Post-war Dinner Party recipes!?
Dear Food Nerds/Friends,
I'm helping a friend put together a post-war menu for a party she's hosting this weekend (!). Any suggestions (with links if possible!) for 1940's appetizer, entree, side, cocktails? Thanks in advance!
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If you look at restaurant menus from the post-war era in the USA it was meat, meat, meat, oysters, lobster, more meat, meatballs and cocktails. Once in awhile a salad shows up.
Doesn't it sound tone deaf with the economics of the time? Cream and ham near the end of the war?
There's a great scene in the movie "Moonstruck" (great Irish playwright John Shanley). Loretta's Italian mother is frying slices of bread in an old frying pan, with holes in the bread. She cracks eggs into the holes... and serves those up.
That might be more like end-of-WW II type cooking?
From the Metropolitan Life Insurance Cook Book 1948 edition
Martha Washington Cake~ Two steps: Cake and Filling
Bake Plain cake and cool. Fill between layers with cream filling. Dust the top with powdered sugar.
Plain Cake
2 C cake flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 C shortening
2/3 C sugar or 1/3 C sugar and 1/3C light corn sirup
1 egg
3/4 C milk
1/2 tsp vanilla or almond
Sift and mix the dry ingredients. Cream the sugar and shortening until light and fluffy. Add the beaten egg and mix thoroughly. Add the corn sirup if it is used. Add the sifted dry ingredients alternately with the milk, beating thoroughly. Add the vanilla. Bake in two greased 8-inch layer-cake pans in a moderate over (350 degrees) for about 30 minutes.
Cream Filling: 1/4 C sugar
1 TBSP flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 egg
1 C milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
combine the dry ingredients. Add the egg, slightly beaten, and mix well. Add the milk. Cook in a double boiler for about 15 minutes, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. Cool and add the vanilla.
Barbecued Lamb Shanks
4 Lamb Shanks
salt and pepper
2 cups water
2 cups cooked rice
1/2 C chili sauce
1 tbsp vinegar
1 TBSP Worcestershire sauce
3/4 C water
Season lamb shanks with salt and pepper. Cover with water and simmer until tender for about 1 1/2 hours. Remove the meat form the bones. Place the rice in a greased baking dish, lay the meat on the rice. Cook together chili sauce, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and water. Pour the mixture over the meat and rice. Bake in a moderate over (350) for about 1/2 hour.
Stuffed Eggplant
1 eggplant
2 tbsp fat
2 tbsp minced onion
1 C chopped fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes
1 tsp salt
1 c soft bread crumbs
Wash the eggplant and cut in half. Scoop out the pulp to 1/2 inch of the skin. Dice the pulp. Brown an onion in fat, add the eggplant pulp, onion, tomatoes, bread crumbs and salt. Mix well and fill the eggplants shells with the mixture. Bake in a moderately hot oven (375) until browned or about 30 minutes. Variation: 3/4 c cooked ground cooked meat may be added to the other ingredients for stuffing.
Creamed Mushrooms
Wash and stem the mushrooms. Cut the tender parts of the stems into pieces and cook with caps. Remove the peeling if it seems tough. Melt in a sauce pan about 2 tablespoons of butter or fortified margarine for every 1/2 pound of mushrooms. Add the mushrooms, cover tightly and cook over a low fire for about 10 minutes. Dredge lightly with flour, season with salt and pepper, and cover with thin cream. Cook 5 minutes longer and serve on toast. (I added this one because this is typical of many of the recipes..pretty roundabout. Maybe dredge the mushrooms BEFORE you cook in butter, and peel the stems BEFORE you cook them. Add flour as necessary when putting the cream to thicken the sauce.)
Hopefully this helps somewhat!
I do have some appetizer recipes from a 1950's Betty Crocker entertaining cook book. Let me know if you would like some
Rack of lamb 'frenched' into cutlets on the bone grilled with a balasmic glaze and polenta.
Or Lobster Themador or newburge if you're really all out.
Created on the Southern USA gulf coast and very popular; and very good. Served with saltines.
http://www.thekitchn.com/lunch-recipe-west-indies-salad-143732
Google for the original recipe which calls for Wesson oil instead of that variation with Canola. And use a Sweet Onion.
/Also Lump Crab meat is insanely expensive now.
The New York Public Library has a project to digitize historic menus that you can search. Just click on "1940s" near the top of the page. To see menus from 1944 and 1945, you just have to scroll down - but you have to wait a minute while it loads all of them. Fun reading. A lot of hotels had very limited menus compared to later years - a sign of limited availability of foods (and probably funds), post-war.