This chocolate drink recipe says it comes from the land where chocolate is taken seriously. Much more seriously than it is in the United States. Is this really a Peruvian 1920s recipe? I have no idea, but it tastes different from any other chocolate I’ve ever had. The 1920s article said this Peruvian chocolate is good iced or hot. And it is.
Not as sweet when cold, but definitely just as rich: Iced Peruvian Chocolate.
This Peruvian chocolate tastes like something between a normal hot cocoa recipe like you’ll find here, and the thick drinking chocolate that you find in cafés. This is a drink to savor. It’s not too sweet. Enjoy this one with a friend or friends and some good conversation.
Chocolate and coffee combine to make a rich drink.
Thick drinking chocolate can be difficult to make. This recipe is relatively easy, and it makes four 1-cup servings. You can easily cut the serving size to 3/4 cup and serve five. The servings look small until you taste it.
You might want to serve a glass of water along with this cocoa, especially if you are serving anything with it, such as dessert. Too rich to drink quickly, guests might appreciate another drink option on the table besides this chocolate.
Step 1. Melt the chocolate over hot water and stir in sugar and vanilla.
This drink requires a lot of chocolate, four ounces to be exact. It needs an entire box of Baker’s choclate from the grocery store baking aisle. You can substitute four ounces of any chcolate that you wish. The better quality of chocolate you use, the better the drink will be.
Step 2: Chocolate and sugar mixed with the coffee. Ready for the milk.
You will need:
4 ounces chocolate, unsweetened or semi-sweet
3 cups milk
1 cup strong coffee
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
sweetened whipped cream, optional
If you have all this in stock, the recipe is straighforward and easy. Using a double boiler makes the recipe almost fool-proof, since you can’t easily burn the chocolate when it heats over water.
Using coffee makes this an “adult drink.” If you make this for children, substitute 1/2 cup water for the coffee and increase the milk to four cups. (Don’t worry; this variation is included in the printable recipe below.) Iced or hot, this Peruvian Hot Chocolate is a keeper.
This rich, not-too-sweet 1920s chocolate recipe falls somewhere between hot cocoa and French drinking chocolate.
Prep Time10 minutesmins
Cook Time20 minutesmins
Total Time30 minutesmins
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: American
Equipment
Double boiler
Whisk or egg beater
Additional large saucepan
Ingredients
4ouncesunsweetened chocolateI used Baker's unsweetened
2tbspsugar
1/2tspvanilla extract
1cupstrong coffee
3cupsmilk
1/2cupsweetened whipped cream
For Iced Peruvian Chocolate
1ice cube per serving
Instructions
Scald the milk in a large saucepan and set aside.
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or in a heatproof pan over hot water). If unsweetened chocolate is used, add the sugar and vanilla.
Add the coffee and continue to cook over hot water until thick and smooth. Cook until steam rises from the mixture. If you use hot coffee, and the mixture comes to a boil, boil for one minute. Stir constantly.
Add the scalded milk to the chocolate mixture and whip to a froth with an egg beater.
Cook in double boiler over hot water for ten minutes. Whip again with the beater.
Serve with sweetened whipped cream.
For Iced Peruvian Chocolate
Chill. Then shake each serving with a piece of ice before serving.
For Children's Peruvian Chocolate
Substitute 1/2 cup water for the coffee, and increase milk to 4 cups. Serve warm or iced.
Notes
This recipe makes four cups, to serve four. It is so rich, however, that serving 3/4 cup to five people works well too.
A profusion of summer marigolds and coleus brighten the day.
Every month’s magazine delivery brought a new poem to read, ponder, and savor. Some, like A Song in June, were pretty enough to memorize. Others made the reader think. A few caused the reader to cringe. At least, I hope they did. Every now and then one of these poems makes me cringe.
While the month’s poem or poems may sit on any random page, waiting to be discovered much like today’s weekly poetry in the New Yorker, they ususally appeared on the first printed page. Somewhere below the masthead, among the editorials and shameless plugs to buy from the advertisers, you find the poem. Often it spoke of the seasons or an upcoming holiday. Once in a while it extolled the wonders of needlework or baking. Regardless where you found it, it was always there, waiting for you.
Today’s poem, A Song of June, was penned by poet Helen Coale Crew. Helen wrote poetry, short stories, essays, and children’s books. School readers, poetry anthologies, Harper’s Magazine, and Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine published her work. However, today she is an almost unknown author. Wikipedia contains no entry on her. You can find only one or two of her poems online. A dedicated search turns up a short story or two.
If you opened your much-anticipated June 1920 magazine issue, you found this poem. Not very long, it brought the joy of June right to your front porch as you sat reading with a fresh cup of coffee or tea. Here it is.
A Song of June
by Helen Coale Crew (1920)
Oh hear! Oh hear!
June draweth near;
I know it by the trilling clear
From bluebird's breast
When from his nest
He rises in the golden air.
Oh, see! Oh, see!
How yonder tree
Is clothed in white, all maidenly;
While every bloom
Sweet with perfume,
Is plundered by a dusty bee.
Oh, smell and taste!
For now in haste
The sun is opening every flower.
See yonder rose
Its heart disclose,
June ripens in one perfect hour!
One of the reasons for blogging about vintage poetry is to introduce poets both remembered and forgotten. So many good writers faded into obscurity when their particular style fell from fashion. I want to bring some of them back. They need to be known, read, and remembered. Sometimes I may even reproduce one of those cringey poems for your enjoyment.
In case you wonder about this poet, Helen was born Helen Cecelia Coale in Baltimore City, Maryland in December of 1866. She died in Evanston Illinois in 1941 and is buried in Ohio. Her husband Dr. Henry Crew taught physics at Northwestern University in Illinois, and was known for authoring General Physics, a college textbook of the Teens and Twenties. They had three children.
If you loved this poem, A Song in June, you might also like Aegean Echoes, a book of poetry that Helen wrote in 1911. You can find it here to read or download at the Internet Archive. A quick search of the Archive, while you’re there, will show you several books you can check out to read, but that are still under copyright.
If you enjoyed this selection, you may also want to readmy post about Hurdy-Gurdy Days, a poem about spring.
A 1929 recipe for Many Layered Jam Cake. This will become your new favorite!
The Many Layered Jam Cake is one rich cake. After trying it once, this recipe goes into my permanent rotation for entertaining. A bit more involved than an everyday cake, Many Layered Jam Cake definitely tastes like more than a sum of its parts. This is a delicious, decadent cake for your next vintage gathering.
The original 1920s recipe called for two different types of marmalade. It didn’t mean sweet orange marmalade and another sweet orange marmalade. This recipe calls for orange marmalade and lemon marmalade. Or maybe orange and lime. Even a sweet orange and a tart orange would be good.
Look at that rich deliciousness!
In search of marmalade…
I couldn’t find any of that locally. My area sells sweet orange marmalade. Period. While I don’t live in the middle of nowhere, I also don’t reside in a large metropolis. But the three groceries I checked all offered sweet orange marmalade and nothing else.
If you want to try this with other flavors, you may be reduced to making your own marmalade. Any citrus fruit can be turned into marmalade. Oranges, lemons, limes, even grapefruit marmalade can be successful. Here’s a recipe for Meyer Lemon Marmalade by the Ball Company. The Ball Company that makes canning jars. They know a thing or two about canning recipes, and their Blue Book is legendary. I own two copies. But I digress.
Cake pans ready to go into the oven. Each one held 1/2 cup of batter.
Without any other options, I made the cake with just sweet orange marmalade. And Oh. My. I won’t say that I saw taste testers fighting over the cake when we did the original tasting. But I can say that every time I looked in the refrigerator a little more of it was missing. Even the Resident Fruit Hater at my house loved it.
Ingredient substitutions
I made the Many Layered Jam Cake with gluten free flour because that’s what I have to use. The original recipe was written for ordinary cake flour. (To substitute regular flour for cake flour you simply measure a cup and then remove 2 tablespoons of flour from the measuring cup. Then, if you like, stir in 2 Tablespoons cornstarch to make up your full cup of flour.)
This cake is baked in layers. I used a 1/2 cup measure and ended up with seven very thin layers that baked in 12 – 14 minutes apiece. Once baked, I flipped them out of the pan and let them cool. And you know what? Cake layers that are only 1/4-inch thick cool really quickly. In less than half an hour after baking all the layers I was ready to assemble the cake.
Loose and fluffy
I used wax paper in the bottom of the pans to make removal easy. Changing the paper lining with each layer works best. Or simply grease and flour your pans really well so the layers don’t stick.
Bottom cake layer with a thin coating of marmalade. Ready for the next layer.
Confession: the recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of baking powder. I swear I don’t remember putting that in. If you use the baking powder, your layers will probably rise a bit more than mine did, and taste less dense. Either way, this Many Layered Jam Cake is amazing.
Using only one type of marmalade, it took most of a jar to assemble the seven layers. A thin spread of marmalade goes between each layer. Then top the assembled cake with a nice sprinkle of powdered sugar. It’s so rich that it doesn’t need more than that. Icing would not only be overkill, but it would dull the citrus flavors of the rest of the cake.
If the weather’s warm, enjoy your cake with a nice glass of iced coffee. I wrote about iced coffee in the 1920s in this blog post.
1¾cupscake flourworks fine with Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1 to 1 baking flour
2tspbaking powder
2tsplemon peel, grated
1jarmarmaladeor two kinds if you can find them
1/4cuppowdered sugaryou won't use it all; this is to spinkle on the cake top. I used about a tablespoon in a tea strainer.
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Prepare two round or oval cake pans. (The small oval cake pans in the photo are made by Wilton and available to go with their Level 2 or Level 3 cake decorating class materials.) Either grease and flour the pans liberally, or cut a piece of wax paper to fit the bottom of the pan, grease the bottom of the pan lightly, stick the paper to the pan, and then grease the paper.
Stir the flour and the baking powder together in a small bowl.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and add the sugar, unbeaten eggs, flour/baking powder mixture, and the lemon peel. Mix together slowly for one minute, and then beat on medium speed for two minutes. The mixture should turn a light yellow.
Place 1/2 cup of the cake mixture into each pan, and smooth it down until it forms an even layer. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until done.
After you remove the cake layers from the oven, let them rest a minute and then loosen them with a metal spatula or something similar (don't use a rubber spatula that will melt from the heat). Turn each layer carefully onto a cooling surface like a cake cooling rack. Let them cool for 20 minutes or so.
Repeat the baking and cooling until you are out of batter. You should get 6 – 8 layers. I got seven, with the last layer a bit thicker than the others. I used it as the bottom layer to provide stability.
Once your layers are cool, assemble them. Between each layer, spread a thin layer of marmalade. If you have two types of marmalade, alternate flavors with each layer. Top your cake with a healthy sprinkle of powdered sugar. Refrigerate until needed, and then let it come back to room temperature before cutting.
Or maybe it’s a Fruited Cream Dessert Salad. If you’re looking for a light and cool dessert for warm weather, look no further. This Fruited Cream recipe from the 1920s fills the requirement. It’s smooth, fruity, sweet, and cold. And Fruited Cream gives us an example of some of the best from the Twenties kitchen.
An early forerunner of the famous ambrosia salad (or infamous, depending on your view), this cream goes together with very few ingredients and not much time. The largest time chunk of the entire recipe is the time that it needs to chill. To blend the flavors well, this recipe needs to cool in the refrigerator for at least four hours after you make it. Good thing it’s easy and quick!
The Twenties kitchen was known for simple ingredients. These were combined in innovative ways. Sometimes, as in this recipe, those combinations shine. Other times… well, let’s just say there’s a reason nobody makes Sardines and Boiled Egg on Toast anymore.
A recipe like Fruited Cream was made when the cook wanted to throw a small party. It surfaced as a special salad for a special occasion. This recipe would not appear on the table for a festival like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or another major holiday. Repetition over time scripted those menus. It would, however, be a delightful addition to a birthday lunch.
You need fruit, and cream, and sugar
Ingredients for fruited cream dessert.
To make Fruited Cream you’ll need two cups of any fruit. I used 1 cup strawberries and 1 cup crushed pineapple, but you could also use canned apricots or peaches. Or you can even mix the fruit with pineapple, like I did. Peaches with pineapple sounds divine, actually. Especially if you like both fruits equally well.
You’ll also need a cup of heavy whipping cream, vanilla flavoring, and powdered sugar. You’ll mince your fruit (a very fine diced cut). Then whip the cream until very stiff, and stir in the vanilla flavoring and powdered sugar. After that you chill, chill, chill. This needs to chill in the refrigerator for four hours or more to blend the flavors so it tastes like a salad and not like fruit stirred into whipped cream.
Scale it up if you want, but mince it fine
As written, this recipe serves 5. It would taste great served with an iced coffee like the one I wrote about here. However, you can multiply it as many times as you need to feed a small crowd. Fruited Cream should scale well. If you need less than five servings, well… it makes fine leftovers for a couple days. After two days the cream starts to break down. Before then, it tastes great for breakfast with a cup of hot tea or coffee.
When you put this recipe together, you want to make sure that your fruit is minced very fine. A 1/8 inch mince isn’t too small. Most of my strawberries evened out at about 3/16” in size, halfway between 1/8” and 1/4”. I tried to make none of the pieces as large as 1/4”.
Mince that fruit! It makes a difference!
The crushed pineapple you can smash with a fork when you drain it, and very little should need to be cut. I found a few pieces larger than 1/4” so I cut them down to the correct size.
All this mincing and measuring-by-eye may seem like a lot of effort for nothing, but it definitely tastes in the finished product. Instead of chunks of fruit in whipped cream, you taste a sweet creamy smoothness from the combination –– but only if your fruit is cut small enough. Remember, this isn’t your grandmother’s 1970s salad where the pineapple chunks compete with the mini marshmallows in a swirl of pistachio-flavored pudding. This is smooth, and creamy, and delightful –– a hallmark of the Twenties kitchen. This Fruited Cream will shine on your table as a dessert or a salad.
You can use these five vintage crocheted edgings for lots of things.
If you are into vintage crafts or sewing, you need these five great vintage crochet edgings. Sooner or later you will need an edging for something. Whether it’s a curtain or clothing, trimming a hat or a basket, these crochet patterns will help you out.
The vintage needleworker decorated all kinds of things. In a world where most fabric came in solids, checks, or stripes, trims proved a welcome addition. Ribbons, laces, and flowers made all kinds of objects shiny and fancy. They dressed up last year’s clothing, updated last season’s toque, and brought springtime freshness to indoor rooms.
Vintage crafters didn’t have access to a lot of needlework patterns. They collected magazines when they could, and sometimes referred to patterns 10 or more years earlier if they needed something specific. Creators also found two or three patterns they liked and tended to use them over and over again. These five great vintage crochet edgings give you a starting point. You can begin your own favorite pattern collection.
Often a vintage pattern suggests that you finish edges with trims. You could be making an apron, a tablecloth, or a dress. Especially with the long lines of Twenties clothing, a strip of handmade lace makes that dress look right in fashion –– for 1925.
Not to mention, machine-made laces aren’t what they used to be. A garment that gets a lot of use like an apron or a nightgown needs sturdy lace. Tatting would be best, and I’ll cover that in another post. If you don’t know how to tat, though, or you tat lace beautifully but don’t want to spend two months doing it, crocheted lace is your answer.
Quick and easy
Crocheted lace is relatively quick to make, it offers lots of variations, and it’s pretty. If you know how to make a chain, a single crochet, and a treble crochet, you can make any of these laces. And if you don’t, the YouTube links in the previous sentence will show you how to do just that.
Although each of these patterns could be a post in itself, I’ve decided to combine them. I have so much to share with you that if I posted one edging pattern at a time we’d never get through even half of it.
I crocheted all these great vintage crochet edgings with size 10 thread (equivalent to size 5 pearl cotton), using a steel crochet hook size 7. You can make them with whatever size thread (or yarn) you like. Would these look good on the edge of that new afghan? Absolutely they would! In fact, if you are adding this to a crocheted or knitted item, you can omit the foundation chain. Start the instructions with 2: Work a single crochet in each chain. For a knitted item, single crochet in every stitch along a cast on/cast off edge, and every other stitch down the sides.
Make as long or short as you like
No amount of thread is given because the amount you need totally depends on what you are making and how long it needs to be.
All of these edgings are worked the same way. You start by making a chain as long as you want the lace to be when it’s finished. Then you crochet back to the beginning with a second row of one single crochet stitch in each stitch of the foundation. I suggest that you begin the solid row of single crochets (marked as row 2 in these instructions) with an extra chain, which helps to make that first single crochet stitch look finished. The original Twenties instructions didn’t call for that; if you find it looks better without it, feel free to leave it out.
Here they are… Five Great Vintage Crochet Edgings for anything and everything you can think to use them on.
Edging 1
Edging 1
This edging measures 5/8-inch deep when made in size 10 thread.
Make a foundation chain the length required. If you want to be perfect about it, make a chain in a multiple of seven stitches.
Chain 1, and turn. Work a single crochet (sc) in each stitch of the foundation chain.
*Skip 1st stitch, work a single crochet in next two stitches, skip next stitch. Then work sc in loop, chain 4, sc in loop, chain 4, sc in loop, chain 4, sc. Repeat from * across row.
Finish off the ends.
Edging 2
Edging 2
This edging measures 3/4-inch deep when made in size 10 thread.
Make a foundation chain the length required. If you want to be perfect about it, make a chain in a multiple of fourteen stitches.
Chain 1, and turn. Work a single crochet (sc) in each stitch of the foundation chain.
*Work a sc in the first stitch, chain 2; skip 3 stitches; (treble stitch, chain 2) 5 times; skip 3 stitches, sc in next stitch; chain 7; skip 5 stitches and sc in next stitch. Repeat from * across the row.
*2 sc under first 2-chain loop, 2 sc under second loop, 2 sc under third loop; in the middle loop make 1 sc, chain 4, and 1 sc; 2 sc under next 2-chain loop, 2 sc under last 2-chain loop; in the large loop make 3 sc, chain 4, and 3 sc. You will have covered all the previous row’s chains with single crochet stitches, and the chain-4s of this row make the picots at the points. Repeat across the row from *.
Finish off the ends.
Edging 3
Edging 3
This edging measures 1 inch deep when made in size 10 thread.
Make a foundation chain the length required. If you want to be perfect about it, make a chain in a multiple of eleven stitches, plus 9 at the end.
Chain 1, and turn. Work a single crochet (sc) in each stitch of the foundation chain.
*Work 9 sc in 9 stitches of the previous row, chain 4, and skip 2 stitches. Repeat from * across the row. You should end the row with a final 9 sc in 9 stitches.
*Skip the first stitch of the previous row’s 9 stitch set, and work 7 sc into the next 7 stitches. Chain 6. Repeat from * across the row. You will end with 7 sc over the final 9 stitches.
*Skip the first stitch of the previous row’s 7 stitch set, and work 5 sc into the next 5 stitches. Chain 4, single crochet in the middle of the previous 2 rows’ loose chains, catching them both in the stitch, and then chain 4. Repeat from * across the row. You will end with 5 sc over the final 7 stitches.
*Skip the first stitch of the previous row’s 5 stitch set, and work 3 sc into the next 3 stitches. Chain 3; sc into loop, chain 8, sc into next loop, chain 3. Repeat from * across the row. You will end with 3 sc over the last 5 stitches.
*Skip the first stitch, sc in the next stitch, skip the third stitch; 4 sc into the 3-chain loop; 4 sc into the 8-chain loop, then chain 4 for the picot, and complete the loop with 4 sc; 4 sc into the final 3-chain loop. Repeat across the row.
Finish off the ends.
Edging 4
Edging 4
This edging measures 1 1/4 inches deep when made in size 10 thread.
Make a foundation chain the length required. If you want to be perfect about it, make a chain in a multiple of thirteen stitches, plus one extra at the end.
Chain 1, and turn. Work a single crochet (sc) in each stitch of the foundation chain.
*Work a sc in the first stitch, chain 2; skip 3 stitches; 2 treble stitches in the next stitch, (chain 4, 2 treble stitches in the next stitch) twice; chain 2, skip 3 stitches, sc in next stitch. Repeat from * across the row.
*2 sc in loop of 2 chains, chain 3, sc into next 2-chain loop, chain 4, sc under 4-chain, chain 4, sc under 4-chain, chain 4, sc in loop of 2 chains, chain 3. Repeat across the row from *.
Work a sc in loop of 3-chain, *chain 3, sc in next loop, chain 4, treble stitch in next loop, chain 7. Make a slip stitch in the fifth stitch from your hook. This makes a picot. Chain 2, treble stitch in the same large loop as before, chain 4, sc in next loop, chain 3, sc in next loop, sc in next loop. Repeat from * across row.
Finish off the ends.
Edging 5
Edging 5
This edging measures 1 inch deep when made in size 10 thread.
Make a foundation chain the length required. If you want to be perfect about it, make a chain in a multiple of three stitches, and then one more.
Chain 1, and turn. Work a single crochet (sc) in each stitch of the foundation chain.
Chain 4, and make a treble stitch in the first stitch, working off 2 stitches twice and leaving 2 stitches on your hook. Make another treble stitch in the same place, working off the stitches 3 at a time until you have three loops left. Pull through all three loops at once. You’ve just made a crochet cluster, which is the main part of this lace. *Chain 6, skip two stitches, and make a group of three treble stitches in the next stitch, working off as before. Repeat from * across the row. You should end with a cluster in the last stitch, or close to it.
Chain 3; work a sc in loop of 6 chains. Repeat across the row.
Chain 2, sc in loop of 3 chains; *Chain 6, sc in next loop. Repeat from * across row.
Finish off the ends.
No matter how you decide to use these great vintage crochet edgings, they will make your creations vintage-authentic. And if you’re interested in more vintage crochet, check this blog post on 1950s Crocheted Glass Covers (Cozies).
Almost everyone has a pair of kitchen scissors in the drawer. Some knife sets come with them. Maybe we always believed kitchen scissors were a must-have for any well-equipped kitchen. But do you use them? I’m guessing that you don’t. Or at least, that you don’t use those kitchen scissors to their fullest. These ten uses for your kitchen scissors take them out of the drawer and into your working arsenal.
And why don’t you use your kitchen scissors? I’ll tell you why I don’t use mine. I don’t think about it. I grab a knife, and a cutting board, and I set myself to a task. Even though, if I thought about it, said task would work better if I used the kitchen scissors.
Using your kitchen scissors offers several advantages. First of all, they are easy to clean. Some pairs even come apart for even easier cleanup. Using the scissors saves washing both a knife and a cutting board. Also, you can snip the food right into wherever it needs to go. Scissors make working with small amounts of food less frustrating. And finally, you can determine the size and shape of the food more easily with scissors than you sometimes can with a knife.
With all that said, be careful! Anything with a point can cut, and some kitchen shears are sharper than others. I have one pair that barely has a point at all. This pair finds plastic bags difficult. I also have these, a pair of Henkels scissors that will cut through almost anything I need them to, kitchen-wise.
Ten Uses for Your Scissors
Here are ten uses for your kitchen scissors. Although these ideas are from a vintage periodical, they still work for today’s cook. Whether you cook in a vintage kitchen or not.
Shredding lettuce. If you are eating the lettuce right away, it’s not going to turn brown if you cut it with your scissors. You don’t have to tear it. Really.
Shredding parsley. You know all those recipes that call for 2 tablespoons of parsley? Using your kitchen scissors to snip it is the quickest way to get there.
Dicing or cutting green peppers. Green peppers can be slippery. Especially when they are damp from rinsing. Use your kitchen scissors to cut those peppers into shape.
Clipping the bad parts from greens or cabbage. It never fails that you get that one leaf that only has that one small spot. Right in the center. Your scissors make short work of it.
Cutting raisins or nuts. You know when you need pecan pieces and you only have whole pecans? Try using the kitchen scissors to reduce them to the size you need. When the 1920s says “nuts” it means pecans or walnuts. Attempting to cut peanuts with kitchen shears will not only prove to be an exercise in frustration, it may also be dangerous. Stick to the flat nuts for safety.
Dicing bacon slices. If you need crumbled or diced bacon for a dish, start out that way by cutting the slices with your kitchen scissors. Or use your scissors to cut the slices after they are cooked and cooled.
Cutting candied orange peel, cherries, or citron for baking or decorating desserts.
Cutting leftover meats. A nice pair of kitchen scissors makes short work of chicken salad prep.
Snipping green onions. Often a recipe will call for only the white part –– or only the green part –– of a green onion. Scissors make this easy, and you can make those sections as long or as short as you like.
Cutting potatoes and vegetables. Kitchen scissors can open a baked potato, trim green beans, and cut asparagus. I definitely wouldn’t try to cut one of our modern whopper-sized potatoes raw with a pair of kitchen scissors, but if the potatoes are boiled and you need to dice them, go for it.
How do you use your kitchen shears? If you have a method not listed here, drop me a comment. I’d love to know more reasons for pulling the kitchen scissors from the drawer.
Sweet sandwiches filled with flavored cream cheese or marmalade.
Sometimes you want to serve something unusual that doesn’t take three days to make. These Sweet and Savory Tea Sandwiches offer four options for quickly made, tasty sandwiches. Serve them at your next vintage-style small gathering or formal tea. And if you’ve never hosted a formal tea but always wanted to, these sandwiches will start you off.
Paging through a Twenties magazine one day, I came across the recipe for these sandwiches. It was only a paragraph, tucked into a longer article, but they intrigued me. I liked the idea of sandwiches that didn’t include watercress and cucumber! Plus, sweet sandwiches proved very popular in the Twenties. It was time I tried them myself.
Savory chicken salad sandwiches on home made dinner rolls. Yummy!
Warm Weather Sandwiches
Designed for warmer weather, these light tidbits are cool and easy to eat. You could certainly serve them in the dead of winter as well, but you might want to pair them with something heavy like chocolate brownies or a fluffy cake for dessert.
One of the things I liked best about these sandwiches was that they sounded easy. I don’t mind spending hours in the kitchen, but it’s nice to find those recipes that taste special but go together fast.
These Sweet and Savory Tea Sandwiches use cream cheese, a spicy pepper jelly, honey, and pecans –– not all together! Other sandwiches use marmalade as a filling. Then to balance out all that cream cheese you make simple chicken salad sandwiches served on dinner rolls as a savory option.
Three fillings ready to be made into tasty tea sandwiches.
Twenties Fast Food
Really, for as much time as the Twenties cook spent in the kitchen, these quick sandwiches are equivalent to fast food. I used a mix and made my own dinner rolls, since I need to eat gluten free. However, if I bought the rolls and the sandwich bread, I could throw these together for any party almost at a moment’s notice.
My sandwich bread was pretty small, as gluten free bread tends to be, and I used about 1 ounce of cream cheese plus added flavors per sandwich. So from eight ounces of cream cheese and its mix-ins, plus 1/2 cup of marmalade, I could easily get a total of 9 sandwiches that I then cut into one-inch wide strips. Actually, since I was feeding only three of us, I made one of each type plus several chicken salad rolls. And I had plenty of the fillings left for another round.
If you use Parker-House size dinner rolls, you should be able to get six chicken sandwiches from the amounts I list in the recipe. If your dinner rolls are larger, you may want to double the recipe if you need half a dozen sandwiches.
Twenties chicken salad is very simple. Mixed and ready to fill those little rolls.
Assuming you plan to feed 3-6 people, I give you recipes that start with 1/2 cup of cream cheese or marmalade. After all, a party of two can be fun, but it’s a pretty small party. If you find that you have leftovers, they’re still tasty the next day. Store them in the refrigerator.
And if you want to add some 1952 munchies to your party, try the original Chex Mix Recipe. You can find it here.
Brighten your next gathering with these sweet and a little bit spicy tea sandwiches in three flavors.
Prep Time20 minutesmins
Total Time20 minutesmins
Course: Luncheon, Tea time
Cuisine: American
Servings: 6people
Author: VintageJenny
Equipment
small bowl for mixing ingredients
Ingredients
18sliceswhite bread
6small dinner rolls
Sweet and Spicy Pepper Filling
4ozcream cheese
2tbsphot pepper jelly or spreadI used Meijer brand
Sweet Pecan and Honey Filling
4ozcream cheese
4tbspchopped pecans
2tbsphoney
Marmalade Filling
½cuporange marmalade
Savory Chicken Salad Filling
1chicken breast, cooked
1stalkcelery
¼cupmayonnaiseor more as you prefer
⅛tspsalt
⅛tsppepper
Instructions
Remove the crusts from the bread slices. It's easier to trim the crusts before you make the sandwiches. Then stack the slices in pairs so they match. (If you like, transfer the crusts to your favorite freezer container and freeze them. You can use them for croutons, bread pudding, or something else later.)
Slice the dinner rolls horizontally to make small sandwich buns. Set them aside.
To make the Sweet and Spicy Pepper Filling: Mix the cream cheese and the pepper spread/jelly in the bowl with a cooking spoon until completely combined. Spread the filling on three slices of bread, top with three slices, and set them aside. If you have any filling left, transfer it to a small container for the refrigerator. Wash your small mixing bowl.
To make the Sweet Pecan and Honey Filling: Mix the chopped pecans and honey with the cream cheese in the mixing bowl until completely combined. Spread the filling on three slices of bread, top with three slices, and set them aside. If you have any filling left, transfer it to a small container for the refrigerator. Wash your small mixing bowl.
To make the Marmalade Filling: Spread the marmalade on three slices of bread, top with three slices, and set them aside.
Refrigerate until you are ready to serve. Then cut each sandwich into 1-inch slices and arrange on a serving plate.
To Make the Chicken Salad Filling
Mince the cooked chicken breast. You should have about one to one and a half cups of minced chicken. Place the minced chicken in the mixing bowl.
Trim the celery and mince it. Add it to the chicken.
Stir in the mayonnaise.
Add the salt and pepper. You can add more or less than the amount listed, to taste.
Spread the chicken salad onto the lower half of the dinner roll, and top with its top half.
Refrigerate until you are ready to serve. These sandwiches are best assembled right before serving.
Spring days bring frolic after the quiet of winter.
In the Twenties and Thirties, almost every subscription magazine offered a monthly poem. Even periodicals devoted to only needlework printed editorials, letters from readers, and the obligatory poem of the month. I opened my May magazine from yesteryear and my eyes fell on the poem, Hurdy-Gurdy Days, by Martha Haskell Clark. And I realized I wanted to share it.
Then I wondered. Who was Martha Haskell Clark? Where did she live? What did she do? Here’s what I found out with a little poking around.
Martha Gay Haskell was born in 1885 in Minneapolis. Her father founded the Minneapolis Times, spent several years as publisher of the Boston Herald, and then six years as the vice president of the International Paper Company. Martha married a Dartmouth professor, Eugene Clark, in 1906. Her poetry appeared in Scribner’s, Good Housekeeping, and Ladies’ Home Journal. Sadly, she died in 1922 following an appendectomy. She was only about 36 years old. At her death she left a ten-year-old son.
But while she was alive, healthy, and full of life, she wrote poetry. Here is her poem Hurdy-Gurdy Days for your enjoyment.
Hurdy-Gurdy Days
by Martha H. Clark
April walks beside us still in budded cloak of brown,
Primrose gold above the hill the lengthened sunsets burn;
Every wind, a minstrel, goes singing through the town,
For hurdy-gurdy days are here––and May is at the turn!
May is at the turning in a blur of hill-blue haze,
There's the hint of leaf-smoke drifting down the dingy city ways;
There's a flash of bluebird weather through a rift of rainy skies,
And the dawn of dreams remembered in a gray world's eyes.
A battered hurdy-gurdy at the corner of the street,
Old tunes, forgotten tunes, and lilac breath and fern,
Where grimy venders' baskets spill their fragrance, haunting-sweet,
And every day is yesterday––and Youth is at the turn!
May is at the turning like a Gipsy in the lane,
With leaf-mist at her girdle, and her brown hair pearled with rain;
There's the green of the new grass creeping up the roadways from the south,
And the curve of love and laughter on a gray world's mouth.
March ran whistling down the hill, the gamin of the year;
April's but a child at school, with life and love to learn;
Sudden through the city-gray, riotous and dear,
Hurdy-gurdies strum the dusk––and May is at the turn!
May is at the turning in a burst of tulip-flame,
With a spattering of cowslip gold to show the road she came;
There's a young moon's silver sickle-gleam through orchard-boughs astart,
And forgotten love-songs throbbing in a gray world's heart.
Not much of Clark’s poetry appears online to the general searcher. As far as I know, only one book of poetry, called The Home Road, exists. It was published two years after her death, and contains poems collected from the various publications they appeared in. It also contains a short biography that tells you more about Martha and reveals her personality and interests. You can find it at Google Books. If you download it to take a look, be sure to read To a Kitten, Red Geraniums, and Trains –– three very different types of poems from a gifted hearthside poet.
If you only learn one dance from the Twenties, make it the foxtrot. It’s simple, it offers lots of variety, and it goes with everything. (Kind of like that little black dress or your favorite tux). Adding the foxtrot to your dance routine helps you glide through a Twenties party.
Because of the dance’s popularity, almost every song in 4/4 time billed itself as a foxtrot. Some were slow and others fast, but as long as the beat is correct you can foxtrot to it all. Marking “a new foxtrot” on the front of sheet music guaranteed some sales. Piano players often wanted to provide danceable music for evening guests. Foxtrot also guaranteed that you wouldn’t go home with a dirge. It also labeled the song as current with the times, since everyone was dancing the foxtrot. (At least, it seems that way from the music that survives.)
Learn to Dance the Foxtrot Online
This Youtube video shows many different ways the foxtrot appeared through the Twenties. In a little over six minutes you can see the basics as well as some fancy foxtrot footwork, all from vintage clips.
Long, long, short-short… long, long, short-short. This step sequence helps to create the signature swaying movement that characterizes the foxtrot. However, you can start by simply taking one step after another: walk, walk, walk, walk. This video playlist shows you the basics and beyond, in 26 very short clips from the Sway Ballroom Dance studio.
If you need to learn to foxtrot in a very small space, try this video. In it a dance instructor leads you through a slow foxtrot in a very tight living room.
On the other hand, if you prefer more traditional instruction, this introduction by May I Have This Dance takes you from the beginning to a foxtrot promenade that glides you around the room.
Adding the foxtrot to your dance routine means you never have to sit along the wall at a Twenties dance party. Whether you gather with a few close friends for dinner and dancing at home, or attend a Twenties bash at a large venue, you will be well prepared with a good foxtrot. And if you’d like a few songs to trot to, you might want to check out this post on Twenties music hits.
How did people listen to the music hits of 1921? Only city dwellers listened to the hits on a radio station in the early Twenties. Unless, that is, an enterprising youngster in the household fell in love with radio and rigged up her own wireless for everyone to enjoy. Even then, only one person could use wireless headphones at a time.
If you wanted to actually listen to music in 1921, the phonograph was your best bet. With a phonograph and a stack of recorded disks (what we today call a record player and records), an owner could listen to classical, popular music, or opera. However, a phonograph could be expensive. In 1921 a Victrola cost a purchaser anywhere between $25 and $1500. Victrola advertised heavily, and they became a household name in phonographs.
If you didn’t have a phonograph or a wireless, several options existed. Most people consumed their music via the piano. Companies produced sheet music for all the hits (and some not-so-hits) and you bought it at the local store. Sometimes you found sheet music in a sheet music store, but by the Twenties you increasingly found it at your corner general store. If the store carried many miscellaneous items, it probably also carried sheet music.
Some of the Year’s Greatest Hits
This year we listened to Marian Harris sing I’m a Jazz Vampire. Here are the lyrics. This song shows all kinds of promise for inclusion in Twenties-themed parties through the year.
Paul Whiteman, who called himself the King of Jazz, scored yet another hit with an Irving Berlin melody, Everybody Step. This foxtrot appeared in a 22-scene stage production called Irving Berlin’s Music Box Revue. The Music Box Revue opened at the Music Box Theatre in October of 1922 and ran for nine months. Irving wrote the music.
Eddie Cantor sang “I’ll tell the world I love you, Don’t forget your promise to me, I have bought the home and ring and everything” in Margie. This site offers lyrics and a little more about the song and its creators.Even if you don’t follow 1920s music, Margie is a song you may recognize when you hear it.
Ain’t we got fun?
Ain’t We Got Fun? was featured in the musical revue Satires of 1920, which opened in California in August of 1920. After that this foxtrot took on a life of its own, appearing in vaudeville, on various artists’ recordings, and even appears in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The song takes a devil-may-care look at a life of poverty, with lyrics like: Landlords mad and getting madder Ain’t we got fun? Times are so bad and getting badder Still we have fun There’s nothing surer The rich get rich and the poor get laid off In the meantime, in between time Ain’t we got fun?
And a chat about 1921 music wouldn’t be complete without that timeless gem, I’m Just Wild About Harry. This song is part of almost every 1920s revival. “He’s sweet, just like chocolate candy/ And just like the honey from the bee./ Oh, I’m just wild about Harry/ And he’s just wild about/ Cannot live without/ He’s just wild about me!
So the next time you want to trot or jitter or sway to the hits of the Twenties, give some of these a try. You also might be interested in an earlier post where I talk about about vintage Forties music and how to locate it online.
