Housekeeping: Classic v. Modern

I have long promised a ramble about the toilet section of the awesome cookbook by Maud C. Cooke called Three Meals a Day: Cooking, Table, Toilet, Health (1890's). Alas, the toilet section will sit unread because today it is time for spring cleaning.

Past the standard pudding and bread and preserve recipes, nestled between recipes for invalid cooking and advice for table etiquette, we find a chapter on housekeeping. Here we learn how to scald the brooms ("by dipping for a minute or two in boiling soap-suds"), why we should keep "wings of fowls" (of course! they can be used to dust furniture and clean the hearth), how to remove tar (butter or lard) and how to wash "fancy hose" (salt and water, and lots of running them through a wringer). Pressed in between the pages is a tiny piece of newspaper, about 3/4" by 1 1/2" that recommends making fabric resistant to fire by "soaking the material in a solution of five parts of boric acid, six parts of borax and 100 parts of water." Wow! Look kids, you can make your own stunt clothes and go running through fires!

Much of the advice is useful today, especially for those of us who try to minimize the use of chemicals in our cleaning. Maud tells us how to use borax and baking soda for cleaning, something I do on a regular basis. The advice for how to clean a closet includes considering all your clothing and distributing what you don't want "to the needs of others." And, of course, sort odds and ends into sacks or boxes just like "every thrifty housewife."

Now, for the modern version of housekeeping, check out the Kitchen Cure at Apartment Therapy. Hundreds of people have signed up for the Cure so we can share horrible before pictures of our kitchens and following weekly commandments on how to clean it up. First up, we got rid of old condiments and this week we chuck processed foods (but I'm totally keeping our Girl Scout cookies). I'll periodically update my pictures and a new, gloriously clean kitchen will appear. You can check out the before pictures here.


Floor Wax
From Three Meals a Day: Cooking, Table, Toilet, Health (1890's).

1 pint turpentine
1/4 pound beeswax

Combine and melt over a slow fire, no blaze because the mixture is explosive.* Apply to the floor with a piece of flannel. Polish and shine with more flannel.

*maybe the borax fireproofing solution would be helpful here?

Frugal Graham Flour Muffins

You aren't going to believe this recipe. Water, sweetener, and flour. That's it.

Now, admittedly, I didn't follow the recipe exactly because I don't have iron gem pans like those found here so I just used regular muffin pans. I'm sure I didn't get the crisp outside that I could have otherwise. And because there is no temperature recommendation in the cookbook I basically made that up. Oh, and there is no time recommendation so I made that up, too.

Do you see where this is heading? The only reason you need this so-called recipe is to free yourself from needing a recipe at all. Forget what you have learned about needing a delicate balance of salt and baking soda and flour and liquid, just try whatever you have on hand. At least, that is the spirit of this cookbook and thrifty, creative cooks of yore.

There is a trade-off, of course. Be warned: these gems are heavy and have a dense crumb. But the graham flour has a nice flavor, and they pair nicely with sweet and savory. Trying spreading them with butter and preserves or crumble over soup.

Hygienic Graham Gems
Adapted from Three Meals a Day: Cooking, Table, Toilet, Health circa 1890. This recipe calls for graham flour which I happen to have because I am singlehandedly trying to keep King Arthur Flour in business. If you don't have graham flour, try substituting just about any whole grain flour. The recipe specifically recommends against using salt.

1 pint tepid water
1 Tbs molasses
Graham flour (whole wheat pastry flour)

Preheat oven to 400. Butter a 12 cup muffin tin. Add enough flour to the water and molasses to make a thick batter. Bake for 15 minutes.

When Life Gives You Onions, Make Onion Soup

A bag of (Sale! Super low price!) organic onions have been sitting in my cabinet begging to be used before they go bad. This onion soup from one of my favorite diet books, Slenderella, turned out to be perfect for a day like this. What is a day like this? One in which my husband is home sick. One in which there is a nice snow on the ground, but icy weather is threatening to keep me homebound even longer with aforementioned sick husband.

This soup really could not be easier. Slice some onions. Brown some onions. Add some stock. Easy peasy. I do recommend using a mandolin (or a food processor if you are fancy), to slice the onions because it makes the job faster and the thin, uniform onions cook evenly and are nicer in a soup than thick onions that slide off a spoon. I left off the cheese and made it a complete meal by serving it with a spinach-roasted pepper tart I made with Trader Joe's awesome transfat free puff pastry.

Onion Soup
Adapted from Slenderella Cookbook, 1957. The recipe calls for beef stock; I used a vegetarian beef broth powder that I bought last summer from Butterfly Herbs a neat little store in Missoula, Montana. The recipe is so basic that it seems to be begging for modifications, maybe wine or a little thyme, but it really is just fine as is.

2 Tbs butter or margarine
4 cups thinly sliced onion
2 Tbs flour
1/2 tsp black pepper
6 cups beef-flavored stock
6 Tbs grated Sap Sago cheese

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Saute the onions over low heat until brown. Sprinkle with the flour and pepper, stirring until brown. Gradually add the stock, stirring constantly to the boiling point. Cover and cook over low heat 45 minutes. Add salt as necessary. Serve with grated cheese.

Happy Valentine's Day

This is a bit of two decades: Rogers, Astaire, and the Beatles.

Easy Oatmeal Cookies

Alternate titles for this post:

Oatmeal Cookies Now
Just a Few Oatmeal Cookies
I Want an Easy, Small Batch of Oatmeal Cookies Now

Get it? This is a quick and easy recipe and it makes a nice small batch of cookies perfect for after dinner or when someone stops by unexpectedly. You probably have everything you need to make these and they make a good base for additions like nuts, chocolate chips, coconut, or currants.

This recipe for Oatmeal Crisps comes from the Rumford Complete Cookbook, Revised, 1940. This cookbook belonged to my husband's grandmother and it was given to me rather unceremoniously by my mother-in-law. During our holiday visit she pointed to it on the kitchen island and said, "Do you want that? It was my mom's."

I was very lucky to have met my husband's grandmother and I loved her brutal honesty: she adored my husband but wasn't afraid to point out--over and over and over--how big his head was when he was a little boy. She was charming and sharp, and I have great memories of her on a long car trip buying surfer sunglasses at a gas station and wearing them all the way home.

This cookbook is really straightforward with standard recipes for the kinds of food that can be cooked day to day. This cookie recipe is the simplest recipe I've ever seen without fancy ingredients like fancy shmancy vanilla extract or spices or anything. It's fat and flour and oatmeal and a couple other things to hold it all together. You can fiddle with the recipe a bit depending on what you have around or what you like, but I think this is evidence that you can strip away all but the essential ingredients and turn out a fine dessert.

Oatmeal Crisps

Adapted from the Rumford Complete Cookbook, Revised, 1940. I added cinnamon and used about half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. The cookies I made are not crispy at all so either I didn't cook them long enough or they just soaked up the moisture from all the rain we're getting. The recipe calls for a little milk if needed and I did end up adding about a tablespoon or so to hold the dough together. I can't emphasize enough that you need to use aluminum free baking powder like this one because with the 2 tsps in this cookie it may not taste right with standard baking powder.

3/4 cup flour
1/3 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 small egg
A little milk, if needed

Heat oven to 350. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. Stir in the butter; the batter may be a little crumbly like biscuit dough. Add the sugar and oatmeal. Mix in the egg and a little milk, if necessary to hold the dough together. Drop dough by the teaspoonful onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake about 12 minutes.