Vast new markets open to the arm-chair shoppers. Foods delivered from “our kitchen to your kitchen,” “from our orchard to your table,” is a flourishing new branch of the food industry.
Gourmets today can shop their way around America, pick a fat turkey from a Pennsylvania smokehouse, cultivate their taste for down-South relishes, appease the sweet tooth with buttermilk maple fudge, kitchen-made in Vermont.
Never a day but the folders flap from the mailbag softly, insinuatingly, their bright pages tempting one to pluck fruit ripening in Hesperian orchards, to eat buttery popcorn freshly popped in an Ohio kitchen, to gorge on baked ham country-curved in a manner to defy description. An excitement never stale, shopping the nation by catalogue and checkbook.
Homesick for the smell of a cool country cellar, the smell of apples, that leathery savor of ham? Or the smell of a cookie jar there near the top of the stair, the spiciest smell in the world? Cookies just as fine come from “Aunt Martha,” Marjorie Niles of Dorset, Vermont, old-time sugar cookies, each sweet crumb giving special blessing to the taste buds. Like grandma's cookies, like those mother made, the memory comes back as you sample from Aunt Martha's blue tin. These cookies have the old-time taste but the new look. Thin as a toothpick, well-browned at the edges, shaped like a wide-open flower, a cookie tailored for a special career on tea-party tables. Ten dozen ＄2.75, postage prepaid. Keep the lid on the box and the sweets stay crisp for weeks. Packed as they are, 7 to a deep paper cup, they travel without breakage, but just in case of casualties, each tin holds 8 extra cookies, Aunt Martha's way of fair play to the customers.
A symphony of good smells comes from country cellars with their bins of sober-sided potatoes, fragrant apples in bunks, canned fruits and vegetables on the hanging shelves a dim gleam in the half-light. If it's old-time jellies you searchm, write to John Toms, Inc., Shipman, Virginia. This firm, set up originally to merchandise John Toms Flavor Ridge apples—Winesap, Stayman, and Delicious—has branched into jellies and relishes, made by Old South recipes but in an all-modern kitchen.
Wild elderberry jelly, a pound of juice to a pound of sugar, is just what it should be, piquant in flavor, tender and soft in texture, the color deep wine, a pretty compliment to fowl and game. Clear green the mint jelly of the apple base, scented with an essence distilled from the fresh herb. Open the jar. What fragrance—like that of a mint patch under hot sun! A jelly just firm enough to hold in mold form, all tremble it stands in your best jelly dish. The honey-apple jelly, with its distinct honey flavor, is a Virginia specialty from away back. Clear and pretty, but not so tender as the others in the line, this is made with a blend of juices from various apple varieties to give its particular aroma and character. The quantity of juice to sugar is higher than is usual, and the jelly is fast-cooked to enhance the flavor.
The watermelon-rind-pickle formula was chosen after making 5,000 test batches, trying seventy old recipes to find the one of best flavor, color, and texture. The recipe chosen is over one hundred years old. The rind pieces are large, cut 1 ½ inches square, pale green and cooked clear, cloves the outstanding spice. Tender to cut, an experience to eat.
The picnic pickle slice combines vinegar, spices, garlic, and olive oil for an epicurean treat. Then there's Hunters' pepper relish, one of the oldest varieties of pickle known in the South and called everything from “pepper hash” to “pepper's sport.” Here again, dozens of recipes were tried before the condiment was ready to go places by mail. Still another old-timer is Country Kitchen Delight. A Tennessee judge provided this recipe, his favorite of pickles, one long aged in wood for mellowed goodness.
Those who like sweet mustard pickles will like those from Ma Toms, the former combining the outstanding characteristics of five Virginia recipes; smooth is the blend, both hot and cold, both sweet and sour, both feisty and bland, all in one taste. Any 3 of these items in 12 ½-ounce jars cost ＄2, postage prepaid east of the Mississippi, 25 cents extra for travel west. Or you may order your choice in cases of 24 of the 12 ½-ounce jars for ＄14.50. Address John Toms, Inc., Shipman, Virginia.
Shore dinner at home, the ingredients shipped alive and kicking, bedded in kelp still wet from the sea, packed in a refrigerated carton that keeps the sea food chilly forty-eight hours, is a year-round service being introduced by one of New York's leading lobster merchants, the Jordon Sales Corporation, 259 West 14th Street. These lobsters from the cold northern waters of Maine and Nova Scotia are available in 1-pound size, and there are 1 ¼ pounders, selects averaging 1 ½ to 2 pounds, and jumbos, 2 ½ to 4 pounds. Unless you specify size, it's “selects” that arrive for shore-dinner feasting.
Lobster isn't all. You can get any sort of shellfish to complete the meal. Write to Bill Jordan, shore-dinner expert, and say how many guests. He can tell you how much is needed and what should go on the party menu. The rule is, for 24 people, a bushel of steamers, 6 pounds of cooked shrimp or crab meat for salad or cup, and with lobster the main course, around 48 pounds. Buy a dozen loaves of crusty French bread, have 5 pounds of butter, fresh fruit for dessert, gallons of coffee, and that's all you need for a bang-up party. Prices range slightly under the average price at the fish market.
If you live in one of the five boroughs of New York City, your package is truck-delivered without charge. Those out of town pay the express. Also, there's a ＄1.50 charge for the refrigerated box. This is worth having and yours to keep to use again and again on beach parties and hunting trips. Packed into the box is a brick of the new super rice. That, too, is yours, reusable five times. This stuff looks like a bag of sawdust. It is to be dipped in water, soaked 15 minutes, then frozen for 24 hours. It keeps cold for two days in its special carton which is made of four thicknesses of corrugated paper, aluminum foil laminated on as a liner.
Air lines carry the shore kit coast to coast, also abroad. Regular shipments are off to the Hollywood stars; there have been shipments to England, to Italy. If you have a reliable sea-food dealer who can oblige with just what you want when you want it, this service isn't for you. It is planned for those who have a difficult time getting really good shellfish. It's for those who want lobsters from Maine, for those who want to give a shore dinner and not break and bank.
Something new among the cheeses, a rectangular hickory-smoked bar that tastes rather like the expensive smoke-perfumed sturgeon. This is delicately scented, creamy-colored Cheddar, its surface deep amber due to the coating. Slice thinly to use as hors d'oeuvre. Or again, cut in pieces ¼ inch thick and place in a skillet; heat over a low fire and serve with eggs for a new and delightful breakfast dish. To order, write to L. Raphael, Box 45, Station Y, New York, New York. Mailed prepaid, the bar is ＄1.50, around 1 ¼ pounds.
It's never too late to enjoy the summer sausage from the Farm Home Foods kitchen. Slice by savory slice we relish that old-fashioned flavor unknown in the streamlined, mass-production sausage factories. These sausages are made in small batches, using only choice government-inspected meats, carefully ground, artfully seasoned, leisurely smoked; no synthetic smoke flavors to short-cut production. Available everywhere in the United States from Farm Home Foods, Watertown, Wisconsin; ＄2.00 prepaid for a sausage about 1 ½ pounds.
The smoothest Old Fashioned we ever tasted is made with Kettle Cove orange slices that come from the New England kitchen of Eleanor Coolidge. A time-mellowed blend are the slices long-soaked in rye, combined in a rich, heavy syrup of Mrs. Coolidge's devising. This blend smooths out the taste of straight whiskey and at the same time provides the sweetening and flavor of orange in just the right balance. Good for other things, too, besides the Old Fashioned—delicious in fruit cups and salads.
Sailing is a week-end pastime with the Coolidges of Manchester, Massachusetts, and Old Fashioneds the drink they prefer before dinner. But the setup requires space and is a nuisance in a wee galley. To save all the fuss, Mrs. Coolidge tried processing the oranges in advance, first soaking in whiskey, then packing in syrup to carry ready prepared for the drink-making ritual, and smooth was the result. Cruising friends who sampled them asked for a few jars of the slices to take on their trips, and Mrs. Coolidge began making up small lots which a tea house kept stocked so the friends could order as convenient.
One year, two years, and the orange slice sales built into as a thriving home-kitchen business, the Kettle Cove Industries. During the war when Mr. Coolidge was in service as a commander in the Navy, Mrs. Coolidge went to work in earnest to make the slices pay. She brought in neighbor women to work by the hour, she turned salesman and began selling processed oranges to city stores. Big business was brewing when her husband returned. Mr. Coolidge, seeing the orange slice sales leaping ahead, asked to join with his wife as a full-fledged partner. A factory was opened, and today the slices are selling in numerous cities.
More products, too: the mint, lime, and orange syrups to use as a base and sweetener for drinks. There is an orange-and-apricot butter sold only in New England. There is a marmalade reeking of whiskey and a processed or-range rind called the orange crescent. New an orange-nut party made of the processed ground rind, sugar, and nuts. These are but by-products of the slice business which Mrs. Coolidge refers to as the “pig's squeal.” Orange slices cured in rye remain the main dish, retailing 12 ounces for around 60 cents, enough slices and syrup for 16 to 18 cocktails. the 1-pint putup is ＄1.05 to ＄1.15, handled in Manhattan by Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, and Lewis and Conger, Sixth Avenue and 45th Street.
Travel down to New Orleans, to the heart of the Vieux Carré, directly across the street from Antoine's “over-a-hundred-year-old” restaurant, to sample Cook's Old Southern Confections. This firm was established in 1930 doing business retail as well as mail order. In less than a decade Cook's meant pralines to New Orleans Stores in various cities asked to buy the brown-sugar patties and wholesaling started, but it was soon discontinued due to sugar shortage and tin scarcity. These pralines were vacuum-packed to preserve their fresh tenderness. Now with tin and sugar in the ascendancy again, Cook's sweets travel the country, selling both by mail and through retail stores. In new York City the vacuum-packed pralines are seen at B. Altman's, Fifth Avenue and 34th Street; R. H. Macy's, Broadway and 34th Street; Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue. The maple pecan pralines, filled with crisp Louisiana nuts, come 12 big ones to a tin, each individually packed in glassine envelopes, ＄1.75. A candy medium soft, of good pecan flavor. Smaller pralines, the Pralettes, individually packaged, rich and flavorful, the 12-ounce tin ＄1.35.
A third item in national distribution is Cook's pecan flakes, light golden bits of brittle with scads of pecans, of burnt-sugar-nut flavor. The same flakes are being made with cashew nuts, almonds, black walnuts, and peanuts to sell direct from Cook's Southern Confections, 714 St. Louis Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. The pralines are shipped prepaid any where in the United States to arrive fresh as those hawked in the old French Quarter by the mammy street vendors.