Fields Of Heather: Vintage Cooking Items Defined

When we bought the farm from my mother in law, it came with a recipe drawer. Her recipes, recipes from aunts, friends, sister in laws, mostly in family members handwriting. My daughter & I have been working through the drawer, trying as many of the recipes as we can. In this process, we have come across some ingredients that we had to define before we could use them. I'll continue to update this post as we work through the drawer and find more ingredients we don't quite understand at first.

Canned Milk
Both evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk, come in cans - but in vintage recipes that call for canned milk, they typically mean condensed milk.

Mangoes

When transcribing my husbands grandmothers cookbook, I came across a recipe that used "mangoes" where it did not sound like mangoes would have been used. Especially since this is a depression era cook, and mangoes are not grown anywhere near us. If they DID have access to mangoes in this area in 1935, I am sure they would have been way too expensive for most of the housewives to ever use.

So I asked my mother in law, and she explained that a mango is a bell pepper. I found this site that speculates on why, based on the word meaning pickled and stuffed pickled peppers being so popular.. it's a theory, anyway.

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Oleo
Oleomargarine is the full term - it was the margarine of the 1950's. In the recipes in the drawer here at the farm, I substitute half shortening/half butter for oleo. I do not like margarine, but if I use just butter it often is not the right consistency.

In 1886, dairy farmers were opposed to margarine. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan and Maine banned the product, & 32 states passed laws requiring it to be a color other than yellow, to make it clear to the public that this product was not butter.

Originally margarine could not be colored yellow, as dairy farmers did not want it to be confused with butter. It was sold white, and you could add yellow food dye to color it yourself. In the ad above, you could buy it with the dye pack right in and mix it without putting it in a mixing bowl.

Rep. William Price of Wisconsin, referred to margarine as "counterfeit butter" and sought a "tax so high that the operation of the law would utterly destroy the manufacture" of the butter competitor. The margarine tax continued until 1950.

During the depression, when there were butter shortages, margarine gained popularity. A gallup poll in 1948 showed that 33% of households were using margarine, with just 45% using butter. Legislation was then introduced to repeal the margarine tax, and in 1950 the tax was repealed. In a 1991 gallup poll, 63% of households were using margarine, with just 20% using butter.

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Sour Milk

Sour Milk is buttermilk

Or, take 1 cup of water, remove 1 Tablespoon. Add 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice, or vinegar.

Spanish Style Tomato Sauce

In a goulash recipe, I came across the ingredient "One small can Ideal spanish style tomato sauce". I wasn't sure if this was spaghetti sauce, or a certain kind of tomato sauce.. the recipe also called for tomato juice, so plain sauce feels like overkill here.

I cannot find anything on the "Ideal" brand. The best I could find was this description of the Goya tomato sauce: "Traditional Spanish style all-purpose tomato sauce made with rich tomatoes, peppers, and spices. Recognized for its consistency and multiple uses, it adds a special flavor to your meals"