Mid-century Tastes

We all know that the world was a very different place in the mid-century in many, many ways.  I loved my childhood but there are many things I do not miss.  For example, there were very many social justice  issues yet to be addressed in this era.  But one thing that I do miss is the prevailing sense that the world was a pretty safe place to go out and explore.

I grew up in a small village and my husband grew up in a large suburb of a very large city.  Both of us remember being sent out to play for the day anytime after age 7 or 8 with a few sensible restrictions on what we could do outside.  Independence was a big parental goal for children growing up in the 60’s and 70’s.  We were taught safety rules, taught how to get help if needed and then were trusted not to get into any serious trouble.  We were free to take our bikes and go visit friends or play in the woods or creeks nearby.

My husband was encouraged to learn how to ride the city bus, after his father took him a few times,  into the heart of downtown around age 10. When we got hungry we would go home for lunch.  Or we got invited for lunch at a friend’s house.  And of course we always went home when the streetlights went on.  Or when we heard our moms calling us in.   I remember endless Saturdays and summer days going out all day playing with a group of kids, making new friends and exploring the neighbourhoods in my village. This was the original free range parenting.

I think that stay at home mid-century moms had a few reasons for sending us out to play for the day.  (And I confess that I do not have children but I worked in education for my whole career and know a thing or two about children from that perspective.)  One reason was likely that my mom got tired of us saying we were bored.   We had two TV channels, papers and crayons and board games and so we got bored inside quickly.  Another was that she had cleaning to do like washing and waxing the floor and didn’t want our footprints on it.  Perhaps most importantly she believed that kids needed to have fresh air and lots of play to be healthy.

Both my husband and I have younger siblings who were not allowed the freedom that  the “big kids” had like hopping on a bike and exploring.  But even infants were thought to need fresh air, sunshine and exercise outside.  A generation earlier women put their infants into a baby carriage for an outdoor nap and left them on the porch or sidewalk.  Some even had a  cage like device that attached to a window or balcony to put the baby in,  again to get fresh air.   I can’t imagine that happens much anymore.

As an infant I was taken for a walk daily even on the coldest winter days.  I am told that as a toddler I was bundled up for the weather and left to play by myself for a few minutes outside to “get fresh air”.  We didn’t have a fenced yard so I was put into a harness and the end of the harness was clipped to the clothesline.  Apparently I loved being able to toddle back and forth on the grass that grew thickest under the clothesline.  I actually don’t remember this and don’t have any lifelong fear  of clotheslines or anything.    Harnesses could be seen while out shopping as it allowed children to walk around the store without getting lost or touching things they weren’t supposed to.  They were even advertised as a good way to keep kids safe in the car.  There were no seatbelts in the mid-century.

Another item that might be considered a parenting no-no today is a playpen.  The earliest ones were much like a wooden crib but close to the floor.  Later ones had a plastic netting that babies couldn’t get their heads through.  My mother had a playpen for both me and my brother.  She said it allowed her to put us in  with a blankie and a pile of toys and leave us to play happily for a while so she could make lunch or wash the floors.  (I remember the floor needing a lot of thorough washing and waxing.)  We weren’t left for hours, just a few minutes.   I remember my brother was a real Houdini who soon learned to crawl over the sides of the crib and playpen.  I don’t think mom used the playpen outside.  There was always the harness clipped to the clothesline for outside fresh air.

I still find it odd to be walking in my neighbourhood on a beautiful Saturday or summer day and not hear the sound of bikes racing down the street or children playing tag in a backyard.  I still see moms with infants in strollers taking a walk around the block most days.  But except for the time right before and after school it is very rare to hear children’s voices.  And it is even rarer to see them playing outside in my little subdivision.  I understand the feeling behind keeping kids safely inside but I think that is something we should envy about the mid-century.

What do you think about harnesses and playpens?  Good ways to keep kids safe or terribly mean child restraints?

 

As you look in mid-century cookbooks you see a lot of pineapple recipes.    Why was it such a ubiquitous ingredient? Pineapple is identified with Hawaii now but originated in South America.  The enzymes in pineapple were once thought to restore digestion and so was hoped to be used as a tonic for the sick.  While it is actually high in vitamins particularly C and B vitamins and has lots of fibre, and its enzymes might help gut health it didn’t turn out to be a wonder food in the end. However, that didn’t stop it from becoming a very popular fruit.

Pineapples came onto the American market in force in the 1930’s.  Most of them  were grown in Hawaii where it was discovered the climate was ideal to grow pineapple.  The Dole company became the world’s biggest producer and distributor of fresh and canned pineapple by the mid-century.  The once rare and exotic fruit suddenly became plentiful on the supermarket shelves.  The 1950’s became  a decade of pineapple obsession.

As well this was a time of fascination with Hawaii and the South Seas.  Palm trees, colourful aloha shirts and dresses, surfing, tiki torches, luaus and pineapple were often motifs found in homes or at  dinner parties.  The exotic  images of the Hawaiian islands were  found in many ads too.

It also turns out that pineapple is a pretty adaptable fruit.  Many of the recipes are for salads and desserts.  But some of the recipes are savoury and may be a bit odd for our modern tastebuds, or at least mine. And note that you cannot just substitute fresh pineapple for canned in all recipes as the  bromolain in fresh pineapple will break down the proteins in jello for example and ruin the dish.  This might be a case to be made for using it with meat, however.

Let’s start with another classic pineapple upside down cake.  In my earlier post I gave you the quick and easy version that uses a cake mix.   Here is a different recipe from 1955 and  this is one from scratch.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake From Scratch
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 No. 2  can of sliced pineapple (a 20 0z can)
2 Tablespoons pecans
1 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 eggs separated
1 cup sugar
5 Tablespoons of pineapple juice

Directions:
Melt butter in large baking pan. Spread brown sugar evenly in the pan and arrange the pineapple slices on the sugar.  Fill empty spaces with pecans. Mix flour, baking powder and salt together.  Beat egg yolks until light , add sugar gradually; add in pineapple juice and  flour; fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.  Pour the batter over the pineapple.  Bake at 375 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes.  Let sit for a few minutes before turning the cake out onto a plate.  Serve with whipped cream .  Serves 8.

Pineapple covered ham was a true crowd-pleaser at  any Sunday dinner mid-century.  There are a number of different variations out there but a common one, and one my mother liked used cloves, pineapple rings and sometimes maraschino cherries. It is remarkably easy to make.

Start with a fully cooked boneless ham and bake it until it is heated all the way through following the directions on the ham. Score the skin of the ham or cut slices part way through to allow the glaze and juices to get into the ham.  Use the cloves to hold the pineapple ring to the ham.  Use toothpicks to hold the cherries to the ham. Then you add the glaze. 

The glaze is the important part of this recipe.
Combine in a bowl:
1 cup of brown sugar
2 Tablespoons of Dijon  mustard
then begin adding pineapple juice from the can a bit at a time, stirring until you have a thick glaze like a syrup.

Spoon the glaze all over the ham until thoroughly covered.  Return the ham to the oven and bake another 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and spoon any glaze left in the dish back over the ham and serve. Wait for the oohs and aahs!  This part is important- remind everyone to mind the toothpicks and cloves, I still remember chomping down and getting the strong taste of roasted cloves instead of ham.

Here is another pineapple recipe a kind of light fluffy dessert sometimes called ambrosia, I believe, that I remember from childhood too, this particular recipe is from 1968.

Pineapple Delight
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup soft butter
2 eggs beaten
1/2 pint heavy cream, whipped
24 graham crackers, crushed
1  20 oz can crushed pineapple
Directions:
Cream together sugar and butter, add eggs one at a time and beat.  Place layer this of graham cracker crumbs in the bottom of an 9 x 12 pan.  Spread the sugar and butter mixture over the crumbs. Then spread the whipped cream over the crumbs. Add a layer of drained pineapple. Add one more layer of cracker crumbs. Chill in fridge for 12 hours or longer.  Cut and serve.

Jellied pineapple salads, all kinds of them embraced two mid-century crazes at once pineapple and jello.  While jellied salads and even jello are not everyone’s favourite today they were popular mid-century.  I think one of the reasons was they looked cool straight out of the mould and packed a lot of flavour in a small dish.

The Pineapple jellied salad below is a recipe that my mother made for many holiday dinners.  The vegetables and fruit she used got changed up over the years.

Pineapple Jelly Salad
1 pkg lemon or lime Jello
1 1/2 cup boiling water
2 Tablespoons of lemon juice
Mix these together and put it in the fridge to set slightly until it is shaky.  Then add:
1 cup drained crushed pineapple
1/2 cup diced cucumbers
1/2 cup shredded carrots
Beat together until well mixed.  Chill for several hours until fully set. Add whipped cream as topping.

One of the kinds of recipe books I like best are the vintage collections of community or church of real women’s favourite, tried and true recipes. A simple salad that comes from  a real housewife from 1958, Five Cup Salad, is an easy “dump salad”.

Five Cup Salad
Ingredients:
1 cup of dried coconut
1 cup mandarin orange pieces
1 cup pineapple tidbits drained
1 cup sour cream
Directions:
Combine, stir well and refrigerate for several hours. You might put whipped cream on top.

A few of the vintage recipes I have seen for cakes or cookies call for pineapple marmalade or jam.  It turns out this is very easy to make.  It’s just pineapple and sugar in a ratio of  1 cup of crushed pineapple with juice to 3/4 of a cup of sugar.  Boil until thickened and bottle it.  Nothing else is needed.

A little cookbook published in Hawaii about Hawaiian fruit recipes has a great one for Pineapple Chutney.  I always like the idea of serving chutney on chicken.  The recipe is:
Pineapple Chutney
2 ounces of pepper
1 oz of garlic
3 pounds of pineapple
1 Tablespoons of ginger
1 1/2 pounds of brown sugar
1 1/2 pints of vinegar
1/2 pound raisins
1/2 pound almonds
1 Tbsp of salt

Directions:
Cook the pineapple, vinegar and salt. Chop nuts, raisins, garlic and pepper up finely and add to pineapple mixture.  If the mixture is very juicy you might need to boil the mixture down to thicken.

My handy 1955 Good Housekeeping Magazine offers a savoury recipe in an ad for Del Monte canned pineapple.   The recipe was for pineapple glazed spareribs.

In my browsing of other ads from the era I have seen other savoury pineapple dishes.  One suggested topping a pork meatloaf with pineapple.  Another suggested topping pork chops with pineapple before baking them.  I have also seen pineapple used in sweet and sour meatballs too.  You could create a pineapple marinade for chicken breasts.  Sometimes they put a pineapple ring on a burger.  I am not so sure about how much the pineapple would enhance the meat dishes. Although using pineapple jam would work as an easy glaze.  I do like pineapple on pizzas but we won’t go into that controversial discussion right now.

Enjoy some pineapple today!

I have several cookbooks that are full of recipes that use condensed canned soups.  One book is from the late 1960s and the first thing I noticed is how many more soup flavours there used to be, 40 are listed,  compared to the 20 or so that can be found in my local grocery store.  Some of the intriguing flavours listed in the book are; oxtail, chicken gumbo, chili beef, hotdog bean, noodles and ground beef, and oyster stew.

The book opens by suggesting that cooking with soup is convenient and using soup in cooking cuts your workload.  It offers suggestions on making sauces, casseroles, stews and meat dishes.  They also show pairings, mixing two cans of soup to make a new soup flavour such as chicken and rice with cream of mushroom.  There are a few menus that include soup as a nutritious part of a good breakfast.  They also show routinely serving soup as an appetizer.  They suggest adding homemade croutons, pickles, almonds, onions,  popcorn or pretzels to the top of soups just before serving. Whole party menus for birthdays, teen hangouts and holidays all  based around soups are given .  

Here are some noteworthy recipes:

It is important to remember that “exotic dishes” like pasta in tomato sauce  were new to many homes mid-century. Garlic or curry were exciting.  I have read that soldiers coming home from second world war brought home a taste for Italian food or other dishes from where they had been stationed.  Housewives were trying to recreate these flavours. Do you think this dish is worth a try? I’m not sure how satisfying the sauce would be since we are so used to more authentic chunky tomato sauce these days.

When I was young my mother made liver and onions with  bacon fairly regularly.  We were told it was important for the iron content for growing children. Liver  was not our favourite but it was palatable covered in bacon grease.  I don’t know how I feel about liver anymore.

Desserts made with soup sound like they would be gross but tomato soup cake from an earlier post  is actually delicious.  You might want to try this one too.

Talking about soup has made me hungry.  Which recipe will you try?

Update:  I went to a community book sale this week and found a 1972 edition of this 1943 book.  While they have added all kinds of “mod” fashion they have also kept a lot of the chapter topics, text and  line drawings that were so helpful in the 1943 edition.  One big difference in the two books is the dominance of stretch knit fabric.  An exciting  new concept in sewing at the time.  I remember my mother’s delight as a lifelong sewist at finding the synthetic stretchy fabric she called Crimpoline at the end of the sixties because it was easy to sew and wash. I still have a bag to hold camping things made from old Crimpoline curtains.  The stuff never wears out, but it might rot one day,  I will see.  The chapters have mostly remained the same with updated photos,  The  restyling clothing chapter had a few new ideas such as taking a too short or too tight dress and shortening it into a tunic  or adding a gore to the middle of a too tight dress.  I  looked to  see what colour basics they suggested for the 1972 wardrobe but didn’t find it any mention of styles and colours in this edition.      

     This fall we were clearing out my mother-in-law’s house as she moved into a senior’s apartment and we found a number of old books tucked into a cupboard.  One was a book designed to help the young woman of 1943 get started sewing her wardrobe and other items for her home. It is called , The Complete Book of Sewing.  I own a couple of other books like this from the 1950s and even 1980s. They offer a lot of good advice for us new or experienced sewists even now.  They are also a great walk through fashion history.  

This book starts with the basics by saying every woman must choose her own style, decide the fabrics she likes and the fit that is flattering for her figure. This also is true for hats and accessories.  This is key to creating a wardrobe that will last for years and help you look great everyday.  A good piece of advice still valid all these years later is to always buy the best quality of fabric and workmanship you can afford. Fabrics need to be washable, easy care and made well. They warn young women not to buy the latest fashions just because they are new.  They advise that you be honest when you look at a new fashion item and ask yourself if it is your style and if it is flattering on you.  Clothes need to last a long time and need to be adaptable and practical too. While you might be able to tailor an ill fitting high fashion item  you bought on a whim it is usually not going to be a great fit in the end.  This is particularly good advice for us today as we live in a world where fast fashion is cheap, overnight delivery is easy and we have bloated wardrobes mostly full of low quality, often ill-fitting clothes. I think this 1943 advice suggests a better mindset about clothes than most of us have  today.

The book goes on to say there are three styles to choose from; sophisticated, feminine and tailored. These are not terms I know today but here’s how the book explains them:

No example of a tailored evening dress was given, sadly.

 A good wardrobe base was made up of a dress, coat, suit and evening wear.  Other pieces like dickeys, blouses, scarves, sweaters  and skirts would fill out the wardrobe.  I will share some knitting and crochet patters for sweaters and purses in a post one of these days.  Nice floral or abstract patterns should be chosen to go with many different outfits.  Sports and work clothes were also part of most wardrobes.  A neutral tone for wardrobe basics should be black, white, grey, beige or brown as they are the most practical and adaptable colours.  You won’t get tired of a well tailored black suit.  The book advises against bold colours for base items as they are harder to style.  

The book believes that hair colour and eye colour should be considered when choosing clothing.  

Hair colour	Best colours for clothing
Grey	Any colour but grey but nothing too showy
Blond	No strong colours  and no yellow
Red	Green, blue, grey and brown
Black or White	Any colour even stronger  shades

 

Eye Colour	Best colours for clothing
Blue/Green	Dress to match your eyes when possible
Brown/Grey	Brighter colours work well
Hazel/Grey/Brown	Yellow and green are most flattering

I am old enough to remember the rage “getting your colours done” from the early 1990s.  They are not totally different but the ideas above do not  consider different skin tones.  Not being inclusive in many, many ways is an obvious flaw in this 1943 book and honestly the mid-century as a whole. 

Women in the 1940’s would think they would be sewing most of their clothing over their lifetime.  So another important thing for them to learn was, what fabrics are best for what garments.  Cotton for dresses and blouses, rayon blends for blouses, woollen suiting or tweed for suits and cotton and nylon for lingerie are best.  Work clothes and aprons could be made from heavy cotton twill, denim or corduroy.  The time of year the item will be worn is important too with woollen suiting for fall and winter and linen and seersucker for spring and summer. When choosing sewing patterns they reminded women to think about designs that are easy to adapt and change up and are styles that you will want to make over and over once you have tailored the pattern to be a perfect fit.  Embroidery, applique, trims, buttons and closures can add style to a dress or suit. They also explain how scarves, bows, vests and dickeys can change the look of your suits and dresses.  

One piece of advice I hadn’t thought about but agree with is not to make undergarments or pyjamas out of bargain fabrics. These are items that will be washed often and worn everyday and need to stand up to the wear and tear. They should be comfortable to wear and perhaps need a bit of extra stretch or ease built into the cut of the garment. We all have learned the hard way that nothing is worse than ill-fitting underwear or pyjamas that don’t move when you do.

A whole section of the book was about restyling clothes. Printed during the  second world war this is understandable as rationing or shortages weren’t just about food but were  about clothing and  fabric too.  They suggested that adding new trim like new lace, buttons and accessories can make a suit look new.  One of easiest ways to restyle a suit that is showing wear is to turn the fabric inside out and resew the seams. You could even remake a man’s suit into a woman’s suit. Taking your old suit or dress apart at the seams and recutting the neck, sleeves and skirt can create a pleasing new look too.  If your dress is too tight you can add a panel of a different fabric in the front, add matching sleeves and pockets or a ruffle at the bottom to make a coordinated look. This trick also was used to make ordinary dresses into maternity outfits. In another book I saw a similar idea about making  girls dresses bigger and longer by adding new panels as the girls outgrew them but  the dress fabric was not worn out.  Clever ideas.

You can cut or swap out the sleeves of a blouse that is too tight to give it a better fit. You can cut the sleeves off a dress and deepen the armholes to make a jumper.  Turning adult clothes into children’s garments was a thrifty thing to do, They suggested that a smart housewife should consider using sheets, blankets, tablecloths and curtains as fabric for home decor or clothing. Home or professional redying of  clothing was another way of getting new life out of an old garment.  So many ways to reuse and be environmentally conscious too, even if they didn’t have that in mind at the time.

One particularly unusual suggestion, at least to me,  is to take three dresses that do not fit well to make two new ones that do fit well.  (Perhaps a young woman didn’t listen to the advice about the importance of style and fit instead of new fashion and had acquired three cheap, ill-fitting dresses.)  As I understand it, if the top of one dress fits but the skirt doesn’t swap it out with a skirt that does and vice versa. Add bits of trim from the two prints to make it look coordinated.   They do caution that sometimes a cheap or ill-fitting dress just isn’t worth the time and trouble of  remaking, as it may never be comfortable or flattering.  This would be particularly true if the fabric was poor quality.   But of course any old clothing  fabric can be used for children’s clothing or things like pillow covers  or quilts.  Nothing should be wasted.

What do you think about the advice for the young sewist?  Are you wearing the right colour of neutral for your hair and eyes? I noticed that one of my standby neutrals being well. into middle age is  navy,  and it is not mentioned as a building block of a wardrobe.

Are you sophisticated, feminine or tailored?  I am trying to wear more  classic styles  as I get older but I will admit I do love a vibrant pattern and strong colours like red , purple  and royal blue. 

I agree with the author that having a few good suits/coordinates and accessorizing them is still good advice for working women.  It is a shame that we don’t use vests and dickeys anymore.  They were easy to make and could really jazz up a boring outfit. 

The reminder that cheap fabric never turns out to be a bargain is a good one.  I am doing more sewing these days and find that is very  true.  However, these days when polyester and polyester blends are everywhere in fabric stores it is hard to find good natural fabric to sew with.  In my opinion, cotton, linen  or rayon while often hard to find are much better for most of the things I want to make to wear.  They are also better for the planet. 

Here are some apron and hat making ideas from the book as a bonus!

When I was a kid my mom often invited women over for coffee or tea during the day.  This was a way to get together with other women while still watching the children.  It was fun to have other kids to play with and because mom was preoccupied with her visitor, we often got away with more shenanigans than normal.  And there were special snacks that we got to eat if we left the grown-ups alone. I distinctly remember coffee cake with brown sugar crumble on top and made from scratch tarts and cookies.

The women could be neighbours or relatives. My mom had a large extended family and met for coffee with aunts regularly.  She also had friendships with some neighbours on the street we lived on.  It seems to me she would meet once a week or so.  This was something mom enjoyed as she was a stay at home mom.  She didn’t drive at that time and was alone in the house with two young kids all day.

The neighbourhood I spent my early years in was a very typical mid-century neighbourhood with many young children and stay at home mothers.  It was the late 1960’s  and most of the women were at the same stage of life and had a lot in common.   One summer I remember a big “coffee clatch ” as it was called, that seemed to me to be all the moms in the neighbourhood meeting in lawn chairs on one lawn to chat and drink coffee.  The kids were free to play up and down the street since the moms were outside and could see everyone. I didn’t hear any of the conversation because I got shooed away if I got close. But there was a lot of laughing and they seemed to have a good time.

I was never a full time housewife but I did have a few periods of unemployment when I was at home all day and I fell into the traditional housewife role.  I felt I needed to contribute to the household in ways other than wages. My days were full  of cooking, cleaning, organizing and decorating the house.  My self-esteem was all tied up in the house and making my husband happy.  That felt odd after being a career focused woman.   I could imagine how  feelings of isolation, boredom and anxiety (often called nervousness or bad nerves in the 60’s) , could overwhelm the housewife.  She had hard physical work to do and was very busy all day taking care of the house and children, however, her mind might not be engaged and her creativity might not be encouraged.

Women born in the 1930s and 40s, my mom’s generation, were raised by housewives and understood the strict gender roles of women in the world at that time.  They were to keep a clean and beautiful home, make nutritious and delicious meals, raise well fed and well-behaved children and make a home and family life that their husbands were happy to come home to.  That was the career of most women.  Women  took pride in that role.  For many that was  a good life.  But for some it must have been stifling and dull.

Having the odd “coffee clatch” must have been a great antidote for the day to day blahs of being a stay at home mom and housewife. And the desserts were always great too.  Who remembers bundt cakes? You always got a lot of cake in a slice of bundt cake.  

Note: This is a long post because there is so much to say about mid-century cleaning. I didn’t cover more than a fraction of it so I will come back to the topic again soon.

When I retired a few years ago after a long and hectic career I finally had time to focus on our home and yard.  Like most working women the house had never been my first priority, or often even my tenth some weeks.  To be honest it was an ongoing  source of guilt that my house did not look as spotless as  the home I grew up in.  As I got used to being retired and not tired, I looked around to see that I had a lot of work to do to get my house in shape.  I also wanted to do more home cooking and take up some old hobbies.

Around the same time, in our abundant spare time, my husband and I started going to used bookstores, antique markets and thrift stores.  They were treasure troves of nostalgia and good tried and true advice.   I started collecting old cookbooks from the mid-century era.  Then I started collecting books about homemaking in the same years.  I teased that I wanted to be a 1950’s housewife when I grew up. In reading about mid-century homemaking I soon realized that I could learn a thing or two from the mid-century housewives.  After all, as stay at home housewives  they were “professional homemakers”.  They were also highly motivated to find ways and share ways  to save money and time. Cleanliness, efficiency and frugality were very valued traits. Just read a mid-century magazine

There were many, many books written to help the housewife with her homemaking skills.  These books give advice on creating a pretty, organized, clean and efficient home. There is a lot of talk about being new, modern and scientific in your approach to making a house into a home.  One of the things that  strikes me as I read these books is the praise for new man made chemicals, that just feels wrong now.  Plastics and vinyls are pushed as a housewife’s friend because when made into furniture,  curtains, tablecloths, wallpaper or clothing they are said to be beautiful, sanitary and hard wearing, and therefore economical.  No discussion about fabrics breaking down in the landfill or off gassing in the home.  There is an exuberance about using new chemicals to solve household problems that makes me shiver.  I am not even going to list their advice about using  DDT,  benzine, turpentine, carbon tetrachloride, gasoline, chloroform, or ether around the house.

Aside from the toxic chemicals I have found most of the advice is very helpful.  To put some order in your housekeeping, they suggest you have a well-organized cleaning closet and that you regularly sit down and go over your cleaning checklist.  You want to make sure the house is clean but  you should  not be exhausting yourself with “back breaking labour”.  The recommendation is to have  an easy daily and weekly chore list with a bigger list of deep cleaning chores for the fall and spring.

Every day, after breakfast and getting the various members of the family down for a nap, off to work or off to school, clear the table and get dishes soaking.  Grab your basket of cleaning supplies and the vacuum cleaner.  You should focus on the main living spaces in the house.  Start by tidying and putting away clutter.  Have need to have a place for everything to go out of sight.  Look for any spills or messes to spot clean.  If you see a need, using the vacuum cleaner start from the ceiling to the floor looking for cobwebs and dust.  Next vacuum the furniture and floors.  You may have to wet dust or use a soapy cloth to clean off sticky or greasy surfaces.  You might need to wet mop some areas to finish.  The kitchen and bathroom will need a quick clean too. Although you should be “cleaning as you go” to keep the kitchen sparkling all day long.  Bedrooms, your husband’s study  and less used areas only need to be cleaned weekly.  These books  also encourage the housewife to take breaks during the day, to sit down and read a magazine or sit to iron or sit at your desk to organize the shopping or menu planning. Life should not be all drudgery.  Some very modern books even suggest getting the children involved in making beds, tidying rooms, setting and clearing the table and other chores appropriate to their age.

So a housewife had a daily and weekly cleaning routine and all kinds of modern chemicals in her cleaning closet, but the 1940’s housewife would be green with envy at the variety of cleaners I keep in my cleaning closet.  Being able to spray and wipe messes would have been only a dream.  Prior to World War II there were few ready to use all purpose cleaners on the market, and they were not always affordable or safe. Most cleaning was done with a mixture of one or more or soap, bleach, vinegar, ammonia and water.  WARNING: Do not mix any of these together, bad gases happen. 

To truly appreciate how we got to the cleaners we have today it is good to see what came before. For centuries, even millennia (soap recipes have been found from 2800 BCE) we have used soap for cleaning ourselves and our stuff that was a variation on animal fat and lye.  When mixed together animal fat and wood ash and water creates soap. It does a good job but  in its simplest form.  it is pretty rough on skin and fabric and leaves a film behind.

Over time we discovered plant oils and fragrance make lye soap better.  Adding glycerin was an improvement too. The problem with bar soap is that it makes soap scum when it mixes with chemicals in hard water  and some of the fat or dirt stays on the cleaned items. So it is not ideal for dishes or for clothes either.  When laundry detergents came on the market it saved the housewife from the grind of mixing up the laundry soap mixture of washing soda, borax and soap shavings with warm water for every load.  Many of these books sang the praises of detergent for washing,  saying detergent dissolved easily in water and got the clothes cleaner.

Detergent for dishes was also a great invention because  grease and dirt on the surface dissolved and lifted off leaving the dishes to dry spotlessly clean.  Not having to dry dishes with a cloth was a time saver.  Just think how excited your grandmother or great grandmother would have been when she heard the first squeaky clean dish in her bright yellow dish washing gloved hand.  Truly the  sound of clean.

And detergents would have replaced a lot of scrubbing and rinsing and bleaching all around the house as well. Getting surfaces of things like sinks and showers free of soap scum and clean and shiny quicker would have been a great time saver.  Detergents may not have been a joy on linoleum as they may take off the carefully applied wax.  Bleach and ammonia still had a place in the mid-century home but detergents were a game changer I am sure.

I must say as time goes on my cleaning closet is getting much less crowded with bottles.  Inspired by earlier housekeepers I routinely use a simple mixture of one part water to one part vinegar a scant teaspoon of dishsoap in a spray bottle.  My repurposed spray bottle holds 10 ounces total.  This cleaner works on everything from mirrors to sinks to floors.  And I have a bottle of concentrated Dawn dishsoap as well that I reach for on many cleaning and laundry tasks,

You may ask , how is my mid-century housekeeping routine coming along? Have I perfected the daily and weekly routines?   It is still a work in progress, I am guilty to say.

A tiny well-worn cookbook from 1968 that I recently thrifted offers many new ways to use pudding and dream whip mixes.  But before I share some of these recipes, please note that the puddings in these recipes are  the kind of pudding you have to cook, not the instant just add milk kind.

Also Dream Whip is a kind of dehydrated whipped cream powder you can use in place of whipped cream.  My mother used it all of the time because it was in the cupboard whenever she needed whipped cream.  My mother was a huge fan of desserts and always wanted to have the makings in the cupboard for when the mood struck her.  I don’t know if Dream Whip  is still being sold. Regular whipped cream will work as well in most cases, just mind the liquid ratios.

Icebox cakes were all the rage when iceboxes were first making their ways into middle class kitchens in the 1920’s and 1930’s.  By 1968 not many homes were still using an icebox but the idea that you could make a chilled dessert at home was still still exciting. You will note the ever popular mid-century fruit,  pineapple in this recipe too.

Who doesn’t like fudge?  But fudge is either very labour intensive as you stir and take the temperature or prone to not turn out because you didn’t stand over a hot stove stirring and taking the temperature.  In the summer that my mom perfected her fudge recipe we enjoyed fudge so gooey you had to eat it with a spoon and so hard you to had to break it with a hammer.  Still delicious, and we enjoyed it,  but not the best fudge we ever had.  She went on to perfect a few different recipes over the years.  This recipe would have been a good one for her to start with.

Making ice cream at home is quick and easy but can have texture issues compared to store bought kinds.  This recipe looks like it might solve some of these problems.

I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into the cool “new”recipes of 1968.  Are you willing to give one a try?

The 1955 Good Housekeeping Magazine that I thrifted recently keeps on giving me new insights and information about the mid-century.  One case in point was a multi-page article about creating the dream kitchen.  In the photos you see gleaming white appliances and colour coordinated pastel cupboards, backsplashes, countertops, table and chairs.  Not much natural wood can be found.  In fact, they thought there was too much of a contrast  between the white appliances and the dark wood and that vibrant pastel colours were a better environment for the housewife to work in.   A kitchen should be bright and cheerful and easy to clean.  It should also be designed to make the housewife’s work more efficient.  Bear in mind that many of the appliances were relatively new and quite expensive, so the magazine’s kitchen plans were often more aspirational than practical for the average family.  Much like today really.

This blue kitchen was very popular as a colour theme.  In this design the cupboards are metal and  have painted doors and often the doors cover the front of the appliances to give a streamlined look.  Everything was tied together with darker or lighter, greener or redder shades of blue.   Also popular was yellow, green or pink for kitchens.  To our eyes it seems too matchy-matchy  and we would likely paint the bottom cupboards a different colour to break up the wall of turquoise blue.  You can see the matching curtains and breakfast nook upholstery.  They are likely to be made of one of the new miracle fabrics, think plastic.   Plastics or vinyls were pretty cheap and easy to clean.  Coming into a world where most things were made of cotton or wool, new fabrics like nylon, orlon  or other plastic were really easy to take care of and were hardwearing.  Formica and Linoleum were equally praised for being easy care, easy to clean  and cheerfully coloured.  The linoleum was colour matched to the cupboards too, usually a deeper shade.  If there was a backsplash it would likely be been made from the new and exciting plastic tile, advertised as hardy and sanitary. It was not unusual to see plastic scrubbable wallpaper to match the curtains and upholstery. Imagine the plasticky smell coming out of a brand new kitchen!

Something that seems odd now, is the idea of a pre-fabricated bank of appliances such as the design above.  Wired into a single unit, it was a better deal than buying each appliance separately.  Something that was suggested as a wonderful asset in cooking although not in this entry level unit, was the double oven range.  That is two small ovens under a cook top.  In the time before microwaves having lots of oven space would be more necessary. And of course the unit came in a variety of pastel colours.  You will note a couple of odd things, by today’s standards anyway.  The washing machine was a washer-dryer combo.  They still exist but generally are thought to be less effective than a separate pair.  The automatic griddle seems a bit unnecessary and not something that I would use often.  I would like the space above the laundry machine for folding clothes.   The dishwasher was truly a luxury then.  Quite a high end bank of appliances, again very aspirational rather than practical for everyone’s budget.

This bird’s eye view of an ideal kitchen shows off all the things a housewife was thought to need.  There is lots of storage space too. You can see there are all the usual appliances including a washer and dryer.  I think having them in the kitchen would be handy.  There may be a small freezer hiding behind one of the cupboard door.  A freezer was a real luxury and something most households couldn’t afford.  There is not a lot of counter top space  compared to most modern kitchens but there was often a pull out or pull up section of countertop for baking and food prep.  There was often a small kitchen table or breakfast nook in the kitchen for less formal meals and this was an extra space to roll out cookie dough or prep veggies. There is also a small desk area for meal  planning and paying the bills.    It is not the clearest of diagrams but gives you an ideas of what the designers  thought housewives needed to run the home.  This was the beginning of planning a kitchen to save steps and be efficient.

I had a great aunt whose house was built mid-century, in the early 1950’s.  The kitchen had bright blue tiles up all the walls and bright blue linoleum on the floor.  The countertops, table and chairs were matching blue formica.  The cupboards were white and the trim was black. All the appliances were bright white.  It had custom made cupboards and shelves using  every inch of space and even a hidden ironing board.   And the bathroom right next door was a repeat except in pink with fixtures in pink too. These matching touches were cheerful but for day to day living it was  kind of intense in a relatively small room.  Many things change over time but the focus on making a kitchen design workable for the housewife and  family friendly still persists and kitchen is still the heart of the home.

 

One of the themes of vintage magazines and cookbooks is that life as a mid-century housewife is busy and any convenience that can be found should be taken full advantage of.  Using canned food was lauded as a way to  save valuable time ( no cleaning and chopping and cooking) and equally as important,  money. In the years before everyone had freezers and microwaves canned foods were the “fast food ” of the era.

Hidden away in the hype you often find the claim that canned foods are actually better than fresh.  In terms of freshness and getting all the nutrients possible we tend to think fresh is healthiest, frozen is next  best and canned is last.  But the canned food people were making big claims about the new canned foods of the 1950s.

I have no real way to tell if their claims were true.  But, they claim that  canned foods actually have more vitamins than some fresh foods because they are canned at the peak of freshness not shipped on a truck for a week.  Also the canning factory only buys the biggest and juiciest fruit and vegetables at that peak.  Finally, the new packaging materials and techniques preserve the colour and flavour of foods better than old fashioned methods. Apparently, the canned foods  of the 1950s were way better than earlier times.

One full spread ad , an extreme example in my opinion,  offers an option if you have nothing in the fridge and “the gang stops by”-  a meal  made entirely from canned food.  What’s on the menu called a “football supper” ?

There are carrots, green beans, corn, asparagus and little spears of spam on one tray.  All of the vegetables seem to have been dressed up with some butter.  It is suggested that you give your guests a bowl and have them pick their favourites and top with salad dressing with optional non-canned salad greens.

On another platter is a “chili casserole ” made with canned chili and canned tamales.  You mix a can of chili and a can of kidney beans and spread on the bottom of the casserole.  Top with tamales and bake at  375 for 25 minutes.  Sprinkle parmesan on top.  That was a novel recipe to me.  Do they make canned tamales these days?

The last item on the photo spread is a “celebration pie”.  Again it is made from only  canned goods and a pre-made pie shell.

It seems odd to think of making a feast for guests from canned food.  But it would be a fast solution to feed hungry people.  No Uber Eats in 1955.  Are you game to try an all canned goods meal?

My biggest hesitation is that I don’t have many compatible canned goods in my pantry.  If the gang stops by unexpectedly I would have to serve soup, evaporated milk, fruit cups and tomato sauce.  They might not come back after that dinner. Pizza delivery is a godsend!

In one of my earlier posts I talked about some of the  many benefits of aprons to the mid-century housewife.  Aprons were pretty,  inexpensive and easy to sew even from scrap fabric.  Food  stains could be treated, scrubbed and removed from the hardy printed cotton.  Aprons could be washed repeatedly and hold together.  You could easily have a different apron for every day of the week. They were essential to  save the  expensive and difficult to  launder dresses and shirts under them.

By mid-century most women were wearing bras that we recognize as bras, if somewhat pointier and sturdier looking.  They also wore panties and girdles,  or panty girdles, and stockings everyday.  Life was very much more formal and perhaps more  uncomfortable then.

My trusty 1955 Good Housekeeping magazines shows several ads for slips.  One ad features a slip called  “Sliperfection” made of “nylonized crepe”, whatever that is,  for $1.98. Another ad is for winter weight slips made of wool, or cotton or synthetic blends.   These winter slips  are thicker fabric and have wider straps and a longer length for more  coverage.   I know from other reading that cotton slips were common.  Nylon slips were popular too, and very easy care.

Why wear  a slip?  Firstly, to  provide modesty under a light or transparent fabric.  That is still the reason we wear a slip, if we wear a slip today.  I don’t know many, well any, women who wear slips under their dresses or even wear dresses  regularly.  But the mid-century housewife did.  Not that pants were never worn but most women in the era of very feminized fashion bowed to social pressure and wore a dress or a skirt and blouse most days.

And they also wore slips.  They had different slips for different styles of clothing.  For under dresses there were full slips with lots of lace and bows.  There were also very plain full slips.  Most full slips were tailored and form fitting . But some silky full slips were cut on the bias and therefore a bit stretchy.  There were half slips for under skirts.  They also had petticoats to puff out skirts to look fullers.  You could even have pant slips to go under, for example, scratchy wool pants.    So lots of varieties of slips in the  mid-century.

Secondly, the  other important reason to wear a slip, was once again to protect the clothes. Clothes were expensive and hard to launder before modern fabrics became available.   In the case of a slip,  it’s to protect the clothing from the sweat, oil and odours of the body.  If you are wearing a dress made of hard to launder fabric, wearing a slip under it will help keep the dress clean longer.  This saves time. Less laundering will keep the dress looking new longer as well.  This saves money.  Slips are like an apron but on the inside of the clothes.  This is not a new idea  created in the last century.  For a lot of human history we have worn an easy to launder layer called a “chemise” for example,  under the fancier outside layer of  clothing.  A sturdy cotton slip can be washed and worn for years.  Think of all the time and money a mid-century housewife could save by wearing a slip.

We don’t really think about these things anymore.  Washability and long wear are really not an issue for most of the clothes we wear today because clothes are relatively cheap and abundant and fabrics today are so easy to launder.  We have automatic washing machines to do the cleaning everyday if we want.  The fabrics need little special care, and rarely ironing.  But in 1955 slips and aprons were just a smart way to dress.   If you only had a few clothes and limited budgets to replace then you wanted to protect them.