Local History: Food, Wonderful Food!
- Terri
- 4 days ago
- 8 min read
Exploring old newspapers from the 1800s and 1900s, Terri takes us on a journey through time to discover the delightful and occasionally unusual recipes of the past. Deviled Sardines... ummm, I'll pass!
Food, Wonderful Food!
This time of year, late November through the first of January, there is a lot of emphasis on food, both in preparation and consumption. I wondered what our old newspapers had to offer in the way of recipes. Our local newspapers date back to 1853, and those earliest ones didn’t have much content geared toward women. There was always a poem or two and an occasional cautionary tale about the poor woman who didn’t live up to her domestic expectations, mostly directed to the young ones who had not yet accepted their lot in life. Any “recipes” printed during these first several years were medical remedies for diseases such as small pox, erysipelas (a skin infection caused by a strain of strep), bad cough, dysentery, cholera or whooping cough, such as this one from the 6 Apr 1855 issue of the DeWitt Courier:
On the same page, it would not be unusual to find similar remedies for various livestock diseases.
In 1857, there was a lengthy article in the Central Transcript about blackberry concoctions that all involved adding brandy, even to the jelly recipe. In 1858, there was a recipe for “jumbles” and “crullers” which prompted a letter to the editor in the next week’s edition full of animosity directed at local grocers for selling sugar 70% higher than the price in Bloomington.
In the 28 Jun 1860 edition of the Central Transcript, a different type of recipe was printed, said to be followed by opponents of Abraham Lincoln: Take one pint of whisky and stir it well with a spoon; then add another pint of whisky; beat carefully with a spoon and keep pouring in whisky. Fill a large bowl with water, and make the servant set it out of your reach. Take a small tumbler, pour in two spoonsful of water; pour out the water, and fill up with whisky and add to the above. Flavor with whisky to your taste. It is said that this recipe will produce fourteen lies to the pint, viz: Six on Lincoln’s record, four on Abolitionism, and four on N***** Equality. It would be a few more years before printed recipes were directed toward the “fairer sex.” By 1870, food recipes became more common, and I wondered what our local papers had to offer.
The first thing I discovered was that I would have to Google at least one ingredient from nearly every recipe to find out what it was. It was like they spoke a different language! Currants, a berry similar to blueberries, must have been plentiful, as there were many recipes that included them. Before 1900, baking was done in a fireplace or in a cast-iron stove. A fancy fireplace had a small compartment on the side that could be used like an oven, otherwise your cake had to be baked in a heavy Dutch oven on hot embers. The cast-iron stove offered a little better temperature control, but one still had to rely on wood or coal for difficult to regulate heat. If a recipe said to bake in a “nice quick oven,” that meant higher heat. If it called for a lump of butter the size of an egg, one must remember that households were churning their own butter, not buying it in neatly wrapped sticks at the local grocery. Many of the recipes were of a practical nature, such as how to preserve raw eggs up to 10 months (can you believe that?). Many appeared under the heading Farm and Home which gave recipes for food such as potato salad, candy and corn drop cakes along with guidelines for purchasing a horse, how to properly store apples in the cellar and how to make wood axle lubricant.
Let’s take a look at some of the food recipes.
How to Make a Valuable Recipe Book appeared in the 1 Jul 1875 edition of the Clinton Public. Directed at women, of course, it advises to start with recipes for cleaning and then those for food. After that, one should include cooking and caring for the sick, “and all the various things that are a part of woman’s duty, and for which, unfortunately, there is no school but experience.” 100 years later, my 1975 Betty Crocker Cookbook left that stuff out, probably to my detriment.
This potato salad doesn’t sound all that appetizing to me. It appeared in the 1 Jan 1875 edition of the Clinton Register and calls for a dozen boiled potatoes, chopped onion, just a teaspoon of salad oil or melted butter, a little parsley and half a gill of vinegar. (Google here – half a gill is equal to 1/4 cup. The term “gill” is used frequently in these early recipes.) There were several other recipes listed here under the heading Farm and Home, all with minimal instructions. The 17 Jan 1879 edition of the same paper, under the same heading, offers recipes for chicken pie, canned pears, Hermits (a type of cookie containing currants) and dark cake (still not sure just what that is). There is also advice on preserving your apple cider and raw eggs, preparing your beehives for spring and the benefits of planting white clover. Interspersed amongst those are recipes for killing grub worms and croton bugs (small cockroaches), how to polish walnut furniture, or my personal favorite, this advice: One hog, kept to the age of 1 year, if furnished with suitable material, will convert a cart-load per month into a fertilizer which will produce a good crop of corn. It goes on to extoll the practice of keeping enough hogs sufficient to fertilize the entire regional corn crop, and says the hogs will thereby pay for themselves. This practice held up for close to a century! Having grown up on a hog farm, I remember well the fertilizer spreader – how about you?
In the 22 Jan 1875 issue of the Clinton Register, there is a recipe for white cake. I have to wonder if they were trying to mimic Mary Todd Lincoln’s renowned white cake, though hers included finely chopped almonds. This recipe lists 2 cups sugar, 1/2 cup butter, 5 egg whites, 1 cup water and 2 teaspoons of baking powder, with no further instructions. Ummm – where is the flour? It ends with the comment, “This is an excellent cake.”
The 12 Mar 1880 edition of the Clinton Public printed this recipe for crullers from 1788. It includes buttermilk, Muscovado (a brown, unrefined sugar with a molasses flavor), butter the size of a walnut, salt and ground cass (cassia cinnamon) plus enough flour to form a dough, then fried in hog fat (lard). As for the housekeeper who was worried because there was no saleratus in the recipe, what she meant was no leavening agent (essentially baking powder). I would be surprised, too, if these turned out light.
This cookie recipe from the 16 Apr 1880 issue of the Clinton Public seems doomed to failure. Eggs, sugar, butter, sour cream and baking soda – that’s it. If you can make cookies out of that, I’d like to meet you! Actually, a number of recipes from this era were printed this way. Apparently, they expected the reader to be experienced enough to know that enough flour needed to be added to form dough.
By the turn of the century, recipes were becoming more frequent and eventually newspapers set aside an entire page geared toward women’s interests. Always emphasizing the homemaker, it often included fashion for both ladies and children, perhaps a poem or short story along with more detailed food recipes.
The 27 Jul 1900 edition of the Kenney Gazette contained a recipe for cheese cake – now we’re talkin’! The instructions were still a bit complicated in comparison to today’s methods. It calls for the addition of junket tablets (a thickening agent) to warm milk and then separating the curd from whey. Eventually, eggs, butter and sugar are added, seasoned with nutmeg. “Line a square dish with good paste” probably means to rub the sides with fat and then dust with flour to prevent sticking. It does say to bake for “half an hour,” but no temperature is mentioned. “Send to the table cold.”
On 30 Jul 1915, the Kenney Gazette-Herald published a variety of
hors d’oeurves. This reflects an increased level of sophistication, yet remains practical and easy to prepare. It also portrays the modern woman as a hostess as well as a homemaker, as women’s clubs were beginning to be in vogue. Deviled sardines may not sound too appealing today, but they were probably a pantry staple then, being canned and readily available. Other recipes included here are ones for savory toast prepared with chopped meat and eggs, cheese canapes simply made with melted cheese and seasonings on fancy-cut toast pieces, anchovy canapes made with anchovy paste and chopped hard-boiled eggs, and stuffed eggs similar to what we would call deviled eggs today.
A 1/4-page ad appeared in the
29 Nov 1930 issue of the Clinton Daily Journal and Public featuring the “new Tiffin model gas range.” To show off its features, a three-hour demonstration was to be held preparing an entire meal, which the attendees would consume at the end. Mentioned in the ad is the Lorain Regulator, invented by B. E. Meacham of Lorain, Ohio. It was the first mechanical control of oven heat and had been around for a few years prior to this demonstration. Judging by the timing of the ad, I’m guessing Illinois Power and Light Corporation was hoping for some Christmas sales.
By 1935, recipes were beginning to look more like ones we might see today. In the Women’s Section of the 17 Jan 1935 issue of the Clinton Daily Journal and Public, this recipe was printed that includes complete instructions and modern measurements. It states the gingerbread should be baked in a moderate oven and gives the temperature of 350 degrees .
By 1940, however, recipes trended back toward bare bones because of the Great Depression. The 27 Jan 1940 Clinton Daily Journal and Public shared this one, first published in London. It was issued by Mrs. Neville Chamberlain, whose husband was Prime Minister at the time, for a cake made without butter or sugar, as those items were in short supply due to rationing.
Printed recipes through the 1940’s
recommended sugar substitutes
such as honey, maple syrup or a
sweet fruit, like raisins or dates.
After WWII, with a growing economy and women who had worked outside the home during the war returning to their domestic role, recipes became even more common in the newspaper. In fact, in the 1960’s the Clinton Daily Journal and Public ran a recurring article featuring local women sharing a favorite recipe.
Entitled Better Meals Build Better Families, this one from 30 Jan 1960 features
Mrs. James Hoyt, who shared her recipe for barbecued chicken. The article names her husband, two sons, lists her employment and her husband’s employment and even provides their home address, but never once is Mrs. Hoyt’s given name provided.
Recipes remained popular in newspapers throughout the decades until the recent decline of newsprint in general. After my mother passed away, we found a couple large boxes filled with clipped recipes! Now we watch celebrity chefs on TV or the internet and get a lot of our recipes off of FaceBook, but interest in them is strong as ever!
Sources
DeWitt County newspapers on microfilm
Wikipedia
Terri Lemmel was born and raised in DeWitt County near Kenney. Upon completing her education at Clinton High School, she lived in Bloomington for several years before returning to Clinton in 1990. Her interest in genealogy was piqued in the mid-90s when she found unidentified obituaries in her late grandmother's scrapbook that family members could not identify. While she initially dabbled in the subject, it wasn't until her retirement in 2018 that she jumped in with both feet. Terri joined the Genealogical Society and has been serving as its President since 2022. Research is a passion of hers, and there are lots of interesting stories to uncover! You can find Terri in the DeWitt County Genealogical Society room at the Vespasian Warner Public Library every Thursday completing research and helping others with their family and local history research.
To learn more about the DeWitt County Genealogical Society, feel free to reach out to them via phone at 217-935-5174, email at dewittcgs@gmail.com, their website, or their Facebook page.
The Vespasian Warner Library, located at 310 N. Quincy St. in Clinton, IL, features an extensive collection of local history and archives. To learn more, visit our Local History Page on the website or stop by in person! We are always excited to showcase our local history resources and discuss DeWitt County's local history.
