(A Vintage Life Lines from 2015)
As I was cleaning out my mother’s house after her death, I kept looking for one particular treasure: her Victory Cook Book. It was the only cook book in our kitchen during my childhood, and I had paged through it many times.
I finally found it and began to read again. Now I know why I can’t cook.
It was published in the middle of World War II, 1943. I wasn’t born until the end of that war, but childishly, I imagined it as an exciting time to live, so the book’s section on Wartime Cooking always fascinated me.
One article is called “How to Feed a Family of Five on $15 a Week.” It warned, “New taxes and other expenses that occur in wartime together with definite shortages in many commodities require the sharpest kind of economy.”
To attain that economy the editor advised, “Everybody must eat all food prepared if there is to be a minimum of waste.”
In addition to other waste-saving measures, he listed soup. “Practically all leftovers except sweets may go into the soup kettle,” he said. That included bones and chicken feet.
Maybe that’s why strange things wind up in dishes I cook today—but never a chicken foot. Maybe a beak here or there . . . .
He suggested that everyone clean his or her plate. My parents took that advice to heart. I am still a card-carrying member of the WWII Clean Plate Club, and I pay my dues by wearing XL pants to this day. No one can say I’m not a patriot!
War required shipping the best meats, flours, fats and sugars to the armed forces. In their place the cook book suggested things like “Mock Sausage,” which used lima beans to fool people into believing they were eating sausage. There was a recipe for Soybean Pastry for fruit pies (you had to grow the fruit yourself) and for Peanut Chops, which substituted the lowly peanut for the magnificent pork chop.
That would account for some of my bad culinary experiments, like navy beans replacing pecans in a pecan pie. My guests are still spitting out bean fragments.
I found a Bean Roast and a Tongue Omelet. At this point I would have signed up to go fight Hitler myself to avoid putting my tongue on a tongue omelet.
The book claimed that “No shortages are expected in fish or seafood. Use them generously.” Thus, the wartime cook was given recipes for Grilled Sardines, Fish Forcement and Codfish Puffs.
I know I’m confused about cooking but I’ve never forced a fish or puffed a codfish!
The Victory Cook Book also reflects the monumental social changes we’ve experienced since that time.
Everything in the book was created from scratch by women who apparently had plenty of time on their hands. Where is the mushroom soup, the frozen pie crust, the cake mix? Cool Whip?
I also found directions for rendering and clarifying fat after use. The process took four steps and had to be repeated three times “to obtain a clean cake of fat to be used next time.” Is that why I want to reuse everything?
Wartime cooks even celebrated Fat Rendering Day. They didn’t know many people like me who left for school at 6:45 a.m. and returned at 5 p.m. with an armload of papers to grade.
Apparently a woman’s IQ in that day was judged by her cooking. One illustration shows a smiling lady bending over her MixMaster. The caption says, “The machine beats time as well as batter while you supply the brain that makes the cake.”
I guess that is my problem as a cook. I do not have a cake-making brain. Not even a sandwich-making brain.
Cooking was also considered the way to a social life in those days. A photo of a woman opening her oven door said, “Strike up a warm acquaintance with your oven and its special temperament.” I’d rather strike up a warm acquaintance with a stray dog.
Another woman-and-oven photo said, “Time and the Oven await the occasion and the man.” So, you had to cook to get a man? Today I would think you can snare one with a Pop Tart right out of the box.
A section called “Entertaining Without a Maid” said, “Many women can manage almost any form of entertainment without a maid. For most, however, there are distinct limits to what should be attempted for pleasant and dignified results.”
Having produced many unpleasant and undignified dining results without a maid, I would have to agree. I moved on to “The Formal Dinner or Luncheon Served by the Household Staff.
Obviously, the secret to cooking something edible is a household staff.
My favorite caption described a photo of an ice cream dish. It said, “You can BUY the makings for this luscious loaf of ice cream and devil’s food.”
NOW you’re talkin’!
