Do you know why I read cookbooks from the 1930s and 1940s?

What it is not. It is not nostalgia. It is not a passing fancy. 

It is because I feel there are lessons to be learned from the ways of cooking and eating from those decades. 

This was a time of increasing knowledge of nutrition and the effects of poverty on life expectancy and health. This knowledge was shared with society through cookbooks, women's magazines, government-led education efforts (leaflets, flyers, films), radio broadcasts, and through student coursework. Cookbooks were a direct avenue to educate homemakers about how to cook to preserve nutrients, as well as what foods to include in meals to boost health.

Experts didn't getting everything right, though. To solve the problem of widespread hunger during the Great Depression, processed foods were pushed. Refined flours were thought to be a godsend. They kept longer, and whatever nutrients were lost in processing could just be added back (enriched). We now know that eating foods as close to how they are found in nature is actually better for long term health. We also believed that margarine would be not only just as good as butter, but even better for us. Today we know the dangers of trans fats. It was widely believed that canned foods were more hygienic that fresh produce and something of a modern miracle. To be certain, eating a can of beans is better than eating nothing. And perhaps hunger in the immediacy was more critical than long term health during a period of prolonged financial lack.

As I read these older cookbooks, I study not only what I believe they got right, but I also pay attention to where they were wrong. It's an important lesson to see where someone else believed in something that later was revealed to be wrong. (Does DDT come to mind?) It helps me question what today's "experts" are claiming is good for me and think it through for myself.

It seems to me, in all of our advancements, we've lost sight of what great nutrition looks like. We fill our grocery carts with processed foods. We are too busy to cook at home so we choose meals out that may rely on just as many convenience or enhancement products or chemicals. Do we read the labels on the loaf of bread we put in our shopping cart? Why does grocery store bread not grow mold after a week, whereas my homemade bread does? Is it really a great idea to eat preservative-laden foods? Are we just fooling ourselves to think that just because there's no visible mold on the commercial bread slice that of course it must be just as nutritious as the day it was baked? Bread begins to lose nutrients within about a week of baking, notably vitamins and antioxidants, if not frozen. 

These older cookbooks feature recipes that rely on foods as close to nature as we're likely to find in a grocery store. And the ingredient list is almost always limited to simple and easy to find products. During WW2, the British government studied the health and lifespan of its citizenry, comparing pre-war to post-war. Throughout the war, due to the inability to import as much food, they strongly encouraged people to grow food in whatever piece of dirt they had. The minister of food promoted heavy use of homegrown produce to stretch what little could be bought in shops. The population had a diet for several years that was much heavier in fruits and vegetables than had previously been seen (prior to the war). Throughout the war, the health of the population was monitored and evaluated. When the war came to an end, they observed a decline in infant mortality, an increased lifespan, and better overall nutritional health. So I look at this information and I see that they got something very right.

My mother recalled that after school snacks were limited to apples, bread, and water. Desserts were limited to Sunday dinners. My father recalled similar things about how they ate during both the depression and World War 2. The only beverages allowed at meals were orange or carrot juice at breakfast, milk or water at lunch and dinner. Sweetened drinks (homemade lemonade primarily) were for parties. Desserts in my father's childhood home almost always contained fruit. Chocolate bars were a rarity. The one junkier food that my father's family enjoyed often were potato chips. Every Saturday at lunch, he and his 4 siblings had a sandwich with potato chips. Weekday lunches contained some sort of sandwich, a piece of fruit, some raw vegetables, and he drank water from the fountain. After school, the kids in my father's family enjoyed bread and jam, a carrot, or a glass of milk as a snack before completing chores and homework. There were no energy bars, fruit snacks, pop-tarts, string cheese, yogurt cups, or granola bars. It's my understanding that the adults in my parents's respective families rarely snacked. And the kitchen was "open" for breakfast, lunch, after school snacks for kids, and dinner. At all other hours of the day the entire family knew the kitchen was "closed" to grazing. These older cookbooks rarely have any mention of snack recipes. The menus are explicitly for the "3 squares" a day.

Modern day commercial snack foods are often more expensive and lower in overall nutrients than regular meal foods. So following a pattern of eating much like those followed in the 30s and 40s should save money and improve my nutrient profile. When I want a snack, I typically have a spoonful of peanut butter, a slice of bread, or a piece of fruit or handful of raisins. By avoiding buying processed foods at the grocery store, I am forced into reliance on nutrient-dense foods that I do purchase or grow.

The other aspect that I really appreciate about these older cookbooks is their simple ingredient lists for each recipe. These recipes, for the most part (ignoring recipes like mock apple pie, a la Ritz crackers), call for the most basic ingredients, produce, meat, milk, cheese, eggs, common seasonings, herbs and spices, basic starchy foods, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, grains and other baking ingredients, and basic condiments such as vinegar, mustard, catsup, mayonnaise, pickles and relishes (often homemade), jams and jellies, horseradish, and chili sauce (like catsup, but less sweet, more spicy, and chunkier -- my grandmother loved chili sauce). With my digestive issues, I know which of those mentioned foods I can actually eat and not have after effects. A lot of modern recipes use at least one convenience food. It may be a can of prepared soup or a jarred sauce or a bag of tater tots. I avoid most convenience foods, sometimes because of an actual food contained (like milk) and sometimes because of an additive (like guar gum or methylcellulose).

And as a side benefit to simpler ingredient lists, almost all of these recipes are less expensive to make than buying similar convenience or prepared foods. Cooking simpler recipes is a large part of how I keep our grocery budget low. (Not buying convenience snack foods is the other part.) I save money, we eat better than we would otherwise, and I am hoping for a longer health-span for me and my family members.

I learn so much by studying these older cookbooks. In my quest to master extreme resourcefulness, frugality, and creativity born of necessity, I find these cookbooks to be blue prints of sorts in how to craft meal plans while providing nourishment and comfort from humble ingredients.

How much has cooking changed since 1939? And how much remains the same?

Would you like to see what my two daughters gave me for my birthday?

They went to the vintage district and found this cookbook. It's from 1939.

It's been interesting to look through to see what has changed and what still remains in the nearly 90 years since it's printing.

As this cookbook was compiled during the Great Depression, I thought viewing the included recipes and menus might best be done through the lens of budget-friendly cooking.

We all know that baking from scratch is about the most economical way to have breads and desserts. That was same back then as it is now. A few of the baked goods in the cookbook sounded more humble than what we've come to expect from our modern cookbooks. However, the 1939 cookbook  was serving it's depression-era reader. Carrot pie (shredded carrots in a sweetened egg custard), custard pie, sour milk cookies, raisin cookies, are perhaps not likely to show up in Bon Appétit, although I suspect those mentioned are tasty treats. There were several familiar baked goods listed, such as brownies, various fruit pies, Scottish shortbread, gingersnaps, and oatmeal cookies. 

The meat section was perhaps the most interesting, as folks a hundred years ago were accustomed to eating more variety in meat than modern consumers. There were several rabbit recipes, various fowl and game recipes, and perhaps the section most of us would prefer not to cook from -- recipes using organ meat, sweetbreads, heart, kidney, tongue and liver. Organ meats were substantially less expensive than muscle meats. During hard times, a dinner featuring tongue or heart or liver might be the only way a homemaker could put meat on her table. Aside from what was cooked, what I found surprising was how much meat recipes called for. Where the recipe yield stated 6 servings, 1 1/4 to 2 pounds of boneless meat were called for. I would have thought during the Depression the cookbook authors would have thought that perhaps less meat per serving might be what consumers at the time were most interested in. Despite this, there were familiar recipes included, such as chicken pie, beef pie, fried chicken, pot roast, meat loaf.

If I had to feed a large family, and I had a limited budget, I would focus on the soup section. Here's a sampling of soup recipes in this cookbook that sound appealing and are budget-friendly. Split Pea Soup, Chicken-Noodle Soup,  Corn Chowder, Dutch Potato Soup (has bacon in it!) or Golden Potato Soup, Vegetable Soup, Hamburger-Vegetable Chowder, Lima Bean Soup, Chicken and Rice Soup, and Okra Chowder (if I grew okra).

The other section that I would focus on to feed a large family on a budget would be the one on eggs. Eggs then and now are an economical source of protein. There's a recipe for Egg Balls that are a lot like meatballs, using hard-cooked eggs mashed and combined with bread crumbs, seasonings and a little cheese then formed into balls and deep-fried. Those sound interesting.

There's a section on making candy. As you might expect, given this book was from the Depression, many of these recipes use very basic ingredients such as sugar, corn syrup, milk, butter, honey, nuts, vinegar, and soda. In this section is a recipe for popcorn balls and candied apples. both very budget-friendly candy options using cheap (popping corn) or even free (homegrown apples) ingredients. Of course, there are other nostalgia-inducing candy recipes that likely were made around the holidays, such as sea foam, nougat, divinity, fondant, chocolate fudge, and pecan roll.

My impressions of this cookbook

Overall, the recipes seemed to only call for very ordinary (for the time) ingredients. Very few prepared products are used in these recipes. Exceptions included boxed cornflakes, graham crackers, and lady fingers used in some cookie and dessert recipes, canned tomatoes and canned tomato soup used in soup and main dish recipes, and American cheese in most recipes that call for cheese. Otherwise, this is a very cook-from-scratch cookbook. 

My other thought was that many of these recipes are suited to the home gardener/orchard keeper, forager, small game hunter, and weekend fisherman. I could find recipes for every type of fruit that we grow on our property, including new-to-us gooseberries. Many folks in the 30s scrambled for food to keep their families fed, and they made do with what they could grow, hunt, forage, or catch. 

This cookbook is a meet-you-where-you-are kind of cookbook, taking into account the necessity to use everything, even the soured milk, and to utilize humble ingredients, yet still create tasty meals and treats.

I look forward to trying some of these recipes that are completely new to me, such as the carrot pie and the egg balls. I'll tell you all about my cooking adventures in future posts.