Breakfast Cakes - Potato Pancakes

I wasn't intending to make something out of the cook book again until next week, but Sarah suggested that we have sourdough pancakes for dinner.  As I mentioned last time though, Audreytoo is in pretty sorry shape.  She needs some TLC before I try to do anything with her.  We did have a few potatoes in the pantry that needed to be eaten, so potato pancakes were on the docket.

I was going to do Sour Milk Pancakes or Griddle Cake first, but we needed to use up potatoes.

Bread - Whole Wheat Bread

When the boys wake up at 5:40 in the morning, you don't have anywhere you need to be until late morning, and you are almost out of bread, what should you do?  Get dressed, get kid 2 out of the crib, change kid 2's diaper, dress kid 2, inform kid 1 that he should really sleep longer since it is so early, inform kid 1 that his whining won't change your mind, set a timer for kid 1 so he knows when it is ok to come downstairs, heat up leftover coffee from yesterday, forget about coffee while dealing with kid 2's nasty diaper, put kid 2 in his high chair and look at food options that won't be too difficult to clean up off the floor, go upstairs to convince kid 1 that yes he does need to try to rest longer because it'll make the rest of the day better for everybody, attend to kid 2's screeching so mom doesn't wake up (it's her turn to sleep in today), check weather forecast for a possible outing later in the day, remember coffee and heat it up again, stop kid 2 from making a big mess with his sippy cup, drink that first sip of coffee... aaaaaaaaah, sit for a moment, pick up pancake pieces off the floor, gather bread ingredients, attend to kid 1 who is insisting his timer went off when it hasn't yet, get more food for kid 2, have another drink of coffee... aaaaaaah, get kid 2 down from his high chair, get kid 2 down from the coffee table he just climbed, pull out a couple toys kid 2 likes, go upstairs to confirm with kid 1 that he may now come downstairs, turn on Sesame Street, finally start making bread.

It is a wonder that anything gets done in this house.  It is now 8:00, and bread is rising and I am wondering if I'll be able to finish this bread before we need to meet family later this morning.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

Background and Preparation

At the start of the Bread section, the Ladies included the following little poem:

It really is a compliment
To have a guest to tea
Who says, "This is delicious.
I'd like the recipe."

Appetizer - Stuffed Cucumber

Sarah was looking over my shoulder while I was looking over the appetizers sections of the cook book.  She quickly zeroed in on one recipe and requested the following recipe.

She doesn't even like tuna.  Why'd she pick this one?

It seems easy enough, but I was concerned about the mayonnaise.  I have never cared for mayo.  Presumably home made mayonnaise is consumable, but there have been a few encounters with mayonnaise that have left me with my aversion for this condiment.  Firstly, it is kind of slimy.  Now there are plenty of sauces and condiments that are similar in this, but mayo seems particularly slimy.  Secondly, it is often hidden in sandwiches without my permission.  Not cool, sandwich makers.  The third reason I don't care for mayo is a bit more complicated, and it also involves canned tuna.

Once upon a time, I worked in four different Subway shops in three different states.  As a teenager, if you've got experience in one store of a franchise, there's almost no reason why you wouldn't get hired at another store.  That's exactly what I did.  As far as food service goes, it wasn't too bad.  There weren't any fryers, no griddles, nor other things that would require extensive scrubbing of splattered grease.  But there was the tuna salad.  Making the tuna salad required taking handfuls of tuna out of a #10 can (thanks Ladies for that useful tidbit of information), and squeezing out the water over a big colander.  Then you had to open a gallon-sized jar of mayo and squish it all out into a big bowl.  The best way to mix the mayo and the tuna was by hand, so jump right in and start squishing.  It all smelled rather gross, and lifting tuna and mayo coated hands out of the bowl wasn't much better.

Not my image.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/like_the_grand_canyon/2528269003/

Thanks Subway, for making me think tuna salad is far more gross than it has to be.

Preparation

Here's the Story

There are a few quirky things about the Ladies Guild Cook Book (I'll probably just stick to calling it the cook book from here on out) aside from the unusual amount of pimientos, and gelatin.  The first thing that really sticks out is the table of contents.  Unlike most cook books, the contents are listed in alphabetical order.  I suppose that sort of makes sense, but it's not very intuitive.

What was the reasoning behind ordering the sections this way?  I'm not sure.

There is also the section labeled "How to follow the recipes".  You would think that this section would be put before there are any recipes.  But more interestingly, it gives us a glimpse into post war kitchens.  Some of what is listed is pretty good, especially the measurement equivalents.  We've got a cook book stand that has some equivalents listed on it, and I've got a bookmark on my web browser where I can find equivalents as well, so having a good list is pretty handy.  Thumbs up, Ladies.  What I find more interesting though, is the list of can sizes.  I think this is the first reference I've ever seen to can sizes.  Now certainly we must have a larger variety of things in cans today than there was 60 years ago, but to me this shows how important the industrialization of food had become.  I really ought to find some food history to read.  Aside from canned tomatoes, beans, and boxes of broth, I can't think of any cook books that we own that use cans.  I wonder if the canned vegetables of the 1950s were as mushy and over-salted as I remember them being from when I was growing up.  As I work through this cook book though, we will probably have a few more cans than normal in our pantry.

Why is this on page 16?

Another interesting bit here is the list of oven temperatures.  I have no concept of what ovens were like 60 years ago.  Were these heat categories listed on the oven instead of degrees?  Or is this perhaps a throw back to earlier kitchens when they were heated by wood or coal?  I can't imagine skillful cooking on a range/oven like that.  Practice makes perfect, I suppose.  This is going to be a useful thing since there are not a small number of recipes that direct you to use a "moderate" or "hot" oven.

Next, I probably need to establish some kind of methods for this project.  Though I may not stick to this plan perfectly, I'll do my best.

Blog Format and Comments

I am still figuring out this blog platform and some of the functionality.  As I play with different settings, especially with comments (which are totally welcomed, by the way), may change, or move, or disappear, or who knows.  This has to do with Google+ in particular.  Ideally comments made anywhere this is shared will show up on the blog, but where nobody is required to set up a Google+ account.  Maybe it's possible.  Maybe it's not.  Beats me.  So please bare with me as I continue to monkey around with this site.

Welcome to Cook Book Time Machine

About a year ago while visiting my family's cabin, we came across a cook book that looked to be interesting.  It belonged to my mother's aunt (great-aunt?) who lived in Thief River Falls, Minnesota and was published in 1951.  My impression of Thief River Falls is that it is a hockey town out on the prairie without much to do except ummm... play hockey, have a farm, and not freeze to death between October and April.  Having looked through old cook books in the past, I expected to find some pretty atrocious recipes.  I was not disappointed.  The use of gelatin, mayonnaise, and the latest and greatest industrial foods are found throughout the book (Molded Tuna Salad, anyone?).  But at the same time, there are quite a few good looking recipes in there too.  So after mulling it over for a while, I've decided to create a blog where I will work through the cook book and make these dishes for my family.

So, please meet the cook book that belonged to my great (great?) aunt Marlys Carlander.

Is that bit on the top torn off so when the book is brought down to the church basement that it is clear who the book belongs to?

Now in order to do this blog properly, it would probably be a good idea to do some research on the role of churches in small-town America during the middle of the 20th century.  It would also probably be good to research gender roles and expectations.  Additionally, I should do some reading on the development of the industrial food industry after World War Two.  Maybe I'll get around to that.  Suffice it to say that all of these things make an appearance and inform this cook book to one degree or another.  For now, I will likely operate with my caricature knowledge of the time and its influences.