Tag: plan ahead

Old School Skills

Cooking Lessons: Menu Planning from the 1953 Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

amandastiver1 Comment

I don’t know about you, but as much as I love the endless availability of recipes on the internet, sometimes I like to take a peek inside a traditional cookbook. In particular, those from the heyday of the Home Economics movement in the early 20th century contain some surprisingly handy nuggets.

So, what do they have to offer us now?

One feature that I love about cookbooks of this vintage are the extensive menu planning sections. I think we’ve lost this feature in many modern cookbooks, partly because our ability to buy books has increased and those who like to cook tend to collect many cookbooks (guilty, as charged) rather than just one comprehensive volume. Niche cookbooks tend to eschew menu planning because they stick to only one flavor or type of cuisine. Also, homemaking has been denigrated and women who are solely homemakers are not a majority, so cookbooks have shifted focus to quick meals and visual ideas, rather than systematic, comprehensive kitchen science and planning.

Practical buried treasure

So, what does this meal planning feature look like in the 1953 Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book?

A very clever graph, looking a lot like what we would consider a spreadsheet page. On the left are the main dishes, mostly meat, then the following categories with two options each for starchy foods, vegetables, salad, dessert, and special extras called “nice to serve.”

There are about 18 or so pages of these menu ideas. They cover dinner, lunches, hearty breakfasts, and “oven meals”—where all dishes can be cooked in one oven, meals for large groups, and lunch-box meals. In addition are nutrition guidelines (which continue to have much to offer…i.e. eat your veggies!), food-storage, and directions for meal planning.

Let’s take a for-instance. From the menu spreadsheet, one of the “Meat” options is the familiar standard, Meat Loaf, in the accompanying “Starchy food” options are Scalloped Potatoes or Franconia Potatoes (browned, or roasted). From the “Vegetable” column are Buttered Broccoli and/or Peas and Mushrooms. Next is the “Salad” category, with a choice of Orange-Endive Salad or Sunshine Salad (a gelatine salad with pineapple, carrots and pecans). Finally, “Dessert” offers two options, Dried-fruit Compote or Banana Cake, and the “Nice to serve” column suggests Spiced Crabapples or Chili Sauce (for the meat loaf, presumably).

Nutrition

Here’s where the Home Economics movement hit its scientific peak in meal planning. If we take a look at the “Daily Food Plan” pages in the 1953 BH&G Cook Book we see where our sample meal fits right in. It calls for meat/poultry/fish once daily…so there’s our meatloaf. Next, we have the potatoes/veggies/fruits category, so check mark the potatoes and broccoli and/or peas in our menu plan.

Our Sunshine Salad (remember the carrots and pineapple) and/or the Orange-Endive Salad, easily covers the citrus fruit/other Vitamin-C foods category. The carrots in the Sunshine Salad, and the endive in the Orange-Endive Salad could also cover the leafy/green and yellow vegetables requirement. The desserts will include some dairy, so there’s that, and sugar and oil, check and check. Bonus points for the “regularity” fiber in the Dried-fruit Compote dessert option.

A lot to think about, and somewhat complicated to plan for, which is the genius of the meal planning spreadsheets!

Oh, what a loss when we lost Home Ec

The Home Economics movement began in the last half of the 19th century and was in its stride until the middle of the 20th century, when politics, space-race science, women’s liberation movements, and other policies voided funding for home economics departments in colleges and high schools alike. Which is really a shame because there were brilliant scientific and practical minded women who provided a lot of really fundamental knowledge and disseminated it through the educational system.

If you want to know why there are such things these days as “adulting” classes that teach the most seemingly mundane kitchen and household tasks to those fifty and younger, your answer is that the home economics movement was defunded in the 60’s and 70’s. Otherwise, they would probably have learned those things at school, if not from their parents…. which is another story.

One of the things the home economics movement did best was to make your time in the kitchen efficient, hence the meal planning charts in the 1953 BH&G Cookbook. If you have a spring of ideas at your fingertips, you are more likely to create meals that are both tasty and varied, incorporating a healthy variety of vegetables and fruits as well as various meats, dairy, starches, and other protein sources (as we saw above). With a plan in hand, you don’t have to stress, you can just get on with today’s meals, and your shopping trips will be carefully curated for just the ingredients you need for the week’s meals.

Take a moment and mine your own collection of cookbooks, of a certain vintage, for menu plans. Which ones strike you as being useful today? Which vary in unusual ways from what we think of as typical meals nowadays? Please comment below!

Sources: Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, Meredith Publishing Company (reprint), 1953. Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book: Better Homes and Gardens: 9780696222122: Amazon.com: Books

Preparedness

What to Do While Waiting for the Storm

amandastiverLeave a comment

Here in the central plains a winter storm can mean “batten down the hatches, we’re in for it” or “nah, never mind…lots of wind, but no accumulation”. Often the weather forecast can’t even tell which it will be until the winter storm makes itself clear. Polar freeze? Or just a little blowy snow?

Photo: Amanda Stiver

This is a great time to take stock of what to do when you’re waiting for potentially nasty winter weather. In this age of digital weather apps we have heavy duty forewarning. A blessing compared to the days when folks had to gather weather data based on observation and maybe a thermometer or, if lucky, a barometer. Those predictions were sometimes surprisingly accurate, but radar makes it much easier for us. Sometimes too easy.

With an accurate weather forecast we can justify waiting till the last minute to stock up and prepare as compared to our ancestors who had to prepare all summer for the winter, no matter what the weather was going to be. This is a blessing and a curse. Do we procrastinate and become naïve about how well technology will function in extreme weather? Forewarned is forearmed, but we still have to do our part or forewarning just becomes foreboding.

Now to practical matters. What to do if a winter storm is bearing down on you?

Photo: Amanda Stiver
  1. Take stock. What’s in your fridge? In your freezer? Pantry? Do you have enough basics and a baseline supply of fresh foods to get you through a few days if the roads are impassable or, worst case, if the electricity goes out and you can’t cook in the way you normally do? Do you have adequate sources of protein and carbohydrates? These are the building blocks of heat in the body? Do you have a good supply of drinking water, if the pipes freeze?
  2. Check your heat and light sources. Do you have back-up? Either a generator, or kerosene oil heater, wood stove or other heating device? If so, do you have enough fuel, wood, oil, gas, propane or otherwise? A fuel-less heater isn’t much use. Also important, where will you heat food if the electricity goes out? A propane camp stove outside will do in a pinch, or even a gas barbecue, although you need to bundle up! (Don’t try to use either of these cookers in a house or under a roof!!) Do you have oil lamps, lanterns or LED light sources with adequate batteries or fuel to keep them lit? Also, check your stock of warm clothes and blankets. If you are without heat for a little while, bundle up to preserve warmth!
  3. Do you have a reasonable supply of essential nutritional supplements or medications? This is often an afterthought, so keep a running stock in the cupboard! We’re natural health types, so having the proper nutritional supplements, at least a month’s worth, is essential for some of our health needs. We order in advance because in our part of the central plains you can’t just pop into the local health food store (there isn’t one).
  4. Build a menu, add some fun and seize the adventure! When checking your supplies, take time to jot down a good pre-planned menu for emergencies and then be sure to have the components on hand. This takes the stress off, but it can also make lemonade out of lemons. Aside from simple dishes and maybe some soup mix, be sure to include hot cocoa and marshmallows. Or, if baking is your thing, have the proper supplies for a yummy gingerbread or cinnamon rolls. Then check your board games and other fun items. A movie night is great, but if the power is sketchy, board games or cards by candlelight can be an out-of-the-ordinary diversion. Maybe spend some time imagining what it was like for your forebearers who didn’t have electricity until the last century (that’s everyone). Life was very different, and required a lot of planning ahead. Family stories about the challenges and adventures of that time are a good thing to store up for events like these, just ask grand or great-grand parents! Shared trials can be, ironically, a good way to connect with family and others!
  5. Finally, schedule a trial run, check supplies and restock often! If you have heaters, lights, generators, and other devices that you have never used, take time (not during a storm) to test them, and learn how to use them safely and with ease! Below zero temperatures are not the time to be fiddling with a generator outside!

There are many other considerations when preparing for an approaching storm, and the list above is only a starting point. Here is a resource from the CDC that offers a winter storm preparation list for home and vehicle: https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/winter/beforestorm/preparehome.html

This resource from the American Red Cross has handy printouts to keep on file: https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/types-of-emergencies/winter-storm.html

Preparing ahead of time for challenges and difficulties is an essential quality of a prudent consumer. A day’s worth of preparation is a penny (or a life) saved in the long-run!

Keep a shiny penny and a positive thought!