I think the cookbook comes from the early Sixties, but there’s no date inside. The Moffat cookbook, given away when people bought new stoves. It belonged to my mother, who died Before, as I think of it now. Long Before, but I’m doing a household purge that starts with a couple of boxes of her stuff that have squatted in the attic for far too long. Here’s a sample recipe:

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From Soup to Nuts Cake

  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tin cream of tomato soup
  • 1 cup raisins 
  • ½ cup washed currants 
  • ½ cup chopped walnuts
  • 1 ¾ cups sifted cake flour
  • ¾ teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon each cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves.

Pre-heat oven to 325 to 350 degrees. Cream butter, add sugar and tomato soup. Add sifted dry ingredients then fruit and nuts. Mix thoroughly and bake in a greased 8×8 inch pan in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes.

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I don’t have a can of tomato soup on hand so I haven’t tried to make it. My mother would have used Campbell’s Tomato Soup, as per Andy Warhol. I don’t remember her serving this particular cake, but she might have. Bless her, my mother was a dreadful cook.

I remember her making the Boston Brown Bread recipe quite frequently, a quick bread that relies on molasses and sour milk. After laying out the ingredients and way to prepare them (available on request), the book instructs:

“Fill well greased baking powder tins 2/3 full and cover them with heavy waxed paper. Steam for 1 ½ to 2 hours.”

She used an old coffee tin, as I recall. 

“Serve this bread with homemade baked beans (she used a couple of cans of Heinz baked beans) or thinly sliced and spread with pineapple cheese for afternoon tea sandwiches.” 

I’ve dedicated the upcoming fall and winter months to my ongoing attempt to get organized. My next novel comes out in fall, 2021, and I’ll have publishing chores to do until then, but nothing consuming. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve also finished a good draft of the subsequent novel, which looks as it it will come out in 2023. Since the publishing world isn’t aching for me to release a novel every year, I thought I’d finally finish the purge before starting anything else. 

On top of which, it’s already taken roughly forever. 

When I pulled out the Moffat cookbook, I realized that the recipes were the ones some people—women, housewives—would have made in the early Sixties, when my 2023 novel is set. Re-opened the file and threw in the names of a couple of the recipes. So that was useful. 

But something else also got me thinking: the Leftovers section. 

Reading this part doesn’t bring back the smell of my mother’s kitchen. (Beefsteak and Kidney Pie. Baked Stuffed Onions.) Instead, it reminds me of the thriftiness of the period, when most people were stretched financially. Not badly stretched, given post-Second World War prosperity. But in suburban one-breadwinner families, Mom staying at home, people were conscious of saving their pennies. Most families had big mortgages. 

Mending clothes? Darning socks? I can remember my mother doing that, and how she gradually stopped. A few people like me started making jars of jams and preserves as artisanal presents but there was no financial necessity. Milk and soft drinks stopped coming in recyclable glass bottles that had to be taken back, and people gradually decided not to cook as much, eating out and ordering in. Women were entering the workforce, gaining more freedom. But with the vast majority of men not picking up the slack on housework, life turned more out-sourced and less environmentally friendly.

Almost all the recipes in the Moffat Leftovers section sound awful, but I wonder whether this degree of thriftiness will come back. Maybe it’s started to already. There’s certainly going to be an After to this pandemic as well as a Before, and the pundits sound right when they say things are going to change radically when the time comes for a post-vaccine financial reckoning.

“Financial reckoning” is probably a less scary term for a Depression, which my mother and her suburban friends remembered very well from their childhoods. So here you go, for future reference, ways to stretch dollars until they snap. 

Or whatever dollars are going to do once we totally stop carrying cash.

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Leftovers

Stale Cake—Line moulds with stale cake and fill with a gelatin or Bavarian mixture.

Cake Crumbs—Use to top fruit puddings and coffee cakes. Make cookies and small cakes of cake crumbs. 

Fats—Vegetable shortening or oils that have been used to fry potatoes or donuts may be strained through a cheesecloth and used in some pastry, in cookies ad quick breads.

Pastry—Roll leftover pastry thin and line a square cake pan. Turn batter for Brownies or Chinese Chews into pastry lined pan and add 25 to 30 degrees higher temperature for the first 10 minutes.

Sour Milk—Use soured milk for quick breads, cake, cookies and puddings.

Potatoes—Combine diced cold potatoes with crisp bacon, chopped hard-boiled eggs, minced onion, diced sweet pickles and mayonnaise. Heat slowly in a double boiler and serve hot. This hot potato salad is tasty served in bologna cups or parboiled green pepper cases.

Cabbage—Fry sliced onions or mushrooms until nicely browned in melted butter or bacon fat. Add chopped cooked cabbage and season well. Stir onions and cabbage together until thoroughly heated and add chopped parsley and diced pimiento just before serving. 

Donuts–Split donuts and butter them. Slip under the broiler to toast. Serve with grape or red currant jelly for tea.

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Copies of the vintage Moffat cookbook are on sale on both Etsy and eBay for $11.99 plus shipping. Anyone who wants mine can have it. I don’t think I’ll be making Cornflake Meringues any time soon.

Far Creek Road is now available here.

And I wrote another couple of stories about 1960s cooking and cookbook writer M.F.K. Fisher starting here.