My Word with Douglas E. Welch

Historical Cooking Books – 45 in a series – New York World’s Fair cook book: the American kitchen by Crosby Gaige

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Preface

The association of good food and fairs is traditional in America, its roots going back to the very beginnings of the country to the first live stock fairs held in agricultural communities. At these gatherings of the farming and village gentry there was a seemly display of American food on the hoof, in the raw so to speak. Fine hogs, little lambs that went baa-a, handsome cattle, proud and dignified, chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys, prize pumpkins, rosy apples, superb cabbages — shown, to be sure, not so much as prospective edibles to the admiring throng gath ered around them, but as examples of what the well-stocked farm should have as starters. Progenitors of a nation’s food supply were these displays. Incidentally some of the best things ever eaten by man were carried to these fairs in the basket lunches of the farm wives and vil lagers of the day.

From crossroads fairs we progressed to county and state fairs, and now in 1939 comes the greatest fair the land has ever known — an inter national exhibition representative of every industry and art in our broad continent and reflecting at the same time the arts and industries of nearly every country of the rest of the world.

Now since the character of our fairs has been expanded so widely there, nevertheless, is still an occasion for food to be discussed in rela tion to such an event. I doubt if there will be many basket lunches carried to the New York World’s Fair of 1939. Certainly there will be no need for such burdens, no matter how savory the contents, be cause to feed the hungry thousands who will attend there are distin guished restaurants set up, staffed and operated by foreign exhibitors, with their native dishes superbly cooked by native chefs. And of course, in addition, there will be many American restaurants on the grounds of the New York fair, not to mention the several thousands of tearooms, restaurants, hotel dining rooms and cafes of Manhattan which always function and which will be especially on their toes to appeal to the vis itors of the fair. Basket luncheons indeed!

Just the same, this occasion calls to mind those old-time baskets over flowing with the delicious simples of our early kitchens. And to those good housewives of bygone days whose arts of the kitchen were the forerunners of our modern cookery, I present my gratitude. No attempt has been made in this collection to present a uniform cook book in the pattern of the standard volumes usually prepared. This is a selection of recipes from the six geographical sections of the United States ; count less delicious dishes had to be omitted from each section, for one reason or another, but it is hoped that the most typical and characteristic dishes of each are included. Or if they are so similar to famous dishes of another state, as is often the case, then to avoid repetition they are omitted and other local favorites stressed.

Here is American cookery from coast to coast, and here, too, are some of the dishes you will eat when you visit the World of Tomorrow as it is depicted by the imagination and engineering and skill of those who planned the New York World’s Fair of 1939.

March 1, 1939.

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Historical Cooking Books – 44 in a series –  The London art of cookery and housekeeper’s complete assistant : on a new plan, made plain and easy to the understanding of every housekeeper, cook, and servant in the kingdom : containing proper directions for the choice of all kinds of provisions, instructions for trussing poultry, roasting and boiling all sorts of butchers meat, poultry, game, and fish, baking, broiling and frying sauces for every occasion, soups, broths, stews, and hashes, ragoos and fricassees, made dishes, both plain and elegant, all sorts of pies and puddings, pancakes and fritters, proper instructions for dressing fruits and vegetables, pickling, potting, and preserving, the preparation of hams, tongues, and bacon, to keep garden stuffs and fruits in perfection, the whole art of confectionary, the preparation of sugars, tarts, puffs, and pasties , cakes, custards, jams, and jellies, drying, candying, and preserving fruits, &c. elegant ornaments for entertainments, instructions for carving, necessary articles for sea-faring persons, made wines, cordial waters, and malt liquors : to which is added, an appendix, containing considerations on culinary poisons, directions for making broths, &c. for the sick, a list of things in season in the different months of the year, marketing tables, &c. &c. : embellished with a head of the author, and a bill of fare for every month in the year, elegantly engraved on thirteen copper-plates
by John Farley

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Historical Cooking Books – 43 in a series – Cups and their customs by George Edwin Roberts (1863)

PREPACE.

The principal object of these pages is to furnisli a collection of recipes for the brewing of com- pound drinks, technically termed ” Cups/’ all of which have been selected with the most scrupu- lous attention to the rules of gastronomy, and their virtues tested and approved by repeated trials. These we are inclined to put into type, from a belief that, if they were more generally adopted, it would be the means of getting rid of a great deal of that stereotyped drinking which at present holds sway at the festive boards of England. In doing this, we have endeavoured to simplify the matter as much as possible, adding such hints and remarks as may prove serviceable to the uninitiated, whilst we have discarded a goodly number of modern com- pounds as unpalatable and unscientific. As, in this age of progress, most things are raised to the position of a science, we see no reason why

Bacclianology (if the term please our readers) should not hold a respectable place, and be entitled to its due mead of praise ; so, by way of introduction, we have ventured to take a cursory glance at the customs which have been attached to drinking from the earliest periods to the present time. This, however, we set forth as no elaborate history, but only as an arrange- ment of such scraps as have from time to time fallen in our way, and have helped us to form ideas of the social manners of bygone times.

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Christmas Dinner Menu No. 1

FRUIT-JUICE COCKTAIL
ROAST STUFFED TURKEY, CHICKEN OR VEAL
GIBLET OR MILK GRAVY
CRANBERRY JELLY BREAD SAUCE
RICED OR MASHED POTATOES
CREAMED CAULIFLOWER BAKED SQUASH
MINCE PIE CHEESE
COFFEE
FRUIT NUTS MINTS

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THE UNTRAINED HAND.
A Study in Household Economics.
By Emma P. Ewing.

Of all the young women who have come under my instruction, as a teacher of household economics, not more than one in each twenty-five could sweep properly. And, as far as my observation extends, along domestic lines, this ratio will hold about the same in regard to women generally. As a rule, women, old or young, do not know how to hold a broom. When a woman takes hold of a broom, she places the right hand near the top of the handle and the left hand toward the broomcorn ; and, instead of changing and reversing her hands, as occasion requires, she keeps them in the same position during the entire time she is engaged in sweeping. Whether she sweeps to the right or to the left, the position of her hands remains unchanged, and her body is contorted and her muscles strained in a performance that would exercise those organs beneficially, if the hands were so trained that they could be used at will, and were changed as the changes in the position of the sweeper demanded.

 

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