Hashed Leftovers

     Many times after the holidays we're left with mounds of leftovers from an overindulgent feast of Brobdingnagian proportions and we're completely flummoxed as to what to do with them.  I didn't even cook this much for Christmas but I did have a rather large turkey and now I'm left to decide what to do with the leftovers.  Part of it is getting mixed up into turkey salad using the Chicken Salad Recipe but with the rest I'm left to get creative.

Diner Style Hashed Browned Potatoes

   I love writing about diner style and old sub shop recipes.  Part of it is the thrill of reconstructing a recipe that may have been lost to time had I not saved it, the other part is because this is the world I grew up in.  Being almost 43 I am allowed to have a hindsight perspective on life.  The world we live in now is not the world I grew up in and I'm not entirely sure we've progressed while marching to the never ending tune of progress.

1919 Grape Nuts, Making Girls Round and Rosy

Little girls don't want to be round and rosy today.  They'd rather be thin like the girls that grace the pages of magazines but that is an impossible kind of beauty to achieve since it's all done with computers today.  This ad is from 1919 when the world was well... certainly more innocent than it is today but having just gone through The Great War it certainly had lost the idyllic innocence of the pre war years.  100 years ago this year World War I started, the first but certainly not the last war to be started by an act of terrorism.

1931 Shredded Wheat Ad

I've been following the recommendations of this ad recently on the cold mornings here in North Florida.  If you don't think Florida can get cold then you've never been here in the winter.  I find that if you heat the biscuits in an oven set at 350° (I use my toaster oven) for about 8-10 mins they stay crisper in the hot milk.  It's an easy dish, just set the biscuits in the oven and get your milk warming in a pot on the stove.  The biscuits are done at the same time as the milk starts to steam and you're good to go.  I can't recall ever having tasted the large "original size" biscuits as we more often bought the mini-wheats but I took an immediate liking to the taste.  I like cereal in the morning and I like to stick with the old style cereals, Corn Flakes, Grape Nuts and of course Shredded Wheat.

Fair Wind and Calm Seas for the SS Cream of Wheat

 

Jack Sparrow he is not but a heady imagination always takes you to places of wondrous adventure.  This ad is from 1920 when the world of high fashion was transitioning into a more modern appeal.  His outfit actually would have been at home from 1900 onwards and boys wore short pants until they attained the age of manhood and could don their first pair of long pants.  

Classic French Quarter Beignets

I lived in New Orleans for 6 months way back in the 90's, sharing an apartment with a friend who lived there full time in the French Quarter.  I developed a love for the city of New Orleans but none so much as my love of chicory coffee and beignets.  Now I've been drinking chicory coffee for some time now but never gave much thought to the little square doughnuts of Jackson Square until my wife and I went into a small deli/diner one morning in search of breakfast.  It was there I rekindled my passion for beignets and inflamed a new one in my wife.  The diner had 2 drawbacks though, they were using boxed Cafe du Monde Beignet Mix and they were expensive, charging $5.99 for an order of 3.  Well, I can do anything I put my mind to and that goes for making my own beignets as well.  For a real beignet experience you need cottonseed oil for frying as it has the most neutral flavor and you need powdered sugar for dusting.  Unfortunately these 2 items are the most compromised ingredients these days as all cottonseed oil is GMO and powdered sugar has a disgustingly off taste from the ever increasing amount of cornstarch (from GMO corn) that they add to prevent caking.  Fortunately I was able to get around both issues.  First the oil needs to be changed to peanut oil and not just any peanut oil but Planters peanut oil.  Their oil has an almost cottonseed oil quality about it in that the flavor is not peanutty or worse an insipid taste of rancid peanuts.  Next, and I don't know if this is distributed everywhere but I can get it here in Florida, for the powdered sugar use Florida Crystals Organic.  Still has cornstarch (organic corn), but it's so small a touch that it doesn't impact the flavor at all.  Speaking of flavor, this powdered sugar is less sweet than what you're used to but has an incredible depth of flavor to it not to be found anywhere else (that I've seen).  So without further fanfare, on to the recipe.  This recipe is cut in half from normal recipes but still yields around 10 servings of 3 beignets each.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

The Greatest Thing To Ever Happen To Berries

No it's not the crisping drawer in the refrigerator, it's Rice Krispies.  It's so wonderful and amazing we have to spell it with a "K".  I haven't had Rice Krispies in years, mostly because I'm getting older and look for the higher fiber stuff now but I seem to remember that Snap, Crackle and Pop looked much different now than they do in this ad.  As a matter of fact I suspect that after our 3 wayward elves left the Keebler factory in the tree and landed a contract for Rice Krispies, there was some plastic surgery going on here.  I think I would too if I had a nose like a zucchini and ears you could fly away with.  And what's with the crane loading the strawberries into the bowl?  Is this some horrible Monsanto experiment gone wrong, strawberries the size of boulders.  Maybe we're making breakfast for Paul Bunyan, who knows but this is certainly the battiest artwork in an ad that I've seen for awhile.

Log Cabin Saves a Marriage!

Lan sake?  Were they still using such archaic expressions in the late '30's?  Evidently his daddy was addicted to pancakes too.  Perhaps it was Ernest McGroucher from this earlier Pillsbury Ad.  Yes the mania of pancake madness runs in families but here we see how pancakes are just a gateway drug to some thing more sinister, more insidious... Syrup.  Yes, this Aunt Jenny Lookalike (or perhaps it is Aunt Jenny of Spry fame) is here pushing Log Cabin Syrup on unsuspecting family members.  It's all a pyramid scheme you know.  Get people hooked then they buy from you and get others hooked, quite a lucrative business model.

The Hurry Up Breakfast

Post Toasties 1912

"It's Post Toasties dear, don't you want to have your breakfast before leaving?"  "Yes buttercup, but do look at time.  I'm never going to catch that train to New York before I sail to England on the Titanic.  Marvelous ship, I do wish I was able to sail on her maiden voyage."  Yes Post Toasties... The memory lingers.  What sort of catch phrase is that?  I don't want my breakfast haunting me all day, thank you very much.  I prefer to eat it and get on with the day's activities.  And how exactly does it linger?  Does it feel like you ate a brick?  Do you need some Sal Hepatica to move that mass of flattened corn along?  Or perhaps it just keeps "repeating", a quaint term my grandmother used to use when she kept burping.  Of course, as with many food ads from the early 1900's. there's the serving suggestion.   

Take with Milk or Cream and Sugar (if desired).

Not much for low fat diets back then were they?  I also love how this sugar is optional, what if I just want sugar and no milk or cream?  Or perhaps grape juice? (Laugh if you want to, but I knew a vegan that ate his cereal this way.)

Pancake Madness

1928 Pillsbury Pancake Mix

Besides doing one good turn a day, Ernest McGroucher loves his pancakes.  It's a serious addiction, one that has obviously disrupted his family life.  His wife left him and married the milkman and now poor Ernest has to keep his daughter drugged so she'll keep making pancakes and not run away too.  As with most addictions, Ernest now deals on the side to support it.  Yes, he lures his bachelor friends into the house and slyly offers them pancakes while his Quaalude ridden daughter looks on with vapid eyes and plastic smile.  It's ok, we all know you're crying on the inside because of having to make pancakes all day.  After introducing his friends to the pleasures of Pillsbury Pancakes, they show their gratitude... by buying more pancakes.  It's a vicious cycle, this pancake addiction, one that ensures family life will never be the same again once it invades the home.

Ad: Quaker Puffed Cereals

1928 Quaker Puffed Cereals

Where do I begin with this ad?  In my searches around ebay and the internet I find gems such as these that just prove advertisers are insane.  We have an Alice in Wonderland theme but the premise of Alice in Wonderland must have changed since 1928.  Take the March Hare on the right, he's not just crazy, he's pissed!  I guess I would be too if I had to serve these rich little snot-rag brats their puffed rice and puffed wheat.  As a matter of fact Jr. on the left looks quite stuffed and puffed himself.  Notice how his head is tilted back, arms bracing himself on the chair?  Yes it's quite clear that another country is about to be heard from as Jr. lets off yet another stentorian belch after having consumed all the puffed grains the mad hatter could furnish him. 

Ad: Grape Nuts

1911 Grape Nuts

 

The World Wants Brainy Men, so states the headline of this 1911 ad for Grape Nuts Cereal.  What exactly Grape Nuts has to do with brains I can't quite figure out but it probably comes down to fiber.  Back then, every ailment that plagued mankind could be cured with a good dose of fiber and a healthy bowel movement.  It really leads me to believe that people were quite constipated in the old days.  Advertisers spent an inordinate amount of time on various foods that would cure constipation.  I would chalk it up to a higher protein/fat diet coupled with a much higher daily sodium intake than we are used to today.  Since everything was preserved with salt it's conceivable that people used to ingest somewhere around 10g (10,000mg) a day, more than double the US RDA of Sodium today.

Recipe: Kaiserschmarrn

Should I choose Honey or Jam?

As usual when I am trolling the internet looking for new and interesting vintage recipes to try out on the blog I came across something I'd never heard of before, Kaiserschmarrn.  It roughly translates to mean the "Emperor's Pancake" and although the history is fuzzy, it seems to have been created for Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary around 1900.  I toyed with a couple different recipes for it and was less than impressed with the results and then I decided to do a little fusion between a fluffy pancakes recipe from the 1920's and the best parts of old Kaiserschmarrn recipes.  What I ended up with, I later found out, is close to a 1905 recipe I found after the fact.  Indeed the only difference was using sour cream instead of sour milk.

Ad: Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix

1917 Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix

 I was poking around the internet and I found this 1917 ad for Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix.  Honestly I liked it because it is a glimpse into how much social and racial attitudes have changed.  Of course the year is 1917, December to be exact.  We have a picture of absolute domestic bliss over the breakfast table.  Husband remarks to wife, "Dear it's absolutely splendid the Allies are still dukeing it out toe to toe with Hun.  Why father and I have made a fortune off War orders but that damned Wilson had to go muck it all up by throwing in with the Allies.  Now damn it all I've been drafted!  Head out for training tomorrow to Bayonne. But I know my clever little bride will keep things going while I am gone."