No fancy holiday dinner here, just homey Sunday fare for 1927 – Boiled Chicken with Egg and Parsley Sauce, Boiled Rice, Mashed Carrots, Escalloped Tomatoes, Waldorf Salad, Date Muffins, Orange Pudding, and Coffee.
Two desserts seemed to be the norm for Sundays in 1927; of course, the leftovers could have formed the basis of Monday’s breakfast, Monday always being the kind of day where things are rushed and time is short. The remains of the boiled chicken undoubtedly wound up in some kind of casserole on Monday night. The recipe for boiled rice is not as bad as some from that era, it only calls for 20 minutes of steady boiling. When did this country stop cooking starches to death, I wonder—my Detroit Times cookbook instructs me to boil macaroni for 40 minutes, for example.
The orange pudding looks tasty and cheap; a sort of orange-flavored bread pudding calling for breadcrumbs, one orange and one egg.
Orange Pudding. Cover 1 cup bread crumbs with 1 pint milk and let stand until milk is absorbed, then add ½ cup sugar, the yolk of 1 egg, and the grated rind of an orange. Turn into buttered baking dish and bake for 1 hour in moderate oven. Remove from oven, turn over pudding the strained juice of 1 orange, and a meringue made with the egg white beaten with 3 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar. Return to oven to brown the meringue.
The 1953 cook was more ambitious, serving her family Tomato Bouillon, Roast Ribs of Beef, Yorkshire Pudding, Lyonnaise Carrots, Celery Cabbage Salad, and a Jellied Plum Pudding. I can’t find the Jellied Plum Pudding in any of my Culinary Institute pamphlets, but here’s Plum Fluff, a simple dessert from a time when no one worried about eating uncooked egg whites.
Plum Fluff
1 #2 ½ can plums (about 16 oz)
1 T. lemon juice
2 egg whites
4 T. confectioner’s sugar
1 cup heavy cream, whipped
Drain plums, remove pits and mash plums with fork; add lemon juice. Beat egg whites until stiff; beat sugar in gradually. Fold whipped cream and plums into meringue. Chill about 1 hour.
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