Category: dinner

Wine and Wartime Foods: Meat Loaf

wartime propaganda about food waste

“Yes, wine does things for plain war foods,” a 1944 advertisement for the American Wine Advisory Board claims. “Don’t give up your friends!,” it continues, “Keep on having them over to your house. Remember–it’s good company, not party food, that makes a dinner!” But still the Wine Advisory Boards recommends one add a splash of wine to bland, wartime fare to enliven the party: “If you’ll make your meat loaf with a little red table wine, you’ll find it becomes banquet fare. It’s that way with other wartime dishes, too. With a touch of wine in the cooking, you can glorify the flavor of the plainest food.”

Below is a wartime recipe from the Wine Advisory Board for meat loaf. Use an inexpensive wine, and serve the finished dish with mashed potatoes and a vegetable.

Fancy Wartime Meat Loaf

To prepare it, you combine 3/4 lb. ground beef, lamb or veal with 3/4 cup rolled oats and 1/2 cup Burgundy or Claret wine. Add 3 tbsps. chopped onion, 1 1/2 tsps. salt, 1/4 tsp. pepper, 1/4 tsp. poultry seasoning, 1 beaten egg, and 2 tbsps. butter or bacon drippings. Pack into greased small loaf pan, and bake in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) 1 hour or until done. Serves 4 or 5.

 
Why Fast and Fermented Foods by Christine Baumgarthuber

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Ancient Fare: Pinto Bean Cakes with Cracked Wheat in Sour Cream

stalk of wheat, schematic illustration

Life magazine’s 1958 Picture Cook Book presents the reader with a vast array of nourishing traditional dishes. One chapter, entitled “Ancient Fare,” contains dozens of simple, yet delicious, recipes for legumes and grains. “All of these foods are best in simple recipes,” states the introduction to the chapter. “Their flavor is brought out by straightforward butter and herb sauces,” it continues, “but it can be enhanced by the addition of mushrooms, sour cream, almonds or pungent sweet and sour sauce. Cracked wheat, buckwheat groats and pearl barley are coarser than the usual breakfast cereals and consequently have more flavor and texture. The nutty taste of wheat and buckwheat makes them excellent side dishes with hearty beef roasts, and delicately flavored barley does particularly well with ham. These foods are often as good cold as they are hot.”

Below is a recipe from the Picture Cook Book for pinto bean cakes with cracked wheat in sour cream. Both dishes are economical and filling.

Pinto Bean Cakes

2 cups dried pinto beans
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper or 1 chili pepper, minced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt

Soak beans overnight in water to cover. Simmer them in the soaking water with salt for 2 hours. Drain beans and chop them coarsely or put them through a food grinder using a coarse blade. Add red pepper and garlic. Shape into 12 cakes and saute in butter for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Lima, navy or Great Northern beans may be substituted for pinto beans.

Cracked Wheat with Sour Cream

2 cups cracked wheat
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup olive oil
3 cups chicken bouillon [can substitute vegetable bouillon]

Saute mushrooms and onion in butter for five minutes or until lightly browned, stirring occasionally. Add cracked wheat and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add bouillon, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serves 6.

 
Why Fast and Fermented Foods by Christine Baumgarthuber

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The Versatile Knoedel

Southern German town

The dumpling, or knoedel, has long been a staple food in southern Germany. Caspar von Schmid of Schwandorf, an important personage in the court of Munich in the 17th century, wrote that “the people of Bavaria should be spared banishment from the country wherever possible, because then they would be deprived of dumplings.” And Lena Christ, writing during the first decade of the 20th century, fondly remembers the ever-present knoedel of her grandparent’s dinner table: “Even at other times, [Grandfather] was often to be found in the kitchen, helping Grandmother peel turnips or cut up white rolls for our dumplings, which had to be served every day. There were dumplings even on Sundays, although much larger and darker, in the form of liver dumplings–which were not only tasty but cheap–it was brought to the table too, in a large, patterned dish […] We ate meat only on very special occasions. Even on Sundays my grandparents were content with liver dumplings, eaten with the Tauch, a vegetable dish made of root vegetables or kohlrabi. Only Grandfather had a piece of boiled beef fat with his Sunday dinner, and he ate it salted and peppered, with a slice of bread.”

These simple dumplings have earned their reputation as a prudent treat as they are both economical and versatile. Try them with a sweet filling of apricots or plum jam, or serve them with a hearty goulash. The following recipe from the Austrian cookbook Nur Knoedel is for liver dumplings very much like those beloved by Lena Christ (they were also one of Mozart’s favorite dishes!). Serve them in a soup or with a savory sauerkraut.

Leberknoedel (Liver Dumplings)

9 oz. beef liver
3 stale rolls
1/2 pint milk
3.5 oz. butter
1 small onion
1 egg
salt, pepper
marjoram, parsley
3.5 oz. bread crumbs

Pour milk over the rolls and work it in. Chop the onion and sauté it in butter. Mix the rolls, finely chopped liver and spices together. Make into a dough. Form the dumplings and boil them for 15 minutes in salted water. You can also fry them in hot vegetable oil. Best served hot in a beef broth. Liver dumplings can also be served as a main dish with sauerkraut.

 
Why Fast and Fermented Foods by Christine Baumgarthuber

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And, if you’d like to help the Kitchen keep cookin’, please consider picking up copies of my books, Why Fast? and Fermented Foods.

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