Putting the “Umble” in “Humble Pie?”

To conclude, and that I may not trespass too far on your Patience and good Nature, or take up too much of your Time from the more important Affairs of your Families, I hereby ingenuously acknowledge, that I have exerted all the Art and Industry I can boast of, in compleating this Pocket-Book, complied for your Service, and intended as your daily Remembrancer; and that I an not conscious to myself of having omitted one Article of any real Importance to be further known…

This morning, I had a plan.  A really good plan for today’s post and the idea to also prep one for next week (and see if I can get back on a weekly posting schedule after a busy last few months). While scanning materials for the second post, I discovered some new culinary history tidbits that were too good not to share today. So next week, I’ll tell you about our new agricultural ephemera collection. This week, we’re going back to the mid-18th century, to Sarah Harrison’s The house-keeper’s pocket-book, and compleat family cook : containing above twelve hundred curious and uncommon receipts in cookery, pastry, preserving, pickling, candying, collaring, &c., with plain and easy instructions for preparing and dressing every thing suitable for an elegant entertainment, from two dishes to five or ten, &c., and directions for ranging them in their proper order. First published somewhere in the late 1730s (probably, our recently acquired copy is the later 7th edition from 1760. The quote at the above comes from Harrison’s own introduction to the book.

Yes, another one of those books with a lengthy title that takes a whole page. (I”ll stick with The House-Keeper’s Pocket-Book for the sake of my typing skills today.) Mrs. Harrison manages to pack of lot of information into 215 pages (plus another 36 for the added Every One Their Own Physician by Mary Morris).

Primarily, she provides recipes and suggested menus (bills of fare) for a year. Then, toward the end, we get a some of the more “housekeeping” or “household recipe” side of things: directions for removing stains, cleaning dishes, managing animals and livestock, and even a bit of distilling/brewing. Much in the British style, there is a significant section in the book on pies (not just the sweet, but the savory). And as chance would have it, I stumbled on to page 60 and the word “umbles.”

While working this this culinary history materials here has provided this archivist quite an education, I, too, get stumped on occasion. For those of you who already know the word, kudos! For those of you bit less acquainted with the term, “umbles” refers to the organ meats of deer (and comes from the French “noumbles”). In this case, we have a recipe for “Umble Pie.” This recipe for “umble pie,” with its humble ingredients of deer innards, very likely led to the phrase “humble pie.” From dinner recipe to idiomatic expression in a single bound!

The House-Keeper’s Pocket-Book also includes a few illustrations, like these plans for placing parts of a dinner course:

 (The small “L2” at the bottom of the page was used to help construct the book, whose pages would have been printed in large sheets, then folded, cut, and sewn together.)

It wouldn’t be culinary history if we didn’t talk about one of our favorite topics: pickling. In 1760 (and when the earlier editions of the book were written), this was a main method of preservation. So, you could (and would!) pickle just about everything. Below is one of the page spreads on the subject and includes some items we recognize today, as well as a couple of ingredients (or at least terms) that are a bit less so. “Codlins” (also codlings) refers to a family of apples with a particular shape, usually use for cooking. “Samphire” is a plant that grows on rocks near the sea. Its leaves were often used pickling.

Sarah Harrison’s book would go on to have several other editions after this 7th one, but eventually, it was a cookbook that became more rare or unique to collectors and collections. We were lucky and happy to acquire this copy several months ago and we hope some one of you take the opportunity to come use it, too! Sadly, it hasn’t been scanned in its entirety for public viewing, but that may be a future task for us to undertake. In the meantime, you can always send us your (h)umble queries on Mrs. Harrison’s work.

Women’s History Month, Part 17: Susannah Carter (fl.1765)

Since there are FIVE Thursdays in March this year, you’re getting a bonus gift: Another women’s history month profile!

We only have one book at the University Libraries by Susannah Carter, The Frugal Housewife: or, Complete Woman Cook: Wherein the Art of Dressing All Sorts of Viands, with Cleanliness, Decency, and Elegance, is Explained in Five Hundred Approved Receipts…to Which are Added, Various Bills of Fare, and a Proper Arrangement of Dinners, Two Courses, for Every Month of the Year.  Of course, there’s a good reason we only have one book–it’s the only one she wrote…sort of. On the surface, it’s not as clear as a good broth. The thing about The Frugal Housewife is that is appeared on both sides of the pond with variant titles, most of which have either the same subtitle, or at least part of the same subtitle. Yes, it’s bit confusing, but there’s quite a story to come. But first, the book!!

Oh, and apologies for the use of pictures that includes weights this week. Our 1802 text block is wonderful condition. It was rebound, probably some time in the last 75 years. This will help to continue to preserve the text, but it’s also a very tight binding and using a flat surface (aka a scanner) would be detrimental to the book. I had to get creative.

The Frugal Housewife (1802), detail plates.

The Frugal Housewife (1802), title page.

The Frugal Housewife (1802), introduction and part of index.

The Frugal Housewife (1802), meat recipes.

The Frugal Housewife (1802), Lenten soups.

The Frugal Housewife (1802), tarts and cakes.

The Frugal Housewife (1802), on potting meat, fish, and fowl.

So, back to the story of this book’s many titles. For example, you might also see The Universal Housewife: or, Complete New Book of Cookery. Wherein the Art of Dressing All Sorts of Viands, with Cleanliness, Decency, and Elegance, is Explained in Five Hundred Approved New Receipts, … Together with the Best Methods of Potting, Collaring, Preserving, Drying, Candying, and Pickling. To which are Prefixed, Various Bills of Fare, for Dinners and Suppers in Every Month of the Year; and a Copious Index to the Whole (1770), which was the first version of the book. Or, there’s The Experienced Cook, and Housekeeper’s Guide. Giving the Art of Dressing All Sorts of Viands, with Cleanliness, Decency, and Elegance, is Explained in Five Hundred Approved New Receipts. With the Best Methods of Potting, Collaring, Preserving, Drying, Candying, Pickling, Making English Wines, and Distilling of Simples, with Twelve New Prints for the Arrangement of Dinners of Two Courses, for Every Month of the Year, etc. (1850).

Let’s take a step back for a moment. The first edition of The Universal Housewife probably appeared around 1765 in London and Dublin. The first appearance of the text in America was in Boston in 1772. This early colonial version included engraving by Paul Revere (how cool is that??). Variations on The Frugal Housewife title began as early as 1772. The only versions of The Experienced Cook and Housekeeper’s Guide variants appear to have been published in 1850. While we know nothing about the life of Susannah Carter, she was probably deceased by then. Assuming that she was at least 20 when the first edition came out in 1765, in 1850, she would have been 105 years old. These variants were not always the same book, as some elements were improved upon or edited for different versions. The year after our 1802, another edition was published in America that contains a whole new appendix of receipts specifically for the “American mode of cooking” (both processes and ingredients). Why all the changes? That’s a hard question to answer, but there were probably a lot of factors. Many hands go into writing, editing, printing, and publishing a volume like this, and many people might have been inclined to take liberties with a text. It may have been an attempt to appeal to different audiences, too.

There’s another reason we’re looking at Susannah Carter’s book this week, too. And it has a lot to do with some of the previous posts in this series. The Frugal Housewife: or, Complete Woman Cook was extremely influential in America. Remember Amelia Simmons and American Cookery, or the Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards, and Preserves, and All Kinds of Cakes, from the Imperial Plum to Plain Cake: Adapted to this Country, and All Grades of Life (1796)? Part of that title might look familiar now. As it turns out, entire passages of American Cookery came from The Frugal Housewife: or, Complete Woman Cook. (Copyright and publishing was a different business in the late 18th century!) The 1803 appendix to the American edition of The Frugal Housewife: or, Complete Woman Cook that I mentioned? That same appendix appears in an 1805 edition of Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery. And it is probably not original to Carter. It appears to have been translated from a Swedish text called Rural Oeconomy. And, to further complicate things, as you may recall, in 1829, Lydia Maria Child authored a cookbook called The Frugal Housewife. Child’s book was published in different editions America and the UK, which, as you might expect, let to even more confusion. In 1832, under pressure, she changed the title to The American Frugal Housewife (though the old title didn’t disappear abroad until after 1834). This book has quite a history to it, right?

You can view the 1803 American edition of The Frugal Housewife at the Michigan State University Libraries’ Feeding America project, complete with the Swedish translated appendix. You can also see an 1823 London edition through the Internet Archive.

We’ll be back with another post next week. In the meantime, though, remember to make your gravies and sauces a priority. They are, after all,the “chief excellence of all Cookery!”

Women’s History Month, Part 13: Marion Harris Neil

Welcome to Women’s History Month 2016! As with previous years, this month we’ve got a whole new series of profiles lined up. But first, a quick message from our sponsors–Us!

Your archivist/blogger Kira and two of her amazing colleagues, Laurel and Sam, are working on some Women’s History Month displays. We have a digital exhibit that went live yesterday, which you can see here: https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/exhibits/show/womens-history-2016. (Spoiler alert: there IS some History of Food & Drink material in it!). We’re also in the process of switching content in our reading room display cases AND setting up two other cases on the first floor of the library along with a touch screen monitor for the digital display. We hope you’ll check out one or both exhibits. (And hey, if you’re coming to the talk next week, “Cookery, Cocktails, Chores, and Cures: Food History in Special Collections,” you’ll already be here!)

…Back to our regularly scheduled blogging! This week we’re looking at the works of Marion Harris Neil. I say “works” for a very specific reason. Normally, I tried to include some biographical information in my aptly-named “profiles.” But Marion is a mystery. A prolific, prolific mystery. Census records from the eras during which she wrote include plenty of “Marion Neils,” but with no clues to go on, it’s hard to narrow things down. Her books and publications are often product-based, so the focus is on the company and the food, not the woman. Unlike some of our other authors, there are no biographical hints in prefaces or introductory pages. Still, she had plenty to say on the topic of food:

Cox’s Manual of Gelatine Cookery, 1914

Cox’s Manual of Gelatine Cookery, 1914

Cox’s Manual of Gelatine Cookery, 1914

Cox’s Manual of Gelatine Cookery, 1914

Cox’s Manual of Gelatine Cookery, 1914

A “Calendar” of Dinners with 615 Recipes: Including the Story of Crisco, 1915

A “Calendar” of Dinners with 615 Recipes: Including the Story of Crisco, 1915

A “Calendar” of Dinners with 615 Recipes: Including the Story of Crisco, 1915

A “Calendar” of Dinners with 615 Recipes: Including the Story of Crisco, 1915

Ryzon Baking Book: A Practical Manual for the Preparation of Food Requiring Baking Powder, 1916

Ryzon Baking Book: A Practical Manual for the Preparation of Food Requiring Baking Powder, 1916

Ryzon Baking Book: A Practical Manual for the Preparation of Food Requiring Baking Powder, 1916

A “Calendar” of Dinners, with 615 Recipes, 1921

A “Calendar” of Dinners, with 615 Recipes, 1921

A “Calendar” of Dinners, with 615 Recipes, 1921

You can read about the 1917 edition of Ryzon Baking Book: A Practical Manual for the Preparation of Food Requiring Baking Powder in a previous blog post and you can view the 1914 edition of The Story of Crisco on the Special Collections digital collections website.

Marion Harris Neil Bibliography (items in bold are held by Special Collections):

• “The Minute Man Cook Book.” 1909. [Alternate title: “The Minute Man A Brief Account of the Battles of Lexington and Concord by Wayne Whipple with Recipes for Minute Tapioca, Minute Gelatine (Plain) and Minute Gelatine (Flavored) by Janet McKenzie Hill, Marion H. Neil, Ella A. Pierce, and other culinary authorities.”] In the Culinary Pamphlet Collection, Ms2011-002.
• Alcono Cook Book. Newark, N.Y., J.M. Pitkin & Co., 1910.
• Choice Recipes Requiring “True Fruit” Brand: Pure Flavoring Extracts. Rochester, N.Y.: J. Hungerford Smith Co., [1912?]
• How to Cook in Casserole Dishes. Philadelphia: D. McKay, 1912. (Multiple editions)
• Good Thing to Eat Made with Bread. New York: Fleischmann Co., 1913. (Multiple editions)
• Candies and Bonbons and How to Make Them. Philadelphia: D. McKay, 1913. (Multiple editions)
• Canning, Preserving and Pickling. Philadelphia: D. McKay, 1914. (Multiple editions)
• “The Story of Crisco: 250 Tested Recipes.” 1913. In the Culinary Pamphlet Collection, Ms2011-002.
• Cox’s Manual of Gelatine Cookery. 5th American ed. Edinburgh, Scotland: J. & G. Cox, Limited, [1914]. (Previous post on a broadside advertisement for this company)
• Delicious Recipes Made with Mueller’s Products. Jersey City, N.J. : C.F. Mueller Co., 1914.
• The Story of Crisco: 250 Tested Recipes. 5th ed. Cincinnati: Procter & Gamble Co., c1914. (Multiple editions) (Available online)
• A Calendar of Dinners with 615 Recipes: Including the Story of Crisco.8th ed. Cincinnati : Proctor & Gamble Co., c1915.
• The Something-Different Dish. Philadelphia: D. McKay, 1915
• Ryzon Baking Book: A Practical Manual for the Preparation of Food Requiring Baking Powder.  New York, General Chemical Company, Food Dept., 1916.(Multiple editions)
• Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing Dish Recipes. Philadelphia: D. McKay, 1916. (Multiple editions)
• Dromedary War-Time Recipes: Appetizing and Economical Dishes Made with Dromedary Food Products. [New York?]: Hills Bros. Co., 1917.
• Favorite Recipes Cook Book: A Complete Culinary Guide. New York: F.M. Lupton, 1917. (Multiple editions)
• Good Things to Eat: A Selection of Unusual Recipes for Those who Appreciate Good Things to Eat. San Francisco, Calif.: California Packing Corp., 1917.
• Ryzon Baking Book: A Practical Manual for the Preparation of Food Requiring Baking Powder.  New York, General Chemical Company, Food Dept., 1917.  (Previous blog post)
• Economical Cookery. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1918.
• Sixty-Five Delicious Dishes Made with Bread: Containing Tested Recipes Compiled for the Fleischmann Co. New York: Fleischmann Co., 1919.
• The Thrift Cook Book. Philadelphia: D. McKay, 1919. (Multiple editions)
• 40 Unique Dromedary Cocoanut Recipes. [New York]: Hills Bros. Co., [192-?]
• 43 Delicious Ways of Serving McMenamin’s Crab Meat. Hampton, Va.: McMenamin & Co., [192-?]
• Auto Vacuum Ice Cream Freezer Recipes. New York: Auto Vacuum Freezer Co., 1920.
• Delicious Recipes. [Fresno, Calif.]: [California Peach Growers, Inc.], [1920?]
• A Calendar of Dinners, with 615 Recipes. Cincinnati: Procter & Gamble Co., c1921. (Multiple editions)
• A Modern Manual of Cooking. Cincinnati, Procter & Gamble Co., 1921.
• Mrs. Neil’s Cooking Secrets: and, the Story of Crisco. Cincinnati: Procter & Gamble Co., 1924. (Multiple editions)
• “Mrs. Harland’s Cooking Secrets.” [Crisco.] 1925. In the Culinary Pamphlet Collection, Ms2011-002.

Neil also published in Table Talk, a long running home economics and cooking periodical, and wrote or edited numerous other pamphlets and ephemeral publications that aren’t likely captured by catalog records. I’ll also mention that many of the publications above (and the others) are available online through the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, and/or Google Books. You’ll just have to go looking for them!

With an extra Thursday this March, you can expect four more profiles, and I promise, they won’t all be about women of the food world shrouded in quite so many shadows. For now, you’ll just have to let Marion’s recipes speak for her.

Stove Technology: Progress and Efficiency

We’re back this week to talking about stoves. It’s not entirely intentional (we did talk about ovens back in May), since what attracted me to this feature wasn’t the stove, but the title. In fact, I didn’t even realize it was a corporate-sponsored, kitchen stove-based booklet until I reached the copyright page.

While I knew this wasn’t a publication from the future, a small part of me couldn’t help but hope. Still, Meals That Cook Themselves (1915) is interesting. It covers a little of all our favorites: economy in the household, efficiency in the kitchen, meal planning, and product placement.

Oddly enough, though, there are two of our more common elements from blog post features missing: recipes and images. Meals That Cook Themselves isn’t a recipe book. It’s more like a strange cross of a diary and an advertisement. As a result, it’s written in first person by the author and it largely an explanation of how the Sentinel fireless cooker greatly improved her life (and presumably, how it can do the same for other housewives). The publication covers how the stove works, why it saves time and money, how wonderful it makes the food, and even the science behind fireless cooking. It does include a few meal plans, largely as a way to illustrate the economy of the product. However, one of the best parts is Chapter X: “Questions that Women Ask about the Sentinel.” Or, if you prefer, the 1915 equivalent of the modern FAQ  (frequently asked questions). This chapter is in partially-conversational, partially formal language with questions like “But surely pastry cannot be put into a cold oven?” and “Will not the oven become rusty and a great deal of steam be condensed in using this fireless method, if there is no outlet for the escape of steam?” (I think for the moment, we can overlook the fact that “If 60 or 70 minutes of direct heat is needed for a 10-lb. roast, it does not seem as if the Sentinel is as economical as you say?” isn’t actually a question. And besides, the explanation is sound.)

Hurrah for fireless cooking, Christine Frederick is basically telling us, especially if it’s a Sentinel! It’s not exactly a new advertising ploy, given the publications we’ve looked at before, but it is a solid message, and one designed to speak housewife to housewife. Now, if only we could find a way for those meals to REALLY cook themselves…

Food AND Fun? In One Book? :)

Food & Fun for Daughter and Son was published in 1946. We acquired a copy last year, but it slipped off my radar until recently. I must not have had the time to take a good look, or I undoubtedly would have shared it sooner!

As you can see, this book is a blend of “how-to/advice for parents,” meal planning guide, nutrition manual, and cookbook. Typically, we have a wide range of recipes and menus, some more intriguing that others. (I’m curious about a lunch of beef broth, potato salad, and cake…but also not saying I’d turn it down.) What I found more interesting, though, was everything else. The intended audience is adults, but it sometimes results in seeming non-sequiturs like:

“To limited degree and in a kind, friendly way, table manners should be taught at an early age to avoid embarrassment when he comes in contact with older, well-behaved children.

Your immaculate, regular care of the refrigerator will prolong its efficiency and life.”

There are a few more pieces of advice about the kitchen, then it jumps to advice for caring for a child with a cold. I see the general connection, but the first couple chapters are a conglomerate of advice on a range of subjects that contribute to raising healthy children.

We’ve definitely looked at books for/about children that featured party themes and planning, but I think this is the first time we’ve come across a book with section devoted to “Diversions for an Only or Lonely Child.” The suggestions themselves may seem outdated or silly, but it was neat to see the topic addressed in conjunction with entertaining kids who are sick or stuck in bed.

So, until next week, if you’re missing us, don’t worry! There’s an imaginary pony of your own that needs training!

Women’s History Month, Part 10: Mrs. (Harriet Anne Bainbridge) de Salis (1829-1908)

This week, we’re taking a look at the work of Harriet Anne (Bainbridge) de Salis (or, as she usually published, “Mrs. de Salis”). She was a prolific British writer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, authoring more than 20 books (many of which went through more than one edition). While most were about cooking and household management, she also wrote a book on dogs, one on raising poultry, and her first publication was a history of kissing! Harriet Anne Bainbridge married William Salis in 1872, the year before her kissing book was published. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide.

Although it isn’t explicitly clear why she added the “de” to her moniker, one wonders if she wanted to add a little something extra to match her “a la Mode” series of books. While her “reference” type books had a broad audience, her tastes (and topics) often ran to the higher end: she produced an entire volume on oysters, even her “small” meal plans were complex, and her main ingredients were unlikely to be found in homes of those on a limited income. However, that failed to detract from her popularity!

Currently, we have only two of her titles in our collection, and until I started researching this post I had no idea quite how active she was. Now, however, I know to be on the lookout!First up, there’s Drinks a la Mode from 1891. This title includes cups and punches, as well as cocktails, notes on beer and wine, and simpler drinks for invalid.

Front cover

Table of contents.

Sample “American drinks.” This section primarily includes classic cocktails, classic-for-the-time drinks you won’t see today, and mixers.

Sample liqueur recipes

Sample drinks for invalids.

Our second of her titles is The Housewife’s Referee: A Treatise on Culinary and Household Subjects from 1898. This is reminiscent of the many household management guides in our collection. It includes sections on what you have in your kitchen (and why), plenty of recipes, and a variety of meal plans for every season and occasion.

Title page

Suggested helpful kitchen tools and appliances

Sample soup recipes

Sample pork, quail, and rabbit recipes

Sample larger dinner menus

Sample small dinner and luncheon menus

Bibliography:

• Kissing: Its Origin and Species, 1873
• Entrees a la Mode, 1887
• Dressed Game and Poultry a la Mode, 1888
• Dressed Vegetables a la Mode, 1888
• Oysters a la Mode, or, The Oyster and Over 100 Ways of Cooking It: To Which are Added a Few Recipes for Cooking All Kinds of Shellfish, 1888
• Soup and Dressed Fish a la Mode, 1888
• Sweet and Supper Dishes a la Mode, 1888
• Cakes and Confections a la Mode, 1889
• Tempting Dishes for Small Incomes, 1890
• Wrinkles and Notions for Every Household, 1890
• Drinks a la Mode: Cups and Drinks for Every Kind of Every Season, 1891
• Floral Decorations: Suggestions and Descriptions, 1891
• New-Laid Eggs: Hints for Amateur Poultry-Rearers, 1892
• Dogs: A Manual for Amateurs, 1893
• Puddings and Pastry a la Mode, 1893
• New Things to Eat and How to Cook Them: Fancy Dishes and Relishes Not to be Found in Ordinary Cook Books, 1894
• Gardening a la Mode: Fruits, 1895
• Gardening a la Mode: Vegetables, 1895
• Savouries a la Mode, 1894
• National Viands a la Mode, 1895
• The Art of Cookery Past and Present: A Treatise on Ancient Cookery with Anecdotes of Noted Cooks and Gourmets, Ancient Foods, Menus, etc., 1898
• The Housewife’s Referee: A Treatise on Culinary and Household Subjects, 1898
• A la Mode Cookery: Up to Date Recipes, 1902

If you’re looking for more information, I found a couple of helpful links along the way. Cooksinfo.com has a short biography, bibliography, and even includes some quotes about and reviews of her works. The Internet Archive has about 15 of her books available in digital form (including Drinks a la Mode and The Housewife’s Referee in their entirety).

Next week, we’ll be talking about Malinda Russell, a freed slave who authored the first African-American cookbook, published in 1866. In the mean time, find a reason to cook something “a la mode” this weekend…or you could settle for some ice cream and pie, if you prefer the modern use of the phrase. 🙂

Meal Planning For Every–Err, Some Occasions!

This week, we’re back a favorite topic around here: meal planning! Today’s feature (or special, if you will) is “More Menus” for Luncheons, Dinners, Etc. from 1933.

The image on the cover certainly catches your attention!

At least two menus in this book have an “Emergency Soup” listed and it’s not the same recipe! Apparently “Emergency Soup” is defined by the meal it’s part of and not a specific recipe!

It can be hard to find all the recipes for a single meal on the same two pages, but this one comes close. The dessert looks to be the most intricate part of this meal.

Some menus feature classic dishes like pot roast…

Others can include items like “canned green turtle.” While turtle as an ingredient isn’t new on the blog, canned turtle certainly is!

Clearly, our author wasn’t afraid to show off the diversity of an ingredient, either.

As “More Menus” for Luncheons, Dinners, Etc. suggests, this isn’t the first title by Mrs. Lang. Nor it is the first one about meal planning. In 1929, she wrote Choice Menus for Luncheons and Dinners, and in 1939 published a third book, The Complete Menu Book. Sadly, we don’t have either of these in our collection (I’ll be on the lookout now, though!).

“More Menus” for Luncheons, Dinners, Etc. is full of a mixture of dishes and menus. They appear to be a little more on the upscale side, though “Emergency Soup” (either variation) doesn’t have the same ring as “Molded Caviar and Egg Salad.” There’s a recipe for “Green Turtle and Puree of Pea Soup” with the intriguing ingredient of “canned green turtle.” Turtle isn’t new to the blog, but this is the first time we’ve come across canned turtle. One wonders how wide the availability of that might have been in 1933. In general, however, the meals are balanced, each one including main dishes, sides, and desserts. They vary in complexity, both as menus and within menus, but books like this always offer us some great insight into what people were consuming (as diners and buyers of ingredients).

Tune in next week for our next culinary treasure. And in the meantime, we hope you plan some good meals!

Efficiency in All Things

In case you haven’t noticed it before, we don’t really tend to post about items in any particular order. Last week, we featured a U. S. Food Administration publication from 1918. Next week, we’re going to look at a book from the 1930s. But today, we’re jumping backwards a few years, to 1915. Georgia Robertson, the author of Efficiency in Home-Making and First-Aid to Good Cooking, might find it, well, inefficient. However, if you ask me, it sure is fun!(We certainly hope you learn something, too, but we want to have a good time sharing with you!)

This book is all text (sorry, no illustrations this week) and it’s almost difficult to call it a cookbook. There are plenty of recipes, but this is primarily an instruction manual. A vast and moral instruction manual, at that. You can’t quite call it prosaic, since there a fair share of descriptive language (I recommend the section on cooking with alcohol on pages 56 and 57 above), and the question-and-answer style that most of the volume uses is quite unique.

Efficiency in Home-Making and First-Aid to Good Cooking covers topics like daily and weekly activities for household staff (it presumes you have at least two maids, a cook, a coachman, three bedrooms, and a library), what to serve, and how to serve it. You’ll find sections like “Labor Saving Devices that are Worth While” (the vacuum, the dish drainer, and the electric or gas iron among them) and underlying principles of bread-making. There are all kinds of helpful hints for storing kitchen items and kitchen organization,  as well as recipes (all without alcohol, of course). On the whole, it’s a practical, if dry, volume that clearly has a home with our collection of household management materials. You can find a full copy of the book online through the Internet Archive.

Next week, we’ll take a look at a book full of recipes and planned luncheons, dinners, and special occasion meals from the 1930s. It’ll be different from this week, so be prepared for a bit decadence, alcohol, and, of course, a few odd ingredients.

Meal Prep, Service, and…Design?

A title like How to Prepare and Serve a Meal: Interior Decoration had to catch our attention. After all, it’s food history related. But, in case you didn’t know, we are also the home to the International Archive of Women in Architecture. This group of manuscript collections and publications helps to document a field that wasn’t widely open to women until the last 40 years or so. You can read more about it here: http://spec.lib.vt.edu/iawa/. That being said, you can imagine how a book that combines these two areas might be of some interest to Special Collections. Written by Lillian B. Lansdown around 1922, this a household guide on two related subjects.

Title page

Table of contents

Breakfast hints

Afternoon tea

Serving wine and liquors (Keep in mind that this title was published during Prohibition. So while it was illegal to purchase, transport, or make alcoholic beverages, it wasn’t actually illegal to consume them.)

On lines and curves

On form, color, and proportion

What’s interesting is that this publication almost feels like two books. There isn’t a real transition from the topic of meal planning to interior decoration, just the start of a new chapter. The decoration section is significantly smaller, and one wonders if it was sort of tacked on (perhaps it was too short a section to stand on its own?). It is cataloged as a culinary item, as opposed to a design one.

At the same time, this combination makes perfect sense for the time period. Both the kitchen and the home (management, order, and design) were considered part of the woman’s domestic sphere. I would guess we have more manuals like this on our shelves (and I know some of the large household management guides cover these and other topics), so I’ll be keeping an eye out for similar pieces in the future. They’re chock full of little lessons.

Happy meal planning and home decorating! Just remember: For afternoon teas, never use paper doilies (unless you have more than 100 visiting); Broken lines aren’t shouldn’t be part of permanent fixtures in a room; and drinking liquors in 1922 wasn’t illegal (so long as you found a way to legally obtain it…)

A Diet and a Patent Medicine, All in One?

Welcome to 2014! A new year means a new start and that means resolutions. (Whether we follow up on them or not, we’re always optimistic in January, at least!) I started thinking how many people’s resolutions including losing weight, and I wondered what sort of historical treasures we might have on that topic. So this week, we’re featuring one of the earliest “diet books” in our collection: How Phyllis Grew Thin. I’m not sure exactly what I expected when I opened this 32 page pamphlet, but this wasn’t it…

Front cover

Advertisement and title page

Introductory “letter”

Sample menu and testimonial

Sample menu and testimonial

Sample menu and testimonial

The pamphlet is full of practical and not-so-practical tidbits, but my favorite has to be from the letter of introduction at the beginning: “It is not necessary for you to know just what a calorie is so long as you remember not to eat foods containing too many of them.” It sums up all the diet advice and meal planning that follows.

Although it does contain a fair bit of advice about dieting and a significant amount of advice on meal planning, the pamphlet is, at it’s core, an advertisement for a patent medicine for women (actually, more than one). It is chock full of testimonials and advice for use. Still, Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was a success for many years. There are even companies producing similar herbal remedies today.

Our catalog record dates this items to some time in the 1800s, but the art deco-inspired cover and clothing suggest it more likely comes from the early part of the 20th century. Lydia Pinkham herself died in 1883, but her family continued to run the business into the 1930s. Her patent medicines were advertised in cookbooks, newspapers, ladies journals, and dedicated small pamphlets like the one in our collection. During Prohibition, Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound gained an unexpected corner of the market–the original formula contained no small amount of alcohol and was, as a medicine, available for purchase. Lydia and her remedies even inspired a a folk/drinking song in the early 20th century (“The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham”) and later a modified version in the 1960s (“Lily the Pink”).

Clearly, “Phyllis’s” plan isn’t one for the modern dieter. However, these 32 pages offer some amazing insight into women’s medicine, dieting, and advertising in the early 20th century.