In an effort to cope with COVID-19 and all the shelter in place orders out there across America, I decided to host a Food History Happy Hour, live on Facebook!  I'll be hosting these each Friday evening at 8 PM eastern standard time for anyone who wants to join.

I'll make a historic cocktail - alcoholic or non-alcoholic - live on the air, and then take questions related to food history! I can't always promise I'll know the answer every time, but that's what my trusty phone is for - googling. 

This week I made a Hoffman House Fizz, from the Hoffman House Bartender's Guide, published in 1912. 

Hoffman House Fizz Recipe
Juice of half a lemon
1/2 teaspoonful powdered sugar
1 jigger Plymouth gin 
1 teaspoonful cream

Shake well. Pour into glass simultaneously with seltzer (I used lemon-lime) and drink while effervescent. 

This was a surprisingly refreshing beverage. Please note that Plymouth gin is sweeter and mellower than the typical London Dry Gin. I used American gin, Bluecoat brand, which is similarly sweeter and mellower. I did feel it needed a bit more cream to temper the acidity of the lemon juice - I would add a tablespoon or more next time. A smidge more sugar (a full teaspoon) would probably also temper the lemon juice a bit. 

​In all, I would probably drink this again.

Thanks again to everyone who joined for the livestream and I hope to see more of you next week, when I'll be doing a historic beverage based on cranberry juice and we'll talk about cranberry scandals! See you then!

If you liked this post and would like to support more Food History Happy Hour livestreams, please consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. 

One of the wonderful things about being a food historian is not only tracking down and finding wonderful historic and vintage cookbooks for my personal collection, but people also give me vintage cookbooks! This was part of one such gift: a rather large selection of Mary Lee Taylor PET cookbooklets. For those of you not familiar with it, PET is a brand of evaporated milk. First produced in Illinois in the 1880s, PET milk made a name for itself supplying soldiers during the Spanish American War and again in World War I. But following the war, production ratcheted down, and PET was known to be in trouble.  

The 1920s and '30s were a time of advertising innovation and one woman stood out amongst the crowd. Erma Perham Proetz was born in Denver, Coloradio in 1891. After graduating from Washington University and marrying Dr. Arthur Proetz, the couple settled in Saint Louis, MO, where Erma started working in the advertising business, as a copy editor for the Gardner Advertising Company. In 1923 she was assigned to the PET Milk Company account. The company had been foundering after World War I. In 1924  she won the Harvard Advertising Award for distinguished individual advertisements, with its accompanying $1,000 award. In 1925 she took the award again, this time for the best use of both text AND illustration for the PET milk campaign. In 1927 she received the $2,000 Edward W. Bok prize by the Harvard Award Jury for the best planned and executed national advertising campaign for a single product - PET milk. She was the first person to ever win the Harvard Advertising Award three times. In 1930, she was made a director of the Gardner Advertising Company - just seven years after starting as a lowly copy editor.

Erma's true brilliance, however, was the idea of Mary Lee Taylor. ​

Mary Lee Taylor was a pseudonym for Erma (although whether or not they were one and the same is debated). Although Erma remained at the Gardner Advertising Company and eventually became an executive, she wrote for/as Mary Lee Taylor for the rest of her career. Taylor embodied the kind, chatty, experienced home economists that housewives had come to trust by the late 1920s. Combining all of the best advertising opportunities at the time, Erma put Mary Lee Taylor to work in print, including newspapers, magazines, and cookbooklets. Dozens of Mary Lee Taylor cookbooklets were published over the years, and I am lucky enough to have a good chunk of them. 

Unfortunately, particularly with the summer themed ones, there is a fair amount of recipe repetition. And, of course, every single recipe uses PET evaporated milk! But there are some particularly fun favorites, including "'Husband-Tested' Recipes." 

But as you can see from her little "Dear Friend" letter above, Mary Lee Taylor was probably best known for her radio show. 

In the 1920s radio was still a fairly new medium, but mass production made radio sets more accessible to a wide range of Americans. It was a popular way for companies to advertise and product placement and corporate-sponsored shows soon became commonplace. Begun in 1933, the Mary Lee Taylor Show first aired on CBS and was one of the longest running cooking shows ever, ending in 1954.

​On CBS the show was just 15 minutes long, and featured a weekly recipe from Proetz as well as household tips, all using PET milk. 

Erma was a member and leader of many women's and advertising groups, including  the Women's Advertising Club of St. Louis, the St. Louis Branch of the Fashion Group, and the Council of Women's Clubs of the Advertising Federation of America. In 1935, Fortune Magazine named her one of 16 Outstanding Women in Business. In 1938, she attended the 34th annual convention of the Advertising Federation of America in Detroit, MI. An Associated Press article quoted her in a discussion about women in advertising. They wrote, "Ms. Erma Perham Proetz of St. Louis, a member of the Federation board, advised women hoping to enter advertising to take a home economics course, and to obtain some training in writing. 'The field is limitless,' she said."

​And for Erma, it was limitless. She died on August 7, 1944 "after a long illness," and although her obituary is quite short, she had been executive vice president of the Gardner Advertising Company at the time of her death. That same year, the St. Louis Fashion Group, of which she had been regional director, announced the establishment of an Erma Proetz Memorial Scholarship at her alma mater - the Washington University School of Fine Arts "in recognition of her great interest in students and the wide help and encouragement she gave many young girls starting out on their careers."

In 1945, the Women’s Advertising Club of St. Louis established an annual Erma Proetz Award for the most outstanding creative work done by women in advertising. This award was dedicated Erma's memory as she "stood for the highest standards of advertising and whose faith in the ability of women in advertising was well known throughout the country."

​In 1948 the Mary Lee Taylor Show moved to NBC, known as "Mary Lee on NBC" and was expanded to 30 minutes, with a serial drama between "Sally and Jim," a young couple. The show ended with the long-running recipe of the week and the creative addition of "Today's Recipe for Happiness," which included warm wisdom about family and life from Mary Lee herself. 

Although Mary Lee Taylor did survive Erma by several years, but she couldn't quite make the transition from radio to the new medium of television. In 1954, Mary Lee Taylor went off the air. Despite that fact, Mary Lee Taylor and Erma Perham Proetz both left a lasting legacy. In 1952, Erma was posthumously inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame - one of only a very few women to ever receive that honor. And Mary Lee Taylor lives on in the remaining radio shows and cookbooklets that people like me love to collect. ​

If you'd like to listen to more of the surviving Mary Lee Taylor radio shows, you can do so, thanks to the kind people of the Old Time Radio Researcher's Group on the Internet Archive. Listen to the Mary Lee Taylor Show now. 

Erma's Advertising Hall of Fame listing.

Washington University Archives and an online exhibit

6 Copywriting Takeaways From a Real Life Mad Woman

"Advertising Prize Won By D.C. Man," Evening Star, February 23, 1926. 

"Advertising Men Open Convention," Evening Star, June 13, 1938.

"Mrs. Erma P. Proetz Dies; Advertising Executive," Evening Star, August 8, 1944.

And, as always, if you liked this post, consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. ​

Friend and Patreon patron Anna Katherine posted the most fascinating article the other day. Architectural historian Sarah Archer (so many Sarahs in history work!) has written a great history of the Frankfurt Kitchen. 

What is the Frankfurt Kitchen, you may ask? Well, you'd be better off just reading the article, but to summarize briefly, it was invented by Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897–2000), who was helping to redesign apartment living in European nations recovering from bombing. 

Her kitchen was a model of efficiency based on the galley kitchens of railroad cars (although, it should be noted that the term "galley kitchen" was first used on ships). 

So why am I writing about this now? Because I've long had a fascination with the time of transition in American history when ordinary middle-class Americans had to shift from having live-in servants to doing their own work. And when "young brides" were thrown to the winds of married life with a high school or college education, but little idea of how to manage things on their own.

Enter, "Kitchenette Cookery," by Anna Merritt East, originally published in May, 1917. 

I stumbled across Kitchenette Cookery on the Internet Archive (bless it forever), and it's a delightful snippet of life at the start of World War I (for the US, anyway). 

Anna Merritt East graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1912 and was, for a time, the "New Housekeeping Editor" for the Ladies' Home Journal. Unfortunately that's about all I can find out about her and "Kitchenette Cookery." 

The book really is designed for young women setting up a household for the first time, probably on a tight budget. Not only are the first chapters about setting up and kitting out the kitchenette, there are also two whole chapters on shopping and budgeting. 

But the recipe chapters are my favorites. "Breakfast on a Time Limit" talks about using the apartment building's hot water system to help hurry up coffee percolating and how to get a hot breakfast on the table in time for the husband to catch the "bus" to work. "High-Pressure Dinners" is a great deal about Anna's beloved pressure-cooker, with which she happily entertains guests who, of course, watch her cook in her tiny kitchen. 

The book itself is delightful from a historical standpoint, although sadly it has some rather poor reviews on Goodreads and elsewhere. Unlike many other books from the period, it has no real introduction to speak of, so sadly we get no real idea of where Anna's kitchen is, or if this is her real, everyday kitchen, although it appears so. 

Her kitchen, pictured above, is really just a closet with two very large doors. The door on the left serves as a sort of Hoosier cupboard, with flour storage/sifter, a folding wooden cutting board/work surface, and narrow shelves holding spices and what appear to be other baking supplies. Another folding wooden shelf lines the other door, with what appears to be an ingenious fabric pocket for silverware. 

Within the closet it an open shelf for dishes above the small sink, with what appears to be a roll of paper towels above. The tiny gas stove is at right and tucked into the corner by the front door (off frame at right) is a rolling tea cart. 

Here we see one door closed to illustrate how the kitchen can be closed off completely when time to dine at the tiny table, also folding. The tea cart is also in use for service. 

Although ingenious, this really is a "kitchenette" in the truest sense of the word - a kitchen in almost miniature, designed to provide the most basic functions. 

Although there is no floor plan for the whole apartment, it really must be either a one bedroom or studio. Apartments in large Eastern cities (this one is presumably in Boston) were often carved up out of former mansions or multi-level apartments (as they still are today), and thus were often cramped into small spaces not designed to be whole living quarters. 

This is another favorite chapter, in which Anna discusses the awful occurrence of having half a can of whatever - usually a vegetable - left over from making dinner for just two. Anna writes,

"One of the difficulties of using canned goods in cooking for one or two is that only part of a can can be eaten at one time, and we do not always know just what to do with the rest. Because I found this trying, I began to play tricks on my canned goods and reduced some of my old-time standard recipes to fit my smaller pans. In this way I learned a variety of ways for using each can, so that there is neither waste nor a needless repetition of dishes. With the necessarily small refrigerator of a kitchenette, it is likewise impossible to keep a lot of left-overs, so by using these recipes I avoid them." 

My other favorite chapter (technically second-to-last, but seeming more apropos to be the end to this little blog post), is "A Bite to Eat at Bedtime," because who doesn't want a midnight snack these days? Her recipes mostly involve a lot of canned seafood, but I thought this fascinating little onion and cream cheese sandwich might actually be delicious, although serving with coffee is dubious - I think a cold beer or cider might be better. Of course, Anna was probably a good Prohibitionist, because as far as I can tell, there's nary a mention of wine or spirits in this little book. 

If you liked "Kitchenette Cookery" as much as I do, you can download the whole book from the Internet Archive. 

Funnily enough, my little kitchen (although MUCH bigger than Anna's) is a roomy galley kitchen. My little house was built about 1941 and out of bits of older houses (narrowboard floors and Victorian glass doorknobs, plus old-fashioned paned wooden windows, and a bluestone fireplace on a side porch), so the galley kitchen may have been inspired by ​Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and her Frankfurt Kitchen!

What is your kitchen like? Do you have an enormous roomy one? Or a tiny kitchenette like Annas? Let me know in the comments! 

And, as always, if you liked this post, consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. ​

The more I learn about food history, the more I realize that our modern concept of seasonal eating is a big wrong-headed. I've often prided myself on my delight in seasonal eats and trying to stick to what is available seasonally in my cooking. Meaning, no strawberries in December or tomatoes in March or pumpkin in June. And this in-the-moment feeling certainly was quite historic, particularly in spring and summer as waves of produce came to be eaten.

However, historic cooks did a great deal of preserving throughout the year, especially in preparation for the winter holiday season. From pickling young walnuts in June, making cherry bounce in July, and starting the holiday fruit cake in August or September, canning and drying weren't the only food preservation activities going on, and many happened year-round. 

Of course, I'm not much of a canner or jammer, and I find the easiest way to preserve involves alcohol. Even though (ironically) we don't do a great deal of drinking in our house, having something other than beer and wine at a party is delightful, and punch is one of the best ways to showcase an interesting beverage for a crowd. 

As some of you may be aware, we plan a huge holiday party every year (hosting between 20 and 40 people), and Second Horse Punch has been a staple since the beginning, starting 10 years ago. 

We got the recipe from a friend, who works at another 18th century historic site. The original recipe reads thusly:

½ pint light-bodied West Indies Rum (a.k.a. light Puerto Rican or Cuban)
½ pint peach brandy
½ pint lemon juice
5 tablespoons bitters (Angostura is about the only kind left and this recipe uses about half a bottle)
4 tabelspoons brown sugar

Stir thoroughly. Pour over a large block of ice. Add 2-3 pints effervescent mineral water.

So what's with the name? It was supposedly invented by the Second Lighthorse Brigade and a rusty stirrup added to the punch purportedly improved the flavor. 

We are ginger ale addicts in our house, and the added sweetness is very nice - I think if you used mineral water (or sparkling wine) as the original called for, you would taste the alcohol too much. And to be honest, the best Second Horse Punch goes down so smoothly you don't realize how much you've downed. Although our ratio is 1:2 Second Horse Punch to ginger ale, the gentleman who gave us the recipe does a 1:1 ratio. That's a bit too strong for us! 

The key to a good Second Horse Punch is to let it age. The longer, the better. At minimum three months, preferably up two years. The longer it ages, the smoother it becomes. But, if you're going to let it age for that long, be sure to store it in glass. Quart mason jars are fine, if you don't have bottles. Our first big batch is actually in an old green glass wine jug. 

Here is our quadrupled recipe, which makes 3 quarts (not two, like my handwritten recipe says - I've since corrected it). 

1 quart white rum
1 quart peach brandy
1 quart lemon juice
16 tablespoons brown sugar
2 bottles angostura bitters (which is actually only 16 tablespoons, not 20, but that's okay)

Mix well - I recommend adding the brown sugar first - and pour into glass jars for storage. Label with the date so you know when best to mix it up for a delicious, not-too-sweet, spicy, delicious party punch. 

If you don't want to make 3 quarts, you can cut the recipe in half and use a pint mason jar for your measuring (which I did, but twice, because I didn't have a big enough pouring bowl). 

To make the finished punch, mix one part Second Horse Punch with two parts ginger ale and serve in a big punch bowl over ice. But only after you've let it age in a dark, cool place for at least 3 months! If you make some now, it should be quite nice by Christmas. 

And, as always, if you liked this post, consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. ​

A few weeks ago my fellow food historian Niel De Marino gave a wonderful talk on Christopher Ludwick, an 18th century German immigrant to Philadelphia who ended up not only extremely successful, but also the baker general for the entire Continental Army. Niel also operates The Georgian Kitchen and is well-known for his impeccable attention to detail when he recreates historical recipes. Niel also teaches 18th century cooking at Historic Eastfield. For this talk, he baked not only give different gingerbreads, dating from the 1400s to the very late 19th century, he also baked stunning examples of molded gingerbreads. 

Although they were all delicious, my favorite was New York Gingerbread, and Niel was kind enough to share the recipes with everyone. So, when it came time to bake for a friend's housewarming gift (a very charming idea my husband came up with - salt, a broom, and bread), I immediately wanted to try my hand at the New York Gingerbread. 

Of course, I've recently been watching quite a bit of the Great British Baking Show, and this recipe felt a bit like one of their technical challenges - a classic, but with VERY sparse ingredients.

The original recipe, which was published in the Dewey Cookbook in 1899, reads:
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 eggs 
1 1/4 teaspoonfuls ginger
1/2 pint milk, half sweet, half sour
3/4 cup butter
1/4 teaspoonful salt
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoonful soda

​Beat well together the sugar, butter, eggs, and salt. Add the balance of the ingredients and bake. 

I assembled my ingredients, but because who on earth knows how to add a half an egg, I doubled the recipe thusly AND added instructions, just for you lay-bakers. You'll also notice, that unlike typical gingerbread recipes, this one contains neither molasses nor spices other than ginger. It gives it a gentle heat and a nice purity of flavor. And despite 2 cups of sugar, it's not overly sweet.

2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups butter (three sticks)
3 eggs
5 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup milk
1 cup buttermilk OR 1 tablespoon lemon juice topped off by milk to make 1 cup sour milk

Preheat your oven to 350 F and lightly grease two standard loaf pans. 

Cream butter and sugar together until smooth, then beat in eggs. Add flour, salt, ginger, and baking soda and start to stir into the butter mixture. Then add the sweet milk and stir a little more, then the sour milk or buttermilk. Work quickly to stir everything together - the batter will be quite thick. Spoon into each loaf pan until the batter looks equal, then place in the hot oven and bake approximately 65 minutes or until the loaves are cooked through. Let cool in the pans for a few minutes, then tip out onto a cooling rack to finish cooling. Serve warm or room temperature plain or with with whipped cream.

For a great deal of guesstimating, I think this turned out quite well! A couple of notes: one is that I didn't have enough white all-purpose flour to do the double bake, so I used about half spelt flour. Which likely accounts for the darker color than Niel's. In addition, my baking soda was over a year past its expiration date. Between the heavier flour and the slightly flat soda, I think that accounts for the denser texture than Niel's, which were quite fluffy, but still chewy. That being said, the flavor was almost identical, although you can taste the spelt flour a bit in mine. 

Final verdict? I would totally make this again. It's addictively subtle - just spicy and sweet enough that you want to keep eating it. The crust is a bit crunchy right now, which I like, but as it sits (I'm storing it in a gallon ziplock bag), the crust will get tender and a bit sticky. Much like banana bread, which this strongly resembles. 

Niel says he bakes this in loaf pans (like I did) and does two things: either he double bakes it to make rusks, or he makes a trifle with custard and (get this) LEMON CURD. He's such a genius, and I'm so grateful he shared this recipe! Also grateful I was able to make a pretty good version of my own. 

And, as always, if you liked this post, consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. ​

A while ago I made cherry bounce. It's a very old-fashioned drink that was apparently much-beloved by George Washington. I speculated about George and cherries even longer ago, in a post that remains today one of my top-viewed posts. You see, cherries are not even remotely in season in February, and George was a lover of walnuts. Although he preferred English walnuts, black walnuts were easier and cheaper to get. 

I live nearby where George was stationed during the end of the Revolutionary War. And there are black walnut trees a-plenty in my area. I've thought about harvesting them, but they're so fussy and difficult, and my days so busy, that I've never bothered. I leave them to the squirrels, who seem to cleverly leave them in our driveway so our cars will crack them for them. They then carry them to a shallow stone in our lawn to finish cracking them open. 

This President's Day weekend I worked on the Saturday, went to a friend's birthday party (she got her own quart of bounce and a pair of tiny brandy glasses for a present), had errands to run on Sunday, and worked on the holiday Monday. So it was just the other day that I got to enjoy a small (and very 18th century looking) glass of the cherry bounce. I even lit a candle for George, Abe, and all my other favorite presidents (including Teddy Roosevelt, of course). 

My husband thinks it tastes like cherry cough medicine, and I'll admit the brandy is a bit strong. Gives you a lovely warm feeling if you're cold, that's for sure. But you do get just a slight sweetness (I used much less sugar than the historic recipe) and a nice bright sour cherry taste. The color is also absolutely beautiful and comes just from the fruit - no artificial colors here! Next time, I think I'll pack the jar right full of sour cherries for a stronger cherry taste. And maybe spend just a smidge more money on the brandy. :D

Cheers, all.

Okay folks. Here's where the history gets real. I've felt often in the last several years that the events of the 1910s were being mirrored in the events of the 2010s. Case(s) in point: rising income inequality, issues with immigration, the vilification of socialism, women's rights, Civil rights, voter suppression, marches for social justice - all these things happened in the 1910s and are happening again today.

But one thing I did NOT expect to see, was this recent article from Civil Eats, outlining the struggle of onion farmers, particularly those practically in my own back yard in the black dirt region of Orange County, NY, as they deal with plummeting wholesale prices - so much so that a federal inquiry has been ordered.

What. This is straight out of 1916 and my book research. Government inquiries and all. You see, in the winter of 1916/17, food prices had gone up exponentially and working class women in New York City, mostly Jewish women on the Lower East Side, staged food boycotts of a variety of produce, including onions, to protest prices that had doubled or tripled in a matter of weeks. 

Prices did lower eventually, but not before onions were virtually rotting in railroad yards and warehouses. Farmers in the black dirt region struggled to deal with the surplus and turned to other options as a means of potentially saving their quite perishable crop. 

Here are some excerpts from my book about the both sides of the situation: 

Pushcarts remained in service for the time being, however, and Jewish women in particular had had enough of rising prices. Mere months ago their husbands’ wages had bought plenty of vegetables with room for a shabbos chicken and other occasional luxuries. According to a New York Times investigation, February of 1917 left many families barely subsisting on coffee, tea, bread, and rice. Most could not afford potatoes, much less meat. Laborers who used to eat onion sandwiches every day for lunch could now not even afford onions. Wages had to be used for rent, wood or coal for heat, and clothing in addition to food. For many households, food was the one budget item with some wiggle room. But now their budgets were squeezed beyond bearing. Those making ten dollars or more per week were scraping by. Those making less were forced to rely on family members or charity to survive.[1]

 To working families, the fact that their circumstances had not changed but they suddenly could not afford even the cheapest of foods was not only a hardship, it was an affront to the promise of capitalism. Some families coped by taking on extra work; others coped by eating less or lower quality food. Some grew desperate as “investigators for the city’s charity department found people eating ‘decayed’ potatoes and onions,” although perhaps investigators’ definitions of “decayed” differed somewhat than those of the poor. For many, protest was the best coping mechanism. By February 20, 1916, the Jewish women of the Lower East Side, assisted to some extent by Socialist political groups, organized neighborhood boycotts to try to drive prices down. The violence with which these women enforced the boycotts—assaulting those who broke the boycott, destroying vegetable carts, and attacking storefronts—shocked Progressives and the general public alike.[2]

By noon, the boycott had swelled its ranks with poor and working class women and their children who clamored at the gates of Mayor John Mitchel of New York City, holding up their babies and demanding bread. Mitchel refused to meet with them, suggesting that representatives meet with him the following day. The authorities, unable to solve the food price issue and at a loss when it came to dealing with violent and rioting women, did little except arrest and jail the rioters. Most of the women arrested in New York City were later broken out of jail by their free counterparts.[3]

Perhaps inspired by the women of New York City, food boycotts and rioting quickly spread across the country. On February 21, riots broke out in Philadelphia; on February 22, in Boston. On February 23, newspapers reported that people in Alabama and Mississippi were near starvation as "for weeks only 6 per cent of the usual allotment of railroad cars” had been able to move food into the region. In New York City on February 22 and 23, there were poultry price demonstrations. In one week the price of poultry had risen from 20 or 22 cents per pound to as high as 32 cents per pound—a 45 percent increase. On February 25, 5,000 people “leaving a protest rally at Madison Square, marched upon the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, demanding food.” Demonstrators also attacked wealthy motorists. One driver, “fearing injury at the hands of the mob, put in high speed and went pell mell through the crowded street,” injuring at least one hundred women and some children. In Philadelphia, food riots resulted in one man being shot by the police and an old woman being trampled by a mob, while furious mothers declared a school strike. In Cincinnati, community leaders called for a boycott of butcher shops. In Chicago, settlement workers reported acute suffering among the city’s poor. High food prices and fuel shortages gave rise to “[r]umors of foreign influence,” which prompted a Justice Department investigation. The investigation later found “no plot” in the food boycotts, only hungry people.[4]

The rioting and protests in New York continued on March 1, which the socialist daily paper New York Call called the “worst rioting” yet. Nearly one hundred people were arrested as grocery stores across the Lower East Side were attacked. On March 3, butchers stabbed a baby and an old woman in two separate protest incidents. In an effort to quell the boycotts and alleviate hunger, authorities tried a variety of ways to bring food into the city. Some Progressives tried to shift the diets of poor and working-class Americans to nutritionally equivalent but cheaper and more readily available substitutes, but to the boycotting women this was offensive. “We don’t want their oleomargarine. I could buy butter once on my husband’s wages – I don’t see why I shouldn’t have the same to-day,” said Mrs. Ida Markowitz at a protest. Other women felt the same—“Even two months ago it wasn’t so hard as it is today.” Other Progressive reformers tried to get their wealthy friends to “subscribe” to their efforts to replace middlemen with themselves – to personally buy up produce and have it shipped into the city to sell at below market costs, with the assurance that subscribers would get their money back, of course.[5] 

The biggest blunder by wealthy Progressives was perhaps that of George Perkins, head of New York City’s Food Committee, who “sent 14,000 pounds of smelt into the city on motor trucks, [but] angry East Side shoppers ‘who suspected Wall Street and did not want smelts, anyhow, mauled the sellers and returned some of the fish to their native element through open manholes.’” Dr. Haven Emerson, head of the New York City Health Department, nearly provoked another riot on March 3 when he told 2,000 East Side residents “to use milk instead of eggs and rice rather than potatoes and not to intrude their European habits into the United States.” An editorial in the New York Call, pointed out that high use of cheaper substitutes was far more likely to simply drive up the prices of said substitutes as demand increased. Many suspected that suggested substitutes were not only a deflection of the larger high cost of living problem, but also covert (and not so covert) attempts by Yankee Progressives to Americanize and assimilate the food habits of immigrant communities.[6]

In New York, the boycotts and riots eventually worked. Or so it seemed. In the weeks between February 20 and March 11, pushcarts disappeared from the streets, vendors “slashed prices to save their stocks from spoilage . . . Onion shipments accumulated unsold at wholesalers’ wharves.” By March 11, potato prices had fallen from eleven cents to six cents per pound. But by March 25, New York State Agriculture Commissioner Charles Wilson reported that meat, bread, and vegetables like potatoes were likely to remain scarce, owing to a poor potato and vegetable crop in 1916 and encroachment on cattle range lands in the west. Although prices were dropping from their mid-winter highs, the high cost of living and food price problems remained fundamentally unresolved. [7]

[1] “Food Problem Real to East Side’s Poor,” New York Times, February 25, 1917.
[2] Frieburger, “War Prosperity,” 226; Frank, “Housewives, Socialists,” 258-259.
[3] Frank, “Housewives, Socialists,” 255-285.
[4] Frieburger, “War Prosperity,” 223-229; Elaine F. Weiss, Fruits of Victory: The Woman’s Land Army of America in the Great War (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2008), 23; “No Plot in Food Riots,” New York Times, February 24, 1917.
[5] Frieburger, “War Prosperity,” 228-238; As quoted in Frank, “Housewives, Socialists,” 262-263.
[6] Frieburger, “War Prosperity,” 234-235.
[7] Frank, “Housewives, Socialists,” 259; “Sees No Hope of Drop in Prices of Food,” New York Times, March 24, 1917. 

For the onion farmers, it was a different story. While their crops were rotting at warehouses, they were searching for alternatives to save the crop. From a different chapter in the book:

One of the most popular topics of the OCFPB’s 1917 “Conservation Special” was the premise of grinding potato flour in the home and on the farm. Community dehydration plants and homemade kitchen driers were enthusiastically received, especially in the Pine Island, “black dirt” area where onion and potato farmers were hardest hit by boycotts and transportation issues.[1] Potato flour was being touted as a substitute for or additive to stretch wheat flour, which Herbert Hoover had asked housewives across the country to conserve through his “Wheatless Wednesdays” campaign. In her Erie Railroad Magazine article reporting on the “Conservation Special,” Gillian Bailey wrote, “That we brought encouragement and help to the large market growers is evident by the fact that we are expecting at least three commercial dryers to be run . . . and when these three huge machines are being run to their full capacity I shall feel that Orange county will be doing her bit.” [2]

Indeed, there was a great deal of interest in installing community dehydrators all over Orange County. The mayor of Middletown, N.Y. was “so interested in the possibility of a local plant” that he coordinated with the Middletown Chamber of Commerce to discuss. Staff from a local farm belonging to the Department of Correction of New York City spoke with Mrs. Andrea about preserving produce like corn, beans, and tomatoes “until markets for them could be found.” Mrs. Andrea was the OCFPB’s at-large home economics expert who had published a book on food preservation through canning and later went on to publish another on dehydration and drying.[3]

Individuals were also interested in dehydration. The OCFPB’s Mrs. M. C. Migel said that “a community dryer is to be installed on her estate at Monroe, N.Y., as an incentive to others. Mrs. H. D. Pulsifer, who owns the 700-acre Houghton farm, at Mountainville, N.Y., is another person who showed interest in the community dryer.” Port Jervis, too, showed a great deal of enthusiasm in the potential of a community dehydrating plant. In a letter to Mrs. Bailey about her impending magazine article, a representative from the Erie Railroad wrote congratulating her about the press coverage of the train, including this tidbit, “Port Jervis, you will note by reading the Union report, is deeply interested and its business men have taken up the question of a community dryer.”[4]

Unfortunately for Gillian’s optimism, community dehydration plants did not take off in Orange County as planned. The Port Jervis Union recounted the decision, indicating that a large commercial dryer was too expensive. “After a long discussion, it was decided that Port Jervis and the adjacent farming territory was not large enough to support such a plant.” Indeed, although homemade dryers seemed popular and commercially made ones could be had for as “little” as five dollars, the big commercial dehydration plants proved out of reach for most communities. The narrow profits to be made on dehydrated vegetables just could not warrant the up-front expense. As the war wore on and agricultural production improved, the demand for dehydrated foodstuffs seemed to decline. Perhaps the length of time to dehydrate and the difficulty in reviving dehydrated vegetables, in particular, made the process less palatable to farm wives and individuals. Canning took less time, and the results were much easier to use – just heat and serve for most vegetables, and canned fruits could be eaten straight from the jar. The commercial market for dehydrated vegetables also did not seem particularly robust, and thus could not support the expense of large-scale dehydration.[5]

[1] Bailey, “Waste Not, Want Not” Erie Railroad Magazine, 391; “Farmers Interested In Vegetable Drying,” Evening Telegram (New York), July 5, 1917, p. 4. The “black dirt” region of Orange County is a prehistoric peat bog where many a mastodon skeleton has been discovered. This land was sold to Bohemian and Polish immigrants by speculators in the 19th century who deemed it worthless, but the immigrants had experience with draining wetlands to make rich farmland. The topsoil in this region is still today up to 30 feet deep. Special horse shoes were developed to keep them from sinking as they plowed, and modern tractors must have dual tires and cannot be left in the fields overnight.
[2] Gillian Webster Barr Bailey, “Waste Not, Want Not,” Erie Railroad Magazine 13, no. 7: 430.
[3] “Preached Gospel of Dehydration to 7,000 Persons,” Herald (New York City), July 8, 1917.
[4] Ibid.; Erie Railroad Company to Mrs. Bailey, July 9, 1917, Orange County Food Preservation Battalion Scrapbook 1917-1919, Archive, Museum Village, Monroe, NY.
[5] “Chamber of Commerce Discussed Drying Plant – City and Community Not Large Enough To Support the Proposition,” Port Jervis Union, undated, Orange County Food Preservation Battalion Scrapbook 1917-1919, Archive, Museum Village, Monroe, NY.

Of course, onion farming still happens in Pine Island and Chester and other black dirt towns, as mentioned in the Civil Eats piece. For more about the farming itself, check out this piece from the BBC. 

And, if you'd like to read the book chapters these excerpts are from, become a member of The Food Historian and you can read to your heart's content in the members-only section of the website. Join today or support us on Patreon. 

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Although Valentine's Day fell on a Friday this year, I had the day off from work (because I worked last Sunday). But despite that, I had a fairly lazy day. Slept in, didn't get out of jammies until noon, and then ran errands all afternoon before completing our annual Valentine's Day rite - NOT going out for dinner. 

Yes, that's right. For the first few years of our coupledom, my husband and I got gussied up and tried fancy restaurants with special Valentine's Day meals. It was incredibly expensive and not a great experience. So, a few years ago, I decided that at-home meals were best. 

Of course, typical turn-of-the-last-century holiday meals were often based around a color theme, thanks to home economists. But rather than go the route of pink-tinted mayonnaise and radish roses, I decided that the perfect way to keep things to a very Valentine-friendly red-and-white color scheme was to make a heart-shaped pizza, with red and white heart-shaped toppings. 

I won't give a recipe, largely because I used store-bought dough and store-bought sauce to make it. But I will say prepare to use a whole pound of shredded mozzarella and set your oven to 450 or 475 F for the best pizza baking experience. My last word of advice? Don't grease your pan - use semolina flour to dust the pan and/or your work surface - it makes a lovely crunchy crust, and is traditional. Years ago Chad got me a pizza stone and peel, and although I've only used it a few times, I thought I would give it another go. I normally make two pizzas on two sheet pans and it works great. I always make two pizzas because they're never as big as the kind you get from a pizza parlor and we like to have leftovers.

Lots of semolina flour was in order to make wiggling the raw dough off of the peel and onto the hot stone work, but work it did. The only downside? Because the stone is smaller than a sheet pan, I wasn't able to make the pizza as thin as we like it - and the crust really puffed up. Which wasn't bad, I just prefer it the other way. 

Once we chowed down on some pizza, I decided to bake a cake. But, because I'm me and typically lazy, I thought Lazy Daisy Cake would be perfect. But also because I'm me, and I can never resist tinkering with recipes (and because I'd bought several quarts of fresh strawberries), I added a layer of strawberries to the bottom of the pan. In retrospect, should have mixed them in, but still delicious how it turned out. 

I first learned of Lazy Daisy cake from Marion Cunningham's lovely cookbook, Lost Recipes: Meals to Share with Friends and Family, but it's a 1920s-era staple. I made it for my 1920s Garden Party a few years ago and it was a big hit. But! a 9x13" pan only went so far with that crowd, and people love it, so always make more than you think you'll need. 

Lazy Daisy Cake is a type of hot milk cake - a type of sponge cake that combines whole whipped eggs with baking powder and hot milk to give it a lovely lift and a springy texture. The "lazy" part is two things - first is you don't have to separate the eggs before you whip them (although the mixing is anything but "lazy," especially if you are stubborn and do it by hand like I do). Second is the topping - a mixture of butter, brown sugar, shredded coconut, and heavy cream that gets popped under the broiler to caramelize before serving. Which is far easier than making a frosting and then frosting a layer cake.

It's certainly not as pretty as a frosted layer cake, but it tastes fantastic - well worthy of any Valentine. Of course, if you'd like this the pure way - leave out the strawberries, or serve them cold on the side. My husband likes this with liquid cream AND whipped cream (and, sometimes, so do I - it's that dairy farmer heritage), but just about any dairy topping is delicious.

My version is based on Marion's, but doubled.

4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter (2 tablespoons, then 6 tablespoons)
at least 1 quart fresh strawberries (optional)
6 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons heavy cream
1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut (or finely chopped pecans)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 9"x13" metal pan (do NOT use glass!). 

Beat eggs and vanilla until thick, then gradually beat in sugar until very thick. Add flour, baking powder, and salt all together, then stir into egg mixture until smooth and thick. 

Heat milk and 2 tablespoons butter in a saucepan over medium heat until butter is just melted. 

Meanwhile, wash, hull, and cut strawberries into quarters (cut the big ones into sixths).

When butter is melted into milk, pour hot into batter and stir well until fully combined. Either stir in strawberries, or place in bottom of pan and pour batter over. Bake immediately for 30-45 minutes or until top is golden brown and springs back when touched.

While cake is baking, take the saucepan from the milk mixture and add remaining butter (6 tablespoons), brown sugar, cream, and coconut (or pecans) and heat until butter and sugar are melted, then remove from heat. Do not boil. When cake is done, turn off oven and turn broiler on low. Spread the top of the hot cake with the coconut mixture, then broil for about a minute (watch it - it burns easily) until the coconut mixture caramelizes. Remove from the oven and let cool before serving with the dairy topping (liquid cream, whipped cream, milk, ice cream) of your choice. Or eat plain. 

What did you do for Valentine's Day? Did you eat at home and cook or bake something special? Tell me in the comments!

And, as always, if you liked this post, consider becoming a member or joining us on Patreon. Members and patrons get special perks like access to members-only content. 

So I had myself a little Medieval-themed birthday. Let's be honest - I wanted to wear a pretty Elven Princess dress and a tiara for my 35th birthday (Middle Ages was definitely a pun that was used). I didn't decorate the house much, and to be honest you're lucky I snapped as many mediocre photos as I did (too busy having fun!).

​Food-wise, I tried to stay away from any Western Hemisphere foods, and to create dishes based on peasant foods, rather than the feast meals of European kings. Some were very ordinary, like store-bought peasant bread and cheese and roasted chicken legs. Some didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, such as pease porridge with leeks (flavor was good, split peas didn't cook up as smooth as I would have liked - still some crunchy bits). But a few were real knock-outs, so I'm sharing them here.

This one is inspired by a Tamar Adler recipe by the same name, from her book Something Old, Something New. It's almost certainly a 19th or early 20th century recipe, but it SEEMED Medieval, so in it went. I thought it would be pretty good, and it was, but the party guests LOVED it. A surprise hit.

6 hardboiled eggs
2 tablespoons soft butter
1 cup shredded cheese (I used a mixture of sharp cheddar and jarslberg)
6 green onions/scallions, finely sliced
dash olive oil
a tablespoon or two of mayonnaise
juice of half a lemon
salt to taste

Halve the hard boiled eggs to remove the yolks. Mash yolks with butter until they make a smooth paste. Finely mince the egg whites and add to yolk mixture with cheese and onions. Add olive oil to moisten and mix well. Add lemon juice and mayonnaise and mix again. Mixture should be thick - like a pate. Salt to taste and serve with crackers - sturdy ones like rye Wasa or Triscuits are best. 

This is very loosely based on a similar dish from the nation of Georgia, where they love fresh herbs, garlic, and walnuts. I realize now that kidney beans are actually native to the Americas, so not really accurate to Medieval Europe. But still, shockingly delicious. I actually made it again tonight for dinner, and my husband loved it so much he ate nearly half the bowl. Lol. It's best when eaten with something rich and fatty - like the grilled cheese I made tonight, or like the mushroom pasties I made for the party. 

2 cans red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup minced fresh dill
1/2 a bunch fresh parsley
1 generous handful arugula
1-3 cloves garlic (3 if you like it "spicy")
1 cup raw walnuts
more olive oil than you would think
more cider vinegar than you would think

In a small food chopper, process the garlic, parsley, walnuts, olive oil, and cider vinegar (if you don't have a food chopper, mince the garlic and chop the parsley and walnuts before mixing with olive oil and vinegar). Pour over the beans and minced dill, toss with arugula, and serve at room temperature. Taste and add more vinegar if desired. Alternatively, you can add the arugula to the "sauce" with the parsley. Other options include adding fresh basil and/or cilantro - other popular Georgian flavors. But the dill is the real deal, so don't skimp unless you really hate the taste of dill.

I have a lot of vegetarian friends, so instead of making meat pasties, I decided to go with mushrooms. The pastry dough is my go-to for everything and comes from - believe it or not - an old Russian cookie recipe. It's impossible to overwork and although it's more tender than flaky, it's perfect for pasties and slab pies. I made it with half spelt flour so it tasted more authentically peasant-y. 

For the pastry dough (this will make double what you need for the pasties):
1 pound butter, very soft or melted
1 pound farmer cheese or pot cheese
4 cups flour

Cream the butter and cheese, then mix in the flour. Knead until smooth. Let rest while you cook the mushroom mixture.

For the mushroom mixture:
2 pints white button mushrooms
2 pints baby bella mushrooms
6 shallots
1 stick butter
thyme
salt
white wine
lemon juice

In a wide pot (stock pot or dutch oven), melt the butter with the thyme (be generous - mine could have used more) over medium heat. Meanwhile, peel and slice the shallots and add them to the butter. Then rinse and finely mince the mushrooms (this will take a while by hand - feel free to pulse in a food chopper). Cook the mushrooms and shallots in the butter until all the liquid is absorbed (raise heat if necessary), then add white wine and lemon juice in batches, letting the mushrooms absorb between additions. Taste and add salt if necessary. Let cool before filling pastry.

Preheat oven to 425 F. 

Take walnut-sized pieces of dough (about enough to fill your palm when you make a fist) and roll quite thin (not paper thin, but close). Add mushroom mixture, fold round in half, and crimp edges. Place on a large sheet pan and slash the top of the pasty to allow steam to escape. Repeat until the mushroom mixture is gone. This should make about 18 palm-sized pies. Bake 25-35 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.

With the leftover dough, make a pear custard slab pie!

I was not planning to make this at all, but had some winter (Bosc) pears on hand. Not enough to really fill the pie though, so I added my classic quiche custard ratio spiked with a little sugar and cinnamon. It was a huge hit. I also had some bits of marzipan and candied almonds that I chopped up and added. It seemed Medieval-y enough and everyone loved it.

2 Bosc pears, cored and thinly sliced
half a batch Russian pastry crust (above)
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
a tablespoon or so of sugar
ground cinnamon to taste
Optional:
bits of marzipan
1/4 cup candied almonds, chopped

Preheat oven to 425 F. Roll the pastry into a sheet large enough to fit a jelly roll pan (1/4 sheet pan). Trim the edges and use the extra dough for the lattice and decorations. Layer the pears in the pan, add marzipan and almonds, if using. Whisk the eggs with the milk, sugar, and cinnamon, then pour over the pears. Add the latticework and bake 30-45 minutes, or until the custard is set and the crust is golden brown.

What Medieval party is complete without candied almonds? This was a super-simple recipe I lifted from the internet. It didn't turn out quite as nicely as I would have liked - the sugar-egg-white mixture made the coating more powdery, which meant lots of wasted powder got left in the pan. And definitely you'll want to use parchment paper on these bad boys, or be prepared to clean up a very stuck-on mess from your sheet pan.

But, again, the party guests LOVED them. And while I didn't get a good stand-alone photo, if you're really curious, you can see them in the corner of the first pear custard slab pie photo (and, y'know, all candied almonds look largely alike). 

1 pound raw shelled almonds
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg white

Preheat oven to 300 F. Whisk egg white until frothy, add almonds and stir to coat, add sugars, cinnamon, and salt, and stir to coat. In a half sheet pan lined with parchment paper, pour the almond mixture out and spread evenly, so that the nuts are all in a single layer. Bake for 30 minutes, then let cool. (I did not stir like the original recipe called for, and it made a big slab.) When fully cool, break apart into individual almonds with hands (if necessary). Eat by the handfuls. 

This is probably the most authentic of all the recipes and it couldn't have been easier. Of course, it helped that I used store-bought marzipan! 

2 pints medjool dates
1 tube marzipan

Cut dates halfway through, lengthwise, and remove the pits. Take a small bit of marzipan and shape into ovals big enough to fit into the center of the date. Close the edges together, but not so much that you can't see the marzipan. Then try not to eat them all. They are VERY sweet, but also an incredibly delicious dessert and they make everyone ask - why did we stop making these? 

If you haven't figured it out by now, I really love propaganda posters. Especially those from World War I. But my absolute favorite poster artist is one no one seems to know anything about.

Carter Housh was apparently born in 1887 and died in 1923. And aside from an illustration or two for McCall's magazine, he is known ONLY for these six propaganda posters, encouraging Americans to preserve food during the First World War. 

As far as I can tell, nowhere else on the internet are all six of these posters displayed together. In fact, three of them were new to me! I discovered them as I was doing research on Housh, so that was delightful. 

Housh's work has been called "modern" before, but aside from the font with it's rather Z-looking S, the imagery and style seems very typical of the period. I love Housh's use of shadow and color-blocking and his depictions of produce are simply divine - perfect, gleaming, and blemish-free. Quite unlike the real world, alas.

I particularly enjoy Housh's depictions of people and Uncle Sam is no exception. Uncle Sam was long used to represent the United States, but during the War James Montgomery Flagg's depiction in his famous "I Want YOU!" poster helped lead to a resurgence in use of Uncle Sam to represent the U.S. I'm particularly fond of Housh's version because he's less scrawny and stern looking than other incarnations. Plus, when he's hard at work, shirtsleeves rolled up, his hair gets a particularly nice wild swoop to it. One that isn't present in his more sedate depictions, like the poster below.

One interesting thing about this time period is that both Uncle Sam and Columbia were used to represent the United States. The First World War is one of the last times the Greek-inspired secular goddess would be broadly used to represent America. 

As much as I love Uncle Sam, of course I prefer Columbia because she is just so Progressive Era - an inspiring mix of Greco-Roman, feminist, Romantic representation that doesn't exist anymore. Of course, today's American goddess would look quite a bit different, and probably would not be named after Columbus, and that's equally as wonderful. If you want to know more about Columbia, check out this overview from the Atlantic. 

Which of these beautiful posters is your favorite?

And if anyone happens to find anything on Carter Housh (or his printer, George P. Thomas of New York), please send me the info!