Vintage Whipped Cream in a Modern Kitchen
Though by no means a hoarder, I am a person who keeps sentimental things that remind me of loved ones. In my home are things from as far back as five or six generations—not that I remember those ancestors! But I do remember the special moments when parents and grandparents handed things down to me. The look in their eyes was one of long-ago memories and love.
Vintage Whipped Cream
This exact experience happened recently when my mother gave me a few kitchen tools that had been her mother’s. I already have a decent number of vintage utensils but had never seen a couple of the items Mom passed along—a glass canning funnel, for one, and a flat wire whipper for cream or meringue. It looked like something to retrieve deep-fried food from oil. I could hardly believe it might actually work.
It whipped cream in two minutes, as fast as my electric mixer. But the arm workout! No wonder Granny was so strong. The experience made evident another reason for gratitude, that we have electric mixers now. I used the whipped cream to make a simple dessert, Hawaiian Cream, that might have been enjoyed in the 1940s. The recipe is attached to this blog post if you’d like to try it.
The Vintage Kitchen
Some other vintage tools include hand-carved wooden spoons, small spatulas, citrus reamers and rotary egg beaters. The one pictured here was used by my Granny to make waffle batter in the 1940s, a thing I would never have known but for the memory drawn out by Mom seeing it.
Hand-mashing potatoes, making coffee in a percolator on the stove, baking bread and preserving food were the order of the day during World War II. Making homemade ice cream with a hand-crank machine was only for special occasions. In Europe, such a treat would have been virtually impossible due to the extreme rationing of milk.
Plastic or silicone food storage containers were unheard of—glass refrigerator dishes held the leftovers. It was an era of tablecloths and cloth napkins for everyday use, and canning foods from the garden. It was a time of gathering nuts under enormous pecan or walnut trees and using them in homemade cookies. Cookies made in heavy glass bowls and mixed with those wooden spoons, using ingredients stored in metal canisters. All accomplished in a dress complete with apron.
Rosie the Riveter and the MBTI
A most amazing factor in all of this is that, during the War years, women managed not only cooking but also cleaning, shopping on the ration, mending clothes, doing laundry, budgeting, caring for children, saving scrap materials for military use—while taking on war work!
Women fully managed their homes while taking on all kinds of office and factory jobs. They built the airplanes and flew them. They made the bombs. They got the job done at home so the military could get the job done around the world. Rosie the Riveter led the charge, and millions of women entered the work force for the first time.
Did you know this transition of women into the workplace was the catalyst behind the creation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator? It was created by two American women during the War to help other women find jobs best suited to them.
The Post-War Kitchen
World War II caused a life-altering shift in many countries. Following the war, women were let go from their jobs and sent back home as the men returned to work. But too much change had taken place for women to never be part of the workforce any more. They began to find their way back into jobs outside the home.
This may be the major reason behind all the labor-saving devices we enjoy today. Could it be that food processors, stand mixers, bread machines, automatic washers and dryers, steam cabinets, robot vacuums, drip coffee makers, plastic wrap and aluminum foil—and the instant foods in the supermarket—were all a means to the end of giving women more time for work? I wonder what my grandmothers and great-grandmothers would have thought about that.
Hawaiian Cream
Ingredients
Instructions
- Cook rice with milk, salt and sugar over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally.
- When rice is tender, add pineapple and mix together gently. Allow to cool.
- Fold in stiffly beaten whipped cream. Chill thoroughly before serving.
- For whipped cream, add all ingredients to a mixing bowl and whip, using an electric mixer or hand whipper, until cream is stiff but not dry.
Notes
This recipe lends itself well to other fruit variations. Fresh, maraschino or dried cherries, or peach or orange slices, would be delicious. Mini marshmallows, grated coconut or toasted pecan pieces would also be very good. If pineapple is not available, chopped clementines or mandarin oranges, as well as mango, could be substituted.
The original recipe called for cooking rice in a double boiler. When I tried this, it took well over an hour and the rice never got fully tender. The milk did cook down well, which gave the rice a very creamy flavor, but it is much quicker to skip the double boiler and cook the rice at a very low boil. Be sure to stir regularly while cooking.
“One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in His temple.”
Psalm 27:4