Cool Old Stuff

When my grandmother died, my cousin and I divided her recipe collection between us. It was mostly newspaper and magazine clippings. To tell the truth, I never really looked too carefully at them until last weekend. I was bored and out of reading material. Among the recipes were Nana's famous chili sauce (my cousin has a copy, but it's cool to have the one in Nan's handwriting), the peanut butter bar things that I love (good grief, and it's so easy too) and Nana's old high school Home Ec textbook. It was clearly typed up and bound by the school board at the time. It doesn't have a year on it, but since Nan was 19 when she married in 1934 and this is a Senior text, I think we can safely assume it was in use in 1932 or so. Cool!

There are sections on sewing, cooking for invalids (gelatines, and lots of 'em!) and "Housewifery" (*snort*). But my favourite part was the Time Table for Cooking for Vegetables in Water, (who knew macaroni was a veggie?) which I will type out here for my own amusement. FTR, I roast or steam veggies. They are never mushy.

Asparagus...........20-30 minutes
Beans, String......45 minutes - 1 hour
Beans, lima..........1 hour or more
Beets, old.............3 - 4 hours
Beets, young.......30 - 45 minutes
Cabbage...............45 - 60 minutes
Carrots.................35 - 45 minutes
Cauliflower...........20 - 30 minutes
Celery...................30 - 40 minutes
Corn, green (?!)...10 - 15 minutes
Macaroni...............30 - 45 minutes
Onions...................45 - 60 minutes
Parsnips................30 - 60 minutes
Peas, green...........30 - 45 minutes
Potatoes................25 - 30 minutes
Rice........................20 - 30 minutes
Spinach..................30 - 45 minutes
Tomatoes..............30 - 60 minutes
Turnips.................45 - 60 minutes

No wonder I didn't like to eat my veggies, except when they were covered in Cheez Whiz. They were all mush. My SIL still cooks her corn forfreakingever and it's gross.

Even still, I am not making fun of the text at all. Its tone is quite serious and I think it does a fairly good job of explaining some things from the very beginning. For example, the section on using starch includes a couple experiments: see what happens when you mix starch into boiling water; see what happens when you mix starch into cold water. Good stuff.