Most people know that the First World War official ended on Armistice Day - November 11, 1918 (the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, to be exact). The war that was supposed to be over by Christmas had finally ceased, just four years after it began. But although the guns had stopped firing, the Treaty of Versailles was not signed until June 29, 1919. Armistice came on the heels of winter, after several devastating years of war in Europe. Agricultural fields were destroyed and so many men had been killed it was uncertain if labor would be available to cultivate fields again in the spring. ​

Herbert Hoover and the United States Food Administration​, along with President Woodrow Wilson, knew that the food supply for both American troops staying on in Europe  for the next few months, the Allies, and even the defeated Germans would continue to need food aid. 

Hoover was left with the difficult task of convincing Americans that not only did they have to keep saving food, despite the official end of hostilities, they would also have to feed their former Hun enemies. But the American harvest, geared up for another potential year of war, had been a good one. And the USFA began to lift restrictions on commercial food production, retailing, and food service industries. 

By December 22, 1918, the last of these restrictions had been lifted, just in time for Christmas.

The New York Times article above, published December 23, 1918, reads:

"LAST BAN ON FOOD IS LIFTED TODAY

Federal Administration Drops Restrictions on Public Eating Places

BUT URGES CONSERVATION

Its Activities Are Now to be Centered on Preventing Profiteering and Speculation.

Special to the New York Times.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22. - Announcement was made by the Federal Food Administration tonight of the issuance of orders dropping all food restrictions beginning tomorrow morning. From time to time various regulations have been abandoned, and since Oct. 21 last the principal specific food regulations in force were those known as the "twelve general orders for public eating places." These latter are to be dropped, effective tomorrow morning.

In rescinding the "twelve general orders" the Food Administration emphasizes the need for continued care in food in order that the United States may meet its pledge to relieve conditions abroad. The twelve general orders for public eating places, which were designed as a war measure to restrict food at the time the devices of meatless and wheatless days and the substitution of one food for another were abandoned, went into effect on Oct. 21. It is estimated that 9,000,000 persons take their meals in public eating places - hotels, restaurants, cafes, clubs, and dining cars - and the food saving through this system of conservation is declared by the Federal food officials to have been very great, despite the fact that compilation of the total savings has not been possible to date.

In notifying the Hotel Chairmen on the staffs of the Federal Administration of the decision to rescind the present food regulations the Hotel Division of the Food Administration asked that they hold themselves in readiness to assist in putting into effect any specific measure which public eating places, through developments in world relief, may in the future be called upon to carry out. 

The twelve general orders provided that no public eating place should serve bread or toast as a garniture or under meat, allow any bread to be brought to the table until after the first course, or serve to one patron at anyone meal more than one kind of meat. Bacon was barred as a garniture. A half ounce of butter was regarded as a portion, and cheese was limited to a half ounce for a meal. Nos. 8 and 9 referred to the sugar restriction. The others referred to waste and the use of cream and butter fats.

Conservation Still Urged.
Notwithstanding the lifting of restrictions the Food Administration will not cease its activities entirely until a Presidential proclamation releases the public from the Food Control act, which may be some months in the future. Meanwhile, particular attention will be paid to profiteering and speculation in licensed food products. The profit and margin rules will be enforced as they have during the last few months. 

The New York Federal Food Board issued a statement yesterday urging the proprietors of eating places to continue conservation of foodstuffs.

"There should be no waste or extravagance in the use of any foods," said the statement. "All food should be prepared and served with the idea constantly in mind that America must send 20,000,000 tons of food to hungry Europe during the next twelve months and that the greater part of this food can be secured only by saving."

The board made public the following telegram from the Food Administration at Washington:

"Partial demobilization of the Food Administration and the withdrawal of many of its rules and regulations have given the impression in some quarters that all activities have ceased, or are shortly to cease. This is not the case. The act imposes upon the administration certain obligations, which continue until Presidential proclamation releases us from the Food Control act, and particularly the obligation to curb profiteering and speculation in licensed food products. This function must continue to be performed, and there is not intention of relaxing in this direction. It has been possible, now that peace is assured, to cancel many requirements for reports and many of the details of the regulations, but the profit and margin rules have been, for the most part, retained, and will be enforced by revocation of license and other appropriate penalties. It is expected that it will be possible from time to time to remove certain commodities from the license list, but this will be limited to commodities which do not seem likely to be subject to possibility of speculation and profiteering."

The above propaganda poster from the Chicago division of the US Food Administration, features doughtboys at a mess table and reads "You Saved Food for Them, Now Save to Make Their Victory Complete. Famine has spread throughout Europe - Anarchy is following. Feed the starving millions and Bolshevism will vanish. Are you doing your part? Eating only what you need - not all that you can. America must continue to save food. Live simply - follow the doctrine of the clean plate. The sooner normal conditions are established in Europe the sooner our boys can come home. Will you help bring them back quickly? Eat less, waste nothing."

Playing on fears of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the spread of socialism in Europe, the United States Food Administration used the admiration for "our boys" to convince Americans to keep up their thrifty wartime ways, even as food restrictions were being relaxed. 

Christmas, 1918, was likely a very happy one for most Americans - the war was over, the danger of German invasion a thing of the past, and the United States and her Allies victorious. Being able to have a basket of bread and butter before a restaurant dinner of steak probably didn't hurt, either. But many American soldiers remained in Europe, helping rebuild villages and roads, burying the dead, and otherwise securing the countryside. And 1919 would hold domestic unrest for the United States. It was the war to end all wars, and it changed the global balance of power, and Western society, forever.

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!

The holidays are coming soon, and with it comes house guests! Which means that my office-cum-guest-room needed a serious cleaning and reorganizing.

Y'know when you have an unused space in your house? And it just collects STUFF? That was our guest room. It's still not at 100%, but we're at like, 95%, which is good. A few more trips to the thrift store and we'll be back in business. 

As part of this cleanup, I installed a new bookshelf (that I got... a year ago... for my birthday, lol.), pulled ALL of my books out of ALL of their hiding places, dusted down all the surfaces, and reinstalled them. Which means I put hands on every book on food, cooking, and food history I own. And there are a lot of them! A number were gifts that I hadn't even looked at yet. But it was so nice to review everything and not only realize all the treasures I have, but to get excited again for delving into food history of all kinds.

I have my books organized a bit differently perhaps than some. All of my "American" cookbooks I have organized largely chronologically. All of my "foreign" cookbooks I have organized by country/region. And then I have all of my more modern books categorized by type of cookbook - baking, dessert, Christmas (!), food preservation, old-fashioned/country, and vegetarian. 

I haven't counted them all, but I'm already planning to get more matching bookshelves (don't they look so nice?) so I can stop squirreling books away in, say, the drawers of what is supposed to be bedroom furniture. 

As you can see, I have a bit of a problem, but also a huge opportunity. :D At some point this winter I hope to update the Wassberg Food Library and do some digitizing of some of the cookbooklets in my collection to share with the world, so stay tuned!

​This article, from the December, 1942 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine, illustrates the first Christmas under rationing for Americans. Although the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, rationing did not go into effect until 1942.

Good Housekeeping set the standard for women's magazines in the period, and had the still-famous "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" to its name. But in this instance, the magazine, as many other publications in the period, served as an arm of the government's propaganda machine. Here, the article outlines the Basic 7 nutrition recommendations and gives advice for how to shop around shortages and rationing. 

The article has no author, which is another clue that it probably came straight from Uncle Sam's on-staff nutritionists and home economists. 

"Now for our holiday menus, with recipes.
DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Luncheon 
*Hamburger Shortcakes
Carrot Cole Slaw
Fruit or * Coffee Almond Jelly
Molasses Cookies Milk

Dinner
Hot Vegetable-Juice Cocktail
*Cheese Bread Pudding
Broccoli Tossed Lima-Bean and Beet Salad
Bread Sticks
* Deep-Dish Quince-Apple Pie
Milk

CHRISTMAS DAY 
Dinner
* Cranberry-Juice Cocktail
* Carrot-Cheese Hors d'Oeuvres
Roast Turkey
*Sweet-Potato Stuffing
Giblet or Mushroom Gravy
* Brussels Sprouts with Onions
String-Bean Succotash
Celery      Pickles      Pickled Fruits
Enriched Bread
* Steamed Christmas Puddings with
* Strawberry Sauce
Roasted Walnuts       Coffee

Evening Snack (For Those Who Wish It)
Oyster Stew
Toasted Crackers
Fruit Bowl
Coffee

DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS
Luncheon
* Luncheon Rarebit Sandwiches
Celery
Chocolate-Flavored Milk Drink

Dinner
Sauteed Lamb's Liver
* Mashed Potato-Turnips
Canned or Quick-Frozen Peas
Whole-Wheat Bread
*Jellied Grape Salad
Milk      Coffee

SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS 
Dinner
* Turkey Fricassee on Crumb Noodles
* Vinaigrette Spinach
Baked Acorn Squash
Enriched Bread
Canned Cranberry Sauce
* Marble Ice Cream
Coffee

Supper
Hot Canned Consomme Madrilene
Canned-Tongue and Lettuce Sandwiches
Cookies
Milk       Coffee

​*Recipe given in article" 

I won't transcribe all of the recipes here (there are so many of them!), but most are typical of the 1940s and designed to use up leftovers (Turkey Fricassee on Crumb Noodles) or organ meats like liver or canned tongue. The meals themselves, except for dinner Christmas Day, are also very simple, emphasizing starches and vegetables livened up with cheese and a few interesting desserts. 

The "Dinner" served on Christmas Day was likely intended to be a noon or afternoon meal. Hence the "Evening Snack" of oyster stew ("for those who wish it" - in case they're too full still from dinner) - an American Christmas tradition (usually using canned oysters) dating back to the Victorian era. 

Conspicuously absent from this menu is the plethora of Christmas cookies we are now so used to. But perhaps that's a good thing. Perhaps if we adopted the 1942 stick-to-your-ribs steamed Christmas pudding, it might leave us too full for cookies anyway.

How do your holiday dinner traditions line up to 1942? Do you have any traditional ways of dealing with leftovers? 

I'm trying to convince my family to do "snack Christmas" this year and avoid the big meal. There are only a few of us, so it doesn't make sense to cook so many dishes. Everyone prefers my mother-in-law's dill dip with rye bread, my brother-in-law's hot and cheesy jalapeno dip with Ritz crackers, and other snacks like Christmas cookies, port wine cheese-stuffed celery, and salted nuts, anyway. We'll see how successful I am!

Many thanks to Cornell University for digitizing ALL of Good Housekeeping, plus a bunch of other amazing food- and home-economics-related titles at the Home Economics Archive. 

Okay folks, just 6 months after submitting and 9 months after receiving the invitation and book, my review of Capitalist Pigs is finally in print in the latest issue of Agricultural History - the journal of the Agricultural History Society. It's a pretty great issue, so I recommend you check out the few articles they have put up online. Alas, my review is not one of them, BUT! Being the rebel that I am, and seeing that I wrote this review for free (albeit in exchange for an advanced copy of the book, which was pretty cool), I'm going to do you a solid and post it here for you to read for yourself. 

For photographic proof, click through the images above! 

Capitalist Pigs: Pigs, Pork, and Power in America. By J.L. Anderson. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2018. 300 pp., $34.99, paperback, ISBN 978-1-946684-73-8.

“Capitalist pigs” is a term most frequently attributed to stereotypical Soviet protagonists describing Americans, or perhaps fat hogs in suits and top hats representing greedy businessmen in political cartoons. But in Capitalist Pigs: Pigs, Pork, and Power in America, J.L. Anderson puts a clever turn on the phrase as he explores the role of pigs and pork in America from the early Colonial period to the present. 

In Capitalist Pigs, Anderson argues that hogs have played a unique role in the development of the United States, and that the United States played a unique role in the development of the hog. “Americans maximized opportunities for the proliferation of the hog, even amid changing values and ideals about empire, agriculture, cities, and health.” (5). In particular, Anderson emphasizes that the story of the hog in America is one of excess, as farmers and marketers alike attempted to “transcend limits” on production. 

Capitalist Pigs covers the Colonial period to the present in the United States and is organized thematically rather than chronologically. Anderson covers such topics as free-range hogs and their influence on early settlements, pork consumption and its shifting role from frontier and working class food to re-branded “other white meat,” early industrialization of pork production and husbandry, including a discussion of hog cholera and enclosure, the role of the hog as garbage disposal, from our earliest urban areas to the industrialized present, and finally with a discussion of the modern industrialization of the hog, including changing its very physique to match modern consumer tastes and the controversial rise of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). 

Capitalist Pigs is well-researched and the broad chronology of the book provides a sweeping view of the influence of the hog on American culture and development throughout the centuries, giving needed context to historians of all stripes. Anderson is at his most compelling when he includes the voices of marginalized people and his sections on indigenous populations, enslaved people, and the Civil Rights movement are among his best. For urban and environmental historians, the discussion of the role of hogs in reshaping the landscape and the transition of urban spaces to exclude them, even as they continued to operate as waste disposal systems, will be of particular interest. Twentieth century historians, particularly agriculture historians, will be  impressed by his discussion of the industrialization of hog production and marketing from the 1940s on. 

Anderson’s background as a public historian means his writing is clear, straightforward, and free of jargon and unnecessarily convoluted sentences. His writing style is engaging and would appeal to not only professional historians, but likely students and laypeople as well. 

Although Anderson’s writing style is clear, his main arguments are not. It seems as though Anderson could not quite decide whether to write Capitalist Pigs as a more technical agricultural history, or as a social history, and decided to split the difference. Anderson notes the influence of pigs in the institution of slavery, subsistence farms, and as a “mortgage lifter.” But the primary argument outlined in the introduction is focused instead on how Americans changed the pig. An interesting, if somewhat divergent take from the usual social history bent of most food histories, the argument is ultimately a weak one. 

Although Anderson discusses extensively in the latter half of the book how farmers industrialized and economized pork production and even changed the body shape of pigs to accommodate changing consumer tastes, he spends little time discussing the effects on the pigs themselves. Although breeding is mentioned frequently, the only mention of any particular breed in the entire book is about how heritage breeds have become more fashionable in modern nose-to-tail cuisine and sustainable agriculture (172-73), despite the fact that discussing the various breeds of pig throughout the book would have lent weight to later industrial changes and changing consumer tastes. He also skirts around the effects of industrialization on the hogs themselves - only in a photo caption does he mention accusations of cruelty in hog confinement operations (201). 

In addition, although the title and discussions in several chapters imply that hogs played a significant role in building America’s capitalist system, Anderson does not quite make those connections clear throughout the chapters, and discussion of meat-packing beyond the 1850s is conspicuously absent. Given the influential role of America’s meat-packers in the late nineteenth century in both industrial capitalism and union history, this is a curious oversight. 

Although Capitalist Pigs doesn’t quite live up to the premise of its fantastic title, it is a worthy combination of agriculture and food history - combining the history of industrial technology and consumer uses of hogs throughout the entirety of American history. Food and agriculture historians in particular will find much of use, but American social, environmental, rural, urban, and Civil War historians will also enjoy the read. 

​If you enjoyed this book review, 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!

"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!

I've been a bit remiss in post-sharing on Facebook these days, but now that the turkey and all the fixin's (except the pie!) have been consumed at my mother-in-law's house, it's time for a roundup of all the great Thanksgiving-related articles across the web you may have missed these past few weeks. (This is a regular perk of being a Patreon patron, by the way.)

Let's start with "Why We Celebrate Thanksgiving On the Fourth Thursday of November" from NPR.

"The Thanksgiving Tale We Tell is a Harmful Lie. As a Native American, I've Found A Better Way to Celebrate the Holiday" Sean Sherman for Time Magazine.

"3 Indigenous Chefs Talk About What Thanksgiving Means to Them" from Bon Appetit. 

"Modern Native American Cuisine and the Myth of Thanksgiving" from Modern Farmer.

"The Native American Side of the Thanksgiving Menu" from NPR.

"The Real Thanksgiving Foods" from Powwows.com.

"Thanksgiving History: The Original Farm to Table Experience" from WVTF public radio.

"400 Thanksgiving Turkeys Walking to Washington (D.C.) Market in 1826" from Researching Food History.

"Thanksgiving at Washington Market, New York City" also from Researching Food History.

​"George Washington and Thanksgiving" from Mount Vernon.

"Colonial Thanksgiving Recipes To Celebrate American History" from Walter Staib on PBS.

"Chef Marcus Samuelsson Gives Thanks: On Harlem, the black diaspora, and his own journey" on Salon.

​"The Roots of Black Thanksgiving: Why Macaroni and Cheese and Potato Salad Are So Popular" from the Washington Post.

"Thanksgiving Soul Food Offers a Window to African-American Heritage" from the Baltimore Sun.

"The History Behind 10 Thanksgiving Dishes" from Mentalfloss.

"The History of Popular Thanksgiving Foods" from Redbook.

"Hey! What Are These Oysters Doing In My Stuffing?" from Food52.

"The Real Reason Sugar Has No Place in Cornbread" from Serious Eats.

"Cornbread Dressing Is So Much More Than a Thanksgiving Side" from The Takeout.

"Cornbread Kush Stuffing" from Michael Twitty via Vice.
​
"From Culinary Dud to Stud: How Dutch Plant Breeders Built Our Brussels Sprouts Boom" from NPR.

"This Twitter Thread On Weird Thanksgiving Side Dishes Does Not Disappoint" from the Huffington Post.

"Filling the Cornucopia" from the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

"Why President Calvin Coolidge Never Ate His Thanksgiving Raccoon" from Atlas Obscura. 

And, find out what happened to Rebecca in "The Thanksgiving Raccoon That Became a Presidential Pet" from History.com

​"This Man Made the First Canned Cranberry Sauce" from Smithsonian.

​"The Case for Heritage Turkeys" from Modern Farmer. 

​"The Great Thanksgiving Dessert Battle" from the Philadelphia Sun.

"A Brief History of Pumpkin Pie in America" from the Library of Congress.

"American History As Told By 7 Pies" from Matador Network.

"A Brief History of Pecan Pie" from Eater.

"The Turkey Has Been the Subject of Thanksgiving-Day Arguments for Longer Than You Probably Think" from Time Magazine.

"Turkey Alternatives Aren't the Key to Enjoying a Meatless Thanksgiving" from Diamondback.

​"Vegetarian Thanksgiving Dates Back to the 1900s" from JSTOR. 

Phew! That's it for the Thanksgiving Roundup this year. I hope this provides some good, post-feast reading and a way to work off that food coma before you feast on some pie. :D

If you want more roundups of food history-related news, consider becoming a member of The Food Historian! Regular roundups are a perk for every member level. 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 

One last follow-up to the Very Vintage Halloween Party! I wanted to share my recipe for Pumpkin Cranberry Bread Pudding. My husband loves bread pudding, but it can be a tricksy thing. Lots of recipes call for baking it in a water bath (too much work!), others end up making a bread pudding that is dry or too dense or otherwise flavorless. 

This recipe I adapted from my conventional bread pudding recipe, which calls for cinnamon and raisins. The key is to soak all the bread without being too runny, so add more milk if you need to.

2 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup butter
3 eggs
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree (or 2 cups homemade pureed pumpkin)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pumpkin spice (or cinnamon with a pinch of clove and nutmeg)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 loaf of unsliced bread (I prefer day-old challah)
1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Heat the butter and milk over medium heat until the butter is just melted (stir occasionally to accelerate the melting). Remove from heat.

Tear the bread into bite-sized pieces and fill a 9"x13" ungreased pan (I prefer glass) 

In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, spices, and pumpkin. Stir in cranberries, then fold in bread in stages until all is well-soaked. Add more milk at this stage if you need to. 

Pour the bread mixture into the ungreased pan and bake 40-45 minutes, or until a knife inserted 1 inch from the edge comes out clean. No need for a water bath or to cover it! 

Serve warm or cold with plenty of whipped cream. 

The best part about this bread pudding? Not only was it quick and easy to make the morning of the Halloween party, it also made SEVERAL converts to bread pudding. Lol. A number of people at the party mentioned that they either didn't like bread pudding and liked this one, or that it was the best bread pudding they'd ever had. Plus, it doesn't suffer much from storage in the fridge (if anything it just gets more moist) and is perfect for just about any fall gathering, including, (gasp!) Thanksgiving!

​So hope you enjoy this recipe and happy fall baking!

Halloween is a distinctly American holiday. Although it may have its roots in Great Britain, lots of wonderful traditions started right here in the U.S. In particular, Halloween parties became very popular in the 1920s, helped in part by the work of a crepe paper company called the Dennison Manufacturing Company. 

Starting in the 1920s they published a series of "Bogie Books," which were part advertisement, part instruction manual on how to use their products to craft your own Halloween decorations, costumes, and party favors to throw the perfect party. Few Bogie books have been digitized, as they are insanely popular collector's items, as are the paper goods the Dennison company produced. However, via the Library of Congress, the Internet Archive has a digitized copy you can peruse! Chock full of fantastic images like this one: 

There are other Halloween party-planning gems out there as well. Mary Blain's "Games for Hallow-e'en" from 1912 is lovely for party ideas, with lots of historic divination games perfect for this time of year. ​

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. ​I love to decorate, dress up, and feed people. So it's no surprise that throwing a vintage-inspired Halloween part was right up my alley. When I said I wanted to dress up as a spiritualist medium, a friend suggested making the whole party 1920s and '30s themed! So I did. Costumes in the theme were required and some folks really outdid themselves.

Sadly (or perhaps, wonderfully), most of my guests are usually so busy chatting and eating and having a good time, that we never have the chance to do games or activities! I did take some inspiration from the Bogie Books, however, as paper decorations definitely played a leading role.

We had:

• Veggie tray - ranch dip with orange peppers, carrot chips, orange cherry tomatoes, sliced English cucumber, celery, and the extremely delicious - very juicy and crisp - sliced daikon radish
• Sharp cheddar, colby jack, and habanero cheddar with port wine cheddar spread with crackers
• Pumpernickel, olive batard, and charcoal (!) bread with homemade black olive tapenade (ripe, kalamata, and oil-cured black olives in the food chopper with olive oil and a little balsamic vinegar)
• Fruit tray - jumbo blueberries, blackberries, black grapes, and ripe figs with sliced apples, bosc pears, dried mango, and dried apricots with a fruit dip made of Icelandic skyr yogurt and marshmallow fluff
• Roasted garlic and white bean dip and hot blue cheese dip with blue corn chips and sweet potato chips
• Smoked almonds, rosemary marcona almonds, and harissa peanuts
• Assorted vintage candy including cow tails, Abba Zabba, peanut butter crunch, candy corn, circus peanuts, and Milky Way bars
• Pumpkin cranberry bread pudding with plenty of whipped cream
• Persephone punch - homemade Hedgerow gin with pomegranate blueberry juice and pomegranate seltzer
• Fallen Apple punch - sweet cider, cranberry juice, and ginger ale

The smash hit of the evening was blue cheese dip with sweet potato chips. And everyone, even people who claimed not to like bread pudding, loved my bread pudding. Because I make the best. :D

It was a bit of a scramble, but I was able to get all the fruit and veggies chopped and all the dips made (with a few exceptions) in like, two hours. Three, if you include the time to make and bake the bread pudding.

Stay tuned for more recipes, but here are two: the easy-peasy blue cheese dip (seen here in the cute white pumpkin baking dish), and the roasted garlic white bean dip.

No messy combining mixing cold cream cheese with this one. Just heat, stir, and serve!

3 packages (16 oz.) neufchatel cream cheese
2 packages (8 oz.) Castelano or other very soft creamy blue cheese (or gorgonzola dolce)
about a handful shredded mozzarella cheese

Place blocks of cream cheese, blue cheese, and mozzarella in an oven proof dish. Bake at 350 F, uncovered, until cheese is soft and melty. Stir thoroughly to combine. Serve hot or room temp with plenty of sweet potato chips. 

Full disclosure: I tried to "roast" garlic cloves overnight in the crock pot and it mostly did NOT work. Even on low. But no time called for desperate measures. Cloves got hard/almost burnt. Worked well enough for the dip, though. I just fished the crunchy ones out before sending through the food chopper. I would recommend making roasted garlic in the oven or using whole heads of garlic instead. 

This also makes a LOT. So feel free to cut the recipe in half if you're not feeding a crowd.

2-4 heads of garlic, roasted and removed from skins
2 double cans cannellini beans, drained
olive oil

Process the beans and roasted garlic in stages with the olive oil until smooth. Add to crockpot and keep warm. Serve warm or room temperature with blue corn chips or pita chips.

If you wanted to spice things up a bit, some dried thyme or fresh basil or parsley (or all three!) would not be remiss. 

If you want more party ideas, recipes, and other vintage food fun, 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!

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?