Well, dear readers, it seems as though we are in the '20s again, and since "Dry January" seems to be a growing trend, I thought I would look at some historic alternatives to alcohol for those who don't imbibe or those who are taking a break.

Prohibition, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution banning importation, production, sale, and consumption of alcohol in the United States, officially took effect across the country in January, 1920. 

It was a long, long road to the Constitutional amendment. Begun in the late 18th century, the Temperance movement was a response to the increasing consumption of distilled liquor by the general populace. Rum, distilled by slaves from molasses produced by  brutal Caribbean sugar plantations, was flooding the market at the end of the 18th century. Cider, ale, and small beer were common daily beverages. John Adams was known to enjoy hard cider with breakfast. George Washington adored Maderia. All the founding fathers drank at levels that seem excessive by today's standards. And the Whisky Rebellion was just the beginning of American distilling. 

Alcohol was a way to preserve and consume calories (whether from apples or grain) and was known to be safer for drinking than most water. But it had unsavory unintended consequences. For Temperance advocates, alcohol enhanced all of humanity's sins: drunkenness begat violence, both domestic and public, and wasted hard-earned wages while children starved. 

In February, 1751, the famed British satirical artist William Hogarth published a pair of etchings in reaction to the Gin Craze. They were meant to be viewed side-by-side, with "Beer Street" at the left and "Gin Lane" at the right. The etchings were accompanied by the following poem:

​Gin, cursed Fiend, with Fury fraught,
   Makes human Race a Prey.
It enters by a deadly Draught
   And steals our Life away.

Virtue and Truth, driv'n to Despair
   Its Rage compells to fly,
But cherishes with hellish Care
   Theft, Murder, Perjury.

Damned Cup! that on the Vitals preys
   That liquid Fire contains,
Which Madness to the heart conveys,
   And rolls it thro' the Veins.

The pair of images was meant to illustrate the evils of gin consumption in London. In the above image, emaciated drunks line the streets. A drunken woman lets her baby fall to its death. A person has hung themselves in a dilapidated building and other dwellings are falling down. The distillery, pawn shop, and coffin maker are all doing very well and EVERYONE is drinking gin.

Meanwhile, on Beer Street, healthily rotund, industrious people are resting from their day's work to have a beer. The pawn broker's building is a dilapidated ruin, the dwellings in good shape as construction begins on another, and everyone is well-dressed and otherwise in good spirits. This images was accompanied by the following poem: 

Beer, happy Produce of our Isle
Can sinewy Strength impart,
And wearied with Fatigue and Toil
Can cheer each manly Heart.
  
Labour and Art upheld by Thee
Successfully advance,
We quaff Thy balmy Juice with Glee
And Water leave to France.
  
Genius of Health, thy grateful Taste
Rivals the Cup of Jove,
And warms each English generous Breast
With Liberty and Love!

If we were to compare 18th century Britain to America, we might replace gin with rum (with its problematic connections to slavery), and beer with hard cider, the drink of choice for thousands of colonists and later American citizens. William Henry Harrison won the 1840 presidential election by running as the "log cabin and cider" candidate - meaning a Western pioneer, the better to appeal to rural voters against the much-maligned Martin Van Buren, of upstate New York, who lost his reelection campaign. 

But while whiskey, rum, and "fortified" wines like Madeira and port remained popular beverages throughout the 18th and 19th century, alcohol consumption remained as a problem for women and children. Although many Temperance advocates initially just targeted distilled spirits, soon beer and wine and indeed, any alcohol at all, was decried as the root of many evils.

Many abolitionists were also Temperance advocates. Lyman Beecher, father to cookbook author Catherine Beecher and her more famous author sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was an early Temperance advocate. Connected to a religious revival in America as part of the Second Great Awakening, Temperance gained traction in communities throughout the United States. 

The above image is a 19th century analog to the Hogarth images. At left, a healthy-looking family kneels before a man who is perhaps a minister. The angel of Temperance with her anti-alcohol pledge floats down on a cloud, with cupids and a cornucopia of prosperity. In the background, a new and prosperous looking church At the right, a drunkard, bottle in hand, sprawls on the floor. His overworked wife and starving children huddle in the background, with the little girl praying to the glorious angel. Sad looking shacks appear behind them, with a mob of people in the street. 

​After the Civil War, the fight for Temperance continued. Throughout the 19th century, towns, counties, and even states held referendums on whether or not to go "dry." Some advocates installed drinking fountains in public squares in cities around the country. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, one of the strongest proponents of Temperance, formed in 1874. In 1900, Carrie Nation took to violence, chopping up saloons with a hatchet, to try to suppress alcoholism. In 1913, the federal income tax was instated. For the first time, the federal government had a form of tax income that did NOT come directly from the sale of alcohol, which had previously been the main source of tax income. 
​
During WWI, the Temperance movement and the Prohibitionists used the threat of wartime and even the need to conserve grain as a reason to instate Prohibition. 

Here, the threat of alcoholism and "hardened liver" is compared to the deaths caused by the common house fly. At the bottom, the flyer calls for a Constitutional Amendment. Published in 1917, this flyer was created at the outbreak of World War I.

Although the United States was not at war when the above image was published in Puck, it nevertheless made a case to reinstate the Army canteen, where beer and soft drinks were sold. Congress had apparently disbanded them by grace of the Women's Christian Temperance Movement - illustrated here by a hysterical older woman in blue and accompanied by an elderly minister and, in the rear, a "timid legislator." The comparison is made between an Army-sponsored canteen and a public "dive," where soldiers drink to wrack and ruin and can consort with the prostitute implied by her red dress and shoes in the lower right hand corner. 

This illustrates that some people still fought to keep beer and hard cider as a part of daily life, even as public opinion against distilled spirits waxed to a frenzy. Thirty-six states did, indeed, ratify the 18th Amendment on January 16, 1919. It read, "After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited." Prohibition, as it came to be known, went into effect on January 16, 1920. 

Prohibition came to represent government overreach into peoples' daily lives and the criminalization of alcohol allowed organized crime to flourish in the 1920s, despite the best efforts of police. Gangsters like the infamous Al Capone, wielding machine guns they learned to use in the First World War, made fortunes off of illegal distilleries, speakeasies, and other criminal enterprises, all while dodging federal taxes. Well, at least until the Feds catch up with you, right Al? 

The wealthy could afford to keep consuming booze (often from the wine cellars amassed on their private estates) as police and prosecutors largely looked the other way. The poor and middle class risked their lives on bathtub gin, wood alcohol, and methylated spirits (also known as denatured alcohol) which caused blindness or even death. The illegality meant that alcohol production was unregulated and therefore dangerous to human health. 

Prohibition was ultimately a failure. The stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent Great Depression left many people in severe economic (and mental) distress. It was repealed on December 5, 1933, with the ratification of the 21st Amendment, which specifically repealed the 18th. For many, the return of the ability to self-medicate with alcohol helped temper the despair of the Depression, although it likely ruined as many lives as it helped.

But while romanticized notions of the "Roaring Twenties" continue today, we can learn from the problems that Temperance sought to solve. Absenteeism and incarceration both declined during Prohibition. Alcohol consumption overall did decline in the 20th century, thanks in large part to the Temperance movement. 

Today, more and more people are reassessing their relationship with alcohol. In 2006, food writer John Ore coined the term "Drynuary" to describe what he and his wife considered to be a post-holiday alcohol detox. "Drynuary" or "Dry January" has been embraced by an increasing number of people and while the peer pressure to consume alcohol in social settings still exists, it is becoming more acceptable to abstain in public. Are we on the brink of a new Temperance movement? Probably not, but interesting to see the historical parallels. 

As we are in full swing of "Dry January," and as more people are embracing temperance, we can look to the past for interesting non-alcoholic beverages to tempt our palates. 

The nice thing about having an extensive library is that it is easy to do research when I want to - I just head upstairs to my little office and library, tucked up under the eaves of our little house. I pulled a couple of 1920s cookbooks that revealed some fascinating recipes.

Coffee and tea were the most common alcohol replacers in polite society, but a number of fruit-based beverages and punches were also popular. Of course, most of them are very heavy on the sugar. The rise of soda fountains in the 1900s was in part a direct response to Temperance - it was a wholesome place for young people, women, and families to meet and socialize. It also meant that many Americans were replacing the vice of alcohol with what we know today to be the vice of sugar. 

The first book I perused was not this one, but I thought I would start here because it is the oldest of the 1920s cookbooks I looked at and its recipes were among the most interesting. Good Housekeeping's Book of Menus, Recipes, and Household Discoveries was published in 1922. 

Don't these sound delightful? "Apple Tree Dulcet" in particular is a brilliant name, although it's much more of a dessert than a beverage.

"Gingerade," made with fresh or "green" ginger root also sounds delightful, if spicy.

Of these I think the Grapefruit Punch sounded the most delicious. I love both grapefruit and maraschino cherries, but have never had them together. I often drink half grapefruit juice, half ginger ale as a bitter-sweet winter tonic. 

2 cupfuls water
3/4 cupful sugar
1 cupful grapefruit juice
1/2 cupful grapefruit pulp
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cupful maraschino cherries
mineral water

Combine the water and sugar, boil one minute, and let cool. Meanwhile, extract the grapefruit juice and to this add the grapefruit pulp and the lemon-juice. Allow to chill thoroughly and then add the maraschino cherries cut in halves. Dilute with mineral ice-water and serve very cold.

I love collecting community cookbooks - the earlier the better. This particularly nice one from Utica, NY (which is also where I found it), has just one page of beverages. Published in 1924, it includes a homemade version of what was likely a soda fountain drink: Strawberry Flip. Note that it calls for only one TABLESPOON of vanilla ice cream. Per serving, of course. 

The one that seems the most interesting to me is the first Fruit Punch, by Bessie C.B. Capron. 

1 cup sugar
1 cup very strong tea (black)
2/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 pint ginger ale
1 pint appolinaris

This makes enough for 10 glasses.

Okay, this probably needs a little translation for most people. To make the tea very strong, steep 2-3 bags in one cup of boiling water. The orange and lemon juice should be fresh-squeezed. And the ginger ale is probably better if you can find something a little stronger than your garden variety - a craft ginger ale would do nicely. And appolinaris? That's a German type of sparkling mineral water. Known as the "Queen of Table Waters," Appolinaris was a brand name mineral water discovered in the 1850s that is still around today. Although these days it's owned by Coca-Cola. 

This recipe is actually somewhat similar to 18th century punches that called for sugar, citrus juices, black tea, and sparkling water, albeit with the addition of strong spirits like rum and brandy (see: Fish House Punch). 

Marion Lockhart's Standard Cookbook is a teensy tiny little hard cover (hence the fingers to hold it open). Published in 1925, it has a wide variety of punches, which is lovely. I do love malted milk, but I'm wary of raw eggs, so the "Egg Malted Milk" is not one I would probably attempt. However, the "Currant and Raspberry Punch" sounds divine. 

Take 1/2 glass (about 3-4 ounces) currant jelly and dissolve in 1 cup boiling water. To this add 1 cup raspberry sirup and 1 pint fresh water. Pour over ice in punch-bowl, then add 1 quart charged (sparkling) water.

This makes about 2 quarts and seems like the perfect pink party punch to serve for Valentine's Day or a girly party. Despite the syrup and jelly, it also probably isn't too sweet, as you're cutting about 1 pint of sweet stuff with 1 pint of water and a quart of sparkling water. 

And last but not least! The New Delineator Recipes. Published in 1929, this one comes with a few quite lovely photos. "Reception Chocolate" looks delicious and would be perfect for a winter hygge party. 

"Veranda Punch" listed here is very similar to the "Fruit Punch" listed above. 

Of all of these recipes, "Grape High Ball" sounds the most interesting, in part because it uses Niagara grapes. If you live in the Northeast, you can still find both Concord and Niagara grapes at some U-Pick orchards. If you've never had Niagara grapes, I recommend trying them if you see them. A dusky golden color, neither they nor the classic deep purple Concords are much like today's table grapes. Niagara grapes are very soft, with slippery-sweet insides and seeds. But they have a lovely flavor - almost perfumed, and would make a sophisticated beverage. 

For sake of ease, I am combining the two recipe instructions.

Wash grapes and boil [until] skin, pulp, and seeds separate. Press through a jelly bag and to every pint of juice add one-half cup of sugar. Boil for twenty minutes and chill.

​In glasses half-filled with shaved ice, add equal parts syrup and charged (sparkling) water. Lemon is an attractive addition.

Well, that's all for now folks. Are any of you attempting a Dry January? If so, what do you normally drink for festive occasions? Share in the comments! 

And, as always, if you enjoyed this (long!) post, please consider becoming a member of The Food Historian! You can join online here, or you can join us on Patreon. Members get access to members-only sections of this website, special updates, plus discounts on future events and classes. And you'll help support free content like this for everyone. Join today!

And what a year it has been! But Sarah, you say, a year? Didn't "The Food That Built America" only come out in August? Why yes, dear reader, it did. But the magic of television isn't created overnight. And it was exactly on January 16, 2019 that the dear folks hired by the History Channel to do the production of that wonderful series sent me an email through this very website. 

Although I have been on television before, this was my first interview of this length and professionalism. It took place on a frigid January day in a Brooklyn warehouse equipped with a very noisy heater. So it was off during filming. My 2 pm interview was constantly interrupted by the air brakes and backing-up beeps of the trucks that still visited the industrial area where we were filming. At one point you could see my breath on the air. But dear reader, it was so FUN. There were two cameras, one on a track to my side, which was a bit intimidating. The other was affixed with a mirror so I could see interviewer Thaddeus in the reflection (he was sitting to the side of the camera) and look right into the camera while appearing to look him in the face. Which made things much easier and less intimidating, to be honest. There were also about 10 people in the room with us, but of course they were so quiet it was easy to forget they were there. Thaddeus asked me lots of interesting questions, and I did my best to give good answers and, my specialty, lots of fantastic context to all the topics they were discussing. On several occasions, I even managed to repeat myself after each truck interruption without losing too much of the original quote. In all, I'm pretty proud of how I acquitted myself.

My only regret is the World War I context - Thaddeus didn't make it clear in his questioning that they were going to be talking primarily about the businesses during WWI, so my responses were all about the regulations on individual Americans. Had I realized, I could have pontificated at length about the impacts on food businesses and retail during the war. Oh well. No one's perfect. 

At any rate, a friend who teaches Family and Consumer Science (or FACS, as it is often called) told me the other day that FACS teachers around the country were using "The Food That Built America" in their lesson plans. And every couple of months another person I went to high school with or I know through work takes the time to mention that they saw me on TV, which is always fun. Although, sadly, I did not receive payment for my interview (as I'm sure few of the other interviewees did), I did get a free train ride and a car to pick me up, so that was nice. 

If you haven't seen "The Food That Built America" yet and you have cable - check out the History Channel from time to time - they seem to be replaying it quite frequently. Looks like they removed the online screening from The History Channel website, sadly.

BUT! If, like me, you do NOT have cable, you can purchase or rent the episodes through Amazon Prime. As an Amazon affiliate, if you purchase anything from this link, I will get a small commission.

Have you seen "The Food That Built America?" What was your favorite part? 

January is the time of year when many Americans, having made New Year's resolutions, try to eat healthier. But household food waste accounts for a good chunk of overall food waste, which besides being a big waste of water and energy, is also a contributor to the production of greenhouse gases. 

During both World Wars, food waste came up, but the First World War was a bit more significant. We were still coming off the effects of the Gilded Age, when wealthy Americans ate to excess, feasting on a great deal of meat, including some from rare or even endangered animals (for instance, terrapin, the diamondback turtle made so famous by soup, was hunted nearly to extinction and is still threatened to this day). Even as we underwent a series of depressions and industrial recessions between 1893 and 1914, the rise of restaurants and the proliferation of refrigerated railroad cars made more food accessible to more Americans than ever before.

But WWI made global competition for resources more intense than ever. As the United States entered 1917 with only enough wheat to feed itself, and hog, beef, and dairy production designed largely for domestic consumption, Americans had to conserve in order to free up enough food to send overseas. 

The United States Food Administration's anti-waste campaign was part of that conservation plan. Progressives loved statistics, and used them to good measure. If each American saved just one slice of bread per meal, for instance, it would add up to hundreds of thousands of loaves, which would translate into plenty of wheat flour to be sent overseas. 

Combined with messages of thrift (curbing waste saves money) were subtle messages about weight and consumption that fit in nicely with the new Progressive values of self-control, an active lifestyle, and the willowy Gibson Girl physique.  

This propaganda poster is a good example of just that. A rather large man, reminiscent certainly of the rotund gentlemen commonly seen in Gilded Age paintings and photographs, sits alone at a table, smoking a cigar. Clearly he has finished eating, although there is still food on all of the numerous plates in front of him, and two waiters in the background bear away trays containing more half-eaten food. One of the slender waiters looks back incredulously at the diner. The text says, "Sir, don't waste while your wife saves. Adopt the doctrine of the clean plate - do your share." Restaurants in particular would come under the jurisdiction of the United States Food Administration, but while there were restrictions on bread service and sugar bowls and meat on the menu, the federal government could not stop people from ordering as much food as they could afford, whether they ate it or not. The reference to the wife was perhaps meant to shame men. Women were largely in control of the household meals, and many middle and upper-class women were taking to voluntary rationing with a vengeance. Perhaps wealthy men escaped to restaurants to eat as they pleased. The federal government was urging them not to undo the patriotic war work of their wives and to pull their own weight in the fight for food conservation.

The first propaganda poster makes a slightly more subtle play, reading in part, "Leave a clean dinner plate. Take only such food as you will eat. Thousands are starving in Europe." Sound familiar? Perhaps your family used the (admittedly racist) "Children are starving in Africa," but the sentiment is the same. Photographs and images of children in Belgium and France were being used to good effect in the United States in an attempt to wake up isolationists to the terrors happening abroad. Both phrases use guilt and shame to get you to finish eating everything you took. Not exactly the most healthful advice, but at least during WWI they recommended you take only what you knew you could eat, instead of letting your eyes be bigger than your stomach. 

Although not as popular as calls to plant war gardens or can fruits and vegetables, the "gospel of the clean plate" nevertheless urged people to think more about food waste. Of course, as one woman complained in a letter to Herbert Hoover, the poor already saved food, planted gardens, ate less meat, and preserved what they could. 

Still it's advice that we would all do well to emulate today. We're pretty good at eating leftovers in my house, but sometimes we just can't finish them in time or (shocker, I know), dinner wasn't as good as you'd hoped, so eating the leftovers becomes a real chore. My leftovers usually make it to the compost pile, if not our stomachs. But other food waste reduction advice of the time included feeding 

But if you find yourself buying boxes or bags of leafy greens and salmon and fresh fruit in a fit of health this year, maybe hold off a bit, and eat down your cupboards instead. 

"Help in the Harvest - ICE is needed to Save Food for the Starving people of the World." Produced by the United States Food Administration in conjunction with the National Association of Ice Industries. 

This propaganda poster is a bit unusual for several reasons. For one, it does not actually feature a particular foodstuff. For another, the reason for this poster is the result of a very unique time period in American history.

For most of the 19th century and into the early 20th, if you wanted to keep food cold, you had to harvest natural ice on a pond, lake, or river, store it in an ice house packed with straw or sawdust, and hope that enough of it survived the spring, summer, and fall for you to keep your ice box well-chilled with enormous blocks of ice. If you lived in an urban area, the ice man would deliver weekly a giant block of natural ice to help keep meats, milk, and leftovers adequately chilled to prevent short-term spoilage. 

By the time of the U.S. entrance into the First World War, artificial refrigeration was on the rise, and frozen food storage and refrigerated rail cars were new and effective technologies.

However, artificial ice production, advertised as more pure than natural ice, which often came from polluted rivers and lakes, required ammonia to produce ice. But ammonia was also used to produce munitions, and during the war a shortage ensued. 

The harvest of natural ice was encouraged to assist with the shortage and ice was promoted to prevent food waste from spoilage. 

Following the war, the spread of electricity led to the increasing popularity of electric refrigerators. Present before the war but enormously expensive, by the 1920s they were approaching ubiquity in the nation's urban areas. 

​If you enjoyed this World War Wednesday post, consider becoming a member of The Food Historian! You can join online here, or you can join us on Patreon. Members get access to members-only sections of this website, special updates, plus discounts on future events and classes. And you'll help support free content like this for everyone. Join today!

Sometimes, you get random emails that result in really wonderful surprises. A while ago a gentleman named Jon contacted me to see if I was interested in his wife's grandmother's cookbook. He warned me that it was in rough shape, but that they really wanted to see it go to someone who would appreciate it. So of course I said yes, and Jon and his wife Amy graciously sent it my way, and it arrived today! Very carefully packed with foam in a cardboard box and the book itself was wrapped in black fabric to keep it from getting further damaged. 

Published in 1912, this fourth edition of The Warren Cook Book (the second, 1903 addition has been digitized by the Library of Congress) was compiled by the Young Ladies' Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church of Warren, PA. 

But while you can take a gander at the second edition, what makes this fourth edition volume really special is the woman who owned it. Her name, according to Amy, was Margaret Elmquist. 

Amy writes: "I actually know very little about her as she died when I was just six months old.  I have heard that she was a particularly beautiful woman.  She raised her children through the depression, I remember hearing she would cut newspapers to line her kids shoes.  She had two sons and one daughter.  After an accident she was paralyzed from the neck down for five years before passing." 

We don't know very much about Margaret except what we can glean from the cookbook she left behind. And just from that, I can tell she was a special lady. For one, the cookbook is stuffed FULL of ephemera - newspaper clippings, magazine clippings, handwritten recipes on scraps of paper, mail-away recipe cards, and more. But while her handwritten recipes are very special (particularly the home remedies for sickness!), what I love the most is how she pasted and wrote recipes right on the pages of the cookbook, in the sections where they most resembled similar recipes printed on the page. It's a marginalia-lover's dream! And an archivist's nightmare. Lol. Those acid-rich newspapers are already damaging the pages, and are probably part of the reason why the cookbook is in such rough shape (crumbling edges of pages, broken spine, etc.). Of course, it's also probable that Margaret loved this cookbook to death before she passed it down. 

See for yourself:

Okay, that's all I have time for - for now! This cookbook is more scrapbook than anything else and I love it so much, so thank you, Jon and Amy, for sending it my way!

I have a feeling Margaret and I would have got along very well - just about every one of her handwritten recipes sounds just exactly like something I would make.

I'll be diving more into this cookbook as time goes on, but since it arrived today, I just wanted to share the fun! And if I dig up any more information on Margaret, I'll let you know! 

And if YOU have any beautiful old cookbooks in your family collection, especially ones chock full of marginalia and ephemera, and you want someone to take care of it, feel free to send it my way! Just drop me a line on my contact form and I'll send you my address. :D 

Okay, so this is only peripherally about food, but it's an important image to give some context about.

During both World War I and World War II, gasoline was in short supply. It and rubber tires were actually rationed during the Second World War, as evidenced by the propaganda poster above. 

In it, a woman walks along, her arms full of packages. In the background, the silhouettes of soldiers, bayonets fixed, packs full, march behind her. She says, "I'll carry mine, too!" making a clear reference to the packs the soldiers behind her are carrying. Below it says, "Trucks and tires must last till victory." 

This image needs some context because most modern Americans don't realize what grocery shopping was like before the 1950s. As a rule, most cities did not have supermarkets as we know them today. That development was starting in the 1940s, but it was not until the end of the war that being able to roam a large store with a shopping cart and help yourself was a common occurrence for most ordinary Americans. 

Most Americans in the first half of the 20th century visited individual shops - a greengrocer for produce, a butcher for meat, a bakery for bread and pastries, and often yet another store for canned goods or staples like flour, sugar, and coffee. In big cities, you might also visit a cheesemonger, pickle store, or other specialty shop. Milk and other dairy products were obtained from a fluid milk dealer, who delivered. Although early in the century lower-quality milk was sometimes also available "dipped," meaning you brought your own pail and they dipped it out for you. This was largely consumed by folks who could not afford to have higher quality bottled milk delivered.

But many families also had other food products delivered. It made sense prior to the First World War. After all, milk, ice (for your ice box), and coal were already delivered. It was simple enough to use a telephone to place a weekly or even daily order from the butcher and greengrocer. But wartime meant efficiencies. So delivering small items to individual households multiple times a week was a waste of manpower and fuel. 

The campaign to cut down on deliveries started during the First World War as housewives were encouraged to actually visit the stores they ordered from. Propaganda persuaded housewives that they could better keep an eye on quality and sanitation if they went themselves. Which was likely true, as some housewives may have been duped by unscrupulous shopkeepers. But housewives visiting those shops themselves would have still had to place a request with a shop clerk, who would retrieve the items and weigh or measure them for you from bulk. With the exception of the increasing popularity of brand name products, many people still bought "generic" bulk goods. Gelatin, coffee, canned soups, boxed cereals, crackers and cookies, condiments like ketchup and mustard, spices, and coffee and tea were increasingly purchased pre-packaged. But someone else brought the package down from the shelf for you.

That way of shopping was changing by the 1940s, but home deliveries still abounded. During World War II, the emphasis was on saving fuel and tires. By walking and carrying her own goods, the housewife was saving on fuel, rubber, and manpower, too. 

Of course, changes to housing patterns post-war would also play a role. The development of suburbs meant that no longer could the housewife walk or take public transportation to the nearest store. She had to drive. Driving meant she could carry more, and bigger refrigerators and new deep freezers meant she could shop less frequently, too. It was a sea change in how life was lived. And the repercussions are what many people are trying to escape today, with a return to mixed-use and walkable neighborhoods. 

Despite living only a mile or so away from several grocery stores, there are no sidewalks in my neighborhood and I live on a very busy road where the speed limit is 55 mph. Which means I have to drive to stay safe. But I try to combine trips on my way home from work to be more efficient. 

In this day and age, communities are also increasingly banning or restricting the use of plastic bags. The county I work in has a total ban, and charges 5 cents for paper bags. As a result, I've started carrying reusable bags with me more often. But the lack of plastic packaging in this image is striking - the boxes are wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. In her paper bag, a bunch of carrots with green tops pokes out of top, along with what appears to be celery and paperboard boxes - maybe pasta or cereal? 

At any rate, it's a striking image, and one with some lessons in sustainability. Could we ever go back to an era of paper, cardboard, tin, and glass when we are currently so addicted to single-use plastic? Something to think about. 

How do you do your shopping? 

Inspired by my Patreon patrons (please join us!), I'll be occasionally posting Meatless Monday historic recipes. I ran across a gem of a website with scanned pages of all the recipes from Kitchen Klatter Magazine. The magazine was an outcropping of a radio show by the same name, hosted by Iowa homemaker Leanna Field Driftmier. On the air for sixty-one years, Kitchen Klatter is thought to be the longest-running show of its kind in the U.S. Anyone interested in doing some research on Driftmier can find her papers as well as cookbooks and other materials at the University of Iowa Library. 

I have an interest in homemaker radio shows, but my World War I research isn't quite ready to let go of me just yet, so more in-depth research is on the horizon. Sadly, it doesn't seem as though the Kitchen Klatter radio program survived, although I could be wrong. Few, if any of them, have been digitized. Although oral history collections and historic film are often preserved through digitization, historic radio is more neglected, particularly homemaker shows. 

At any rate, this particular recipe page (listed above) is from 1944, toward the end of the Second World War. In my opinion, cottage cheese is completely under appreciated in modern American cooking, which is why I always enjoy finding historic recipes for it. High in protein and generally low in fat, it is creamy and delicious. Cottage cheese, and its siblings ricotta and farmer cheese, are well-used in many European cuisines, particularly in Eastern Europe. 

Note that the recipe calls for "cottage cheese, drained dry." Cottage cheese naturally has creamy whey in it, but for this recipe you need to drain the whey off or use farmer cheese, which is simply cottage cheese that already has the whey drained off. To drain, line a sieve with cheesecloth or a coffee filter, place it in a bowl to catch the whey, and add the cottage cheese. Cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Before using, squeeze out any additional whey. 

Frying "sausages" like this will require a fair amount of oil - preheat a pan (I prefer a cast iron skillet) and cover the bottom with enough oil to run when the pan is tipped. Or, add even more to shallow fat fry the sausages.  

Serve with mashed or roasted root vegetables and a green vegetable, or, for a more breakfast sausage treatment, serve with pancakes, french toast, or fried eggs. 

As a bonus for the vegans out there, I made up a similar recipe last year using canned cannellini beans and oatmeal. Here's an approximation of the recipe (I make it differently every time). 

There are lots of "mock sausage" recipes that have been around since very early in American history. The sage is the primary suggestion of sausage, so don't leave it out, unless you prefer herbed white bean cakes to mock sausage. 

Now that the colder weather is back with us, I think I may just attempt the cottage cheese recipe. Do you have any historic vegetarian recipes to share? What have you been cooking lately?

Remember last week's foray into home canning during the First World War? Victory garden and canning efforts returned for World War II. 

Unlike the First World War, rationing during the Second World War was mandatory and regulated by the Federal government. Because purchased foods were restricted, Americans were strongly encouraged to keep victory gardens. And because commercially canned goods were needed for shipment overseas, ordinary people were encouraged to preserve the fruits of their victory gardens at home. 

​Propaganda posters like the one above made great efforts to frame the drudgery of home food preservation in wartime terms. Housewives were encouraged to "can all you can," while the poster cheerily chirped, "It's a real war job!" presumably to put the kibosh on all the naysayers who insisted otherwise. 

In addition to being a "real war job," canning efforts were framed in a number of ways. In the above poster, a proud housewife, with perfect victory curls, a ruffly floral apron, and an armful of jars (beets, green beans, and tomatoes from the looks of it, with more beets, raspberries, and corn below) indicates that not only is she preserving food for her own family, she's also "fighting famine." By "canning food at home," she's freeing up commercially canned goods to be sent overseas to help the civilians of war-torn countries stave off famine. 

In this final poster, a cherubic little girl, in a dress and frilly apron that matches her mother's outfit, helps place the rubber rings on wire bail jars of carrots and peas, preparing them for canning. Hopefully in a pressure canner, since low-acid vegetables like peas and carrots need to be canned at higher than 212 degrees Fahrenheit (boiling point) in order to be safe from botulism. 

The girl says, "We'll have lots to eat this winter, won't we Mother?" implying that a well-stocked home pantry like the one in the background provided security against future food shortages or tightened rations. 

Both the promotion of home canning and the implementation of wartime rationing reflected an agricultural system not designed to provide massive surpluses. Coming out of the Dust Bowl era of the Great Depression, agricultural practices in the United States had improved, but most of the food produced at home was still consumed at home. Cuts had to be made domestically in order to free up the food supply for shipment overseas. 

In the decades since the Second World War, American agriculture has been transformed, both by the leftovers of chemical warfare and explosives production (pesticides and chemical fertilizers come to mind) but also by the mindset that producing unlimited food brings global security. Improvements to global shipping have meant that it is now as easy (or easier, and certainly cheaper) to get garlic from China as it is from the farmer down the street. Or apples from New Zealand or Peru than from a local orchard. 

Home preservation and home kitchen gardens are certainly no longer necessary, given the world of food at our fingertips at both grocery stores and online. With home food preservation no longer necessary, canning and gardening have taken on a sheen of delight. For many people, it is preferable to can your own jam from berries you picked yourself, rather than buy from the store. But I think the romance that hangs around home food preservation today belies the struggles of the past - when poorly preserved foods or inadequate supplies meant illness and hunger. When a poor harvest didn't just mean higher prices at the grocery store, but threatened real starvation. 

it's important to remember that food preservation during World War II played an important role in both nutrition and improving the everyday diet of Americans. But it's also important to recognize the amount of labor spent on both victory gardens and home canning at a time when American labor was already stretched thin in the war effort as factories ramped up production and speed, women took on the work of fighting men, and everyone hustled to get things done with fewer people and fewer resources. 

The size of the United States meant that we never quite had the same threats of deprivation as the U.K., which is perhaps why they are so much better at telling their WWII home front stories than Americans are. The size and scope of our continent meant we could be self-sustaining and still provide food abroad, whereas the United Kingdom had to learn how to do without regular food shipments to its tiny island. 

So the next time you do some home canning, whether from necessity or for fun, I hope you remember the people of the past. 

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"Can Vegetables, Fruit, and the Kaiser, Too. Write for Free Book to National War Garden Commission, Washington, D.C." 

September is still preserving time, so I thought the next few World War Wednesdays would be about canning. 

This is another of my favorite World War I propaganda posters. Developed by the National War Garden Commission, the poster shows glass jars with zinc tops. Tomatoes at left, peas at right, and front and center, the profile of Kaiser Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia. His spiky German helmet and saber hang on the jar, which is labeled "Monarch Brand, Unsweetened." 

Eminently clever, the poster implies that home preserving has the power to defeat the might of the German Empire and the Kaiser himself. 

The First World War was one of the first times that ordinary Americans were called upon to preserve food in their homes. Many Americans, especially those in rural areas, were already canning and preserving the bounties of their home gardens. But as commercial canning became increasingly widespread, inexpensive, and safer, people with easy access to food retailers found it much easier to simply purchase canned goods, instead of going through the bother of putting up their own. Many people were still using the tried-and-true, but not necessarily safe, methods of their forebears. And while water bath canning was increasingly outpacing the traditional food preservation methods of fermentation, drying, and sealing jam with paraffin wax, water bath canning low acid vegetables still was not 100% safe. 

But as the government encouraged food conservation and food preservation, the National War Garden Commission stepped up to the plate. Founded (and funded) by timber magnate Charles Lathrop Pack, the National War Garden Commission published a series of food preservation pamphlets that were used all over the country by home economists and women's groups to encourage home canning. 

The National War Garden Commission was also behind the school garden movement, but that's another post. 
​ 

The Commission would go on to produce a number of pamphlets on war gardening (renamed "Victory Gardening" post-war, a term that would be revived during the Second World War), including one pamphlet entitled "The War Garden Guyed," published in 1918. A clever play on words ("to guy" someone was to make fun of them, or ridicule), the "Guyed" contained cartoons, poems, and slogans both promoting and making fun of the gardening and food conservation movements. Submitted by newspaper editors, soldiers in the trenches, magazines, and ordinary people, the collection is quite a fun read, and not the only version the National War Garden created. 

"Raking the Gardener and Canning the Canner" predated "The War Garden Guyed" by one year - published in 1917, a quick turnaround indeed and indicates how quickly ordinary people adjusted to the idea of home gardening and canning.

You can view almost all of the National War Garden Commission pamphlets on archive.org. 

In 1919, the National War Garden Commission used the "Can the Kaiser" poster image again, this time on their revamped "Home Canning & Drying of Vegetables and Fruits," rebranded "Victory Edition" post-war. At the bottom of the cover, it reads, "The Kaiser IS Canned." 

Although the fervor for home canning, thrift, and self-sufficiency continued into 1919 and 1920, by the time economic prosperity had returned full-force to give us the Roaring Twenties, most ordinary people who took up canning for the war effort abandoned it in victory. 

But I like to think that many of the food preservation lessons learned during the First World War would be revived and put to good use by the time the Second World War rolled around.

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During the Second World War, new research into nutrition science and the importance of vitamins meant that scientists and government officials alike were looking to increase public awareness about these new discoveries. In particular, emphasis was placed on the importance of keeping the populace healthy, strong, and able to keep up the punishing pace of total war. 

The Basic 7 was a precursor to the food pyramid and "MyPlate" interpretations of an easy way for Americans to know what healthful foods to eat. In effect from 1943 to 1956, the Basic 7 were replaced with a consolidated Basic 4, and later the food pyramid. 

Group One: Green and Yellow Vegetables
Designed to encourage Vitamin A intake, this group emphasized dark leafy greens and other green and yellow vegetables. These vegetables were recommended to be eaten raw, canned, cooked, or frozen. Although I'm guessing you were supposed to heat the frozen ones first. Night blindness and poor eyesight was a real fear for both soldiers and industrial workers alike and Vitamin A was touted as a preventative against poor eye health. 

Group Two: Oranges, Tomatoes, Grapefruit
This group also included raw cabbage and salad greens, both good sources of Vitamin C, along with oranges, tomatoes, and grapefruit. Vitamin C deficiency was by the 1940s long known as the cause of scurvy. Canned tomatoes and oranges in particular were popular sources, but as this group points out, other foods like raw cabbage and salad greens, especially spinach, also have very high levels of Vitamin C. 

Group Three: Potatoes and Other Vegetables and Fruits
This group was meant largely to round out the vegetables with fiber and carbohydrates. If you haven't noticed by now, the first three groups are all made of fruits and vegetables, as they were plentiful and not rationed during the war. Potatoes in particular were touted during both World Wars as an alternative to bread.  

Group Four: Milk and Milk Products
Long considered the "perfect food," - a balance of fats, protein, and sugars, by the 1940s milk and other dairy products were also recognized as excellent sources of calcium. With the exception of cheese, most dairy products were not rationed during the war and cottage cheese in particular was promoted as a high-protein meat substitute. 

Group Five: Meat, Poultry, Fish, or Eggs
This group also included dried beans, peas, nuts, and peanut butter, and emphasized protein. Meat was quite heavily rationed during the war, so fish, beans, and nuts were often suggested as meat substitutes. Soybeans (called "soya" in the period) were a "new" miracle protein source that never really caught on. At least, not until West Coast hippies were introduced to tofu by Japanese Americans in the 1960s.

Group Six: Bread, Flour, and Cereals
In the 1940s bread and other cereal products were still the backbone of many American meals. Cold or hot cereal, toast, or pancakes for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, bread with every dinner - these were the typical meals of most Americans. But while the simple carbohydrates of refined white bread were vaunted before the First World War, by the Second World War nutritionists realized that white flour had been stripped of most of its nutrition with the elimination of the wheat germ. So whole grains, flour, and cereal products were touted for their nutritive value. But, because white flour was so very popular, "enriched" or "restored" cereal products were also allowed. This gave rise to foods like Wonder Bread - so-called because it was "enriched" with a half a dozen vitamins and minerals - something allowed thanks to technological advances in artificial vitamin production. 

Group Seven: Butter and Fortified Margarine
Yes, you read that correctly. Butter was it's own food group during WWII. Seems crazy these days, but this group was also focused on getting Americans adequate supplies of Vitamin A. Today, the Vitamin A found in animal-based foods is called Vitamin A1, or retinol. Vitamin A deficiency includes dry eyes and eventual blindness. So it was an important vitamin to keep people in top working condition. Ironically, a tablespoon of butter only gives you about 11% of your daily recommended intake of Vitamin A, whereas other common WWII ration-relievers like beef liver and the oft-dreaded cod liver oil, provide more than enough Vitamin A per serving. But perhaps because rationing limited fats, officials felt that by putting butter on the Basic 7, they would be relieving some of the monotony of rationed diets. In addition, the more detailed poster below, indicates that eating butter or margarine helps you feel more satisfied or fuller after a meal. Conventional wisdom that has stood the test of time, as fat helps you feel more satiated than just about any other food.

By equating butter with fortified margarine, officials also helped remove some of the stigma from margarine, which still held some stigma as poverty food with a whiff of slaughterhouse about it, as originally margarine was made from scrap meat fats, as opposed to the supposedly more wholesome vegetable oils that were common by the 1940s. Of course, we know now that the hydrogenating process to solidify vegetable oils creates trans fats, one of the most harmful fats you can eat. But, like the effects of the atomic bomb, no one really knew that in the 1940s. 

Altogether, the Basic 7 emphasized nutrients, rather than calories, as later version would come to embrace. The Basic 7 focused on bodily performance, rather than weight loss. "Eat a Lunch That Packs a Punch!" was a common motto from the war and was designed to keep up health, strength, and stamina during mobilization. 

All images in this blog post are from the National Archives and Records Administration.

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