Classic Mint Julep, 1937

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Photo by Allison Beuker.

 

Vintage cookbooks and especially community, church, and Junior League recipe collections offer a lens into the food culture of the time–what was fashionable, what was available, and what was deemed good enough for “company” or for at least putting forth for a fundraiser for your church or social group.  One thing I love reading through are the recipes for punch and cocktails.  I love that the recipes usually have the name of the contributor as part of the title: “Sue Emory’s Eggnog” for example. It makes me think: Who was Sue? Was her eggnog really good? Did she throw the best Christmas party? Did Bob the tee-totaller get sauced on her eggnog and end up wearing the lampshade on his head in 1952?

 

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Photo by Allison Beuker.

The best old recipes have excellent ‘head notes’ (you know, those descriptions preceding the ingredients that tell you the why, what for, provenance, special notes or anecdotes about the recipe to follow.) Read the head note and if makes you want to try the recipe right then and there, then it’s a good one.

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Doesn’t this make you thirsty?
Photo by Allison Beuker.

A little late for Derby Day, I know, but this recipe for a Mint Julep from “Queen Anne Goes to the Kitchen, Third Edition” produced by The Episcopal Women of St. Paul’s Parish of Centreville, Maryland is a gem. Produced for the tricentennial of the founding of St. Paul’s Parish (that’s 300 years ya’ll), this church cookbook has some of the most pithy and interesting head notes I’ve ever read and some of the best Old-School recipes for classic Chesapeake cooking.

So with no further introduction, I give you “Mint Julep” reproduced in its entirety.

MINT JULEP
This recipe is extracted from a letter of Colonel S.B. Buckner, Jr., U.S. Infantry, Ft. George G. Meade, MD, to Major General William D. Conner, West Point, NY, dated March 30, 1937.

cool, clear spring water (bottled)

lots of fresh mint
a good Kentucky bourbon
sugar bowl
row of silver goblets and spoons
ice

In a canvas bag pound twice as much ice as you think you will need. Make it fine as snow and keep it dry.

In each goblet put a heaping teaspoon of sugar, barely cover with spring water and slightly bruise one mint leaf into this mixture, leaving the spoon in the goblet. Pour bourbon to make about 1/4 full. Wipe goblet dry and embellish copiously with mint.

Then comes the important and delicate operation of frosting. By proper manipulation of the spoon, the ingredients are circulated and blended until the goblet is encrusted with frost.

Colonel Buckner ends: “Thus harmoniously blended by the deft touches of a skilled hand, you have a beverage eminently appropriate for honorable men and beautiful women.”

” When all is ready, assemble your guests on the porch or in the garden, where the drama of the juleps will rise heaven-ward and make the birds sing…Being overcome by thirst, I can write no further.”

 

–S.B. Buckner, Jr., Col., U.S. Infantry

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Vintage sterling shot measures.
Photo by Allison Beuker.

Integral to the enjoyment of Mint Juleps, in addition to the fine technique instructions of Colonel Buckner (above), the fine company to drink them with, and the wrap-around porch, are the accoutrements that go with making them.  These vintage sterling shot measures are engraved with ‘Little Shot’ (1 oz. marked on the bottom), ‘Just A Shot’ (1 1/2 oz on bottom) and ‘Big Shot’ (marked 2 ounces on bottom.)

The Colonel’s cocktail instructions just say to fill your silver goblet up 1/4 way with bourbon after your shaved ice and muddled mint are in.  The amount of bourbon would depend on the size of your goblet (and here we photographed some genteel sterling punch cups). We can imagine the Southern porch parties gone awry as characters mix their own bourbon and ice ratios.  In fact, I’m sure great Southern novels came out of that phenomenon.

 

 

On Moms, Vintage Cookbooks, and Heirlooms

Some of our most-cherished heirlooms, right up there among old silver and art, are the vintage kitchen hand-me-downs like these old cookbooks from our mothers and grandmothers.

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Photo by Allison Beuker.

We love their splattered pages, the notes in the margins, and particularly the inscriptions in that beautiful old handwriting.

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Photo by Allison Beuker.

This is John’s mother’s signature on her copy of  “How To Cook His Goose (and Other Wild Games)” published in 1973.  This always brings a smile to my face, not only because of that cheeky title, but because I can imagine Eleanor actually cooking a recipe from it for the wild goose or duck that John’s dad would hunt on the Eastern Shore (of Maryland.)

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Photo by Allison Beuker.

This first edition of the “I Hate To Cook Book” from 1960 was given to Allison’s mom by her mom in 1963  when Pat (‘Patty’ in the affectionate inscription) was starting out as a young wife.  There’s even a note from the same year tucked inside advising the newlywed, “I can recommend heartily the Skid Road Stroganoff, Saturday Chicken, Aunt Bebe’s Bean Bowl, and Sub Gum Yuk.”

The inscription is endearing, “For Patty, who is already an excellent cook” because while the book title would suggest her interests and abilities lay elsewhere, Allison’s mom is indeed to this day an excellent and avid cook.  There are some oddly good recipes in there, and the whole edition is a quirky and fun read.  While researching this post, I discovered that the publishers reissued this book in 2010 for a new generation of I Hate To Cook cooks.  We look forward to highlighting some of the gems and downright hilarious recipe headnotes in future posts.

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Photo by Allison Beuker.

I’ve saved this old envelope with my mom’s handwritten recipe for Raw Apple Cake.  This must have been a very popular recipe (and a traditional one too) considering the number of Google hits one gets for it.  I have to say I haven’t made it yet because Mom’s recipe doesn’t say whether to peel the apples or not and I don’t have a memory of the cake.  I’ve transcribed the recipe for you at the end of the post.  If you try it, let us know in the Comments section how it compares to your Nana’s.  And if you peeled the apples or not.

I also found a handwritten copy of my grandmother’s recipe for Date Pudding which I assume was a family favorite back in the 1930s or 40s.  Dates are back in fashion now and I will give this recipe a try in the fall; I suspect it’s more cake-like or bread pudding-like and was probably served with a “hard sauce” although she was a teetotaler.  Grandmother Cullen was a Home Economics teacher in her small town in the Midwest and that is her journal in the background (in the photo above) with notes and instructions for homekeeping and meal planning.  I love that you can see my mother’s name, Norma, in the upper right.

 

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Sad clown lives in attic.
Photo by Allison Beuker.

Some heirlooms are less than fabulous in today’s taste.

But we will never, ever give this sad clown up, even if it has to live in the attic, because of this heartfelt inscription to my husband on the back.

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“Made with so much love for John in the Autumn of 1962 before he was born by his Mother.”

Happy Mother’s Day to Eleanor, Norma, Pat, Hazel, and Nellie (both in heaven and on Earth.)  And Happy Mother’s Day to you moms out there.

Hugs,

Rebecca and Allison

 

RAW APPLE CAKE (as written by Norma Lee Horton)

Rebecca’s notes in brackets.  [Note that I also changed her original abbreviation “t” to “tsp” so that we are not confused between the modern abbreviation for tablespoon (T) and teaspoon (tsp)]

Cream [together]:

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup oil

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

Add and mix well:

2 cups flour

1/4 tsp. salt

2 tsp. soda [she means baking soda]

2 tsp. cinnamon

Stir [in] 4 cups finely diced apple [peeled or not, Mom?]

1 cup chopped nuts [she would have used walnuts or possibly pecans if she had them]

Bake 45 min at 350.

9 x 13 loaf pan  [we wouldn’t call this a loaf pan anymore]

 

Warning: Cookbook Rant Ahead!

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Photo by Allison Beuker.

RANT ALERT:

5 signs that the baking cookbook you are reading is terrible:

1) Comes with an insert from the publisher about all the errors, including inconsistencies in weights of flour and sugar (making every recipe you want to try involve a math problem); AND the recipe yields for no fewer than 5 recipes are incorrect; AND adjustments are required in technique for 2 recipes INCLUDING the basic vanilla buttercream that is a linchpin in most of the frostings.

2) Requiring a 6 x 3 round cake pan when the standard round pan in most all kitchens is 8″ or 9″. That might not be a big deal but the batter recipes are all formulated for 6″ and no notes about what to do volume-wise if you want to make a 9″ layer cake. Arrg.

3) The first step in the recipe is to look at ANOTHER cake recipe in the book and bake that and freeze it. Then the next 18 steps are make simple syrup, lemon curd, lemon buttercream, slice your 6″ cakes into 4 layers….(head spinning now.)

4) Most of the recipes require you to start 2-4 days ahead. (What?!)

5) List of NECESSARY equipment according to the REQUIRED reading in the intro includes: heavy-duty stand mixer w paddle and whisk attachments (check), microwave (check), medium and fine mesh sieves (well, one of of 2 check), bain marie (I can makeshift one, check), double-boiler (nope but could try to makeshift one), several heatproof rubber spatulas (have only 2, check), a supply of disposable cardboard cake boards (WTF!), a spackle blade (WTF!!), and the absolutely essential revolving cake stand with a note from the author that no way, no how will your cake look like the picture unless you have one of these to cut your layers and frost/spackle.

O good God–forget it!

Kiddie Crack

Free slurpee day on 7.11

Free slurpee day on 7.11

I will never forget the time I got the dirtiest look from a mom at preschool when I gave Joe his snack and it was a baggie of the new-on-the-market multi-colored Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers. I guess it was the lurid prospect of purple and red food dyes near her child and in my child’s stomach that caused her alarm.

Goldfish Cracers Colors via darthbitch.tumblr.com 1

It’s been awhile since I’ve struggled with a toddler over food in the grocery store.  Joe is 10 now and I don’t take him to the store with me unless I have to!

But I painfully remember cursing those evil geniuses in food marketing behind the obvious placement ploys in the cereal and snack aisles.  STOP!  MOMMY! THERE ARE TOYS INSIDE!

Fruit Loops and Shrek candy placed right at child-in-cart eye level. Those end caps of potato chips – brightly colored, exploding with exciting graphics.  And the dreaded chocolate-infused, Skittles, Lifesavers, and M&M-fest that is the check-out lane.

(Of course you could queue up in the “No tabloids or candy line”  if your supermarket has one which undoubtedly ALWAYS has the little old lady who can’t find her coupons or checkbook in front of the mom with 3 teenagers with an overflowing cart including  3 12-packs of soda, 2 cases of bottled water and enough Tide to launder a baseball team.)

Remember him?

Remember him?

When Joe was riding in my cart, I sped by the cereal aisle like a Mom at Nascar.  It was just too much.  Joe would be pointedly shouting out that he “LOVES Fruities, Mommy” as we passed the Fruit Loops at exactly kid-eye level.  And there was just no time to try to comparison shop, looking for the box with the “1/3 less sugar than regular Fruit Loops” or  to discern if  Cocoa Puffs were really made with whole grain as they claimed and if so, so what?

Meanwhile your toddler is beside himself with the choices and the prospect of something yummy that he’s never had before and the harried mom is trying to do the math to see if the sugar content calculated by the actual serving size is really below 9 percent of the total….sheesh!

Maybe all moms should take a class on reading nutrition labels at birthing class.

Nutrition label

Help me! I have to do math in my head to figure this out and I have a toddler AND a new baby. I need food and sleep. Not nutrition labels.

I also remember a battle between my husband and I over Trader Joe veggie fries, otherwise known in our household as “kiddie crack.” I thought this was acceptable food, after all they do have vegetable matter in them and lots of air.  However, my husband considered them junk food, and given my son’s unnatural appetite for stuffing his face with these until he explodes, I think my husband was right.

But hey, give a mom a break. Who is in charge of the feeding day after day, mornings, noon, night, snacks? The mom!  (Usually.)

Ten years after Joe was born there are now way more natural, organic, fresh, local, gluten-free, sugar-free, wheat-free, nut-free, corn syrup-free choices out there (not that I make use of them all the time, or any of the time.)

Making good food choices and clashing swords over the junk food battlefield with my budding middle-schooler still happens and I do try to make sure Joe gets in his four food groups (wait, aren’t there 5 now?) over the course of the day.

And what, veggie crack fries are not in one of those food groups?  No worries.  Joe doesn’t break my back for those anymore now that he’s moved on to the barbecue potato chips that the babysitter turned him on to.

Joe with cherries from our neighbors tree.

Joe with cherries from our neighbor’s tree.