Cooking Through the Decades: Authentic Recipes From the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s

Rural America in the 1920s was a time when neighbors got together to help one another with tasks on the farm and, in between the work, they shared stories and enjoyed the home-made meals and snacks provided by the hostess. She might bring out a plate of cookies or an elegant cake, and she would take pride in the complements and expect requests for her recipes. Alice Tomashek Kertesz lived in rural Wisconsin and haslots of memories – and recipes – from that era. She remembers her mother helping their neighbors with feather plucking when it was time for their neighbors to sell the ducks they raised. Alice always hoped her mother would bring home some new recipes they could try making on their wood-burning stove/oven. Cookbooks were not common in those days, and recipes were passed around and copied and recopied onto treasured recipe cards.

The 1930s were mostly about “making due” as incomes plunged during the Great Depression. Electric kitchen appliances had begun to appear during the 20s, and more of them came on the market in the 30s, along with cookbooks that, for the first time, gave precise measurements. Also new and popular were portable radios that let women listen to soap operas while they cooked.

The 1940s saw kitchens take on a sleeker polished look with appliances built into the design of the kitchen. The War years meant women going to work in factories and having to cook without sugar and other ingredients that were unavailable or rationed. New appliances were not available either, as factories turned out tanks and airplanes instead of refrigerators.

Alice Tomashek Kertesz has kept her recipes from those decades, collected during the years she was growing up in rural Wisconsin and teaching in one-room schoolhouses as a young woman. She lived with a number of immigrant families during her teaching years in the late 1930s and early 1940s; she obtained recipes from all of them. Alice came to Flint Michigan for a summer job in a spark plug factory in 1943 and met and married John Kertesz. Her daughters and granddaughters have preserved the recipes and are responsible for this cookbook.

Here are 154 authentic recipes from the decades of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Cooking Through the Decades includes Alice’s colorful commentary on how she acquired many of the recipes, and her daughter Theresa’s comments on the changes to kitchens and cookbooks over these decades. Here are recipes with a past – elegant cakes like Feather Spice Cake, Strawberry Meringue Cake, and Enchanted Cream Sponge Cake, unusual recipes like Caraway Seed Cookies and Radio Pudding, along with low- or no-sugar recipes from the World War II years like Maple Syrup Pie and Honey Party Loaf Cake. This is a cookbook and a history lesson, all in one. Enjoy!

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