When graphic arts were the best way to advertise and promote business. It was beautiful
Vintage Travel & Airline Posters - Come fly, come fly away
Wonderful images from the Vintage Kitchen
We love to post pictures of the vintage cook books and artwork we find along the way.
Come Drive Away with ME
Vintage Fashion & Styles for Women
We found these vintage fashion shots of clothing, hair and accessories. All throughout these images are vintage simple touches that has never really gone away.
Are vintage cookbooks worth anything? Vintage Cookbooks - A Review of Some Standout Cookbooks →
Are vintage cookbooks worth anything? This depends on several factors. Some people love to collect old vintage cookbooks. But most of the time the recipes can be found on the internet so unless the book is scare and rare and hard to get it may not be work very much. The exclusivity of owning a cookbook worth money may be enough for some collectors, but in the end if everyone has the recipes then it may make owning the vintage cookbook less fun.
"These days, cookbooks are all fairly similar in that they offer photos of the food and maybe a few pictures of the celebrity chefs responsible for the creations. But long ago, drawings had to suffice, making these recipe collections far more artistic." Check out this article on the artwork in various cookbooks.
Are vintage cookbooks worth anything?
Driving In - Never Looked So Good
Vintage Clocks & Retro Time Keeping - Love Sweet Love
Vintage kitchens were quite the swanky style.
1955 Dinner Party Menus
Chilled Melon, Lobster Newberg in Croustades, Crown Roast of Lamb, Potatoes with Parsley Butter, Peas with Mint Cream, Chestnut Cream, Coffee
Hors d'oeuvres Tray, Relishes, Roast Turkey, Cranberry Jelly, Potato Puff, Spinach Ring with Baby Lima Beans, Grapefruit and Endive Salad, Vanilla Ice Cream with Tutti Fruitti, Small Cakes, Coffee
Consomme Bellevue, Relishes, Filet Mignon, Bordelaise Sauce, Chestnut Puree, String Beans with Celery, Mixed Green Salad, Chocolate Souffle, Coffee
Littleneck Clams, Relishes, Roast Duck, Orange Sauce, Wild Rice with Mushrooms, Buttered Asparagus, Bombe of Raspberry Ice and Vanilla Ice Cream, Small Cakes, Coffee
Oysters in the Half Shell, Roast Chicken, Whole Hominy with Sherry, Broccoli with Brown Crumbs, Macaroon Cream with Sliced Peaches, Coffee
Fish Fillets with Normandie Sauce, Roast Beef, Yorkshire Pudding, Braised Celery, Mixed Vegetable Salad, Mincemeat Turnovers, Coffee
Consomme Madrilene, Relishes, Baked Virginia Ham, Grilled Sweet Potatoes, Cauliflour with Lemon Butter, Romaine with Roquefort Dressing, Wine Jelly with Whipped Cream, Coffee"
---Silver Jubilee Super Market Cook Book, Edith Barber [Super Market Publishing:New York] 1955 (p. 37-8)
Family Meals & General Observations:
For family consumption there is just at present, a vogue for the combination dinner, the main dish of which may be anything from a one-pot recipe to an oven or grill colleciton including meat, green and starch vegetables and dessert all cooked at the same time, over the one heat unit, and served as a unit, too. Whether the tendency is due to a cultivated taste for blended flavors than to the modern cry for speed and 'efficiency' is hard to determine. But every thougthful home-maker is able to set several reasons for this intimate service which not only brings variation to home tables, but more than cuts in half the serving and washing dishes. Among the meals are such selections as noodles, cooked first, drained an baked with tomato sauce, mushrooms and strips of bacon. This combination goes to the table in its pretty glass or porcelain baking dish garnished with parsley. With it is served a simple salad, and for dessert a hot and sugary baked pear or apple with cream. A second one-pot dinner is the veal or lamb pie, cooked with all sorts of vegetables and a top crust of biscuit dough, lightly browned. These pies can be made very dainty served in individual ramekins or small deep-dish pie plates. So far as nicety goes, we are not as they say, getting back to first principles of the caveman. For today's one-dish dinners are managed with much neatness and an appetizing flair. But in simplicity and the wholesome ingredients coook in their blended habit of letting various juices the modern adapatation has all the good points of its early ancestors."
---"Food Fashions," Daily Record [Morris County NJ], November 23, 1931 (p. 9)
The Moonwalk of All Moon Walks
Our Vintage World - Views from Royal Vintage
We found these amazing photos of times gone vintage.
Come fly . . . Come fly Away to Paris
How to Cook a Husband - 1930
Some clippings of a funny article from 1930 Titled "How to Cook a Husband" - There is no vintage cookbook for this recipe but the article is pretty good.
“They are really delicious—when properly treated.
“A great many husbands are spoiled by mismanagement. Some women go about it as if their husbands were bladders, and blow them up; others keep them constantly in hot water; others let them freeze, by their carelessness and indifference. Some keep them in a stew, by irritating ways and words; others roast them; some keep them in pickle all their lives. Now it is not to be supposed that any husband will be good, managed in this way—turnips wouldn’t; onions wouldn’t; cabbage-heads wouldn’t, and husbands won’t; but they are really delicious when properly treated.
“In selecting your husband you should not be guided by the silvery appearance, as in buying mackerel, or by the golden tint, as if you wanted salmon. Be sure to select him yourself, as taste differs. And by the way, don’t go to market for him, as the best are always brought to your door.
“It is far better to have none, unless you patiently learn to cook him. A preserving kettle of the finest porcelain is the best, but if you have nothing but an earthenware pipkin, it will do, with care.
“See that the linen, in which you wrap him, is nicely washed and mended, with the required amount of buttons and strings, nicely sewed on. Tie him in the kettle with a strong cord called Comfort, as the one called Duty is apt to be weak. They sometimes fly out of the kettle, and become burned and crusty on the edges, since, like crabs and oysters, you have to cook them alive.
“Make a clear, strong, steady fire out of Love, Neatness, and Cheerfulness. Set him as near this as seems to agree with him. If he sputters and fizzles, don’t be anxious; some husbands do this till they are quite done. Add a little sugar, in the form of what confectioners call Kisses, but no vinegar or pepper on any account. A little spice improves them, but it must be used with judgment.
“Don’t stick any sharp instrument into him, to see if he is becoming tender. Stir him gently; watching the while lest he should lie too close to the kettle, and so become inert and useless.
“You cannot fail to know when he is done. If thus treated, you will find him very digestible, agreeing nicely with you and the children.”
“So they are better cooked,” I said to myself, “that is why we hear of such numbers of cases of marital indigestion—the husbands are served raw—fresh—unprepared.”
“They are really delicious when properly treated,”—I wonder if that is so.
We Give You . . . Beef Wellington
Beef Wellington
Food historians generally agree the dish is named for Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington, the man who crushed Napoleon at Waterloo.
"Volumes have been written about Wellington the soldier, but the dish that bears his name is surprisingly elusive. Almost certainly the pastry covering was at first a mere paste of flour and water, wrapped around the uncooked tenderloin so that it would roast without browning, a culinary fad of the era. In time the covering became puff pastry and an integral part of the dish. Then the chefs on the continent, with their oft-noted penchant for lily-gilding, inserted a layer of truffles and pate de foie gras, today often simplified to mushrooms and chicken livers...In Ireland Beef Wellington, sometimes called Wellington Steak, remains a simple combination of excellent rare beef and flaky pastry. The dish is also known in France, where, not surprisingly, it is simply called filet de boeuf in croute."
---Rare Bits: Unusual Origins of Popular Recipes, Patricia Bunning Stevens [Ohio University Press:Athens] 1998 (p. 95-6)
"I am persuaded that beef Wellington is of Irish origin. In Irish Traditional Food, Theodora FitzGibbon offers a recipe for Steig Wellington, using the Irish spelling for steak. She prefaces the recipe with the statement that "this was said to be a favorite of the Duke of Wellington, and it is sometimes also known as beef Wellington.""
---Craig Claiborne's The New York Times Food Encyclopedia, compiled by Joan Whitman [Times Books:New York] 1985 (p. 34-5)
"Jane Garmey includes it [Beef Wellington] in Great British Cooking: A Well Kept Secret, (1981), but admits that the recipe's origin is a mystery. "I have never been able to find a reference to Beef Wellington in any British cookery book, old or new," she writes in her recipe headnote. "However, since...cooking meat in a pastry case was fairly common at the end of the eighteenth century and since this is a rather special way to prepare a beef fillet, it would seem unfair to omit Beef Wellington for its dubious heritage." Strangely, Adrian Baily makes no mention of Beef Wellington in The Cooking of the British Isles, (1969), a time when this fussy recipe was in vogue in this country (it was said to be President Nixon's favorite). Beef Wellington...became a showpiece of ambitious 60s hostesses...Before long there were shortcut versions with canned liver paste substituting for foie gras, canned mushrooms for duxelles, and refrigerator crescent rolls or any frozen pastry shells for puff pastry. There was even Hamburger a la Wellington (House Beautiful Magazine, January 1970). By the 80s, however, it was over. Beef Wellington had lost its cachet."
---American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 126)
"Beef Wellington was the premier party dish of the 1960s...it was rich, dramatic, expensive, and seemed difficult and time-consuming to prepare. In short, it was everything a gourmet dish should be. In Masters of American Cookery, Betty Fussell credited beef Wellington's phenomenal popularity in the Sixties to "the discovery that anybody, with a little care, could make an edible crust."...Exactly who invented beef Wellington is not known, but there is a long Anglo-Irish-French tradition of meat cooked in pastry. Undoubtedly what we in the Unted States call beef Wellington is based on the Wellington steak of England and the steig Wellington of Ireland...In France the dish is known as filet de boeuf en croute, but whether it originated on the west of the east side of the English Channel is unkown."
---Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads, Sylvia Lovegren [MacMillan:New York] 1995 (p. 232)
"Despite such ethnic fervor, one of the most popular dishes of the day was the very classic, very British Beef Wellington a fillet of beef tenderloin coated with pate‚ de foie gras and a duxelles of mushrooms that are then all wrapped in a puff pastry crust. Some believe that Wellington's popularity had more to do with America's competitive spirit than with any deep passion for British cuisine. It began in the '60s when couples started dabbling in a bit of culinary one-upmanship. Dinner parties with friends became elaborate as complicated recipes appeared on tables with greater regularity. Beef Wellington was considered the height of difficulty and expense because of the preparation of the puff pastry and the price of the pate‚ de foie gras. Kudos and furtive jealous glances went to the cook who mastered such a bear of a recipe. Although Beef Wellington went the way of Beef Stroganoff and Boeuf Bourguignon, it did stage a comeback in magazines such as Gourmet in the '90s, when prepackaged puff pastry and domestic foie gras made it much easier and less expense to make."
--- Leites Culinaria, Dining Through the Decades: Food of the 1970s
When did Beef Wellington become popular in the USA?
Historic newspapers confirm interest in Beef Wellington (restaurant fare, recipes, quickie home versions) peaked chic in the 1960s-1970s. Chicken Wellington was introduced in the 1970s.
Vintage Camping Travel Trailers
Travel and camping in style seems to be the eternal pursuit of every generation. Here are some fantastic vintage examples of the fun ways we all try to mix the pleasure of outdoors with the comforts of home. Next time you travel consider these classic and beautiful travel trailers.
Aunt Sammy's Radio Recipes Revised
Bureau of Home Economics, U.S. Department of Agriculture [Government Printing Office:Washington]
"Dinner menus for February
Scalloped oysters, five-minute cabbage, pickled beets, jellied fruit; Lima beans in tomat sauce with crisp bacon, mashed rutabaga turnip, lettuce with tart dressing, fruit, chocolate drop cookies, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, scalloped parsnips, turnip greens, pickled cherries, Washington pie..
"Dinner menus for April
Cheese souffle, spring onions on toast, browned parsnips, olives and radishes, rhubarb Betty, pork chops, savory cooked lettuce, parley potatoes, chili sauce, jelly roll; fresh beef tongue, wilted dandelion greens, fried potato cakes, banana pudding...
"Dinner menus for July
Cold sliced meat, potato salad, rolls, peaches and cream, iced coffee, tea, or chocolate; fried or broiled chicken, new potatoes, peas, currant jelly, strawberry ice cream, vanilla wafers; broiled ground beef on toast, lima beans, fried tomatoes, Spanish cream...
"Dinner menus for October
Scalloped onions and peanuts, spinach, hot biscuits, catsup, lemon pie; cold boiled ham, succotash, carrots, cold slaw, green tomato pie; cream of vegetable soup, oven-toasted bread, grated cheese and lettuce salad, apple sauce, hot gingerbread; roast chicken, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts or some other green vegetable, crabapple jely, peanut-brittle ice cream, sand tarts..."
1960s-style backyard barbecue?
1960s-style backyard barbecue?
The Better Homes and Gardens Barbecue Book [1965] features beef, pork, lamb, chicken, and seafood. For parties this book suggests shish-kebabs (have your guests design their own!), Hawaiian short ribs (sweet marinade and pineapple), "party burgers" (pizza burgers, stuffed hamburgers, deviled beef patties, served on grilled italian bread), meatloaf (filled with vegetables & cheese, sliced & served as burgers), rock lobster tails, and grilled shrimp. Popular marinades/grilling/dipping sauces include: barbecue sauce (ranging in heat from mild to fire!) teriyaki, herb & honey, and sweet & sour. Foil meals (all ingredents cooked together wrapped tightly in aluminum foil are also popular. Recipes include Campfire Pot Roast (beef & vegetables), Patio Fiesta Dinner (ground beef, vegetables...corn, lima beans, onions, green peppers, tomato puree, American cheese, chili powder) served with corn chips. Standard accompainments were tossed salad (preferably served in wooden bowls), vegetable salads (potato, coleslaw), pickles (cucumbers, beets) and grilled bread (garlic Italian a favorite). Dessert: Ice cream, fruit-bobs (fruit on a stick, brushed with butter & broiled on the grill), pineapple on a spit, barbecued bananas, served with a cheese tray. Beverage service? Iced coffee, punch (featuring tropical flavors, made frozen concentrate), iced tea, lemonade and limeade.
Vintage Recipes - Soup for the whole family
This a a goof one from the vintage cook book series: The Art of Cookery 1832
Made Easy and Refined. Comprising Ample Directions for Preparing Every Article Requisite for Furnishing the Tables of the Nobleman, Gentleman, and Tradesman.
Cut the particles of meat from the trimmings of different joints, as beef, mutton, veal, pork, etc. and when done put the bones into a pot, cover with water, and boil them till the goodness is extracted. Then strain the liquor, wash the trimmings of the vegetables, such as turnips, carrots, onions, leeks, celery, and a little cabbage. Cut all small, put them into a pot with the above liquor and some split peas; boil till the peas are tender, add a little dry mint, and rub it through a tamis cloth or sieve. Then season the meat with pepper and salt, sweated down till three parts tender, and add the pulp. Boil all together till the meat is done, skim it and serve it up with fried bread in the form of dice.
Vintage Recipe Collection: Mushroom Sauce
Vintage Cookbook: Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book (1920)
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups of milk
4 tablespoons of flour
1 cup of diced and parboiled mushrooms
1 well-beaten egg
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of paprika
3 tablespoons of finely chopped parsley
Instructions
Place milk in a saucepan and add flour. Stir until dissolved and then bring to a boil. Cook for five minutes and then add mushrooms, egg, salt, paprika, and parsley. Beat to mix and then cook for two minutes and use.
Vintage Recipes Collection: Scalloped Apples
Vintage Cookbook: School and Home Cooking (1920)
Ingredients
2 cupfuls soft bread crumbs
2 tablespoonfuls butter or substitute
3 cupfuls apples
1/2 cupful sugar
1/4 teaspoonful cinnamon
1/2 teaspoonful nutmeg
1/2 lemon, juice and grated rind
1/4 cupful water
Instructions
Mix the bread crumbs with the fat as directed for Stuffed Tomatoes.
Chop or cut the apples in small pieces, and add the remaining ingredients to the apples. Arrange the crumbs and apple mixture in a baking dish as directed for Scalloped Corn. Bake 40 to 60 minutes (until the apples are tender and the crumbs brown), in a moderate oven. Cover during first 20 minutes of baking. Serve hot with sugar and cream or Hard Sauce. Care should be taken in grating lemon rind. Only the thin yellow portion should be used as flavoring.