Cookbookology #3 - "A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband"
by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles Le Cron
A few years ago, a cousin of mine who is also a lover of old cookbooks, invited me over to her house for coffee. Upon my arrival, she poured me a cup of coffee, and gifted me a copy of “A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband With Bettina’s Best Recipes”, by Louise Bennet Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron.
I don’t care where you come from, that is quite a lengthy title. Opening the book, I noticed that it was a first edition published in 1917. Thumbing through the pages, I noticed that there was quite a bit of writing in between the recipes. Taking an even closer look, I was a very surprised, the writing in the book was fiction with recipes listed at the end of every one of the books chapters. The cookbook’s co authors Louise Bennett and Helen Cowles LeCron had teamed up to write a cookbook based on a fictional story about newlyweds Bettina and her husband Bob and their first year of domestic life as a married couple. Bettina, the main character of the book, is in spite of her youth is a very knowlegable and excellent cook, thrifty manager of the household budget, and a very energetic and enthusiastic in her duties as a housewife and homemaker. Her husband Bob, is a young hard working office worker (where Bob kworks I do not know) and faithfully devotes himself as the breadwinner of the house.
Since the book is based on the first year of Bettina and Bob’s marriage, there is a special poem to written for each month. Below is the first poem in the book which is for the month of June.
No, you cannot live on kisses,
Though the honeymoon is sweet,
Harken, brides, a true word this is, -
Even lovers have to eat.
The first chapter introduces the readers to Bob and Bettina’s as they are returning from their honeymoon and starting their married life together in their brown bungalow. Upon their return we find out that Bettina had already put up an emergency shelf of food and whips up and serves the first meal in their home meal in a matter of minutes.
Before Bettina’s wedding she put together an emergency shelf of various foods which included the following items:
6 cans pimentos (small size) 6 cans tuna (small size) 6 can salmon (small size) 6 jars dried beef 12 cans corn 6 cans string beans 6 cans lima beans 6 cans deviled ham (small size) 6 cans tomatoes 6 pt. jars pickles 6 pt. jars olives 6 cans condensed milk 6 boxes sweets wafers 1 pound box salted codfish 3 pkg. marshmallows 3 cans mushrooms 2 pkg. macaroni
Bob tells Bettina, “Lots of girls can cook, but mighty few know how to be economical at the same time”.
While Bettina has a pretty impressive selection of canned items for her pantry, she assures Bob that as his wife she will not be using too many “canned things” in her culinary efforts.
As I stated previously The whole idea of the book essentially revolves around Bettina and first year as a wife and homemaker, and how she finds a way every day to rise to the domestic challenges of creating great home cooked meals while on a tight budget. Each short little chapter gives readers a glimpse in Bettina’s domestic life. Chapters explain how Bettina is plans special dinners for her and Bob, always has a space at her table for unplanned guests(which happens quite often), hosts a wonderful tea party, serves Sunday breakfast on the porch, and can pack a to go lunch for motor picnic at the drop of a hat. Bettina’s character is literally a culinary force of nature who always rises to the occasion and always manages to find a few moments during her busy day to pick some fresh flowers to adorn her dinner table.
Chef Steve’s Impressions
A Unique Cookbook -This style of book is what is called and instructional novel. The reader is taught certain skills or techniques through the framework of a story. Evidently during the early 1900’s this style of writing was quite popular. I really love the idea of the authors creating a whole story highlighting the character of Betina and her daily engagement in the culinary process. As a person who owns over a 1,000 cookbooks and has spent untold hours looking at and preparing various recipes from them, I have never come across a cookbook written in a fictional format like this.
Bettina is brimming with cooking tips - Within the narrative of many chapter, Bettina is always giving her husband Bob, friends, and everyone she knows all sorts of cooking tips and home economics advice. Within the chapters of this book Bettina talks about menu planning, shopping advice, how to get grease stains out of a white shirt, how to, how to deal with ants in your house, how to get your silverware to sparkle, and so much more.
This book is loaded with many, many recipes - The recipes within this book reflect a simpler time in American society. One will notice a lack of Italian, Latin, and Asian recipes that we are accustomed to finding in cookbooks of today’s day and age. While the recipes of the book are straight forward down home cooking, of a it contains over 400 interesting recipes to make: including recipes featuring seafood, meats, sauces (both sweet and savory), desserts, breads, salads, vegetables.
You don’t have to read the whole book - While “One Thousand Ways To Please A Husband” is written as a fictional story which was meant to be read from the beginning to end, the reader can go to any chapter in the book and read the short narrative and see what Betina or one of her friends decides to prepare that day.
The index is helpful - Since the book is arranged as a day to day account of Bettina’s kitchen experiences the recipes in the book are not categorized in any specific manner. Obviously this format is not very efficient or practical. Fortunately, there is a categorized recipe index in the back of the book which is very helpful to the reader.
A glimpse into early 20th century technology - This book gives the reader a glimpse into the home life of 1917. While the authors do no give a specific geographic location of where they live, Bob and Bettina do live in town. There is a phone in their house. At the beginning of the book they do not own a car, and literally walk everywhere (including to work and to the store). By the end of the book, they do manage to buy a car. They use an ice box to keep their food cold. While many Americans during this period in history were still cooking with wood burning stoves during this era, Betina does have a propane in her house.
Betina uses fireless cooker - There are times that Betina refers to preparing recipes with what is called a fireless cooker; a predecessor to our modern day crockpot. Never having heard of a “fireless cooker”, I researched it online, and learned that a firess cooker is a large box insulated boxes in which were used to slow cook foods. Much like a crock pot, the food within the pot with water or some type of liquid. The contents of the pot would be heated over a fire or on the stove, and then placed within the well insulated box and the lid would be shut. The foods within the pot would be slow cooked much like how we use a crock pot in today’s world.
Over 400 recipes - With over 400 recipes, this cookbook offers a wide variety of varied recipes. The recipes in this book are extremely practical, typically involve long lists of ingredients, with directions that are very well written. While I have not prepared any recipes from this book (I plan to very soon), I have found many people who have given the recipes of this cookbook extremely positive reviews.
None of the recipes use alcohol - While this book was published a few years before prohibition, there is no alcohol used or mentioned in this book. I do not know if that was a reflection of the growing intolerance of alcohol leading to its ban, or if it was because of the authors personal preference. For whatever reason, there is no use of alcohol in this cookbook.
Bettina and Bob are very thrifty - Like so many couples, Bob and Bettina are starting out their marriage from humble economic circumstances. While Bettina might be on a tight budget, she shows that through proper meal planning and budgeting that her and Bob can eat extremely well on a tight budget, and that it is always more cost effective to prepare meals from scratch whenever possible.
This was the first of many books - I do not have any records or information about the commercial success of this book, but I conclude that it must have been very successful because Louise Bennet Weaver and Helen Cowles Le Cron after the publicaton of “A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband”, they followed through and wrote “A Thousand Ways To Feed A Family (1922), Bettina’s Best Salads (1923), and Bettina’s Best Desserts (1923).
The illustrations are first rate - illustrated with dozens of wonderful line drawings, Elizabeth Colbourne’s contribution to this book really does wonders to make the fictional world of Bettina and Bob come to life.
.Conclusion - I really enjoyed spending time going through this book. While the recipes are do reflect a simpler time, the recipes are very well written and would be an especially great ghttps://archive.org/details/thousandwaystopl00weav/page/14/mode/2upift to a newlywed wife or husband. I am grateful that it is part of my cookbook collection. If anyone was interested in buying a copy, one can easily find a vintage copy on Ebay. Amazon does seem to offer reprints which are less epensive.
If you are interested, they can preview the book below, I found a copy from the Boston Public Library on the Internet Archive.
One Thousand Ways To Please A Husband
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Recipes from “A Thousand Ways To Please A Husband”
Bettina Baked Ham (Three Portions) (Bob calls it great)
1 lb. slice of ham 3/4” thick 14 cloves 1/2 Cup vinegar 1/2 Cup water 2 Tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons mustard
Directions: Remove the rind from ham. Stick the clove into both sides. Place in a pan just the size of the meat. Pour the vinegar, water, sugar, amd mustard (well mixed) over the ham. Baste frequently. Bake in moderate oven until crisp and tender (about 45 minutes).
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Fried Oysters (Two Portions) 12 Oysters 1/2 Cup cracker crumbs 1 Tablespoon egg 1 Tablespoon water 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon paprika 2 Tablespoons fat
Directions: Look over the selected large oysters to remove the shells. Mix the egg, water, salt, and paprika. Dip the oyster in the egg mixture and in the egg mixture and in the crumbs. Place the fat in the frying pan, and when hot add the oysters. Brown nicely in each side, three minutes. Serve very hot on a hot platter. Garnish with parsley.
Bettina’s Fried Oyster Relish (Two portions) 1 Cup cabbage, cut fine 1 green pepper, cut fine 1 pimento, cut fine 1/2 teaspoon celery salt 1/8 teaspoon mustard 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 Tablespoon sugar 2 Tablespoon vinegar
Directions: Mix the celery salt, mustard, salt, and sugar, add the vinegar. Pour over the pimento, green pepper and cabbage. Serve as a relish with oysters and meats. This should be served within one-half hour after it is made.