A Thousand Ways to Please A Huband

[sienamystic]

Over at thefourthvine, there has been much merry discussion about a book titled A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband with Bettina's Best Recipes. It was written in 1917, and features the lovely Bettina, a chipper new housewife, and her husband Bob, who loves his mom's cooking and appreciates "man-sized meals." It actually seems to be a novel cleverly disguised as a cookbook.

Here is a page with a few scans from the book, and here you can download the book for yourself, to read recipes like the one for chocolate cake that involves quite a lot of potato but very little chocolate.

"No you cannot live on kisses,
Though the honeymoon is sweet,
Hearken, brides, a true word this is -
even lovers have to eat."

Comments

I quite fancy her fireless cooker, actually.

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

Sadly, there's a risk of salmonella and staph growing in food kept in fireless cookers for too long, or in less than ideal circumstances (i.e., non-perfect climates or less than incredible hygiene). Bettina must have removed the food the instant it was done and cleaned everything wildly. Either that or she and Bob died after the book was over.

EEEEE! She puts salt and "salad dressing" and LETTUCE in peanut butter sandwiches. She is OF THE DEVIL!

Re: I quite fancy her fireless cooker, actually.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Hee! I was startled by the inclusion of butter mixed into the peanut-butter, myself. But then, I had it once accidentally (long story) and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. And of course, there's the standard fascination with aspic and things in gelatine.

I'm tempted to try the Boston brown bread, that you steam. I'll have to dig for a modern recipe. And I suppose if you had an Aga, it would make some of these recipes that are supposed to go in the fireless cooker easier.

[swooop.livejournal.com]

This is the recipe I use--I can buy brown bread flour here, but you might not be able to.

recipe

I've seen this done with whole wheat flour too--like 2 parts whole wheat to one part white flour, with buttermilk subsituted for the regular milk, which I imagine helps with the somewhat sour taste of the bread.

Properly made in a coffee can, of course. I really love this stuff, especially for breakfast.