‘Asparagus,’ stuffed frankfurters from ’49 Gazette

Recipes that appear in Idea Alley have not been tested by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Alley Kats, I hope you’re finding these snippets from 1949 as interesting as I am. However, these retrospective columns aren’t meant to replace our usual exchange of recipes, so if you have one you’d like to share, or a request, please don’t hesitate to email.

In the first half of 1949, the Food section as we think of it today didn’t exist yet. Recipes and cooking-related content was interspersed with all the other news; often without a byline or credit. Such was the case with this serving suggestion, tacked on as the last paragraph of a breezy story about Little Rock social events published on April 10, 1949:

“Diced boiled potatoes may be mixed with cooked green peas and served together in a white sauce. Season the sauce with a finely grated onion and a dash of Worcestershire sauce, if you like.”

And this one, which came at the end of a story about the Arkansas Federation of Women’s Clubs and its position on various issues of the day, also on April 10, 1949:

“To vary spinach cook, chop and season it with grated onion, salt and freshly ground black pepper; then mix it with buttered, steamed rice and serve it hot as an accompaniment to a meat dish.”

It was almost as if these cooking tips were added in as fillers because there were small open spaces left on the page and these were stories that would likely be read by women — so why not fill the space with something they’d find appealing?

More precise recipes were usually featured in advertisements for grocery stores or the products themselves.

“We think this salad called Poor Man’s Asparagus is only fit for a king,” wrote the editors of McCalls magazine in the introduction to this recipe that appeared in the May 6, 1949, Arkansas Gazette. The recipe was featured in a Hudman’s grocery store ad. The store, which had two locations, one at 3918 Asher Ave. and another at Seventh and Chester streets, had green onions on sale — three bunches for 10 cents.

Poor Man’s Asparagus 3 bunches scallions

Salt

French dressing

Cut off the top three inches of each bunch of onions above the white part. Cook in a very small amount of boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Drain, cool and serve with tart French dressing.

Another recipe, also from McCalls and in the same advertisement, combined hot dogs, cheese, pickles and bacon.

Stuffed Frankfurters:

Cut frankfurters in half lengthwise, stuff with cheddar cheese and dill pickles and then wrap with a slice of bacon. Broil until bacon is crisp and cheese melts.

All of that changed in the summer of 1949 when Mildred Woods came on staff.

On July 10, 1949, Woods was introduced as “a great new feature of a great new Food Section in Thursday’s Arkansas Gazette.”

The announcement explained Woods grew up near Pine Bluff, where her family had a smokehouse and grew vegetable and berries. She studied in France, worked on Broadway, married an army officer, traveled the world and returned to Arkansas. It described her column, Counselor at the Cookstove, as “not a cut-and-dried recitation of recipes, but a breezy discussion of what to cook, how to cook it, and how to serve it with the least strain on the purse and the cook … as Arkansan as cornbread, as distinctive as The Cordon Bleu …”