Kitchen-table Memories of What is Now Called "Comfort Food" But was Exciting at the Time

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Paul Zadner has come through with some more kitchen-table memories:

Julie

Is this the glass table that I ate  on Genese Street? What years did they live there?

Today I was eating lunch at Ruby Tuesdays and I had a flash back after 66 years as to what we ate at your parent’s home. I was VERY young and I was a very fussy eater and most foods I did not like.

Your parents served us a Chinese meal, Chicken Chow Main which I never had before in my life. I do not know if I ate any of it but I know for sure that I would have found it to be despicable to say the least.

Hi Paul,

Is this what we're discussing here?

Chicken or pork Chow Mein, 1950s-style

I'm sorry you didn't like it.  Apparently it was an exotic new thing at the time.  Below is a scan of a full-page color advertisement for the things; Clara saved it.  I like the man holding a dragon-lantern on the pole that holds the banner.

But my absolute favorite is the vignette on the lower right, of excited shoppers mobbing the Chun King Crispy Noodle Display.  Here, I enlarged it:

You'd think it was Frank Sinatra instead of a stack of cans.

The people look like the Jetsons,
or the Flintstones.

We always had that soy sauce, as well.
Horrible, horrible stuff, that Chun King soy sauce;
as if they'd dug it up out of some tomb.

Ever seen Flower Drum Song? Sammy Fong is a bigshot club owner, serving "the best Chinese food on the West Coast."  Mei Li, fresh off the boat from China, (interesting in 1961) tries a dish and burbles something like, "Oh delicious!  I love American food!"  Tough Guy Fong is annoyed.  Well, we could see how this could happen.

How did we all sit at that glass table? It must have been very crowded.

Sorry; can't tell you.  I was still in a high chair at that point, so I wasn't concerned about you guys.  You must have seen the wrought-iron and glass table in Bowmansville sometime between 1950, or so, and 1957 when we moved into the Marilla house.

Thanks, Paul, for unlocking some creaky doors in the memory vaults.  We also partook of other classic 1950s menu items:

Creamed tuna on toast points.
Friday-night favorite!
Eat the peas first to get rid of them,
then savor the tuna and the mushrooms.

"City chicken."
I don't get this dish; why do all that?
Can anyone explain?

Do widzenia!  Julia

Kitchen Table Memories

The Wrought Iron post described the kitchen table in the Marilla house and asked for peoples' memories of times around that table. Sharon (Stroinski) Buckley has offered her memory, which is apparently anchored pretty securely with taste and fragrance impressions:

"I think that was the table Debbie and I had breakfast one morning when we stayed over where we had milk from Fitzingers farm(not sure I spelled it right ). I remember it tasted awful cause it was straight from the cow. After all these years I still can taste it. Sorry Julie. I'm a city girl."

Ha!  Sorry, Sharon.  Dad was an early-adopter of the natural-foods thing, as you may recall.  Part of that was buying raw milk right out of the milkhouse at the Pfitzinger farm across the road.  The good parts were that it was fresh and that it had pretty high butterfat content.  The downside included occasional "barny" flavors and odors.  Old-fashioned barns just never had good ventilation, so there were always some dust and some ammonia in the air.  Old-fashioned milking systems had stainless-steel vessels (very cleanable, and they cleaned constantly and vigorously) but the equipment was hand-carried around in the barn, and had openings that necessarily opened to the air sometimes.

Modern dairy farms have very much better ventilation; you can drive around and see cow barns with no sidewalls and lots of fans and tubes.  In the winter they have thermal curtains that unroll like roller shades on windy days; these block the wind and retain the heat, but the fans and tubes keep working all winter.

Modern milking equipment keeps the milk all enclosed in stainless steel from the moment it exits the teat to the moment it ends up in the stainless steel bulk tank.  So it is cleaner and it smells better and gets cooled faster than ever it did in the good old days.  As well, the standards for bacteria count, inflammation indicators, and residues of medications are very, very much more rigorous than in decades past.

No buckets, no bedding in the milking parlor.

Lots of light, lots of testing and  checking and monitoring.

Dunno who these people are; these photos are just off Google.
But this guy looks just as nice as I remember Mr. Pfitzinger.

Pfitzinger farm is still going, but they milk in another location in a modern barn.  The old place is used for raising youngstock.

So you've got me thinking about your childhood kitchen, upstairs on 65 Poplar Avenue.  You ready? I remember watching in awe as my big cousin Sharon strolled into the kitchen carrying a shirt with a button off; immediately, smoothly, and without fuss drew open one of those white-painted drawers in the built-in cabinet; retrieved therefrom a needle and thread; and leaned back against the kitchen counter talking away and sewing that button on by herself.  My admiration for that demonstration of skill and elegance was boundless.  Sorry I didn't say anything at the time.  I was too wowed to speak.  There you go.

Julie

Wrought Iron

Clara's notebook included this clipping.

Skilled work; very beautiful; indestructible.
Those little feet; arcing legs and backs; stout rectangle;
stabilizing members below, complete with flowerpot ring;
accent of floral spray at corners and on chairs.

The table and chairs that Gene and Clara eventually
acquired were quite similar to the original dream.
The legs arc, and end in little feet hammered
to look like flower petals.
It's all in the JZ office now,
keeping company with 1861 iron doorlatches.

The kitchen table: a lot of us have a lot of memories
centered around that kitchen table.
Send in yours! I'll put them together
in a post.

There was, for a time, a wrought-iron frame,
curved like the curves in this cornucopia design,
holding several flowerpot rings.
Was it on the wall of the front porch?
Did they take it down because it rusted?
Did Marty use parts of it in Suzette's gravestone
that he made on that sad day?

I never saw a geranium or anything else in this ring,
but it's always been just great to have it there.
And see the weld traces?

Glass-topped it was, originally, yes.
A little girl would habitually sit on the edge of it and talk with her Mom
who would be standing at the cupboard.
This little girl kept cleaning her plate every suppertime, like a good girl should.
One day, "Cracccck!"
Uncle Dick and Uncle Eddie were called upon
to convert the whole deal to wood.

Home Ec, Bowmansville and Washington, D.C., 1953

Our CAMZ kept newspaper clippings for many years, in pursuit of recipe excellence.

The American Weekly of January 11, 1953 had so many nuggets that she just saved the whole issue.  It's hard to scan tabloid sheets on my little scanner, but you can get the gist:

Clara made cherry pie in cherry season, with criss-cross strips of dough on top.  For pies, though, the prize goes to Florence Cichon, affectionately called "Auntie Fo-Fo."  Lemon meringue pie, chocolate pudding pie, and Scotch whiskey with tonic and lime were her specialties.

 "Spry" must be some kind of lard product.  I don't recall it, but I do recall "Crisco."  Yes, family, my Mom used Crisco, apparently.  Well!

(Crisco is of all-vegetable origin, hence less productive of flakiness in pie crust.)

 

Often she would rewrite the recipe in her preferred format and illustrate it with a clipped photo, scrapbook-style.  Very professional.  Of course, that sort of fancy work went into abeyance once Marty started stumping around the house with bells on his shoes.

President Eisenhower served two terms, 1953-1961.

There's a book illustrating the post-WW2 design revolution, in architecture, interior design, and cars:  Populuxe/the Look and Life of America in the '50s and '60S, from Tailfins and TV.  It captures the spirit and tone pretty well, I think.

Julie

Bowmansville Dreamin'

The blue cowhide binder
had decorating ideas
as well as ideas for eats
and a partial budget for a baby boy.

Dreams for the future home
were woven in the little brick house
on Genessee Street in Bowmansville.

The built-in bookshelf became a reality in Marilla
when Richard Mazurowski and Edward Stroinski
took Gene and Clara's design ideas
and built a custom shelf into a recess in the
living room wall.

Is that the ugliest wallpaper in world history?

Look at that!  Angled ceilings with beams  exposed;
a room divider thing with a planter base
and see-through top part.
They made those real, also -
only in cedar, and brick and glass.

"Admiral Triple Thrill"
offered a phonograph, television,
and AM-FM radio
all in one unit!

The crossed-off writing is "Buffalo Floral Shop."
Following that is "Ellicot Square Bldg."
There was a display at O'Hare last year of scores
of these first-generation TVs and radios
in cabinetry.  It made me appreciate
the enthusiasm with which they were received.
The Three Weird Sisters remain
a bit startling.

Cookbook and Home Ec, 1950

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Clara Zdrojewski had a 1950 hardback ring-binder edition of Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook.  The placek recipe from the Placek post fell out of it here in Argyle.

The edition history of this book is interesting; for example, here is Betty Crocker, v.1936:

And here she is in v.1955.  From the way they look, I wonder if they are photos of oil paintings.  General Mills has a boardroom somewhere on the walls of which hang portraits of their Immortal.

The pancake and waffle recipes
from Argyle originate in this book.

Mom also acquired this beautiful zippered binder in very tough cowhide.  This was for her home accounts.

Those of a certain generation drool over high-end office supplies the way others do over the latest, most gleaming computer or mobile device.

This tabloid newspaper, an insert in a newspaper dated January 11, 1953, tells us a lot about the times.  This is the next-generation Shirley Temple ideal, right?  The dog has been to Norman Rockwell school. 

Mom tried hard to raise me to fit this ideal.  Sorry Mom, that I did not run with it.  But we did have some fun trying.

So about that Betty Crocker book - Deb, did your mother get her Swedish Meatball recipe from there?  Sharon, did your mother get her Russian Tea Cake recipe from there?  Venerable recipes their and all other family kitchens are eagerly sought for rebroadcast via this blog.

 Do zobaczenia!    Julia