), lettuce salad with French dressing, crackers and cheese, cookies and canned fruit with cream tea.

Dinner.
Yesterday’s soup, fresh beef’s tongue, braised, with vegetables; rice croquettes, spinach a la crème, raisin and fig pudding with hard sauce, black coffee.

Friday.

Breakfast.
Oranges, hominy and cream, egg croquettes, graham gems, toast, tea and coffee.

New Year’s Dinner.
Tomato bisque baked bluefish, braised ducks, sacked potatoes, stewed celery, green peas, apple sauce, tomato salad, café mousse, mixed nus, coffee.

Saturday.

Breakfast.
Oranges, cereal and cream, clam fritters, rice muffins and honey, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Creamed bluefish (a left-over), stewed tomatoes (a left-over), apple and celery salad with mayonnaise dressing, thin graham bread and butter, crackers and cheese, rice pudding, tea.

Dinner.
Cream potato soup (without meat), salmi of duck (a left-over), souffle of spinach (a left-over), brussels sprouts, prune pudding with whipped cream, black coffee.

The Picnic Basket

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This is the final article in August of the School for Housewives 1908 series published on August 30, 1908, and is an article on what to take on a picnic, especially sandwich fillings.

Transcribed from the Sunday edition of the The Buffalo Sunday Morning News.

The Picnic Basket

Where to have a picnic party, whom to ask to it and what to do at it are usually questions of minor importance or are answered by circumstances. The really vital point to be considered as, What shall be taken in the picnic basket?

Here again circumstance comes in and lends a hand. The connoisseur in picnics knows that one picnic bill of fare is not suitable to all. If the party is to be made up of healthy boys and girls, with robust appetites, substantial food is to be provided, and a plentiful supply is the chief object in view. More sophisticated young people demand greater delicacy and variety, and if older persons are included in the company their tastes are even more exacting. Plain boiled eggs, ham sandwiches and doughnuts will not full their requirements for an al fresco repast.

Another circumstance which determines the contents of the lunch basket is the locality of the picnic. If it is a spot to which one goes in carriages or by boat, and there is little or no walking to be done, a broad field of food is opened. I have been to picnic where salads, ice cream and sherbets were served as they would have been at a home reception. The ice cream was packed and transported in the back of a wagon to the picnic place, or carried in one end of a boat, and the salad stowed in a basket and intrusted to some one who would carry it steadily. Until one has tried this sort of thing one has little idea of what fields of experiment are open. The uninitiated make a great mistake when they confine their picnic provisions to the hackneyed old standbys every one has eaten for years.

As a matter of course, when there is a good deal of walking to be done to reach the lunching place, heavy baskets are undesirable. In any case, it is as well to study a certain amount of simplicity and in a measure to differentiate the picnic meal from the refreshments which would be served at an indoor party.

After all, the sandwich is the most useful vehicle in which one can take picnic food. Cold meats are unhandy, since they require a knife and fork. Even cold chicken demands a handling which results in greasy fingers and the need of soap and water. In the sandwich one may find a variety by the introduction of different sorts of filling, and the sandwich may be either dainty or substantial, as the inclination moves or the party desires.

The plain chicken, tongue or ham sandwich was our piece de resistance in my young picnic days, but many are the changes which have come since then in sandwiches as well as in other things. Sandwiches of minced meats or fish—chicken, ham, tongue, veal, lamb, beef, salt or fresh; of sardines, salmon, lobster, crab; of nuts; of cheese; of lettuce, cress, cucumbers and tomatoes; of jelly, jam, fruit—show me anything which cannot be made into a sandwich, with mayonnaise or without! With all these to draw from, what need is there of further novelty?

Yet variations still may be found. Granted the use of a fork and the possibility of transportation, and galantines or meat loaf, or meats or fish in aspic, may be served, to say nothing of salads of any sort. Then there is always the stuffed or deviled egg, with its never-waning popularity. The plain hard-boiled egg still holds its charm for some simple souls and will fill odd corners of the picnic basket.

Sweets are not usually much considered in filling the picnic basket or in emptying it afterward. The occupation of making the sandwiches, in the first place, and of eating them, in the second, is filling, and leaves little inclination for further exercise along either line. Ice cream one may always find room for, but I never found that there was much demand for other dessert than this, unless it might be a piece of cake or a little fruit. These are easily procured, and a box of candy to be taken at stray moments during the evening wll be well received.

What to drink at the picnic is of fully as much importance as what to eat, and unless one has unlimited carrying capacity for bottles of beverages, a good well or spring must be a sine qua non in the choice of a picnic place. Tramping or exercising out of doors is always thirsty work, and eating sandwiches is even more provocative of thirst. If there is a good spring, lemon juice and sugar may be carried in jars and diluted as occasion requires. Raspberry shrub, or raspberry vinegar, or currant shrub or any other of the good old syrups made at home are also excellent beverages for a picnic. Best of all, perhaps, are iced coffee and tea—when ice may be obtained. If not, it is a delight to build a fire, boil the kettle and either make your drinks fresh or heat those brought from home. The bottle of coffee may be uncorked, put into a pan or pot of boiling water and brought thus to the desired temperature.

Food alone is not the only requisite for the picnic basket. A tablecloth and napkins, either linen or paper, must be carried, a nest of wooden plates, such as are used for butter and the like by grocers, drinking cups or glasses, spoons—and perhaps—knives and forks. The necessity for these is determined by the character of the provisions carried. With sandwiches, cake and fruit they will not be needed, but will elaboration in the bill of fare additional utensils will be required.

I may add that when salads are part of the feast they may be taken in wooden or tin receptacles, ad the mayonnaise may be carried separately in a wide-mouthed bottle. Lettuce toughens when left too long in the dressing, and the salad will be improved if mixed just before it is to be eaten. Sandwiches must be put up in waxed paper, three or four together, while tissue paper may be used for wrapping the stuffed eggs, and the ends of the paper after being twisted may be fringed. No means to make the provisions present a dainty appearance should be neglected.

A Few Sandwich Fillings.

1. Cop fine a cup of cold boiled ham and two cups of coil boiled or roast chicken, make to a paste with mayonnaise dressing and spread on buttered white or graham bread.

Chicken and tongue sandwiches may be prepared by using the meat in the same proportions.

2. Rub cream cheese to a paste with sweet cream and spread it on white bread. Lay on each slice a leaf of lettuce which has been dipped in French dressing. Place over it a slice of buttered bread, either white or brown.

3. Prepare cheese as above directed and add to each cheese a half cupful of chopped nuts. Salt to taste. Or you may use minced watercress with the cheese instead of nuts.

4. Boil half a dozen eggs, putting them on in cold water. Cook for 15 minutes after the water reaches the boiling point. Rub the yolks to a powder and stir into them two teaspoonfuls of fish paste or potted ham or tongue, and reduce with melted butter to the consistency of soft cheese. Chop the whites fine; mix with this and spread all on thin bread and butter.

5. Lobster or crab sandwiches are very good and are made by mincing the meat fine and making it to a paste with mayonnaise. Spread on thin white buttered bread.

6. Plain egg sandwiches may be made by chopping hard-boiled eggs fine, the whites and the yolks together, softening with melted butter to a paste, seasoning with salt, pepper, onion juice and a little dry mustard, and spreading on bread. Sardine sandwiches may be made like the lobster or crab sandwiches.

7. Delicious sweet sandwiches are prepared by mixing good jam with cream cheese, softening to a paste with cream and spreading on thin white bread. Jelly sandwiches may be made in the same way, or the jelly may be spread on buttered bread.

Marion Harland

OTHER ARTICLES ALSO PUBLISHED…
Family Meals for a Week
The Housemothers’ Exchange

Soft Summer Drinks

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Ho boy! The weather outside is currently hot and humid after we’ve had some overcast and summer storms. I though the “soft” drinks written about below might be fun to try out while attempting to cool off. This article was found in a July 1908 issue of a Montana newspaper.

Raspberry lemonade is one of my favourite drinks but it would be nice to mix it up once in a while and I’m especially excited to try my hand at the orange sherbet.

School for Housewives – Soft Summer Drinks

In the old times, the thirsty soul – or body – solaced itself with plain water or with lemonade. The chief variation upon his was iced tea and, once in a while, iced coffee. These were the only beverages open to the drinker of temperate habits.

We have improved upon that sort of thing and have introduced “soft” punches, in which our old friend, lemonade, while still serving as a foundation, would not recognize itself. Tea, too, is metamorphosed, although hardly improved, and other mixtures of which we did not dream earlier days are taken as a matter of course.

We may call ourselves old-fashioned and make fun of these innovations – but we cannot help acknowledging that some of them are very good. Especially are they a delight to the palates of our thirty girls and boys who come in after a tramp across the golf links, or a bout at tennis, or a game of baseball. Even the seniors of the party may be beguiled into taking a second glass. The house where the pleasantest welcome and the best and most refreshing thirst-quenchers are offered is likely to be the one which the young people will flock, and we need not fear that our boys and girls will wander off to undesirable associations while they know that good things, both spiritual and physical, await them at home.

None of the drinks I have given below contains liquor of any sort. Those who have tried it, know that alcohol not only fails the relieve thirst, but also raises the temperature of the body in warm weather as in cold. Be our principles what they may, common sense urges us that when we wish to be cool we should take cooling drinks, and I do not hesitate to recommend those I have given as means to the end of lowered temperature, without and within.

Ice Tea

Just as there is a popular fallacy that everyone can make a cup of good hot tea, so there is an impression that any one can make good cold tea. The one idea is as mistaken as the other. You cannot make good iced tea of the dregs of the teapot, after the water has stood on the leaves all through the meal by the simple expedient of filling up the teapot with boiling water.

There are two right ways of preparing tea for iced tea. One is the Russian fashion of making the tea hot with freshly boiling water and pouring it still hot upon cracked ice in tumblers. When this is done, the tea must be pretty strong in the first place, as the melting ice weakens it. The other way is by making the tea fresh some hours before it is to be used, and then pouring it off the leaves and setting it aside to cool. In one country house, where I am always a happy guest, iced tea is served as a beverage at luncheon, and in place of the regular 5 o’clock function of afternoon tea, all during the hot weather. The hostess makes the breakfast tea from the boiling kettle that swings on the crane at her elbow, and, when she has poured out her own morning cup, fills the teapot from the still bubbling kettle and strains the tea into a big pitcher, to be set aside until it is needed. Then it is poured into the ice-filled glasses and is a drink to cast nectar into the shade.

Such is iced tea at its best, and there is no reason why it should ever fall below perfection. Let me parody Bishop Butler: “Doubtless a better drink could have been made, but doubtless it never was.”

Iced Tea Punch

Make iced tea and turn it into a punch bowl, on a big lump of ice. Add to a quart of the strong tea a tablespoonful of lemon juice, a bottle of Apollinaris water and sugar to taste. Cut thin splices of lemon, and let them float on the surface of the punch. When they are in season, a few strawberries or cherries or a bit of pineapple may be added. Ladle out and drink in tumblers.

Ginger Ale Punch

Squeeze the juice of six lemon upon a cupful of granulated sugar and leave on the ice for an hour. When it is to be served, put two cupfuls of cracked ice in a punch bowl with the lemon and sugar, a quart of water and the contents of two bottles of ginger ale. Have ready long sprays of fresh mint, bruise their stems between the fingers, then thrust them into the punch.

Mint Punch

Make a lemonade foundation of lemon and sugar, as directed in the preceding recipe, by putting together lemon juice and sugar, and add to this a double handful of mint sprays, which have been bruised, with a couple of tablespoonfuls of white sugar. Let these stand in a cool place for an hour; put into a punch bowl with a block of ice and pour upon them two bottles of “charged” water, or the contents of two siphons of seltzer. This is very refreshing.

Orange Sherbet

Peel and squeeze eight large oranges and two lemons. Put the juice of the lemons and the pulp and juice of the oranges into a bowl with a small cup of granulated sugar. After it has stood ten minutes and the sugar is well melted, add a tablespoonful of minced pineapple, and after standing a few minutes longer pour upon a block of ice in a punch bowl. Just before serving turn in a quart of Apollinaris.

Fruit Punch

Make a foundation of a good lemonade, allowing five lemons to a quart of water and sweetening to taste. To each quart of the lemonade allow half an orange, sliced; a tablespoonful of pineapple, cut into dice; a small banana, sliced; and a handful of cherries or strawberries or raspberries. Let all stand half an hour before serving, and turn into a punch bowl or large pitcher with plenty of ice. Stir up well from the bottom before pouring out.

Iced Coffee

Make your coffee clear and strong, and add to it plenty of cream and no milk. The best plan is to have the clear coffee in a pitcher and add cream and sugar as it is needed. To those who have never tried it, let me say that there are many worse drinks on a hot day than good, clear coffee, served with plenty of ice and without cream or sugar. But the coffee must be of the best and freshly made – not the leftovers of the breakfast beverage.

Pineapple Lemonade

Boil two cups of sugar and a pint of water ten minutes and then set it aside to cool. When it is cold add to it a juice of three good-sized lemons and a grated pineapple. Let this stand on the ice for two hours. When ready to serve add a quart of water, either plain or “charged” and pour on a piece of ice in a punch bowl or in a large pitcher.

Currant Punch

Make a syrup of sugar and water as in the preceding recipe and set aside to cool. Crush together four cups of red or white currants and a cup of red raspberries. Put them through a press and put with them the syrup and three pints of cold water. Add the juice of a lemon and let all stand for a couple of hours before serving. Throw a handful of stemmed currants and of raspberries into the bowl or pitcher from which the punch is served.

Strawberry Punch

Make as the currant punch is compounded, substituting a pint of strawberry juice for that of the other fruits, and add the juice of three lemons instead of one. Put a handful of the hulled berries into the punch when made. While this punch is especially good when made with the fresh fruit, it may be made from the fresh strawberry syrup when the berries themselves are out of season. The addition of a half cupful of red raspberries to this punch is an improvement.

Raspberry Shrub

For a foundation for this beverage one must have the old preparation of raspberry vinegar or raspberry royal. To five teaspoonfuls of this a quart of cold water must be allowed, and the mixture must be served with plenty of ice. If red raspberries to float on the surface of the punch cannot be procured, in their place may be used a cupful of shredded pineapple or a banana cut into dice.

Marion Harland

The Maid of All Work

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From time to time I will post interesting articles from early issues of the Dauphin Herald to examine what pioneers of Canada’s western province, Manitoba, read and found interesting themselves. Specifically I will look at articles that target women of the age. The first article I will post is from a quaint series entitled, “School for Housewives” by Marion Hartland who published a number of books for women as well as a number of syndicated articles such as this one published across Canada and the USA. The Maid of All Work was published in the Dauphin Herald on 22 Oct 1908.

I stumbled across this series of articles last year as I browsed copies of the Dauphin Herald for weekly information from the town of Fork River. I became interested in what Marion Harland (Mary Virginia Terhune) had to say on how housewives should run their home in the early 1900s. I wonder how many women of Dauphin and beyond followed Marion’s advise and I am curious on how many house servants were employed in Dauphin.

School for Housewives – The Maid of All Work

Some one has aptly called the general housework servant a “Pooh-Bah in petticoats.” All branches of household toll are included in her province.

This does not mean, however, that she discharges them all. When she is engaged she doubtless agrees to do cooking, chamberwork, waiting on table and very likely washing and ironing as well. Sometimes she does all these things, but it is usually when she is very competent and the family is very small. Gone are the old days when one maid was considered sufficient for a good-sized family. This is a period of specialization, and we must have a maid for nearly every variety of work. The higher wages these specialists command make it an object with the general housework servant to seek promotion from her solitary state as soon as possible.

Whether it be the result of this same specialization or an outcome of more elaborate methods of living, there is no doubt that a good maid-of-all-work is hard to find and to keep it goes without saying that her wages have gone up, like everything else. The fact that she does not pay rent or food or fuel bills does not militate against her demanding more pay for the same work that as done ten years ago at a smaller wage.

None the less, since a competent maid is a rarity, it behooves the possessor of one to consider her so far as she can. The average mistress accepts it as a matter of course that she should lend a hand in the cookery on Monday and Tuesday, besides washing the dishes and making the beds. On other days she probably does the dusting and assumes small duties about the house. Yet, while she is ready to take a share of the work she should have it clearly understood with the maid that certain duties fall upon the servant’s shoulders and that when the mistress performs them she does it not of merit on the maid’s part, but of free grace on that of the employer.

Because the woman who have remained general housework servants until middle age are generally either not competent for higher work or are so “set in their ways” as to be difficult to manage, it is sometimes well for the mistress who has the time and the strength to take a young and comparatively inexperience girl and train her to her hand. I know there is a strong probability that so soon as she is of a real value in the household she will seek another home where she will get higher wages; but she would be likely to do that anyhow. And there is always a chance that she may have either the common sense or the loyalty to stand by her first employer.

The maid engaged with the understanding, always to be borne in mind in such conditions, that she is “to turn her hand to anything,” the mistress should set about training her in the way she means to have her follow steadily. When the new servant has become accustomed to her work and to the ways of the house, she may introduce variation, but for the time it is better that she should adhere to a fixed schedule.

A regular hour of rising should be one of the first rules laid down by the mistress, and it should be early. In a house where breakfast is at 7:30 or 8, 6 is none too early an hour for the maid to rise. This gives her time to take half an hour for dressing and brings her downstairs by 6:30. In a house where a coal or wood range is used, her first duty will be to start the fire, fill the kettle, put it on to boil and place the cereal over the fire. These two duties may be done if gas is used as fuel, and gives the maid more time for her other work. In winter she may have to go down to the furnace, open the draughts and put on fresh coal.

The next step is to go into the living rooms and open them to air; after that the front hall may be brushed off and a touch given to the front steps and the sidewalk, unless there is an outside man engaged to do this. The dining room and drawing room may also be brushed up, if they need it, and the furniture straightened – dusting done, too, if this is one of the maid’s duties. In any case, the dining room should be put in spotless order for the morning meal.

When the maid is brisk about her duties, all this can be done before it is time for her to put the kettle over. Should the cereal be one needing long cooking, it should have been se over a low flame when the maid first came downstairs.

The amount of work a maid can do before breakfast depends, as a matter of course, upon the kind of breakfast to be prepared. In households where thee is a simple meal of fruit, cereal, bacon and eggs, toast and coffee, her work is comparatively light, but in a home where hot bread must be made, potatoes and meat cooked, she can hardly be expected to get through with much before the morning meal.

In households where only one maid is employed she is not expected to do any waiting at breakfast beyond removing the plates as they are used. By the time the family reach the last stage of the breakfast she should either eat her own breakfast or go to the upstairs work. If the beds have been stripped to air by their occupants on rising, the task of getting the rooms in order is taken in hand. Beds may be made, the furniture put in order, the floor gone over with a carpet sweeper, soiled water emptied, the utensils cleaned. This too, is the time to put the bathroom in order.

In a good-sized family this care of the bedrooms generally devolves upon the women of the household. In this case the maid can set to work putting her kitchen to rights, washing the dishes used in preparing the breakfast, looking over the pantry to see what supplies are needed and the like. By the time the family has finished eating the maid is ready to come in and clear the table, take the dishes to the kitchen, arrange and darken the dining room and after this to wash the dishes. When this is done, if she has not had time to finish her upstairs work properly, she should go back to it. Before she leaves the kitchen she should rinse out her dish towels and put them over to boil.

By this time, or earlier, the mistress should have come in to see what there is in the larder and to decide about the meals for the day. This is the time when she sees that the refrigerator is clean and if there are left-overs which should be used at once.

The general work of the house should be divided up on the different days, so that there will not be a hard pull one day and a lazy time another. Monday and Tuesday are taken for granted for washing and ironing, if the ironing hangs over into Wednesday, it may be necessary to crowd most of the sweeping and cleaning into the last of the week; but when the laundry work is out of the way by Tuesday night, part of the sweeping may be done on Wednesday – the dining room or parlor, rather than the upstairs rooms, since there is usually some baking to be done on Wednesday, and it is well for the maid to have work which will not take her too far from her kitchen.

Thursday’s work may be silver cleaning, brass polishing and window washing. The maid’s weekly or fortnightly “afternoon out” usually falls on Thursday unless special arrangements are made otherwise. Friday is the day to do the upstairs sweeping and cleaning, and Saturday brings in baking, odds and ends and general preparation for Sunday.

The week’s work having been outlined, let us look again at the daily vocations. The midday luncheon, at which the table is spread as at breakfast, is one which requires little waiting. The mistress should endeavor so to plan the work that there will be no heavy or dirty work to be done in the afternoon. If the maid and mistress agree in judicious discharge of the daily duties, there is no reason why the afternoon should not be comparatively free, or filled only with light tasks, until the time comes to make the dinner ready.

At dinner time the maid is expected to do more waiting than at either of the preceding meals. She is not to stay in the room after the dishes are passed, but she should be ready to come at sound of the bell. Her work after dinner is practically the same as that after the other meals. If she is forehanded about her work and washes the dishes of one course while the subsequent course is eaten she can get through her work early, and after she has turned down the beds, the evening will be her own. I wish I could say she would be likely to do this, but having managed to induce but one maid to follow this course in all my housekeeping career, I cannot speak encouragingly on the matter.

There are as many different kinds of maids as there are mistresses, and one can never tell how either will turn out until after trial has been made. When a maid-of-all-work is competent and willing, I really believe that it is easier living than with two maids or more. But as I have said, a maid of that sort is far off and hard to find. When she is once secured, it is worth her employer’s while to pay a good price and make some concessions to keep her.

Marion Harland