1912 Dinner Menu: Tomato Soup, Potatoes, Fried Swordfish, Cucumbers, Blueberry Charlotte

Woman's World Cookbook (1922) 

1912 Dinner Menu

The Home Science Cook Book (1912)
Mary J. Lincoln and Anna Barrows

Tomato Soup

Potatoes

Fried Swordfish

Cucumbers

Blueberry Charlotte

Tomato Soup.

¼ cup rice

1 can tomatoes

1 tsp salt

1 level saltspoon of pepper

1 tbs sugar

1 medium-sized onion

3 cloves

1 small bay-leaf

A little nutmeg

Salt and pepper

1 cup whipped cream

Rinse one-fourth cup of rice, and cook gently in two quarts of boiling salted water till the starch cells burst. There should not be more than a generous quart of the starch when boiled. Stew a can of tomatoes for half an hour, seasoning, when first put on, with a teaspoon of salt, a level saltspoon of pepper, a tablespoon of sugar, a medium-sized onion sliced, three cloves, one small bay-leaf, and a little nutmeg. Rub the tomato when done through a soup strainer into the rice-starch and taste to see if the seasoning is right, adding salt or pepper if necessary. Now add a cup of whipped cream and serve. This is delicious and easily prepared. 

Potatoes.

New potatoes should be baked or steamed in their skins. Old ones are improved by paring and soaking in cold water before boiling. The most important point in cooking is to drive off surplus moisture as soon as the potato is soft by cracking the skin of the baked potato, or draining off the water from boiled ones.

Fried Fish.

Flour

Egg

Breadcrumbs

Fat for frying

Clean, remove as much skin and bone as possible; divide large fish in sections of uniform thickness. Wipe dry, season slightly, roll in flour, then in egg and crumbs, and fry in deep fat like croquettes, or in a shallow pan, and turn while cooking. Deep fat should be hotter than for doughs and not quite so hot as for croquettes, since the fish must have time to cook through. About five minutes is needed to fry fillets or turbans of fish. Trout, pickerel or perch are usually rolled in cornmeal and cooked with fat salt pork in a frying-pan. Large trout may be baked. 

Berry Charlotte.

1 quart berries

1 cup water

Sugar to taste

1 quart soft white bread

Pick over and stew one quart of berries, or small fruits, blueberries, currants, raspberries or black- berries, in one cup of water. Mash well and squeeze through coarse cheese-cloth. Add sugar to taste, and boil again until it almost jellies on the edge. Have a quart or more of soft white bread cut in small, thin pieces. Put a layer of bread in a bowl or in small cups, pour on enough hot sirup to wet the bread all through, and continue the layers of bread and sirup until all is used. Put in ice chest and serve cold.