The Dreamstress

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Eating in 1916 – a dinner

Thank you all for your comments and support following my last post! You’ve given me a lot of ideas, and I really appreciate knowing that so many people are reading and being part of this community.

I’ve felt much perkier today, and mostly the fortnight isn’t too bad, and some things are really lovely.

Food has been one of the nice surprises. There are numerous recipes in NZ newspapers of the time, and daily menus given in lots of newspapers, so it was pretty easy to do my food research. I was a bit dubious about the menus (So much meat! So many brassicas! So few spices!), but, by picking ones that sounded a little more interesting and appealing, even within the constrains of the time, and winter food, I’ve actually been very pleasantly surprised.

One of the happiest finds was the amount of vegetarian menus and vegetarian recipes available in New Zealand newspapers of the 1910s. Vegetarianism was quite a popular fad, and was sometimes recommended for invalids. I haven’t relied too heavily on them, but have used them as a guide for substituting butter for lard etc. in recipes.

It’s also been nice to fully set the table, nicely pressed tablecloth and all, and sit down to eat with Mr D. Generally we just eat in the lounge (partly because I generally have the dining room table occupied by crafting stuff…)

Here is one dinner I made, closely based on this menu published in the Dominion (a Wellington newspaper) in September 1913. I used the curry recipe give in the menu, and sourced recipes for the other items from other newspaper articles:

Brown Onion Soup (halved). The recipe is from 1917, but closely matches ones from earlier cookbooks, I just chose to follow this one as it didn’t call for a dozen onions to start with!

My reaction: yum, yum! I love this and would happily eat it again!

Mr D’s reaction: you didn’t actually expect me to like this? (I knew he didn’t like raw onions, but he’s usually fine with cooked ones. He just wants them to not be THE flavour of a dish)

Curried Venison and Rice (substituting venison for mutton, and brown for white rice)

My reaction: better than I thought. Needs more spice. Not sure about the apples.

Mr D: It’s nice. A bit different. (I don’t make a lot of curries)

Boiled Swedes (rutabegas)

With salt and pepper.

Despite their oft-terrible reputation, we both liked them. Neither of us grew up with swedes, so they have novelty appeal. I actually make a swede recipe as part of my Thanksgiving table, much to the amusement of Mr D’s family, who do NOT see them as celebration food!

Also, they weren’t BEIGE! The one major problem with 1910s food is it is all beige!

Baked Apple Dumplings (another variation)

NZ had a major apple overload in the autumn/winter of 1916, because a shortage of available ships kept growers from exporting their crops. Cooks were urged to incorporate apples into as many dishes as possible (note the apples in the curry), and apples featured largely in many desserts. The pastry portion of this dessert would have been a bit of a luxury: the price of flour had gone up almost 1/3 since the war started.

I added sultanas (raisins) to my baked apple, as there are many baked apple dumpling recipes of the time that include them, and followed a period short-crust pastry recipe, with the addition of wholemeal flour, which was encouraged both for its ‘wholesomeness’, and due to the price of white flour.

My reaction: This is a 1916ism I can happily live with!

Mr D’s reaction: Can I have the second half of yours?

My reaction: No! Mine!

1916 Megrims

Published by The Dreamstress

Day 10 of the Fortnight in 1916, and I have woken up blue and glum and over it.

I don’t want to be in 1916 anymore!

I did not want to get up this morning and spend 45(!) minutes dressing: brushing my hair and putting it up and putting on all the layers of required clothes.

I don’t want to have to wait for the kettle to boil*, and be in the kitchen while I make breakfast because I can’t just stick toast in the toaster and just walk away.

I definitely DON’T want to do today’s chore, which is laundry. Last week’s was the trial one: this is the real thing. I have a full week’s worth of clothes, and sheets, and I’ve decided to really give it a proper and have gone through Mr D’s closet and fetched out every business shirt I thought would benefit from a bit of Sunlight Soap and a good scrub, so there is a large basket.

And it’s cold, and grey, and windy, and hanging laundry will be awful.

And I finally have chilblains.

And I don’t want to have to make a three course dinner, especially since we have SO MANY leftovers, and they all have to be used super quickly, because period refrigeration is not so good, nor are period food-covering methods (no plastic!)

And I have seen photos of what I look like in 1916, and my hair wants to turn late ‘teens hairstyles into nothing but frizz, and my skin is purple and splotchy without makeup. Ergh.

On the bright side, every period diary I have read is quite whingey, and anyone who can possibly afford to seems to spend at least one day a week, or three breakfasts of the seven, in bed because they just don’t feel up to it. And these are ones who didn’t have to do their own laundry and had a maid to bring breakfast!**

So my sentiments aren entirely understandable, and my resolve in not succumbing to the desire to just hang around in pyjamas and watch bad TV all day is eminently laudable.

Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself!

To try to cheer myself up, and to relieve one of my biggest stresses, I am going to step out of my 1916 life for a moment, and ask for something that a 1916 woman couldn’t:â€ â€ moral support in the way of advice.

One of the big things that is getting me down, and which I am stressed over, is Costume College. I leave in just under two weeks, and I’ve been focused on getting patterns out (Henrietta Maria dress! Buy it here! Next one coming soon! (but not as soon as I wanted, which was over a month ago)), and going home to Hawaii, and making practical, boring clothes for my Fortnight in 1916, and I thought I might get things done during the Fortnight, but that clearly isn’t happening, and so I haven’t made anything new and pretty.

This is fun to sew on, but it doesn’t go very fast!:

Everyone always shows up in such spectacular things (and always brand new!), and all my favourite things are getting a bit old and worse for wear (or worse yet, don’t fit me anymore), and don’t really show my current skill level (and yes, I would like to show off!) and I don’t have time for something new and spectacular. All in all I’m just feeling frumpy and dumpy and insufficient. And when I’m stressed I am terrible at decision making, and just flit around doing a bit of one thing and then another and can’t focus and decide. And I really MUST decide what exactly I’m wearing, and get together any little things I don’t have for it that might be useful.

So, here is what I’m asking: of everything I’ve made over the years, what’s your favourite? If you are/were going to Costume College, what would you most like to see?

I need, at the very least:

A Friday Night Social Dress (theme: something to do with the circus)
A Gala dress (theme: Midsummer Nights Dream – but lots of people don’t stick to themes)
A Pool Party outfit (theme is Mod (or something to do with the 60s, but I’m pretty sure I’m NOT sticking to theme!) Something a little cooler and lighter.

Almost all of my makes are here on my Portfolio page.

So there you go, a shameless request for a bit of input and ego stroking. Please do help!

*Though the kettle makes me a little happy, as every time I put it on in the morning my brain starts singing “Early the morning the kettle does boil / you’d swear it was singing of Cod Liver Oil”. Having Great Big Sea on the brain isn’t the worst start to a day!

** Of course, I also don’t have to worry about sons or a husband or brothers off at war. Nor whether that a headache is going to turn into measles or deadly flu, or weather a cough is the first stages of consumption.â€ Those were more likely among the poor, but they hit every class. Just in case you had any doubts, the past SUCKED in lots of ways!

â€ On the other hand, if I do get a headache etc, the only period-accurate medication left to me is aspirin/dispirin,^ because the medical establishment has decided that the most commonly mentioned ‘I felt poorly so I took some’ medication in NZers WWI diaries, chlorodyne, shouldn’t really be legal. Something to do with the part where it was pretty much just opium, chloroform, and marijuana.

^ which was popular-ish in 1916, and very popular in 1917, because the American patent had just expired so the price plummeted worldwide, which may have contributed to fatality rates in the 1918 flu epidemic, as doctors proscribed huge doses of aspirin for the flu, inadvertently killing their patients with aspirin poisoning.

â€ â€ Well, she couldn’t from such a large group of supportive, like minded people who also know what you are talking about and won’t judge you!

A Fortnight in 1916: the halfway point

Published by The Dreamstress

I’m halfway through the Fortnight in 1916 project – 7 days of life in 1916 down, 7 more to go.

What’s going well so far, and what’s been hard?

Things that are better/easier than I expected:

Food:

I really thought the 1916 diet would be a struggle, and was quite worried about some of the dishes, but most of them have been very pleasant surprises. The emphasis on fish (over mutton and other meat, which was being exported to Britain in large quantities), the wide variety of vegetarian dishes (evidence suggests it was a reasonably popular trend in 1910s NZ), and the reduction in bread (due to its high cost during the war) have helped. I’ve really been enjoying things like swedes and steamed cauliflower, and I haven’t been craving fresh greens, nor fruit other than apples, nor seasonings like garlic and ginger that usually feature heavily in my cooking. There is actually a lot of vegetables – just in slightly different forms. While the cooking is all quite simple, you are generally using fresh, very good quality ingredients.

Heat:

I was very worried that I’d be hideously cold the whole two weeks, and while I have been exceedingly lucky in that we are having an unprecedentedly warm winter, even on super cold days I’ve been very comfortable. Between my wool stockings, cotton combinations, a corset, petticoat, wool skirt, cotton corset cover and cotton blouse, and wool cardigan, with hat, coat and gloves for going out, I’m well covered. In fact, I’ve been so warm that on many days I leave off the cardigan: with my core is so nicely warmed from the corset that I don’t need one. Even my hands have stayed warm, and miracle of miracles, I haven’t got a single chilblain

Because I’m so well dressed, and so active cooking and doing housework, I’ve been running the heater much less than I usually would in winter, which is quite nice.

Depending on what stockings I’m wearing, there is a strip of skin exposed at the top of my thighs, but it hasn’t felt exposed or cold: the petticoat and skirt provide such nice insulation, and creates a sort of warm tent for my legs.

How comfortable such clothing is in winter certainly explains a lot about New Zealand housing. When your clothes are doing such a great job insulation isn’t such a priority!

Stockings:

Continuing on the warmth/great clothes theme, I was worried that wool stockings would be extremely itchy, but nope. Super comfortable! All my stockings are made from my stocking pattern, and they haven’t annoyed me one bit when worn for 13+ hour stretches.

Shoes:

Wearing ‘proper’ laced, heeled shoes from 9am to 9pm every day of the week sounded like torture (as compared to living in lovely, snuggly, sheepskin booties whenever I am home) , but I haven’t minded at all. They are low heels, but still. Heels. And real shoes.

Things that are worse/harder than I expected:

Wearing a corset all the time. Sitting in a longline just isn’t fun. It’s better in a hard chair, but even so, it’s hard to sit and sew or write. It’s not that it’s uncomfortable on a minute-by-minute basis (and it’s certainly gotten more comfortable as the week went on), it’s that it’s never quite comfortable.

Just wearing all the clothes. It’s a lot of weight. It takes energy to just live in them, and everything you do in them takes more energy, and I’m tired all the time.

Getting anything done other than living in 1916. Between cooking, getting dressed, the effort of moving about, and the lack of desire to sit, it’s almost impossible to get anything else done. Everything takes so much time and effort. It’s not that much harder to do the housework, but I don’t get it done, because I’ve spent the whole day cooking breakfast and dinner and walking to the shops and taking a sponge-bath etc. The 1916 lifestyle really is meant for people living in extended families: there is no point to cooking three courses for two people. I wonder if some women found that in some ways it was a relief when men went overseas: suddenly they had so much less pressure to cook and present.

Things that I’ve noticed that I didn’t even think of beforehand:

Plastic: It is HARD to live without plastic. It really makes you appreciate how awesome it is, and worry about how frivolously we use it, and how much needless, disposable, single-use plastic there is, because it’s going to suck when it runs out (trust me. Living without it is not fun).

Silence & Sound: your options for music in 1916 Wellington were gramophones, what you could produce yourself, or live music. I don’t have either of the first two, or the opportunity for the second, so my life has been very silent for the last week. No background radio or TV, no songs. Quite a number of the wartime diaries etc that I read as research mention how important a piano was, and that really makes sense. Without all the aural clutter of modern life, it’s quite startling to me when I do hear it. Walking into a shop with music playing is suddenly jarring. Now that I’ve realised how different it is without it, I wonder if it is actually good for us to live with the constant canned, artificial noise.