Blog Post Eleven

Connections Through Cooking: Part 1, Winter

Seasonal Meals of My Ancestors

With winter approaching quickly I’m looking to start making soups and chicken pot pies to freeze for the season; making meals to store up is something I’ve learned from my family and I mainly only do it for convenience. I’ve often wondered what my ancestors made in the prairies where the winters have always been long and harsh; my grandmother has been gone since 1959 and not much from her life was left for anyone to cherish, except a few small items and a mysterious cook book in a state of extreme disrepair. My Grandma Shirley was born after the Great Depression and lived through World War II, she spent her entire life in small town Manitoba and this cook book, missing the front and back cover and the publishing page, is very much of its time. “Time and your oven await the occasion and the man[1],” the book says. It reads like a housewife’s handbook for how to be the perfect housewife; how to shop for food, how to prepare it in every way possible, how to set a table just right for specific occasions, and how to make use of every edible part of an animal. I mean, every part, I found a recipe for beef tongue in there somewhere.

Not knowing what the book was I did a Google search for popular cook books from the 1940s and the first few results were for the same book. I looked at some of the pages and sure enough, I had a match. This mysterious, aging book is an unknown edition of The American Woman’s Cook Book by Ruth Berolzheimer. First published in about 1939 until about the mid-1970s as far as I can tell. My grandmother’s copy is likely from the 1940s or 1950s but it’s tough to tell specifically, it could have been a wedding gift in 1946 or she could have ordered it from a catalogue shortly thereafter.

Winter Menu

Initially suggested as a Thanksgiving meal, the following recipe would be a hearty Sunday dinner in the dead of winter: grapefruit baskets and olives to nibble, baked guinea hen with gravy for your main course, crab apple jelly, candied sweet potatoes, cauliflower au gratin, tomato jelly salad, and for dessert they suggest individual pumpkin pies with whipped cream but since my Dad’s favourite recipe is the mind-blowing Sour Cream Pie I’m substituting for that, served with coffee[2].

Grapefruit Baskets[3]:

Cut grapefruit in half, crosswise. With a pair of sharp shears or with a grapefruit corer, cut a circular piece from the center of each half, being careful not to cut through the skin. Then with a sharp knife loosen each section from the membrane and skin. Sprinkle with sugar and set in the refrigerator to chill…Serve a half grapefruit on a plate or in a special grapefruit glass, embedded in ice.

Grapefruit and Orange Cocktail[4]:

1 cup diced grapefruit pulp

1 cup diced orange pulp

Sugar

Lemon juice or grape juice

Mix the orange and grapefruit pulp. Sprinkle with sugar and a little lemon juice or grape juice. Chill, and have glasses chilled so that the whole, when served, may be very cod. At the last moment fill the glasses with the fruit mixture, garnishing with cherries or preserved pineapple.

Basked Guinea Hen with Gravy[5]:

1 guinea fowl

2 strips fat bacon

Salt

Stuffing, if desired

Clean and draw fowl. Rub inside with salt. Fowl may be roasted with or without stuffing. Cover breast with fat bacon which may be removed 5 minutes before serving. Roast, uncovered, in a slow oven (300°-325°F) until tender, allowing 18 to 20 minutes per pound. Baste frequently. Season with additional salt when half done Serve with currant jelly and Giblet Sauce. Serves 2 or 3.

Crab apple Jelly[6]:

1 cup crab apple juice

2/3 cup sugar

Cooking the jelly: The best color, flavor and texture are obtained by cooking 2 quarts of less of juice at a time. Use an 8-10-quart kettle with a large diameter to allow rapid evaporation. Heat juice to boiling, then add sugar gradually, stirring slowly. Boiling rapidly until the jellying stage is reached. This is determined by allowing a small amount of the juice to drop from the spoon. When the last 2 drops run together and sheet off from the spoon the jellying stage is reached and the jelly should be removed from the heat at once. Long cooking after the sheet test is obtained causes the pectin to break down so that the mixture will become a sirup [sic] and not a jelly. Skin the jelly and pour into the clean hot glasses. Fill the glasses to within 3/8 inch of the top. There are to methods of sealing with paraffin. One is to pour the melted paraffin onto the jelly immediately. The other is to allow the jelly to cool and then cover it with very hot paraffin. When the paraffin has cooled, place the metal covers on the jelly glasses and store in a cool dry place.

Candied Sweet Potatoes[7]:

6 sweet potatoes

Salt and pepper

Butter

1 cup brown sugar or maple sugar

¼ cup water

Boil the potatoes without paring them, and when tender drain and strip off the skins. Make a sirup [sic] by boiling together the sugar and water. Cut each potato in half or in thick slices, dip each piece into the sirup and lay it in a greased baking dish. Season with salt and pepper and bits of butter. When all the potato is in the dish, pour over it any sirup that remains and bake in a quick oven (400° – 450° F) basting frequently with the sirup until the potatoes are transparent. It may be necessary to add more sirup during the baking. An hour or more is usually required for these potatoes.

Cauliflower au Gratin[8]:

1 medium cauliflower

2 hard-boiled eggs or 4 tablespoons grated cheese

1 ½ cups medium white sauce

Bread crumbs

Break the cauliflower into flowerets before boiling. Drain. Place a layer of the cooked cauliflower in a greased baking dish, then a layer of egg slices or of grated cheese, then a layer of white sauce. Repeat until all the cauliflower is used. Put a layer of crumbs over the top and bake in a moderate oven (350° - 400°F) from fifteen to thirty minutes. A bit of cayenne pepper or paprika may be added for additional seasoning.

Tomato Jelly Salad[9]:

3 cups stewed tomatoes, fresh or canned

¼ cup chopped onion

½ cup chopped celery

1 bay leaf

1 clove

¼ green pepper

1 teaspoon sugar

Salt

1 tablespoon gelatin

½ cup cold water

Mayonnaise

Cook tomatoes with seasonings. Soak gelatin in cold water, add to boiling tomatoes, strain and pour into cups about the size of a tomato. Make a nest of small green lettuce leaves for each mold when serving, and place one tablespoon of mayonnaise on top of each tomato as it is turned from the mold.

Sour Cream Pie[10]:

½ cup flour

¾ cup sugar

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups sour cream

3 egg yolks

¾ teaspoon almond extract

1 baked cheese pastry shell

1 recipe Meringue

Mix flour, sugar and salt together; stir in cream and cook in top of double boiler until thickened, stirring constantly. Pour hot mixture slowly over egg yolks, stirring constantly. Return to heat and cook 3 minutes longer. Add flavouring and cool. Pour into pastry shell, top with meringue and proceed as directed. Makes 1 (9 inch) pie.

The tomato jelly salad and the sour cream pie are just some of the recipes that make wonder who came up with them, I definitely don’t see those them in my Jamie Oliver cook books. I don’t know how many recipes in this cook book my grandmother actually made in the 12 or 13 years she may have had the book but I like to imagine to she might have made some of these at least once. In the next part, I tackle the suggested Christmas menu and it’s definitely different from every Christmas meal I ever had growing up! Stay tuned.

[1] Ruth Berolzheimer, The American Woman’s Cook Book, (Chicago: Consolidated Book Publishers, unknown year), unpaginated image between pages 2-3.

[2] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 56.

[3] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 162.

[4] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 163.

[5] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 292.

[6] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 682-683.

[7] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 414.

[8] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 394.

[9] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 434.

[10] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 599.