Bakers Would Abolish 5-Cent Loaf

1916

Chicago, Sept. 9. — Recommendations to all bakers of the United States that the five-cent loaf of bread be abandoned and the ten-cent loaf standardized, were made after considerable discussion at the closing session of the executive committee of the National Association of Master Bakers yesterday. They urged that the recommendations be put into effect immediately. Economic waste incident to the manufacture of the five-cent loaf was emphasized. Saving in manufacture, improvement in quality and standardization are urged in favor of the ten-cent loaf. It is also recommended that where local conditions make it necessary a smaller loaf may be maintained, with a price consistent with the cost of manufacture.

The bakers cited the following percentages of increase in the cost in the ingredients in the manufacture of bread within the past two years: Patent flour, 100 per cent; rye, 124 per cent; sugar, 66 per cent; shortening, 60 per cent; milk, 40 per cent; salt, 14 per cent; wrapping paper, 70 per cent. Delivery costs also have increased, it was stated, through an advance of 100 per cent in the price of gasolene and of 25 per cent in feed for horses.

The bakers went on record strongly against any attempt to lower the quality of bread.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 6

My Neighbor Says

1929

To clean a leather bag, wash it well with tepid water and a little saddle soap.

To prevent the bristles of a tooth brush coming out soak the brush when new in cold water for twenty-four hours before using it.

Don't draw hot water from the tank when baking. If you do the oven will cool off.

Give house plants a little liquid plant food during the winter. Soil grows poor in the house and needs to be enriched.

A Few Words About Rhubarb

It is safe to assert that no plant grows which is more universally sought for in its season than rhubarb, or pie-plant as some like to call it. Its properties are highly medicinal; the acid being of that kind which the system needs and craves just as soon as Spring opens. This craving takes possession of us at that season, with the regularity and persistence of the bluebird's note at that time, and it remains with us as long as there is a salable stalk in the market. It is almost the first garden product to which the gardener gives his undivided attention, as it is almost the first which lifts its hardy head to woo the sunshine.

A rhubarb plant is a very handy thing to have in a garden, as once it is well started, it will yield an abundant supply at an expenditure of very little care. The soil should be rich to begin with, and each year the root should be dug around, and kept well watered.

When purchasing rhubarb at the market always seek those stalks which have a red tinge at the roots; they are as much superior to the small, greenish ones as a rosy cheeked apple is to an unripe one.

In preparing rhubarb for use, the skin should not be removed, as many suppose, for in this is the best flavor of the plant. Cut the stalks into inch pieces with a sharp knife, and pour boiling water over them. This extracts much of the extreme acid, and consequently calls for less sugar.

Pumpkin Pies — The Vegetable Vagabond Makes a Great Pie

1876

We generally have them made of squash at our house, but always call them pumpkin, it sounds so much better. Squash is a dreadful name, and the man who invented it ought to have had a big Hubbard hurled at his head, as Ichabod Crane was served with a pumpkin, in the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." But pumpkin is altogether a different word, whether it adorns a bill of fare, is woven into poetry, or is flattened into "pu-n-n-kin, as genial Robert Collyer does it. It is one of the old-fashioned vegetables, that has held its own among upstart rivals for a hundred years.

Precious little help has the pumpkin had from the propagating gardeners who are so intent on improving nature's productions in other fields The pumpkin is the, same honest, homespun self-made sort of vegetable vagabond it was when it straggled through the corn fields, and dotted the autumn landscape with spots of a golden color, in the pioneer days when luxuries were not necessities, and wants were few. They pretend to say that the quality has deteriorated, like some strains of blood in men whose heads this useful vegetable has most uncharitably been made to symbolize, and that the flesh is white and poor compared with what it was in former years. Yet this may be merely the croak of the old-time worshippers. But, whether made true to name or of sq——sh, a pumpkin pie, if rightly made, is a thing of beauty, and a joy, while it lasts.

We know there is an attempt made by certain super-civilized writers — of the sort who order for dinner "a little tea-ah and toast, wa-tah, and a chicken's wing" — to make abstinence from pie a test of refinement. Some of them haven't gastric juice enough to digest anything but a weak wash of some sort; but others are just putting on airs. We wouldn't trust some of the fellows who make a virtue of abhoring pie alone with a whole one behind the kitchen door — even at eleven o'clock at night. A well-made pie, of the right sort, is a good deal more wholesome than half of the modern masses concocted as a concession to dyspeptics, who charge upon healthful food the natural result of their own sin and ignorance in working without exercise, sleeping too little, and neglecting other normal conditions of right living.

But to return to our pies. We scorn to make a cook book of these columns, with our present supply of technical knowledge; but we do know that for a good pumpkin pie you want plenty of milk, just enough eggs, not too much pumpkin, a lump of butter, and a judicious sprinkling of spices — principally cinnamon and ginger. The concoction, when ready for the oven, should be about the consistency of good thick cream. Pies that cut out only a little less firm than a pine board — those that will "wabble" without breaking, like a piece of leather — and those that run around loose on your plate, are alike to be avoided. About an inch thick strikes us a good depth for the filling; two inches is better than the miserable thin plasters that one sometimes sees at boarding-houses, that look, for all the world, like pumpkin flapjacks. The expressive phrase "too thin" must have come from such lean parodies on pumpkin pies.

With the pastry light, tender, and not too rich, and a generous filling of smooth, spiced sweetness — a little "trembly" as to consistency, and delicately browned on top — a perfect pumpkin pie, eaten before the life has gone out of it (say three hours after baking), is one of the real additions made by American cookery to the good things of the world. We have our opinion of the man who could get up dissatisfied or cross from a dinner topped off with a quarter-section of such a pie. For the first pumpkin pie of the season, flanked by a liberal cut of creamy cheese and a glass of cider fresh from the press, we prefer to sit down, as the French gourmand said about his boiled turkey, "with just two of us — myself and the turkey!" Company is apt to distract the attention — and subtract from the pie.

St. Nicholas – Patron Saint of Children Around the World

1878

St. Nicholas, as all the world knows, is the patron of children, with whom he is the most popular saint in the calendar. Bishop of Myra, in Lucia, in the time of Constantine the Great, if we are to credit the Roman breviary, supplied three destitute maidens with dowries by secretly leaving a marriage portion for each at their window. Hence the popular fiction that he is purveyor of presents to children on Christmas Eve.

He usually makes his appearance as an old man with a venerable beard, and dressed as a bishop, either riding a white horse or an ass, and carrying a large basket on his arm, and a bundle of rods in his hand. In some parts of Bohemia he appears dressed up m a sheet instead of a surplice, with a crushed pillow on his head instead of a mitre. On his calling out: "Wilt thou pray?" all the children fall upon their knees, whereupon he lets fall some fruit upon the floor and disappears. In this manner he goes from house to house, sometimes ringing a bell to announce his arrival, visits the nurseries, inquires into the conduct of the children, praises or admonishes them, as the case may be, distributing sweetmeats or rods accordingly.

St. Nicholas is the Santa Claus of Holland, and the Smiklaus of Switzerland, and the Sonnoe Klas of Heligoland. In the Vorarlberg he is known as Zemmiklas, who threatens to put naughty children into his hay-sack; in Nether Austria as Niklo, or Niglo, who is followed by a masked servant called Krampus, while in the Tyrol he goes by the name of the "Holy Man," and shares the patronage of his office with St. Luco, who distributes gifts among the girls, as he among the boys. Sometimes he is accompanied by the Christchild.

In many parts of Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands, St. Nicholas still distributes his presents on St. Nicholas eve — the 5th of December — instead of on Christmas Eve. In the Netherlands and adjoining provinces he is especially popular, and is perhaps the only saint who has maintained his full credit, even among the Protestants. For days previous to his expected advent busy housewives have been secretly conspiring with the bakers in gilding nuts, cakes and gingerbread, and torturing pastry, prepared with flour, sugar, honey, spices and sweetmeats into the most fantastical forms, from which the good saint may from time to time replenish his supplies. As to the children, St. Nicholas, or Sunder Klass is the burden of their prayers, the staple of their dreams and the inspiration of their songs. As they importune him to let fall from the chimney top some pretty gift into their little aprons, they go on singing with childish fervor,

"Sunder Klass du gode Bloot!
Breng mi Noot un Zukerbrod,
Nicht to veel un nich to mium
Smiet in mine Schorten in."

In Belgium, on the eve of the good bishop's serial voyage in his pastoral visitation of his bishoprics of chimney tops, the children polish their shoes, and after filling them with hay, oats or carrots for the saint's white horse, they put them on a table or set them in the fire-place. The room is then carefully closed and the door locked. Next morning it is opened in the presence of the assembled household, when, miribile dictu! the furniture is found to be turned topsy-turvy, while the little shoes, instead of the horse's forage, are filled with sweetmeats and toys for the good children, and with rods for the bad ones. In some places, wooden or China shoes, stockings, baskets, cups and saucers, and even bundles of hay are placed in the chimney or by the side of the bed, or in a corner of the room, as the favorite receptacle of St. Nicholas' presents.