|
Grandma's Wartime Baking Book: World War II and the Way We Baked
|
| Price: |
8 new or used available from $24.75
Average customer review:
Product Description
Faced with rationing of sugar and butter (as well as canned and frozen goods, coffee, and more), calls for better nutrition, and waning morale, home bakers found clever ways to make quick and delicious desserts, for their families at home as well as their loved ones on the frontlines. Many of these recipes are collected in this volume, along with quotes, anecdotes, and baking tips from magazines and home bakers from the period, and illustrations and advertisements that capture the spirit and concerns of the era.
Recipes include:
* Sweet Potato Victory Cake - originally made with sweet potatoes from the backyard Victory Garden
* Apple Coffee Cake - a World War II favorite, with a twist
* Strawberry "Long" Cake - making the most of a quart of precious berries
* Apricot Peach Pie - with flavor and sweetness from dried apricots and heavy syrup
* Tea Party Tarts - easy to make, and morale-lifting after a sparse wartime meal
* Peanut Butter Cookies - Nutritious, butter- and sugar-free, and great for shipping to the troops overseas
* Mrs. Nesbitt's Whole Wheat Bread - a favorite recipe from Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt's White House cook
These delicious, quick, and easy recipes are perfect for today's busy bakers, and they offer a long-overdue salute to the resourceful, inventive, and patriotic women who created them.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #202229 in Books
- Published on: 2003-11-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 208 pages
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Joanne Lamb Hayes offers a sentimental collection of recipes for baked goods created during World War II in Grandma's Wartime Baking Book, her follow-up to Grandma's Wartime Kitchen. Because butter and refined sugar were hard to come by and rationed, and the thousands of married women who joined the work force were still expected to continue running their households like tight ships, these recipes for cookies, tarts, cakes, and breads are low in fat and refined sugar, very quick to throw together, and couldn't be any easier to make.
Expected to work all day, serve fresh, hot, nutritious meals on beautifully set tables, keep lush victory gardens bursting with nutritious fruits and vegetables for eating and canning, and always present themselves impeccably dressed and coiffed, there were not very many free moments in the day. So just a few minutes is all it took to get an Apple Coffee Cake into the oven, and the result is a remarkably tender, upside-down apple cake, dripping with a warm brown sugar and spiced apple syrup. Other desserts such as rich Peanut Butter-Chocolate Cupcakes and Butterscotch Squares thrilled families back then as much as they do today. Even the most old-fashioned of these recipes fit nicely into today's lifestyles. The ingredient lists are short and inexpensive--you probably already have most of the ingredients in the house. The results are comfort food at its best, and none of them take any time at all to put together. Taking a stroll down Memory Lane with Hayes is surprisingly delicious. --Leora Y. Bloom
From Publishers Weekly
What might have been merely a reminiscence of mediocre WWII-era foods is instead an interesting, thoughtfully rendered collection of comforting recipes for baked treats-from Butterscotch Squares and Banana Dumplings to Huckleberry Pudding and Apple Pandowdy. Many of the recipes in this volume exist because of shortages of certain ingredients such as sugar, shortening, butter, eggs; others employ ingredients to save them from being wasted. Hayes (Grandma's Wartime Kitchen) explains the background for each recipe-"Government warnings about waste made it a real necessity to use up those bananas that would soon be overripe"-in a manner that is educational without being preachy, and serves as a subtle reminder to appreciate the abundance that now exists in the U.S. Images from wartime posters and excerpts from advertisements of the day enhance the homey, nostalgic feel of this book and make it a fun read for those who lived through the war.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Praise for Grandma's Wartime Kitchen by Joanne Lamb Hayes
"No wonder we won the war! This look back at recipes from the World War II home front will evoke memories for those old enough to call pasta 'noodles.'"
--People Magazine
"The collection of recipes here reflects that creative spirit, as well as the patriotism so prevalent during the period. All in all, this book is recommended for those who want a taste of nostalgia, and a chance to try out some of the dishes our grandmothers were making 60 years ago."
--New York Daily News
"Part cookbook and part social studies lesson, Grandma's Wartime Kitchen tells how women...still strove to put nutritious meals on the table despite rationing."
--Chicago Sun-Times
"Joanne Lamb Hayes skillfully resurrects a slice of America's cultural history and ties practical skills more than 50 years old to today's lifestyle....Grandma's Wartime Kitchen is both culturally authentic and packed with charm."
--The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A feast of memories as well as the comforting recipes that nourished Americans through the difficult years of World War II. Whether or not you remember victory gardens and ration coupons, you will recognize the recipes as family favorites and find this taste of the past as delicious as ever."
--Nathalie Dupree, author of Savoring Savannah: Feasts from the Low Country
"Grandma's Wartime Kitchen is much more than a nostalgic cookbook. It is a cultural history that takes us right back to 1941-45 when home cooks--many of them interviewed here--supported the war effort while feeding their families. Joanne Hayes has unearthed perfectly marvelous recipes...that show how women made do--and then some--with the scarcities of food rationing.
--Marion Nestle, Ph.D., M.P.H., award-winning author of Food Politics
"No other book gives the 1940s their proper place in our culinary history."
--Jean Anderson, author of Process This!: New Recipes for the New Generation of Food Processors plus Dozens of Time-Saving Tips, from the foreword
-- Review
Customer Reviews
A fun cookbook and a bit of history
The previous reviewer did a wonderful job in summarizing the chapters of this book so I will refrain from repeating and instead will say that this book is a "good read".
There are those out there that like to occasionally peruse cookbooks (and you know who you are) but in this case there is more to think about than whether you have all the ingredients on hand. It is interesting to contemplate how much WWI and WWII affected our culture and how adaptive our forebearers were when shortages occurred. There are plenty of examples of propaganda, ration cards and excerpts from women's magazines to keep one up at night or dawdling at the kitchen table over coffee.
Enjoy!
ps -- I have made the cocoa icing and the marshmellow topped cake and both came out well.
Classy book
This book, discusses food prep, rationing and offers a historical prospective to foods prepared and served during WWII. Rationing is well explained here. I became interested in WWII cooking after I read that diabetes, obesity etc levels DECREASED during the war years. I feel this is due in part to the rationing of fats and sugers. Grandma's Wartime Baking shares baking recipes that are lower in fat and sugar. Lemon, Huckleberry, and bread puddings are included here. The cookie section offers lower sugar treats such as Gingersnaps, Apple Butter, Carrot, and Prune cookies. The oatmeal icebox cookies are good as are the butterscotch Bars. 18 Cookie recipes are in the book. Also another factor is the lack of time many women experienced- a result of women going to work. Most of the recipes are not time comsuming. The muffin chapter is impressive. Muffins and quick breads were the ideal solution for busy moms in the morning. Applesauce muffins, Popovers, Orange Marmalade Bread and Quick Cheese Bread are only a few of the offerings. Other chapters include Celebration cakes, (wedding cake is here) Cakes, Cobblers, Pies, and on and on. The cover jacket is charming, with a WWII look to it and red checkered edging. 5 stars from me.
