Tag: 1909

Raw Foods: A Nut For Our Housemothers to Crack

KailaLeave a comment

This is the first article in July of the School for Housewives 1909 series published on July 4, 1909, and is an article on the benefits of raw foods like nuts.

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

Raw Foods: A Nut For Our Housemothers to Crack

I HAD written out the caption of another paper for this week’s discussion when the mail was brought in. A thick letter, bearing a California postmark, dropped from the bag when it was opened. After reading all the shorter epistles, as is my wont, I “tackled” the bulky missive and did not lay it down until the last word was read. Then I turned back to the first page and went over it a second time.

It is well written, and with honesty so evident and earnestness so unfeigned that I cannot cavil at the sentiments therein expressed. A long half hour of musing—a veritable brown study—resulted in the determination to substitute the California woman’s dissertation upon raw foods for the talk I had planned.

Before yielding the floor to her, let me remark that here is no new theory, although the application of it to this particular matter, the reduction of obesity, may be novel. Ten years and more ago the papers teemed with arguments for and against raw foods as the exclusive diet of the human species. We received samples of sun-baked bread and flour ground from desiccated vegetables, and circulars setting forth the superiority of dried fruits and nut pastes to cooked desserts. We were invited to lectures illustrated by the exhibition of robust boys, and men with sinews of steel, who had been fed from the cradle upon raw carrots, potatoes and turnips and who could not abide the thought of spoiling the kindly foods of the earth by killing the natural juices with fire, and thus changing the chemical properties designed by nature for the sustenance and upbuilding of her favorite child—man as the Creator meant him to be.

An Open Question.

As a rule of wide application, we have remained unconverted. The kitchen range, condemned by the teachers of the new school—which they tell us is the old—as an altar where-upon reek unholf sacrifices to the depraved tastes of an artificial civilization, burns steadily, and odors more fragrant than incense, to the senses of degenerate flesh-eaters, titillate our nostrils with the incoming and the outgoing of each day.

Thus stands the case I shall submit to our enlightened constituency—candid and broadminded as I have ever found it to be.

How much of practical truth is there in theory that uncooked foods are—or should be—the natural diet of the men, women and children of our age? Would the practice strenuously defended by the apostles of the school I have spoken of, banish disease and make athletes of our race? Or is the new school but one of the hundred fads that have their little day, and die, leaving gastronomic and culinary lore as they have been form the beginning of all the time we have known and read of?

I ask a free expression of opinion from our intelligent members. Can we live upon the provender that contents graminivorous animals? Are we sinning against our bodies and minds and controverting God’s designs in and for us?

A Peculiar Diet.

Now for our California letter, for which I bespeak a respectful perusal:

“I have read the appeal of ‘A Frightened Woman,’ and, having been at one time in the same trouble, I feel that I must tell her of my experience.”

“I am five feet three inches in height, and from 130 to 135 pounds in weight is as much as I could carry gracefully. So when I began to take on flesh, and kept up the habit, I was much annoyed, and when I reached 170 pounds I also was ‘frightened,’ and finally consulted our family physician. He said, ‘It’s nothing! You are taking on flesh and you should take more exercise.’”

“Now, I dislike to ‘take exercise,’ and, as the effect lasts only as long as the exercises are continued I didn’t try his prescription.”

“I was, likewise, very much troubled with rheumatism, and longed for help just as this correspondent from Columbus, O., wishes to get relief.”

“Just about this time some acquaintances from Pasadena called. They believe thoroughly in ‘raw foods,’ and live according to their belief. I had no faith whatever in the theory. They were enthusiastic about it and were confident that it would help me. I was glad enough, by that time, to try something.”

“The consequences were far beyond my highest expectations. In six weeks I lost 30 pounds, and that without taking a daily walk or any kind of exercise. And after I had arrived at normal weight I never lost another pound in a year. Besides this great benefit I was entirely cured of rheumatism.”

“It is now two years since I started with this system. I have not had a twinge of rheumatism, and our baby, who is nine months old, is the healthiest and best child I ever saw, while the older children suffered in infancy from poor digestion and other ailments resulting from malnutrition.”

“I shall be happy to confer with any one who wishes to know the particulars of the system, and who is willing to try it. One thing is sure; one doesn’t have to starve one’s self. I have found numbers of people who are so fond of ‘good things to eat’ that they won’t try anything which restricts them in that respect.”

“I send you an account of how I used the raw foods. I can’t say enough in praise of the results, but after being accustomed to eat cooked foods for a lifetime it takes ‘lots’ of determination to continue a long time in the new way.”

“The raw food method, as I took it, was to eat nothing that had been cooked—no meat, eggs, butter or milk—and to drink nothing but water, but plenty of that.”

“One meal a day is sufficient. In two or three days one gets used to this. About 4 P.M., or later, eat some fruit—as much or as little as you like. After this, some raw vegetables, with neither pepper, salt, sugar nor other helps to taste. I ate tomatoes, peas, lettuce, onions and cucumbers—one or more kinds, and as much or as little as I cared for—and always nuts. These were English walnuts and almonds, they being my favorites. They seem to supply all the fats I needed. Finally, I ate two teaspoonfuls of wheat, whole. One may grind it if one likes it better that way. I also took two spoonfuls of dried peas, ground, and sometimes I ate a spoonful of whole flaxseed.”

“All these must be eaten dry and, of course, very slowly, the wheat especially, as it is the foundation of the diet. After this meal one may easily go 24 hours and feel better for not eating more. In all of this food one should swallow only what is thoroughly dissolved in the mouth. The rest, fiber and skins, must be rejected, and never taken into the stomach.”

“Mrs. F.M.G. (Hollywood, Cal.).”

Lest some skeptical meat-eater may suspect me of palming off a burlesque upon a credulous audience, let me remind him that the address in a full of our enthusiastic vegetarian who finds one meal per diem all she requires to keep her well and strong and contented awaits the call of any one who would like to consult her further with regard to the extraordinary system she exploits. The practical and sensible housemother should look at all sides of the question (and of all questions) before discarding it in toto. And let us confess on some hot day in early summer that there are alluring features in a system which involves neither fire nor other preparation for feeding the body than the exertion of champing a handful of wheat and peas into a digestible paste, winding up the solitary meal of the 24 hours with a spoonful or two of nuts as a dessert. No heat in kitchen or dining room—in fact, no kitchen! And, to parody the blissful anticipation of the “old lady who lived where help wasn’t hired—“

Everything there will be quite to our wishes,
For where there’s no cooking there’ll be no washing of dishes.

Seriously, will our doctors and dietitians favor us with a professional verdict in the case? Were carnivorous teeth lacking in the dental outfit of the original human being? Are they one of the many “inventions” which the depraved descendants have “sought out?” Or a blunder in the making which the latter-day reformer is bent upon setting right?

How far may vegetarianism be carried with advantage to the race?

Marion Harland

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

The Breakfast Table

KailaLeave a comment

This is the forth article in June of the School for Housewives 1909 series published on June 27, 1909, and is an article on the breakfast table. Specifically, Marion Harland talks about how breakfast is not normally anyone’s favourite meal but that needs changing! To help she outlines some rules to brighten up the table.

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

The Breakfast Table

IN all my long life I have heard not more than half a dozen persons say that they really enjoyed breakfast. The consensus of popular opinion is to the effect that the meal is a duty, not a pleasure, and that it is grudgingly performed. In France it is never a family function. Each member of the household, if he or she does not “mourn apart,” sulks in the solitude of the bed chamber over the compulsory task of disposing of rolls and coffee. “Only that and nothing more!” At noon, when they have become measurably reconciled to the fact of continued existence in a world that does not pay the expenses of running it, men and women meet about a civilized table for the “dejeuner a la fourchette,” which corresponds to our luncheon.

The English breakfast, never served before 9 or 10 o’clock, except in the hunting season, is a ponderous affair. Tea and coffee, boiled eggs, muffins, toast, and on the sideboard rounds and joints of cold meat, not to mention larded sweetbreads, deviled kidneys and “broiled bones,” await the robust appetite of family and guests. For, be it known, the English are not early risers as a rule. In America we growl at the laziness of the shopkeeper who does not open his doors and raise the window blinds by 7 o’clock on summer mornings, whereas when we cross the ocean we have to submit to the inconvenient custom of a 9 o’clock “opening” in town and country. It strikes the unsophisticated tourist as what Miss Ophelia, in
Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” calls “dreadfully shiftless.” Yet the British are not a shiftless nation.

The American breakfast is distinctively a national institution. It is served at what nine-tenths of the eaters would condemn as an ungodly hour; it is a heavy meal; it is a family meal, and in a shamefully large percentage of homes, the homes of Christian citizens, the least social and the most uncomfortable repast of the day.

Not a Pleasant Picture.

Gentlewomen and gentlemen of high and low degree confess, with never a touch of shame, that they “are not responsible beings until after breakfast.” Peter familias veils his somber face with the morning paper and the mother bids the children “be quiet!” for she has “a curl headache.” Even the babiest of the group is cross under the teasing of her biggest brother, and the others snap at one another as dogs snarl over their trenchers.

Do I exaggerate the evil? Let those whose experience has been more fortunate and whose observations have been made in sunnier weather arise to dispute the picture. In how many so-called happy homes is not “father’s breakfast grouch” a terror and a bywords? To how many tables does the mother bring a brow furrowed by the coming cares of the new day and a critical spirit totally unlike her tender, kindly self as her children know her for the rest of the 24 hours?

The oddest part of the exhibition is that nobody is humiliated by the recollection of his morning mood. The man who “wishes” his gentle wife “would mind her own business” when she ventures a timid query as to the morning news over which he is scowling, and tosses his carfare to his son with a savage, “You children are forever begging for money!” laughs at the recollection in his afternoon chat. “What else is to be expected of a fellow at breakfast? He is hardly an accountable creature.”

Much-Needed Grace.

We learn at our mother’s knees to pray, “Give us day by day our daily bread,” and we do well to carry the prayer in our hearts all our life long. Who of us asks in true humility and earnestness, “Give us this day our breakfast grace?”

I believe I have said that before somewhere, but let it stand! Heaven (and our families) know how sorely the petition is needed.

Yet reason and common sense would unite in declaring that the breakfast mood should be blithe and hopeful. Mind, nerves and muscle have been rested and refreshed by sleep. The freshness of the young day; the bath and toilet that have clad the body in fresh raiment; the anticipation of renewed opportunities for usefulness and of enjoyment opening to the imagination with the rising of the sun upon a rejuvenated earth, should combine to exalt the spirit and tone up the system.

I made up my mind fifty years and more ago that the influences of the early morning are distinctly depressing to the average human being. At the same time I made up my mind as strenuously that to yield to these is a sin and a disgrace to decent Christians. As a result the breakfast hour is cheerful in one household, at least in outward seeming. It is reckoned a personal duty that may not, be shirked to stimulate it when it does not come of itself. In time the effort brings the rich reward of the real grace. The “breakfast grace” comes for the asking.

Don’t grumble at the length of the sermon! If you knew how much more bubbles up to my lips and pleads for expression you would be grateful for my forbearance.

Now for the application! Make the breakfast table attractive to every sense. Let the silver be bright, the glass clear, the breakfast cloth spotless and the napkins clean. If you have flowers for but one meal per day, let them brighten the breakfast table about which the family is gathered after the night of darkness and helplessness. Make the whole array of equipage and eaters a visible expression of gratitude for the “blessings of the light.” I like the way the old hymnal puts that! One good man whose life was full of the best things the Father bestows upon His children—love, joy and peace—used always. In asking a blessing upon the first meal of the day, to thank God for “the rest of the night and the light and happiness of the new day which Thou hast made for us.” It was an inspiring thought, that of a new creation, and our very own.

A Few Set Rules.

I have talked once and again with the members of the Exchange of the hygienic value of the lighter breakfast now generally approved by our wisest dietitians above the heavy meal we copied from our English progenitors. In the weekly bills-of-family-fare that go with these very familiar chats with our housemothers I sketch the plan of the meal. In my own home the same line is pursued throughout the year. Fruit; a cereal, hot or cold, and varied from day to day, but always served with cream; eggs or fish, or a light meat, usually broiled bacon; bread and butter; invariably freshly made toast, brought in crisp and hot from the kitchen during the meal; tea, coffee and, for the younger eaters, digestible cocoa.

A dish of apples is on the table as long as apples are to be had, and most of us conclude the meal with one, or a section if the apple be large. If affords a pretext for lingering over the table when the rest of the breakfast has been cleared away. The morning paper is a regular visitor, but he who reads it during the meal must share the news with the family. May I say, furthermore, that in the other households that are the branches of this vine the same rules prevail, to the comfort of all concerned?

In contrast, I may hint at homes, otherwise worthy of the name, where not a word is spoken during the progress of breakfast, except what is connected with the business of the hour or half hour. There is no lingering over that gloomy altar of sacrifice to physical needs.

It is a cogent argument in support of the light breakfast—that excludes potatoes, steak, pork and chops, and for most of the week hot breads—that the American goes forth to his daily toil at an hour when the foreigner has not left his pillow. To set out upon the arduous round directly after swallowing a solid meal is highly prejudicial to health. Henry Ward Beecher changed the hour of the second service in his church from afternoon to evening because everybody has an early dinner on Sunday. And he “would not preach to roast beef and plum pudding.” The brain worker appreciates the force of the objection. The average American is a brain worker, let his calling be what it may.

Whatever you eat at the meal that breaks your fast after hours or rest for the hard-worked stomach, eat it slowly. I verily believe that the alarming increase in the number of deaths by apoplexy and the more marked suburban popular are largely the direct consequence of the “bolt-and-jump” habit inseparable from the commuter’s daily practice. Better eat ten mouthfuls slowly, reducing each to the digestible paste the alimentary organs demand, than choke or stoke down a hundred with nerves and muscles strained and ears alert for “the train.”

Forego that last delicious doze and eat your breakfast deliberately. It is sound policy in the long run, which will be the longer for your obedience to this law.

Marion Harland

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

Apartment Home Life

KailaLeave a comment

This is the third article in June of the School for Housewives 1909 series published on June 20, 1909, and is an article on renting apartments and how to set up home in one.

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

Apartment Home Life

“WE DO everything in sections nowadays,” said a merry woman yesterday. “We buy our pianos upon the instalment plan, commit the care of our lungs, stomachs and heads to as many different specialists, and live in slices of houses. And it is getting to be unfashionable to be whole-souled!”

We may demur at the final section of the speech, but we are not here to discuss it.

We are so used to the idea of the sliced house that we do not stay to recall how odd the system would have seemed to us forty years back. We borrowed apartment life from the French, and the marvel is not that it is so general now all over the Northern and Middle States, but that we were so slow in adopting it. The broad strain of English blood in us may have had something to do with our reluctance to resign our lawns, our shrubbery and—last and most dear to the home-loving soul—our very own front doors. A woman who had dwelt in foreign tents for tent years declared to me her intention of taking over her front door and knocker if she ever went abroad again.

“Just to keep up the pleasant fiction that I am a householder.”

The Outside Viewpoint.

Time was, and not so very long ago, either, when to live in a slice of a house implied inability to take a whole dwelling for occupation of one’s self and family. Residents of such were of the class that talked of “the folks downstairs.” In glancing from my desk toward the nearest window I see darkly and voluminously outlined against the sky the steel framework of an apartment house that fills an entire block. It is to be the largest building of its kind in America, we are told. In addition to the stereotyped “modern conveniences” there will be a garage in the rear of the spacious court that opens to the sky ten stories above the street level, and ten elevators in the building. Apartments of fair size will rent for $5000 per year “and upward.”

Coming down in the scale of prices (I do not say in the social scale), we find a more comfortable level in the hosts of family apartments fitted up comfortably, often with modest elegance, with all the requisites for the residence of people of moderate means and simple tastes. They line our streets in what newspapers name “the residential portions” of our towns. They used to look like dolls’ quarters to us when we got into them. A hall that has degrees of narrowness, and never of width; ranged upon the only side of this that belong to John and Mary, two, maybe three, bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom sometimes so near the front door that visitors have a way of blundering into it at their exit under the impression that it is “the way out.” At the end of the more-or-less narrow hall lie the state apartments of the establishment in the guise of one or more sitting-rooms. One ambitious woman clings to the old nomenclature of “drawing-room” and we try to smile in the attempt to fit the title to the ten-by-ten parlor. If there are two of them, the agent is careful to represent that one may be counted in as a bedchamber if one more be required for the growing household. A small dining-room completes the tale of rooms.

From the Inside.

If I have seemed to jest at the strait confines and makeshifts of the lodgings hired for so much per month (with no deduction if rented by the year) in which John, Mary and one, or two, or mayhap four children must live, day and night, in the great Babel where John gets a living for them, it is all in seeming. For hundred of thousands of respectable, refined families live in this manner from year’s end to year’s end, and make homes of the narrow quarters.

There are sundry bright sides to the picture, dun-colored though it may look to the dweller in his spacious farmstead and pitifully mean to the semi-millionaire who could afford to rent (or buy) one of the $5000-a-year “slices,” but prefers a brownstone-front private residence upon a “good” street.

To begin with, the drudgery of American housekeeping is reduced to a minimum in a well-arranged flat. With no stairs to keep clean, no furnace fire to keep up, no sidewalk to sweep and no steps to climb when one is fairly at home, the mother soon appreciates a sensible lessening of the burden bound upon her body and mind. The rooms are small, bur easier to keep clean on that account. There is neither a cellar nor attic. There is, therefore, less danger of rubbish heaps to be disposed of spring and fall. If she be wise in her generation, Mary is not slow in discovering the French-woman’s sound economy of purchasing provision in small quantities. I know this tenet is at variance with the United States’ preconceived idea that wholesale purchasing is a saving in the long run. Applies and potatoes are cheaper by one-third when laid in by the barrel. If the cellar be dry, and if the farmer or the commuter’s wife has time to spare for a weekly overhauling and sorting of the specked, the decayed and the sound, the principle holds good. All the same, fruits and flour, butter and beef are used more freely if there is a big supply on hand than when calculation must be made daily of the stock in refrigerator and cupboard. And there is next to no waste in smaller quantities.

The refrigerator is built into the wall or hall or of kitchen in a flat. See to it that it aired into continual sweetness. If salad, lettuce, cress or endive be put into the refrigerator, wrap it in a linen or cotton cloth to keep it fresh and prevent the flavor from affecting milk or butter. Use the like precaution with regard to meats and fruit. Never put away strongly flavored provisions of any kind in the icebox unless in closed cases.

Look to the quantity of closet room before you rent the apartment. So much of family comfort depends upon the condition that she is short-sighted who does not make a resolute stand here. Wardrobe closets in the chambers, china presses in dining-room and kitchen, with roomy not closets in the latter, go far toward making up for the cellar and garret. There is, usually, a storeroom in the basement which empty trunks and boxes may be stored. Examine it from time to time to ascertain if it be dry. I have known trunks rotted into uselessness by storage in an ill-ventilated basement. It is no sign that the said ground floor is dry and clean because the janitor and his family live in it.

The same janitor is an important factor in flat life. Some are intolerably slovenly and incompetent; others are indifferently good; now and then one happens upon a jewel of a Joe or Patrick, who contributes a liberal quota toward the home-feeling to be gained in the sliced home. Make it a point to get on the right side of him. Speak to him kindly whenever you meet on the stairs or have occasion to summon him to your apartment to look after range or plumbing. Fee him judiciously, yet not lavishly, at intervals. It is a good investment of 50 cents or $1.

You will need to put more shelves in your clothes presses and pot closets. A legal friend informs me that, if nailed to the wall these fall under the head of “fixtures” and may not be removed when you migrate to other quarters. If neatly screwed to woodwork they are “portable.” The same is true as to bookcases. Shelve the closets up to the ceiling and make absolute the law “A place for everything in its place.” If you have more china than the presses will contain, and a superfluity of bric-a-brac, dispose of the pieces you use least upon a shelf fastened upon brackets on a level with the picture molding in dining and living room.

From the beginning determine that your abiding place shall be a home, and as pretty and cozy as your means will admit. Strike the keynote of comfort and harmony in the arrangement of the furniture. Don’t crowd the walls with pictures because you happen to have them. A few really good engravings hung in the proper light impart a tone to the parlor not to be gained from mediocre paintings. Hang family likenesses in the bedrooms. Don’t pack bric-a-brac (much abused name!) upon mantels and tables until the place looks like a fancy fair. Select a few of the best vases for show, and when you can, fill them with flowers.

The most woeful want known to the flat-dweller in the city is the poverty of light in the inner rooms. Write it down as a must-have that your children shall sleep in rooms where the sunlight finds entrance at some hour of the day. The conventional “shaft” is a device of the Evil One as truly as the spider’s web is spun to catch flies. Smells arise steadily from pavement, basement and sewer. A dark room is an abomination to the Lord of light and life. I say it reverently. It should be a penal offense to construct a house for the residence of human creatures in which this is a necessity in the mind of the architect. If you cannot avoid renting a “slice” where one of these is a fixture, use it for some other purpose than a sleeping room.

In selecting the flat choose one that is well up toward the sky in preference to a first or second floor. You have more stairs to climb, it is true, but you are amply repaid for the exertion by the better air and purer abundance of light you find at the top. If you are lucky enough to have an accommodating elevator, go as high as it ascends.

On Stair-Climbing.

It may not be true, as some assert, that at the height of seventy or eighty feet one is practically beyond the germ belt. But it is certainly true that one leaves many impurities of this low earth behind as one mounts heavenward.

One word to those who, by reason of flesh, scantiness of breath, weakness or the weight of years, find stairclimbing painfully difficult. Take the ascent slowly, and before lifting the foot for the next step draw a full breath, exhaling it as you set your foot on the higher stair. After a little practice you will surprise yourself by the increased ease of the climb. Give out the breath slowly with the rise of the knee and foot. Halt for a few second on the stair and begin another inhalation. You will not only mount faster, but you will not be breathless when you are at the end of the journey.

Marion Harland

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

How to Jelly Small Fruits

KailaLeave a comment

This is the second article in June of the School for Housewives 1909 series published on June 13, 1909, and is an article on the development of canning jellies and jams. Mrs. Harland also comments on the use of slang reguarding the shortening of words like ‘jelly.’

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

How to Jelly Small Fruits

IMPRIMIS, don’t sey “jell!”

Although the young housewife in Miss Alcott’s inimitable “Little Women” did bewail her evil case when her currants wouldn’t “jell,” take time to say “jelly.” At this point I digress from the main line to entreat correspondents to snatch, or make, time in writing to me to use the little personal pronoun “I.” Don’t say, “Would like to ask” or “Would say” in beginning a sentence. Write, “I should like to ask” and “I would say.” I have to supply the missing pronoun in putting MSS into printable shape. Say, likewise, in writing a recipe, “Let it stand,” instead of “Let stand.”

I believe “jell” to be a New England provincialism. Hence, “Meg’s” use of it. I have heard the shaking mold of translucent conserve offered to the guest in a Massachusetts farmhouse spoken of as “jell.” The monosyllable falls lawfully into line with other curtailed words under the new regime of orthography. When we cut off and drop into the waste basket the stately terminations of “prologue” and “catagloue” and make “thru” do service for “through,” we may be thankful to have the body of our “jelly” left to us.

A few prefatory words to the directions for putting up small fruits in this form may not be superfluous.

Not Overripe.

The berries must be fully ripe, but not what is called “dead ripe.” The old saying that currant jelly will not be firm unless put up before the Fourth of July has this proviso of perfect ripeness as a warrant. The housemother who understands her profession has learned that, in most instances there must be acid in the fruit she would jelly. Blackberries, strawberries and red raspberries, even the wild blackcap, if really ripe, do not jelly easily. The mixture of currants and raspberries, of which I shall speak presently, owes form, as well as flavor, to the red juice of the tart berry. Blackberry and strawberry jelly, if there be no addition of lemon juice or other acid, must be set in uncovered glasses in the hottest June sunshine or the vertical rays of the July sun for several days, hat evaporation may “boil down” the conserve to the right consistency. I have never been successful with peach jelly, except when lemon juice was added to the over-sweet syrup. This is the reason why the small fruits and before the sugared juice would be cooked into cloying sweetness.

Red Currant Jelly.

Gather the fruit on a sunny day. It is not necessary to strip it from the stems on which the cluster grow. In fact, the succulent stems contain an acid of their own that adds to the flavor of the jelly. Wash the fruit well, draining it in a colander, and pack into a stout stone or agate-iron jar. Put on a close cover and set the jar in a pot of cold water. The water should come more than two-thirds of the way to the top of the crock. Set the pot on the side of the range and go about your other duties for an hour or more. Then look into the jar, and crush down the heating berries with a wooden paddle. Move the kettle to a warmer place and close the jar again.

I usually heat the fruit all night, setting the pot over a very slow fire that will die down before morning. Before breakfast I visit the kitchen and examine the fruit. It is invariably broken all to pieces and, if not cold, quite cool enough to handle with comfort. It is then turned into a bag of doubled cheesecloth and suspended over a wide bowl to drip. A long-legged, backless chair is set, heels upward, on a table; the four corners of the bar are lashed to the inverted legs high enough up to allow the bowl to stand beneath. While we are at breakfast the juice drips steadily, and by the time the meal is over the pulp, or “pomace,” is almost dry. The residue of the juice is expressed by squeezing. If there be a pair of manly hands which are both willing and strong they are coaxed into service for this park of the work. A few dexterous twists of the crimsoned cloth and half a dozen mighty squeezes leave the pomace juiceless. The pulp is emptied into the garbage pail and the bag thrown into cold water to soak.

Measure the strained juice and put it over the fire in a preserving kettle. Weigh out as many pounds of sugar as you have pints of juice. Divide the sugar into three or four portions and spread each upon a platter or a shallow pan. Set these in the oven, leaving it open for the first 10 minutes and stirring several times. Close the oven when the juice in the kettle begins to simmer, but watch the contents of the platters, lest the hot sugar begin to melt. Stir often. When the juice boils hard skim off the scum, and when the boil has lasted 20 minutes dump in the hot sugar as fast as you can, stirring vigorously. After it has dissolved, which will be very soon, let the syrup boil exactly one minute.

Pour the jelly into small tumblers which you have rolled over and over in hot water to prevent cracking as the jelly fills them. The glasses must be taken directly from the hot water and filled while wet. At this stage of the process an assistant is needed to fish out the glasses and pass them to the main worker. If these rules be followed, and the fruit be ripe and not overripe, the jelly will form by the time it is in the glasses. Let it get perfectly cold; pour melted paraffine on the top of each glass and fit on metal tops or, if you have none, paste paper covers on them.

In over 45 years of jelly-making I have never lost a glass put up according to this recipe. The flavor of the fruit is preserved far better than when juice and sugar are cooked together in the old way and boiled down thick. The jelly is clear and sparking.

Keep in a cool, dry place.

Black Currant Jelly.

Make as above. It is highly recommended for coughs and as a tonic. It is more palatable if the black are mixed with a third as many red, ripe currants.

Gooseberry Jelly and Jam.

Top and tall the berries and beat them as for other jelly. They are very juicy, and if all the liquor that will flow from them after adding sugar were put with the jam it would be too thin. Therefore, turn the berries when soft and broken into a colander; let them drain without pressing or shaking. When most of the juice has run into the bowl below, empty the colander into a preserving kettle after measuring the berries. Bring to a boil; add a pound and a quarter of sugar to each pint of berries; stir to dissolving and cook steadily half an hour. Put up in jam pots, covering with paraffine, then fitting on tops.

For the jelly, strain the juice through a cheesecloth bag to get rid of the seeds that have escaped through the colander; measure it and heat as for other jelly. When it has boiled for 20 minutes stir in the heated sugar, a generous pound to each pint of juice, gooseberries being very acid.

Currant and Raspberry Jelly.

Allow one part of red currants to two of the red raspberries; heat both kinds of fruit together and proceed as I have directed.

The flavour is exquisite. It is particularly nice for jelly roll or for layer cake.

Green Gooseberries.

These may be put up in like manner, making delicious jelly for meat. The jam made of the reserved and unpressed pulp, or “pomace,” needs nearly a pound and a quarter of sugar for each pint of berries.

Red Raspberry and Pineapple Jelly.

Wash a ripe pineapple and cut it small without paring, the skin holding a peculiarly fine flavor. Set it over the fire in a farina (double) boiler and cook very tender. At the same time heat red raspberries enough to give out twice as much juice as you get from the pineapple. When all are cooked to pieces, strain and press out the juice from berries and from pineapple; mix in the proportions I have indicated and boil 20 minutes before adding heated sugar, pint for pound.

The blended flavors and acids produce a delicious jelly.

Blackberry Jelly.

This is made in the same way and subject to the same infirmity as that which attends the strawberry. It is worth putting up in liberal quantities for family use. The flavor is fine and it is extremely wholesome, also curative in cases of summer complaints. As the contents of the glasses shrink in evaporating fill one from the other. Out of a dozen glasses you may get nine when they have been sunned into consistency.

Don’t try to boil it down. You will injure the taste, darken the color and, ten chances to one, succeed in producing syrup, not jelly.

Strawberry Jelly.

Make according to the rules given for currant jelly. It is but fair to warn you that you may have to set the glasses in the sun for two or three days before the jelly will form.

Marion Harland

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

Meals for a Week

KailaLeave a comment

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

Sunday.

Breakfast.
Berries, cereal and cream, lamb chops, johnny cake, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Caviare on toast, cold tongue, tomato and shrimp salad, thin graham bread and butter, crackers and cheese, cake and lemonade.

Dinner.
Asparagus soup, brown fricassee of chicken, green peas, mashed potatoes, berry shortcake, black coffee.

Monday.

Breakfast.
Berries, cereal and cream, bacon and eggs, graham bread toast, white toast, rolls, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Asparagus rolls (tips left over from yesterday), plain omelet, baked potatoes, crackers (heated) with cheese, bread pudding, tea.

Dinner.
Chicken soup (based upon fricassee), liver and bacon, pea soufflé (a left-over), baked rice, cheery pie, black coffee.

Tuesday.

Breakfast.
Red bananas, cereal and cream, soufflé of rice (a left-over), rolls, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Mince of liver on toast (a left-over), Welsh rarebit, cress and salad and crackers, cream pie, tea.

Dinner.
Chicken and okra soup (a left-over), beefsteak and mushrooms, asparagus, spinach, berries and cream cake, black coffee.

Wednesday.

Breakfast.
Berries and cream with dried rusk, broiled bacon and green peppers, muffins, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Spanish omelet, lettuce salad, cheese, biscuits, stewed rhubarb and cookies, tea.

Dinner.
Cream-of-lettuce soup, beefsteak and kidney pie (partly a left-over), stewed potatoes, young onions, mashed new turnips, berry roll with brandy sauce, black coffee.

Thursday.

Breakfast.
Berries, cereal and cream, bacon, fried mush, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Calf-s brains (fried), stuffed potatoes, turnip soufflé (a left-over), baked cream toast, canned peaches, gingerbread, tea.

Dinner.
Scotch broth, blanquette of veal, green peas, spinach, strawberry float, sponge cake, black coffee.

Friday.

Breakfast.
Grapefruit, cereal and cream, pan-fish, hot biscuits, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Curried eggs, boiled rice, lettuce and green pea salad (a left-over), macaroons and iced bananas, tea.

Dinner.
Potato soup without meat, boiled cod with lemon sauce, whipped potatoes, spinach a la crème, chocolate ice cream and cake, black coffee.

Saturday.

Breakfast.
Berries, cereal and cream, mince of veal (a left-over), waffles, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Scalloped cod in shells, potatoes a la Lyonnaise, grapefruit salad, Cassava biscuits, Camembert cheese, thin bread and butter, junket, jelly roll, tea.

Dinner.
Salmon bisque, mutton chops en casserole, green peas, string beans, tutti-frutti in grapefruit shells, jumbles, black coffee.

Inexpensive Table Decorations

KailaLeave a comment

This is the first article in June of the School for Housewives 1909 series published on June 6, 1909, and is an article on the development of flowers as centrepieces.

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

Inexpensive Table Decorations

The fashion of decorating the family table every day in the year is so modern that middle-aged reader will recollect the birth and growth of the custom. It is not 30 years since I heard a purse-proud boor order a footman to remove from the center of his heavily laden board a vase of wild azaleas his daughter had brought in from the country, and “not to litter up the table with any more such trash.”

“The woman folks may admire to see ‘em around,” he continued to the one person who did not belong to his household. “For my part, I wasn’t fetched up to have weeds along with my vittles!”

Our forbears appreciated the fitness and attractiveness of floral ornaments upon high days and holidays. The masculine members of the family took to the innovation slowly. So they entered gradually and reluctantly into the new universal practice of setting flowers upon Protestant pulpits. One shocked elderly communicant in a sanctuary noted for the beauty of the floral offerings gracing the chancel every Sunday once wrote to me of his dislike to “the pines and posies that were distracting the minds of worshipers.”

A Historic Table.

“Other times, other manners!” Before we go into the discussion of the subject indicated by our title, let me indulge myself and the curious younger reader by copying from an old letter written by an eminent Virginia jurist to his daughter almost 100 years ago. It describes one of the highest of the holidays aforesaid, to wit, a wedding:

“We went in to supper at 11 o’clock, the ceremony having taken place at 8. The table was extremely handsome. The centerpiece was a cake, richly iced, 18 inches across and 10 inches in height, surrounded by a treble-curled fringe of silver paper. In the hollow in the middle of this cake, left by the funnel of the mould, was planted a slender holly tree, four feet high, hung with fancy baskets and wreaths and streamers of silver filigree, and closely sprinkled with red berries. At one end of the table was a tall pyramid of jelly and ice cream; at the other, one of candied oranges. They were built about smaller silver rods, and to these were fastened silver paper festoons cut exquisitely into patterns as fine as lace, connecting into patters as fine as lace, connecting the pyramids with the tree. The long table was lighted, as were all the rooms, by wax candles, in tall silver candlesticks, hung with tissue paper cut into every imaginable device, then dipped in spermaceti to make it transparent.”

A Change of Style.

All this reads like barbaric magnificence unbecoming the dawn of the 19th century and a republic. There is a touch of the meretricious in the tissue paper dipped in spermaceti. The latter-day critic in condemning this notes disapprovingly the absence of all floral decorations, unless the evergreen treelet be recokoned as one. Yet it is not very long since we carried “mixed bouquets” to parties without caviling at the setting of the tawdry paper lace encircling the stems, and, as I said just now, a shorter time since the daily custom of enlivening sober family meals with flowers and leaves became general. So general is it that in six out of 10 homes occupied by the moderately well-to-do the table has a bare and comfortless look when the vase or bowl of living greenery and blossoms is not in place.

Nevertheless, it is not blossom time all the year round, and florists raise their prices as the mercury goes down and the eyes, wearied by the prevalling leaden hue of sky and earth, crave relief that is likewise a promise of more genial season.

“Potted plants are so unsatisfactory!” mourns a correspondent whose sick chamber would be a bower of beauty if the flowers showered upon her by sympathizing friends could be coaxed into continual bloom.

“I have written to her what I now say to the housewife whose table has a rueful expression when there are no flowers to grace the meal:

“Turn your attention to ferns and miniature jardineres.”

A tiny terra-cotta jardiniere filled with garden soil upon a substratum of broken pottery or pebbles, that prevent the mould from caking at the bottom, may be set with ferns that will live all the winter through. If you care to cover the box with a bell-glass, the life and the brighter verdure of the fern are doubly assured.

One of the most interesting table decorations I have is a globular vessel, with a top of the same material. In the bottom is put, every October, a bed of forest moss an inch or so in thickness. In this are set partridge-berry shoots studded with berries. The top is then laid in its place and the lobe is brought indoors. Every Saturday morning I take it into the bathroom and fill the globe with fresh water, leave it thus for a minute—no longer—and drain the water off leaving the moss soaked through. All winter the berries have remained bright, and wee, threadlike shoots trail themselves over the moss, pressing emulously against the glass as the spring comes on, I have reproduced, in milature, a woodland nook, kept green by a hidden spring, where wildings cling and grow.

My magic crystal, which does all this fairy work for me “when now lies on the hills.” Is now in the third year of service as a faithful standby tree times a day, when other decorations are not procurable. It cost $1 when new.

Now that the hills rejoice on every side with flowers that seem to have throbbed into life and loveliness from the beatings of the mighty heat beneath them, there is no excuse for an unsmiling expanse of tablecloth. Beginning with pussy-willows and rising in the motif of the annual oratorio of the resurrection of the beautiful, through the revelation of crocuses, apple blossoms, tulips, hyacinths, wild roses and honeysuckle to the glory of midsummer, flowers may be had for the making and gathering.

From the saucer of moss in which nestle blue-eyed houstonia, shy, yet easily entreated if supplied with water and the velvet duvet in which their roots awoke to life, to the great bowl of June roses we may luxuriate in home decorations.

Wayside Blossoms.

They lend poetry to plain living; they rest the eye and feed the fancy. Then will come the lavish wealth of the golden-rod and “The aster of the woods,” the purple and gold in which Mother Earth bedecks herself for a brave, brief season. When they have passed we shall have witch hazel and autumn leaves to cheer cottage and mansion.

Never set a meal in order without the touch of brightness and true refinement imparted by God’s unfailing messengers to those who will receive the story they have to tell. If it be only a bunch of yarrow from the dusty roadside, or a stately stalk of iris from the marsh, or a handful of ox-eyed daises brought in by a little dirty hand “just for mother,” make the best of it. Let it be your token—

“That God is thinking of His World.”

Marion Harland

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

Meals for a Week

KailaLeave a comment

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

Sunday.

Breakfast.
Blueberries and cream, dried rusk eaten with the berries, broiled chops, graham gems, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Stuffed tomatoes, filled with minced ham, with a baked egg on top of each; Saratoga chips, brown bread, cut thin; crackers and cheese, pineapple, cut into dice, with sugar and wine; cake, tea.

Dinner.
Green pea soup, with croutons; stuffed and baked weakfish, with Bearnaise sauce; mashed potatoes, cream beans, berry shortcake (hot), with sauce; black coffee.

Monday.

Breakfast.
Berries, cereal and cream, bacon, French rolls, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Creamed fish (a left-over), potato croquettes (a left-over), baked toast, caramel custard, cookies, cocoa.

Dinner.
Pea and tomato soup (partly a left-over), veal stew, with carrots and dumplings; cream beans, warmed over; potato salad, berry pie, black coffee.

Tuesday.

Breakfast.
Oranges, farina and cream, cheese omelet, cold brown and white bread, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Yesterday’s stew, stuffed potatoes, toasted cheese sandwiches, lettuce salad, strawberries and cream, wafers, tea.

Dinner.
Cream of lettuce soup, calf’s liver en casserole, stewed tomatoes, spinach, poor man’s pudding, black coffee.

Wednesday.

Breakfast.
Grapefruit, cereal and cream, codfish balls, corn bread, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Mince of liver (a left-over), puffed potatoes, English muffins, toasted; stewed fruit and cake tea.

Dinner.
Okra soup, fricasseed (not stewed) chicken, boiled rice, breaded and fried carrots, berries and cream, black coffee.

Thursday.

Breakfast.
Berries, cracked wheat and cream, drop cakes, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Cold meat, rice croquettes (a left-over), baked potatoes, syllabub and sponge cake, iced tea.

Dinner.
Yesterday’s soup, curried chicken (a left-over), Spanish rice, baked bananas, cornstarch hasty pudding, black coffee.

Friday.

Breakfast.
Berries, cereal and cream, shirred eggs, potatoes biscuits, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Clam fritters, hot potato biscuits (from breakfast), Spanish salad, crackers and cream cheese, junket and macaroons, tea.

Dinner.
Fish bisque, halibut steaks, whipped potato, green peas, strawberry ice cream and cake.

Saturday.

Breakfast.
Oranges, cereal and cream, bacon and eggs, muffins, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Hashed fish (a left-over), hominy pudding, anchovy toast, cress and lettuce salad, crackers and cheese, iced lemonade and cake.

Dinner.
Barley broth, boiled mutton, butter beans, scalloped tomatoes, orange tartlets, black coffee.

“Fair Linen”

KailaLeave a comment

This is the final article in May of the School for Housewives 1909 series published on May 30, 1909, and is an article on laundry and use of linen and table cloths. It is Marion Harland’s opinion that a simple clean cloth is better than a “fine” dirty one.

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

“Fair Linen”

ECCLESIASTICAL manuals enjoin that tables and chalices be “covered with a fair cloth.” I am using the word in a housewifely sense; that is, that the “cloth” should be free from spot or blemish and shining clean. It is not, of necessity, “fine linen,” such as takes before it, in the mind of the Bible reader, the “purple,” descriptive of Dives’ ungodly pomp.

I heard a true story the other day of a colored preacher’s version of the celebrated parable. According to him, the rich man “fared presumptuously every day.”

I have use for this malapropism here and now. The housemother who insists that her fair linen must also be fine must have a deep purse and keep it well filled, or she may be said to “fare presumptuously” in the century of advanced and sustained prices. Muslin and linen of medium quality, glossy from the smoothing iron and folded evenly when not on duty, are “fairer” than cloths of a finer mesh that are badly laundered and laid carelessly on the shelf. This is especially true with tablecloths that are awkwardly dealt with. I have in my mind’s eye a certain household, often seen in my youth, where the tablecloths were always wrinkled and tumbled.

“Miss Leslie says we must not use the word ‘mussed,’” observed a neat neighbor, quoting from her cook book, “but nothing else will describe Sarah’s tablecloths.”

A Careless Footman.

I wondered, in my inexperience, why this was true, until I bethought myself to watch the footman as he cleared the table after meals. He seized the damask cloth (always fine) in the middle, shook the crumbs out of door or window and “humped” it upon a chair or sideboard until he was ready to double it up loosely and tuck it into a drawer, where lay a dozen others, some smooth and clean, and beside them those condemned to the washtub. I formed the opinion then which I maintain up to this present writing, namely, that there is but one right way of removing a cloth from the table.

Imprimis, it should never be shaken out of the door or window. The crumbs should be removed with a folded napkin. A “scraper” of metal, be it sterling or plated, abrades the surface in time. The crumb brush, however soft, is seldom perfectly clean. In taking up the crumbs it sheds dust. The folded napkin neither scratches nor smirches. The crumbs removed, the damask must be folded in the original creases left by the iron and put away where it has room to lie out straight. Some canny housewives have a separate drawer for the cloth in use, and lay a heavy board upon it when therein bestowed. If I dwell somewhat at length upon this essential to “fair linen,” it is for economy’s sake as well as because a smooth cloth is more pleasing to the eye than one that is tumbled—“mussed,” as my old friend put it.

Glazed like Paper.

Table linen which has been treated to a bath of raw starch water and, while yet damp, ironed until the surface has the glaze of calendered writing paper, keeps clean twice as long as that which is tumbled and shaken rudely, and looks well to the last day. From another notable housemother I learned that a chance grease spot may be masked in the latter hour of active service by rubbing chalk into it before folding. By the next time of using, particularly if the application be made overnight, the alkali has eaten up the grease. The chalking makes the laundress’ task easier, also.

Napkins must not be “Starched,” in the technical sense of the term, although they take a finer gloss if dipped into the thinnest of starch water, rolled up hard, beaten lustily with the fist to insure evenness of distribution, then ironed until the requisite degree of polish is produced. They look “fairer” and will resist dirt far better than limp napkins. For be it remembered at each stage of laundering and using, that dust is dirt and that dust is everywhere. It flies off from the glossy linen; it adheres to the rough-dry.

The like rules obtain in the management of muslin sheets and pillowslips. It is a luxury to sleep in linen or in cambric sheets. A linen pillowcase is almost a necessity to healthful slumbers on summer nights. It is a “must-be” to the fevered invalid. Yet there are tens of thousands of well conducted homes in this country where the linen sheet is practically unknown and in which a few linen pillowslips are kept religiously for the sick-room. The next best thing to the cool deliciousness of the flaxen web is a cotton sheet, so smooth that it feels (almost) as good as linen and is as comely to behold.

Two correspondents have written to us of the saving of the housemother’s time and of the superior healthfulness of rough-dry sheets. One represents that the pressure of the iron, forcing the flattened threads closely together, prevents ventilation and retains the insensible perspiration that should not be left to clog the pores. Without entering into a controversy that would leave each disputant the more strongly attached to her own dogma, I may remark that is avails little for the exudations to filter through the sheet if they be then and there arrested by blanket and counterpane.

Almost Like a Dream.

Haven’t I told once here of the fond desire of my childish dreams to be a queen, and only because I was sure that she slept every night in clean linen sheets, a change for every day in the year? The fancy was recalled to me by reading, after the death of the late Queen of England, that she indulged in the luxury I had coveted, and that she was fastidious with regard to the absolute smoothness of the sheets. Two maids—so ran the tale—spent two hours daily in clipping the threads that fastened the sheet to the mattress the day before, and in stitching the fresh lower sheet in place. Not a wrinkle must mar the fair expanse of fine linen. I give the modern edition of the crumpled roseleaf story for what it may be worth. It is the more credible because every one of u would have her bed changed nightly if she could afford it. Apart from the first outlay for material, there would be the laundry bills-a bagatelle to queen and multi-millionaire, but a mountain-high impediment to the fulfilment of our desire.

With the approach of warm weather the craving for fair bed and body linen grows upon us. We read with thought that approximates pain the injunctions of the theorists who write practical housewifely articles for a woman’s page and for “Clever Cookery” and “Dorothea’s Domestic Diary” upon the danger and disgrace of changing body linen but twice per week, and bed linen but once. “My clothes abhor me!” complained poor, tortured Job. We reverse the order and hate our clothes when we lay them off at the close of the longest days upon the calendar. Sunday and Thursday mornings are the happiest days of the seven.

To Economize.

Let us reason together on this point. I know, for I, too, have heard them discourse. How it stings the self-respect of the woman who must consider laundry bills, or overrun her income continually, to hearken to the dainty, disdainful prattle of women who “cannot conceive how one can reconcile it to one’s sense of decency, not to mention health, to wear a change of underclothes more than one day at a time after June 1!” One of them habitually refers to underwear as “internal garments” in my hearing, and evidently prides herself upon the delicate and ingenious phrase.

And, indeed, why should not we imitate their custom while we ridicule their speech? Upon removing body linen at night, hang each article separately where the air will visit it freely all of that night and for 24 hours thereafter. Keep two sets on hand and in alternate use. If they hang in an airy place during the off day they will be sweet and, to all intent and purposes, clean when you put them on.

Strip the bed upon rising and hang the sheets in the wind. Take off the pillowslips, and when the pillows have been aired for an hour or more, cover then with cases kept for the day, and on which you never sleep. Let the night set air with the sheets. Turn, beat, and throw the mattress across the foot rail of the bed, where the air can get at all sides of it, and let it remain thus for several hours.

By following these precautions against stuffiness you will be as neat of body, if not as complacent of spirit, as the penny-a-liners who dictate and the ultra-fastidious few who assume to practice what the former preach.

With all my heart I love “fair linen!” But I love yet more fairness and consistency I will not preach to the woman of moderate means and six children of the insanitary “indecency” of not enduring each of the half dozen in clean clothes “from the skin out” every day in the week. I am stupid at mathematics, but I have the multiplication table tolerably well in hand, and it requires no ready reckoner to make up the laundry list of that household, allowing three “internal garments” per diem (exclusive of seven pairs of stocking a week) for each child. And the parents must not be a whit less “decent” than their offspring!

Take a paper and pencil and work out the sum for yourself, and let me know by return mail in how many households in your town or village such a “Wash” would be tolerated. Don’t’ forget to add seven pairs of sheets for each bed, pillowcases to match, and that no “self-respectable mistress of a family ever allows the same napkin to appear twice on her table without being washed.”

Nonsense, is it? Then why give ear or thought to it?

Make your linen “fair in the beginning, change it as often as you can afford to review it and keep it well aired between times.

My old colored “mammy” was oracular, and never unwise. One of her familiar sayings was: “If yo’ ken’t do as well as you wan’ to do, why jes’ do de bes’ you ken!”

Marion Harland

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

Meals for a Week

KailaLeave a comment

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

Sunday.

Breakfast.
Berries, cereal and cream, rolled and breaded smelts, sally lunn, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Barbecued ham, sliced and warmed sally lunn from breakfast, tomato and lettuce salad, crackers and Roquefort cheese, lemon sponge and cookies, tea.

Dinner.
Soup a la Russ (with poached eggs on top), roast chicken, green peas, spinach a la crème, strawberry shortcake, black coffee.

Monday.

Breakfast.
Grapefruit, cereal and cream, bacon, scrambled eggs, French rolls, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Shrimps on toast with anchovy sauce, baked potatoes, pea soufflé (a left-over), cream cheese, warmed, with toasted crackers and orange marmalade, cocoa.

Dinner.
Spinach soup (a left-over), mold of chicken and macaroni with gravy (a left-over), asparagus, young onions, creamed; heavenly hash, sponge cake, black coffee.

Tuesday.

Breakfast.
Oranges, cereal and cream, bacon and sweet green peppers, fried; brown and white bread, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Mince of chicken and macaroni (from yesterday), English muffins, toasted; potato salad with mayonnaise, crackers and cheese, berries and cream, lady fingers, tea.

Dinner.
Mullagatawney soup, beefsteak, mashed potatoes, asparagus, prune and ut jelly with whipped cream, cake, black coffee.

Wednesday.

Breakfast.
Berries, rice jelly and cream, eggs baked in gravy, hot biscuits, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Beef stew, brown (a left-over), potato cakes, breakfast biscuits, warmed over; endive salad, crackers and cheese, brandied peaches and cake, tea.

Dinner.
Asparagus soup (a left-over), baked shad, green peas, whipped potatoes, French tapioca custard, black coffee.

Thursday.

Breakfast.
Berries, cereal and cream, shad roes, potato biscuits, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Sliced cold tongue, baked tomato toast, rice croquettes, watercress and green pepper salad, crackers and cheese, jam and gingerbread, tea.

Dinner.
Beef and barley broth, lamb chops and mushrooms, string beans, leeks, cheery tart, black coffee.

Friday.

Breakfast.
Oranges, cereal and cream, finnan haddle with sauce piquante, fried mush, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Beauregard eggs, fried potatoes, string beans and tomato salad, peanut butter sandwiches, jumbles and cocoa.

Dinner.
Split pea soup, softshell crabs, stuffed tomatoes, new potatoes, currant and raspberry, roly-poly, black coffee.

Saturday.

Breakfast.
Berries, cereal and cream, bacon, green pea pancakes (a left-over) muffins, toast, tea and coffee.

Luncheon.
Stewed kidney, baked potatoes, hot Boston brown bread, lettuce and egg salad, shortcake and tea.

Dinner.
Beef and barley soup (a left-over), calf’s liver, larded and roasted; spinach, asparagus, strawberry ice cream and cake, black coffee.

Borrowing and Lending

KailaLeave a comment

This is the fourth article in May of the School for Housewives 1909 series published on May 23, 1909, and is an article on discouraging housewives from borrowing or lending.

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

Borrowing and Lending

SO LITTLE akin are they, it has passed into a proverb that the habitual borrower seldom lends. The best of books admonishes us not to “turn away from him that borroweth,” reminding us that the righteous man is “ever merciful and lendeth.”

Shakespeare, more worldly wise than merciful, says:

Nether a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend.

There are not a few who read that second line who respond with feeling born of experience. “That’s as true as gospel!” It is a fact that is not creditable to this poor human nature of ours, that long holding and usage of another’s property blunts one’s sense of honesty. At least a dozen correspondents have written to me at various times to inquire if somebody who is shutting up her house for the summer or going South for the winter, will not lend the music-hungry inquirer her piano during her absence. I have but one reply to make, and that is a plagiarism of punch’s celebrated advice to those contemplating matrimony—

“Don’t!”

The Dividing Line.

The borrower becomes attached to the instrument, and when the real owner reclaims it there is hard feeling in 99 out of 100 cases. The continual handling of a borrowed thing, be it real or personal estate, is distinctly demoralizing. This truth underlies much of what we reckon as pilfering and downright theft on the part of hirelings. The ambitious maid dusts and shakes and mends her mistress’ garments, eats from her china and partakes of delicate food her own kindred cannot buy, until familiarity breeds vague perceptions of “meum and tuum.” She borrows her employer’s gowns and jewelry now and then, as the bank official borrows money he means to return before it is missed. In each case the transition from borrowing to robbery is easy and so nicely graded that the sinner hardly knows when he crosses the diving line.

Here is the key to many a tragedy that has wrecked families and shocked a community.

The allusion to the piano recalls a true happening that came directly under my own eyes. A woman was going abroad with her children for a term of years, and at the request of a cousin lent the latter a fine parlor organ to be used during the absence of the traveling family.

He cousin represented sensibly that it would be better that the instrument should be used than to leave it closed in the vacant dwelling of the owner. At the end of three years the wanderers returned to home and friends and proceeded to put their belongings into place. When the musical relative made no sign of restoring the organ to its accustomed niche the owner inquired when it would be sent back. She did this in the timid, hesitating manner each of us has adopted for herself at one time or another in referring a petition for something we considered as a loan and the beneficiary regarded in a different light. The borrowed sat aghast.

“It never occurred to me that you would ever care to have it again!” she protested, in an aggrieved toe. “In point of fact, I had really forgotten how I happened to have it. It was quite an old affair, you know, and fashions change so in the matter of furniture! And I made sure you would bring home so many new things—in short, I am awfully sorry, Mary, but you must see how it came about. When we move into our new house last spring and bought a grand piano for the girls we sent the old organ off to the auction rooms.”

“an extreme case,” you will say. Yet the principle is the same with that which leads you to forget to return the book borrowed so long ago that you can hardly recall to whom it once belonged, and to leave magazines borrowed every month from the friend across the way lying on your table until they are soiled and dog-eared, and then to toss them into the waste paper basket or pile them upon the shelf of a lumber closet.

A correspondent applied to us last week for duplicates of six or eight numbers of a magazine she wishes to have bound, explaining that they were borrowed by a friend who “forgot to return them.” The loser asks plaintively: “Can’t you give us a lecture on this some time?”

A Well-Known Beggar.

Coming down to lesser offenses in the same line, that housemother is exceptionally fortunate who has never had a neighbor who was a professional borrower. Jane Welsh Carlyle has left us a spicy comment upon Mrs. Leigh Hunt’s housewifely ways that will stick in the memory of readers who have never troubled themselves to inquire what English literature owes to Mrs. Hunt’s husband.

“She borrowed daily and everything from my kitchen—tumblers, teacups, a spoonful of tea, a cupful of meal—not having a copper in her purse.”

Therefore, the borrower was certain that she would never return any addition to her larder obtained in this way. She was a pauper—an improvident and extravagant beggar.

I wish I had not to add that she was a type of class! For the first few years of my married life I lived next door to a well-to-do woman whose peculations conducted after this fashion were notorious. She borrowed something from me, or from my servants if I were not home, on an average four days in every week. It was invariable something “Mistress has forgotten to order from the store this morning.”

“The Cupboard was Bare.”

As invariably, I was assured that the article would be returned very soon. Her cottage was literally the bourne from which no loan ever returned.

And my experience was not singular. I was the greatest sufferer among her victims from the accidental proximity of our homes.

Nobody ever called that woman a thief. She attended church regularly and maintained the shallow reputation of a respectable resident of a law-abiding town.

The memory of hundred of my readers will match these illustrations of the borrowing vice from their own memories. One easily lapses into the ugly trick. It is most convenient to run into a neighbor’s for a drawing of tea or a cup of milk, or for pepper, a lemon or “a half cupful” to piece out what we have just discovered is not enough butter, or sugar, or flour for the cake we have begun to make. Sometimes, I admit, if one’s nearest neighbor is of her own kindred, or a very intimate friend, the act is justifiable. Delayed payment of the loan is never excusable. It was a kindness done to you in the moment of need. If justice and common honesty do not move you to repayment, gratitude should.

The safe and the only really neighborly kind plan is never to borrow. If you find the particular corner of the cupboard upon which you would draw “bare,” do without the article you are looking for or punish yourself for forgetfulness and improvidence by sending or going to the shop for it. You lower your ladyhood by borrowing. This is a hard saying. It is a saying based upon a half century of domestic haps and mishaps that qualify me to lay down the law to my juniors.

As to books, having finish this talk set yourself at once to a critical survey of your library shelves, “upon honest thoughts intent.” If you find none that is not lawfully young own, will you not refresh my spirit and honor your friends by notifying us of the fact?

Marion Harland

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