Vintage Cooking From the 1800s - Hints: In Great Grandmother's Time

By Angela A Johnson

In the 1800s, gas and electricity was not yet available in homes. Our great grandmothers learned to save time, money, and labor in order to cook three meals a day from scratch. Advice and cooking hints were sometimes included in cookbooks and greatly appreciated.

 

People made do with what they had, substituted ingredients, or did without. There were no quick trips to a grocery store. 

 

Nothing was wasted - food was too valuable.

 

The information in this book was compiled from many cookbooks published in the 1800s. You may never use any of these hints, but they should help you appreciate what it was like to cook in olden times.

 

 

SOME HINTS:

 

~ To remove insects from vegetables which are being washed, put a pinch of borax in the water. It will bring any live insect to the surface at once.

 

~ Fresh eggs placed in cold water will immediately sink, while bad ones will float on top.

 

~ Try taking the beaten white of an egg when you have a sour stomach. It is very soothing to an irritated, sensitive stomach.

 

~ Iced tea requires only half as much sugar sweetened when hot than when cold.

 

~ Sweet potatoes and apples will not turn black if placed in salt water immediately after peeling.

 

~ To keep milk sweet, put a spoon of grated horse-radish into the pan. It will keep it sweet for days.

 

~ Meats, fish and poultry can be kept fresh in hot weather by being sprinkled with a little powdered charcoal. This washes away easily just before cooking.

 

~ Water from macaroni or rice after they have been cooked should be saved for soup and gravies.

  

~ To keep lemons, put them in water. Change once a week and they will keep a long time.

 

~ Meats, fish and poultry can be kept fresh in hot weather by being sprinkled with a little powdered charcoal. This washes away easily just before cooking.

 

~ To keep weevils out of wheat, put the wheat in barrels, smooth it, and sprinkle a layer of salt over the top. Keep the barrels well covered by tying cloths over them; a sure preventive.

 

 

Also included:

Vintage Cooking Terms and Definitions.

Sources - Cookbooks that were used to compile and create this book.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Angela Johnson
• Release date: Mar 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386081692

Book preview

1

Kitchen Economy

A Good Cook Never Wastes

Juliet Corson, 1841-1897

In these days of high prices, when home-makers are striving to feed their families well at as low cost as possible, it is often the saving of little things that keeps down the provision bill.

Buy only small quantities of perishable things such as green vegetables, fruit, fish, eggs, cream, and fresh butter. It is poor economy from a financial standpoint (saying nothing of health) to buy small or specked fruits or vegetables.

Buy dry groceries and preserved stores in quantities large enough to entitle you to wholesale prices and pay cash in order to avail yourself of the lowest market price.

Make your purchases as early in the day as possible to secure a choice of fresh articles, and trade with respectable dealers who give full weight and honest measure.

Perfect cleanliness is essential for the best preservation of food. The cellar, pantries, storerooms, refrigerators, and all the receptacles in which food is kept should be frequently inspected and thoroughly cleaned.

Heat and moisture tend to cause decay. Therefore, it is important that all foods should be surrounded with pure, cool, dry air. When it is possible, expose every closet and food receptacle to the sun and air several times a week.

All things likely to be wanted in cooking should be in readiness; sugars of different qualities should be broken, currants washed, picked, and perfectly dry. Spices should be pounded and kept in very small bottles closely corked, but not more than are likely to be used in the course of a month. Much waste may be prevented by keeping every article in the place best suited to it.

Never let your stock of spices, salt, seasoning, herbs, etc., dwindle down so low that some day, in the midst of preparing a large dinner, you find yourself minus a very important ingredient, thereby causing much confusion and annoyance.

There should never be anything wasted or thrown away that can be turned to account, either for your own family or some family in poor circumstances.

One should know how to combine leftovers so they may realize the best results both in the amount of money saved and the amount of nourishment given.

Left-over vegetables and cereals, even in small quantities, should be saved for use in entrees, desserts, salads, sauces, and soups.

Celery tops should be saved for flavoring and garnishing, the root stalk chopped and added to the stock pot, and the outside stalks stewed, creamed, or used for cream soup.

The outside leaves of lettuce should be shredded for salad or for any large quantity, cooked the same as spinach.

In warm weather, any gravies or soups that are left from the preceding day should be boiled up and poured into clean pans. This is particularly necessary where vegetables have been added to the preparation, as it soon turns sour. In cooler weather, every other day will be often enough to warm up these things.

Do not waste fuel; concentrate your cooking. When a hot oven is needed for roasting meat or baking bread, plan to cook at the same time other things which require a high temperature. Potatoes can be cooked in the pan with the meat. Other vegetables and fruits can be cooked in the oven.

Never toss that carcass of fowl, or the ham, or mutton-bone with next to nothing upon it to the dogs. It will not, by itself, make good soup, but seasoned and thickened, adding sweet herbs and a dash of catsup to the flavoring, it will be useful as gravy in many ways; always remembering that it must be skimmed before it is used.

All bits of tough skin, all gristly portions, soft bones, and the cartilage should be removed before cooking from roasts, chops, and steaks when this can be done without injuring the shape of the meat. The place for these is the stew-pot.

If you buy meat for gravy, which you need not do very often, get the coarser pieces and marrow-bones pounded to bits. Cut up the meat fine, also. You cannot extract the strength so completely from a solid chunk of flesh as from the same quantity shred into strips or cut into dice.

The shank bones of mutton, so little esteemed in general, will be found to give richness to soups or gravies, if well soaked and brushed before they are added to the boiling. They are also particularly nourishing for sick persons.

Roast beef-bones or shank bones of ham, make fine peas-soup and should be boiled with the peas the day before the soup is to be eaten, so that the fat may be taken off.

The liquor in which meat has been boiled makes an excellent soup for the poor, by adding to it vegetables, oatmeal, or peas.

Vegetables will keep best on a stone floor if the air be excluded. See that the vegetables are neither sprouting nor decaying. If they are so, remove them to a drier place and spread them.

Meat should be kept in a cold, dry place. Salt, sugar, and sweetmeats require to be kept dry. Dried meats and hams the same.

Rice and all sorts of seeds for puddings should be close covered to preserve from insects. Flour should be kept in a warm, perfectly dry room, and the bag being tied should be changed upside down and back every week, and well shaken.

Wash eggs before breaking, and save the shells for clearing boiled coffee, soup, and aspic.

Soft-boiled or dropped eggs not used at the table should be put back in boiling water, cooked hard, and used for garnishing, egg sauce, etc.

When whites of eggs are used for jelly or other purposes, a pudding or custard should be made to employ the yolks. If not immediately wanted, they should be beat up with a little water and put in a cool place, or they will soon harden and become useless.

Do not throw away small pieces of bread. Save them for plum pudding, queen's pudding, or dressing for fish or fowl. If broken into small pieces and browned in a hot oven, they are very nice to eat with soups or to thicken them.

Dry small pieces of bread well, roll fine, and keep in a glass jar to be used for breaded pork chops, croquettes, or oysters.

Above all, do not let crusts accumulate in such quantities that they cannot be used. With proper care, there is no need of losing a particle of bread.

2

Oven Temperature

Any systematic housekeeper will hail the day some enterprising yankee or buckeye girl shall invent a stove or range with a thermometer attached to the oven so that the heat may be regulated accurately and intelligently.

From Buckeye Cookery: With Hints on Practical Housekeeping, by Estelle Woods Wilcox, 1881

Testing the Oven Heat with Your Hand:

Put your hand inside and count how many seconds you can safely hold it there.

Slow oven ~ you can hold your hand in the oven for 60 seconds without burning.

Moderate oven ~ you can hold your hand in the oven for 45 seconds without burning.

Hot or quick oven ~ you can hold your hand in the oven for 35 seconds without burning.

Testing the Oven Heat with Flour:

Sprinkle one teaspoon flour on a tin or aluminum plate.

Slow oven ~ the flour turns light brown in five and one-half minutes.

Moderate oven ~ the flour turns light brown in three and one-half minutes.

Moderately hot oven ~ the flour turns light brown in three minutes.

Hot or quick oven ~ the flour turns light brown in one and one-half minutes.

Testing the Oven Heat with Paper:

Have white paper for testing the heat of the oven. Put a piece on the bottom of the oven and close the door.

For pastry, the oven should be hot enough to turn the paper dark brown in five minutes.

For bread, the heat should turn it in six minutes. All kinds of muffins can be baked at this heat.

Sponge and pound cakes