I was immediately reminded of brother Hoyt's first job at A&P in Rome, GA, before I was even born. Most of what I knew about that was what I read in Hoyt's memoir. Since I wasn't there for all of this story, facts may be somewhat rearranged. Hoyt worked at A&P, went off to WWII, and his plane was shot down in the Pacific. He came home with lumbar fractures, recovered, went back to the Army Air Corps, married Evelyn and went to work for Best Foods in Atlanta after the War. They eventually moved to Chicago, where after many years, he retired, some kind of Vice President.
I told all that to get to the part about Hellmann's Mayo. Best Foods had name changes and product changes but Hellmann's persists. After the war, Hoyt was selling Best Foods products: Mayonnaise, Nucoa margarine, Shinola shoe polish and salad dressing are the ones I remember. Sometimes at Christmas every family got a box of mayonnaise and salad dressing. I can't remember if shoe polish was included.
The most elegant item my playhouse ever boasted was a poster featuring Hellmann's. Hoyt came by to visit and gave me the lithographed posterboard. It was titled "From Soup to Nuts" and had recipes, only one of which we ever tried, the part about nuts.
It was a simple recipe: take raw shelled peanuts, roll them in Hellmann's Mayonnaise and roast them in the oven at 350 degrees until the papery husks start to pop and the nuts are brown. They come out roasted and greasy. (The recipe didn't mention the greasy part, it just said to drain them on brown paper.) Back then we didn't buy paper towels, but we did have Kraft paper grocery bags, made locally from local pine trees.
We didn't grow peanuts. Our neighbor to the east, Mr. Dock Moates, grew a little patch of peanuts when he plated the rest of his vegetable garden. He grew popcorn, too.
I can't recall any of the other recipes on my poster, which featured that pretty Blue Ribbon of Excellence and lots of yellow in the background. The Touch Quilt I worked on today has a blue background with a yellow umbrella applique in progress and lots of ribbons.
We used mayonnaise in making sandwiches and as salad dressing for chicken and potato salads and Pear Salad, my favorite. I used to wish for company because Mama always made Pear Salad but never just for regular dinner.
People in the Mill village put mayonnaise in their cornbread. I can't remember about prices in those days, but I suspect it was a cheaper way of putting in egg and shortening. Mama didn't put egg in her cornbread. Ruth did. We used lard, lots of lard. When soybeans grew on our land, we never thought of them as something to eat, at least I didn't. They were a soft market commodity just as wheat and cotton were.
I did think of wheat as something to eat. Freshly ground whole wheat flour does not keep for very long. When Daddy took wheat to Stiver's Mill in Rome, he used to bring home what Mama called graham flour. Biscuits were brown speckled as long as the flour lasted without turning rancid. We didn't consider how much healthier whole wheat was, just that they were tasty.
I was just reading that Best Foods uses soybean oil in their mayonnaise. I wonder what oil they used in the 1940s? Was it soybean then, too? Did they change to corn oil when the company was bought out by CPC? Does anybody besides me think about various oils used in cooking?
1 comment:
Jean, I loved this one! Memories.........
This brought back several. My Dad used to talk about the delicious bread his Aunt Gertrude made using graham flour.
I didn't realize you could make cornbread without egg until once we were making it for a chili supper for PTA and were short on eggs and the principal said we didn't need eggs in the cornbread. I didn't believe him.
As to oils, I am a bit of a fanatic on real foods these days especially since Max had the heart attack back in 2004. They don't like soybean oil; something about the processing it makes it very unhealthy. I still use some. I cook a lot with olive oil and use it in my DIY soaps.
I remember during WWII Mom using margarine that was white but had a bubble inside the squeezable package that had coloring in it. We got to squeeze the package to mix the coloring.
Lard is something I have been using since 2004 but can't find any locally that is not partially hydrogenated (a bad thing). I do render my own lard when we buy a hog. I remember Grandma rendering it in a huge cast iron pot outside over an wood fire on butchering day. I have great memories of that day.
We could keep each other entertained over coffee (or tea) for days with our memories.
Keep writing them.
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