Trying 1940s Recipes from The Watkins Cookbook – Here’s What Happened!
This week I’m trying 1940s recipes from The Watkins Cookbook. Get ready for some cozy vintage cooking!
Cavalcade of Food’s Watkins Cookbook video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_xEtvigdfA
Adun Spice Co. https://www.adunspiceco.com/
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CORN FLAKE PUDDING (pg 264)
2c corn flakes
2c milk
1/2c molasses
1/2c sugar
2 eggs, beaten
little salt
1/3 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp vanilla
Place corn flakes in a buttered baking dish. Blend all ingredients and pour over flakes. Bake in 350 degree F oven until mixture sets (about 35 minutes).
SPAGHETTI (pg 86)
3 slices bacon cut into small pieces
Chopped onion (I used 1/2 a small onion)
Cooked spaghetti (I cooked 4oz dry spaghetti)
1 can condensed tomato soup
chili powder (I used 1/2 tsp)
salt & pepper
Fry bacon to a light brown. Cook onion in bacon fat. Add cooked spaghetti, soup, and seasoning. Boil mixture 5 minutes and serve.
CHEESE DISH (pg 31)
1c grated American cheese
1c bread crumbs
2 beaten eggs
1c milk
2 Tbsp butter (I melted and cooled the butter)
salt & pepper
paprika
Blend all ingredients, pour into buttered dish, bake until nicely brown (I baked at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes).
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
1:02 Cornflake Pudding
5:09 Spaghetti
10:06 Cheese Dish
16:25 Cookbook Chat – The Watkins Cookbook (1948)
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48 Comments
I collect lots of weird cookbooks pertaining to food allergies, as I have so many. One is pretty horrifying. It has a recipe for cooking brains "for brains haters" and instructs you to cook the brains in scrambled eggs. It's horrifying. This was a British cookbook and pre-mad cow disease, but still. Gross.
8:45 im eating off that same plate right now !!! what on earth !!!
The last recipe might make a good party snack if baked in mini muffin tin – just add a few more spices.
I love it when you feature a book that I actually own. I admit I have not made any of the recipes in it, but will definitely dive in. The cornflake pudding is right up our alley. I think it will heavenly with a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Have a great week Anna.
When i was younger, probably 45 years ago, my best friend's mom made ribs in the slow cooker with Watkins BBQ. SO good! Always a good day when mom made ribs. I haven't been able to find the BBQ sauce in years.
1940 cookbooks are the best. The other spaghetti sauce recipe called for a button of garlic. Cute. No bake time/temp. Classic. All good pantry recipes.
Very interesting mid-century recipes. Nice and simple too.
❤
You're not wrong, up until that egg the first recipe just felt like a strange bowl of cereal
I am pretty sure I have a copy of this cookbook from my mother’s estate. I will look it up!😊
Hi Anna, I live in Texas out in the country. We had some snow and lots of ice. So I binge watched so many of your videos. I'm 66 years old and don't get a lot of visitors so I like to think you live next door to me. I have tons of cook books. Some were my grandma's, my mom and mother in law. Plus I used to check out all the thrift stores for cook books. I've asked my great nieces if they would like them but they didn't see value in them. I would love to send some very interesting ones to you if you would like. Do you have an email?
I followed along in my 1945 edition I got from my aunt. 🇨🇦
That toast water sounded halfway reasonable after you said it was for extreme nausea.
Given that toast is what we lean toward when we’re nauseous. Water would ease the throat if the toast was going to come back up.
I have my mom's Watkins Cookbook. The Watkins man came by the house one day after my parents got married and my dad bought the cookbook for my mom. It is copywrite 1945 and cost $1.50. It is the first cookbook I ever used. The pumpkin pie recipe and the sweet potato recipe are family favorites during the holidays. I made eclairs for the first time from this book. So nice to see this on your channel.
I love through you and your vintage cookbooks. I love your channel, it's very unique. Thank you for your videos.
Both the corn flake pudding and the cheese dish looked awesome!
I just find your disposition so calming and comforting. You feel like an old friend and I adore getting to tag along the kitchen with you 🥰 it’s very clear I am not alone in this feeling either.
Ooops — you left out a very important part of 1940s cooking: Always crack your eggs over another dish, not into the mixture of ingredients. That way you don't add an embryonic chicken or blood clot to your mixture. Happened more in the 1940s than you'd expect.
Cornflake pudding sounds good to make at a Thanksgiving dinner
Anne of Green Gables – calves foot jelly
We had a Watkins man that stopped by every couple of months. My mother never used any other brand of vanilla extract. They had some really good stuff.
Old recipes for sick people or whatever, reminded me of the early 70s when my Mom was pregnant with my Sister. She used to make a poached egg in warm milk? I just remember the warm milk being poured over a piece of toast in a shallow bowl and the egg on top. Somehow my mom found it comforting but I thought it was horrible. I was 5. That soaked toast scheme was popular for illness. But the milk, yuck.
I have one of the old Watkin's cookbooks. I tried to find it, but I think it fell behind my bookcases a while back. (I plan to put up new shelves but that's a major project & my husband wants to paint the wall behind it and maybe even put in new carpet!) I think my copy is green but don't remember which edition it is. I collect cookbooks, too, and have way too many!
I used to sell Watkins products! I still bake their Hummingbird cake recipe multiple times a year! In fact I'm baking one for some friends tomorrow and 2 weeks ago baked one for my son's birthday 🙂
Oh for goodness sakes! My mom used to make spaghetti using tomato soup…I never learned how to "properly" cook it until I was an adult and an acquantance shamed me lol I did used to make a pasta dish that used bacon and specifically bucatini pasta…over the top delicious! Lost my recipe which was on the back of the pasta box but would give anything to find it again because I cannot remember anything about it other than bacon and bucatini lol
I think it's so good that you're reviving these old recipes. I know some recipes get lost because the person who made it is no longer with us and no one else has the recipe. Unfortunately, that happened in my family. My parents had a yummy beef and tomato sauce cabbage roll recipe that tasted almost exactly like the Puritan canned cabbage rolls of the 50s. After they passed, we discovered that none of the cookbooks they had actually had that recipe in it. One relative remembered that there was an odd ingredient in it, but could not remember what that ingredient was. My siblings and I have tried for years to replicate the recipe, but we have never been able to manage it. My advice to people is., if there is a recipe you like now, make sure you get a copy of it while you can.
So not so much a recipe book but a suggestion for dishes?
I have never heard of this cookbook. I appreciate the information about Cavelcade; I have been watching the channel since you mentioned it in an earlier video. Enjoyed the video! Thank you! I definitely will try the cornflake recipe!
Interesting you mention the plates! I thought she is doing 1948 food 1973 plates❣️This harvest gold pattern ( harvest golden everything) was my sister’s wedding pattern. I picked the little green flowers like the bowl in third recipe. I was the avocado green girl. (Although no Hoosier in 1973 had a clue ehat an avocado was 😂)
My use to make the best spaghetti all I one pot. Ground beef onion tomato soup and spaghetti it was the best. Unfortunately I never got her recipe. I’m going to try this to see how close it comes to hers.
"You put the corn in the puddin' and puddin' in the bowl. You put the bowl in your belly, 'cause it's good for the soul."
I’ve heard of toast water for an upset stomach, but it was usually advised as using burnt toast. I suppose this would work similar to taking activated charcoal which supposedly traps toxins to the carbon molecules to be excreted, rather than being absorbed. Maybe helpful for food poisoning???
In San Diego my windows are open and it’s 80 degrees…I feel bad until I remember how much the CA/Sunshine Tax I pay. Trade off!
Oh my gosh, I have that exact cookbook! I’ll have to dust it off and try one of these!
I’m a hospice social worker. Please don’t give sick people toast water.
We had a Watkins man, a Fuller Brush man and a door-to-door Avon lady when I grew up in 1960s rural BC. It was always an 'event' when they came calling, unpacking their cases and showing my mom the new products.
That spaghetti sauce made with canned tomato soup reminded me that my mom would use soup for sauces all the time. Never real tomato sauce but tomato sauce as a base for chili, spaghetti sauce(with nutmeg, allspice and mustard) and sauce for Swiss steak.
That 1948 cookbook is like getting a glimpse of the social history of that time. Fascinating! ❤
I just made two containers of bread crumbs today and froze. Nice to have home made bread crumbs instead of buying.
I have the Watkins salad book but not this one.
Fun video!
I made the cheese dish for dinner for the family tonight and it was a real hit. I replaced the American cheese with 1 year old cheddar. It didn't produce the lava effect that you got with the American cheese, but was still very yummy. It went so fast that I'm going to try making a double batch next time. Meanwhile, they wanted the recipe so I sent them the link to your video. Thanks for sharing this one.
I love Watkins salves ❤
Great video
The JR Watkins burn salve is awesome. I'll have to get one of these cookbooks.
I have the 1943 Watkins cookbook. The rockledge popover are really good. And you can add so much into it. Also the spice gem muffins are fantastic. Also the canned vegetable salad. Also love your channel. And love trying vintage recipes.
Another great show! I am a week behind.. trying to keep up with shoveling…near Buffalo NY..lots of snow ❄️ stay warm
I had those plates when I first got married in 72 lol
My mom would have called that "American Speghetti." Sweet, no beef onions or peppers. Usually made it when there was leftover Speghetti, Sunday night, or dad was TDY. May try it!
Oh, I love this episode! I actually have the Watkins Cook Book, only mine is that weird '40s red (must be a year or two before or after). I don't think I've ever used it, and I've had it since the '80s! DEFINITELY going to now. So interested in the spaghetti recipe, really redolent of the period, somehow. Fantastic episode! Great work, friend! Good luck, Minnesota; stay warm everyone!
Menard's sells Watkins brand stuff. I swear by their liniment for muscle pain or stiffness. The smell is powerful and the liniment is a bit watery, but it feels so good.
Interesting cookbook, I'll have to look for it 🙂