In The Kitchen » Vintage Homemaking

The Ice Box – Pre Refrigerator

In the period before refrigerators were available households kept perishables cool by using an ice box. Usually a wooden box that was lined with zinc and other insulating materials the ice box was the smaller, less efficient, ancestor of our refrigerator.

Ice for the ice box was supplied by the iceman who delivered it through neighborhoods during the 19th and early 20th century on a wagon and then truck ice chunk. The family would buy a big chunk of ice that would fit into what is now the freezer. Many times chunks of ice would be chipped of to cool drinks or for making ice cream. The big ice chunk would last about a week and in most cases the melted ice was collected at the bottom of the icebox in a drip pan.

The items you wanted really cold such as milk or butter you would put up next to the ice. in what has evolved to be the freezer compartment.

Browsing through issues of Reminisce magazine you often come upon many contributors who have fond remembrances of the iceman handing out slivers of ice to the neighborhood children who came running when they spotted him.

You may still find some people that refer to the every day refrigerator as the ice box. My grandmother just calls it “the box”.

You can find revamped ice boxes today in homes where people have turned them into snazzy cupboards holding everything from kitchen staples to electronics.

“The icebox should be placed where it will not get the heat from the kitchen range. The best arrangement is to place it near the outer wall and have a side door cut to permit the iceman to place the ice in the ice chamber from the outside, thus saving the floor from his dirty wet footsteps. If this outer door is provided with a chain to hold it partly open during the winter months, the ice bill for this period will be nil, and in a short time the saving in ice will pay for the extra expense of the door. The most sanitary way of draining the icebox is to have it connected by a pipe with a small sink in the cellar. This sink should drain into the sewer. To drain the pipe direct from icebox to sewer will result in sewer gas rising and filling the icebox and poisoning the food. “
~ Putnam’s Household Handbook

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Grocery Shopping in History

Imagine if your refrigerator was gone. If you had to grocery shop for fresh meat pretty much when you needed it because frozen meat, and vacuum sealed were unheard of. And if you had never heard of tacos!

Such was life before the industrial revolution. Well during too but it was the inventions coming about during this time that led up to these wonderful refrigerators and freezer we love today. Although household appliances and conveniences were rapidly upon the horizon for much of America they were still not available or affordable yet.

So how did women provide three healthy meals a day???Well first of all know that the diet was much more limited than what we have today. Dishes were simple and according to what was available locally and what innovative thing the cook could dish up.

There was still an aim to store up as many groceries as possible. Less often trips to the grocer is always advisable. But because the area of storage was usually a “cool room” rather than a freezer or refrigerator much care had to be taken when store foods and it was advisable to check often for spoilage.

“Green vegetables should be purchased only when needed. If asparagus or lettuce must be kept for a day or two, put some water in a shallow dish, and let the roots rest in the water, which should never be more than an inch deep.

Winter vegetables should be perfectly ripe before being gathered. The skin on fruit or vegetable, when fully ripe, forms an almost impervious covering, through which but
little moisture can escape. If, however, it is picked before it is ripe, the moisture passes through the porous skin, and the fruit or vegetable shrinks.

Eggs are cheapest in the late spring, summer, and fall. Many housekeepers buy a quantity of eggs when they are cheap, and preserve them for the time when eggs are scarce and expensive. If the shells of the fresh eggs are coated with some substance that will exclude the air, the eggs will keep very well for many months. It must be remembered, however, that eggs absorb flavor through their porous shell, and they should not be coated with or packed in any sub- stance that can communicate a disagreeable flavor to them. Sometimes quite fresh eggs are spoiled by being packed for a few days in musty oats.

To test the freshness of eggs, make a salt solution of one quart of water and two tablespoonfuls of salt. A fresh egg will sink in this; an egg that is not very stale will
give just a suggestion of rising, and a very stale egg will float readily.

Milk.The greatest care should be exercised in deciding upon where the supply of milk comes from, and, when it has been delivered to you, in keeping it where it shall not become contaminated or absorb odors.

At a slight advance in the ordinary price one may now get milk that has been bottled and sealed at the farm, thus insuring a fairly pure article. Good milk will be slightly straw color of colored and have a pleasant flavor and odor. When the milk is thin and blue, it has either been skimmed or watered, or there is something wrong with it. If there is the slightest reason to think that the milk is contaminated, boil it before using.

The greatest care is required in the treatment of the milk after it is received into the house. The vessels in which it is kept should be thoroughly washed, scalded, and then cooled. The milk or cream should, if possible, be kept in a cool, well-lighted and ventilated room. Fresh and stale milk should never be mixed, unless they are to be cooked at once.

Every store-closet should be supplied with sugar, flour, tea, coffee, chocolate, eggs, breakfast cereals (if used), molasses, salt, pepper, spice, rice, macaroni, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar, baking-powder, flavoring ex- tracts, vinegar, gelatin, barley, starch, bluing, soap, and salsoda.

All dry groceries and cereals should be kept in glass, pottery, or metal. The store-closet should be cool, dry, and well ventilated; heat and moisture, lack of ventilation, and insects are the enemies of all cereals. “

~Home Economics

The Use of Linen Dish Cloths And Their Care

I like to think housewives of the past embroidered their dish towels with weekly activities as a way of reminding them what household tasks were to be done that day. Has a sort of romantic old fashioned appeal don’t you think?

Truly I’m not sure for the reasoning for the specific homemaking duties embroidered on dish towels but it was popular not that long ago as there are many stories going around of remembering one’s mother or grandmother’s vintage set. It has also seen a resurgence but not for ready made ones. If the idea appeals to you you will find for making your own set.

Here are some vintage tips for caring for your dish cloths.

“For dish towels there is nothing better than the glass towelling of linen, barred with blue or red. It wears well, and leaves no lint on the dishes, and is quite as economical as the best quality of crash.

Dish towels are too often made of coarse harsh linen which when new will not wipe the dishes dry, and after it has become old, it is apt to retain a greasy smell.

Do not use towels that are part cotton, for they will not do the work well.

After every dish-washing the dish cloth and towels should be thoroughly washed and placed
where they will dry quickly. A rod attached to the stove is used for the purpose. As often as the weather permits they should be dried out doors.

In every household it ought to be a rule that the towels and dish cloths be put into the wash once a week, and a fresh supply used. “

~From Attic to Cellar; or Housekeeping Made Easy

More on Vintage Dish Towels

Free knitting pattern for making letter Days of the week Dish Towels

Vintage European Linens at Touch of Europe

Putting Away Kitchen Linens

Vintage Holiday Recipes to Round Out The Year’s End

In a time with few pre-made packaged baked goods a Vintage hostess turned to her own recipes for the sweets with which to treat her guests. Here are a few recipes from the vintage cookbook…365 Cakes and Cookies: A Cake or Cooky for every day in the year 1904

Cheap Sponge Cake

Mix carefully 1 cupful of powdered sugar, 3 eggs, and 1 cupful of flour into which has been sifted 1 teaspoonful of
baking powder; flavor with the juice of half a lemon. Bake in shallow pans for 20 minutes.

Molasses Cake

Beat 1/2 cupful of butter until soft; heat slightly 1 cupful of molasses ; add to it the butter and 1 cupful of boiling water ; take from the fire and add 1/2 teaspoonful of soda, 1 tablespoonful of ginger, 1 teaspoonful of cinnamon, and enough flour to make a batter that will drop from a spoon, with 1 teaspoonful of baking powder mixed with the flour. Bake in small gem pans in a moderate oven for 20 minutes.

Cinnamon Jumbles

Use 1 lb, of flour, 3/4 lb. of sugar, 2 3/4 cupfuls of butter, 6 ozs. of almond meal, 1 teaspoonful of cinnamon, 2 well-beaten
eggs. Rub the flour and butter together, add the sugar, cinnamon, almond meal and lastly the eggs. Mix to a stiff paste, roll it out very thin, cut with a round cutter, put an almond in the center of each, brush over with milk, and bake in a moderate oven.

Spice Cookies

Mix thoroughly 2 cupfuls of brown sugar, 2/3 cupful of molasses, 2/3 cupful of drippings, 2/3 cupful of buttermilk, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoonful each of cinnamon, ginger, allspice and cloves, 1 cupful of chopped raisins, flour enough to drop batter, and 1 level teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little water. Bake in a shallow pan. When cool, cut out with a cooky cutter and ice with choco-
late frosting.

Turn of the Century Meal Planning Advice

We’ve come discover that meal planning can save money, time and foster great family relationships here in the 21st century. The time is the very early 1920′s. Famous Home Economist Christine Frederick author of several homemaking books and magazine articles not to mention a homemaking correspondence course gives the following advice on meal planning …

“Many women admit that while cleaning takes a great deal of time, still it is one of the tasks of the home which can be glossed over, or quite neglected in extreme need. But the three-meals-a-day problem seems the one from which there is no escape. We can leave the windows unwashed if we don’t get time or are too tired, but no matter what the circumstances or how the homemaker feels, the family must eat and so food must be prepared regularly.

Nothing wastes time more or is more inefficient than to let the choosing of a meal go until an hour or two hours before it is to be served. If left in this way until the last moment it is quite sure not to be a “balanced” meal, but one hastily put together, of anything that happens to be in the house or that can be obtained quickly.

Planning meals ahead has definite advantages:

(1) It permits economical marketing in advance, and purchase in larger quantities.

(2) It cuts down the time necessa1y in marketing, as instead of shopping every day for a small amount, marketing is done once or twice a week.

(3) It permits cooking for more than one meal at a time and saves in the use and washing of kitchen tools.

4) It permits food preparation many hours in advance of the actual meal.

If meals are left until the last moment it is likely that someone may have to “run to the store,” or telephone or pay the highest price for some article which is to be included in the meal. The most extravagant way of purchasing household supplies is to purchase in small quantities “by the bag” or by the box from day to day. On the other hand, by planning meals in advance, the materials for these meals can be carefully chosen, a list made, and bought in quantity.

Thus the “purchasing sheet” fulfils the second benefit of meals planned in advance; it prevents the possibility of being “out” of any product needed in the preparation of the meals.”

~Christine Frederick, Household engineering

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