In the Hall of the Ry-King (Now With Extra Gravy!)

Well, what’s it going to be – gravy and roast beef, or some nice little dry crispbreads?

Here are some more Ann-Marie Lambert approved products from 1967. She says the gravy doesn’t taste like it is from a can. But most canned stuff does taste like that! It can’t help it. It was in the can for some time, it absorbs canniness. These things are inevitable. And it won’t have a subtle blend of flavors, either. Unless Ann-Marie means a blend of tin, salt and Oxo cubes. That’s subtle!

But never mind, there’s all kinds of Ry-King crispbread to choose from. I like the Brown Thin flavor especially – I can just imagine how yummy that must be. Sounds like a Crayola crayon. It might have half the calories of bread but it does not have twice the flavor (but that might depend on whether we are talking about homemade or Wonder).

Ry-King sounds like the bad guy in a fairy tale, who keeps princesses locked up in a tower in his Scandanavian stronghold. And I also know what they’re getting for rations up in that tower!

Keen Mr. Mustard

Presenting the condiment that solves all your problems: Keen’s Hot Ready Prepared English Mustard – full of goodness and adjectives! It is also kind of redundant: if it’s ready, it must be prepared. And if it is prepared, therefore it is ready. Should be Kant’s Hot Ready Prepared Et Cetera, really.

Also, it is Keen and hot, which is not quite so redundant, since Keen is the maker’s name. But still. Keen AND hot. This mustard is so exciting I’m surprised they can confine it to a jar.

Ms. Lambert, the Canadian Reader’s Digest household pundit, is bowled over by this stuff (or so she says). It has actually changed her whole life! “At last I can sit down at the table in peace” – no previous mustard was “nippy enough” and this was a huge, huge problem. But now that jar of Keen’s is hot-glued to the table, permanently coming between the salt and pepper…That doesn’t sound good for the salt and pepper though, having a nippy, zippy, huge yellow intruder sitting there like Big Bird in a bad mood.

So I really don’t know if this is going to solve ALL the problems at the dinner table.

Foiled Again By Postum!

I wonder if Batman ever encountered this particular villain in Gotham City – Mr. Caffein Nerves. Like the other villains, he dresses in a ridiculous outfit and is thus easy to spot. He preys upon innocent bridge players and makes them argue. Looks like a fist fight’s a-brewing, too. Sparring partners indeed!

This charming villain, also known as Mr. Coffee Nerves (that’s some brilliant alias!) was also heard on the radio, see here for all the ghastly details!

This is what too much caffeine does to you, say the Postum folks. You just drink some of that nice “hearty, grain-rich” Postum and you will become a regular diplomat of the card table.

Wouldn’t work for me, though. This is what I feel like when I don’t have caffeine!

Advertisement from the Winnipeg Tribune, 1953.

Another Heinz Culinary Triumph

The people at H.J. Heinz in the 1930s, they were poets. Listen to this:

“A salad! – lovely name!…The very word refreshes – like suddenly coming upon a mountain spring, sweet and clear and cool. Dip deep into its beauty. Find for yourself the wonders of vegetables, fruits, golden oils and condiments when combined with an understanding touch.”

Somebody overdid a little on the martinis at lunchtime, methinks.

Anyway, they also promise that every meal can be a culinary triumph if you use their recipes. Well, I have one here that utilizes the wonders of of the butter of peanuts, and the golden beauty of the banana. Get ready for a culinary triumph beyond compare! -

BANANA AND PEANUT BUTTER SALAD

1 medium jar Heinz Peanut Butter
Bananas
Lettuce

For immediate use, select fruit which is firm but with the skin well speckled with brown. For cooking, or if fruit is to be kept on hand for several days, choose those with an all yellow skin. Bananas should never be placed in the refrigerator.

For this salad, peel the bananas and cut in halves lengthwise. Spread one half of the banana with a generous layer of the Panut Butter and cover with the other half of the banana. Place the whole banana in a bed of crisp lettuce and garnish with a spoonful of Mayonnaise.

“Any substitution of ingredients will alter the flavour of the salad!” they caution at the bottom of the page. Like if you had an apple and peanut butter. Or a banana and honey. Or maybe just a nice green salad with cucumbers and things. I guess that would alter the flavor – or flavour, as this is a Canadian Heinz cookbook.

Having said all that, leaving out the mayonnaise would be a good idea.

Cupcakes Are Mandatory

I love the bossy title of this booklet – Will You Bake Please? For heaven’s sake, get to it. We’re hungry for Coconut Macaroon Cupcakes over here!

Cocoanut Macaroon Cupcakes

3 cups cocoanut
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg white
6 Tb cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 egg white
candied cherries

Combine cocoanut, 1/3 cup sugar and one egg white in double boiler. Cook over boiling water until hot, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Sift flour and baking powder together. Add to cocoanut mixture almond extract, mix well. Beat egg white (second one) until foamy. Add remaining sugar gradually 2 Tb at a time. Continue beating until mixture will stand in soft peaks. Fold into cocoanut mixture. Place paper liners in muffin tin and fill 3/4 full with batter. Top with cherry. bake in slow oven, 325 degrees, 25 minutes.

This sounds good to me. I like a lot of cocoanut (or coconut, if you prefer) in things.

Would You Bake Please?  was put out by the B’Nai Brith ladies of Hamilton, Ontario in 1968 and it is quite delightful and quirky. I think the title is not supposed to be bossy, it refers to them asking each other to contribute to bake sales. But I like to say it to myself in a commanding (and slightly sarcastic) voice. Don’t just stand there! Bake! Bake right now! No, stop what you’re doing. Step away from the laptop!

And one of the husbands is quoted as giving my favorite cooking advice of all time, possibly. In capital letters, so you don’t miss it:

ALL APPLES ARE BASICALLY FOR EATING AND COOKING.

I like the “basically.” There may be other things we can do with apples, that are more complex, but otherwise eat them or cook them. That is all.

Image of Coconut Pyramids from an early 20th century cigarette card, courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Canadian Balmoral Cake

Balmoral Cake was a Victorian-era caraway-seed cake baked in a fancy mold, as seen in the link here. But Balmoral Fruit Cake was a ginger-fruit cake, according to Anna Lee Scott in the 1947 opus Cooking Made Easy: A Domestic Science Course For Users of Monarch Pastry Flour. Monarch was made by the Maple Leaf Milling Co. Ltd., so you will not be surprised to learn that this was a Canadian endeavor.

I have checked all my English, Scottish and non-Anna-Lee-Scott Canadian cookbooks, and found no Balmoral-type cake recipes of the caraway or the ginger-fruit persuasion.  It sounds really good though, and the next time I am making a loaf cake I might try this.

Balmoral Fruit Cake

Yield - 1 loaf

This is a cake you may easily find yourself making with great frequency. It ripens nicely in a day or two, if stored in a closely-covered tin…and will actually keep well for a day or more.

Oven temperature – rather slow, 325 degrees.

Prepare a loaf pan (about 5 by 10 inches, top inside measure).

Pick over, wash ad dry 1 cup sultana or other light-colored seedless raisins.
Prepare 1/4 cup finely-chopped preserved or candied ginger
and 1/2 cup blanched slivered almonds
Sift, then measure 2 cups Monarch Pastry Flour
Add 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt

Sift [dry ingredients] together once, then sift into a bowl. Add the prepared fruits and nuts and mix lightly until each bit is coated with flour.

Cream until soft 12 Tbs butter (or mixture of butter and shrtening), and gradually blend in 1 cup very fine granulated or fruit sugar; and cream thoroughly.

Beat until light 2 eggs and add to creamed mixture, a little at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the flour-fruit mixture, about one-quarter at a time, combining thoroughly after each addition. Turn batter into prepared loaf pan and spread evenly. Bake in a rather slow oven, 325 degrees, about 1 1/4 hours. Let stand on wire cake rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan.

Balmoral is most famous for being the castle in Scotland beloved by Queen Victoria, and still used by the Queen today. It is the name of several towns around the world, mostly in Australia, New Zealand, and two in Canada – one in New Brunswick, and Balmoral Mills in Nova Scotia. This last is home to the Balmoral Grist Mill - I wonder if the Monarch Flour cake is named for this Balmoral, rather than the royal Scottish one?

Turkey and Igloos For The Go-Go Set

I have a couple of booklets about cooking things in Ontario, which theoretically is perfect for me, since I live there. One is called Cooking Ontario’s Eggs and the other is Cooking Ontario’s Turkey (apparently there is only one turkey in the province, better make good use of the leftovers!).

Of course I keep wishing that one was called Cooking Ontario’s Goose, but no such luck. The booklets were both produced by the Poultry Products Institute of Canada in Toronto, circa 1957. You can imagine the pedestrian nature of most of the text – how to cook the turkey in an oven, how to make stuffing, how to boil eggs. And then there is a recipe for turkey burgers or meatballs - ”for the Go-Go Set.” The burger has a face and a hat. The photo is above. What is the Go-Go Set, pray tell? Perhaps they are go-going far away from the smiling turkey burger. I would, certainly. They are probably not reading this book. Why, they are doing the Peppermint Twist at the go-go, Poultry Institute People – not home reading up on how to make Hot Turkey Salad For the Church or Club Supper.

And then I came upon this little item. This must be where the turkey burger and his groovy meatball friends live.

Igloo Turkey Salad

3 cups well-seasoned mashed potato salad
3 cups well-seasoned turkey salad
2-3 Tbs mayonnaise

Use a large round-bottomed bowl (6-cup size). Spread mayonnaise as evenly as possible around inside of bowl. Carefully(and lightly) press all but one cup of potato salad in a layer about an inch thick around sides and over bottom of bowl. Spoon turkey salad into the centre. Press down lightly. Smooth remaining potato salad lightly over top to seal in the turkey salad. Chill an hour or longer. To unmold, run a thin knife carefully around inside of bowl, place a serving plate face down on top of bowl and quickly invert plate and bowl in smooth motion with a slight bounce as the bowl is turned completely upside down.

Garnish serving plate with lettuce and radish roses or tomato wedges. Cut with a knife into wedges with a wide flat pie server. Yields six servings.

For a buffet supper or teenage party the illusion of an igloo may be carried farther by scoring the surface of the unmolded salad to represent blocks piled up as in making a real igloo. Use strips of green pepper or ripe olives to outline the door.

First of all, I would like to know what mashed-potato salad is supposed to be. It doesn’t exist in nature, that’s what. But then neither do turkey-salad igloos. I guess it is mashed potato and mayonnaise. But you are smearing mayo in the bowl right away anyhow. That is a lot of mayo.

And I don’t think they use radish roses and tomato wedges as architectural decoration in the Arctic. Or anywhere. Or green peppers and olives as door frames.

Finally, why do 1950s cookbook writers think that teenagers – even 1950s teenagers – will be impressed by you scoring bricks into the mashed potatoes? Particularly since this thing will never ever unmold properly. It will just be a mashed-potato slag heap (perhaps an evocation of 1950s Sudbury?). Really, you need some industrial-strength gelatin to reinforce this sort of structure.

If we really want to cook Ontario’s turkey (or goose), let’s build something a little more geographically appropriate than an igloo (talk about your Canadian stereotyping). Maybe a CN Tower made of celery and turkey wings.

Mayonnaise Cakes And Victory Mops

It was surprisingly hard to find a mayonnaise cake. I was quite sure I had come across this oddity several times. When you have a lot of old cookbooks you start forgetting where you saw a certain weird thing. I am going to start writing interesting things on notecards so that I can access them for posts – a Rolodex of the Absurd.

Anyway, I found some brownies and date nut cupcakes in a Miracle Whip booklet entitled “Who’d a thunk it!”  Not me, looking at some of the other things in here, like Fruit Filled Lettuce and Frosted Pears (how they loved to frost things back in the day, didn’t they!).

Date Nut Cupcakes

1 cup Miracle Whip Salad Dressing
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups sifted pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup chopped pitted dates
1/2 cup chopped nuts
2 Tbs grated orange rind

Combine Miracle Whip, sugar and vanilla. Sift together flour, soda, baking powder, salt and nutmeg; add alternately with water, mixing well after each addition. Stir in dates, nuts and orange rind. Place paper bake cups in muffin pans; fill 2/3 full. Bake at 375 degrees, 35-40 minutes. Frost if desired. [Makes] 18 cupcakes.

The brownies are a standard recipes substituting mayonnaise for eggs and oil – so I guess it is perfectly reasonable, if you look at it that way. And if you didn’t have eggs or oil, you could probably get away with a little mayonnaise in their place. It’s just that it sounds so – salady. Jessie DeBoth doesn’t care about that though – she’s going to call it like she sees it. And what she sees is a mayonnaise cake, that’s what.

The recipe for “Mayonnaise Cake” in  Jessie Marie DeBoth’s 1942 opus,  Jessie Marie DeBoth’s Cut dollars from your food bill Cookbook.Ms. DeBoth was the Director of the Toronto Star’s Cooking and Home-Maker’s School. The photo of her is from a handout from one of her cooking demonstrations, that I found tucked inside the cookbook. It took place at Toronto’s Massey Hall in March 1942. One of the many corporate sponsors was O-Cedar of Canada, makers of the O-Cedar Victory Mop. How wonderful is that – naming a mop a Victory Mop?

Almost as wonderful as a mayonnaise cake!

Jessie Marie DeBoth’s Mayonnaise Cake

1 cup sugar
1 1/2 oz. chocolate, melted
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten with 3/4 cup salad oil to make mayonnaise
1 3/4 cup sifted flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup coarsely chopped nutmeats
1 tsp soda
1 cup boiling water
1 cup seedless raisins
1 tsp vanilla

METHOD: Combine sugar, melted chocolate, cinnamon and salt with the egg and oil mayonnaise. Mix and sift the dry ingredients, pour the boiling water over the nuts and raisins and let stand [a] few minutes. Add the dry ingredients to the sugar and mayonnaise mixture, then stir in the drained fruit and nuts with the flavoring, mix well but do not beat. Bake in greased baking pan about 60 minutes in moderate oven, 350 degrees. Frost with seven-minute double-boiler frosting.

She suggested that you serve this in December with Mutton Cutlets, Brown Gravy, Mashed Potatoes, Canned Peas, and Fig and Cream Cheese Salad. (There were menus for all twelve months, with and without meat, because of war rationing).

I find it curious that she did not use prepared mayonnaise but homemade – in which case, what was the point? Why not use eggs and oil as separate components in the cake? Hellmann’s was the first commercial mayonnaise and it was first sold widely in 1912; by the 1930s there were several brands available (although maybe not in Canada). So it seems that she is going out of her way to make it known that this cake was a mayonnaise one.

Her cookbook and the handout are terrific, full of things I want to write about later on. But for now let me draw your attention to her spectacular blouse, complete with her initials, and yin-yang like star-burst pattern. She looks like she would have been a lot of fun. I would have gone to her cooking demonstrations. Oh, and I also wish I could get a Victory Mop – we need more victorious cleaning implements around our house.

Liquid Smoke and Mirrors (and Dish Soap)

Here are some really useful household hints from a booklet entitled Home Curing and Preparing of Meats: Recipes and Household Hints,  from the Standard Chemical Company Limited (Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal). They made, among other things, Standard Liquid Smoke for all your meat-smoking purposes. Liquid smoke was invented in the 1920s (according to my Google Patents search) so the booklet probably dates from about 1940.

What better hint to begin with, from liquid smoke manufacturers, than how to deal with a smoky room. That is, aside from putting out the fire, if that is the cause of your problem, of course. Listen up, children:

Tobacco smoke, and odors, may be removed from a room by placing a pail of water, containing a little hay, in the room. A towel, dipped in a mixture of half vinegar and half hot water, wrung out, and swung around the head, will also take up smoke and odors.

Do you have to do these things at the same time? Because I don’t see how a bucket of hay and water is going to help matters much. Mind you, if I started swinging a vinegar-soaked towel around my head around here, room odor would not be perceived as being our primary problem.

Tea-Kettle: A clean oyster shell in the tea-kettle will prevent it from rusting. [You do have plenty of oyster shells lying around, don't you? Especially you folks out in the prairie provinces!]

Oilcloth: Instead of tacking oilcloth on the kitchen table, paste in on with boiled flour paste. It will last considerably longer. [In fact, you will probably never get it off.]

And here is a hint that will make you grateful to the makers of dishwashing liquid (or dish soap, as we call it in Canada):

Dish-Washing Suds: Take a small baking-soda can – punch nail holes in both top and bottom. Keep pieces of soap (too small to use, and which would, otherwise, be thrown away) in this can. Swish the can around in the dishwater, for heavy suds. Another way is to just punch holes in the bottom of the can, and put a string handle on the top. After filling with pieces of soap (or a bar of soap) hang it on the oht water tap, or pour the boiling water through it, into the dish-washing pan.

At least you didn’t have to make your own soap, though.

And one last hint:

Hanging Pictures: If you are going to drive a nail into plaster, make it very hot first, and the plaster will not split. [Won't it be too hot to pick up though?]

To wind this up, let’s look at one of the recipes for cooking the meat that you have smoked. It was probably all right if you had been out in the fields all day and needed something really heavy in your stomach.

Broiled Ham

Cut thin slices of a smoked ham. Then spread them with lard, and sprinkle generously with brown sugar. Broil, in a very hot oven, for ten or twelve minutes. This is delicious, served with fried bananas.

So much for never seeing another meat-fruit-sugar recipe….I guess I forgot about ham. I guess it is OK with ham. Cranberry sauce is also fine with turkey. And in Belgium once we had roast wild boar with some sort of berry sauce. There was a cooked pear half on the plate too. And I liked that. So let’s just say: meat plus sugar must not – under any circumstances, and I mean even if you have, oh, say, a really nice Bundt pan - equal cake.

Rawleigh’s Coconut Cream Pie

The W.T.Rawleigh Co. Ltd. was based in Montreal and Winnipeg and made a wide range of cooking and household products, roughly similar to the Watkins Company in Minnesota. They made medicines, spices, dessert mixes, artifical sweetener, food coloring, makeup – you anme it, they probably made it or something close.

The ad and recipe are from their 1959 almanac, which has lots of terrific full-page color ads for their products. In fact the almanac is mostly ads, which is great because I love old advertisements. I especially like the product packaging. Rawleigh’s give their medicines brilliant names like “Pleasant Relief” and Anti-Pain Oil.” Who wouldn’t line up to buy some of that? Just what I need after a long day!

And here’s another thing you and I might need: dessert mix. That’s right. Because you never know when hungry guests and ravenous school children are going to come marauding around, looking for pie! (Hopefully not at the same time, of course).

In the ad above, Rawleigh’s is pushing their pie-fillings-slash-puddings. They want you to serve them after meals and also as an after school snack (not the healthiest thing, but I guess it is 1959 and sugar= good energy).  I love how they urge you to keep a few on hand all the time “for regular and emergency use” – as if there was going to be some kind of pudding emergency cropping up, maybe after school. Or maybe you forgot to make something for your guests. And that will make them cranky. Low blood sugar is like that. So keep everyone happy with Rawleigh’s dessert mixes. And not to worry; this pie won’t take long to whip up.

Coconut Cream Pie

Vanilla wafers, crushed…..30

Brown sugar…..3 Tbs

Butter, melted…..1/3 cup

Semi-sweet chocolate pieces…..1 pkg

Rawleigh’s Coconut Pie Filling…..1 pkg

Rawleigh’s Vanilla…..1 tsp

Whipping cream, whipped

To make crust, mix wafer crumbs, brown sugar and butter together. Shape and press into a 9-inch pie plate. Place one half of chocolate pieces over sides and bottom of crust. Bake in 325 F oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool. make coconut filling according to directions on container, add 1 tsp. vanilla. Cool. Pour into crust. Cover top with sweetened whipped cream, flavored with vanilla. Sprinkle remaining chocolate pieces over top. Chill until ready to serve. Serves 6.

This sounds a lot like a Mounds bar, which is a great idea. The Mounds bar was created in 1920 by the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Co. in Connecticut, which you can read about here.