JUMP TO RECIPE

This blog post is dedicated to Ann, who makes the leap into the world of Mitford peaceful and thrilling at the same time.

It’s no secret potatoes helped millions of people survive World War II. They were one of the most reliable sources of food because they could be grown locally rather than being imported. They kept well and were a good source of vitamins and energy. They were high in much-needed vitamin C and had enough fiber to fill hungry stomachs.

The Ubiquitous Potato

Recipes using potatoes were found in magazines, newspapers, radio broadcasts, department store demonstrations and cookbooks. Besides the usual side dishes, potatoes featured as a substitution for any number of hard-to-get ingredients. They were in pie crust, breads and cakes, soups, puddings and pie fillings. They replaced or augmented fish and meat in stews, fish rolls and turnovers. They made pancakes, floddies (aka latkes), salads and even chocolate sponge cake!

Aside from being versatile enough to use in such a staggering array of recipes, potatoes were popular with most people. Although rationing was less severe in the United States than in some European countries, Americans also lived with things like Victory gardens and fake butter. American cookbooks published during the War, like their European counterparts, featured a variety of potato dishes to fill the gap.

A Delmonico’s Specialty

The Victory Binding of the American Woman’s Cookbook: Wartime Edition, published in 1943, included a recipe for Delmonico Potatoes among its offerings. The history of this famous dish is vague. Since the recipe’s introduction at Delmonico’s Restaurant in the 1800s, it has been reproduced in countless variations and perhaps no one knows the “real” recipe. The version in this Wartime edition cookbook looked so delicious, I had to try it.

The recipe is simple and adaptable to the varying amounts of fat—namely, butter—homemakers might have had. Other than greasing the baking dish, the only fat “required” is in the white sauce. The buttered crumbs can be unbuttered or simply omitted. Even the fat in the white sauce can be substituted.

In a white sauce, butter is used to keep the flour from forming lumps. If a homemaker did not have butter to spare, a very similar white sauce could be made using corn starch or arrowroot powder instead of the flour and butter. That would have made this version of Delmonico Potatoes even more attainable for wartime homemakers. The recipe also mentions adding cooked pimientos to the sauce and adding cheese to the topping. These variations are only the beginning—this is a recipe that lends itself to your imagination when it comes to adding or changing ingredients.

Delmonico Potatoes in an Appalachian Menu

I made the recipe using a 7-ounce jar of sliced pimientos. I toasted the two heels from a small loaf of bread and crumbled them on top (unbuttered) along with a small amount of cheese, maybe 1-2 ounces. During the War, that amount of cheese would have been a lot in places like Britain, but this recipe serves six for that amount of the cheese ration.

We enjoyed our Delmonico Potatoes with home-cooked pinto beans and cornbread for an Appalachian-style wartime menu. If you are not familiar with Appalachia, it is a mountain range spanning 13 states in the Eastern part of the USA. It includes the incredibly beautiful Blue Ridge, where the air across the mountain valleys is an ethereal periwinkle-blue. Many European immigrants—Scottish and Irish, in particular—settled in this region. It is an area veiled in mystery and much misunderstood, but valuable for more than the soldiers it gave to the War effort.

In fact, the Blue Ridge Mountains are the backdrop for a series of books authored by Jan Karon, who was a young girl during World War II. Her first-grade classroom in Hudson, North Carolina was in the foothills of the Appalachians. The Mitford Museum—named after the novel At Home in Mitford—is now located in that same classroom and contains many World War II-era memories. It may be small but it is delightful! I recently had the privilege of going through the museum with a dear friend and our tour guide, Ann, is an expert on all things Mitford. As if all the 1940s memorabilia were not enough, Ann made the world of Mitford come to life. It was a tender experience, treading the wooden floorboards of another person’s life, and one I am not likely to ever forget.

References

Berolzheimer, Ruth, ed. Victory Binding of the American Woman’s Cook Book: Wartime Edition. Chicago: Consolidated Book Publishers, Inc., 1943.

O my Strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love.

Psalm 59:17