Gramma's Cooking

When hunting down recipes that don't depend on canned soups, processed cheese or other unidentifiable edible food-like product, old cookbooks are an excellent resource. I uncovered one at a rummage sale last week: The Alice Bradley Menu-Cook-Book, published by MacMillan in 1937. This book must have been wildly popular, going through 5 re-printings. Although my 1947 edition came onto the market at the end of WWII, it includes a special section on Wartime Cookery, when homemakers needed ration stamps to purchase sugar, coffee, canned fruits and vegetables, canned and dried soups, fresh or canned meat, cheese, canned fish, and all cooking fats including butter, margarine and lard.

It's hard for us, comfortably situated in the 21st Century, to imagine such rationing in the United States. (So much for whining over the current recession!) I particularly like a list of suggestions including at the end of the Wartime section:

Buy and prepare only what you need.
Plant a Victory garden
Raise chickens or pigs or keep a cow if you can.
Buy what is plentiful, especially wheat.
Use fresh vegetables and fruit.
Follow nutrition rules.
Cooperate on rationing rules.
Remember that food is a weapon.

I'm not quite ready to ask my Home Owners Association for permission to raise a pig in our backyard, but I do expect to find some useful recipes and techniques in this 944 page volume. The hints and tips are fascinating; for example, "The fins or wings of the skate or rajah fish can be cooked and used to replace canned crab meat if fresh crab meat is not in the market." I also discovered, "We have planned for 1/2 cup servings of most cereals, vegetables and desserts, and for 1/4 to 1/3 pound meat or fish per person." Those portion sizes apparently got lost somewhere between the Big Mac and the KFC Double Down.

So what was Gramma serving up for the Ladies Luncheon in 1947? Looking at The Third Saturday in February (the cookbook is arranged in daily menus for the entire calendar year) We find Eggs Baked in Green Peppers with Bacon Sauce, Quick Coffee Cake and Rennet Custard with Fruit. I like the idea of  eggs nestled in halved green peppers, then baked with a bacon garnish. But, then for a New Year's Day open house, there are Banana and Cottage Cheese Sandwiches, cleverly flavored with chopped green olives. Bananas and Green Olives? Must be a misprint. Let's look at the Valentine's Day Dinner.

Here we go:
Grapefruit Cocktail with Hearts Shaped from Cherries
Heart-Shaped Mashed Potato Cakes
Sliced Boiled Beets Cut Heart-Shaped
Raspberry Mousse and Heart-Shaped Cakes

Cute! everything on the menu is red and cut to look like Valentine hearts. Now, what's the entree?
Boiled Calve's Heart with Raisins. 

Okay, maybe we don't need to go overboard in imitating Gramma's cooking.
Instead, I think we'll quickly return to the 21st Century and mix up a nice little pan of Toffee Bars that have no resemblance whatsoever to any internal organs, and will make the kitchen smell the way we all like to remember Gramma's kitchen.

Recipe: Gramma's Toffee Bars

You may use part Spelt Flour or Whole Wheat Pastry flour in the cookie base without much change to the yummy result. But if you absolutely need to replace the butter with another solid fat, you should increase the amount of vanilla to compensate for the butter flavor.

Crust:
2 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 c. all-purpose unbleached flour
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or spray a 9" x 13" baking pan.
Cream butter with brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg yolk, then stir in flour 1/2 cup at a time (use dust shield if your mixer has one.) Stir in vanilla.
Spread batter evenly in pan. Bake 20 - 25 minutes, until set but not browned.

Topping:
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c. chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts or almonds)

Sprinkle chips over hot cookie crust, return to oven for 3 to 4 minutes, until chips are shiny. Remove from oven and swirl chips evenly over crust with a knife or spatula. Sprinkle generously with chopped nuts. Press nuts gently into chocolate. Cool completely, then cut into bars.