Food
& Other Important Things
Food Notes About Very Long
Ago - Don Curto
My uncle John A. Tobin,
born in April of 1906, resides in his own home in Marquette, almost
completely independent and with an incredibly clear memory of how
things were when he was a youth. He has some things to say about eating
in Marquette. I am not one of those older people who maintain that
there was a "good old days" period in our recent history
when everything was then better. But things were different and it
is good to know what living was like at that time—even for the
youth of today who, if they are normal, think that the world was created
at the moment of their births. One can, I suppose make an existentialist
case for this but you won't find it in this column.
Some things, such as food taste, were better in those
days. Food sanitation was worse, with inadequate refrigeration, and
little, if any food inspection. Chickens were better, much better
tasting, although not as tender. It is almost impossible to get a
proper chicken today, unless you live somewhere near a chicken processor
who produces by Kosher methods and sells the bird unfrozen. Frozen
chicken really should be put into the landfill—except that it
is almost impossible to get a fresh chicken. What has happened to
the poor chicken is sad and what has been done to beef cattle is equally
sad. There is some prime beef produced, but it is very expensive and
it is generally not available in Marquette except on special order.
But the current "prime" standards are about what "choice"
was twenty years ago. The anti-fat patrol led the way in the destruction
of tasty beef. Without adequate fat marbling beef is tough and comparatively
tasteless. The anti-fat police, in its failed attempt at making us
as lean and tough as the beef, have forgot the correct weight loss
slogan: "It's the calories, stupid."
Change takes place constantly, of course: refrigeration,
refrigerated railway cars, vacuum packing, air freight, selective
propagation (a form of "genetic engineering"), advances
in chemistry (ripening green tomatoes with ethylene gas) and "education"
through advertising to advance new standards for food—such as
the belief that sugar-coated dry cereals are good for you, or that
a particular one will make all women skinny and sexy.
It is little remembered now that at one period (1900 to
1920 about) celery raised in Newberry, Michigan was considered the
best in the United States and was much sought after, with shipments
to the best restaurants and markets in the northeast and central regions.
Some celery-growing lands in Newberry reportedly sold for as much
as $5,000 an acre in those days. So what happened? Florida, California
and fast, refrigerated railway cars. The next step, for all vegetable
production, was propagation to permit slower maturing, thus giving
more "shelf life" to the products. In the case of celery,
of course, growing conditions obviously were longer in Florida than
in the U.P. Newberry celery quality did not change, of course, with
the loss of market share; what changed is economics and soon the more
expensive quality of Newberry lost out to the cheaper, almost as good
quality of Florida. That's what always happens.
Breakfast was a real, sit-down meal in the time described
here—let's say about 1915 to 1925. Many of the eating habits
and rituals prevalent early in the last century continued well into
the 1960s. My personal memory about meals and foods while I was in
my teens would be from the 1930s and I remember many of the same things
that John notes below but not nearly as clearly as he does. There
was no Hardees or MacDonald's to serve muffins with sausage and egg
or some such. Breakfast in restaurants (at the Hotel Northland or
the Coffee Cup across from the post office) was for traveling salesmen.
We ate at home for breakfast as well as for lunch. If school was within
walking distance (almost everywhere in Marquette at that time), we
went home for lunch. The "bus people" brought lunch boxes.
A common breakfast for me was steamed prunes, oatmeal,
cinnamon toast and hot cocoa. Sometimes breakfast was applesauce,
poached eggs on toast, oatmeal. Lunch might be a bowl of soup, macaroni
and cheese, bread with butter and milk. A great dessert was a slice
of fresh bread coated thickly with the heavy cream that John talks
about below, with sugar sprinkled over it. That was a dessert! These
meals were eaten sitting at a table, not on the run, not munched in
a car. Mothers were home. Everyone in Marquette had a mother at home.
Now, of course, I know that wasn't true, but it seemed that way and
it was the normal way. Anything else was abnormal. When I got older
and looked at the not very good relationship my parents had I was
trapped between two thoughts: (1) they should have divorced and (2)
I'm so grateful that they did not.
Here are some recollections from John Tobin about how
at least one local family ate at this time in Marquette.
"Toasting bread was made in the Franklin stove oven
from entire (whole) wheat flour and baked in round White House coffee
cans. Toast was made first by holding a slice of bread with a three-prong
fork over a burner on the gas stove. Later a four-sided pyramid-shaped
perforated metal device that held four slices of bread set on a properly
adjusted gas burner would toast one side at a time. The resulting
product would vary in color from near black at the bottom to pale
orange at the top. However, with a liberal coat of butter the taste
would shame the modern versions.
"Next came the main course—either oatmeal mush
(steelcut oatmeal only); a good spoonful of sugar made it pretty good
if it were not too lumpy—or corn meal mush disolved in milk and
cream, which was equally good. There also was a mandatory dish of
stewed prunes, a glass of milk and perhaps a Mary Anne cookie to hold
us until dinner time." (Mary Anne cookies were store-bought cookies,
molasses-based with a boiled white icing.)
"At this time, dinner was the main meal— meat,
potatoes and gravy and bread and butter. Celery sticks, radishes and
in season, dandelion greens and cowslips. The meat was usually pot
roast, beef or pork, meat balls or stew. The meat balls were made
of ground beef and bacon, about 1-1/4 pound round steak and 1/4 pound
bacon ground together at Anderson's butcher shop. These were cooked
in browned flour with a bit of water. Stew meat was round steak and
was cooked with rutabagas, carrots and potatoes. There were seldom
pickles or mustard, but never catsup.
"Supper could be poached eggs on toast, bacon and
eggs, French toast, milk toast, hash or even fried potatoes and a
pork chop. Desserts were prune whip, apple snow, rice pudding, custard,
pies and cakes.
"Flap jacks with butter and maple syrup and little
pork sausages (Jones Dairy Farm) made a special meal. Pea soup, rice
soup, vegetable soup, onion soup, cabbage soup or potato soup began
most meals as the soup kettle was always on the back of the stove.
On Sunday we sometimes had chicken and homemade ice cream.
"Our milk came from the Marquette City Dairy. Special
milk had an extra cap over the top with a wire fastener. It was often
delivered by Frank Vandenboom. Mrs. Beekman on Fourth Street had a
cow and in cool weather I would often go there with a nickel in the
bottom of a gallon pail with a tight cover in the form of a cup. It
would be milking time and for the nickel she would fill my pail from
another one with a spout with a very fine screen. Later the milk would
be poured into a large shallow pan and set in the shed to cool. In
the morning there would be a beautiful thick layer of cream.
"Butter came from P. Stuer's farm. It came in two-pound
crocks covered with a waxed paper. He came to the house often enough
to keep us well supplied.
"Cheese came in large wheels kept under glass and
cut into wedges for sale.
"Buttermilk came in ten-gallon cans from Rice Lake,
Wisconsin via Railway Express. It was divided among the families.
"Prunes, raisins, apricots and figs came in ten-pound
boxes from Sears. Eggs came from Grandma Beaudette (Ida Tobin's mother)
and also an old chicken occasionally. Fish came from Anderson's Fish
House. A four- or five-pound trout sold for fifty cents.
"Whole, milk-fed pigs were one dollar and were served
for New Year's dinner. Oysters, shucked, by the quart, came from Delf's
grocery on Washington Street, close to Donckers." (I recall Delf's
as one of the most elegant stores of my early memory. It had a long
display of fresh greens down one side of the store, beautifully arranged
and kept fresh with a fine water spray. I think of it as an oasis
in a fresh vegetable desert. I think that the big Depression killed
it.)
"Honey came from Mr. Pritchard in Wisconsin. We got
a two-quart pail annually.
"Ham was from the Swift Company with the famous slogan
‘the ham what am.' Ham was wintertime only.
Spices came from the Great A&P Tea company and door
to door from the P.C. Monday company.
Maple syrup was special from the Peter White camp at Onota.
"Large soup bones, cracked and with soup meat on
them were ten cents.
"Also at home there were great pasties, tarts and
cookies. My mother also made wonderful home-baked beans. I don't recall
ever having casseroles or salads."
Maybe this wasn't the very best way to eat, but we were
well nourished and not rushed as much. Now, a special report from
the U.N. states that there is a new class of eater in the developed
nations, such as the U.S., who is eating too much and too much of
the wrong food and who is probably part of the fastest growing group
of the malnourished.
Well, as they say, "Delenda est Carthago."
—Don Curto
