The Food of a Younger Land, compiled by Mark Kurlansky from the papers of the WPA (c. 1940).
Has anyone ever heard of this dish? Do you have a recipe? It sounds delicious.
From Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars by Elizabeth Ewen:
Anna Kuthan…during World War I she had worked as a domestic servant in the home of a wealthy woman in Vienna where one of her responsibilities had been to pick up the Red Cross packages sent from America. She was impressed with the packaging of Hecker’s flour, Nestle’s cocoa, and Carnation evaporated milk: “I saved all the labels, even from the Hecker’s flour. I says, oh my God, they must have everything so good if they pack up everything so good. If I could only come to this country.” Although she was allowed to save the labels, she was not allowed to taste any of the products:
“The lady locked everything up. I wanted to get a taste of the sweet condensed milk. One day she forgot to lock it up. She went into the bathroom. You know what I did? I just put the can in my mouth. And one, two, three, she opened the door. I says it’s inside already, you can’t get it out of me. I got a taste of it. I never forget it.”
When Anna Kuthan came to the United States right after the war, this experience of denial and theft was constantly in her mind:
“When I came to this country, the first thing I see is those big stores, I said there is the Hecker’s flour…there is the condensed milk! When I was married…one day I was shopping and I came home crying; he says what happened to you. All the things I bought in the stores, what I got in Vienna and I could only dream about, not even taste it. And here I see it on the shelf. I bought everything and I’m gonna go there every day and I’m gonna buy it.”
One more from Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars; a quote from Ida Shapiro, who immigrated from Minsk in 1910 at the age of fifteen.
“Right when I arrived, my brother took me to Grand Street for an ice cream soda. I was ashamed to say that I didn’t know what it was. But I was lively not dumb. I was willing to try new things. He asked me if I wanted chocolate or pineapple. He was the greenhorn, he should have known that I didn’t have that in my shtetl. He should have explained to me. I didn’t even know what to do with the straw—-so I just watched other people.”
I just finished reading Chocolate Wars, an account of the history of chocolate from the Mayans to the present day, told largely through the eyes of England’s largest chocolate purveyor, Cadbury. The Cadburys were a Quaker family who pioneered chocolate making in 19th century England and were known for their incredibly acts of philanthropy.
Recently, I found myself in Tea & Sympathy, a store in a part of New York I refer to as “Wee Britain.” I was delighted to see that they carried Fry’s chocolate, one of the oldest chocolate makers in Britain, as well as the Cadbury Milk Tray. The Milk Tray was mentioned in the book as one of Cadbury’s revolutionary products, since the Cadburys had hit upon a formula for a particularly smooth milk chocolate. The English gents behind the store counter gleefully told me about the TV adverts with a James Bond-like man who snuck chocolate into women’s bedrooms, because “The ladies love the Milk Tray.”
I didn’t buy the chocolates at the time (although I had a pot of tea with scones and clotted cream at the restaurant next door), but I intend to go back and eat my way through chocolate history.
