{"id":25459,"date":"2012-01-16T08:00:16","date_gmt":"2012-01-16T13:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=25459"},"modified":"2012-01-13T18:32:44","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T23:32:44","slug":"ways-and-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/16\/ways-and-means\/","title":{"rendered":"Ways and Means"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Many people engage in dubious experimentation in their youth. Some get involved with intravenous drugs. Others sleep with problematic men. A few tattoo their faces. I, for my part, went on a spree when I was nineteen of cooking exclusively from a 1917-era cookbook.<\/p>\n

The book, A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband (with Bettina\u2019s Best Recipes)<\/a><\/em>, might sound vaguely titillating. It\u2019s not. ATWtPaH<\/em>, by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron, is the story of Bettina and Bob\u2019s first year of marriage. The fictional, surnameless couple, who populate a series of domestic vignettes (with menus and recipes), seems to live on the outskirts of an anonymous American city where Bob does \u2026 well, some kind of office job. It\u2019s 1917, but apparently no need at all to mention the War. My copy is a yellow hardcover I acquired at a long-ago church sale; it\u2019s illustrated liberally with images of mischievous chef-cupids and periodic thumbnail sketches of the newlyweds. By the time we meet the pair, on their first night in their brand-new, cozy brown bungalow, the honeymoon is over\u2014literally.<\/p>\n

When the happy-go-lucky Bob suggests dinner out, after they disembark from the train, <\/strong>he\u2019s treated to the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ashamed of you! We\u2019ll take the first car for home\u2014a streetcar, not a taxi! Our extravagant days are over, and the time has come to show you that Bettina knows how to keep house!\u201d <\/p>\n

Home again, and swathed in a trim percale apron, Bettina turns to her \u201cEmergency Shelf,\u201d which will become a recurring character, along with the word \u201ceconomical,\u201d her energy-efficient fireless cooker (a slow cooker of sorts), and the budget notebook that is her preferred topic of dinner-table conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was fun,\u201d Bob says of the day they assembled the shelf.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, and work, too,\u201d said Bettina, \u201cbut I\u2019m glad we did it. Do you remember how much I saved by getting things in dozen and half-dozen lots? And Mother showed me how much better it was to buy the larger sizes in bottled things, because in buying the smaller bottles you spend most of your money for the glass. Now that you have to pay my bills, Bob, you\u2019ll be glad that I know these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

In case you\u2019re wondering, that evening Bob sat down to:<\/p>\n

Creamed Tuna on Toast Strips
Canned Peas with Butter Sauce
Rolls \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Butter
Strawberry Preserves
Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows<\/p>\n

(This being Prohibition, coffee also figures heavily in all meals, summer or winter. And when two characters\u2014the frivolous Alice and the \u201cwoman-hater\u201d Harry Harrison\u2014become engaged after a very sketchy courtship, Bettina and Bob pop open some grape juice.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cBettina\u2019s Best Recipes\u201d would be enough to send Alice Waters into paroxysms of terror and pain. There is white sauce\u2014never b\u00e9chamel!\u2014in everything. What doesn\u2019t have white sauce has mayonnaise (which the thrifty Bettina makes in bulk, needless to say) or the boiled dressing (a sort of cold, vinegary white sauce) at which, when I embarked on my youthful cooking spree, my college boyfriend drew the line.\u00a0\u201cSalads\u201d are liberally strewn with pimiento, while seasonality doesn\u2019t seem to trouble anyone: summer\u2019s a time for apple pie and \u201cveal loaf,\u201d while peach cobbler for some reason shows up in January.<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s not all gloom and economizing! To make up for that first meal, Bettina prepares a steak dinner. But don\u2019t get too excited: as she tells Bob, \u201cSteak is expensive, dear, and you\u2019ll not get it often, but as this is our first real dinner in our own home, I had to celebrate. I bought enough for two meals, because buying steak for one meal for two people is beyond any modest purse! So you\u2019ll meet that steak again tomorrow, but I don\u2019t believe that you\u2019ll bow in recognition!\u201d<\/p>\n

(Presumably not\u2014unless, that is, he\u2019s already on terms of some intimacy with \u201cBoubons with Tomato Sauce\u201d\u2014the next evening\u2019s iteration.)<\/p>\n

There are also parties\u2014lots of parties. There\u2019s the pink and white luncheon for Bettina\u2019s bridesmaids; the motor picnic; the porch breakfast for a bunch of suffragettes; a Halloween party; a fondant-log-bedecked Washington\u2019s Birthday tea; a particularly grotesque children\u2019s luncheon; and, of course, the wedding festivities\u2014rainbow announcement luncheon, kitchen shower, pair shower, et al.<\/p>\n

The cast of characters cannot be called well-rounded. In addition to Alice (frivolous) and Harry (\u201cwoman-hater\u201d), there are Ruth and Fred (no distinguishing characteristics) and the Dixons, who are having domestic troubles due to Mrs. Dixon’s terrible housekeeping. Don\u2019t worry: Bettina gets their marriage back on track by teaching her how to make coffee and making her rent a house\u2014they\u2019re \u201cboarding,\u201d you see.\u00a0As Bettina diagnoses their marital problems, \u201cYour husband is just hungry\u2014that\u2019s all!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Although Bettina boasts that Bob \u201cdoesn\u2019t like to be away from home at all,\u201d one wonders if he doesn\u2019t just fear retribution. Bettina seems to spend the bulk of her time lecturing Bob, reveling in the superiority of her own housekeeping and her impeccably ordered world, and making all her friends feel inadequate. After only a few dinners in her company, the reader is prepared to reveal state secrets of a sensitive nature rather than listen to a single additional lecture on the economic marvel that is the fireless cooker.<\/p>\n

The cookbook\u2014as well as the others it spawned, Bettina\u2019s Salads<\/em> and Bettina\u2019s Desserts<\/em>\u2014has a loyal following amongst collectors, and it took me several years to lay my hands on the immediate sequel, A Thousand Ways to Please a Family<\/em>. I had filled many hours envisioning just how insufferable a mother Bettina would make, how bossy, how high-handed, how smothering. I was both relieved and slightly disappointed to find that, by the time her kids Sue and Robin are of school age, she\u2019s chilled out somewhat. Indeed, by first-book standards, she\u2019s practically laid-back. Sure, there\u2019s plenty of talk about nutrition and \u201cdigestible\u201d foods, but to her credit Bettina places a high premium on her childrens\u2019 independence and doesn\u2019t knock herself out over their meals. (On the contrary: if memory serves, their weekday lunch is \u201cgraham bread\u201d and a glass of milk.) It\u2019s a good read, but it simply can\u2019t compare with the frenetic oddity that is A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband. <\/em><\/p>\n

ATWtPaH<\/em>\u2019s appeal as a cultural artifact is obvious: the menus are like time capsules. And while it would be a stretch to call the books actively progressive, the emphasis on modern methods, labor-saving devices, and the science of housekeeping\u2014not to mention that suffragette brunch!\u2014is clearly intended to inspire the young bride not just with confidence but with a sense of the importance of her role. As Bob observes over ham (after a scintillating discussion of the accounts book), \u201cSome men seem to think that it doesn\u2019t take brains to run a house well, but they don\u2019t know. It requires just as much executive ability and common sense as it does to manage a big business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>None of which, of course, really explains why I felt so compelled to cook exclusively from Bettina\u2019s dossier. I justified my youthful experiment on vague grounds of historical research and sociological study. But the appeal was more elemental than that: like any young bride of 1917, I wanted to enter into Bettina\u2019s perfectly ordered existence. (Besides, I was curious about just what those boubons would taste like.) Bettina was a martinet, no question\u2014and yet she kept her husband so pleased<\/em>! Were the recipes good? Could the prescriptions delight a twenty-first-century man? I\u2019ve always had a fascination with period cooking; the units in elementary school where we replicated pilgrim meals and medieval feasts are amongst my happiest memories. Unlike other forms of historical recreation, when you eat vintage food there is no pretending involved.<\/p>\n

And so I started cooking. Every meal, every day, for as long as I could stand it.\u00a0I remember that, at the time, I was house-sitting for one of the university\u2019s deans and so had access to a grown-up kitchen. The dean and his wife, enthusiastic and ambitious gourmets, would doubtless have been appalled to see the use to which I put their batterie de cuisine. <\/em>Never, I am sure, had their kitchen seen so much white sauce. I turned out popovers and waffles, prune whip and \u201cSpanish Buns,\u201d escalloped oysters and chicken croquettes. With every unseasonal meal (it was a warm May) my friends were forced to drink cup after cup of weak coffee.<\/p>\n

While simple by haute standards, the cooking demanded a ton of time in the kitchen. By the time I was done with the grinding of meats and bread crumbs, the melting of butter for said crumbs, and, of course, the inevitable white sauce, every dish in the kitchen had been used.\u00a0I found myself resenting the lack of a fireless cooker. The food was rich, but the portions 1917-tiny; probably a quarter of the standard contemporary size. My boyfriend, unlike the complacent Bob, routinely required additional snacks (and not least because, in a spirit of verisimilitude, I insisted we dine at six P.M.<\/small>). For my part, I started sneaking in fruits and vegetables between meals. Economical Bettina\u2019s recipes may have been, but they did not meet twenty-first-century nutritional standards. The experiment broke down on my birthday; I simply couldn\u2019t bring myself to celebrate with the festive, prescribed menu of tuna loaf and marshmallow cream.<\/p>\n

Although I\u2019ve not since been tempted to replicate the food, the book has remained one of my chief comfort reads, a bastion of make-believe order in a scary world. As an adult with a home of my own, I may fall far short of Bettina\u2019s standards\u2014certainly my gas bill would appall her\u2014but her lessons have stuck with me. \u201cRomance is in everything we do lovingly and intelligently,\u201d she observes in the book\u2019s final chapter, \u201cThe First Year Ends.\u201d And while our definitions of \u201cromance\u201d may differ, that\u2019s advice that crosses the generations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many people engage in dubious experimentation in their youth. Some get involved with intravenous drugs. Others sleep with problematic men. A few tattoo their faces. I, for my part, went on a spree when I was nineteen of cooking exclusively from a 1917-era cookbook. The book, A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband (with Bettina\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[489],"tags":[5688,5682,3564,5686,5684,5687,5681,5680,5683,5685],"class_list":["post-25459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","tag-a-thousand-ways-to-please-a-family","tag-a-thousand-ways-to-please-a-husband","tag-alice-waters","tag-bettina","tag-bettinas-best-recipes","tag-bob","tag-helen-cowles-lecron","tag-louise-bennett-weaver","tag-prohibition","tag-white-sauce"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWays and Means by Sadie Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"January 16, 2012 \u2013 Many people engage in dubious experimentation in their youth. Some get involved with intravenous drugs. Others sleep with problematic men. 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