Raw vegetables are dangerous and must be thoroughly fried, steamed, and boiled into submission. So thought our ancestors. The original sin of a recalcitrant vegetable was of course lessened by heat, but the conscientious nineteenth-century cook continued to boil it long after it had sagged into a jelly-like mass, just in case some evil remained.
In the nineteenth century an hour's cooking barely sufficed for cabbage and for corn on the cob. They did not fix broccoli at all, and I can understand why. I have tried to imagine broccoli after an hour of cooking, but the mind rarest back and refuses even to approach the sheer horror.
Which reminds me of an event in the summer of 1956, when my classmate Patsy Sutherland and I lived with Grandpa Hess while we went to business college in Missoula, Montana. Grandpa was a crusty old widower, set in his own way of housekeeping, but he tried to be gracious. In midsummer he bought a whole crate of tomatoes. Luscious, red, ripe tomatoes. They sat in the cellar way for two days, and each time Patsy and I passed them our mouths watered. Each evening we thought he'd invite us to have a tomato or two, but he didn't. When we arrived home on the third evening, he said, ?Girls! I fixed the tomatoes today. Help yourselves!?
He had stewed every last one of them.
Some of those old tomato recipes are good, though. The originator of Tomatoes Maryland probably had an old-fashioned wood stove that could gently simmer something all afternoon on a back burner or in the oven. Which means this was most likely a fall or winter dish rather than a summer one, as people let the cook stove fire go out on summer afternoons.
TOMATOES MARYLAND
Break into bits 2 slices of stale bread. Add to 4 cups canned or fresh tomatoes, peeled and quartered, with half an onion, chopped, and about 2/3 cup brown sugar. Salt lightly.
Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer gently for 3 hours, stirring occasionally.
My notes say, ?It does need three hours to cook, even with the pan lid off most of the time. Perhaps some of the thin tomato juices could be poured off at the beginning, shortening the cooking time.?
Tomatoes Maryland is the kind of sweet side dish American cooks like to serve with chicken or pork. I was going to say, ?cooks from regions other than the Northeast.? Then I remembered applesauce with pork, cranberry sauce with turkey, mint jelly with lamb, and baked beans with salt pork. Not to mention pancakes and syrup with sausages cuddled up close. And mincemeat pie, that ultimate mixture of meat and sweet. (And, yes, real mincemeat, as opposed to a packaged mix, does contain meat.)
I will add that some people of Grandpa's generation did eat diced raw garden tomatoes for breakfast, just as one would eat strawberries, with sugar and cream. You see, it was safe to eat them raw with sugar and cream, because the tomatoes then ceased to be a vegetable and became a fruit.
And actually those old-time breakfasters were right. Fresh vine-ripened tomatoes are good with sugar and cream. Let's face it, most things are good with sugar and cream. And of course tomatoes really are a fruit.
Old fashioned aprons were generally a lot bigger than they are today. They would have fancy ruffles and bows and extras on them that would make them appear more like a dress or full garment than just something to keep you clean! If you look for patterns for aprons for styles even from the 1950’s, you will find a large, rather flamboyant type of cover all, probably because back then, housework was much more readily done than it is today. Modern conveniences like washing machines, and dishwashers have cut down considerably the amount of housework that needs to be done. For this reason, aprons are not quite as popular as they once were. Back in the 1950’s when housework took up a large part of the average housewife’s day, of course fashions would have been prevalent, along with other styles of clothing that one wears a lot.
These days, one is interested in buying a functional apron, one that perhaps is waterproof and plain that either male or female would wear. The chef type apron, probably just white or black or striped. Back in the days though, old fashioned aprons would have large ruffled frills over each shoulder for example, have plenty of frills around the pockets, consist of several other types of frill and probably also be in a garish flowery pattern, very colorful and very feminine. The only place a man would wear an apron like that would be in a pantomime!
What we are investigating here then is how women would have completed much of the housework back then which is very interesting isn’t it? Before these times, aprons were still very frilly, look at the type that maids would have worn, or even cooks back in the time where a family would employ a staff to look after them. You would never see a butler wearing an apron or a gardener, so if an apron depicts work, who really did all the work? Interesting...
So we have discovered that old fashioned aprons were normally larger and more frilly than they are today, were generally more fashionable in the 1950’s and were mostly worn by women. I wonder if Gordon Ramsay would have worn one a hundred years ago... with all those frills around, the mind boggles!
Old fashioned aprons would be a lot harder to make as well. A pattern for an old fashioned apron would be rather extensive as all the separate frills would have to be cut and sewn individually and applied to the apron as it was constructed. What about ironing an old fashioned apron? It could be made from one of those fabrics that creases easily... and who would have to iron them back in the days when there were maids, who ironed the maids apron? If the maid ironed her own apron, she would need a spare and that would mean two to iron!
I am very glad that we live in a world full of modern conveniences so that we don’t have all this excess housework these days, thank goodness for fabrics that don’t need ironing. No wonder the old fashioned apron is just that, old fashioned! Hail the new fashioned apron!
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