Timbales found their way onto many a Twenties dinner table. They were relatively easy to make. Better yet, they used canned or leftover cooked meats in an inviting way. Today Sue makes Tuna Timbales with Ruth, but you could also make this recipe with leftover chicken or salmon.
This is Lesson 34 of When Sue Began to Cook, a 1924 children’s story cookbook by Louise Bennett Weaver. If you’re just joining us, click the book title to see Lesson 1, where the story begins. Actually, the story begins several books before this one, in A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband (with Bettina’s Best Recipes.) That too is a storybook cookbook, and it tells the story of Bettina as a young bride and her friend Ruth who became Ruth Ann’s mother. The link will take you to the Internet Archive’s copy, where you can read or download it.
But back to Sue and Ruth Ann. Timbales sound difficult to make but they’re a simple concoction of baked bread crumbs, cooked or canned meat, seasonings, and a little egg and milk to hold it all together. And they are delicious. You may know of it from the 1960s onward as tuna patties or salmon patties. It’s basically the same recipe prepared in a different shape.
Sue’s Notes on Tuna Timbales
Take the tuna out of the can just as soon as you open it. Mother told us both to write it down again so we would never, ever forget.
We don’t have any timbale pans at our house, so Mother had us bake the timbales in muffin pans. When they were done, we let them stand for about five minutes. Then we carefully loosened the little timbales and helped them out onto a hot platter without breaking a single one.
While the timbales were baking, we each made a creamy sauce. Just like the creamy sauce for Cheesed Creamed Potatoes, only without the cheese. We used four tablespoons of butter, four tablespoons of flour, two cups of milk, one teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon paprika. [You may want to reduce the salt to 1/2 tsp. A full teaspoon of salt is a lot of salt for two cups of white sauce.] When this was all done, and was creamy and hot, we poured it over the timbales on the platter.
A little timbale reassurance
“Tuna Timbales may seem hard to make,” Mother said to us while we were stirring our Creamy Sauce. “But it’s a good recipe to know. Instead of tuna, you can use any kind of leftover cooked meat or chicken, or turkey, or salmon. And people will like it exactly as well as they did the first time it was served.”
The little timbales did look delicious. We had them for lunch, with little hot biscuits and jam and iced milk and some of Robin’s lettuce. And we ate out on our little porch table. (Meals always taste better out there.)
Ruth Ann is already planning lunches she and her mother will have next summer on their porch table, and she says she is going to have us over very often.
from the book When Sue Began to Cook by Louise Bennett Weaver, 1924
Course: Luncheon, Main Course
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Bettina, Ruth Ann, Sue, tuna, When Sue Began to Cook
Equipment
1 muffin pan or individual timbale pans if you have them
Ingredients
1 ½cupstunacanned, drained
1cupbread crumbssoft
1tbspparsleycut up very fine
1tsponioncut up very fine (minced)
1tspsaltor less
¼tsppaprika
¼tspcelery salt
1tbsplemon juice
2eggs, beaten
½cupmilk
Instructions
Place the drained tuna in a mixing bowl. Mother had us flake it — break it apart with a silver fork. Then add soft breadcrumbs, parsley, onion, salt, paprika, celery salt, lemon juice, beaten eggs, and milk. Stir it all together.
Butter the compartments of a muffin tin and fill them 2/3 full with the tuna mixture. Then place the muffin pan into a shallow larger pan, like a 9 x 13 pan. Fill the larger pan with hot water so that it comes up the sides of the muffin tin, about 1-inch deep. Then bake the timbales in a moderate oven (350℉) for 30 minutes.
When they're done, let stand for five minutes and then loosen them from the pan. Serve plain or with a cream sauce.
Sue and Ruth Ann get ready to cream butter with their “holey” spoons.
When I turned to Lesson 31, where Sue makes Sugar Cookies, I was a little surprised at how filthy the pages were. This recipe from When Sue Began to Cook was spattered with 100 year old flour stains. They sported a dot or two of grease, and even a little splash of age old vanilla extract. Apparently this is an excellent sugar cookie recipe.
This is our 31st lesson from this cookbook, and we’re a little over halfway through the year. My copy of the book was actually missing one of the earlier lessons on walnut fudge. The pages were ripped right out of the book. That must have been a sacred family recipe. If this is your first adventure with Sue and her friend Ruth Ann, click the linked book title in the first paragraph to be transported back to the beginning. A whole story goes along with these cooking lessons and you don’t want to miss any of it.
Last week Sue and Ruth Ann learned how to make a sponge cake and fold egg whites into a batter. This week they cream fat and sugar together. And Sue has lots to say about it…
Sue’s Notes from Sugar Cookies Day
“You may each get out one of the yellow mixing bowls,” Mother said, “and one of the holey spoons.” Ruth Ann and I were both glad because we knew that meant “creaming,” and we like to cream things.
We have a porcelain topped table at our house. It’s just the thing to roll cookies on. Mother had us sprinkle some flour on the clean table so the cookies wouldn’t stick. Then she had us take up half the dough in our hands and roll it together. (Of course, we washed our hands just before we began to make the cookies.) Then we put the dough on the floured table top.
Next we dusted the rolling pin with flour. Mother showed us how to roll out the dough as evenly as possible till it was about an eighth of an inch thick. Then we took the cooky cutter, dipped it into the flour and cut the cookies out. We really took several cooky cutters before we were through. We made our cookies in the shape of stars, ducks, and hearts.)
After we had cut out all the cookies we could, there was still some dough left. Mother had us make a ball of it and roll it out again and cut out some more cookies.
The Neighborhood Cookies
We made “neighborhood cookies” today, and at the time I write this, there isn’t a single one left!
There has been a regular epidemic of painting and yard cleaning in this neighborhood lately. I wrote about the McCarthy’s sudden interest in window washing. Well, after that was all finished they began to paint their house. It was so much fun with everybody standing around and giving advice that Robin and Teddy began to tease to paint something too. Of course, they are much littler than Clarence Patrick and Clyde. So Mother bought them some paint and let them paint the back fence between our yard and Teddy’s.
So today Ruth Ann and I announced that after our cooking lesson we would treat every real “neighborhood worker” to cookies. Everybody, that is, who had spent the whole morning in painting or gardening. Or cleaning up a back yard. Or doing something useful outdoors. It was a wonderful day for work and our cookies melted away like snowballs in August, as Father says. But it was worth it! This is getting to be the cleanest, neatest, shiniest, paintiest neighborhood in town!
Sue
And that is how Sue made Sugar Cookies during her Saturday cooking class.
Note: While I correct most of Sue’s atrocious spelling, her spelling of cookie as cooky, when talking about only one, is correct through the 1950s.
From When Sue Began to Cook, by Louise Bennett Weaver
Course: Dessert, Snack, Tea time
Cuisine: American
Keyword: baking, Bettina, cookies, dessert, Ruth Ann, Sue, teatime
Ingredients
½cuplardAny solid shortening should work here
1cupsugar
2eggs
4Tbspwater
1tspvanilla
2⅓cupsflour
¼tspsalt
½tsppowdered nutmeg
2tspbaking powder
Instructions
Measure out the lard into a bowl, and cream it with a wooden spoon (mash it down over and over) until it is very soft. The cookbook suggests using a spoon with a hole in the middle if you have one. Then add the sugar slowly, creaming all the time, until it is all added and well mixed.
Break the eggs into a smaller bowl, and add the water and vanilla. Beath this egg mixture up all together with a Dover egg beater and then add it to the sugar mixture. Beat it all up very had with the same spoon until it is well mixed.
Now take the dry ingredients and mix them up together, and then stir them into the wet mixture. (Or you can use a sifter, if you have one, and sift the dry ingredients over the bowl.)
Roll out until about one-eighth inch thick, and then cut out with a cutter dipped in flour. Grease a cookie sheet and bake in a moderate oven (350-375℉) for fifteen minutes.
Cream tapioca pudding is what most of us today would call… tapioca pudding. You know, in a milk custard sauce. Why Sue makes Cream Tapioca Pudding instead of regular ordinary tapioca pudding, I have no idea.
Anyway, in Lesson 15, dated Saturday March 3, Sue and Ruth Ann begin to make less heavy, winter foods. Tapioca pudding is nice for a cold early spring. Usually served chilled, it’s a heavy pudding, unlike the sherbets and ice creams that appear later in the year. And traditionally tapioca pudding ranks as a favorite in homes that have children.
If you are seeing this series for the first time, we are working our way through the 1924 cookbook When Sue Began to Cook. It’s part of the Bettina’s Best Recipes series of books from the Twenties, and it takes the form of an instruction book framed within a story. Sue and her best friend Ruth Ann are spending their Saturday mornings learning to cook under the watchful eye of Sue’s mother Bettina, ace cook and house manager. If you want to start at the beginning, clicking the book title link will take you back to Lesson 1 so you can follow their progress and learn their story.
Each week’s lesson includes a new recipe. The recipes usually contain a new cooking technique. In addition, Sue keeps a lesson notebook which tells the tale of Ruth Ann’s ill mother and various other happenings.
Sue’s notes on Cream Tapioca Pudding
It seemed to take us a good while to finish our work this morning, and when Ruth Ann came over for the cooking lesson we weren’t quite ready, Mother and I. And Robin was rushing around doing his own work and grumbling because Teddy was waiting for him and he couldn’t go till he had brought up the wood for the fireplace and had fed Caesar [the family cat] and had put his own room in order.
Robin makes me tired. I had dried the breakfast dishes for Mother (I always do on Saturday) and had straightened up my own room and had dusted the living room and watered the plants and I was just cleaning the bird cage when Ruth Ann came, but I wasn’t grumbling. I have a good deal to do, it seems to me, but I don’t scold about it. That is, not very often.
“Oh, Robin,” I heard Ruth Ann say. “I wish I’d come earlier! Why, I could have straightened up your room for you. I just love to make beds and dust and hang up clothes.”
I could hardly believe my ears. Really, I don’t mind doing these things, but I can’t say I care to do them for the neighbors!
“Don’t you take care of your own room at your grandmother’s?” Mother asked. (Mother was making salad dressing. She usually does on Saturdays.)
“No, because Grandmother prefers to have Selma do it. It keeps her busy. And Selma thinks I don’t do things right.”
“Hurray!” cried Robin. “You should worry about that? So much more time to play!”
“But it isn’t any fun not belonging to a real family and not having things you just have to do every day,” Ruth Ann said. “I don’t feel real at Grandmother’s. When Mother comes home, I intend to do all the work. Every bit!”
“All work and no play would make Ruth Ann a dull girl,” laughed Mother. “But I agree with you, Ruth Ann, that all play and no work is worse yet. Well, at least you’re learning to cook and wash dishes, and by the time your Mother comes home you’ll know all about running the kitchen at least. And just wait until Spring comes! Then we’ll each have a little garden to tend.”
“Me too, Aunt Bettina?”
“Yes, indeed. Right here in this very back yard beside Sue’s. And just wait till you girls learn to go to market and keep accounts and do other things besides cooking! But the cooking must come first. Well, are you all ready to begin on Cream Tapioca Pudding?”
We were, and it was an easy lesson. But all the time I kept thinking of what Ruth Ann had said about work, and real families. I’m glad my family is real, even if I do have lots of things to do every day.
Recipe for Cream Tapioca Pudding
This tapioca pudding recipe adds apples to it for a bit of added texture, taste, and nutrition.
This pudding had to be cooked in the double boiler. Mother had us put the tapioca, milk, and salt all together in the top utensil (pan) and cook it for twenty five minutes. (Of course we had the bottom part half full of boiling water. We always watch it, too, to see that it doesn't boil dry.)
We gave the cooking tapioca a stir every once in a while to keep it an even thicknes all through. While it was cooking we broke the two eggs in a bowl and beat them up with the Dover egg beater. Then we added the sugar to the eggs and beat them for a few minutes longer. Next (while the tapioca was still cookng) Mother had us wash, quarter, peel, and slice our apples. We each used a little sharp vegetable knife and it didn't take any time at all.
After the tapioca had cooked a good twenty five minutes by the clock, we added the eggs and sugar and cooked it for three minutes longer, stirring all the time. Then we added the vanilla and lemon extract and the sliced apples, and poured the pudding into a pretty china serving dish.
Mother had us set our puddings out on top of the icebox to get cold. (We don't take ice in winter. The icebox is in a little outside room that isn't heated.) We saved my pudding for dinner and had it with cream and sugar. Ruth Ann carried hers home.
In Lesson 14 of the Saturday morning cooking class, Sue makes Escalloped Oysters. This is a continuing series from the pages of the 1924 book When Sue Began to Cook. We started with Lesson 1, which you can find by clicking the linked book title. Sue and her friend Ruth Ann completed an entire year of lessons, one Saturday at a time, and you will find them reproduced for the first time here.
Even in the Twenties a dish like Escalloped Oysters appeared on the table rarely. This was a holiday dish, a celebratory dish, or a Sunday dish for families who routinely made a fancy Sunday dinner for the family. Why Bettina guides while Sue makes Escalloped Oysters, I have no idea.
Several other less expensive and more family-friendly dishes could make their way into small casserole dishes. Perhaps it formed a basis for other escalloped dishes, like salmon, potatoes, tuna, or corn. Today we know of Scalloped Potatoes more often than any of the other options. Long ago we dropped the e in escalloped.
You can still find recipes for Scalloped (or Escalloped) Oysters online, so if you are so inclined you might want to give this recipe a try. It should work just as well with canned or fresh oysters. A 6 1/2 oz can of oysters should give you enough to make this recipe. The Spruce Eats gives the lowdown on cooked and canned oysters
Sue’s notes on Escalloped Oysters
Escalloped oysters is quite a grownup dish — a company dish too. So if it hadn’t been for the new little casseroles Mrs. Rambler gave to Ruth Ann and me for our cooking lessons, Mother might have had us make something else today. (I don’t call her old any more. She isn’t so awfully old when you know her.)
It was Ruth Ann who called for the basket and napkin after all. She said Mrs Rambler told her they were the best muffins she ever ate and they did her head lots of good. (Mother says she guesses the kind thought was what did her head the most good. And that very often cross people aren’t cross if you’re nice to them.) Well, Ruth Ann went in and had quite a nice little visit with her, and told her all about our cooking lessons. And the very next day, here came a messenger with two of the dearest little casseroles you ever saw in all your life, old Kitchen Diary. All wrapped up in tissue paper and ribbon. They were “for the two little cooks.” Of course we already had a casserole but it was an old one, and Mother’s. And these were brand new.
Mother showed us how to temper them so they wouldn’t crack. That meant to put them in a pan of cold water over the fire and let the water come to a boil slowly. After that they were safe, Mother said. But she told us we mustn’t ever put them right over the fire to melt butter in them or anything. Well, I certainly don’t intend to spoil mine that way!
Recipe for Escalloped Oysters
If you like buttered soft bread or cracker crumbs in food, you should love this.
Mother had us each put our own oysters (of course a pint means two cupfuls) in a little strainer over a bowl so that we could catch all the liquor that drained off. Then she had us take up an oyster at a time and feel it to see if there was any shell in it or around it. Of course the shell had to be removed.
We rolled our crackers fine with a rolling pin, putting them on a piece of nice clean brown paper to do it. Then we each melted our butter in the warm oven in the baking dish we were going to use and of course this buttered the dish and also saved using another. We mixed our cracker, melted butter, salt and paprika together in a clean pan, and when they were well mixed we spread a layer of this cracker mixture over the bottom of the dish. Then we added a layer of oysters (about a third of what we had), spreading them out flat with a fork. Then we spread anther layer of crumbs on them, enough to cover them from sight. Then we added more oysters and more crumbs, more oysters and more crumbs in the same way, having the top layer in crumbs.
I forgot to say that we added milk to the oyster liquor so there were two and a half cups of liquids all together. We poured this gently over the top of the dish (I mean the contents of the dish) and then we baked it in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. [moderate oven = 350ºF] When the escalloped oysters were done they were a lovely brown color.
Come into the kitchen while Sue makes Graham Muffins. These appeared on the Twenties table often because they added fiber to the diet. This is Lesson 13 in the series from When Sue Began to Cook, one of the cookbooks in the Bettina’s Best Recipes book series from the Twenties. If you are just joining the series for the first time, click the book title to transport back to Lesson 1. Sue and her friend Ruth Ann’s story unfolds as the lessons progress. In addition, the recipes increase in difficulty as they go.
Graham muffins contain graham flour. This coarselSy ground whole wheat flour was named for the maker of the Graham cracker. The grind of Graham flour added texture and fiber to the recipe. Unlike almost all other flours and powders in the kitchen, cooks never sifted Graham flour. If they did, the point of the flour stayed behind in the screen.
This is the first muffin recipe to appear in When Sue Began to Cook. Most beginning cookbooks began with simple breads like biscuits and muffins. They were relatively easy to make and looked good even when they came out less than perfect. A good white sauce can be tricky for a beginning cook, yet this is exactly where Bettina began teaching in Lesson 1. Sue and Ruth Ann find the muffin recipe relatively easy after their preceding kitchen adventures.
Sue’s notebook about Graham Muffins
Old Mrs. Rambler, who lives across the street from us (next to the McCarthy’s) has headaches and doesn’t like children. Probably that’s because she lives so close to so many of them. Ruth Ann and I keep thinking how nice it would be if she would only adopt Maxine McCarthy, the one with the beautiful tight curls, and perhaps Clarence Patrick, the well behaved boy, but so far nothing has come of the idea. The children bother her a lot and are always swinging on her gate when she isn’t looking just because it makes her so cross to have them do it. And I suppose she never notices which ones are good and which are bad.
So, with this introduction, anyone would understand how surprised I was when Ruth Ann said to Mother, “Aunt Bettina, would you mind if I carried six or eight of my nice fat muffins over to Mrs. Rambler?”
“But why Mrs. Rambler?” I asked in a surprised tone. “With all the McCarthys there who are always so hungry, why in the world would you slight them in favor of a cross crabbed woman who is simply rolling in money?”
Mother laughed. “Mrs. Rambler isn’t exactly rolling in money, dear,” she said. “And besides, everybody is always doing things for the McCarthys. Let Ruth Ann take her muffins wherever she wishes.”
“I want to give them to Mrs. Rambler because nobody ever thinks of her when the presents are going round,” Ruth Ann said, bravely. I guess she needs to be brave when she talks to me. I can be quite fierce and sarcastic at times.
“We’ll put the muffins in my pretty brown basket,” said Mother. “We’ll put a clean napkin in it first and then we’ll draw it up over the muffins to keep them warm while Ruth Ann is carrying them. You can leave the basket there, dear. Tell her Robin will call for it tomorrow.”
Ruth Ann and I went together on the errand of mercy (only I wasn’t very sympathetic) and Mrs. Rambler herself came to the door. “Here are some muffins for your lunch,” said Ruth Ann, handing them in. “Someone will call for the basket tomorrow.”
“I never have any appetite anymore,” said Mrs. Rambler, but she took the basked and thanked us for it very nicely. Maxine and Clifford were leaning over the fence when we came out. I guess they wondered why on earth we would be taking anything in a basket to old Mrs. Rambler when so many hungry children lived next door. But after all, the McCarthys have more fun than Mrs. Rambler does even if they are hungrier.
Recipe for Graham Muffins
Sometimes the storyline that appears in Sue’s notebook reads a bit odd. This was one of those entries. No explanation is given for Sue’s animosity towards Mrs. Rambler. Only that the neighborhood children annoy her and that this is somehow Mrs. Rambler’s fault. Like I said. Odd.
Here’s the recipe for Graham Muffins. You should be able to replace the graham flour with oat flour if you cannot tolerate wheat, and replace the white flour with 1 to 1 gluten free flour. The muffins will be quite a bit softer but they should still be tasty. The egg will help to hold them together.
Never sift Graham flour! I learned that a long time ago when I was a little girl, so I rememebered today when we began to make our muffins. Mother had us each put the white flour, baking powder, sugar and salt through the flour sifter, and then add the Graham flour. You see, if you sift Graham flour it takes away all the bran part that is so good for you.
Well, after we had all the dry things mixed together, we each beat up an egg in a bowl with a Dover egg beater and then added the milk to the egg. Then Mother had us melt the lard the way she does in order to save dishes. She had us light the oven and each warm up a muffin pan in it. Then we each measured out our two level tablespoons of lard in one of the little muffin places. Then we dipped a piece of clean brown paper in the lard and with it, we greased the other muffin compartments. (Of course the one that held the lard was already greased.)
Then we emptied the melted lard and the egg and milk in the bowl and with the other things and stirred them all together very thoroughly. (I'm growing a lot of muscle with all this beating!)
Then Mother had us fill the greased muffin pans with the batter. Each little compartment had to be only about half full, and the recipe made twelve muffins. Then we baked them in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes and they were done. [moderate oven = 350º F]
One of the fun parts of learning to cook well is that we can create favorite dishes for favorite people. In Cooking Lesson 12, Sue’s Cream of Tomato Soup hits the spot because it’s a soup her father loves. This is part of the series of lessons from When Sue Began to Cook, a 1924 cookbook in the Bettina’s Best Recipes series of cookbooks. If you’re just tuning in, you can click the book title to visit Lesson 1 and start from the beginning.
Even though the lessons take place on Saturdays, Sue’s father is at work at the office. This book was written two years before Henry Ford introduced the five day work week. Through the early part of the Twenties, working on Saturdays was normal after working all week. Some people worked half days on Saturday. Others worked all day and only took Sundays off.
This recipe is unusual because it takes two pots to make. Modern tomato soup recipes only require one pot, but this one requires making a white sauce in one pan while heating the tomato puree/broth to boiling in the other. It’s nice to know yet another way of combining ingredients — especially if you don’t mind washing two saucepans at the end of the experiment.
Let’s visit Sue’s notebook to see how the lesson, and the day, went.
Sue’s notes on Cream of Tomato Soup
Probably we wouldn’t have tried anything so hard as Cream of Tomato Soup if it hadn’t been Father’s birthday today. But it is his favorite soup and when I asked him yesterday what he wanted me to give him for a present, he said, “well, you can make me some Cream of Tomato Soup at your cooking lesson.”
“Then,” said Mother, “you’ll have to come home at noon. You know the cooking lesson comes in the morning, and tomato soup ought to be served just after it is made. Even old experienced cooks have trouble with it sometimes and it will be a little hard for beginners like Sue and Ruth Ann.”
“But we can do it, Mother! Please let us!” I begged. It seemed so nice to me to be able to cook just what my father wanted on his birthday.
“I’d like to bring a man home to luncheon with me,” Father said. “A friend of mine who will be in town just for the weekend.”
Mother said we could try the soup, and Father could bring his guest. I tell you, we were excited! Mother had made the birthday cake yesterday, thank goodness, and she let Robin put on the pink candles. Robin felt so important that he acted as if the cake was the main part of the meal, but of course I knew that the soup was the principal thing since Father had asked for it and it was one of his favorite dishes.
Well, Ruth Ann and I were so afraid that the soup would curdle, but it didn’t. (Mother had said that it would if we weren’t very careful.) And what do you suppose? The man Father brought home with him for luncheon was Uncle Harry, Ruth Ann’s father! Ruth Ann was so surprised and happy to see him (you know he gets to town only about once a month) and he was so surprised and happy to know that his only daughter was really learning to cook that poor Father’s birthday was almost forgotten after all.
The Cream of Tomato Soup recipe
Try this one and learn to stir the puree into the hot cream soup. It’s a worthwhile skill for your cooking toolbox.
Mother had us each mix our tomatoes, onion, cloves, bay leaf, and water in a small kettle. She had us simmer it for fifteen minutes. That means cook it very slowly, with only a little heat so that it just bubbles now and then but doesn't really boi.. Then we poured it through the strainer, the coarse-meshed one. Mother had us press the cooked tomato through with a spoon. She said we must ust all of it that could be strained. [Strain the mixture into a bowl. You keep the strained liquid and toss the spent vegetables.]
Then we each took a clean saucepan and put the butter into it. We melted that over the fire very slowly and then added the flour, salt, and paprika. We mixed it very carefully with a big spoon so that there wasn't a single lump in it. And then we added the milk and cooked it all toggether, stirring it all the time till it was creamy and a little bit thick. After it began to bubble (the fire was low so it wouldn't burn) Mother had us cook it one minute more by the clock.
We each put our strained tomato mixture back in the first kettle we had used and heated it till it boiled. Then Mother had us add the soda. This made it fizz up all of a sudden, but we stirred it around for a minute and then emptied all of the tomato part right into the hot creamy milk mixture. Mother says all good cooks know that tomato souo is likely to curdle if the milk is emptied into the tomatoes. The tomatoes must be emptied into the milk. Then we let the soup get very hot for just a minute, and then we dished it up into hot soup plates and served it with crackers that had been put into the hot overn for a few minutes to make them crisp.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away. We’ve all heard it, and by the 1920s it was a common saying. During the autumn and winter Twenties cooks attempted to keep the family healthy by providing a variety of foods. Since variety lessens with the wintertime if you eat local or regional foods, fruits like apples take on importance. Today Sue makes Baked Apples designed to tempt jaded appetites.
This is Lesson 10 of a 51-lesson cooking course from 1924 called When Sue Began to Cook. Click the link if this is your first exposure to the series and it will take you back to Lesson 1.
In the book this recipe is actually called Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples. Sue’s mother Bettina spends lots of time trying to devise a way to get Ruth Ann to eat more. She thinks of naming a food after Ruth Ann as an enticement. We’ll see how that works out in Sue’s notes from the day’s class.
Sue’s notes on Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples
It seems to me Mother is a good deal more interested these days in what Ruth Ann eats than in what I eat, and ever since she gave her the blue bowl she has tried and tried to improve her appetite. (Ruth Ann’s appetite, of course.)
“We must teach her to cook the things she ought to eat,” Mother said to me this morning. “Her grandmother doesn’t realize what a thin little thing she is. We’ll have to make her rosy and strong before her Mother gets home.”
Baked apples was one of the foods Mother thought Ruth Ann ought to eat, and of course it was one of the things she ‘specially disliked. But Mother told us she had invented a new dish called Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples, a kind that every child — girl or boy — was sure to like.
“Mmm,” said Robin. “Make enough for me, too!” But I guess he doesn’t need any new dishes to make him eat.
These baked apples were good, much better than the common ones. And Ruth Ann really liked them. In fact, she ate two which was as many as Robin had.
While they were baking, Mother talked to us about oven meals. And about learning to plan, when you were using the oven for one dish, to make it a whole oven dinner. Of course with our two pans of baked apples there wasn’t a lot of room left in the oven. But Mother popped a little casserole of escalloped salmon in for our lunch so it could be cooking at the same time. “By the time this year is up,” she said, “I want you girls to be able to plan meals as well as cook them, and plan sensibly, too.” And I want you to help me do the marketing this summer.”
“Goodie!” said Robin. “I’ll go along with my wagon and haul the things home.”
“Fine,” said Mother. “And we’ll all learn to keep account of the money we spend.”
“Can I go marketing too?” Ruth Ann asked. “Will I be in the way?”
“In the way? Of course not!” replied my darling Mother. “Why, I want you to learn how so you can be the housekeeper when you’re back in your own house again.”
“If that time ever comes!” sighed Ruth Ann. But her eyes were shining and I knew she was feeling happy.
Make your own Baked Apples
Baked apples can be as simple as hollowing out apples, filling them with butter and a little brown sugar, and baking them. This recipe adds a little more flavor to make them special.
First of all we washed the apples and then Mother showed us how to get the core out with the corer. We did it by digging a hole right around the core but not clear through the apple. You see we had to make a cup of each apple to hold the filling, so it had to be a hole and not a tunnel. Then we washed the apples again and we each set ours (open side up, like a cup) in a little whte enamelled baking pan.
Next, Mother had us each take one third of our cup of light brown sugar and mix it with the cinnamon. We put this into the cavities of our apples and then stuffed a marshmallow, a nut-meat, and two raisins in on top of it. On top of that we put half a level tablespoon of butter in each apple. Then Mother had us mix the rest of the sugar (we each had two-thirds of a cup left, of course) with the water and pour that over the tops of the apples.
Then we put the baking dishes in the oven, just a moderate oven, Mother said [350º F]. And baked our apples 40 minutes. Oh yes, I forgot to say that Mother had us baste the apples several times while we were cooking. I had heard people talk about basting a turkey, and I always supposed that meant sewing it up with a thread. It doesn't at all. Basting means to take a big kitchen spoon and dip up the juice in the pan and pour it over whatever is cookihg. Well, we basted our baked apples several times to make them juicy and good, and it surely worked. They were the nicest, fattest, juciest baked apples you ever saw.
Every cook should have a simple recipe for French Toast. Sue was no different, so Bettina teaches this dish during Lesson 8 of When Sue Began to Cook. Today Sue makes French toast. This is the eighth in a series that covers the recipes and content of the 1924 book When Sue Began to Cook. Click the link to start at the beginning and you can follow Sue and her friend Ruth Ann as they learn their way around the kitchen.
Although French Toast seems simple, little changes in preparation method can alter the taste and texture. Altering ingredients can change the taste as well, of course. Generally when I make French Toast I use cinnamon. This recipe doesn’t do that. It uses sugar, but no cinnamon. It also begins with toasted bread, which I find unusual. I’m looking forward to giving this a try.
As always, Sue has something to say about the lesson. This is where we learn a bit more about Sue and Ruth Ann, and today Sue has something to say about another friend in her circle. Sue often reminds me of her mother Bettina. Bettina always had an opinion about everything.
Sue’s notes on the French Toast lesson
French Toast always looked to me as if it would be hard to make, so when Mother asked us if we wouldn’t like to have Jean over to lunch after our cooking lesson and let her try some of our own French Toast, I was quite surprised. “But will it really be good enough?” I wondered.
“Of course it will,” Mother said. “You and Jean and Ruth Ann may eat at the little table in the sunroom. You can have some cold meat and some creamed carrots besides the French Toast. And of course, you can have bread and jelly, and milk to drink.
Jean is the prettiest and most dashing friend I have (I said this before Father once and he laughed for fifteen minutes, but even so, it is true.) And we don’t always get along very well. Mother says it is because we both like to manage, and perhaps it is, but Ruth Ann never manages and she doesn’t get along with Jean either. Still, that may be because Ruth Ann is so shy. Jean isn’t shy at all.
Inviting Jean to lunch
I had mentioned our cooking lessons to Jean once or twice, and she seemed quite impressed though she always had something to answer about her own violin lessons or her French lessons. When I invited her this time, I said carelessly, “By the way, Jean, Ruth Ann and I are going to make French Toast tomorrow morning at our cooking lesson. Can’t you come over and eat lunch with us at twelve thirty? We’ll let you try some of it.”
“Are you really truly going to make it all alone?” Jean said. “Will you show me how? I know I could do anything Ruth Ann can do!”
“Ruth Ann has already learned to make creamed potatoes, and cocoa drop cookies and black walnut fudge and cinnamon cocoa,” I answered. “So I guess you’d have quite a hard time catching up with her now. And anyhow, you’re only invited to lunch and lunch isn’t till twelve thirty. We have our cooking lesson at ten.”
“As for that, Miss Sue,” said Jean, just as haughtily as I had spoken, “I have my French lesson at ten. So naturally I couldn’t get there at that time. But I’ll come to lunch if your mother really said you could invite me and if my mother will let me.”
I didn’t dare tell Ruth Ann about this conversation. Ruth Ann, even if she is my best friend, isn’t much braver than a rabbit. And if she knew Jean had spoken with contempt of her ability to cook, she’d probably burn her French toast so black nobody could eat it and that wasn’t my plan at all.
But everything went off beautifully. The French Toast looked perfectly grand if I do say it, and Mother let us set the little table with some of her prettiest dishes and the darling little baby fern in the center. And she didn’t let Robin bother us either. He had his lunch first and went off to Teddy’s to play.
Jean didn’t have much to say when we would ask her, “Won’t you try some of my French toast?” (It took all of Ruth Ann’s and mine, too.) But she seemed to like it. At least she ate a great deal and so did we.
Oh, it’s lots of fun to be really learning to cook, and to be inviting your own company to lunch to eat your own French toast! I guess Jean envied us all right, though wild horses couldn’t have made her say so!
Mother had us take a wide shallow bowl, one large enough to hold a piece of toast. (I don't mean that we put the toast into it yet, though.) We broke one egg into our bowl and beat it up with the Dover egg beater. Then we added the milk, sugar and salt and kept on beating till they were all mixed. [If you don't have an old-fashioned egg beater, a whisk will work, too.]
Then we put the bacon fat into a frying pan over the fire, and let it get steaming hot. Then we turned the fire low under it.
We had already toasted the bread, and now Mother had us dip it into the egg mixture. We took each slice on a fork and dipped it carefully into the egg and then out again right into the hot frying pan. We let the toast get good and brown on the under side. Then we turned each slice over with a fork so that it could get brown on the other side too. In cooking it, we had to turn up the fire a little to make it hotter.
I forgot to say that before we started dipping our toast, we cut it into three-cornered pieces so we each had eight pieces instead of four. [In other words, cut each piece of toast diagonally.] Mother told us not to leave it in the egg mixture very long or it would absorb too much and there wouldnt be enough egg to last. But as we did it, there was plenty.
We helped the French Toast out onto our nice littl blue platters that were piping hot because they'd been standing in a warm place all the time, and there it was, all ready to serve with maple syrup from the big can.
Notes
If you want to use butter, ghee, or oil in place of bacon fat the recipe will still work. It will taste a bit different, however.
Sue and Ruth Ann make wheat cereal in 1920s double boilers.
On her third cooking lesson, Sue cooks Wheat Cereal with Dates. This lesson took place on Saturday December 9 according to When Sue Began to Cook. This would be considered a warm winter breakfast, although some Twenties families served it throughout most of the year for its nutrition.
Sue’s notes from the lesson explain why they are making cereal for their Saturday cooking lesson:
It all came about because Ruth Ann told us her Grandmother was always fussing at her because she wouldn’t eat any breakfast food. “But I just can’t, Aunt Bettina. Not even for Mother’s sake!” she said. “I’m never one bit hungry for breakfast.”
Eating breakfast
Ruth Ann is an emotional child, and when she told us about the great big dish of oatmeal her Grandmother set in front of her every morning, her eyes filled with tears, and she shivered almost as if she were cold. “In a thick old bowl, too!” she added. “No wonder I hate it!”
“What’s the bowl got to do with it?” jeered Robin, who always hangs around on our cooking days. “You don’t have to eat the bowl too, do you?”
We all laughed at that, although Mother shook her head at Robin and told him to run out and feed his rabbits. “I know just how you feel about the bowl, Ruth Ann.” she said. “Because I was your kind of a little girl myself once. Of course you must eat your breakfast food, but I’m going to show you just how you can do it and really enjoy it. First, you’ll have to make it yourself!”
Ruth Ann making her own
Ruth Ann looked doubtful. “Maybe Grandmother won’t let me,” she answered. “And besides I don’t know how.”
“You can soon learn,” said Mother. “In fact, you can learn today. And then I am going to give you a little blue bowl to eat it in, a bowl I had when I was a little girl.”
“Oh Mother, the one that used to be Aunt Mattie’s?” I cried, very much surprised. I knew that was one of Mother’s chiefest treasures.
“Yes, dear, Aunt Mattie’s,” Mother said. “Ruth Ann may have it for hers, and I know she’ll take good care of it. See, Ruth Ann!”
I was full of envy when Mother brought out the lovely little round porridge bowl, so thin and dainty. She would scarcely let Robin or me touch it, not to mention using it for our breakfast food!
“It seems to me even oatmeal would taste good in that,” said Ruth Ann with shining eyes. “That is, if I didn’t have to eat too much of it!”
“Wait till I show you how to make my kind of wheat cereal with dates,” said Mother. “It will give you as big a breakfast appetite as Robin’s! But in order to have the charm complete, you must do a third thing for me.”
“Oh, I will! I will! What is it?” cried Ruth Ann eagerly.
Nutrition and exercise go hand in hand
“While the cereal is cooking in the double boiler, you must put on your coat and hat and run around the house six times, no matter how cold and snowy it is.”
“Of course I will if you say so, Aunt Bettina!” (Mother isn’t truly her aunt, you know. She only calls her so because her Mother and mine were such good friends when they were little girls.)
“And then you must come in, finish cooking the breakfast food, and eat a good sized dish of it in the little blue bowl.”
“Oh, I will! I will! And I’ll write and tell Mother all about it!”
“Splendid! said Mother. “But now we must get to work on our third cooking lesson and learn exactly how to make Wheat Cereal with Dates.”
Make it yourself
Here’s the recipe for Wheat Cereal with Dates as it appeared in the book.
1tspsaltDon't forget this if you want it to be good
½cupseeded dates, cut fine
Instructions
First, we looked over the dates and washed them well. Then we took out the seeds with a sharp little knife. Then we cut them very fine. (The dates, not the seeds.)
We each put three cups of water in the top of our own double boiler and set it directly over the fire. We had the under part of the double boiler half full of hot water on another part of the stove. We let the three cups of water come to a slow boil and then we added the salt. We stirred the cereal in slowly, mixing it with a spoon all the time. (Mother told us not to let the water stop dancing while the cereal was being added.)
* Note: Today's double boilers are not usually designed to sit on a stove's heating element without the bottom portion. Only the bottom part fits on the stove. If you use a double boiler, it will take longer to bring the water to a boil with both sections together. Or you can use a heavy pot directly over the flame, but it must be stirred well or it will stick and scorch.
When all the cereal was in, we let it boil hard for about three minutes, stirring it all the time.
Then we each set the utensil (I mean the upper part of the double boilder holding the cereal) into the lower part that had water in it, and let it cook that way slowly for about forty five minutes.
After the cereal had cooked for thirty minutes we added the dates and let it cook fifteen minutes more. ("The kitchen clock is the cook's best friend," Mtoher says.)
If you'll just try it yourself and serve it warm with sugar and cream, you'll never say again that you don't like breakfast food! Mother says we can use raisins or seeded prunes cut fine the next time we make this cereal, but as for me, give me dates!
This week I finally finished a long-awaited project. For many years I wanted a Twenties kimono robe for summer wear. It’s called a kimono robe because it uses kimono sleeves, which means the sleeves are cut as part of the garment’s front and back. This robe is in no way an actual Japanese kimono. It is a Twenties kimono robe creation through and through.
As I paged through a 1924 magazine the other day, I saw an article I’d seen many times before. Every time, I admit, I longed to make one of these for myself. The article itself said “The instructions require no pattern, and the time for making is of no consequence, two hours proving ample.”
“The instructions require no pattern, and the time for making is of no consequence, two hours proving ample.”
Inspiration, 1924
Whether you call it a negligee, a peignoir, a kimono, or a robe, this creation ended up quite satisfactory. It definitely took more than two hours to put together, so set aside at least four hours if you want to wear it tonight.
One of the nicest additions to this simple piece of clothing is the deep tuck that goes over the shoulders and down to the hip in back. It helps to shape the negligee a bit. Darts over the front hips help with that as well.
This is how the finished Twenties kimono robe looks in my size.
Completed robe in a light, gauzy fabric.
What you will need
To make your own, you will need:
Two lengths of 45″ or 60″ fabric. A length here equals the distance from the base of your neck to your ankles or the base of your neck to the floor. Three yards total should be about right.
4-5 yards of 1 – 1.5 inch satin ribbon for belt tie
Thread
Sewing machine or needle
Scissors
Pencil or chalk to mark your fabric (without a pattern, you need a way to mark cutting lines)
Ruler/ dressmaking ruler/ tape measure and straight edge — something to measure with. I use my trusty Picken Square for pattern drafting. (Link goes to Lacis, who reproduced the Picken Square in the late 1990s and still has some.) Anything that will help you draw straight lines will work.
If you wear a size small, medium, or large, 45 inch fabric should work fine. If you wear an XL, XXL or larger size, you will probably need 60-inch fabric. Basically, whatever your hip measure is (36”, 56”, etc.), that measure needs to be about 4-7 inches less than the width of your fabric in order to get a nice loose fitting robe. So if your hip measures 36 inches, 45 – 36 = 9 inches. 45 inches is plenty in width. If your hip measures 56 inches, 60 – 56 = 4. That will work too.
Fabric type: You want a cotton or rayon or polyester that drapes nicely. Too stiff and it won’t hang like a kimono. Prewash your fabric to see how it will actually hang. I made mine from 60-inch wide mystery fabric. When I began I thought it was a cotton, but by the time the project was complete I am pretty sure it is a polyester. And I love it. It’s loose, comfortable, and was completely made from my stash.
Creating your kimono
Even though this robe uses no pattern, that doesn’t mean it uses no measurements. You will mark your lines right onto the fabric with your pencil or chalk (dressmaker’s chalk works great) and then cut along those lines.
First, fold your material lengthwise so you have the long selvedges together. It should be half the width of your fabric and the full three yards long.
Then fold that piece in half crosswise so that all the selvedges are together and it is half the length it was. Your fabric should now measure 1.5 yards in length on the table, and half the fabric width. It should look like this:
This is how your fabric looks folded on the table.
Place the fabric on the table with the long folds away from you, the selvedges closest to you, and the crosswise fold to your left. Now you are ready to measure and cut.
(If your fabric is slippery, pin the layers together here and there so that the fabric doesn’t move while you cut it.)
Ready to cut
Refer to the illustration above as you make the marks and cuts on your own fabric. The layout illustration shows all the letters for marking placement.
First read through all the instructions so you know what you are about to do, and then take it one step at a time.
Slash the upper one of the two lengthwise folds from a to b for the full length front opening.
Measure and cut down the crosswise fold at the left 2.5 inches from b to c.
From your own shoulder, measure down the front to the low waist you want to emphasize. Starting at b, measure that same distance to the right along the fold, and mark d.
Cut a straight line diagonally from d to c, cutting only the top two layers of fabric that were slashed down the fold. Leave the bottom fold as it is.
After you remove the triangles cut from the top two layers of fabric, then cut a curve in the lower two layers from c to b. This forms the back neckline.
This competes the front/back centers of your robe.
Cutting the shoulders and sleeves
Now we move around to the left of the diagram, and down the side closest to you to finish the cutting instructions.
To shape the shoulder, measure 3.5 inches from e at the fold and place a mark for f. Draw a straight line from f to c.
Cut through all four layers of fabric from f to c to form the shoulder.
To the right of f, measure 10 inches and place mark g. Note: This is the sleeve width. If your upper arms measure more than 16 inches in diameter, this will not fit. To determine my sleeve width, I took a measuring tape and looped it very loosely around my arm how I wanted the sleeve to hang. If I made a loop of 24 inches around my arm, then I measured down half that, or 12 inches, instead of 10.
Once you determine where to place g, measure up 4.5 inches or more and place h. This is the length of your sleeve. If you are slender compared to your fabric width, you can make this measurement larger. Make sure you have enough fabric left after you cut away the sleeves that the robe body measures 1.5 to 2 times your hip measure.
Measure up from the corner i the same length from g to h, so 4.5 inches or more, and place j. Draw a straight line from j to h.
Cutting through all four layers, start at j and cut toward h. When you reach 3 inches from h, begin to curve and cut to g.
Congratulations! You just drafted and cut out a pattern of your own making. If this is the first time you’ve done anything like this, you deserve a hearty Well Done. This is how patterns are drafted. If you can do this, you can learn to draft your own patterns from your measurements.
Putting it all together
Don’t throw away any of the fabric you cut away. You’ll use most of it, if not all of it, later.
Here’s how to assemble the robe:
Join the shoulders with a 1/2 inch seam.
Make a 1 inch dart over each hip on the front layers only. This is an optional step; it makes the robe just a little more full in the front if you do.
Take three of the four pieces that you cut from under the arms and join them to form a long strip. You may need all four of them if you increased the depth of the sleeve at all.
Use a 1/4 inch seam to join them together. You will use the entire 4.5 inch width of the fabric to create the wide band that edges the front of the robe. Trim as little of the curved portion from the strips as you can; you will need all the fabric.
To attach the binding, lay it on the front of the robe, right sides of the fabric together and long edges even. Using a 1/4 inch seam, sew up the front, around the neckline, and back down the other side of the front.
Press the seam, and turn under 1/4 inch on the long free edge of the band and press it as well.
Fold the band to the inside of the robe so that the turned edge just covers the stitching.
Sew in place by hand, or sew with a machine stitch close to the folded edge.
Take a designer shoulder tuck
About halfway between your neck and shoulder, like at k, fold a tuck one inch deep, letting it extend to the bust line in front and to the low waistline point in back.
Cut your length of satin ribbon in half, and slip one end of each ribbon into the tuck on the back, near the low waist point.
Then stitch the tuck down along the outside folded edge, from the front bust point to the back hip/low waist point. Catch the end of the ribbon in the stitching to hold it in place like the top illustration. Make sure to finish off the threads securely so the belt doesn’t pull out.
The last thing to do is turn up an even hem all the way around, wherever you want it. Turn 1/4 inch down on the top of the hem and sew it into place. Then slip into your new negligee and admire your afternoon’s work.
If you want inspiration on building the rest of a Twenties wardrobe, check out the post I wrote on Creating a 1920s Capsule Wardrobe.
