1940s Archive

Food Flashes

Originally Published June 1944

Weddings are catch as catch can. Furlough today, altar-bound tomorrow. Lohengrin, Champagne, and sandwiches, and the wedding is legal. Reception of double-refined simplicity replace the pretentious wedding feasts of yesterday. But who will fix the sandwiches in this last-minute hurry? Who can brew a potent punch? Who can bake a fine cake? Page caterer Nata Lee, 1046 Madison Avenue. Her prices are reasonable, her fare is exquisite, her ideas unique.

Brides, like ships, should be launched with Champagne. The domestic brands are doing dandy. There is fresh Russian caviar, sold by Wynne & Treanor, 712 Madison Avenue, price $20 a pound. There is a smoked mountain trout pâté waiting at Bellow's Gourmets' Bazaar, 67 East Fifty-second. Smoked turkey is around; and domestic pâtés by the dozens, made with the livers of the unrationed hen.

Ice, not ice cream, is the patriotic wedding dessert. Ice cream love birds have flown for the duration. Ice cream wedding bells are silenced until after V-Day. The government keeps its thumbs down on such fancy doings.

The best-dressed wedding cakes are wearing fresh flowers, a sugar-saving idea of Madame Georgette de Malvelain, world-famous stylist of the cakes of Hymen.

What Madame Georgette does, all cakedom will be doing, for she is the acknowledged wedding cake queen of the nation. Her crown was inherited direct from her mother, the laic Madame Blanche Le Rallec, who built the House of Blanche at 243 East Fifty-seventh Street, with the Black Douglas fruit cake as its firm foundation. That fruit cake is three-quarters fruit and heady with brandy, its recipe a hand-down from the Thirteenth Century, belonging originally to the Black Douglas of Scotland. A worthy cake, but its fame came from its top decoration. Cakes of this house are designed by blueprint method, thus combining the technical skill of the architect with the gastronomic art of the chef.

This Black Douglas cake has gone to more society weddings than any other cake in the world. It has been cut by Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Morgans. It has been served at the weddings of three presidents' daughters. Today the dark fruit cake is reserved to fill the favor boxes, while the flaky white lady cake is prepared for the bride's table. This white pound-cake type was introduced first in 1920, a revival of the wedding cakes used by the belles in the Colonial era.

Madame Georgette cuts her wartime wedding cakes to junior miss sizes—one tier, two tiers. A one-tier cake may be given a two-tier effect with a just-pretend base containing a grab-bag trick. A cardboard box is used for the foundation, the sides partially cut away, then rebuilt with frosting. The interior holds the wedding cake souvenirs, long ribbons tied to each, these extended through the frosting to each guest's place. After the cake culling ceremony, pull out the favors.

If your heart is set on a three-tier cake, Madame Georgette suggests still another thrift trick. Let the first tier be the bride's cake to be cut at the wedding. Second tier, the dark fruit cake to be put away for anniversary celebrations. The small top tier will be a light fruit cake to be kept for the first christening.

The Black Douglas cake is $1.50 a pound, the same price today as when the business was new forty years ago this June. And that price, mind you, includes the decoration. The light fruit cake made with blonde fruits is $2 a pound; the white lady cake for the bride's table, $1.25. Cakes are available in any size wanted from five pounds to a ton.

Schnozzler news regards a new all-purpose mixer, called the “Zombie,” apparently the coefficient of all quenchiosity, for it can be used in 101 drinks, to quote from the label. But it does its best in a Zombie. The adventurous may prefer it in a Mexican Hayride (recipe on the label), this calling for Tequila, or in other words, dynamite. The mix is a combination of sweetened tropical fruit juices, enhanced with imitation flavors and a touch of citric acid. Pint bottles are retailing for 82 cents at B. Altman and Company, Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth.

Salad can be dressed in a hurry and well dressed if you have a packet of the new powdered “French Mix” handy. Oil and vinegar, that's what you add to an ounce of orange powder. What's in the mix? Mustard, salt, sugar, and spices, all blended to an epicure's pleasure. Just enough seasoning is in there to make one pint of French dressing by the addition of one-half cup of vinegar and one-and-a-half cups of salad oil. Add a teaspoon of Worcestershire for a more spicy dressing. Add a tablespoon of chopped pickle for sauce vinaigrette. The mix makes a perfect dressing for those who haven't the patience to measure out seasonings. A mail order buy, 25 cents for a package, or four for $1, from R. W. Knapp, 4600 McPherson, St. Louis, Mo.

Dorset's new ham a la King is a product of pleasing personality. The sauce shades to brown, for it's made with a meat broth combined with milk and cream. There are chewy little matters for the teeth to touch—bits of mushroom, green peppers, peas, and pimientos. A generous hand tossed in the ham. Sherry is in the blending, but scarcely detectable—yet the secret, no doubt, of the subtle blending of the flavors.

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