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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Dinner was FANTASTIC. And that 1950s meatloaf really held up the next day when I ate it cold for breakfast.
Hats off to Casey who cooked a stunning meal in a half 1950s/half construction zone “kitchen”, all with heels on that would trip a stripper. The mushrooms (yes, my addiction) were fantasmigoric. Ever the underseller of her talents, some of the “things on toast” we ate were from Casey’s own bread, which she baked to deliciously dense perfection. And the molded salad was downright Simpson-esque with its wiggle, wobble, suspended canned fruit and plastic-y sheen. Let the record show: all the guests had seconds!
And my favorite: the cherry chiffon pie. I think for an authentic 50′s experience that color separation, like in those intricately decorated appetizers, is really important. Eating down from the top, the sweetened snow white whipped cream led to a soft pink chiffon which floated on a bed of red cherry compote, all supported by a buttery (right?) yellow-brown crust, which must have been terrible for me because I was scooping it up by the spoonful with glee. Loved it. Loved the whole meal. Thank you Casey for making a wonderful first memory in our new home.
The laughs were just as good as the eats. Casey for President(ial chef)!
I am so thrilled that we are able to now be hosts to two separate “Good. Food. Stories.” features. When we purchased our (new?) home, we immediately thought of Casey and invited her to participate in a Back to the Future dinner party in our retro kitchen. As Dan later pointed out, our kitchen (and entire house) dates to the same era that Michael J. Fox drove his Delorean to back in 1985. He then pointed out – in a horrifying moment – that if BTF was filmed in 2010, MJ would have been visiting 1980!!! But I digress. Casey outdid herself once again. The meatloaf was perfect and the Daffodil cake is still generating smiles. I do think my favorite part of the evening was returning to a clean home and a greeting from a smiling hostess sporting period jewelry and offering a Bourbon Highball. Good lord I was born in the wrong generation!!! Thank you all (David and Alan too) for a distraction from the chaos that will be our home for the next 3 months (and beyond????)
Bryan
This sounds like so much fun and you both look so cute! I have a 50′s-era James Beard cookbook that I have been contemplating basing a menu around. Maybe I should try?
This party looks swell.
I love looking back at the 50′s and seeing you in the kitchen, hair in rollers, high heels on, working on vintage appliances in a kitchen with period wallpaper is fabulous.
I was born in the 50′s — LATE 50′s — so I have fond memories of my parent’s dinner parties in the mid-60′s and while our house wasn’t steeped in funky wall papers and wood panelling and the food was more “fashion forward” and risky, the feeling was the same.
I remember each guest bringing a wrapped gift — things like crystal ice buckets and silver tongs and coming up the front walk in high heels, beautiful dresses and jewelry on the women and sports coats on the men was de riguer.
Those were the times my sister and I got to dress up, pass hors d’ oeuvres and hang out in the kitchen waiting for the left overs so we too could feast on the menu while listening to the adult chatter in the dining room.
Thanks for sharing the fun and a look back at a different time.
Aunt Gene would have approved!
Great Article – what fun!!!
LM, heels that “would trip a stripper”??? Those are my work pumps – the Pradas I wore to last New Year’s were WAY tougher to navigate! Bryan, I’d offer you a bourbon highball every night to get you through the next few months of construction if I could.
Fran, I have fond memories of prepping the house for parties as a youngster too, although in the early ’80s, the shindigs thrown in our wood-paneled den with bar did NOT come accompanied by crystal ice buckets. But we can all dream of the sophisticated old days, right?
Lisa, YES, you must make a James Beard meal – and wear an embroidered kimono chef’s coat like the one we saw framed at the JB House.
Carol, I think Aunt Gene would have been extremely proud of the first round of recipes cooked from the WHC Cook Book. It’s no longer pristine (there’s a little mushroom canape on its pages) but I’m definitely going to try more delicacies from its pages.
I am one lucky neighbor to have had Bryan and LeeMichael move into the Andersen homestead (home to three generations of Andersen’s). I have been here almost 5 years and never had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Andersen….she passed away this past spring and was in her late 90′s. All neighbors say she was a delight. Her home was well preserved a true 50′s home……
The dinner was a huge surprise and absolutely delish! Casey the chef is a glamorous hostess in heels, dress and jewels. I too loved the meatloaf…and the jello mold! The Daffodil cake was the best one and a dessert I am sure to bake myself. Dan is one lucky man to taste test Casey’s meals.
This sounds like too much fun…. and that picture of you and Dan is priceless… Nice suit Dan
Wonderful! As one who “lived through the 50′s”, that menu sounds spot-on. Although MY mother never made a daffodil cake, so I look forward to one in the near future ? (Birthday hint?)
mmmmmm…bourbon highballs…sounds great too!
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