Please Follow Directions

West Bend Aluminum Co. began marketing Flavo-Seal, a line of waterless cookware, in 1932. Recipes and Instructions for Waterless Cooking (1947, 22 pp.) was an instruction and recipe book for their Flavo-Seal de Luxe Aluminum Ware.

The booklet describes the virtues and potential uses of the various pieces of the de Luxe line and gives a few recipes suitable for each individual utensil. The utensils addressed are the One Quart Sauce Pan, Two Quart Sauce Pan, Three and Four Quart Sauce Pans, 10- Inch Covered Skillet, Griddle-Broiler-Server, Dutch Oven Roaster and the French Fryer Insert.

One of the major selling features of the de Luxe line was its heavy weight. It's mentioned a lot.

"The above illustrates clearly the difference between triple-thick aluminum and the ordinary aluminum cooking utensils. This heavy, armor-weight with thick walls and thick flat bottom distributes the heat evenly and quickly. It also prevents burning of food."

In the section for the 10 Inch Covered skillet is the special advice on how to prevent warping:

"Never apply excessive heat to the utensil -- follow directions as given above. After taking cooked food from the hot utensil, never put cold water directly into it until the utensil has cooled to room temperature. If it is necessary to place water in pan after cooking, use hot water only."

On page 22 instructions are found in regards to Care and Cleaning. For those who neglected to follow the advice given on page 13 in regards to warping the following helpful advice is given:

"Place flat wood block on bottom of utensil, either outside or inside depending on way the pan is warped (see sketch below). Then use hammer to restore original flat bottom."

This advice may provide the explanation of the often-seen rounded dings in the bottoms of old aluminum skillets. Some folks probably didn't use the wooden block as directed.

Edited to Add: What is Waterless Cooking?

Waterless cooking is a method of food preparation which cooks foods in their own natural juices and moisture, with little or no added water. This method cooks rapidly at lower temperatures and retains more of the original minerals, vitamins and nourishing elements. It causes the simple foods to be more appetizing and palatable--more of the natural flavor, color and firmness is retained. Food shrinkage is minimal. The lids of the cookware are designed so that they form a seal when the natural juices begin to evaporate and no liquid escapes.

The cookware can be used for boiling, stove-top roasting, pan-frying, oven roasting, for cooking frozen foods, in place of a double boiler and for poaching. In most cases, modern waterless cookware is made from stainless steel rather than aluminum.

Cookbook Triple Play

Wherever I go, I cannot resist picking up the cookbooks. I may not take them all home with me, but I ALWAYS look at them. After the food company cookbooks, some of my other favorite types are regional and fundraising cookbooks.

The other day, while on my way home from borrowing a pressure cooker from my dad, I picked up what looked to be a Tennessee regional cookbook at the Bellville General Hospital Ladies Auxiliary Resale Shop. (Ladies, I do like your shop, but I sure miss the annual Rummage Sale and the two week pre-sale of all the books! We don't have nearly enough Rummage Sales here in Texas.)

The Etowah Cook Book (1945, 62 pp.) is a collection of favorite recipes that were collected and compiled by the Ladies Auxiliary to The Order of Railway Conductors.

It's like many others of the same ilk--it contains recipes popular during that particular time period, from that particular area, and the names of the recipe contributors. Also like so many other older fundraiser and community cookbooks, there is a notable lack of illustrations.

While looking through the book a bit more thoroughly after I got home, I was pleasantly surprised to find several small advertisements for JFG Special Coffee and J. Allen Smith's White Lily Flour. Since Etowah is located in McMinn County, Tennessee, it's not surprising that two of the (sponsor?) ads in the cookbook are for Tennessee-produced products. Like so many other humble food companies of the past, these two brands are now owned by mega corporations, Reily Foods and J M Smucker, respectively.

I was surprised, however, to find the ads there at all. And while the majority of the recipes call for generic ingredients, there are recipes for White Lily Buttermilk Biscuits, White Lily Self-Rising Biscuits and White Lily Baking Powder Biscuits. No recipes using JFG coffee though, but the company slogan is there: "JFG Special Coffee -- The Best Part of the Meal".

This cookbook also has a nod towards the World War II sugar rationing, something many U.S. housewives had to contend with in the years leading up to the publication of this book. There is a small section in the Cake category that addresses this situation:

Sugar Saving Tips from White Lily Flour

In home baking, delightful cakes, cookies and other good things can be made
using sweeteners other than sugar. Molasses, sorghum, honey, light and dark corn
sirup*, and maple sirup are available and are excellent substitutes.

All of these sweeteners contain some water since they are in liquid or "sirupy" form. Therefore a few changes in recipes must be made when these are used. Cut out these rules and past them in your recipe book:

1. Never substitute other sweeteners for all sugar in baking recipes. Equal parts of sugar and other sweetener gives excellent results. One-fourth sugar and three-fourths other
sweetener gives good results.
2. When using molasses or sorghum, reduce liquid one-fourth cup for each cup of molasses or sorghum used. Allow 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda for each cup of molasses or sorghum.
3. When using honey, reduce liquid 1/4 cup for each cup of honey used. Use slightly lower oven temperatures to prevent oven-browning.
4. When using corn sirup, reduce liquid 1/4 cup for each cup of corn sirup used. Light corn sirup is better for light cakes, breads and cookies. Dark corn sirup is good in spice and other dark cakes, cookies and breads.
* (as spelled in the book)

So even though this book was not published specifically as a promotional item by a food company, I can rationalize and fit it into my advertising cookbook realm. After all, it DOES have those three brand-specific recipes. And I'll stretch it further and consider it to be somewhat of a wartime cookbook, as it does have suggestions to compensate for the shortage of sugar.

A triple play. I like that. (I am so easily amused.)

What Makes Jelly Jell?

Yes, I have finally returned after an extended absence from this blog. I've been working on another project which I hope to reveal sometime soon. Although I am one who practically lives at the keyboard, I can only stand so much time in front of the computer. It's good to be back.

I still have gazillions of little advertising cookbooks that I wish to share with you here. I never tire of them and hope that you won't either.

The booklet I chose today, What Makes Jelly "Jell"? (1945, 23 pp.) was produced by the Consumer Service Department of General Foods. This was a 5th printing. This same title was published as late as 1951. The products being promoted within its pages (like you can't guess already) are Certo and Sure-Jell, commerical pectins used in jam and jelly-making.

I love the look of the vintage packaging. Note the lovely old glass Certo bottle that the liquid pectin came in. I think that the never-ending, tireless parade of plastic bottles and pouches used today are boring. I am almost always inspired to buy any product if the manufacturer has taken the trouble to package it in a glass bottle or jar. A utilitarian glass bottle is much more interesting to me than its utilitarian plastic relative.

Inside the booklet are four Lessons that show you how to make Strawberrry Jam and Grape Jelly, Wintertime Fruit Spreads (Citrus Fruit Marmalade, Thrifty Marmalade, Grape Juice Jelly and Dried Apricot Jam) and also some recipes that use the final results of your efforts. Some of the Jam Cupboard Recipes are for simple things such as Crispy Turnovers and an Old-Fashioned Jelly Roll (Swans Down Cake Flour and Calumet Baking Powder are other General Foods-recommended ingredients here).

The jelly-making directions are presented in one of my favorite ways--step-by-step instructions and plenty of visual aids. I believe this was a booklet used in schools, perhaps in a Home Economics class. This is because there are two versions of the recipes--a small size and a large size. The small size, a special two-glass size, was developed for classroom use. The large size recipes make anywhere from 5 to 10 six-ounce glasses. Are there any former Home Ec teachers out there who remember using this particuar pamphlet in the classroom? The format and presentation made it quite useful to students.

One section is devoted to a Water Jelly Demonstration--an easy experiment that shows how the three essentials of fruit, sugar and pectin combine to form a jelly with an ideal set. This would have also been useful in adult homemaking classes or as a demonstration at a state or county fair exhibit. No doubt today's homeschoolers or 4-H members could incorporate it into their lesson plans or projects as well.

The Lessons are illustrated with those 1940s era pictures that I like so much. The illustrations in the booklet are much like the photographs that can be found in the Cornell University Library Human Ecology Historical Photographs Collection. I like comparing this photo, one of a 1916 rhubarb jelly-making demonstration, to the one at the left which is shown in the booklet.

The clothes worn by the demonstrators in the two photos reflect the almost 30-year difference in fashion--the hairstyles, the aprons, the dresses, but the women shown both appear attentive and so serious about their chore at hand. In this instance, it's almost as if time stood still in the kitchen. The equipment hasn't changed much either; the booklet shows almost the same type jelly bag in another photo, simple glass jars, and a bowl. A reamer is shown in the booklet because she's making a citrus jelly. Chances are that the 1916 photo would show the same glass reamer had they needed it for rhubarb.

This other photo shows some of the equipment needed for cooking, pouring and covering the jellies. Although now slightly modernized, you would use much the same equipment some sixty years later.

This booklet is plumb full of now-collectible kitchen tools and equipment. Some of these things were made so much better in the past than they are now. So much better that I still prefer to use many from this time period in my own cooking today.