Victory on the Menu: Recipes and Rationing

Victory on the Menu: Recipes and Rationing

With U.S. entry into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Herbert Hoover to head the newly created U.S. Food Administration. A mining engineer who had successfully organized the massive effort to get food to Belgium’s citizens after the German army’s sweep through that country in 1914, Hoover was now charged with managing domestic agriculture and conservation in order to feed the U.S. Army and assist Allied armies and civilians. “Food Will Win the War,” declared the Food Administration through its ubiquitous posters and publicity efforts. Planting gardens, observing voluntary rationing, avoiding waste—these efforts at food conservation all came to be known as “Hooverizing.” Women’s magazines also took up the home conservation crusade. Good Housekeeping printed menus, offering housewives directions for preparing tasty meals that met conservation standards. Contributed by readers, this “month’s worth of recipes” printed in August 1917 demonstrated conservation in action, as well as women’s ingenuity in redesigning menus to observe rationing guidelines.

Tested and Approved Recipes

Twenty-four Unusual Recipes Tested by Good Housekeeping Institute and Approved

for Their Adaptability to Wartime Economy and Food-Conservation

Menus for Successive Days in August

(Any recipe called for will be sent for a two-cent stamp)

Extravagant and wasteful use of food is reprehensible at any time; with the nation at war and the food-supply scarcely adequate, it is little short of treasonable. Hence it is that thriftiness and economy in their kitchens is the nation’s first demand of its housewives. Some hundreds of thousands of these housewives have found the recipes and menus on these pages of the greatest assistance in attaining these ends. The caloric value of each recipe is carefully calculated, and this enables the menus to be carefully balanced. With the recipes you can cook without waste, for the number they will serve is always known. In a word, that strict individual economy and conservation of resources that patriotism entails is made easy by a consistent use of these pages.

Breakfast

Blackberries

Creamed Dried Beef

Whole-Wheat Bread Toast

Coffee

Luncheon

Luncheon Tomatoes

Hot Baking-Powder Biscuit

Yale Blueberry Cake

Iced Tea

Dinner

Chicken Gelatin

Mashed Potatoes Green Corn

Cucumber and Lettuce Salad

Cold Fruit Pudding

Breakfast

Cantaloup

Ready-Cooked Cereal

Top Milk

Blueberry Muffins

Coffee

Luncheon

Spanish Omelet

Bread and Butter

Gingerbread Iced

Buttermilk

Dinner

Jellied Chicken Bouillon

Stuffed Eggplant Shells

Tomato Succotash

Lettuce Salad

Chocolate Pudding

Breakfast

Rhubard and Bananas

Chicken Omelet

Bran Muffins

Coffee

Luncheon

Stuffed Tomato Salad

Hot Corn Cake

Sea Moss Blanc Mange

TeaWafers

Dinner

Boiled Whitefish Egg Sauce

String-Beans

Plain Boiled Potatoes Sprinkled

with Parsley

Lettuce and Radish Salad

Huckleberry Pudding

Breakfast

Ready-Cooked Cereal with Blueberries

Cream

Fried Crummed Bacon Toast

Coffee

Luncheon

Onion toast

Sliced Tomatoes

Blueberry Cake

Tea or Milk

Dinner

Roast Loin of Veal

Pan-Browned Potatoes Radishes

Creamed Carrots and Onions

All measurements are level—standard half-pint measuring-cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons being used. Sixteen level tablespoonfuls equal a half-pint. Quantities are sufficient for six people unless otherwise stated. Flour is sifted once before measuring.

Recipes for this department may be submitted by any reader of Good Housekeeping. They should never before have been printed. At least one dollar will be paid for every recipe accepted. Stamps must be enclosed if unavailable manuscripts are to be returned.

Rhubarb with Bananas 1400 Calories

4 cupfuls sweetened rhubarb sauce

2 large bananas

1/3 cupful sugar

Slice the bananas thinly in a serving-dish. Sprinkle them with the sugar. Pour the hot sweetened rhubarb sauce over the bananas. Set aside to cool. Serve cold.

Mrs. O.E. Winkler, Paxico, Kan.

Alaska Pudding 2420 Calories

1.5 cupfuls cream or evaporated milk

1/2 pint currant or red-raspberry jelly

1/2 lb. large prunes1 cupful hot water

1/3 cupful sugar

1 lemon

2 tablespoonfuls sugar

Cook prunes till tender, remove stones, and rub through a colander. Add cream and sugar and freeze; then pack in the bottom of a one-quart mold. Dissolve jelly with water, add lemon-juice and sugar, cook; then freeze and when frozen pack on top of the prune ice-cream. Seal the mold carefully and pack in ice and salt, one part of salt to two parts or ice, leaving for two hours before serving.

Mary H. Lambie, Fort Bliss, Texas.

Molded Fish 1500 Calories

1 small can or glass jar Bismarck herring

1.5 tablespoonfuls lemon-juice

1 lb. can tuna fish

1/8 teaspoonful paprika

2 tablespoonfuls granulated gelatin

1/4 lb. butter

1 cupful well-seasoned soup stock

1/4 cupful cold water

Mayonnaise

Put the herring, tuna fish, and butter through the food-chopper; add the seasoning. Soak the gelatin in the cold water until soft and dissolve it in the hot soup-stock. Put all together in a mold; when cold turn out on a bed of lettuce. Serve with mayonnaise. Hard-cooked eggs and diced tomatoes may be used as a garnish.

Irene S. Feist, 812 S. 12th St., Newark, N.J.

Marbled Tongue 3475 Calories

1 lb. boiled tongue

1/2 cupful melted butter

2 lbs. cooked veal

Salt

Pepper

Chop veal and tongue separately until fine; add salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the veal the melted butter, mix thoroughly; then put alternate layers of each in a pan and put under a press or weight. Serve in slices with lemon or a garnish of green. This will serve ten to twelve persons.

Miss Estell Claeys, 5107 Page Bldg., St. Louis, Mo.

Chicken Gelatin 2575 Calories

1 3- to 4-lb. Chicken

3 hard-cooked eggs

1 lb. cold cooked tongue

Celery-salt

1 tablespoonful granulated gelatin

2 tablespoonfuls cold water

1 pint clear brown stock

Roast the chicken. When cold slice and lay in a mold with alternate layers of sliced tongue and occasional slices of hard-cooked eggs; season with celery-salt. Soak gelatin in cold water five minutes and dissolve in boiling stock. Pour it over the meat. Let stand several hours in a refrigerator before unmolding. This recipe will serve at least eight persons.

Miss Estelle Claeys, 5107 Page Bldg., St. Louis, Mo.

Stuffed Eggplant-Shells 850 Calories

2 eggplants weighing about 1 lb. each

1 chopped green sweet pepper

2 tablespoonfuls butter or other shortening

1 cupful dry bread-crumbs

Boiling water

1.5 teaspoonfuls salt

Speck pepper

1/2 chopped onion

Cut out the inside of the eggplant, leaving a shell about one-half inch thick; cook in boiling salted water for five minutes. Fry the onion, pepper, and eggplant-pulp, all chopped, in the butter for about ten minutes. Then add the bread-crumbs, one and one-half cupfuls boiling water, and seasoning. Fill eggplant-shells with this mixture and sprinkle dry crumbs over the top. Place in a pan with a little water and bake one-half hour.

Mrs. Ian Maclaren, 333 E. Park St., Stockton, Cal.

Luncheon Tomatoes 1420 Calories

6 medium-sized tomatoes

Grated American cheese

6 eggs

3/4 cupful evaporated milk

Salt and paprika

Scald and peel the tomatoes and scoop out, leaving a thick shell. Dredge each with salt, and put in a pan with a little water. In the bottom of each tomato put a layer of grated cheese; cook ten minutes in the oven, then drop a raw egg in each and put back in the oven and cook about fifteen minutes, or until the eggs are set. Serve each tomato on a slice of toast with the following sauce:

Stir together over the fire, six tablespoonfuls grated cheese and the evaporated milk until the cheese is melted and the mixture is smooth. Add salt and paprika to taste.

Mrs. Ian Maclaren, 333 E. Park St., Stockton, Cal.

Bloater Paste Straws 800 Calories

1 cupful pastry flour

3 tablespoonfuls bloater paste

About 1/4 cupful cold water

4 tablespoonfuls butter

Work together the flour and butter until well blended; then into this work the bloater paste. Make a stiff dough with the water. Roll out thin and cut in strips four inches long and one-fourth inch wide, using a pastry-wheel. Bake in a moderate oven twelve minutes. Make rings of the paste to hold the bunches of straws.

Eleanor A. Cummins, 127 Gower St., W.C., London.

Mint-Sirup 820 Calories

1/2 cupful mint-leaves

1 cupful granulated sugar

1/2 cupful water

Boil until thick as a sirup, strain, and set aside to cool.

Mary Esther Adamson, 1012 S. Sixth St., Terre Haute, Ind.

Chocolate Mint Sauce for Ice-Cream 1470 Calories

2 cupfuls light-brown sugar

1 tablespoonful powdered cocoa

Mint-sirup

1 cupful milk

Put sugar and milk into a saucepan and add cocoa when mixture comes to a boil. Cook until it forms a soft ball when dropped in cold water (238° F). Add enough of the mint-sirup to flavor to taste and beat until thick as a mush. Serve on ice-cream. If the sauce hardens before serving, add a little melted butter and heat.

Mary Esther Adamson, 1012 S. Sixth St., Terre Haute, Ind.

Source: "Tested and Approved Recipes," Good Housekeeping, August 1917, 84.