Sometimes the drawbacks of less-than-regular employment are more than offset by the freedom to take on spontaneous projects. Like when your friends buy a 200-year-old farmhouse complete with a barn featuring meat-hanging hooks and a kitchen that hasn’t been updated since 1953. And tell you it’s being totally (but beautifully and historically) gutted in two weeks, so if you want to drive up and cook an authentic 1950s dinner in its environs, you better do it soon. With the help of The Woman’s Home Companion Cook Book (ca. 1946), this was a challenge I was happy to accept.
It was hard not to try out authentic delicacies like veal mousse in ham or American chop suey, but I wanted people to actually eat the food I was buying and preparing, and so decided on the following menu:
- Canapés (aka “things on toast”): ham-and-pimento spread on pumpernickel rounds, Welsh rarebit on toast points, and hot mushroom canapes royale for LeeMichael, the mushroom addict
- green salad with homemade French dressing
- molded cranberry Jello salad with fruit cocktail
- meatloaf and tomato sauce
- cherry chiffon pie
- daffodil cake (see below)
The tongue-in-cheek meal turned into a real dinner party when we invited the next-door neighbors over to sample the goods. (And side note to David and Alan: I know we said this multiple times throughout the night, but please don’t judge us based on this one evening! We promise the New Year’s extravaganzas are way more elaborate.) We threw some big-band crooners on the hi-fi and mixed up a round of bourbon highballs and French 75s to set the mood. And like a good housewife, I didn’t remove my frilly apron, round-toe pumps, and chunky necklace until the last guest had departed.
Actually, working on appliances that were a half-century old wasn’t the challenge. That oven, though small, was cleaner than any rental appliance I’ve ever encountered, so kudos to former owner Mrs. Anderson for her decades of diligent scrubbing. The hardest part, frankly, was sticking to the recipes as written. Lots of paprika popped up as a crutch for flavor, and I’m fairly certain it wasn’t referring to the smoked pimentón de la vera that I usually keep in my cupboard. I would have added a little more garlic here, a little less flour there, and lightened things up with a few wine-and-broth-based reductions. Pouring a roux-thickened cream sauce over in-season asparagus and peas was particularly painful.
While everything was more than edible and truly downright enjoyable, I’d love to take the entire menu, update it, and serve it again to the same folks for fun. However, there was one dish I wouldn’t change by a teaspoon: we were all wowed by the daffodil cake. Though homely on the outside, this tube cake takes all the classic elements of an angel food cake one step further, with a light citrus undertone (ok, I admit, it was orange-flavored in the original version) and a denser, less chewy, yet still fine-grained sponge texture.
We ate it with a simple side of sweetened whipped cream, but I’d love to do a lemon-mascarpone frosting or rhubarb compote as an accompaniment.
Daffodil Cake
adapted from The Woman’s Home Companion Cook Book
- 1 cup cake/pastry flour
- 8 egg whites
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 4 large egg yolks
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
Preheat the oven to 325˚ and grease a standard tube pan.
In a stand mixer, whip the egg whites until frothy, add the salt and cream of tartar, and continue whipping until the whites form semi-stiff peaks. With the mixer running, sprinkle in the sugar gradually and continuously to make a meringue.
Gently fold the flour into the meringue, sifting or sprinkling about 1/4 cup at a time over the surface.
In a separate large bowl, beat the egg yolks until they thicken and lighten in color. Add 1/2 the meringue mixture and the lemon extract to the egg yolks, folding gently to combine. Add the vanilla extract to the remaining half of the meringue.
Spoon the meringues into the tube pan in alternating thin layers, so the cake will be striped white and yellow when sliced. Bake for an hour. Invert in the pan onto a parchment-lined rack to cool for at least an hour before serving. (The Cook Book states that “the flavor of most sponge cakes is improved by standing overnight before cutting,” and ours was no worse for the wear a day after baking.)
Serve with whipped cream, fresh berries, mascarpone cheese, or all of the above.
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I have stacks of these cookbooks at my house. I love these cookbooks
Crazy recipes, and you know what, sometimes they taste pretty good.
One time I made a waldorf salad aspic and took it to a family dinner, I did it in gest, but you know what, it was actually pretty tasty.
I don’t remember my Mom is those kind of heels when cooking in the kitchen!Sounds like it was wonderful–Dan, you look so 50′s!!!!
The pictures were great how fun to go back in time to the 50′s.Some of the recipes carried through to the sixties on the sticks in my mind
American Chop Suey we ate alot of that always on Monday nights.We always knew what day it was by what was for dinner.Spagetti and meat balls on Wednesday Fish on Fridays.
Wondered if the former owners the Anderson are the same family that has graced the cover of milk cartons
The Anderson Farms fame?Great fun!!!thanks for sharing
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