A Tale of Two Sundays – July

The menu for the first Sunday in July, 1927, is certainly a more practical approach to summertime cooking than last month’s offering: jellied chicken broth, creamed chicken and potatoes, stuffed eggplant with cheese sauce, tomato-lettuce salad, rolls, layer cake and lemonade. Toss out the stuffed eggplant, and everything for dinner is either served cold, or made in advance and re-heated, although who wants to eat creamed chicken and potatoes with the thermometer at 86º in the shade?

The salad recipe calls for scalding the tomatoes, skinning them, and serving them on lettuce leaves with boiled dressing, that pre-war hot weather standby.

Boiled Dressing. Put in double boiler 2 tablespoons butter, 1 tablespoon flour, 2 teaspoons sugar, 2 beaten eggs, 1 teaspoon dry mustard, 2/3 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper. Cook until mixture thickens, then add 1 cup vinegar and continue cooking 3 minutes longer. Chill, and when read to serve, thin with plain or whipped cream to suit the taste.

The 1953 menu offers anchovy appetizer salad, broiled chicken with tomatoes, corn on the cob, steamed rice, peach banana sundae, and iced coffee. Omit the rice and we’ve got a nice summer dinner, particularly if you split and flattened the chicken, and broiled it outside on the grill. The salad is not to my taste but here is the recipe.

Anchovy Appetizer Salad. 1 small head lettuce or romaine, 2 cans rolled anchovy fillets, 8 ripe olives, sliced, ½ small can caviar, 2 hard-cooked eggs, Horse-radish French Dressing (which is oil and vinegar dressing with 1 teaspoon of horse-radish added). Arrange lettuce on four plates and in the center of each place two anchovies. Arrange olive slices around the anchovies and fill the center of each olive slice with caviar. Border with sieved hard-cooked egg yolks and arrange chopped egg whites in outer circle. Serve with dressing.

Prize this month to 1953.