I recently discovered a book at my local thrift shop entitled Smiley’s Cook Book and Universal Household Guide, published in 1894. This weighty tome is self-described as a profusely illustrated (it has a half-dozen poorly-drawn coloured plates) comprehensive collection of recipes and useful information pertaining to every department of housekeeping.
The book takes great care to explain the burdens of cooking. “The woman who in addition to all the other cares of housekeeping has to provide bills of fare for the family three times a day for 365 days in the year is often perplexed to know what to serve at each meal. To provide well...requires study and forethought but it will amply repay the effort. In many homes there is a great lack of variety in the food prepared. The tendency to fall into ruts must be guarded against, as a well-planned variety is most conducive to both the health and pleasure of the eaters.” Clearly, the concepts of Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday and Wine Wednesday would not have worked for mothers of this era. Too bad for them.
Helpfully, the book provides weekly menus for each month of the year, so if you want to know the best day to serve cold mutton with béchamel sauce (a Friday supper in January), macaroni soup with braised liver (a Thursday dinner in May) or codfish and cream with buckwheat cakes (a Monday breakfast in November), you’ll be all set.
Apparently, 122 years ago, the best meals included such delicacies as boiled cucumbers, stewed endive and creamed carrots. If those aren’t to your fancy, perhaps fried plover, boiled turkey, or opossum “scalded like a hog, exposed to frosty air for two days then parboiled and baked” would be more appealing. The book includes recipes for preparing and serving squirrels (broiled, fried or in a pie), raccoons (stewed or baked) and beef tongue (cured, pickled or boiled).
Cooking times given in a handy reference chart gave me pause. I wonder what my darling children would think about the aroma of tripe boiling on the stove for five hours? The book also suggests bacon is to be boiled. Ewwwww. And every single vegetable ever grown is treated similarly shabbily – string beans are to be boiled one to three hours; broccoli and celery 30 minutes, carrots 1/2 hour if young, an hour or more if old. Lettuce, meanwhile, is to be steamed for 15 minutes. Why the heck would anyone want to serve (or eat) steamed lettuce?
There’s a special section on invalid cookery, including such delicious treats as mutton broth, raw beef sandwiches and milk soup (milk, salt, cinnamon and sugar plus egg yolks), which is “good for delicate persons and children.”
The chapters on household management are bizarrely fascinating and make me grateful I live in an era where lax housekeeping might offend a mother in law but not cause a ritual shunning by ones friends. The book tells us that “a layer of dust is always unwholesome, and when penetrated by dampness it ferments, decays and becomes positively poisonous.” Similarly, who knew the best way to clean gilt picture frames is to blow off that deadly dust, then beat together egg whites and washing soda to brush over the frame. If that method doesn’t satisfactorily clean the family portraits, you can try mixing water, salt, powdered alum and purified nitre. Best of all, if you have a problem with flies on your frames, simply sponge them over with onion water or laurel oil.
Picnics also merit their own chapter, beginning with a cautionary note regarding the danger of an unbalanced menu: “The easiest way to avoid this is to have the ladies meet beforehand and make out a list of the things desired, and then request each one to bring her share. Or appoint one competent lady to make out the menu and assign to others.”
I'm pretty sure my most competent friends would pack pitchers of cocktails and a wedge of cheese.
I’ll leave this gem here for you to contemplate as you embark on your next round of diligent menu planning. "Children should not be made to eat foods which do not agree with them, or which are really distasteful to them.”
Right. “Pass the gin to mommy, please, children and order your own takeout pizza for dinner whenever you get hungry, k?”
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