Rooibos Tea And A Good Book

 

Jenn over at The Thrift Shop Romantic has asked me to do a meme – and before you go any further, go look at her blog, which is very cool and fun! The deal is that you are supposed to share the book you are currently reading a quote a few paragraphs from it.

Well, luckily the book I am reading now has a lot of tea-drinking in it – and an intriguing tea at that. So not only am I going to share a bit of my book with you, I will (a) find out what the tea is and (b) end up with a teatime recipe, which, OK, is not in the book, but you can see the tenuous connection, right?

I did read a couple of mysteries over Christmas where the detective is a caterer or something, and there are recipes at the back of the book, after the mystery is solved, but I read those in December so they do not count. And I decided not to count my cookbook reading, which consists of me making the recipes in my head, or flipping around at random in the Larousse Gastronomique. Mind you when I read at night, reclining gorgeously on a couch, the Larousse is WAY too heavy for me. I need a light paperback to hold in my exhausted hands. Mysteries are perfect for this sort of half-conscious, do-not-bother-me-for-I-am-covered-by-a-blanket reading moments.

So what I am reading right now is one of Alexander McCall Smith’s mystery series about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which is run by Precious Ramotswe, the first female detective in Botswana. This one is called The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. As always in this series, several small mysteries are solved in the course of the book. The titular one concerns a rather rude and abrupt lady who suspects her husband of having an affair, and wants him followed and found out. All is solved in the end, naturally. I am looking forward to reading more in the series, as they are quietly witty, and I like the premise of having several smaller mysteries to solve rather than one flashy extraordinary one.

It is hard to choose bits of the book to quote – and I won’t tell you too much about the plot, because that would spoil it. Here is a little exchange in Chapter 1 that gives you an idea of the style of the novel:

“He cannot shut doors quietly,” said Motholeli, putting her hands to her ears.

“He is a boy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is how boys behave.”

“Then I am glad I am not a boy,” said Motholeli.

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Men and boys think that we would like to be like them,” she said. “I don’t think they know how pleased we are to be women.”  [p. 8]

Mma Remotswe’s favorite drink is “red bush tea,” and I thought i didn’t know what that was. But it is rooibos tea, which has become popular partly through the Smith books and partly from its delicious taste, which is mildly nutty and sweet.  It has high levels of antioxidants and low levels of caffeine and tannin – how could you not like that? Celestial Seasonings makes several kinds, including my favorite, Madagascar Vanilla Red Rooibos.

There are two kinds of tea consumed at regular intervals at the detective agency. There is regular tea for everyone but Mma Ramotswe. She prefers traditional red bush tea, which is seen by many people in the series as rather old-fashioned. This takes place in “A Short Chapter About Tea” – here is a bit which will give you the flavor of these wonderful books: smooth, gentle yet sharp writing, humorous and though quite relaxing to read, strangely absorbing. I picked this book up thinking I might get bored, and did not put it down until I had read it all. In this scene, the secretary, Mma Makutsi, has returned after quitting for one morning, and the two women are being careful with each other. However, they still want their tea:

Mma Ramotswe made a placatory gesture with her hand. “Oh no, Mma. Anybody can make that sort of mistake. One can be thinking of something else altogether and not notice that the tea is getting low. That has happened many times before.”

“Here?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Are you saying that it has happened here? That I have forgotten many times before?”

“No,” said Mma Ramotswe hurriedly. “Not you. I’m just saying that it has happened elsewhere. Everybody makes that sort of mistake. It is easily done. I cannot remember a single time you have done this before. Not one single time.”

This seemed to satisfy Mma Makutsi. “Good. But what are you going to do now? Will you have ordinary tea, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe felt that she had no alternative. “If there is no bush tea, then I cannot very well sit here and not drink any tea. It would be better to drink a cup of ordinary tea rather than have no tea to drink.” [p. 171]

I agree entirely – and I am about to get myself a cup of Madagascar Vanilla Rooibos right now. But before I do, here’s a recipe for a little something to go with your tea – whatever kind you prefer. It is Scottish, in honor of Alexander McCall Smith, who is Zimbabwean by birth but of Scottish descent (I am too, a little – one ancestor was from Dumfries and one further back came from the Isle of Skye). It is from Recipes From Scotland (1960), by F. Marian McNeill:

Edinburgh Gingerbread

8 oz. flour
4 oz. butter
4 oz. treacle
2 oz. sugar
4 oz. raisins
2 oz. almonds
1 level teaspoonful Bicarbonate of Soda
1 level teaspoonful Cinnamon
1 level teaspoon Cloves
1 heaped teaspoonful Ginger
2 Eggs

Sift the flour, soda and spices into a basin. Clean and stone the raisins, blanch and split the almonds, and add to the flour mixture.

Put the butter, sugar and treacle into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Beat the two eggs, and pour the boiling treacle over them, stirring vigorously. Pour this mixture on to the dry ingredients and beat thoroughly. Put into a battered cake-tin and bake for an hour or longer in a very moderate oven.

Image of a glass of rooibos tea from Wikimedia Commons. And I tag any one of my readers who would like to do this – please do, it is really fun. And I love to hear about what other people are reading.

Note: BBC1 is about to start a series about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency – I hope this will come out on DVD sometime!

Rooibos Tea and a Good Book

Jenn over at The Thrift Shop Romantic has asked me to do a meme – and before you go any further, go look at her blog, which is very cool and fun! The deal is that you are supposed to share the book you are currently reading a quote a few paragraphs from it.

Well, luckily the book I am reading now has a lot of tea-drinking in it – and an intriguing tea at that. So not only am I going to share a bit of my book with you, I will (a) find out what the tea is and (b) end up with a teatime recipe, which, OK, is not in the book, but you can see the tenuous connection, right?

I did read a couple of mysteries over Christmas where the detective is a caterer or something, and there are recipes at the back of the book, after the mystery is solved, but I read those in December so they do not count. And I decided not to count my cookbook reading, which consists of me making the recipes in my head, or flipping around at random in the Larousse Gastronomique. Mind you when I read at night, reclining gorgeously on a couch, the Larousse is WAY too heavy for me. I need a light paperback to hold in my exhausted hands. Mysteries are perfect for this sort of half-conscious, do-not-bother-me-for-I-am-covered-by-a-blanket reading moments.

So what I am reading right now is one of Alexander McCall Smith’s mystery series about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which is run by Precious Ramotswe, the first female detective in Botswana. This one is called The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. As always in this series, several small mysteries are solved in the course of the book. The titular one concerns a rather rude and abrupt lady who suspects her husband of having an affair, and wants him followed and found out. All is solved in the end, naturally. I am looking forward to reading more in the series, as they are quietly witty, and I like the premise of having several smaller mysteries to solve rather than one flashy extraordinary one.

It is hard to choose bits of the book to quote – and I won’t tell you too much about the plot, because that would spoil it. Here is a little exchange in Chapter 1 that gives you an idea of the style of the novel:

“He cannot shut doors quietly,” said Motholeli, putting her hands to her ears.

“He is a boy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is how boys behave.”

“Then I am glad I am not a boy,” said Motholeli.

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Men and boys think that we would like to be like them,” she said. “I don’t think they know how pleased we are to be women.” [p. 8]

Mma Remotswe’s favorite drink is “red bush tea,” and I thought i didn’t know what that was. But it is rooibos tea, which has become popular partly through the Smith books and partly from its delicious taste, which is mildly nutty and sweet. It has high levels of antioxidants and low levels of caffeine and tannin – how could you not like that? Celestial Seasonings makes several kinds, including my favorite, Madagascar Vanilla Red Rooibos.

There are two kinds of tea consumed at regular intervals at the detective agency. There is regular tea for everyone but Mma Ramotswe. She prefers traditional red bush tea, which is seen by many people in the series as rather old-fashioned. This takes place in “A Short Chapter About Tea” – here is a bit which will give you the flavor of these wonderful books: smooth, gentle yet sharp writing, humorous and though quite relaxing to read, strangely absorbing. I picked this book up thinking I might get bored, and did not put it down until I had read it all. In this scene, the secretary, Mma Makutsi, has returned after quitting for one morning, and the two women are being careful with each other. However, they still want their tea:

Mma Ramotswe made a placatory gesture with her hand. “Oh no, Mma. Anybody can make that sort of mistake. One can be thinking of something else altogether and not notice that the tea is getting low. That has happened many times before.”

“Here?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Are you saying that it has happened here? That I have forgotten many times before?”

“No,” said Mma Ramotswe hurriedly. “Not you. I’m just saying that it has happened elsewhere. Everybody makes that sort of mistake. It is easily done. I cannot remember a single time you have done this before. Not one single time.”

This seemed to satisfy Mma Makutsi. “Good. But what are you going to do now? Will you have ordinary tea, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe felt that she had no alternative. “If there is no bush tea, then I cannot very well sit here and not drink any tea. It would be better to drink a cup of ordinary tea rather than have no tea to drink.” [p. 171]

I agree entirely – and I am about to get myself a cup of Madagascar Vanilla Rooibos right now. But before I do, here’s a recipe for a little something to go with your tea – whatever kind you prefer. It is Scottish, in honor of Alexander McCall Smith, who is Zimbabwean by birth but of Scottish descent (I am too, a little – one ancestor was from Dumfries and one further back came from the Isle of Skye). It is from Recipes From Scotland (1960), by F. Marian McNeill:

Edinburgh Gingerbread

8 oz. flour
4 oz. butter
4 oz. treacle
2 oz. sugar
4 oz. raisins
2 oz. almonds
1 level teaspoonful Bicarbonate of Soda
1 level teaspoonful Cinnamon
1 level teaspoon Cloves
1 heaped teaspoonful Ginger
2 Eggs

Sift the flour, soda and spices into a basin. Clean and stone the raisins, blanch and split the almonds, and add to the flour mixture.

Put the butter, sugar and treacle into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Beat the two eggs, and pour the boiling treacle over them, stirring vigorously. Pour this mixture on to the dry ingredients and beat thoroughly. Put into a battered cake-tin and bake for an hour or longer in a very moderate oven.

Image of a glass of rooibos tea from Wikimedia Commons. And I tag any one of my readers who would like to do this – please do, it is really fun. And I love to hear about what other people are reading.

Note: BBC1 is about to start a series about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency – I hope this will come out on DVD sometime!

Santa Clara Salad

This one is just so silly I can’t resist. It’s a salad, supposedly – but not really. It is from dear old Ruth Berolzheimer’s 1951 edition of The American Woman’s Cook Book (with special Everywoman’s Binding, which seems to have something to do with Everywoman’s Magazine, according to the title page).

This is not really a salad though – it is sort of salad as theatre-of-the-absurd – Salvador Dali Salad. It is just a venue for prunes disguised as salad – it’s on a lettuce leaf, therefore it’s a salad!

Don’t get me wrong, I like prunes, but not so many prunes at once. It’s like a National Prune Convention on a plate. And it takes place in – well, in Santa Clara, where else? I looked up Santa Clara, California and did not see anything about prunes. It did have a largely agricultural economy up until the last few decades but is now known for being the home of Silicon Valley. The closest I can come to prunes in Santa Clara is Apple headquarters. Well, they’re both fruits! Sort of.

Santa Clara Salad

24 prunes in sirup

6 oz. cream cheese

8 slices pineapple

Head lettuce

Maraschino cherries

Stone prunes. Soften cream cheese with evaporated milk, if necessary, and stuff prunes. Place pineapple on lettuce and arrange three stuffed prunes on each slice. Garnish prunes with bits of maraschino cherries. Serves 8.

The prunes are stoned? Must be some convention. Also they are stuffed. I get like that if I tag along to conventions – those opening night cocktail parties have such good snacks. There was one, oh years ago, where they had fresh strawberries and tons of jumbo shrimp on ice. I stayed right next to the shrimp – it was a once in a lifetime shrimp opportunity! I didn’t want to leave. I had to be dragged out and away from that shrimp, it was that good.

That’s a great picture of the “salad” too, isn’t it? The prunes look like little Edvard Munch faces. Wikipedia says that “The Scream” represents “the human species overwhelmed by an attack of existential angst.” So Santa Clara Salad would be perfect if you’re having a bunch of art critics over for dinner. What would you serve for the rest of the meal?

Santa Clara Salad

This one is just so silly I can’t resist. It’s a salad, supposedly – but not really. It is from dear old Ruth Berolzheimer’s 1951 edition of The American Woman’s Cook Book (with special Everywoman’s Binding, which seems to have something to do with Everywoman’s Magazine, according to the title page).

This is not really a salad though – it is sort of salad as theatre-of-the-absurd – Salvador Dali Salad. It is just a venue for prunes disguised as salad – it’s on a lettuce leaf, therefore it’s a salad! 

Don’t get me wrong, I like prunes, but not so many prunes at once. It’s like a National Prune Convention on a plate. And it takes place in – well, in Santa Clara, where else? I looked up Santa Clara, California and did not see anything about prunes. It did have a largely agricultural economy up until the last few decades but is now known for being the home of Silicon Valley. The closest I can come to prunes in Santa Clara is Apple headquarters. Well, they’re both fruits! Sort of.

Santa Clara Salad

24 prunes in sirup

6 oz. cream cheese

8 slices pineapple

Head lettuce

Maraschino cherries

Stone prunes. Soften cream cheese with evaporated milk, if necessary, and stuff prunes. Place pineapple on lettuce and arrange three stuffed prunes on each slice. Garnish prunes with bits of maraschino cherries. Serves 8.

The prunes are stoned? Must be some convention. Also they are stuffed. I get like that if I tag along to conventions – those opening night cocktail parties have such good snacks. There was one, oh years ago, where they had fresh strawberries and tons of jumbo shrimp on ice. I stayed right next to the shrimp – it was a once in a lifetime shrimp opportunity! I didn’t want to leave. I had to be dragged out and away from that shrimp, it was that good.

That’s a great picture of the “salad” too, isn’t it? The prunes look like little Edvard Munch faces. Wikipedia says that “The Scream” represents “the human species overwhelmed by an attack of existential angst.” So Santa Clara Salad would be perfect if you’re having a bunch of art critics over for dinner. What would you serve for the rest of the meal?

To Catch A Quiche

One of my favorite kinds of retro cookbooks are the ones that feature celebrity recipes – and I use the term “celebrity” fairly loosely, depending on the book. Good Housekeeping put one of these out in 1958, called Who’s Who Cooks: Favorite Recipes of Famous People. They tracked down “actors and authors, musicians and milliners, statesmen and skaters, and puppeteers” and asked them what they liked on their celebrity tables. Some of them didn’t cook, not surprisingly, so in that case you are getting the cuisine “perfected by their jewels-of-cooks.”

In the case of Ray Bolger (who was as you probably remember the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz), “he takes his recipes to favorite restaurants and has them made to order.” Because he doesn’t have time to cook, you see. But wouldn’t schlepping all the way to some restaurant and trying to get a busy chef to make you Flaming Filet of Beef – one of Ray’s favorites, apparently – take more time than bunging it in the oven yourself? And why didn’t he have a jewel-of-a-cook? Oh, never mind.

The celebrities range from people like writer/explorer Lowell Thomas and newscaster John Cameron Swayze, to less famous ones like Sally Victor (famous in the 1950s for her hats) and Bil and Cora Baird (the puppeteers). I’ll write about some of their offerings down the road, but today I can’t resist sharing one of my favorites – Alfred Hitchcock’s Quiche Lorraine.

Who knew that Alfred Hitchcock was so crazy about quiche? I thought Real Men Didn’t Eat Quiche, and all that (remember that book from 1982, anyone?). He was clearly a man ahead of his time. Good Housekeeping informs us that Hitchcock told his friends that “I’m not a heavy eater. I’m just heavy, and I eat.” Whatever you say, Sir Alfred – just as long as you don’t bring any flocks of birds along to dinner, or anything. Note the explanation in parentheses after the title – quiche was pretty exotic stuff back in 1958.

Hitchcock’s Quiche Lorraine (Swiss-Cheese Pie)

Sift together 1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour and 1/2 tsp salt.
With finger tips, work in until crumbly: 1/4 cup butter or margarine (1/2 cup). Slowly add, stirring with fork: 1/4 cup cold water.
Shape into ball; roll in waxed paper; refrigerate about 1/2 hour, or until easy to roll.
Then start heating oven to 425 F.

On floured board, roll dough into large circle, about 14″ in diameter. Fit into 11″ pie plate. Make attractive fluted edge. With fork, prick well. Place in refrigerator about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make filling. Fry until crisp: 12 slices bacon Crumble bacon into small pieces. Now, using fine grater, grate: 1/4 lb. natural Swiss cheese (makes about 1 cup) Into bowl, break 4 eggs.

Then add: 2 cups heavy cream
3/4 tsp salt
Pinch nutmeg
Generous pinch sugar
Pinch cayenne
Plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Beat with egg beater just long enough to mix thoroughly. Now spread pastry shell with about 1 Tb soft butter or margarine. Sprinkle bacon bits, then grated cheese, in bottom of pie shell. Pour cream mixture over all. Bake 15 minutes. Then reduce oven temperature to 300 F; bake 20 minutes longer, or until silver knife inserted in center comes out clean. Serve hot, cut into wedges. Makes 20 hors d’oeuvres, or 8 main-dish servings.

I am not sure about the sugar and the cayenne, or about the butter on top of the pie crust (followed by bacon) – but Hitchcock’s “great interest and good taste in food are sort of a legend,” and this is the way he liked his quiche. Let’s just be glad he didn’t put in anything really strange.

To Catch A Quiche

One of my favorite kinds of retro cookbooks are the ones that feature celebrity recipes – and I use the term “celebrity” fairly loosely, depending on the book. Good Housekeeping put one of these out in 1958, called Who’s Who Cooks: Favorite Recipes of Famous People. They tracked down “actors and authors, musicians and milliners, statesmen and skaters, and puppeteers” and asked them what they liked on their celebrity tables. Some of them didn’t cook, not surprisingly, so in that case you are getting the cuisine “perfected by their jewels-of-cooks.”

In the case of Ray Bolger (who was as you probably remember the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz), “he takes his recipes to favorite restaurants and has them made to order.” Because he doesn’t have time to cook, you see. But wouldn’t schlepping all the way to some restaurant and trying to get a busy chef to make you Flaming Filet of Beef – one of Ray’s favorites, apparently – take more time than bunging it in the oven yourself? And why didn’t he have a jewel-of-a-cook?

Oh, never mind.

The celebrities range from people like writer/explorer Lowell Thomas  and newscaster John Cameron Swayze, to less famous ones like Sally Victor (famous in the 1950s for her hats) and Bil and Cora Baird (the puppeteers). I’ll write about some of their offerings down the road, but today I can’t resist sharing one of my favorites – Alfred Hitchcock’s Quiche Lorraine.

Who knew that Alfred Hitchcock was so crazy about quiche? I thought Real Men Didn’t Eat Quiche, and all that (remember that book from 1982, anyone?). He was clearly a man ahead of his time. Good Housekeeping informs us that Hitchcock told his friends that “I’m not a heavy eater. I’m just heavy, and I eat.” Whatever you say, Sir Alfred – just as long as you don’t bring any flocks of birds along to dinner, or anything.

Note the explanation in parentheses after the title – quiche was pretty exotic stuff back in 1958.

Hitchcock’s Quiche Lorraine (Swiss-Cheese Pie)

Sift together 1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour and 1/2 tsp salt. With finger tips, work in until crumbly: 1/4 cup butter or margarine (1/2 cup). Slowly add, stirring with fork: 1/4 cup cold water. Shape into ball; roll in waxed paper; refrigerate about 1/2 hour, or until easy to roll. Then start heating oven to 425 F. On floured board, roll dough into large circle, about 14″ in diameter. Fit into 11″ pie plate. Make attractive fluted edge. With fork, prick well. Place in refrigerator about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, make filling. Fry until crisp:

12 slices bacon

Crumble bacon into small pieces. Now, using fine grater, grate:

1/4 lb. natural Swiss cheese (makes about 1 cup)

Into bowl, break 4 eggs. Then add:

2 cups heavy cream

3/4 tsp salt

Pinch nutmeg

Generous pinch sugar

Pinch cayenne

Plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Beat with egg beater just long enough to mix thoroughly. Now spread pastry shell with about 1 Tb soft butter or margarine. Sprinkle bacon bits, then grated cheese, in bottom of pie shell. Pour cream mixture over all. Bake 15 minutes. Then reduce oven temperature to 300 F; bake 20 minutes longer, or until silver knife inserted in center comes out clean. Serve hot, cut into wedges. Makes 20 hors d’oeuvres, or 8 main-dish servings.

I am not sure about the sugar and the cayenne, or about the butter on top of the pie crust (followed by bacon) – but Hitchcock’s “great interest and good taste in food are sort of a legend,” and this is the way he liked his quiche. Let’s just be glad he didn’t put anything really strange in it.

Welcome To The Canape Ball

Here’s a peculiar little cannon ball of an appetizer from the 1946 oeuvre, Watkins Salad Book, to start the week off in a festive sort of way. I truly wish there was a picture of this in the book (which is full of dreadful recipes, by the way, I’ll be sharing more of it in the weeks to come). Instead, here are all the little Watkins products, pictured in the 1948 edition of the Watkins Cook Book. Yes, I actually own three Watkins books – I also have the 1938 Watkins Cook Book. They must have been in a group at the secondhand bookstore. I didn’t like to separate them. Watkins products like to stay together, as the photo shows. This recipe is a bit like that – an awkward grouping, standing around – or in this case, rolling around, held together only by a few toothpicks.

Canape Ball

Wash a large grapefruit, dry, then chill. Just before serving, place a row of stuffed olives (stuck on toothpicks) across the top and down the sides of the grapefruit. On each side of the olives place anchovies stuck on toothpicks. Continue the rows, parallel to the olives and anchovies, with cubes of American and Swiss cheese, the size of the anchovies. Add a row of pickled onions, if desired, or large ripe olives.

If people actually did this, they might want to cut a thin slice off the bottom of the grapefruit – or else that thing is going to roll around, like some sort of edible bowling ball from retro-kitchen hell, and no one is going to want that to happen. The anchovies are a particularly terrible idea, impaled on toothpicks – you don’t want the snacks staring at you, do you, accusing you silently of spearing them onto a large citrus fruit.

Best just to stop after the first sentence of the recipe – put the grapefruit away in the fridge – and then chill. Go read a magazine and relax. Yeah, chill. Just put cheese and crackers out, and a bunch of grapes maybe. Then we can all relax.

Welcome To The Canape Ball

Here’s a peculiar little cannon ball of an appetizer from the 1946 oeuvre, Watkins Salad Book, to start the week off in a festive sort of way. I truly wish there was a picture of this in the book (which is full of dreadful recipes, by the way, I’ll be sharing more of it in the weeks to come). Instead, here are all the little Watkins products, pictured in the 1948 edition of the Watkins Cook Book. Yes, I actually own three Watkins books - I also have the 1938 Watkins Cook Book. They must have been in a group at the secondhand bookstore. I didn’t like to separate them. Watkins products like to stay together, as the photo shows. This recipe is a bit like that – an awkward grouping, standing around – or in this case, rolling around, held together only by a few toothpicks.

Canape Ball

Wash a large grapefruit, dry, then chill. Just before serving, place a row of stuffed olives (stuck on toothpicks) across the top and down the sides of the grapefruit. On each side of the olives place anchovies stuck on toothpicks. Continue the rows, parallel to the olives and anchovies, with cubes of American and Swiss cheese, the size of the anchovies. Add a row of pickled onions, if desired, or large ripe olives.

If people actually did this, they might want to cut a thin slice off the bottom of the grapefruit – or else that thing is going to roll around, like some sort of edible bowling ball from retro-kitchen hell, and no one is going to want that to happen. The anchovies are a particularly terrible idea, impaled on toothpicks – you don’t want the snacks staring at you, do you, accusing you silently of spearing them onto a large citrus fruit.

Best just to stop after the first sentence of the recipe – put the grapefruit away in the fridge – and then chill. Go read a magazine and relax. Yeah, chill. Just put cheese and crackers out, and a bunch of grapes maybe. Then we can all relax.

Washday Dish

This recipe is from a 1940 United Farm Women of Alberta cookbook, from the days when you had to spend an entire day doing the laundry. Naturally you did not want to cook an elaborate meal after all that fuss with the mangle and the starch and the clothespins and everything.

I have a household guide from 1941, the New York Herald Tribune Home Institute’s America’s Housekeeping Book, that devotes six whole chapters to laundry. It’s quite an arbeit, as my grandmother liked to say: the sorting, the soaking, the washing. The rinsing, the bluing, the bleaching and the starching. And then all the troubles you may have with these tasks. Followed by the drying, the sprinkling and the ironing (see separate chapters).

 And then after all of this – you have to take care of the washing machine. After each washday, it is suggested that you remove the lint, wash the inside of the machine, and wash the wringer rolls with nice warm soapsuds. Lucky for you you don’t also have to sing to it and give it a little snack. If you did, though, there’d be plenty of Washday Dish to go around. And cooking it doesn’t require any heavy lifting, which is a good thing after all you went through with the wash.

 Washday Dish

Place in a baking dish thinly sliced potatoes, seasoned with salt, pepper and onion, and dredge with flour. Fill until you can see, but don’t cover with milk or water. Places slices of bacon or salt pork on top of potatoes. Bake in oven until tender, about 1 1/2 hours. Turn meat when brown. If meat gets too crisp, cover.

The photos above are of washing machines from a British 1951 Good Housekeeping Home Encyclopedia. They are probably pretty similar to the sort of washing machines that the Tribune was telling housewives to clean with warm soapsuds. (And isn’t the machine already pretty clean? I mean, didn’t it just have warm soapsuds in it?)

Washday Dish

This recipe is from a 1940 United Farm Women of Alberta cookbook, from the days when you had to spend an entire day doing the laundry. Naturally you did not want to cook an elaborate meal after all that fuss with the mangle and the starch and the clothespins and everything.

I have a household guide from 1941, the New York Herald Tribune Home Institute’s America’s Housekeeping Book, that devotes six whole chapters to laundry. It’s quite an arbeit, as my grandmother liked to say: the sorting, the soaking, the washing. The rinsing, the bluing, the bleaching and the starching. And then all the troubles you may have with these tasks. Followed by the drying, the sprinkling and the ironing (see separate chapters).

And then after all of this – you have to take care of the washing machine. After each washday, it is suggested that you remove the lint, wash the inside of the machine, and wash the wringer rolls with nice warm soapsuds. Lucky for you you don’t also have to sing to it and give it a little snack. If you did, though, there’d be plenty of Washday Dish to go around. And cooking it doesn’t require any heavy lifting, which is a good thing after all you went through with the wash.

Washday Dish

Place in a baking dish thinly sliced potatoes, seasoned with salt, pepper and onion, and dredge with flour. Fill until you can see, but don’t cover with milk or water. Places slices of bacon or salt pork on top of potatoes. Bake in oven until tender, about 1 1/2 hours. Turn meat when brown. If meat gets too crisp, cover.

The photos above are of washing machines from a British 1951 Good Housekeeping Home Encyclopedia. They are probably pretty similar to the sort of washing machines that the Tribune was telling housewives to clean with warm soapsuds. (And isn’t the machine already pretty clean? I mean, didn’t it just have warm soapsuds in it?)