Memory Monday: A Typical Wednesday and What We Eat

My Grandparents on Their Wedding Day

A TYPICAL WEDNESDAY AND WHAT WE EAT

Wednesday mornings are busy times at our house. My husband and I always go grocery shopping together—that is, after he’s had breakfast out with some of the people from his Sunday School Class. (I sleep in and am usually just about to have breakfast when he returns home. My favorite breakfast—Breakfast tacos, store-bought, of course.)

Well, with breakfast taken care of, we go and get our groceries. On the way home, we often stop by Subway (or some other favorite place) and get lunch to take home.

For supper, my husband usually has cereal from a box (since he didn’t have it for breakfast. I look around the fridge or cabinet and find something to nuke in the microwave. AHH, the joys of fixing food from my family.

It was so-o-o-o different years ago (like in the early years of my grandparents’ marriage. They married in 1910). No wonder the women didn’t work outside the home then—they didn’t have the time. Just look at what a cook book has for the menu for a typical Wednesday. This is from Five Cent Meals, copyright 1914.

BREAKFAST

RICE GRIDDLE CAKES
FETED BACON STRIPS
BANANAS
COFFEE—MILK

Rice Griddle Cakes

34 cup boiled rice 2 tablespoons drippings

2 cups flour 5 teaspoons baking powder

1¼ cup liquid 1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons sugar

Mix the dry ingredients. Add rice to the liquid ingredients. An egg may be added. Combine with the dry and beat well. Cook by tablespoonfuls the same as other griddle cakes.

Preparing the Meal

Make griddle cakes and start the first griddle full to cooking. Make the coffee, slice and fry the bacon, and set the table, attending to the cooking of the cakes at the same time, and when they are finished serve the breakfast.

Extra Baking

Before starting to cook the noon meal mix the bread and set it to rise. It will be ready for the second kneading soon after lunch, and can be baked before time for the evening meal. Make cinnamon rolls as well as bread. If coal or wood fire is used, plan to keep the top of the stove full while fire is going. Leave no empty space in the oven while it is hot.

LUNCH

SPLIT PEA LOAF

SLICED TOMATOES

BREAD WITH OLEO

TEA—MILK

Split Pea Loaf

4 cups split peas, cooked 1 beaten egg

2 cups bread crumbs 1 teaspoon minced onion

1 tablespoon minced parsley, celery, or other flavoring as

desired. Salt and pepper to taste.

Mix all the ingredients together. If too soft to hold its shape add more bread crumbs. If too dry, add milk, water or another egg. Form into loaf. Brown in oven.

Preparing the Meal

Use split peas cooked on Tuesday. A half hour before meal time, make loaf and put in oven to brown. Slice the tomatoes. Set the table and make the tea.

DINNER

Wednesday

BAKED CROQUETTES

BAKED POTATOES

HOT CINNAMON ROLLS

BANANAS WITH LEMON JUICE
LEMONADE

Baked Croquettes

3 cups chopped meat 1 teaspoon onion juice

3 cups bread crumbs 1 teaspoon salt

2 cups thick white sauce Pepper to taste

Make a white sauce by stirring ½ cup flour into ¼ cup melted fat, cook till frothy, then add slowly 2 cups milk or water, or the two mixed, stirring all the time, and cook again till thick, stirring till smooth.

Add cooked meat—beef, mutton, veal or pork—and bread crumbs. Mix well, form into croquettes about 3 inches long, lay them in greased pan, and set in hot oven to brown.

Bananas with Lemon Juice

Slice 4 bananas, sprinkle with brown sugar and lemon

juice.

Preparing the Meal

Put six potatoes for dinner and four for tomorrow's lunch in oven one hour before meal time, while bread is still baking. Croquettes and cinnamon rolls (see page 16) may be baked together about ½ hour before meal time. Set the table, prepare the bananas and lemonade.

The exciting part of this menu is that the next day for breakfast is that FARINA MUSH WITH TOP MILK is at the top of the menu. YUM!!! Really, please let me go shopping again tomorrow and have a McDonald’s Egg White Delight with sausage instead of Canadian Bacon and an caramel iced coffee.