Edison Homestead Holiday Nights Recipes, c. 1915
The holiday season is upon us, and visitors to Holiday Nights in Greenfield Village may catch an Edwardian Christmas dinner being prepared by presenters at the Edison Homestead. Try our delicious holiday recipes at home!
Christmas treats laid out for guests to see during Holiday Nights at the Edison Homestead. / THF Photography, 2015.
For families in the 1910s, domestic life was changing rapidly as home economics and industry shaped how women viewed household chores and food preparation. The publications housewives turned to for holiday entertaining ideas also gave them plenty of ideas on how to spend money. Some guides were published by manufacturers looking to advertise all the uses for their products, like the Dennison Party Books or the Jell-O and the Kewpies Cookbook. Women’s magazines of the era featured gift guides and special Christmas advertisements advising readers on both the perfect gifts for the people on their lists and the perfect Christmas dinner menu. Middle-class homemakers used improved household technology, new consumer products, and helpful domestic guidebooks to celebrate Christmas traditions that are still recognizable 100 years later.
Saint Nicholas Magazine, December 1915.
All of the recipes for food demonstration and display during the Holiday Nights program can be found on the Holiday Nights event webpage in the downloads section.
Roast Goose with Potato Stuffing
Singe, remove pinfeathers, wash and scrub a goose in hot soapsuds; then draw (which is removing inside contents). Wash in cold water and wipe. Stuff [recipe below], truss, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay six thin stripes fat salt pork over breast. Place on rack in dripping-pan, put in hot oven and bake two hours. Baste every fifteen minutes with fat in pan. Remove pork last half-hour of cooking. Place on platter, cut string, and remove string and skewers. Garnish with watercress and bright red cranberries, and place Potato Apples [russet potatoes] between pieces of watercress. Serve with Apple Sauce.
2 cups hot mashed potato
1¼ cups soft stale bread crumbs
¼ cup finely chopped fat salt pork
1 finely chopped onion
⅓ cup butter
1 egg
1½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sage
Add to the potato, bread crumbs, butter, egg, salt, and sage; then add pork and onion.
Fannie Merritt Farmer, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 1896, p. 228.
Dark Fruit Cake
½ cup butter
¾ cup brown sugar
¾ cup seeded raisins
¾ cup currants
½ cup citron (thinly sliced and cut in strips)
½ cup molasses
2 eggs
½ cup milk
½ teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon mace
¼ teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon lemon extract
2 cups flour
Follow directions for mixing butter-cake mixtures. Bake in deep cake pans, 1¼ hours. Other fruits, as maraschino cherries, candied pineapples, etc., may be added.
James A. Beard, Ed.,The Portland Woman’s Exchange Cook Book, 1913, p.198.
Stuffed Dates I
Make a cut the entire length of dates and remove stones. Fill cavities with castanea nuts, English walnuts, or blanched almonds, and shape in original form. Roll in granulated sugar. Pile in rows on a small plate covered with a doily. If castanea nuts are used, with a sharp knife cut off the brown skin which lies next to shell.
Fannie Merritt Farmer, Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 1896, p. 444.
Snow Balls
2 cups sugar
1 cup sweet milk
½ cup butter
3 cups Five Roses flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
5 eggs (whites)
Mix and beat well. Bake in deep square tin. Cut in 2 inch squares. Remove outside. Frost on all sides, then roll in freshly grated cocoanut.
Lake of the Woods Milling Company Limited, The Five Roses Cook Book, 1915, p. 121.
The Usual ‘Plain’ Dessert
Dissolve one package of Jell-O, any flavor (orange), in a pint of boiling water. Pour into a bowl of mould and set in a cold place to harden. From the seven different flavors a great variety of desserts are made, and every one is delicious. No pictures can reproduce them in their full beauty. They are served either with or without whipped cream.
Genesee Pure Food Co., Jell-O and the Kewpies, 1915, p. 3.
English Christmas Cake
¾ pound butter
1 pound brown sugar
2 pounds currants
2 pounds raisins
1 pound dates
10 eggs (8 will do)
¾ pound butter
¼ pound almonds
¼ pound walnuts
½ cup molasses (or rose water)
½ teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon mace
1 teaspoon mixed spice
Vanilla
¾ teaspoon soda
5 cups Five Roses flour
¾ or 1 cup brandy
Brandy may be mixed with other ingredients or poured over cake when baked. Bake in very slow oven 3 to 4 hours.
Lake of the Woods Milling Company Limited, The Five Roses Cook Book, 1915, p. 96-97.
Rose Leaves
1 cupful sugar
6 tablespoonfuls Crisco
2 eggs
¼ teaspoonful salt
1 teaspoonful rose extract
2 cupfuls flour
Cream Crisco, adding sugar gradually, then stir in eggs well beaten; add salt, extract, and flour. The dough should be soft. Now chill dough, then roll very thin, using sugar instead of flour, to dust rolling-pin and board. Cut out with small fancy cutter. Place on tins greased with Crisco and bake in moderate oven eight or ten minutes or until slightly browned. Sufficient for fifty small cakes.
Marion Harris Neil, The Story of Crisco, 1913, p. 110.
The dining table in the parlor of the Edison Homestead decorated for Christmas. / THF Photography, 2015.
Written by the Living and Inspiring History Team.
