Sift together two cups of corn meal, two cups of white flour, four heaping teaspoonfuls of baking powder, one level teaspoonful of soda, one teaspoonful of salt, and one-half a cup of sugar. Add one cup of sour milk (gradually), three-fourths cup of sour cream, four eggs and one-third a cup of melted butter.

Thanksgiving Pudding

Beat the yolks of four eggs; add one pint of soft bread crumbs, one cup of sugar, the grated rind of a lemon, one teaspoonful of salt, and one cup of large table raisins from which the seeds have been removed; mix all together thoroughly, then add one quart of rich milk. Bake in a very moderate oven until firm in the center. When the pudding has cooled somewhat, beat the whites of four eggs dry; beat in half a cup of sugar and spread or pipe the meringue over the pudding; dredge with granulated sugar and let cook in a very moderate oven about fifteen minutes; the oven should be of such heat that the meringue does not color until the last few minutes of cooking.

Although we know that the first Thanksgiving was not full of endless eating and savory meats and sauces as we celebrate today we nevertheless love to look at it in the romantic light of the Victorian era. Here below are a few suggested Thanksgiving menus (depending on how many guests and servants you had) taken from the American Cookery magazine circa 1921

Three Course Dinner for Small Family in Servantless House

• Roast Chicken, stuffed with Chopped Celery and Oysters
• Baked Sweet Potatoes
• Boiled Onions
• Salad(Fine chopped apples and nuts in red apple cups) Cream Dressing
• Mince or Squash Pie a la mode
• Sweet Cider
• Coffee

A Simple Company Dinner of Six Courses

• Celery
• Clam Bouillon, Saltines
• Ripe Olives
• Roast, Chestnut-Stuffed Turkey, Giblet Sauce
• Buttered Asparagus
• Glazed Sweet Potatoes
• Moulded Cranberry Jelly
• Chicken Salad in Salad Rolls
• Thanksgiving Pudding
• Hard Sauce
• Chocolate Ice Cream
• Strawberry Sauce
• Assorted Fruit
• Coffee

A Formal Company Dinner. Eight Courses

• Curled Celery
• Oyster Soup, Bread Sticks
• Radish Rosettes
• Turbans of Flounder
• Hollandaise Sauce
• Potato Straws
• Olives
• Crusty Rolls
• Salted Nuts
• Capon a la Creme
• (Stuffing of Potatoes, Mushrooms, Chestnuts, etc.)
• Mashed Potatoes
• Green Pea Timbales
• Cranberry Sauce
• Sweet Cider Frappe
• Venison Steaks
• Currant Jelly Sauce
• Baked Parsnips
• Apple-and-Grape Salad
• Macaroon Pudding
• Frozen Mince Pie
• Hot Chocolate Sauce
• Glaceed Walnuts
• Fruit
• Black Coffee

Elaborate Formal Dinner. Ten Courses

• Fruit Cocktail
• Oysters on Half-shell
• Brown Bread-and-Butter Sandwiches
• Quartered Lemons
• Clear Bouillon, Oysterettes
• Radishes
• Celery
• Boiled Halibut
• Potato Balls in Parsley Sauce
• Sweet Pickles
• Cauliflower au Gratin
• Braised Turkey or Capon
• Bread Stuffing
• Giblet Gravy
• Duchesse Potatoes
• Spinach
• Crystallized Ginger
• Salted Pecans
• Pineapple Fritters, Lemon Sauce
• Granite of Cider and Apples
• Cutlets of Duck, with Chopped Celery
• Orange Salad
• Pumpkin Pie
• Raisin and Cranberry Tarts
• Chocolate Parfait
• Almond Cakes
• Nuts
• Raisins
• Bonbons
• Candied Orange Peel
• Black Coffee

…The materials for making cake should be of the best quality, as your success very much depends on it.

Flour should be dried and sifted, sugar rolled fine, spices pounded and sifted. Where brown sugar is used, it
should be spread on a dish and dried before rolling it. I have known very good pound cake made with brown sugar; also jumbles, &c.

Persons that make their own butter sometimes use it fresh from the churn, which prevents the necessity of washing the salt out of it for cake, and it mixes more readily than hard butter.

Currants should be picked over, washed and dried; raisins should be stemmed and stoned. When these
preparations are made the day before, it is a great assistance.

Eggs should be fresh, or they will not beat light: in beating the whites, take a broad flat dish, and beat them until you can hold the dish upside down,–this is a test of their lightness.

A large bowl is best for mixing and beating cake. You must use your hand for mixing the sugar and
butter, and as you add the other ingredients, you may take a large wooden spoon; beat it some time after all is mixed.

The oven should be ready to bake immediately, as standing makes cake heavy. A brick oven is the most certain,–and over your pans of cake, you should spread several layers of newspaper, to prevent its browning too suddenly.

Cake requires more time than bread: a large cake should stay in the oven from an hour and a half to two hours, turning and looking at it from time to time; when you think it is sufficiently baked, stick a broad bright knife in the centre; if it is dry and free from dough when drawn out, the cake is likely to be done, though sometimes this is not a certain test, and you will have to draw a little from the centre of the cake
with the knife.

A broom straw will sometimes answer in a small cake instead of a knife. A large stone pan, with a cover, is the best for keeping cake, or a large covered bowl.




Now before I go on let me assure you that not everyone had to do this but let’s imagine for a moment having to spin our own wool (after washing it to remove the debris that the sheep got caught in there) which means carding it or detangling it and then sitting for hours on end at our spinning wheels to make the yarn that we will eventually knit into socks, sweaters, etc.

This doesn’t seem like it would be fun but aha! In the 21st century just such a movement has caught on and knitting in all of it’s glory has made a comeback. From the growing of the sheep to finishing of elaborately hand knit items. And let me tell you hand knit items can come at a steep price but they are beautiful!

Better you learn the craft yourself and turn out some amazing articles of clothing. And blessed you are indeed if you are close to someone who does knit. I am so generously blessed and have received many hand knit items from socks to sweaters.

Knitting has a long and varied history but since I mainly deal in the 18th and 19th century let’s look there even though it is not as interesting.

Before this time period knitting was basically a trade for men before being usurped by knitting machines and then women started to knit to pass the time.

As with all things women get their hands on fashionable knitted lace was in style in the late 18th Century  and then moving into the 19th Century the Victorian Era woman brought knitting into the parlor as one of the activities she used to pass the time and create little dainty and frivolous things.

The cardigan, my absolute favorite item of clothing come winter, is named after the the 7th Earl of Cardigan a British General during the Crimean War. Before his sketchy past was revealed his popularity helped to bring about the style of the knitted waistcoat he wore, the Cardigan.

Instructions for beginning knitters first began to appear around the 19th Century while designers and royalty alike helped to bring knitted clothing into the mainstream with golf sweaters and suits (women’s).

Whether due to the lack of style in today’s clothing or a longing for things past vintage knitting patterns are making a comeback.  Baby booties, sweaters, you name it.

One of your best sources for vintage knitting patterns is so be sure to check around for the latest vintage patterns.

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By Mom

From the authors collection. A vintage hanky with crocheted lady in a hat.

Wouldn’t you love to step back in time and view real people  (and especially women since this is a vintage homemaking site) doing household chores, taking care of things at home to see how it was really done?  Well now you can.

Buy now! 1900 House 1900 House is the PBS Series where a real present day family is sent back in time (figuratively speaking) to live just as a family would in the Victorian 1900's. This is a real family having to adjust to every day life as it would have been at the turn of the century. From what they did every day to what they ate and who they came in contact with. This is as real as you can get to what life was like for the Victorian Middle Class housewife. The PBS crew guts a London town home turning it back to how it was originally. The oven, the parlor, everything and I mean everything. What is especially interesting for those interested in Vintage Homemaking is the tools used, how cleaning and cooking were done (laundry too!), the use of hired help. You get to observe this family's real feelings and how they get along when tossed back in time. Great educational piece! Merchant: Barnes & Noble   Buy now! Frontier House Frontier House is a PBS series where a group of families is sent back in time as if they had just moved west. They have to set up their land, build a home and create a community. Aside from the tiffs and issues that arise as these are very different people being thrown together for several months you get to learn quite a lot about how people lived, worked and got along back in time. Very interesting to note that these families come from different economic backgrounds and the stay at home mom from the well to do family is the best at homemaking skills. She manages to create delicious meals and set up a cozy home for her family without benefit of conveniences she is used to. The main goal of this series is to see if these families could set up housekeeping and put enough aside to make it through the winter. There is petty bickering and some sad moments. While it is a great learning tool If you have impressionable children you might want to review what you would have them see. Merchant: Barnes & Noble

By

Lillian B. Lansdown

AFTERNOON TEAS

Afternoon teas are of two kinds, formal and informal, and the informal outdoor tea in the open, on the lawn or in the garden, is a variant of the latter variety. Here the tea wagon comes into play, and tea is often tea in name only, since at summer outdoor teas not only iced tea, but iced coffee, iced chocolate or punch are often served.

THE INFORMAL TEA

Do not set a table for the informal tea. The tea service is merely brought to the sun parlor, drawing room or living room in which the tea is to be served, and placed on the table. There the hostess makes and pours the tea, unless she prefers to have it brought in on a tea tray already made for pouring.

The tea service comprises: a teakettle for boiling water with filled alcohol lamp and matches; a tea caddy with teaspoon and (if only a few cups are to be made) a tea ball. A tea creamer, cut sugar, a saucer of sliced lemon, and cups and saucers with spoon on cup saucer, as well as tea napkins complete the service. The water brought in in the teakettle should be hot. If this precaution is observed, the tea will boil very soon after the lamp is lighted. The sandwiches served at an informal afternoon tea should be very simple: lettuce, olive or nut butter, or plain bread and butter, nor should the small cakes also passed be elaborate or rich.

THE FORMAL TEA

The formal tea. A tea becomes formal as soon as cards are sent out for it is a very different affair. As many as four ladies may pour, two during the first, and two during the second hour. Friends of the hostess, they serve all refreshments, though waitresses assist, removing soiled cups and plates and bringing in fresh ones. (They) preside at either table end, and the table is decorated (flowers and candles). At one end of the luncheon cloth (or the table may be laid with doilies) stands the service tray, with teapot, hot-water pot, creamer, sugar bowl with tongs and cut sugar, and sliced lemons in dish with lemon fork. The tray also contains cup and saucers (each saucer with spoon, handle paralleling cup). The coffee, bouillon or chocolate service is established in the same manner at the other end of the table. If coffee is served, the service tray is equipped with urn, cream and sugar; if chocolate, whipped cream in bowl with ladle; if bouillon, the urn alone.

Each lady who pours must have a large napkin convenient to guard her gown. Arranged along the table should be plates of sandwiches and cakes, bonbon dishes and dishes with salted nuts. But the table must
not be crowded. This important rule is responsible for the existence of the frappe table.

The frappe table holds the afternoon tea punch. Since the dining room is apt to be well filled as it is, the frappe table had best be established in some other room. On its luncheon cloth is set the punch or frappe bowl with ladle, and individual ices, frozen creams (not too rich or elaborate) or punch are served in frappe or punch bowls by a friend of the hostess. The small plates on which the frappe glasses are served should be piled on the table with doilies (linen always) between the plates. When served, the glass is filled with the sherbet or cream, and a sherbet spoon laid at the right-hand side of plate (a tray of sherbet spoons belongs to the frappe table equipment, as well as a filled cake basket, dishes of candy, piles of small plates and small linen napkins). Unless you are entertaining guests to the number of a hundred or more, never use paper doilies at a formal afternoon tea!

A pretty custom dictates that young girl friends of the hostess serve the guests. They provide the latter with plate and napkin, ask their choice of beverage, and serve it, together with sandwiches and cakes. Or the plates and napkins may be handed the guests as they enter by a waitress stationed at the door, before they are served by the young girls.

A salad should never be offered at a formal afternoon tea! To do so is to commit a social solecism.

You’ll find a few for sale on ebay and

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Used as a way to protect good clothing without having to wash too much the apron could be donned once again for the next day’s housework without worry of a few spills from the previous day’s toil.

The apron has long been the symbol of comfort to children who are now since grown. A fresh clean apron was put on when company came but yet always there to keep a mother’s good clothes from getting soiled.

The apron has been used to carry hot pans out of the oven. Wipe wet hands after washing. Carry freshly picked green beans in from the garden and to wipe dry the tears of a distraught child.

In Godey’s Lady’s Book circa 1851 we are introduced to a bit of British history that claims , "[at this time] an apron is first met with, tied behind with a ribbon." And since no date was given I am guessing that t he time period of the discussion for the first notation of aprons in England attire is the reign of Edward III since the previous era discussed was early 1300.

pic -Apron styles from an 1871 Godey’s Lady’s Book Showing a cambric apron, apron with ruffles, apron with straps and ruche trimming, apron with flounce and apron with embroidery. Lovely though they were they styles were generally kept for more sociable occasions such as teatime.

Although we don’t see many aprons among vintage clothing designs stemming from the Victorian era be assured they were in use. We tend to have a romantic view of the Victorian housewife that she went about visiting and having tea, rarely actually working but to give instructions to her servants. This was true of the middle to upper classes but a housewife of a smaller home where say just one ‘maid of all work’ helped out with the daily chores still rolled up her sleeves and got involved. A good view of this is in the PBS series 1900 House .

Move into the very early 20th century up into the 1950’s and many different styles of aprons are to be found. They had become as if an accessory.

Vintage women’s magazines in these later decades included patterns and embellishments (such as embroidery, tatting, etc) for household aprons. Women are pictured wearing dresses, heels, and even pearls with the ever present apron while cleaning, cooking, and taking care of children. According to my mother (discussing my grandmother) and my many issues of Reminisce Magazine this apparently was true.

To see many of these styles all you have to do is browse around the internet. You see there has been a revival of sorts lately of the household apron. Specifically the vintage styled apron.

I’ve taken the liberty of adding some links to many different styles of vintage aprons available on the internet. Truly the choice is hard. I have some regular old solid colored ones and a few friends have made for me. But now I have my eye on getting something a little fun. Some strawberries, pink ribbon, my favorite chartreuse. The styles are endless and I’m having a hard time making a choice. Maybe a matching one for my daughter….
An apron is a fabulous tool and uniform of those ready to get down to business. Put it on with it’s many pockets and get to work cleaning and organizing that home!

Read this wonderful article about aprons: ApronEvangelism

Dorothy’s Handmade Aprons and Patterns : I want the one from the 20’s in the picture on the side…

Darling Jessie Steele Aprons for you and your daughter…

Fabulous Vintage Aprons on Ebay

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