Luncheon Menu

To-Day's Fish
Cold Salmon Salad......6d

To-Day's Suggested Entree
Boiled Gammon and Parsley Sauce......6d

Vegetables
Dressed Cabbage......3d
New Boiled, Baked, Mashed or Chipped Potatoes......3d

To-Day's Suggested Sweet
Golden Sponge Pudding and Egg Custard......6d

Beverages
Pot of Tea (Per Person)......3d
Horlick's Malted Milk......3d (Made with Milk, Extra 1d)
Bottled Milk......2d
Minerals......2d

Cigarettes on Sale at Cash Desk

All ideas will be greatly appreciated!

These prices are not just pre-decimalisation(1971) but much, much earlier. I was born in 1941 and they probably date from before my time, pre WW2 - I would put them at mid-late 1930s, or even earlier. '6d(enarii)' is worth about two and a half pence.

'Minerals' are what are still called 'Mineral waters', ie soft (non-alcoholic) drinks (but not water) such as fizzy lemonade.

Perhaps Vee or someone can get closer to the actual date.

Dido

Isn't it interesting to see what people were eating at that time. Real Food! And not so different from a more up-market restaurant except that there would have been a greater choice and probably three courses on offer and it would have cost more.
An adequate lunch for less than 2 bob (10p) including a tip, and probably eaten by offices workers and women coming into Leeds for a morning's shopping spree, too expensive for a blue-collar worker. A 'better' class of venue would have set you back up to 3/6.
John just came in and looked at the menu and pointed out that the salmon would have been tinned! He also wondered if it could have been 'post war' late 40's-50's? Not easy to guess.
I don't know if it is the same in the US but over here it is always cheaper to go for the table d'hôte menu rather than the à la carte.
Frieda, is this an actual menu or one you have seen in a book maybe?

Vee, it is an actual menu I possess. I'm not sure where and when I acquired it, but I recently found it stuck in a book, perhaps as a bookmark. It was certainly before my time in England; I didn't arrive there until 1972, after decimalisation. I do recall eating at Woolworth's a few times -- in England, but also in the U.S. I wish I had an equivalent U.S. menu to compare with it. I highly expect the U.S. version would have been heavy on sandwiches and "Blue Plate"-type specials (main dish/two veg as in England but the mains and vegs would have been somewhat different, depending on the region of the U.S.).

It's amazing to me what one can find on the Internet. I googled and found a menu very similar to the one I have. The person who posted the image (link below) says their menu is from the late 1940s/early 1950s. Perhaps mine is too -- the foods and prices are almost all the same. I notice in that menu (as opposed to mine) that the word 'To-Day' has undergone the transformation to 'Today' in four out of five cases -- but it's still "To-Day's Suggested Sweet".

However, a couple of my Yorkshire friends wonder about the seeming plentitude of the menu for the late 1940s -- as they recall, cafe/restaurant fare was still scaled back. They wondered, like Dido, if it was from the late 1930s.

Annpan, I hope the link will quieten your BS-meter! :-)

Ann, entree appeared on all menus where French was used, although it seems rather pretentious for W'worths.
As a child in the late 40's I can remember being taken for afternoon tea in some of the many cafés in Stratford. Always bread and butter with nameless jam, followed by a piece of either pink or white sponge cake.
If we went out with my Father it would always be to the best hotel in town (wherever we were) for lunch, with hovering waiters in tail-coats and several courses and knowing which cutlery to use. He came from a family of hotel owners and woe and betide anyone who didn't know their fish knife from their soup spoon, or who was unable to fillet a kipper.
This may sound very dated and unnecessary to an American (you seem to go in for minimal cutlery) but it has always stood me in good stead at formal occasions.
As a child I always longed to go into a fish and chip shop!

annpan, did you know that Woolies has just closed ALL its branches in the UK?

I adore all sorts of paper ephemera, but especially menus because I'm interested in all aspects of food history. I don't know why I never collected menus -- well, yes, I do know why: I would be neck deep in them by now! I don't need another collection; I have too many already.

Thanks to you all, I think I've narrowed down the years of my particular menu to the late 1930s. Digging around the Internet I found what I think is a pretty close equivalent of what Americans were eating in cafes at the same time. See the link below for the menu of The Mecca Cafe in Tacoma, Washington -- dated March 7, 1937. It's the first menu at the site -- a bit hard to read but decipherable. Scrolling further down are other interesting (to me, anyway) menus. In fact I like the poster's whole idea: A collection of menus dating to the 1930s reveals what we ate -- and what we still eat. It tickles me that the Mecca Cafe proudly proclaimed that it served Heinz canned soups and Del Monte canned peas! It kills me that a can of Schlitz (beer) was 20 cents and Edelbau on tap was 10 cents!

Vee, it struck me, as well, how "Real" the food was back then, compared to now.

Carolyn, was the cinnamon sauce for the Woolworth's apple dumplings made from melted cinnamon imperials (Red Hots)? Oh my, I have such a weakness for those -- tacky though it must seem to those with sophisticated palates. Actually, some of my fondest eating-out memories are not of ritzy restaurants -- hang the ambience and pretentious cooking styles. Instead, I salivate thinking about the mom & pop-style cooking of eateries in whatever country I've been.

Since this is one of my favorite subjects, if anyone wants to expand this thread to other food-related matters, please do!

I was wondering if Woolworth's still exists in the UK. Here in the United States is closed quite some time ago, I think back in the 1970's though I am not sure. How my sisters and I loved that store when we were growing up. We spent our allowances there on Maybelline mascara, paperback novels, and malted milk balls. When I moved to California in 1990, I was surprised to find that an offshoot, Woolworth's Garden Centers, continued as a chain of stores out here. This too is now gone, purchased by another chain called Summerwinds. It is a more poetic name, but I still slip up half the time and call it Woolworth's anyway. Old habits are slow to fade away.

Rosefolly

Annpan, I think it was only the biggest stores that served food. In my childhood we could buy ice-cream in our branch plus wonderful hot roasted peanuts.

Frieda, I have been reading your menus and notice that while some of the items are similar to what you would find over hear, especially the 'roasts' we still don't go in for much that was/is popular in the US eg. shrimp (which we call 'prawns') is often only used in a 'cocktail' with lettuce and mayo, oysters are very expensive, and we never have hot sandwiches. Do they mean 'toasted' or are they served with gravy poured over them, as I discovered when living in Canada? (and found they didn't taste as bad as they looked)
Re the ads that pop-up at the R side of the menus. I don't know what a 'burrito' is and wonder if I would enjoy one for breakfast . . . nor biscuit and gravy. Isn't your 'biscuit' like our 'scone', but unsweetened? And is that regular 'gravy' that would normally accompany roast meat?

This is great fun, Frieda. I shall be asking more questions!

Another fan of Woolworth's, growing up in Atlanta, GA. I recall eating lunch at their counters as a teenager. We used to love to browse their cosmetics, etc.

There are several different recipes in the US for deviled eggs, but most I've seen use paprika sprinkled over the yokes with their various mixtures. (a very old fashioned dish).

My favorite lunch counter was a now defunct little drugstore in what was once the sleepy town of Williamsburg, VA. It was there, in the 1960's, that I was introduced to the "Chocolate Egg Cream" as a beverage. I've never been able to find it since, and have been told it has its origin in New York, or, as the old Southerners would say, in "Yankeeland."

Luckily I know of a real old-fashioned diner where they still have real diner food - not gourmet-ed up 'bistro' fare or some such nonsense. (Good in its place, but not when you are expecting diner food.) I almost stopped there for a chicken pie on my way home from the beach, but it wasn't yet four o'clock, and I had frozen custard in a cooler in my car. Maybe tomorrow!

Vee, breakfast gravy is made with milk and formerly bacon fat for stirring in the flour, not meat drippings. Nowadays, bacon fat is a no-no with the cholesterol folks, so we use enough canola or vegetable oil to stir up the flour and salt. It's really a basic white sauce. If browned ground pork sausage is added, it is called sawmill gravy.

And, yes, biscuits are like scones without egg or sugar. They are a quick bread, best made with soft wheat flour (white, not wholewheat) so they are light.

I made scones with dried cherries in them yesterday for my sister-in-law to take to a tea. All the U.S. bought scones I have eaten are dry and crumbly, not at all like the wonderful ones I've had in the UK. The recipe I use is called Steephill Scones, and they are very good. Do you know anything about Steephill?

I like talking about food more than I like cooking it.

Vee, 'hot' sandwiches could be either toasted (or grilled, or griddled) after assembly (grilled cheese & ham is probably the most famous) or the fillings can be hot, though the bread might not be (e.g., a meatball submarine). The sandwich you describe with the gravy poured over it is called an "openface" sandwich in most regions of the U.S. The hot meat is placed on a bed of plain or toasted bread slices and the gravy is ladled over -- two very popular openfacers are the Hot Roast Beef, with slightly thickened brown gravy, and the Hot Steak Sandwich, with the white gravy that Carolyn described. A couple of other hot sandwiches (besides the ubiquitous hamburger): the French Dip (roast beef on a baguette) with a side bowl of au jus to dip the sandwich in as you eat it); and the Tuna Melt, usually with tuna salad -- although I've had tuna patties -- on bread rolls of some sort and a slice or two of American cheese over the tuna that is then put under a broiler until the cheese melts, after which the two sides are slapped together (or left openface, sometimes, to be eaten with knife and fork). Both the French Dip and regular Tuna Melt are messy-messy but are usually eaten without cutlery -- just lots of paper napkins.

Would you like a burrito, Vee? Well, a burrito (little burro -- donkey) or a regular burro can come with around a gazillion different fillings, you should be able to find at least one that is palatable to you. The standard version is a flour tortilla with hot refried beans glopped down the middle, some mild red or green chile sauce spooned on, then some sort of shredded cheese is sprinkled on. The tortilla is then folded over the filling with one end closed but the other left open so the eater can add extra salsa, pico de gallo (fresh salsa with cilantro -- the phrase means "beak of the rooster", etc).

A burrito folded like an envelope with both ends closed can be deep fried until the tortilla is browned and slightly crispy -- it is then called a chimichanga. A regular burrito is meant to be eaten with the hands, but a chimichanga is usually placed on a plate where it can be dressed with shredded lettuce, chopped tomato, black olives, a glop or two of guacamole, some sour cream, and/or other sauces. Burritos and chimis are very much an individual thing -- you can have them made however you want them.

I won't get into the biscuit/scone thing -- I will just agree with Carolyn. :-)

Siobhan, you live where there are real diners. I adore those! -- even when the food is just mediocre, they are time capsules that I enjoy.

Carolyn, I love to cook when I have somebody to cook for besides myself. But talking about food is second best and really wonderful, I think, because it's not fattening or artery clogging! I mentally kick myself for having been such a picky eater when I was young when I could have been so adventurous.

I didn't care for gravy until I was well into adulthood (it tastes like Kindergarten paste to me), so I always asked for my Hot Steak Sandwich to be "dry." I then liberally sprinkled the breading with Tabasco or Louisiana Hot Sauce. One time when I was pregnant (very obviously) with my second son, I received my usual dry Hot Steak from the waitress, and asked for Tabasco. She watched in consternation while I did the dousing, then I guess she couldn't stop herself from saying, "I hope your baby kicks you all night!" He didn't, though. Funny thing, #2 son grew into a chile/pepperhead, and he likes his Hot Steak Sandwich the same way I do.

Vee, please ask for further clarifications, if needed. I find it very hard to describe foods with which I am very familiar. I probably should have mentioned that refried beans are mashed, seasoned pintos. In the old days it was a good way to reuse yesterday's frijoles so most had bacon grease or lard added to them and they were reheated in a frying pan, thus 'refried'. Nowadays, most eateries dispense with both the grease/lard and the refrying -- they are just mashed or pureed and usually are utterly tasteless or just a shadow of what they once tasted like.

I've recently returned to Tennessee and find I'm having a hard time adjusting to the food styles. I'm living with my sister's family just now and finding that my cooking, esteemed by my friends back in Baltimore, just doesn't go over that well. As near as I can figure, it is simply that my menus aren't kid friendly. I hadn't bought iceberg lettuce in decades, but find that kids prefer it. And I can just forget about cranberries and balsamic vinegar in my salads. My scratch soups don't measure up to Campbell's tomato. (BTW I've added a divine butternut squash soup to my repertoire. I remember confessing here once that I was buying a squash once every 9 months and never cooking it.)

My self esteem would be in the pits except that the boys love my pizzas. I'm just not allowed to add veggies to it. How do you Moms manage?

Oddly enough, my sister, who had gastric bypass surgery in May eats a lot of refried beans. She finds it an easily digestible form of protein.

And as a mum I just served stuff to my kids and expected they would eat it. They do have a couple of things they don't like, but mostly there are no problems. DS2 doesn't like strong tasting fish like tuna or salmon (which is a pity because there are any number of quick meals to be made with a tin of tuna) and the first time he went to his girlfriend's house for tea they had tuna mornay. He and I were both proud of the fact he just ate it *VBG*

My earliest restaurant memory--we seldom ate in restaurants with a family of 5 children--was late at night during a road trip, we were the only ones in the place, crowded around a table near the window. I don't remember the food, other than thin slices of some kind of meat with gravy and mashed potatoes.

It seemed so hushed and felt very special to eat at a restaurant rather than at our plain family table.

Years later, when I was a teenager and had just gotten my driver's license, the first thing I did was take a group of friends to a Chinese restaurant in the "big city," miles from my rural area. Even getting a traffic ticket for driving the wrong way on a one-way street (for several blocks, with an exasperated police office tailing me) did not dampen my pleasure, later, in the dark and (for me) exotic restaurant with pots of tea, unpronounceable dishes, the fortune cookies at the end, surrounded by friends. How I wish I could have saved one of their menus! The memory of it still enchants me! (And I don't even care for Chinese restaurants, as an adult..)

Kath mentions her boys being expected to eat whatever she prepared and we have always gone down that route, without actually forcing them to eat something that made them vomit but I noticed among the 'menus' there were several with special children's choices. I know this happens over here now, but it seems such a waste of an 'experience' for the adults to be eating 'regular' food and the kids chewing on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I can't see that happening in France or Italy for eg. where cooking and eating are taken so much more seriously

Frieda, 're-fried beans'. Does this mean that they were originally fried? Are they the sort of beans that have to be soaked for hours in water and then boiled for ages? An hour after eating is there a scene reminiscent of Blazing Saddles and it is unsafe to light a match?

it looks like this (side view):
leftover turkey gravy-hot
white bread
leftover stuffing-warmed up
leftover turkey-cold
white bread

side of left over mashed potatoes (warmed up-haha) in more leftover gravy.

A Philadelphia steak sandwich is nothing like the ones described above. At the famous Pat's King of Steak Shop, you get shaved steak cooked on a flat grill, with or without onions, mushrooms, peppers....all heaped onto a long roll and topped (or not) with cheez whiz and/or pizza sauce. The original steak sandwich was just the meat and onions and cheez whiz, but they have expanded the menu!

Vee, I assumed Steephill to be a place, so your village(s) information is probably correct.

I have a funny story about children's vegetables. Broccoli was not a known vegetable in my small farm, small rural community background. I really liked it when I discovered it as a young woman, and one night at supper gave my four-year-old daughter a tiny serving. She pushed it around on her plate for awhile until her dad finally told her to eat it and quit playing around. She did, and then she said, "I wish I was an elephant." When I asked why she would want to be an elephant, she said, "So I could eat grass and not have to eat this old green stuff." (But she likes it now.)

Then there are breakfast burritos that you might like: scrambled egg is the base with just about anything you want to add to the egg mixture (crumbled bacon, sausage, diced ham, diced potato, cheese). You spoon it onto the flour tortilla and roll it up burrito-fashion. It's really an omelette in a tortilla.

Yes, the beans are dried pintos (speckled when dry but brown when cooked, though other varieties of dried beans can also be used). And, yes, they have to be soaked, usually overnight, or parboiled before they are boiled for two to three hours, until tender. In Mexico and the southwest U.S. many households always have a pot of beans soaking and a pot either boiling or already cooked.

No, the beans are not fried once and then fried again. The word 'refried' is a gringo misapprehension of the Spanish term refritos in frijoles refritos. It actually means 'well' or 'nicely' fried, referring to the second go-around. But 'refried' stuck for some reason and is always used as the English translation.

Heh! Yes, frijoles are known for their 'windy quality'. Old-time cooks often added baking soda to the beans as an anti-flatulent, but that is no longer recommended because the soda destroys vitamins. Some cooks swear that beans boiled in beer (as in frijoles borrachos -- 'drunk beans') aren't as gassy. I'm not so sure.

This thread makes me glad the weather is changing from a Baltimore hot humid summer to cooler fall weather. Now I can look forward to making green chili to ladle on my burrito and get out the immersion blender for veggie soups (not that my children will eat them...)

I grew up in a town with two Woolworth stores, one old two-level store downtown and a new one in the mall on the outskirts. My friends and I would hang out at the mall, pool our meager funds, share ice cream in a Woolworth's booth and drool over the menu. That past pink ladies room in the mall Woolworths was my first introduction to lurid graffiti, ugh.

According to Wikipedia, Woolworth's eventually morphed into Foot Locker.

All this talk of lunch counters reminds me of the Ladies' Tea Rooms that were in big department stores when I was a kid. Bill Bryson in his The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid has a hilarious riff on a particular department-store tea room in Des Moines, Iowa. I recognized it immediately because I, too, was fascinated, and felt oh, so privileged, when I first was allowed to accompany the ladies "to partake of luncheon or tea." Bryson and I are just about the same age, so I might have actually seen him in Des Moines.

Anyway, the ladies' tea rooms are probably as gone today as Woolworth's lunch counters. What strikes me about them now was the fussiness of the food -- dainty, and as contained as flesh under corsets and bullet-brassieres, usually pastel in colors, with emphasis on the sweet-sweet-sweet (very feminine, and English to my way of thinking). I recall having to don gloves so I could properly enter the place. It was all incredibly silly and pretentious, and I think I even realized it at age ten.

Carolyn, I love your daughter's response to broccoli!

I like your word, glop. It is the best description of how gravies and sauces are added to dishes in most eating places. The ladies of course would be horrified.:)

I recall my bridemaids' luncheon although it was forty years ago. It was in the lovely house of my future mother-in-law's best friend. This lady served the mothers, girls and me Coronation Chicken (hers was mildly curried) and a molded asparagus creation -- we thought these things were very elegant. I was all of nineteen. (Vee, is 'Coronation Chicken' still popular in the UK?)

Hee! Lydia, haricots verts would be all right for the ladies, don't you think?

Yes, I was thinking onomatopoeically when I used 'glop'. 'Dollop' seemed too dainty or refined.;-)

Frieda, check in with us tonight, would you? I hear the tsunami, depleted I hope, hits Hawaii at 8 EDT.

There were only 7 of us at my luncheon-I think we ordered from the menu. I don't remember what we ate...it was a VERY long time ago!

Now, "a VERY long time ago" is my excuse! No, actually I remember things of forty and fifty years ago better than I do of what happened yesterday. For some reason I recall meals eaten and other such useless information as what patterns of wallpaper were in such-and-such rooms. I also recall cookstoves in great detail, such as those of my grandmothers and grimy ones I had in grungy flats -- back to food again!

Tomato aspic: That's something I haven't eaten in an aeon. Chris, I probably would have loved the retro menu of the WIE tea room -- not too often, mind you, but as a kick every now and then.

Wow, Chris, you knew about the tsunami before I got wind of it. The warning has been downgraded to an advisory for our Islands. My house is on the North Shore, but currently I'm staying in a bungalow in the Manoa Valley so I didn't bother with a television, figuring I could get all my news from the Internet and my phone. My older son lives in Hilo, a particularly tsunami-prone place, so he called to tell me not to worry about him. I am upset that I don't yet know about friends in Pago Pago. I've sailed into Pago Pago and Apia and am trying to recall the harbors. The Pacific is not living up to its name this year, what with earthquakes and tropical cyclones. Thank you for your concern, Chris -- I still haven't adjusted to just how small our world is sometimes.

My home page has a Reuters aggregator so I see the latest news. Still, it is US oriented. Pago Pago is half way between Hawaii and New Zealand, and the article only noted the time the wave was expected in your state, which sent up a flag of concern. Somehow I failed to think that our Australian friends might be hit as well, and for that I am ashamed.

Phones are a great news resource these days, aren't they? The latest local weather alerts texted right to us.

Sorry I can't remember the luncheon food-the organ music was so loud! Actually, the organ was in the Grand Court-the entrance to the store, where the giant brass eagle sat, and the tea room was upstairs. I remember the music being piped in, but I also remember just standing in the Grand Court with my grandmother, who was a professional pianist and organist, and listening to the daily concert.

Interesting that you take your bridesmaids out for lunch, is this a 'custom'?. I didn't have any at my wedding and if a pre nuptual meal had involved my future M-in-Law I wouldn't have survived until the ceremony! As my father said to me (in private) at the time. "If you ever meet her again it will be too soon."
Sorry that had nothing to do with food, but could I ask what is usually served at US/Aus wedding receptions? (used to be known as 'wedding breakfasts' over here). Daughter and boy-friend are meant to be researching 'venues' for the Big Day. As parents of the bride we will be hosting the event and short of offering a cheese sandwich and glass of water to the guests the cost is eye-wateringly high. The average wedding in the UK now sets you back £20,000! That would be the whole shebang from dresses to photos to flowers, church, booze etc . . . but . . .surely there is a cheaper way?

Come on Cece, help me out here!

Vee, yes, I would say it is the custom for the bride to treat her bridesmaids to a luncheon or a dinner. This is the female version (perhaps) of the "bachelor's party" which is thrown for the males in the wedding party. At the latter, some rather risque things often occur, I've been told....

Vee, as for the wedding breakfast, it's been a long time since I've been to one. I do recall being served "Mimosas", which is a Champagne drink. I think there were oysters, as well as a fancy omelet, also.And yes, weddings in general in the US have become outrageously expensive, in my view.

Frieda, I have the same sort of memory that you do: I can recall utterly useless trivia from girlhood and college days and forget what I did a couple of weeks ago....

You can Google for other details and versions of Coronation Chicken...it seems to be a well known dish (on the Internet at least).

When I first lived in England in the early 1970s, it seemed that I had a version (usually in sandwiches) of Coronation Chicken at just about every tea and party I attended. By the eighties it seemed to have died out somewhat, though I still was offered Coronation Chicken in more conservative English and Scottish households.

Recently I had Coronation Chicken in Australia in my hosts' home at Tamworth NSW (inland from Port Macquarie), then in a hotel restaurant in Maroochydore QLD, and again at a catered affair on Fraser Island. Apparently Coronation Chicken is still going strong on the eastern coast of Australia. My DH was quite taken with it. He claimed he had never encountered it before, which is thoroughly plausible since he's an American male. :-)

I don't know much about traditional weddings these days. The expense is flabbergasting. Good luck to you, Vee!

She did not have a Bridesmaids' Luncheon, because her Bridesmaids were coming from three different states. But she did take each one out to lunch at some point in the preparations.

The Rehearsal Dinner-after the rehearsal at the church the night before, naturally-(groom's parents' responsibility.) This was actually at our house because his parents live 4 hours away and didn't know the area or any restaurants, and we have a nice deck and yard and the weather cooperated. His mom had it catered by a caterer I recommended-grilled chicke (grilled right there on our grill by the caterer's husband!), green salad, deviled egges, fruit, raw veggies, a mediterranian pasta salad, red potato salad, cheeses, and finger desserts.

The wedding was at 3, reception was buffet served at stations starting at 4:30.
First we had appetizers with drinks, then that station was broken down to become the Salad station-variety of salads. We had a vegetables station, with two kinds of potatoes and hot vegetables, a carving station with roast beef and salmon and stuffed chicken breasts, and a make your own pasta station-you chose the pasta, sauce and add-ins and they cooked it in front of you. We had 115 guests and it worked really well, because there wasn't one long line beside one big table, and people stopped and talked to each other as they passed from station to station and that was a lot of fun and added to the festive atmosphere-lots of smiles and laughter.
We did come in a good bit under the US average, which is $28,000-helped quite a bit by a bride who thinks $1000 or more for a dress you wear for only 5 hours is obscene. She found a beautiful dress for much much less and looked amazing. (I got my dress on serious sale as well-yippee!)
We did not have an open bar, just wine and beer and a signature cocktail. We had a great DJ, not a band. The centerpieces were very simple, and we didn't flower up the church either. Went with the caterer's linens and place settings (plain white china, simple glassware) instead of expensive linens and gold-edged china and crystal. You have to decide where you want to put your money-and we decided that after the ceremony, people were going to remember the food and the atmosphere. So we picked a great place and a great caterer. If you are not completely bored yet, you can go to the Ballroom's blog, scroll down to the May 30, 2009 post, "A Stately Affair" and see photos. Actually, Vee, you should have your daughter scroll though all the weddings-lots of cute ideas.

Chris, you have described perfectly weddings in my area.

Does no one get married in churches anymore? My own (first) wedding reception was in the church annex hall where most such affairs were held at the time. The cake-punch-mints-nuts offering sounds like what we had and we thought it was whoop-ti-do. Actually we did have a chocolate groom's cake, too, to contrast with the white wedding one -- naturally the chocolate one went faster. I've never seen Steel Magnolias -- was the wedding in it a 'goat-roping' (all out fancy), Chris?

The prettiest wedding I've attended was that of my youngest aunt (four years my senior) held in a lovely garden. My daughter was the flower girl, and her cousin was ring bearer. Both wore white, she a short, organdy dress, and he a white suit. He had fallen on the grass and had a bright green stain on the knee of his trousers.

And I wanted to serve more than rubber church chicken...

Seems like all the tea rooms in my part of Virginia were serving a version of curried chicken salad, for "Ladies' Luncheons", as we call them.

Carolyn, do you live in a "dry county"? Just curious about the absence of alcoholic beverages. (My cousins in NC live in a "dry county.")

In the UK few, if any, churches have halls that would be suitable for a wedding reception. They are used for Boy Scout meetings, jumble sales, maybe kids parties . . . and they all have that peculiar smell.

Frieda, you ask about church weddings. Here, until not so long ago it was either at the church or in a Registry Office (our local one had a back-drop of the gas works) For the last so-many years (10-15?) other 'venues' can be licenced for weddings. It is even possible to marry in a hot-air balloon, underwater and similar nonsense places, but still before a Minister of Religion or a 'registrar'
Suddenly churches began to find a good source of revenue disappearing. It had always been required that one of the couple (usually the bride) be married in their parish where the banns would be read for three Sundays before the event. Ministers, vicars etc have now begun to realise that to keep the pews filled it was sensible to offer weddings to any couple where ever they were from. Banns are still read, as required by law (and pinned up in the porch) but is has boosted the income of many a pretty country church . . . but done little for the churches in the middle of an urban slum or run-down Council Estate.
Carolyn, I can't imagine an English wedding with nothing but 'pop' to drink. Even the Methodists have let their hair down enough to allow alcohol to be served on their premise, for functions.

And red meat for this forum: "I do not see plays, because I can nap at home for free. And I don't see movies 'cause they're trash, and they got nothin' but naked people in 'em! And I don't read books, 'cause if they're any good, they're gonna make 'em into a miniseries."

Woodnymph, doesn't matter if the county is dry or not. Down here communion is done with grape juice. We did Mom's 70th birthday party in the Fellowship Hall at church (and everybody thinks I poisoned half the county but that's another story.) Someone gave her a jug of "mountain dew" a.k.a. moonshine, but wouldn't bring it into the church building. They took her out into the parking lot to give her a taste and so she could put it directly into her car. Even them as do drink (almost everyone and btw, that is a phrasing common in the hills) pretend they don't when they are at church.

vee, please refresh my memory: is reading the banns done in advance so that anyone who thinks the marriage should not take place can come forward and protest? What is the tradition and "reasoning" behind this? Just wondering. I don't think we do this in the US. Maybe we used to in the olden days....

Chris I notice you mention that your Mother put the 'moonshine' directly into her car. I bet with that rocket fuel in her tank she got home in double quick time.

Vee, I recall seeing former churches in England in new guises: as book and flower shops, and even one as a hairdressers'. I think many Americans would find that somewhat disconcerting. Well, I guess the new venues for weddings make good business sense -- funding the maintenance and repairs of, for instance, a several-hundred-years-old castle must be costly. (I've been to Warwick Castle and watched the trebuchet launches.) The poor churches, though...

Chris, I will have to see Steel Magnolias. I'm a sucker for any film that features food -- Babette's Feast and John Huston's The Dead being two of my favorites. I can't say that I understand the appeal of iced tea, except for the coolness on a hot day, but I know that my late sister-in-law and her family (of South Carolina) and my Alabama cousins could -- and do -- drink it year around. And, lord, they do like it sweet! I always watched in fascination when they added spoonful after spoonful of sugar to a tumbler of tea until there was a good inch of it undissolved at the bottom. My SIL would stir and stir. I couldn't stand it any longer and once told her that there was only going to be so much of the sugar that could be suspended in the amount of liquid she had. So what did she do? She poured in more tea, added a couple more spoonfuls, and kept up the stirring. I gave up and just accepted that she liked it that way!

Growing up among German-American Lutherans, I thought everyone over the age of eight drank beer at home for lunch and a little wine with dinner. Our beer was home-brewed and very weak for the kids. The wine was homemade too. I didn't like either beer or wine and was never made to drink them, but I was considered an oddball. My grandmother also tried distilling but that was a secret, though not from the family who didn't see anything wrong with it.

I thought I'd moved to either Sodom or Gomorrah when I went to my first street festival in Baltimore and found that they served beer. There were children present! I was outraged.

Veer, ;-D

I can recall drinking home-made Elderberry wine in southern states, and Blackberry wine, too. On New Years and Xmas, in Atlanta, my father traditionally made a homemade Egg Nog for the neighbors and family. He made it so strong that my German friend (who was our guest one holiday) still teases me about it.

The year I lived in France, we drank a rose wine at the family table, and the children had their wine cut with water. When I visited Germany, I noticed that children were allowed beer at breakfast and in celebrations. But I'm sure the beer was a mild one....

Colleen: speaking of the ration years, they seem to have fundamentally changed people's eating habits in some respects. US rationing was only during the war years -- four years at most, compared to the fourteen years in the UK -- but the generations who lived through the Great Depression and the war had to adapt. It's funny how often people became fond of the adaptations: I remember as late as the seventies that people were still eating 'Mock Apple Pie' (aka 'Cracker Pie' and 'Ritz Pie') and using oatmeal as the filler for meat loaf. One of my aunts, who was a toddler during the war, to this day prefers the taste of margarine over butter because, as she says, "[she] was weaned on it."

The returning GIs were the big instigators of the change in American eating habits -- not all for the better, I'm afraid, but at least we were no longer so regionally insular. My own father brought home a recipe for Sukiyaki after his service in the Pacific theatre, wanting his mother to make it for him. She refused so he wound up making it himself and inviting all the folk at home that day to try it. The older people and kids would have no part of it, but those in their late teens through middle age were fascinated, though tentative. Several eventually came around to liking sukiyaki (but they never could pronounce it correctly). I grew up eating my daddy's sukiyaki, and I thought it was normal for German-Americans to eat it until my mother told me the story of its entrance into our family's repertoire.

I still make recipes called "Poor man's cookies" and "Eggless milkless cake" taht date to the 1930's or before.

Frieda, as an American with strong German roots did you grow up eating dumplings, strudel, sausages, sauerkraut etc?

Lydia, in the UK we have (or had) a terrible bottled coffee essence called 'Camp' rumoured to be made with burnt almonds. Some people preferred it to the real thing.

There were a lot of those 'poor man' recipes, some of which actually dated back to the First World War. Quite a number of them were really good, in my opinion. One of my favorites is a pork dish with the ironic name of 'Arabian Stew'. I still like Kate Smith's recipe for coffee cake. I had 'Vera Lynn cake' as well -- can't recall if it was a one-egg or a no-egg cake, probably no-egg since Vera was English.

Chris, your cake recipe sounds similar to what I used to stir up in my dorm room to "bake" in a popcorn popper (the electric poppers we had back in the late sixties were more like crockpots). Invariably the cake was scorched on the bottom and not quite done in the middle, but the charm was not so much in the taste as in the pleasure of illicit cooking.

Vee, I think many Americans love-hate eggs: some want to eat 'em but they feel guilty if they do. For twenty or thirty years we had it drummed into our heads that eggs are cholesterol-laden and diabolical. It was different in my grandmother's day when she and most nutritionists advocated that a child should have an egg every day, if possible. Now that it's known that there are different kinds of cholesterol, eggs are not so maligned. But a lot of people still haven't gotten the message. Of course some people shouldn't eat eggs, but most people can without ill effect.

Vee, yes, I grew up eating all those foods you mentioned, but the dumplings and strudel were only for special occasions -- strudelmaking, particularly, is a big production, not to be undertaken solo and probably not recommended for fewer than four sets of hands to stretch the dough (my grandmother used her 5-ft by 8-ft dining table as a template).

Krautmaking was a production, too, but only had to be done once and then you could eat the results for a good year or longer. I witnessed wurstmaking a few times, but by the time I was growing up most people relied on the professional sausage makers.

One thing we didn't eat was 'German Chocolate Cake' -- not Black Forest Cake but the chocolate layer cake with toasted coconut-pecan frosting and filling. Anyone who knows anything about Germany would recognize that neither coconut nor pecans would have been likely ingredients for a traditional German cake. The recipe that Americans recognize as German Chocolate Cake was invented in Texas and became wildly popular when it was published in the Dallas Times, circa 1957. It got it's name because a fellow whose surname was actually German invented a sweet chocolate the recipe called for. (If Mr. German's name had been, say, Mr. Johnson, would it be Johnson's Chocolate Cake?) But apparently nowadays you can get real German Chocolate Cake in Germany -- many innkeepers, restaurants, and shops got tired of American tourists asking for it, so they supply a reasonable version for the dunderheads.

My sisters and I still get together before Xmas to make huge batches of cookies but most of the group cooking and family baking projects have disappeared. It appears that it is women who are no longer as cooperative. Men still like to collaborate on barbecues and fish fries.

Corned beef and cabbage is not Irish. German chocolate cake is not German. This is seriously deflating.;)

I found out about German's chocolate when I got my chocolate cookbook printed. Two things were not allowed--you couldn't say German chocolate, and you can't print a recipe called Derby Pie (or even Horse Race Pie) because it is copyrighted. You can, however, print a recipe called Chocolate Chip Pie which has the same ingredients.

Rosefolly

Heh! Lydia, there are probably a lot of those misnamed and wrongly-attributed dishes and recipes. One that used to annoy me (but I accept now) is Chicken Fajitas. Since fajitas means skirtsteak, saying Chicken Skirtsteak is absurd and Shrimp! Fajitas even more so!! What is meant though, of course, is "in the style of fajitas."

Carolyn, is your chocolate cookbook only sweets or do you cover unsweetened chocolate dishes, such as mole and 'Cincinnati Chili'?

I have to say that Chocolate Chip Pie is not one of my favorites. I like more gooey stuff, like the Chocolate Chess Pie recipe I have shared here before that Frieda says she really likes, too. For anyone interested, here are the recipes.

CHOCOLATE CHIP PIE

2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
8 Tbsp. butter, melted and cooled
1 cup chopped walnuts
6 oz. package semisweet chocolate chips
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. bourbon
1 unbaked pie shell

Mix in the order given, pour into unbaked pie shell, and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

CHOCOLATE CHESS PIE

8 Tbsp. butter
1-1/2 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. flour
1/2 egg shell of milk (I think about 3 Tbsp; this is an old recipe)
2 eggs
1 unbaked pie shell

Melt butter and chocolate together and set aside to cool. Beat together sugars, unbeaten eggs, milk, and vanilla. Add flour and mix well. Add chocolate mixture. Put in an unbaked pie shell and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

I have never really known communal cooking with women. And men all stand around the meat at a BBQ but generally only one or two actually turn the sausages *BG* The women have usually all brought a salad from home at an Aussie BBQ (and I have never known anyone to put a shrimp on the barbie, either LOL).

The chocolate recipes look terrific!

Those Bridezilla shows on television are disgusting. They are getting the attention they want by acting the ultimate selfish witches.

Friedag, I think it does affect all parts of the activities that women once did together. Our church used to have a group of ladies who volunteered to cook for festivities, fetes and funerals. They have dwindled down to only two regulars and whatever help they can snag. The men have taken over more of the volunteer cooking for their own projects of prayer breakfasts and bazaars. The block parties in my neighborhood are most all instigated and put on by the men. The women may contribute a covered dish brought from home but many times the women themselves will not appear, sending the food with the men or children.

I think you are right, friedag, that it is isolation from close female companionship that is influencing it.

Last week we went to my brother and SIL's new house for their grandson's sixth birthday, a personal shower for my niece who was to remarry on Friday night, and to see the new house. My niece's new inlaws-to-be came to the party. We always take food to everything, and after going back for second helpings, the MIL TB said, "I'm really glad to get to know these people."

Our daughters don't contribute the way we do, but I think that is because they still depend on us to do it and that they will continue the tradition as we age out. Once at a gathering at my mother's house, someone asked her if she had done all the cooking. She said, "No, that's what I had daughters for."

I do enjoy having friends over for meals. They always come, but I've noticed that not many reciprocate anymore. I think it's because eating out is so much easier, and people have more money to spend these days.

Carolyn, your family sounds close-knit and the traditions are important enough to everyone that the next generations will take them up. I think if my family had stayed in Iowa the traditions would have lasted, but we got too scattered. While growing up I loved to be around the womenfolk. I didn't realize how much I missed those experiences until this past summer when I had my teenage niece staying with me. She seemed genuinely interested in learning family history and how things were done in the 'old days'. At any rate, she endured my blabbing and reminiscing with grace. She gets it all because she's the only girl -- all her first cousins being male.

Yeah, reciprocity seems no longer to be a social obligation. Maybe that's a good thing, in a way, but I always feel so honored and privileged when I am asked to eat at someone's house. However, it's really a cultural thing: some regions and ethnic groups just seem to be more hospitable than others. I think shyness is a big part of why some people don't invite outsiders into their homes. For example, the English seem particularly shy (maybe Vee or others can verify this) but it's why I've always felt particularly privileged to be accepted at an English family table.

Italians I've found to be so naturally inviting that they quite astound me. Last year when I was living across the bay from Naples, my flat overlooked a busy road. But on the other side of the road was a ten- or twelve-foot stuccoed fence wall that seemed to stretch for a mile or so. I could see that the trees behind the wall were fruit-bearing ones and I was curious to know what kind of orchard it was. While out walking one day I found the wrought-iron gate in the wall, so naturally I loitered and did my best to peek through it. Well, I was thoroughly embarrassed when I pressed my face between the iron uprights to find myself nose to nose with a woman whose headgear indicated she was a sister of some sort. I apologized the best I could (my Italian is awful), but instead of shooing me off the sister opened the gate and beckoned to me to enter. To shorten a long story I will say that I spent the most delightful morning viewing the monastery orchards and vegetable gardens, and then I was served the loveliest tomato/mozzarella salad and lemonade made from the lemons of the trees I had been admiring. I don't know if the sisters do this for every nosy gate-peeper, but it hardly matters because it was an unexpected pleasure to me.

I think America is such a large nation and we are all so fragmented, with scattered families,that it is hard to hold on to the older customs and traditions.

Carolyn--- "people have more money to spend these days." Oh really? Not in my neck of the woods....

Carolyn, it must be great having such a large loving family . . . and your choccy recipes sound great. I'd be pleased to buy a copy of your book. How do I find one?

Vee, did you once tell me that you live fairly close to Hay-on-Wye? That is a day trip my daughter and I would love to make next time we are able to visit London, which I hope will be next year. (This is the second year without a London fix, and I'm in withdrawal.) I would be more than happy to bring you a cookbook if there is a convenient place to meet you--besides which, I would love meeting you anyway. Otherwise, if you REALLY want one, I will mail it to you with your bookmark for Christmas.

For many years I thought that I had too many relatives, but the older I get the fonder I remember most of them-even the eccentric ones. My two sisters and I grew up fussing constantly-I think we were too close together in age. As sibling rivals we tended to downplay each other's assets and concentrated on the negatives to pick on. It is silly now to recall. Just the other day I noticed how good a dancer my youngest sister is and I am proud of her for it!

Veer, there are indeed U.S. males with the same mindset of "buddy loyalty" and taking the wife/children for granted. I do not think it is so overt as it once was, however.

Some Americans have the attitude of "my house is my castle and do not be so presumptuous as to ask to enter." I think it is part of the cocooning instinct that when the outside world seems so hostile, hide. Women may have the greater tendency to want to do this-more women seem to be agoraphobic.

Carolyn KY, I ordered your "Collection of a Chocophile" from Amazon. I am a chocophile too, so I am sure that I will enjoy reading and trying your recipes.

Friedag, I have a question. Is there a particular reason why you used "chile" for the spelling when you were talking about peppers? I notice that it is the spelling "Chile" magazine uses too.

It's a natural progression of most threads, I think, to go hot and heavy for a while (usually only when they're new). But when the novelty wears off, they dwindle until they just stop. It's not the last poster's fault! Sometimes threads are dormant for a spell, only to wake up and have another short burst or two of activity. Most likely, though, the same topics will be recycled in different threads. So, Lydia, just stick around and you can read multiple retellings of my stories -- unfortunately I only have so many in my repertoire.

As for why I spell it chile: force of habit, probably. I have lived in and have strong associations with the American southwest where that is the preferred spelling for certain Capsicum. Being as they are native to Mexico and Central America, the Spanish form seems appropriate. It also distinguishes the peppers themselves from the meat stew, chili con carne, that is usually shortened now to just 'chili'. Herr Gebhardt who first peddled his concoction of the typical Mexican and mestizo spice combinations in San Antonio, Texas was likely a bit fuzzy about the distinction between 'chile' and 'chili' -- so it's chili powder for chili. Anyway, the usual rendering of the Nahuatl word for the same Capsicum is 'chilli'. So take your pick as to how you want to spell it, but be warned that Mexicans and American southwesterners observe the distinctions! :-)

It also just occurred to me that my generation rebelled against being "relegated to the kitchen" and marched out in droves to "have a career" and this is probably one reason why the gender-bonding within traditional roles has faded.

If you want one sent directly, e-mail me at cnewlen at bellsouth dot net.

I wish that I could respond to each and every thing that a poster writes that makes me think; but if I did, readers and other posters would get mighty tired of me: I think I blab too much as it is. :-)

Anyway, I hope that Lydia is not one of our 'disappearers'. I'm afraid that we've lost too many once-active posters. Maybe she and they will come back eventually.

Thank you for explaining the difference between "chile" and "chili." I will remember it.