Vintage Receipts

After looking through numerous books of these old receipts, those that seem “doable” are mostly desserts. I’ve been searching for something a little healthier in ways of an entrée, so haven’t made anything new recently. 

In addition to this, during the next three weeks after my last post, my apartment complex was plagued with ants, which postponed any “extreme” cooking. After this delay, now I’m thinking of only trying a vintage receipt once every couple of weeks, instead of every week, using my alternate week to learn a new international recipe.

One of my favorite meals to make are stir-fries. While looking through the offerings in these vintage cookbooks, I noticed the term “stir-fry” was never mentioned. Not even in the 1913 Chinese and English Cookbook, which is mostly American dishes in the Chinese and English languages. So, I began wondering when “stir-fry” first came to the American tables. I found the answer at Wikipedia, which stated the term was first used in a 1945 cookbook How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, by Buwei Yang Chao (1889-1981). Interestingly enough, I’d already heard of the author’s husband, Yuen Ren Chao, a linguist, mentioned in my university Linguistics major classes.

Unfortunately, it may be some time before this title appears in public domain. It has been reprinted various times over the years, with newer editions. 

In the meantime, I’ll be trying to locate healthier receipts for the next vintage receipt “experiment.”

As you may have noticed, there was no posting last week. I did make a vintage receipt, but it was repeat of one already posted: Blueberry Muffins. Having taken advantage of farmer’s market special on blueberries, the past two weeks I’ve made blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes (modern recipe), and tonight, Sour-Cream Blueberry Cakes.

This receipt comes from page 100 of the 1891 cookbook New England Breakfast Breads, Luncheon and Tea Biscuits by Lucia Gray Swett. Using these vintage receipts for “sweets” such as this reminds me how today’s “sweets” are overly sweet. Although this is called a “cake” I would define it more as a biscuit in the American sense. (In Europe, “biscuits” are what Americans know as “cookies.”)  The texture is like a drop biscuit, only slightly sweetened and with blueberries.

Read More About Sour-Cream Blueberry Cakes

After pouring through various cookbooks, I couldn’t decide on an entree for this week. Nearly all cookbooks before the 20th century have receipts that, upon reading ingredients, seem quite bland. Either that, or the receipts call for certain parts of animals that aren’t normally found in meat departments of modern grocery stores.

So, I thought I’d try something easy… like pancakes. I came across an 1877 receipt that sounded pretty simple. It was from Every Day Meals: being economic and wholesome recipes for breakfast, luncheon, and supper by Mary Hooper. 

Read More About Pancakes

Tonight I made Coffee Cake from a receipt in the March ’08 issue of  “Good Housekeeping Magazine.” 1908, that is. This was on page 323, in a section dedicated to “Saving Without Sacrifice.” The savings in this receipt was that the cake required no egg or milk, a precious commodity for city dwellers during those times.

As with the Cream Blueberry Gingerbread receipt, this cake also appears to be chocolate. However, the dark color is due to molasses being one of its ingredients. When making this, I varied slightly from the original receipt below. 

First, I only made half the batch, since I didn’t want to use four whole cups of flour. Next, I used only 1/4 cup of butter, and for the remaining 1/4 cup for the half batch, I used canola oil. (Much better than lard or beef drippings, anyway.) I didn’t chop the raisins, just left them whole. But I did take several tablespoons of flour from my 2 cups, for coating the raisins. This way, they don’t stick together when added to the batter.

And, of course, the pan must be greased and floured before adding batter to it. Since I was making half batch, and my 8×8 inch metal pan was thinner than ones used in 1908, I only baked this for 35 minutes in the moderate (350º F) oven. I thought it turned out very well.

This week I didn’t have time to experiment with any new receipts. But here’s something I gleaned from one of the vintage cookbooks several weeks ago, before I began this blog. While first viewing several cookbooks from the 1870s and 1880s, I came across mention in one that a famous restaurant served poached eggs on spinach. I thought, hmm….

I know my take on it probably isn’t the same as back then, but I like it. I recently saw a YouTube video for making Poached Eggs with Spinach. But it called for cooking the spinach, where it resembled canned spinach. This is close to the way it was described in several other vintage cookbooks. In my fresher, more appealing version, I use uncooked baby spinach. It’s a great way of having veggies with egg, instead of meat.

BTW, though the toast pictured is not from a vintage receipt, it is homemade, from a more modern Oatmeal Honey bread maker recipe. Eventually I’d like to try adapting vintage bread receipts for my bread maker, posting both original and revised versions here.

I’d like to say the blackberry preserves on the toast were my own creation, too. But they were made in Julian, up the mountain from me, which I bought at a San Diego farmer’s market store. Keep watching, though. Eventually I want another attempt at jam/preserve making. With hope, it’ll be successful next time!

Since last week’s Raspberry Preserves experiment turned out a fiasco, I decided to try something else from the 1921  Fruits and Their Cookery. So, this time it was on page 128, for Cream Blueberry Gingerbread. 

Unlike last week, this turned out well. Despite several obstacles I had to overcome. First, only having 3/4 cup of sour cream, I improvised, substituting canned cream for missing 1/4 cup sour cream. Second, after adding the soda, the batter really leavened.  It appeared it would require a bigger pan than the (about 8×8 inch) pan I’d first chosen to use. The finished gingerbread was to only be an inch and a half high, so I used a larger pan. But, the smaller pan probably would have been okay, because, after spreading the batter in the longer pan, there was still room left. 

I’d never thought of blueberries going with gingerbread, but it tasted pretty good. The texture is similar to brownies. Even the color. But, instead of chocolate/cocoa, the molasses gives it the dark color. As with about all receipts/recipes I’ve tried from old cookbooks, sweets aren’t overly sweet, like commonly found in today’s desserts.

Early cookbooks assume the cook knows all about baking, so doesn’t cover many of the steps that, in those days, were taken for granted. The metal pan used for baking must be buttered and floured to prevent gingerbread from sticking to pan. I figured “bake gently” referred to a slow oven, but I wasn’t sure how slow. I’d seen modern-day gingerbread recipes call for a 350°F oven. To be on safe side, I preheated oven to 350°F, but baked gingerbread at 325°F. I think this is about right: it was done in almost 25 minutes.

One of the drawbacks of living solo is, whenever I create a stupendous, savory, new dish, there’s no one to share it with at that triumphant moment. No one to “give compliments to the chef” and agree that I’m such a great cook. 😉 But, on the other side of the coin, if I should happen to create a fiasco, no one knows or has to know. 😉 

After getting some raspberries on sale, I decided to make Raspberry Preserves, using the 1921 cookbook Fruits and Their Cookery by Harriet Schuyler Nelson. (No, not the same Harriet Nelson that married Ozzie.)

What I’d like to say is how delicious those preserves tasted! And, being my first attempt of making any kind of jams/jellies/preserves, this was a historical moment for me. And, as this blog is dedicated to the great historical receipts/recipes that can still be used in the 21st Century, I have this opportunity to share that with my readers.

Read More About These Raspberry Preserves

Last night I made some blueberry muffins from a receipt in “When Mother Lets Us Cook,” by Constance Johnson, which is embedded at my Vintage Cookbooks site.  This children’s cookbook, now in public domain, was copyrighted in 1908. The images at the links given are for the 1919 printing, although Archive.org additionally has a 1916 printing of the same title. 

Read More About the Muffins