Virtual Marginalia: Review of Splint, Sarah Field

Book title: The Art of Cooking and Serving
Author: Sarah Field Splint
Posted October 12, 2001

I found this book in a used bookstore. It is in excellent shape although it looks like someone used it as a coaster once. I bought it because of the introductory chapters.

In the chapter on planning meals, the book tries to convince housewives that their work is important by emphasizing the benefits to other people:

Look at your children's rosy cheeks and happy dispositions; your husband's good health, the general feeling of content and happiness that pervades your home. All of these are a result of your thought and planning, and surely they are worth all the energy they cost (39).

The book never points out any benefit to the housewife herself. Then, on the same page, the book helpfully belittles the woman's intelligence by saying:

And you have accomplished all this in spite of the bewildering technical information hurled at your devoted head when all you needed to know were a few large embracing facts (39).

How silly of women to even think that they could understand all that technical information.
There are chapters on "table service in the servantless house," and "table service in the house with a servant." The book was published in the year the Great Depression started! How many houses had servants after that? The table settings in both chapters would put Martha Stewart's creations to shame. They are quite complex. There is a picture of a suggested place setting for breakfast in the servantless house. In the picture, I counted three plates, one bowl, a glass, two spoons, two knives, a fork and a cloth napkin. The text is careful to point out that this place setting is just for family breakfasts. The breakfast place setting for guests didn't have a picture, and the description was so complex I gave up trying to figure out exactly how it differed. Then comes the admonition that:

Breakfast is a scramble with everyone coming down at the last minute and wanting to be waited on at once. But it is the meal, too, that starts the day right or wrong for each member of the family and so you, the homemaker, manage to have the table looking pretty, to wear your most serene manner and to serve food that looks absolutely irresistible (4).

Breakfast then consists of a fruit course (grapefruit or baked apple), toast or hot bread, cereal for the children, and a hot breakfast for the husband. I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning if I had to look forward to all that preparation.

It wasn't immediately obvious to me that the book was promotional, but after looking through several recipes, I suddenly realized that they all had Crisco in them. That's when I noticed that the book was published by Proctor and Gambel. Chapter 15, "Salads," is my favorite. The introduction to the chapter says that "if we are going to serve salads to our family as often as we should--at least once a day according to good health rules--we shall have to give a little time and thought to keeping the salad course out of the rut" (p. 136). It goes on to point out that Crisco is the perfect ingredient for any salad, because it "gives just the right touch--a delicate flavor and a smooth, velvety texture" (p. 137). I read this and almost gagged. The first salad dressing recipe listed (and the one referred to most often in the rest of the chapter) includes mustard, salt, sugar, flour, paprika, cayenne, egg, milk, vinegar and of course, Crisco. Yuck. The chapter includes recipes for "jellied tuna fish," "cheese fingers," and "ham salad." I guess our ideas of what constitutes a salad have changed a bit over the years.

I've never tried any of the recipes in the book, although I would like to try some of the cake and cookie recipes. There are some yummy-looking old-fashioned cookies