Vintage Cookbooks

[lydamorehouse]

 
Image: 500 RECIPES BY REQUEST: From Mother Anderson's Famous Dutch Kitchens by Jeanne M. Hall from 1948.

Every once and a while I get it into my head that I should try to make something from every single one of the zillion and a half vintage cookbooks that I have around the house. Currently, I am giving that project another go.  Normally, I run out of steam on this idea because no one really likes it when dinner is a flop. Or, let's say, the best recipe from a 1978 cookbook is the dreaded tuna bake. So, what I've decided to try this time around is to make my lunches from one of these books. That way, if it's a flop, it's a light meal and dinner can erase the horror of some 1930s oleo and lard meal. 

Today, I decided to try a split-pea soup from this 1948 cookbook. This cookbook is notable for its Minnesota connection as well, as it is recipes that were often requested at the Anderson Hotel in Wabasha, Minnesota. This is a hotel that I THINK Shawn and I may have stayed at. We did a staycation one year where we decided it would be fun to go to one of those hotels where you get a cat in your room. Keep in mind, that we left behind our three cats for a strange cat in a strange hotel. We were young and foolish. It looks like I am thinking of the VERY SAME hotel: http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk/featuring/wk-hotel05.html  It looks like the hotel closed in 2009, but so we were there some time right before it shut down. 

At any rate, the split-pea soup recipe was fairly bland as written:

Image: Split Pea and Sausage Soup

There aren't any spices in this besides... salt. I mean, I guess there are whatever spices might eke off of the sausages, but they want you to pre-cook them, so... 

I will admit that if the idea of this exercise is to precisely replicate the recipes, I failed. I just couldn't imagine this soup without some onions, so I sautéed chopped onions in about two tablespoons of butter, added the celery to that until they were both soft, and then I added the uncooked sausages and let the grease from that mingle with the "veggies," and then I also added chicken stock instead of water. I cooked the split peas separately and then added them once they were soft. 

As for sausages, I was not sure what kind I should add. Given that this is a Dutch cookbook, I suspect I was supposed to add something like a braadworst or ossenworst, which.... I mean, if I could find them, they might make all the difference. But, instead, I used Johnsonville breakfast sausages? I considered kielbasa, which I often have around, but the breakfast sausages ended up to be pretty tasty honestly.


Image: finished soup. Not bad!

I mean, would I make this again? Probably not as written. I am fond of split peas, but I would add a lot more veggies to this, like some carrots and potatoes. The sausage (as opposed to ham) wasn't as weird a choice as I expected it to be, but, if I were to make this again, I might try to hunt down some of the Dutch sausage options and see if that made the soup more interesting. 

I ended up eating two full bowls of it, so I definitely liked it. 

I am looking at a Betty Crocker from 1954 for tomorrow's lunch. But, that's going to be a Saturday, so I will have to consider something that Shawn might also actually eat. (One of the other nice things about trying these for lunch is that Shawn is away at work, in-person on Mondays and Fridays so I can try out some of the weirder recipes on offer on those days.)

If I keep this up, I will post my experiments here.

Comments

[offcntr]

Huh, I made split pea soup today too! Didn't follow a recipe, per se, except to check on the ratio of water to peas (4:1, like in yours). Two cups peas, eight water, salt, pepper, 3 diced carrots, four small potatoes likewise diced, half an onion, chopped. Oh, and the meaty bone from our Easter ham. Plus a big bowl of ham drippings at the end. Very yum.

Can't imagine breakfast sausage in pea soup; I'da gone with the kielbasa...

[lydamorehouse]

Well, it was an experiment, and the breakfast sausages weren't as bad as you'd imagine. I found them fairly tasty.

Pretty much everyone seems to have their own version of this. I would have liked to taste the original. I wonder what kind of sausage was used by the Anderson hotel.