Every woman wants to be beautiful, but in these hard times, most women don’t have a lot of money to spend on their appearance. If nickels and dimes are scarce at your house (and the dollars even scarcer), try these tips and tricks, contributed by the friendly ladies of the Darling Dahlias, who know a thing or two about staying beautiful.
Cucumber and Mint Cleanser
Bessie Bloodworth grows cucumber and mint in her garden and aloe on her back porch. She buys the glycerin at Lima’s Drugstore.
3 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, chopped
1 cup water
3 tablespoons fresh cucumber juice
2 tablespoons aloe vera gel, scraped from a fresh leaf
1 tablespoon glycerin
In a nonreactive pan over medium heat, brew the mint leaves in the water for 5 to 8 minutes, to make a strong tea. When it’s cool, strain out the leaves, add the cucumber juice, the aloe vera gel, and the glycerin and mix well. To use, wet a clean cloth with the cleanser and rub lightly over your skin. Store the leftovers in the icebox to keep from spoiling.
Honey Facial Cleanser
Alice Walker’s husband Arnold keeps bees, and Alice makes a facial cleanser with their honey.
1⁄2 cup honey
2 tablespoons mild shampoo (such as Rexall’s or Palmolive, from Lima’s Drugstore)
1 cup glycerin
Put everything in a bowl and mix it up together. You don’t have to keep this one in the icebox.
Rose Skin Toner
Earlynne Biddle has lots of roses. She saves the petals and hips and uses them in the old recipes handed down from her mother and grandmother. This is one of her grandmother’s recipes. Earlynne says you don’t have to keep this in the icebox but it will be nice and cool if you do.
3 tablespoons fresh rose petals
4 tablespoons fresh sage leaves
2 tablespoons rosemary
1 cup white wine vinegar
Put your clean plant material in a quart jar. Heat the vinegar and pour it over the leaves. Put a lid on the jar and let it sit for about ten days, shaking every day. Strain out the leaves. Apply to your skin with your fingertips or cotton.
Bessie’s Bath Powder
Bessie Bloodworth has been making her own bath powder ever since Mr. Lima raised the price on her favorite brand. She keeps this in a jar with a lid on it and shakes it up every couple of days to keep it from getting lumpy. But if it does, she says you can just mash the lumps with a fork.
1 cup cornstarch
1⁄2 cup baking soda
Mix it up in a bowl. If you want a little scent, add a tablespoon of ground cloves and a tablespoon of mace. Or get some dried rose petals from Earlynne, grind them up fine, and add them. Bessie says to dust a little into your shoes, as a foot deodorant.
Beeswax and Honey Lip Balm
Lucy Murphy reports that this lip balm is better even than Tangee, because it stays on longer. She gets her beeswax and honey from Alice Ann Walker, who will be glad to save you some, too—all you have to do is ask. The baby oil is fifteen cents a bottle but it’s good for lots of other things: on squeaky hinges, as a furniture polish (mix with a little lemon), and as a cuticle softener. But if that’s too pricey, Lucy says just melt a couple spoonfuls of Vaseline with the beeswax. It won’t smell as good but it will work just fine.
4 tablespoons grated beeswax
2 tablespoons Johnson’s baby oil
1 tablespoon honey
Melt the beeswax in a double boiler. Add the baby oil and stir well. Line a little box with wax paper (like the little box of wooden matches that Mrs. Hancock sells for a nickel). Pour the mixture into it and let it cool. Then you can take it out and leave it on your dressing table.
Banana Hair Conditioner
Myra May Mosswell, at the diner, usually has a banana or two that’s past its prime. If it’s too far gone for banana pudding, she uses it to make a hair and scalp conditioner.
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 tablespoon honey
1 egg
Mix everything together until it’s nice and creamy. Before you shampoo, wet your hair and massage the conditioner into your hair and scalp. Wrap a warm towel around your head and leave it on for about 20 minutes. Rinse well and shampoo as usual. This makes enough for one treatment. Don’t try to save any leftovers.
Beulah’s Setting Lotions
Beulah Trivette has been using her own homemade setting lotions at the Beauty Bower. She has two recipes she’s willing to share with you, but she says her best Beauty Bower Secret Formula Setting Lotion is still a secret. We’re working on that.
Quince Seed Setting Lotion
Seeds from 1 fresh quince (that will usually be 20 to 25)
¼ cup water
In a bowl, cover the seeds with water. Let them soak for 2 to 3 hours. The longer they soak, the thicker the lotion. Strain out the seeds.
Flaxseed Setting Lotion
1 cup flaxseed
3 cups water
Simmer flaxseed and water together for a few minutes until it’s about as thick as you want it. Put through a strainer and throw the seeds away. If the mixture thickens too much, thin it with a little water.
Whipped Cream Body Mask
Ophelia Snow admits that she’s never tried this but it sounds like it would be just wonderful, if you happen to have an extra cup of heavy cream that you’re not putting to some other use, such as strawberry shortcake. (Ophelia says her kids would rather have the cream on their shortcake, rather than on their mama, and anyway, she never has fifteen minutes to loll around with whipped cream all over her.)
1 cup fresh heavy cream
Whip until soft peaks form. Cover your body with the cream, rubbing it into the dry, scaly spots. Leave it on for 15 minutes. Rinse off in a warm bath and pat dry.
Fig Facial Mask
Elizabeth Lacy’s mother has a fig tree in her back yard. If there are any figs left over after making fig jam, Mrs. Lacy uses them for a facial.
One ripe fig
1 tablespoon honey
Cut the fig in two and scrape out the soft fruit into a bowl. Mash with a spoon until smooth. Add the honey and mix well. Spread it on your skin and go sit on the front porch for five or ten minutes. Rinse.
Mashed Potato Hand Cream
This formula for beautiful hands also comes from Beulah Trivette, who has tested it on her clients at the Beauty Bower. They give the recipe a big thumbs-up!
2 potatoes, cooked and mashed
1 tablespoon of cream or top milk
1 tablespoon glycerin
1 tablespoon aloe vera gel
Blend everything together into a smooth, thick paste. Massage into your hands. After ten minutes, rinse. May be stored in your icebox for several days. Be sure to label the bowl so the late-night snackers in your family don’t get into it. Aloe vera is a little bit . . . well, laxative.
Clove Mouthwash
Miss Dorothy Rogers says that she has used this mouthwash for decades and recommends it highly. It will sweeten your breath. She also recommends Syzygium aromaticum (clove) oil for a toothache. (Ask Mr. Lima for this—he keeps it behind the counter so he can tell people they are not supposed to eat it or get it on their skin. But the whole ones are okay.)
2 tablespoons whole Syzygium aromaticum (cloves)
2 cups boiling water
Cover the Syzgium aromaticum with the boiling water. Cool. Strain into a clean jar and store in the icebox. Rinse your mouth morning and evening.
Dry Feet Remedy
Verna Tidwell says that if you suffer from dry skin on your feet, she has the perfect solution.
Before you go to bed, rub Vaseline on your toes and soles and put on a pair of socks. Tomorrow’s toes will be a whole lot softer. You can also use it to scrub the dry skin off: add a couple of spoonfuls of cornmeal or sugar to the Vaseline
and rub hard with a washcloth.
Carrot-and-Egg Facial Mask
Fannie Champaign suggests a carrot facial mask to keep the skin young looking.
3 large carrots, cooked and mashed
1 egg
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
4 tablespoons honey
Mix together and apply to the skin. Fannie says that since this mixture is bright orange, you might want to stay out of sight while you’re wearing it. Rinse with cool water after 10 minutes.
Molasses Nail Soak
For gardeners, Mildred Kilgore recommends a molasses nail soak to prevent dryness, soften cuticles, and promote nail health.
2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1⁄4 cup warm water
Mix together as a soak for fingernails. Ten minutes a day will make a big difference, Mildred says. But she adds that you really ought to wear gloves when you are working in the garden. She does.
Recipes
Any Southerner will tell you that the miracle of the loaves and fishes was the only church supper in history that didn’t include fried chicken.
—RICK MCDANIEL, AN IRRESISTIBLE HISTORY OF SOUTHERN FOOD
The foods and recipes featured in this book illustrate the range of foods—traditional dishes and dishes that use more modern ingredients—that appeared on Southern tables during the early 1930s. You will notice (or perhaps you will remember) that cooks of the era used plenty of animal fat (pork was cheap and plentiful, so the fat was usually bacon grease or lard), sugar, and salt. I haven’t made any effort to substitute, but you can experiment with your own low-fat, low-sugar, low-salt substitutes. Or maybe you’ll just want to read the recipes and reflect on the way we cooked and ate before we became health-conscious. Recipes for other foods mentioned in this series may be found at www.darlingdahlias.com.
Aunt Hetty Little’s Pecan Jumbles
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “jumbles” goes back to the word “gimbal,” a doubled or twisted ring—a kind of double pretzel. The first published occurrence of it is in a recipe flavored with aniseed, published in The English Housewife, by Gervase Markham in 1615. An 1857 version includes cinnamon, nutmeg, and caraway seeds. By the late 1800s, cooks stopped going to the trouble of rolling the dough and pretzeling it, but the name stuck. This version uses evaporated milk, which was widely promoted in the 1920s and 30s as better-than-breast milk for baby. It appears in many recipes from the era.
1⁄2 cup soft shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1⁄2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup undiluted evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 3⁄4 cup flour
1⁄2 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans
Mix shortening, sugars, and eggs until blended and creamy. Mix milk and vanilla, and gradually stir into shortening-sugar-egg mixture. Stir in flour, soda, salt, and nuts. Drop by teaspoon on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until set and browned.
Raylene Riggs’ Sweet Potato Meringue Pie
Meringue pies—the meringue piled high and deep, swooped and sculpted and topped with tiny brown curls—are the dessert stars of the Southern dinner table. This one features sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), an important staple, grown in every Southern garden and making an appearance in everything from soup to dessert. The pie can be made with or without coconut, which was available in the 1930s both in canned and packaged form.
2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes
3 egg yolks, well-beaten
3 tablespoons melted butter
1⁄2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1⁄3 cup shredded coconut, toasted
1 cup evaporated milk
1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell
Preheat oven to 325°F. Mix together the mashed sweet potatoes and egg yolks. Add the butter, sugar, salt, nutmeg, vanilla, coconut, and milk. Pour mixture into pie shell and bake at 325°F about 35 to 40 minutes, until the filling is set.
Meringue
3 egg whites
6 tablespoons sugar
Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, and beat until stiff peaks form. Spread meringue on hot filling, sealing to edges. Return pie to oven and bake an additional 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Grits and Sausage Casserole
Grits (also called hominy) was likely introduced to the colonists at Jamestown around 1607 by the Algonquin Indians, who called it rockahominy, meaning hulled corn—hence hominy. The word grits comes from the Old English grytt (bran) or greot (ground) and is usually treated as a singular noun. The colonists made it by soaking corn in lye made from wood ash until the hulls floated off, then pounding and drying it. Stone-ground grits is usually preferred to instant or quick-cook grits because the germ is still intact, but it has a shorter shelf life and is best used quickly after it is ground.
3 cups water
1 cup uncooked grits
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1⁄2 pound ground pork sausage
1⁄4 cup chopped green onion tops
1⁄4 cup chopped red pepper
6 eggs
1⁄4 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons butter
1⁄2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Stir in grits. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer about 5 minutes, until liquid has been absorbed. Add butter and cheese, stirring until melted. Set aside.
In a skillet over medium-high heat, cook the sausage, onions, and pepper until the sausage is browned. Drain off all but two tablespoons of the fat. Stir the sausage mixture into the grits. Set aside.
In a bowl, beat together the eggs and milk and pour into the skillet. Lightly scramble, then mix into the grits. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Pour the grits mixture into a prepared baking dish. Dot with butter and top with cheese. Bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until lightly browned. Serves 6.
Slow-Cooked Pulled Pork with White Sauce
In the South, the meat of choice has always been pork and there isn’t much of the pig that hasn’t made its way onto the breakfast and dinner tables. Pigs were easy to keep and cheap to feed, and piglets born in spring were fair-sized porkers by the first freeze, when butchering usually occurred. The animal produced roasts, hams, bacon, chops, and ribs, as well as fatback, headcheese (from the head, feet, and ears), and liver—not to mention sausage from the leftover bits, lard from the fat, and chitterlings from the . . . well, intestines. Brains were fried with eggs, the tail was cooked with rice. Everything that wasn’t eaten fresh was dried, pickled, salt-cured, and/or smoked.
Pulled pork was usually made with fresh pork, cooked (barbequed or simmered) long and slowly enough so that it “pulls to pieces” and is easily shredded. It may be served over rice or noodles or in a bun, as a sandwich. In some regions, the meat is topped with a tomato-based sauce. In Alabama, the sauce most often used is a tangy mayonnaise-horseradish-vinegar sauce. This recipe uses a slow cooker.
2 pounds pork shoulder (also called pork butt, Boston butt, shoulder roast)
3⁄4 cup apple cider vinegar
1⁄2 cup water
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon onion powder
1⁄2 teaspoon dry mustard
1⁄2 teaspoon ground red pepper
1⁄2 teaspoon chili powder
1⁄2 teaspoon garlic powder
&nb
sp; Place the meat in a slow cooker. Mix the remaining ingredients in a nonreactive saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour over the pork, cover, and cook on low for 4 to 5 hours, or until the meat is tender. Remove and shred, pulling apart with two forks. Return to the slow cooker and keep warm until serving. To serve with rice or noodles, place pork in a serving dish and pour cooking liquid over it. Alternatively, serve with a dish of white sauce. To serve as a sandwich, pile meat on a lightly toasted bun, topped with white sauce (not too much—you don’t want to drown it).
White Sauce
1⁄2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1–2 teaspoons grated horseradish
1⁄2 teaspoon pepper
Dash salt
Combine ingredients. Refrigerate unused sauce.
Cheese Custard Pie, Served at
Mildred Kilgore’s Party
In 1931, Mrs. Irma von Starkloff Rombauer was newly widowed and in need of money. The celebrated St. Louis hostess struck on the idea of turning her personal recipes and cooking techniques into a book and self-published The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with a Casual Culinary Chat. The rest, as they say, is history.
Rombauer’s recipe for Cheese Custard Pie (p. 60 in the 1931 edition) may be the first published recipe for a quiche to appear in an American cookbook. The recipe, she writes in a note, comes from a “vile-tempered cook named Marguerite” that the family employed in Switzerland. The Cheese Custard Pie was “always served in solitary state,” its flavors varying with “Marguerite’s moods and her supply of cheese.” This is Raylene Riggs’ heartier version, which will be more familiar to us.
The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star Page 28
