Easy Fried Apples

Back in the vintage era people were enamored with apples.  It shows in all the vintage cookbooks I have since there are so many apple based recipes.  It makes sense however since no fruit stores better than an apple.  They get a bit sandy textured when they have been barreled which makes them unsuitable for eating out of hand, but they are still perfectly usable in recipes.  This was one I did with some BBQ pork chops awhile ago and is quite easy to prepare.



Fried Apples

Organic Granny Smith Apples, 1 per person
Lemon Juice
Brown Sugar
Unsalted Butter

Wash and core (and peel if desired) the apples.  Slice into slices 1/4" thick and sprinkle with lemon juice.  Dip each slice into brown sugar an place on a plate.  Heat frying pan on medium heat and add 1T butter.  When butter is hot place apple slices in pan and fry about 2-3 mins a side.  The sugar will come off and form a caramel sauce so don't let it burn, lowering heat as necessary.  When serving drizzle some sauce over the cooked apple slices.

The Vintage Diet, An Update

Many moons ago I sat down and dreamed up The Vintage Diet, a way to get back to basics with our eating and perhaps even lose a little weight in the process.  I wrote about it in 2 posts ("Why Am I Fat" & "The Vintage Diet: A Prequel") but then I never wrote about it again.  In truth, I did about 3 months of research on myself and my family with recipes and even posted menu plans every week on the Blog's Facebook Page but then I had to give it up and go to Alaska to work.  So what really happened during those 3 months that I was more or less following vintage recipes and trying to coalesce my ideas into what would become the Vintage Diet?  Well I started off at 360lbs and in 3 months lost weight to about 348lbs.  Alaska was my undoing though as the food was the worst I have ever experienced in my 5 years of working up there and I was backed into a corner, eat junk food or starve.  I ate junk food and with the unpalatable result of bouncing back to 360lbs by the end of the season.

But a funny thing happened after I got home.  Usually I balloon up in weight  because of the reduction in activity and general overeating because I'm happy to get back to the land of real food.  This time however I went more or less back to the Vintage Diet and my weight held the same as before, 360.  There wasn't much I could do to expand on the diet as I was busy with, well life.  Then I got a full time job at a grocery store in the produce department and everything changed.

The place I work at is not a natural foods store but they are upscale so they carry much in the way of organic produce and items.  With my discount it knocks the price down to comparable levels with conventional produce and I was able to experiment with organic food or what our grandparents would have just called food.  It's funny how all these years the food supply has become increasingly compromised to the point that we have to buy organic just to get the food our grandparents would have had but I digress.

I was able to pick up on the Vintage Diet again maybe 75% of the time and began to lose weight.  Keep in mind I do anywhere from 10,000 to 18,000 steps per day at work so that is significant contribution to my weight loss but it's not like I have to go to the gym and kill myself 3 times a week just to lose weight, and lose weight I have.  In 3 months I am down to 328 from 360 a loss of 32lbs.  I am hitting some resistance at the 328 mark but I have faith that in time I will break through to continue losing weight.  I recently acquired some vintage cookbooks that really give me insight into how people at back in the vintage era and will perhaps allow me to put the final touches on the Vintage Diet.

Creole Remulade Sauce

 

I've been doing some housekeeping on the Facebook Page for The Vintage Recipe Blog and in looking at the notes section I found a few recipes that I had posted there in order to cross merchandise the Facebook Page for the blog so to speak.   It's mostly sauce recipes but I feel they need a home here on the blog. 

First up is Remulade Sauce, a Creole version of Tartar Sauce but in reality it's an unfair comparison since Remulade is so much better.  It can be served with most seafoods or used as a condiment for Fried Green Tomatoes. 

Remulade Sauce

3/4C Dukes Mayonnaise
3 Cornichons Chopped Fine
1T Chopped Capers
1T Lemon Juice
1T Guldens Mustard
2tsp Finely Minced Fresh Parsley
1/4tsp Tarragon, minced fine (optional)
2 Dashes Tabasco
1tsp Paprika
pinch of salt

Stir well and refrigerate 1 hour.

The Story of the Guitar

My wife is guest writing today...

If you have been following my blog since I started writing it (Everyday Fish Philippines), you will of course know I am from the Philippines.  What you may not know is music is the lifeblood of the Filipino.  We live and breathe music, we romance each other with music it is in our very soul.  Most Filipinos can play a musical instrument, being a banjo, ukelele, or an instrument familiar to a native tribe, but the ultimate is the classical Spanish Guitar.  Playing a guitar evokes images of gentleman wooing their sweethearts in the tradition of the Ligaw (courting).  I had always wanted to buy a guitar but it was too expensive for us to afford.

My father with my guitar in the Philippines.

Until I met my husband.  When we were courting he took us on a trip to Cebu and while there we went to Mactan Island he bought me a classical Spanish Guitar.  The guitars of Mactan are as good as Benedetto guitars.  It was at that point that I discovered that learning how to play a guitar is hard, especially getting it in tune. Maybe if I had protools at Musician's friend I'd be able to do it easier.  I did eventually learn some simple things with the guitar but it was my brother who really excelled in learning how to play.  When he was over our house he would sit endless hours just strumming the strings and learning songs.  Now that I am in the USA with my husband, I left the guitar with my brother, but I rather miss it now and wish that I had brought it along with me.  I also love playing drums but I'm not as good as my brother, how I wish I have the talent for that too.  

The Old Is New Again

I had a blip on the radar the other day that I ignored much to my detriment.  My old computer had been acting weird for a week or so but I had just chalked it up to it's advanced age.  Then the unthinkable happens and the computer just died.  Seeing as it was using older hard drives I lost pretty much everything to do with the blog, including the pictures and old ads I had collected.  Well I'm back up and running with a middle age laptop until I can get something better but in the meantime it means I have a clean slate to work with as far as the blog goes.  I know I don't write nearly as much as I used to, it goes along with having a full time job now.  Having the job has been a positive experience even if I had to shelve the blog for a few months while I was training.  The biggest thing I have taken away from working at an upscale grocer is my love and newfound depth of understanding pertaining to organic foods.  I started with experimenting with organic and now it's a full on passion.  I don't go crazy with it, insisting that all things be organic but if the option is available I certainly take it.

Monsanto: Poisoning You Since 1943 (At Least)

This ad was a gem of a find because all the previous Monsanto Ads that I have found dealt with the manufacture of Bakelite.  This was the first ad I could find that dealt with food and I can only imagine that Monsanto took up the mantle of of chemical food production as a part of the war effort.  Unfortunately this set them on the path to eventually making the GMO foods that people are only just now waking up to.  The artwork is the typical goofy chef guy throwing a pinch of something in a pot, it's only after you read the ad that you discover what an unhealthy substance this is.  Honestly the look on his face is disconcerting, like he's trying to hold in a fart or something.  Also, heath departments were rather lax in the vintage era because the cigarette over the ear would never pass muster today.

Swift Ham, It's the Ovenized Kind!

I'm not so sure about this ovenized ham.  Is this anything like parkerizing or vulcanizing?  Sounds like my ham is going to be given an indestructible plastic surface.  Better yet no parboiling is needed!  This ad makes little sense unless you know a little food history.  Prior to this time, hams were "country style" in that they were salted and cured in a smokehouse yielding a very salty, dry ham.  You had to soak the ham in simmering water (parboiling) to basically reconstitute it and remove the excess salt before you could eat it.  The ham in this ad however is ovenized which was Swifts early name for a ham being smokehouse cooked after watercuring.  It's exactly how hams are treated today before sale unless you buy country ham or Virginia ham.  Of course hams don't have that lovely rind of fat anymore thanks to the prevalent anti-fat mood championed by the food Nazis.  The cooking instructions on the bottom right suggest serving with spicy cauliflower.  What is spicy cauliflower you might ask?  I'm glad you did because apparently it's cauliflower topped with tartar sauce.  Oh my we're really in the culinary fast lane now, maybe next month we can try 1 drop of Tabasco in a soup?  Maybe after eating all that spicy cauliflower mom and dad will feel a little frisky and do it with the lights on.

Hearty Corn Chowder Recipe

There's quite a few recipes out there for corn chowder and in the main I think they're just bland.  This recipe is based on couple of the more interesting ones I've found with a few added twists all my own.  While not exactly vintage, corn chowder has been around since at least the 1800's.  What sets my recipe apart is the use of organic and fresh ingredients as opposed to frozen or canned.

Hearty Corn Chowder

4 Slices Smoked Bacon, Chopped
1lb Fresh Spicy Italian Sausage (about 2 links)
1 Large Organic White Onion, Diced
1 Red or Orange Bell Pepper, Diced
3 Cloves Organic Garlic, Minced
5 Ears Bi-Color Corn, Strip kernels from cob with knife
2C Chicken Stock
2C Whole Organic Valley Milk
1/4C Flour
1/2tsp Sage
1tsp Salt
1/2tsp Pepper
1/2tsp Smoked Sweet Paprika
Organic Green Onions for garnishing
Aged White Cheddar (Optional)

Prep all ingredients then in a heavy bottom 6qt pot heat on stove over med-high heat.  Cook chopped bacon until crisp then remove with slotted spoon reserving fat in pot.  Add corn kernels and saute until slightly browned.  Remove sausage from casings and add to corn, breaking up with spoon.  Fry until browned then add Pepper, Onions, Garlic and all spices.  Cook about 5 mins until onions are translucent.  Sprinkle with flour and cook a few minutes more stirring constantly.  Add in chicken stock and stir well then add milk.  Reduce heat and simmer uncovered 20 minutes until thick.  Serve in bowls topped with bacon pieces, sliced green onion and if desired, some grated aged white cheddar.

Note:  For the Italian sausage try to get it at a butchers like The Fresh Market or another reputable dealer.  Standard Italian Sausage sold in the grocery store is of questionable quality.

Antonio y Cleopatra Cigars

In the wide wide world of drugstore cigars Antonio y Cleopatra is unquestionably one of the better ones available.  Yes it's a machine made cigar but with a pedigree stretching back to the founding of the company in 1879.  Originally handmade in Cuba they were forced to move like so many other cigar makers after Castro's nationalization of the cigar industry.  Today they are made in Cayay, Puerto Rico and still are a great value in the wilds of the brands available in drugstores.  Certainly easier to find than cheap avo cigars.

Seal of Approval

I recently came across the Bon Appetit website and their list of products that bear their seal of approval.  It's an interesting list, somewhat grand in it's scale and almost an exercise in hubris if you take into account the $5.99 can of tuna that they are suggesting.  Here at the Vintage Recipe Blog while we shoot for flavor, texture and overall roundness of the the products we use, I have 2 more things to add to the criteria.  The product used must be made with a minimum of chemical ingredients ( no high fructose corn syrup or msg) and be cost effective.  Based on these added criterion, I'd say BA missed the mark on a couple of their products.

The full Seal of Approval list can be found here so let's look at a couple of the items I have issues with:

1) Heinz Ketchup - While I know Heinz is a mainstay company that's been around for ages, I simply cannot recommend a product containing High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Heinz does have a Natural variety and an full organic as well but for the price I'd go for Hunts ketchup or The Fresh Market Organic both of which are cheaper.

2) Hellman's Mayonaise - Let's face it, if you're in the South, Hellman's is not your mayo of choice, that being reserved for Duke's or CF Sauer brand (both are made by the same company and are indistinguishable in taste).  If you can find either brand give it a try and you'll be amazed at the real mayonnaise flavor they have compared to the modern incarnation of Hellman's that just tastes flat and greasy in my opinion.

3) Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese - Ditch this mass produced garbage and grab a package of The Fresh Market neufchatel cheese or Organic Valley Cream Cheese both are light years better than anything Kraft puts out.

There was one thing that surprised me, Goya made the list twice.  I've long been a fan of their canned beans because they're lower in sodium and taste awesome and the last time I had need of Coconut Milk in a recipe I used Goya rather than the standard Asian canned variety and was most pleasantly pleased with the results.

On the rest of the items I really agree with their choices, they did a fantastic job of echoing my own choices and despite a couple of items that I question their judgement I really am pleased with their decision.  Perhaps I should do my own seal of approval and start my own trend in ingredient recommendations.

New Apartment, New Job, New Life

I know it has been since the edge of forever that I wrote an article for the blog and for that I apologize.  It seems my life quickly entered one of those transitional periods where everything seems to change at the same time and it left me with no time for the blog.  First I was able to get a full time job with The Fresh Market which was a major boon, then my wife and I finally succeeded in finding a great apartment downtown.  It's over a 3 car garage which gives me a place to park the car and the apartment itself is just cool.  Built in 1941 it has a great vintage feel from the original stained wood windows to the wood floors throughout.  So now on top of working full time, I was working towards moving.  After moving we settled in and all too soon we were heading towards Thanksgiving.  Now that is over I feel that things will loosen up to the point where I can start writing again finally.  I have never given up on the blog, just lost sight of it for awhile and ever since the web site creation I knew I was on to something good so I'm not about to let it go even if I slack from time to time.  Don't worry, I'll be back soon...

FL Citrus Exchange

prepaid credit card for kid

At the time this ad was published, 1912, Florida was still trying to recover from the devastating freezes of 1894-95 and 1899.  The 94 freeze was bad enough but growers were just starting to recover when the devastating freeze of 1899 came.  It led to a precipitous decline in fruits from Florida and paved the way for California to lead the way on fruit production. Naturally when Florida got back on it's feet, it needed a marketing angle to recapture market share.  Hence this ad from the Florida Citrus Exchange.  It purports that Florida fruits are never touched by human hands, all workers wearing white gloves.  Just what I wanted, my fruit being given the white glove treatment.  I'm fairly sure bulging crates weren't the norm either, we wanted oranges not orange juice.

It's Gingervating

Yes little Billy is wound up before bedtime, bouncing off the walls and sliding down the banisters whist mom and dad look on with the same indulgent look I see on some parent's faces today while their kids tear through the place with enough destructive force to make Genghis Khan blush.  So by all means what the boy really needs now is sugary soda to give him even more impetus to go haywire.  Good grief woman give him some chamomile tea instead!

Congoleum Carpet

sanctuary furniture

Evidently Sally is not extravagant, not since it became known that she only paid $16.20 for this superb new Congoleum carpet.  This ad is from 1922 and Congoleum made some very artistic ads from the 20's through the 30's showcasing their linoleum carpets.  The carpets themselves are basically just a large sheet of linoleum with fabulous designs printed on them.  Naturally these carpets were quite popular in the South where a standard wool carpet would have been too warm and too much hassle to clean and maintain.  Linoleum carpets were easy to just sweep and be done with with, occasionally running a mop over them to restore the luster. 

Wordless Wednesday

St. Johns River at Riverside Jacksonville

  This was taken three weeks ago when me and my wife went to see an apartment/house in Riverside Jacksonville.  All went well and we did like the house but for whatever reason the owner of the house gave us a hard time and till right now she did not even contact us.  On the other hand the apartment was good and we like it, it was a 2 bedrooms apartment, the only problem is the window is painted shut and it floods over there because its very close to the river. 

More Salads For Dinner and a 1926 Recipe For French Dressing

Since I've been working so much lately and my usual shift has me ending my work at around 6-7pm I'm really not in the mood to go home and cook dinner.  So most days when I'm scheduled like this I'm satisfied to make a salad with some leftover chicken on it or whatever I happen to have on hand.  The prep is easy, I get to try one of the numerous lettuce mixes we sell at work along with some nice heirloom tomatoes and overall the meal is not too heavy to digest before bedtime.  One thing that I needed to do though was lighten up the salad dressings that I used.  We had been in a rut with heavy creamy dressing like ranch or blue cheese, great tasting but too many calories and too bloating before having to go to sleep.

Slowly I Turn, Inch By Inch

For the first time this year I was actually able to land a job when I returned from working in Alaska.  This is a good thing of course but working full time has it's disadvantages, namely I don't have as much free time to devote to the blog and it's driving me crazy.  Unfortunately, pursuant to this I think I'm going to have to drop down to 3-4 articles a week that I can write in my free time on one of my days off.  Days off, what a misnomer that is, it's not really a day of rest, just a day of chores and errands you can't get done on the days you're working because you're scheduled for a mid shift, the bane of retail.  I'm not complaining though, the job is good, if not hectic, and I'll be eligible for benefits after 90 days.

Beauty Without Airbrushing

Sometimes I come across some really amazing artwork for vintage ads like the one above from 1910 for Kelloggs Cornflakes.  The artist is B. Tichtman and unfortunately his information was not available online but he apparently was an artist in the style of Gibson and his famous Gibson Girls that were so popular in the early 1900's.  Tichtman was prolific in his work producing not just ads but calendars and postcards as well.

What strikes me most about this artwork is the beauty without the use of airbrush makeup that is so prevalent today... or am I dating myself there?  I think photoshop is used more often these days to make impossible beauty out of the models used.  Such things upset me because it changes societal perceptions of beauty into something that has women spending untold amounts of money in the pursuit of flawless beauty.

Kelloggs  seems to have used this ad style for only a short time and I have not seen it used by any other advertisers.  As for Mr. Tichtman, it is unfortunate that he is relegated to obscurity since his art still fetches a decent price when it comes up for auction.

A Hannibal Lecter Smile

Creepy Armour salesman guy would positively love to sell you some of his sausages, just don't ask what they're made of... really.  With that Hannibal Lecter smile would you buy processed meats off of this guy?  Apparently this was a 1917 version of an award winning smile but nowadays it's a "You're going to the funny farm smile".  From the look of the ad Armour used to be into salting, curing or canning anything they could get their hands on.  Not surprising really, it's 1917 and refrigeration was just getting off of the ground.  Everyone still used iceboxes and foods had to be preserved in a non-refrigeration manner.  Of course this also involved the copious use of salt in preservation which meant the average person consumed roughly 5x the present day RDA of sodium.  Oddly enough though, for sodium being the great bugaboo of heart attacks that the FDA says it is, I rather think people back then had them less often than is currently the case.

Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco

I love it when ads chime on about so called experts and how they are singing the praises of whatever product being offered like a barbershop quartet.  Of course these were the days before we were so cleverly informed by our government of the alleged dangers of smoking.  All of the experts today agree like lemmings that smoking damages the health, but once again who are these experts?  For the sake of the ad they were the members of the tobacco buying consortium in the South so of course they're going to sing the praises of tobacco.  Lucky Strike differentiated themselves from the other cigarettes of the time period because they were made of 100% toasted burley tobacco rather than flue cured virginia.  What does this mean in laymans terms?  Burley has nutter slightly cocoa taste and a heavier nicotine kick while virginia tobacco is lighter and grassier with a new mown hay smell.  Before you ask, I know all this from being a pipe smoker and having smoked both types of tobacco in their purest forms. 

Belated Birthday Post

Yesterday evening I posted to the blog's Facebook Page that it was the one year anniversary of the Vintage Recipe Blog.  Honestly I've been so busy with "life" lately that I almost forgot about it.  I never cease to be amazed at how far we have some in just one year.  I've been able to post 225 articles that received 238 comments and had 48,000+ pageviews.  This is just the beginning though.  I plan on a re design of the blog in the next week or so (hopefully) and I'm going to expand out the subject matter that I deal with.  Of course I'll still post about the vintage ads and recipes but I want to go more in depth into what it is truly like to live "vintage".  It's gone from an interest to a hobby to almost an experiment.

The experiment part is what intrigues me most.  I had fun following a blog called "365 Days of A" where the guy did an experiment to see if an old Ford Model A car could be used as an everyday driver today.  His ups and downs were entertaining to follow and at the end of the experiment he did indeed prove that the old Model A's could stand up to modern driving conditions.  I've been interested in taking it a step further.  Maybe some of you remember the PBS mini Series "1900 House", well I could do it as an experiment on 1932-33 living, wearing the clothes they would have worn, eating (generally) the food they would have eaten and giving up on modern fripperies like the television.  Of course I have to stay with the internet, but only for the purposes of writing articles for the blog and doing research.  I'm just in the formative stages of such an endeavor, I'd like to hear from you, your thoughts on the matter.  Someone has started calling me "Mr. Vintage" on the Facebook page and I think with this experiment I could truly earn the title.

Cincinnati "Skyline" Style Chili

I've been wanting to write about this recipe for a long time now but of course life has gotten in the way and I've been reduced to a full week of "Bisy Bakson" syndrome (read the "Tao of  Pooh" if you want to know what I'm talking about, I highly recommend it.)  I became familiar with Skyline Chili when I was passing through Cincinnati years ago as part of a work related conference.  It's an interesting take on chili as it involves no beans in the recipe like we're used to with the Tex-Mex style chili's.  Invented by Nicholas Lambrinides in 1949 and so named because he could see the Cincinnati Skyline outside of his first restaurant, it incorporates spices and flavors he learned from watching his family cook back in Kastoria, Greece.¹  When done right, the spices meld together in a intense dance of flavor on your tongue.  While the original recipe remains a secret, I have been able to piece together what I feel is the closest recipe to the original.  Dad, who is also very familiar with Skyline Chili, gave it two thumbs up.

Refreshing Welch's Grape Juice

Ah 1924, unless you went to a speakeasy you couldn't get beer and wine anymore so what was the younger generation to do for fun?  Drink Welch's grape juice of course!  The savvy hostess, in serving Welch's was "sharing one of Mother Nature's oldest secrets of hospitality."  Funny, I figured that secret was the product derived after the fermentation of grape juice.  Oh well, it was the Prohibition era and advertisers had to be politically correct, even back then.

Captain Obvious Ad Company

Apparently beans are only baked if the label says "baked" on it.  Who knew?  All this time I was shelling out the lettuce to buy cans of garbanzo beans and they're not baked, only canned.  This ad was clearly brought to you by the Captain Obvious Ad Co since I think an old yokel would be able to tell the difference between canned beans and baked beans... but one never knows.  People must have been lining around the corner to  thank Heinz for saving us from those nasty unbaked boiled beans in a can that everyone else was selling.  Apparently baking made all the difference in the final product as it was more "digestible".

Back From Alaska

Salmon Cannery (Nushagak?) c.1935

Well it was a long 3 months while I was away for work but I'm finally back home with my family.  For those of you who are new to my blog, I've been working at a Salmon cannery in Dillingham, Ak for 5 years now as the Head Night Watchman.  It's an interesting job and I get to meet many new people from around the world, until this year that is.  The Government decided to end the J1 visa program which allowed foreign college students to come to the US to work in the Summertime.  This meant we had American college students in their place and as the night watchman I was run ragged with all their drunken boobery. 

So where do we go from here?  Obviously I'm taking some time to be with my family before I immerse myself fully back into the blog.  When I do start writing again I'll go back to the format of vintage ads mon, wed, fri and recipes tue & thu.  Saturdays are freeform and Sundays are my day off to go to church.  I am still amazed at how far this blog has come in less than a year and even more heartwarmed that I still get readers even though the blog went inactive while I was in Alaska.  Thank you all for sticking around, we'll be back with our regularly scheduled programming shortly.

Haluska, Hungarian Cabbage & Egg Noodles

Because of my Hungarian ancestry, I am of course fascinated with Hungarian cuisine.  Real Hungarian cuisine not the bastardized recipes that most Americans are familiar with.  Hungarians, it is said, have more ways to prepare cabbage than any other ethnic group from Eastern Europe and more incredibly, none of those ways involves boiling the cabbage.  Hungarians are strictly against boiled cabbage because it destroys the wonderful flavor and texture of this lowly vegetable.  Most Americans are familiar with the slimy cabbage that is procured on St. Patrick's Day, but a whole new world awaits and you may grow to love cabbage if you give it a try Hungarian style.  Previously I posted my recipe for Hungarian Coleslaw but here we have a hot dish that is light, packed with vitamins and full of great flavor.

Mock Tenderloins

Depression era cooking is a fascinating aspect of vintage recipes.  Much of the recipes that have survived are frugal recipes that cook for a family using very little money yet still striving to stay healthy.  The others are what I call "make do" recipes that are often in imitation of something that would have been more expensive.  Such austere recipes were often tasty in their own right, even if they fell short of what they were trying to imitate.  Here is one such recipe, mock tenderloins of course are a frugal replacement for true tenderloin that would have hit the purse hard for someone not making as much as before.  This recipe comes from 1930 or 31 and luxuries such as this would be fondly remembered after '32 when the depression was at it's worst.  Today we are locked in the Great Recession, sugarcoating what is otherwise a repeat of the last great depression.  We've much to learn from these frugal recipes of yesteryear since they are every bit as cost effective now as the were then.

The Pervy Sages Come Home to Roost

Between 2007 and 2010 I lived in Philippines, only leaving to work Summers in Alaska.  While there we borrowed the term pervy sage from the Naruto television series and applied it to any number of gross old foreigners who come to the Philippines to play around with the young (18-20 year old) girls.¹  Now that I've laid that out you can understand the application of pervey sage to the men in the ad above, especially the one on the left who seems quite fascinated with Psyche's bared breasts. There's actually an interesting story as to how this particular artwork became the trademark of White Rock spring water.

Kraft, Good "eatin' cheeses"

I'm not really sure why this ad has eatin' cheeses in parenthesis but usually that's the mark of a word that doesn't really mean what you think it does.  If I say cheese I'm talking of fermented milk that's cooked and makes lovely assortment of dairy products.  If I say "cheese" I might be talking about cheez whiz, 10% cheese, 90% whiz, i.e. a product that contains the name cheese but is anything but the real deal.  So when Kraft describes their cheeses as good "eatin' cheeses" I can only assume they are poking fun at the fact that they sell cheese like substance.  Well now, I think for the purposes of this ad that what Kraft used to produce and/or import was actually real cheese.

Not Everything is Better With Jell-o

In the 1950's Americans were so concerned with the threat of nuclear war that they saw fit to make even the food blast proof.  Jell-o answered the call and millions of housewives soon learned to encase their food in a Jell-o forcefield capable of withstanding the most punishing nuclear blasts.  Husbands soon tired of the Jell-o mania and started throwing the gelatinous concoctions out of house windows giving rise to a new UFO hysteria as innocent bystanders witnessed the unidentified flying dinners soaring across the sky.  By the early 1960's the Jell-o mania had subsided in favor of real dinners that did not need to be incarcerated in ground up hooves.

Carnegie Deli Cheesecake Recipe & Review

I made this back when we had some family coming into town to visit.  The Carnegie Deli has been open since 1937 on 55th St. in New York City and quite possibly lays claim to the true, original New York Style Cheesecake.  This is quite different from any other cheesecake recipe out there.  Gone is the graham cracker crust and heavy consistency, this is a light citrusy  cheesecake that will leave you in a state of bliss.  Before we go into the recipe I will warn you just like the Carnegie Deli site does, it may take you a couple times to get this recipe right.  It's very complicated for the home cook, used to opening a box and adding eggs and oil to make a cake.  I say this not to dissuade you from trying it because in great risk there is great reward.  I got it right the first time and you can too if you follow the directions.  Make this the day before you need it, it really needs a day to mature in the refrigerator before you serve it. 

Carnegie Deli Cheesecake

Cookie Crust
1cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/4 - inch bits

Crust:
1. To make the crust, place the flour, sugar, grated lemon rind, vanilla extract, egg yolk, and butter in a large mixing bowl. With your fingertips, rub the ingredients together until they are well mixed and can be gathered into a ball. Dust with a little flour, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

2. Butter and flour the bottom of a 9 inch X 2 inch spring-form pan, roll out a piece of dough to cover bottom. Dough should be as thick as for a normal sugar cookie (1/4 inch) Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven to a light brown color. Cool the pan and bottom. Butter the sides of the pan. Roll out and line the sides of the pan with more of the cookie dough. Trim excess dough from the edges. 

Cheese Filling

1 1/4 pounds softened cream cheese
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon flour
1 1/2 teaspoons Lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Filling:
To make the filling, place the cream cheese in a large mixing bowl and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until it is creamy and smooth (use a mixer at low speed, you don't want to incorporate air into the mix). Beat in the sugar, a few tablespoons at a time, and, when it is well incorporated, beat in the flour, lemon, vanilla, eggs and egg yolk and heavy cream. No lumps please!

Baking Step One:
Preheat the oven to 485-500 degrees. Oven should be hot to enhance color. Pour the filling into the cookie dough lined pan, bake in the center of the oven until a dark brown color has been achieved. The cake should also start to rise slightly. Cool for 30 minutes and set oven to 350 degrees.

Baking Step Two:
After cheesecake has cooled for 30 minutes, return the cheesecake to the oven for final baking (this procedure will set the cheesecake).

NOTE: Cheesecake is like a pudding with only eggs being used to firm the cake. When the cake is bouncy in the center and slightly risen in the middle as well as on the sides, it's finished!

Baking time at 350°F will vary (usually 25 to 40 minutes) depending on your oven.

Final Step:
Cool cheesecake in pan for at least 2 hours before trying to remove it from the pan. Refrigerate the cheesecake overnight. For best flavor, cheesecake should be served at nearly room temperature. Slice cake using a hot, wet knife; wipe blade clean between slices.

NOTE: If you overbake, the cake will crack and be too firm. If you underbake, the cake will tend to be soft in the center. 

Despite the steep learning curve of making such a complicated recipe it actually turned out excellent.  Everyone loved the texture and, yes, it's a heavy dessert but nowhere near the belly bomb that your usual cheesecake recipe is.  I will make this again and I've learned a couple things along the way that will help me make this even better than the first time (i.e. Make it the day beforehand and really use a 9" pan not a 10").

Kraft Cheese and Breasts

"Did you know it takes more than a gallon of rich milk to make 1lb of Kraft Cheese?"  It's interesting that she should say that while next to a dish that looks like a boob.  As a matter of fact the theme of this ad seems to have been breasts, perhaps a subliminal message to people reading the ad that only pure fresh milk goes into Kraft cheese.  Well that's the way it used to be anyway.  I'm not really sure what goes into kraft cheese today, but it only tastes like cheese like substance so it's probably nothing good.  The real fact is that cheese like this is quite different from Velveeta or Cheese slices that appear on store shelves today. It's a taste that most people have forgotten about, that of true American Cheese.

Bacon-ey Goodness By Swift

I wrote about this awhile back and since then found another one of these Swift ads for Bacon in a jar.  The ad tells us that there are "5 extra slices in every jar".  Swifts must have spent a fortune selling this product because I've never seen any ads for canned bacon from other producers like Armour.  It also seems to me that this bacon is not cooked, instead it is wrapped in wax paper and sealed in to be removed and cooked in an oven by the consumer.  Of more interest to me would have been pricing of canned bacon vs fresh back in the early 1900's.  Most people would have bought fresh bacon when it was needed, hence the term "Bringing home the bacon" was coined.  I know that about 30 years ago canned bacon disappeared entirely from store shelves due to increased costs and just a lack of demand in the face of improvements on refrigerators and freezers in homes.  In my research I found a company called "yoder's" that sells canned bacon.  Yoder's bacon is fully cooked and wrapped in wax paper in a standard size can and hermetically sealed.  It's rather expensive at $12/can but it's mainly marketed to the "survivalist" weirdos who seem to think they can put away enough food to live out the rest of their lives after whatever disaster their tinfoil covered brains has concocted comes to pass. 

Karo Corn Syrup

Wow, people used to get married young back in the old days... ok, not really.  This lovely ad for Karo Corn Syrup is from 1910 and coincides with an ad campaign launched by the president of corn products refining board.  He believed so fiercely in the dependable high quality and flavor of corn syrup that he spend an astonishing (for the time) $250,000 in ads for Karo corn syrup.  This ad is one of the most famous and the Karo Kids are featured again in full color on a Karo Cookbook initially released the same year.  Karo itself was invented in 1902 and name came from either the chemist that invented it who named it after his wife's nickname or was from an earlier syrup called "Kairomel" depending on who you ask.¹

A Singing Cuba Libre

Apparently in 1937 the singing cocktail was all the rage, or perhaps they were just served with all those musical notes hanging in the air over the glass.  Either way it's rather annoying to me, I like my cocktails quiet because once they start singing to me I know I've had one too many.  At least in 1937 Bacardi was still made in Cuba and had yet to become the shadow of it's former self that is the Puerto Rican incarnation available today.  Tropical was all the rage at this time and tropical drinks pairing pineapple juice and rum were just coming into their own.  Cuba itself was a popular destination for travelers as it was just a short plane or boat ride from Miami and Key West.  Of course politically speaking, Cuba was a mess.  Controlled by a dictator propped up by the Mafia and American businesses it reduced Cuba into little more than a colony of the US 90 miles south of Miami.  So it should come as no surprise when Castro came to power.

Fay Wray Wants You to Buy Dole

In 1937 there was a desire for Pineapples.  This is something that has started in the late 1800's with the original plantations being located in the Florida Keys.  By the early 1900's 2 new acquisitions would put paid to the Florida Pineapple, Hawaii and the Philippines.  Dole had previously imported Pineapples from South America but they soon laid out huge plantations in Hawaii fueled by imported Filipino laborers.  Their main competitor, Del Monte, located their plantations in the Bukidnon Province of Mindanao in the Philippines.  With the late 30's came the onset of the Tiki culture and a fascination with anything tropical.  If one had the money you could take a trip to Hawaii, Cuba or even the Philippines for fun in the sun and tropics.  If you didn't have the money for all that you could let a little sunshine into your kitchen with fresh and canned pineapple and pineapple juice.

Wine and Gluten Intolerance

I'm back, it's been a weird week culminating with me finding out that I am gluten intolerant.  They can't say yes or no that I'm Celiac (probably not), but I can't tolerate wheat in my diet.  Goodbye cakes, cookies and bread, it's been a nice relationship but I must adeiu.  Of course this is going to put an interesting crimp on the whole "Vintage Recipe Blog" idea, I am actually rather glad I'm leaving next week to go to Alaska because it will give me plenty of time to think on this whole thing.  I highly reccomend reading a book called "Wheat Belly" it's a great resource on how wheat has been genetically altered (GMO) to the point that our bodies can no longer cope with it.  As he says in the book, "Today's wheat is not the wheat of our grandmothers".

Of course I'm also going to have to say goodbye to beer as well.  This is probably the most lamentable loss, because I like having a beer from time to time.  It will have to be replaced with wine and hard cider.  Interestingly enough we have wine delivery in some places.  One cannot argue with the health benefits of red wine, and heck I like any kind of wine out there.  Wine is actually the oldest alcoholic drink known to man.  The history of wine goes back to neolithic times and while the cloudy wines of that era bear little resemblance to the fine French wines available today, it has been an interesting journey.

So as I bid a not so fond farewell to pasta and beer, I say hello to Eggplant Parmesan and Chianti... and improved health.

The Jolly Moonlight Dance of the Sandwiches

I didn't get home until about 11 last night then ate a rather tasteless dinner of a Publix Turkey Sub.  Take it from me, spend the extra money and get the Boars Head Sub from Publix it's a much better product for picnic baskets.  So the combination of being up late and eating late took it's toll on me.  You know, when you start getting weird dreams of I dunno, flying cats, talking tomatoes and Deli Meats doing their jolly moonlight dance?  I suppose twice a year during the solstice the luncheon meats sneak out of their deli cases for a fairy romp on the beach.  At the end they transform themselves into not just sandwiches but Sandwi(T)ches! 

Is He Still the Man You Married?

No it's not an ad for marriage counseling... or maybe it is and Post Bran is trying to tell you it can save your marriage through fiber.  This ad borders on the ridiculous as the text wants to blame all the things that happen when you get older on a lack of fiber.  Maybe they were right, even in the 1800's the spa culture thought that most ailments could be cured with a good dose of the salts and an enema.  The popularity of going to spa resorts didn't wane until after WWII.  I digress, we're talking bran here.  I agree, you certainly feel better when you go on the regular, but it seems to me we have taken this thing full circle again back to the old spa mentality.  Instead now we sell people overpriced and utterly useless "Colon Cleansing Diets".  If it's that much of a problem to eat a balanced diet then buy some Benefiber, it's alot cheaper and just as effective.

Pabst-ett Cheese

Now here's a cheese with an interesting history.  With a name like Pabst-ett it obviously had ties to the Pabst brewing company.  With the advent of Prohibition in 1920, the Pabst Brewing Company decided to get into the cheese business.  The dairy itself was located west of Milwaukee and Pabst used the former ice cellars of the brewery to age the cheese.  One of the products they made was Pabst-ett, a processed whey cheese similar to Velveeta but more spreadable.  I think the product was more akin the cheddar cheese spread that comes in the little crocks nowadays than to actual Velveeta.  The cheese business was wildly successful and ultimately brought Pabst and Kraft into confrontation with one another over copyright infringement.  Kraft won the case and gave Pabst a royalty free license to continue making Pabst-ett.  After Prohibition ended in 1933, Pabst sold the cheese business off to Kraft who continued to produce Pabst-ett cheese until at least the late 1940's. 

Wordless Wednesday: A Southern Dinner & Dessert

A Southern Dinner Menu.  Each caption is a link that will take you to the recipe...

Country Style Chicken Fried Steak

Garlic Cheese Grits

Creole Collard Greens

Homemade Blueberry Pie

Authentic Hungarian Chicken Paprikash

One of the crucial elements of frugal cooking is ethnic recipes.  Many Americans adapted the recipes of Germans, Hungarians, Italians, Russians, etc. to suit their tastes.  These were people who were used to living frugally back in their home countries and Americans learned much from their cooking styles.  It also started the downward decline in the formerly popular "meat and potatoes" type of meals that were prevalent through the boom years of the 1920's.  Hungarian cooking is usually typified by the ubiquitous Goulash, a stew of beef, onion and paprika.  While Goulash is tasty in it's own right I much prefer Paprika Chicken (Paprikash).  Formerly we had been using a mentally recorded recipe passed down from my great grandparents and while it was good, there was something missing.  That something was good quality paprika.  Most paprika sold in the US is of inferior quality, having a dull red color.  True Hungarian paprika is a vibrant red and has an unmistakeable smell similar to fresh red bell peppers.  Getting good Hungarian paprika can be tricky, but not to worry the good Spanish sweet paprika is equal to it.  Check out TJ Maxx, Marshalls or Home Goods for tins of Spanish paprika marked Pimentón Dulce this is the really great sweet Spanish Paprika.  Also you will need some Hot Hungarian Paprika, it doesn't make the dish spicy but it adds a little kick.  Hot Hungarian paprika will be darker in color than the vibrant red of sweet paprika.

Deviled Eggs or Deviled Dog Mess

I have one comment about those deviled eggs... "Oh hell NO!"  It looks like a sick dog took a dump in half an egg.  How did the advertisers ever think that this looks appetizing?  And the recipe is even worse.  Mix with hard boiled egg yolks Durkee's Oleomargarine and Durkee's dressing and stuff in halved eggs.  Yuck!  Let's get something straight here.  I see so many so called Deviled Egg recipes that involve the yolks mixed with salt, pepper and mayo or miracle whip.  Those are Stuffed Eggs.  Deviled Eggs involve many more spices mixed in so that they have a spicy flavor.  As a matter of point, I have a secret deviled egg recipe that has been passed down from my grandmother to my mother and finally to me.  It has somewhere around 11 different ingredients and spices.  Those are deviled eggs and any time I make them they always disappear at parties.  Just to tantalize you I will leave you with a picture of them...