What's normal? Depends

Local paper gave a snapshot of life in 1917

Old newspapers are great sources for discovering how people lived day-to-day in earlier eras. I picked a random date in the online newspaper archives hosted by the Volusia County Public Library to see what was going on: the March 16, 1917 edition of the Volusia County Record, "The People's Paper."

World War I was raging but the United States hadn't yet entered the conflict. (It would, less than a month later.) War news from abroad shared space with local updates about actions taken by the school board, county commission, and city commission. The latter two were heavily focused on roads and transportation.

Gems relating to domestic life were clustered on the then-called Women's Pages. They help us figure out, a century later, what was considered normal then. Almost all papers at the time had women's sections. They included tidbits about who was visiting whom, who'd vacationed and where, and who was recovering from illness. News about club meetings, gatherings, and outings shared one similarity that's long gone from society. Sewing, knitting, and other handwork was a regular feature of women's daytime get-togethers, no matter what else was on the agenda.

"Hints for the Seamstress" was one feature on the Women's Pages in the 1917 paper I reviewed. The hints, along with a handful of other items, were grouped under the heading of "What Women Like to Know."

If you'd like to know, here are the sewing hints:

• sit with both feet on the floor
• make sure light comes over the left shoulder
• don't let bright daylight splash onto the work itself
• avoid pinning work to the table or one's clothes
• keep a small tin of talcum powder within reach, and dust hands to keep the sewing work clean
• use the proper length of sewing thread - measure from shoulder to shoulder or from fingertip to elbow

I was a bit perplexed by the comments about avoiding bright sunlight and avoiding pinning the table or one's own clothes. But I was more befuddled by the next item the editors decided a woman would like to know: the ingredients of a sweeping compound.

Did women in 1917 wash floors less frequently than we do today? Why would you need a dry sweeping compound instead of a simple broom and dustpan? Especially a compound made from the following recipe:

Melt two ounces of paraffin wax and two quarts of paraffin oil over boiling water. Add six ounces of salt, five pounds clean sand, ten pounds sawdust and two ounces of oil of eucalyptus.

Where would you even store 15 pounds of sweeping compound? Closets were premium space in that era. Few people - at least not regular folk - had supply closets. 

Fewer still had walk-in closets, or whole rooms, in which to store clothing like the dress featured in the newspaper that day. It was strictly for "women with youthful figures," which actually meant young women. Age-appropriate attire was a way of life in 1917.

The dress shown in the newspaper photo was dubbed an afternoon frock. It was of navy silk jersey with a shawl collar and hand embroidery on the pockets. A row of buttons ran from waist to hem, which was ankle length. The frock's silk-fringe belt was considered a sign of spring.

It was definitely a dress best suited for a woman of slim build. She likely wouldn't have  guzzled the mulled cider made from the newspaper's recipe. The cook was directed to add "sufficient sugar" to three beaten eggs, then to slowly add boiled cider to the mixture. After stirring briskly, the whole mess went back into a saucepan to be heated almost to boiling. Then it was to be poured into serving glasses and dusted with nutmeg.

I can't get past the idea of combining eggs and cider for a mulled drink. To me, mulled cider is spiked with a hint of liquor. Or at least with wine. Which I might soon need after imagining what they were drinking in 1917.

Sweet recipe for sweet potatoes

Easy to make and tasty to eat! This was made
from the adapted recipe, using homegrown
sweet potatoes. (Gerri Bauer photo)

(If you're here for the recipe and not the blog post, skip right down to the end of the post!)

Recently, I read that some Hastings, Florida, potato-chip farmers are diversifying into sweet potatoes. The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences article called the tubers a re-emerging crop. I never realized sweet potatoes had vanished from the state's farms. A weevil caused the industry's demise about 30 years ago.

The crop was a standard item during pioneer years. One old history book talks of a famous "Forty to a Hill" sweet potato venture established commercially in Alachua County in 1891. Specifically, in tiny Waldo, which has a population today of about 1,000.

I didn't quite get 40 sweet potatoes out of the one I planted last spring, but it was a healthy harvest. The taters were tender and yummy, and cultivation was minimal. Actually, I was kind of surprised at the result. My husband and I were experimenting when we planted one potato in an old recycling bucket filled with a mix of oak leaves and pine straw. We did little except incorporate organic fertilizer into the soil-less mix when planting, and then water during dry spells.

Ease of cultivation helped make the tasty tuber a nutritional staple for pioneer settlers. In a letter to the Florida Agriculturist newspaper in 1892, one poor newcomer to the state bemoaned that "I am so tender that I even don't know how to grow sweet potatoes." He was ashamed to admit it.

The editors obliged him with cultivation information. But the advice included a suggestion to add tobacco stems to the soil to provide potash. Wonder how that worked out. Elsewhere in the same issue another reader wrote that sweet potatoes cost 70 to 80 cents a bushel that year.

After our big harvest, we let the tubers cure for a couple of weeks and started to feast on them - plain except for butter added to the cooked potatoes. But who can resist sweeter sweet potatoes during the holidays? For Christmas dinner, I made Orange Sweet Potatoes that were a big hit. The preparation is super simple.

My recipe is adapted from one by a cook named Elsa Wiedemann. Hers is featured in Treasured Recipes, the 1983 cookbook published by the Guild of the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach.

The differences from the original recipe is my addition of maple syrup when reheating, and one change in preparation. If you cook the dish the night before, the sauce thickens on its own in the refrigerator overnight. It stays nice and creamy when reheated. (The original recipe calls for the sauce to be boiled down to a thick consistency on the stovetop after the potatoes are cooked and removed.)

If you think about it, either version could easily have been made by a pioneer Florida cook. Except she or he likely would have used cane syrup as the sweetener.

You don't need to wait until a holiday to make this. Enjoy!

ORANGE SWEET POTATOES WITH MAPLE SYRUP
4 medium sweet potatoes
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup butter
Dash salt
1/3 cup real maple syrup, or more to taste

Pare the sweet potatoes, slice thickly, and place in saucepan. Add all other ingredients except the maple syrup. Bring to a boil and let simmer until potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes. Remove from heat. Cool and store in microwaveable container. Chill overnight in refrigerator. Before reheating, stir in the maple syrup. Reheat and serve.

Here's the original recipe if you'd like to try it, too.

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Chocolate: sweet in any century

Illustration in The Chocolate-Plant is credited
to "an old engraving." The image depicts the
flowers, fruit and seeds of the chocolate plant.

February brings Valentine's Day, which brings chocolate. Yum.

Chocolate fandom surpasses century boundaries. I can imagine a character in one of my novels reading  The Chocolate-Plant (Theobroma cacao) and Its Products, an 1891 book similar to modern publications that trace a culinary product's history from the days of antiquity.

 

Author Mrs. Ellen H. Richards also provides "suggestions relative to the cooking of chocolate and cocoa." Of course, I flipped right to that section. Flipped digitally, I should say. I've discovered a wonderful world of digitized public-domain cookbooks on various library and other websites.

The "receipt" for Chocolate Ice Cream in The Chocolate-Plant is so complex I got tired just reading it. And I like to bake and make sweets. 

Chocolate was often a treat and a luxury for pioneers on a frontier. That might account for a 19th century cook's willingness to follow an intricate recipe. 

Here is the recipe, for historical interest only. I haven't tried it and don't vouch for it. Especially because the instructions assume the cook is using a wood-burning stove.

CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM

For about two quarts and a half of cream use a pint and a half of milk, a quart of thin cream, two cupfuls of sugar, two ounces of No. 1 chocolate, two eggs and two heaping tablespoonfuls of flour.

Put the milk on to boil in the double-boiler. Put the flour and one cupful of the sugar in a bowl; add the eggs, and beat the mixture until light. Stir this into the boiling milk and cook for twenty minutes, stirring often.

Scrape the chocolate and put it in a small saucepan. Add four tablespoonfuls of sugar (which should be taken from the second cupful) and two tablespoonfuls of hot water. Stir over a hot fire until smooth and glossy. Add this to the cooking mixture.  

When the preparation has cooked for twenty minutes take it from the fire and add the remainder of the sugar and the cream, which should be gradually beaten into the hot mixture. Set away to cool, and when cold, freeze.  

The Chocolate-Plant, published by Walter Baker and Co. of Massachusetts, is the second version of an earlier release. A publisher's note indicates the first one was so warmly received it was expanded and reissued. 

The book is a fun read. I recommend browsing through it while munching on a chocolate bar. Which, by the way, cost 2 cents to buy in 1908. (Thanks, Food Timeline, for that factoid.)