In lieu of a thinky essay...

[sienamystic]

I have yet to write up my responses to Perfection Salad, but the book tempted me to go to Ebay and poke around, and I ended up buying two Table Talk magazines from 1908 and 1916 (two bucks for both! Yay!) The magazines are slim little volumes, almost glorified pamphlets, and they're quite entertaining and informative to read. Here are a couple of tidbits from them:





Note those key words: pure, sanitary, clean. It's all nice vegetable matter, not that disgusting lard that comes from pigs, which are, of course, filthy and not nice to think about. This ties in with the attitude that women in particular prefer things that are dainty and insubstantial to eat, and led to heaps of young women coming down with chlorosis, or "green sickness" - essentially an iron deficiency.



I don't even want to contemplate how to make a fish pudding.



An example of the recipes and menu planning the magazine offered its readers.



In conclusion, fish pudding do not want dear god no.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I've been meaning to tell you that I inherited a bunch of really old cookbooks from grandma and great grandma. One is called "Walnuts for Every time of day." Must peruse and let you know.
Jess

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! I'd be really interested to see what you discover in them!