We've done a few posts recently using our bound magazine resources, and some of you thought it was pretty cool that you could come to the library and look at Life and Look from the 50s and 60s.  Did you know that we can go quite a bit farther than that?  Between our bound magazines and microfilm holdings, we have several titles that go all the way back to the 19th century.  You can come to the Periodicals Department and take a look at The State back to 1891, Harper's New Monthly from 1888, New England Magazine from 1831, Atlantic Monthly from 1857 and several others.  Today I'm going to tell you a bit about Godey's Lady's Book, which we have from 1843 to 1870 with some gaps.  One reason I like this title so much is that we have it in bound volumes rather than microfilm, so it's easier to browse and the tinted pictures are in color.

Godey's was published for a wide female audience.  It was the most popular magazine of its day, although it was fairly expensive - subscribers paid $3 a year.  In comparison, The Saturday Evening Post was only $2 for an annual subscription.  Women all over the country subscribed, from big cities to rural farms. 

So what did you get for your three dollars?  A lot, actually.  The magazine is incredibly eclectic and gives lots of entertainment and advice per month.  Isolated rural woman particularly looked forward to the magazine for its fashion plates, recipes and literature.  Let's go through a typical issue, December 1859 (a century and a half ago to the day!), and take a look at what Godey's has to offer.

At the front of every issue there's a tinted fashion plate and several other drawings of the latest fashions.  That's how these ladies got their fashion groove on - there are no patterns or instructions, just drawings of what the new dresses looked like.  Some of them do have descriptions: "Dress of Queen's purple reps; the bottom of the skirt has a bias border of moss velvet, a still deeper shade of purple, the upper edge of which is waved or scalloped; the sleeves are trimmed with the same, and scarf-shaped lappets, edged with black lace, fall below the waist."  Got all that?  You looked at the pictures and you just whipped one up yourself, or took some elements from the drawings and made over an old dress to be more stylish.  It's easy to forget how skilled these women were at needlework, sewing and other domestic arts - trust me, making this stuff was obviously not for the faint of heart.  In addition, every issue has patterns (not usually instructions, just drawings) for embroidery motifs, filet crochet and other 19th century fiber arts.  

Then there's a piece of sheet music for the piano (this one's a sentimental song titled "How Pleasant 'Tis to Live") and a large literary section.  The stories are generally serialized and quite lengthy - I'm sure you'd wait with baited breath from month to month to find out what happened next.  There are also serialized drawing lessons for you to work on from month to month.  When the drawing lessons have finished they might be replaced with other serialized instructional segments - some years there are serial lessons on cutting down adult clothing for children, for example.  Then some more pictures of clothing you're supposed to make - this time for your kids -  and some crochet.  Finally, something with instructions I understand!  The Crochet Coronet Basket has a crochet pattern just like a modern one.  (No, I didn't make it for you.  Don't get greedy.)

The last section is, to me, the most interesting - "Receipts, &c."  Of course, "receipts" is an old-fashioned way to say "recipes", but there's more than just recipes in this section.  You'll find home remedies, major first aid instruction, skin care, laundry advice and more.  There's even a column of household hints and recipes sent in by readers. 

My original intention was to try making one of the skin creams and report on how well it works, but upon closer inspection it seems I'd have to start out by harpooning a sperm whale.  Since that was counterindicted, instead I decided to make one of the recipes for you.  This one is in every single December issue I looked at, so it must be very popular.  It's for Twelfth Cake or Christmas Cake.

To two pounds of flour well sifted unite
Of loaf-sugar ounces sixteen;
Two pounds of fresh butter, with eighteen fine eggs,
And four pounds of currants washed clean;
Eight ounces of almonds well blanched and cut small,
The same weight of citron sliced;
Of orange and lemon-peel candied one pound
And a gill of pale brandy uniced;
A large nutmeg grated; exact half an ounce
Of allspice, but only a quarter
Of mace, coriander and ginger well ground,
Or pounded to dust in a mortar.
An important addition is cinnamon, which
Is better increased than diminished;
The fourth of an ounce is sufficient.  Now this
May be baked four good hours till finished.

Well, as poetry it's not much, but let's see how it bakes up!  Click the title of the post to see the results of the Great Sesquicentennial Christmas Cake Experiment!

I have to confess that I got a long way into planning this before I realized, slowly, that I was making.... fruitcake.  I hate fruitcake.  I was theoretically aware that special occasion cakes throughout history have pretty much been fruitcakes until this century, but I didn't actually connect that to the idea of me making a fruitcake.  But we've come too far to stop now, so we'll just have to find out what antebellum fruitcake tastes like.

The first thing I did, obviously, is to reduce this recipe.  I don't know how many people a fruitcake with eighteen eggs in it feeds, but I'm not eagar to find out.  I halved it, so as we go through the recipe I'll give the amounts I used in parentheses in case you want to make it yourself.  Halving the recipe produces about three loaf pans of cake.

To two pounds of flour well sifted unite (1 lb)
Of loaf-sugar ounces sixteen (8 oz)

Loaf-sugar is just refined sugar, only we're lucky enough to not have to scrape it off a loaf.  Do you have a kitchen scale?  If you don't, get one and use it all the time for baking - it really makes life a lot easier.  How many times have you had to add, say, five cups of flour to something and forgotten halfway through how many cups you've already measured out?  Yeah.  You won't do that with a scale, and it's faster too!

Two pounds of fresh butter, with eighteen fine eggs (1 lb butter, 9 eggs)
And four pounds of currrants washed clean. (2 lbs)

Since there are no real instructions here, I figured I should cream the butter and sugar like I would for a modern recipe and do all my wet ingredients in the mixer before adding the dry ones.  When everything wet had gone in here I gave it a taste (I'm not scared of raw eggs) and it was like the world's most buttery eggnog. 

That is a lot of currants.  I didn't wash them, assuming antebellum currants were just dirtier.

Eight ounces of almonds well blanched and cut small (4 oz)
The same weight of citron sliced (4 oz)

I didn't blanch the almonds.  I figured they'd be okay.  And those little pieces of citron are the devil's gummy bears - we are not adding citron.  No way, no how.  (Luckily it doesn't call for those nasty green candied cherries, or I'd go on strike.)

Of orange and lemon-peel candied one pound (1/2 lb)
And a gill of pale brandy uniced (2 oz)

I intended to make my own candied peel, but I just didn't get around to it and then the season was upon me, so I had to pick some up at the store.  I really didn't want to use the corn-syrup laden modern stuff, but I couldn't find an alternative.  I also couldn't find orange peel anywhere, so I decided to do without that too and just put more lemon peel in.  I was operating on the idea that the Civil War housewife would make do with what she had and not fail to make a cake because there was no candied orange peel, right?

A gill is more complicated - there's an American gill and an Imperial gill.  I went with the American gill, which is 4 fluid ounces.  Nobody's going to complain about extra brandy, though - suit yourself.

A large nutmeg grated (half a nutmeg), exact half an ounce
Of allspice (.25 oz, or 1.5 teaspoons), but only a quarter 
of Mace, coriander, and ginger well ground, (.75 teaspoons, about)
Or pounded to dust in a mortar.
An important addition is cinnamon, which
Is better increased than diminished;
The fourth of an ounce is sufficient... (.75 teaspoons)

Half a nutmeg is a lot of nutmeg!  I put all the spices in with the liquid ingredients to make sure they were well blended throughout the cakes.

Then of course I stirred everything in with the dry ingredients.  Trust me on this one - you're going to need a really big bowl.  It's heavy and there's a lot of it and even if I had done the whole recipe I think I'd have had to split it into batches just because I don't have a hog scalding kettle to mix it up in!

...Now this
May be baked four good hours till finished.

Hmm.  I realize my hypothetical nineteenth century housewife didn't have an oven with a temperature dial, but you'd think there'd be a suggestion of how hot it should be.  I looked at some modern recipes for fruitcake and such and decided to try four hours at 250 and just see how it goes.

And it's... bubbling?  I have no idea how it's supposed to look and am just going by the clean knife test, but it smells good and it's been four hours, so we'll assume whatever that liquid is is just bubbling in sheer Christmas joy.  Either that or I'm accidentally frying my fruitcake in butter, which is certainly possible.

The verdict?

Tasty!  Really tasty! You can hardly taste the candied fruit "fruitcake" stuff, although of course I left some of that out - it's more of a currant cake than anything else, anyway.  It's very dense and not overpoweringly sweet.  It would be nice for breakfast or with coffee - it's nothing like a fluffy iced cake.  In fact, I took it to a breakfast event and it was a huge hit, even with people who didn't know it was a history experiment.  I think I've found a fruitcake I can stand.

Anybody who's interested in history, especially women's history or fiber arts, should definitely have a look at Godey's Lady's Book.  It's a fascinating window into another time, and the recipes are still good even after a hundred and fifty years (exactly)!  Come down to the Periodicals Department and have a look!