Kristin Holt's Blog, page 5

Victorian Oatmeal Porridge Recipe

We've seen recipes for oatmeal cookies (with and without raisins), oatmeal in Victorian bath water (to soften and whiten skin), and more. Who knew that Victorian Oatmeal Porridge Recipes could require significantly more instructions (and a dedicated saucepan!) than any other vintage recipe?

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Oatmeal in the Victorian Toilette

In this Blog Article Series about Victorians and Oatmeal, we've seen cookies (both with and without raisins), Victorian attitudes about oats for food (rather than fodder), and vintage newspaper clippings highlighting the attitudes of some American Victorians. This article is still about oatmeal--and Victorian woman using those rolled oats in bath sachets to soften the skin. See the Victorian-American bath sachet recipe(s).

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Oatmeal and Victorian America’s Attitude

Some Victorians spoke of oatmeal as if it were a mainstay of their diets. Others claimed oats were fit only for animal fodder or for use in baths to soften skin... but food? Ugh. No. Why were beliefs so polarized? Why did Victorian-Americans have an aversion to oats?

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Oatmeal & Victorian America’s Attitude

Some Victorians spoke of oatmeal as if it were a mainstay of their diets. Others claimed oats were fit only for animal fodder or for use in baths to soften skin... but food? Ugh. No. Why were beliefs so polarized? Why did Victorian-Americans have an aversion to oats?

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Oatmeal for Food, 1873

In support of my other articles about oatmeal in the recipes of Victorian-era Americans, this post contains a lengthy vintage newspaper clipping, an article titled "Oatmeal for Food". Originally published: Green-Mountain Freeman of Montpelier, Vermont on May 21, 1873. Included as a careful transcription, maintaining formatting, spelling, punctuation, paragraph length, and more. Also includes the digital images from the nearly 150-year old newspaper.

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Victorian Oatmeal RAISIN Cookies

Near the year 1900, Victorian-American cooks finally started combining raisins (which they had plenty of uses for) and oatmeal--a grain they'd only recently begun accepting. This article contains several vintage recipes from nineteenth century newspapers: raisins in other late-Victorian recipes, and at last--chopped raisins IN oatmeal cookies.

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Victorian Oatmeal Cookies

Today, April 30, is Oatmeal Cookie Day!

Who knew?! "Everyone" online claims Fannie Merritt Farmer's oatmeal cookie recipe (1896) to be the FIRST published (FALSE!)... but I found fourteen Victorian-American recipes in vintage cook books and newspapers beginning in 1883. How did history (mistakenly) favor Fannie?

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Book Review: Write Your Book in a Flash by Dan Janal

I not only READ Dan Janal's title: Write Your Book in a Flash -- I used it as a guide while I wrote a nonfiction participant's manual. My Goodreads review is linked within.

19th Century Turnkey Doorbells

I've read fiction set in the nineteenth century that references doorbells-- and gets it right! (I can't properly convey how giddy this makes me!) Picture that turnkey doorbell that makes a mechanical clattering sound inside the house.

February 23 – National Banana Bread Day

Today, February 23, is National Banana Bread Day. While banana bread (as we now know it) became a staple among home bakers in the 1930s, banana bread had its start in the late Victorian era where "banana flour" came to the United States from the tropics. Vintage newspaper advertisements show the beginnings of banana bread available in bakeries and homemakers' awareness of quality nutrition to be found in the imported fruit and "flour." With or without nuts, banana bread is a hallmark of American quick breads... and our nineteenth century ancestors, complete with baking powder and a wealth of cake-baking knowledge, were prepared for the post-Great Depression's urge to "use it up."