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Duncan Hines (the man not the cake mix) gives us a taste of the 1940s [St. Louis Post-Dispatch :: ](St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 27--And not just a real person. He was one of the most influential food writers of the 1940s and '50s. The whole cake mix thing did not come along until quite late in his life. Hines, who lived from 1880 to 1959, was born in Bowling Green, Ky., then worked as a traveling salesman for a Chicago-based marketing company. As he traveled throughout the country, he kept a notebook with information about where he ate, what he had and, especially, how clean was the kitchen. Other traveling salesmen soon came to know that, if they were going to a new town, they could ask him for a recommendation about where to eat. After a newspaper ran a story about him, he was swamped with requests for information and recommendations. He tried to handle them all by printing a list of 167 worthy restaurants and including it in more than a thousand Christmas cards he sent out in 1935. But as those lists were passed along from friend to friend, he was deluged with even more requests. So that is how, in 1936, he self-published the restaurant guide "Adventures in Good Eating." It was an instant hit. Readers soon wrote in, asking for recipes from the restaurants. He asked the restaurants for their best recipes, and the restaurants -- delighted with the publicity and the imprimatur of good taste that came with being in his guide -- complied. The result was a cookbook, "Adventures in Good Cooking," which became a best-seller. It first came out in 1939, when Hines was 59 years old, and he updated it every year after that. It wasn't until a decade later that he became a partner in a food preparation business; its popular cake-mix line was introduced two years after that. Although the cake mixes have pushed aside the nation's collective memories about Hines' other achievements, the University Press of Kentucky is working to reverse that by re-releasing "Adventures in Good Cooking" and its 1955 follow-up, "The Dessert Book." For the first time in decades, we can revisit the best recipes from some of the best restaurants of the '40s and '50s. What is surprising -- or not, depending on your expectations -- is how well the recipes still hold up today. Sure, you occasionally run into a recipe for Jellied Meat Mold, but most of the offerings would be welcome in any kitchen today. Even so, some of the directions require 21st-century translation. One recipe called for a No. 2 can of tomatoes. You still occasionally see a reference to a No. 10 can, though it is so large it is generally only used by commercial operations. A No. 2 can, which does not seem to be used anymore, held 20 fluid ounces, or 2 1/2 cups. One modern adjustment I had to make was to the recipe for Rum Cream Pie, which was created and served by the Smorgasbord restaurant in Stow, Ohio. The Smorgasbord opened in 1939, the same year the cookbook was first released. That was less than six years after Prohibition came to an end, and judging by the amount of rum in the recipe, one-half cup, Americans were still celebrating its repeal. I made the recipe with the full half-cup, and it was spectacular. But to tell the truth, it was a little rummy. Instead, I would recommend using somewhat less rum -- two or three ounces, instead of four -- unless you want the full, 1939 effect. If you do use the full amount, don't drive after you eat a piece. Nothing says the 1940s, and the Duncan Hines aesthetic, like some nice, homemade gingerbread muffins. Based on a recipe from Cock O' the Walk restaurant in Oakland, Calif., these muffins are full of rich goodness (butter, sugar, eggs, molasses) and flavored with cinnamon and ginger. A healthy dose of baking soda makes them bake up deliciously light and fluffy. I next made a dish that seemed so modern, you could picture it in any hipster restaurant today. Aubergine Pont Neuf was created by a well-known French restaurant in New York City, Voisin. Despite the dish's intimidating name -- it is named for a famous bridge in Paris -- it is really just french-fried eggplant sticks. Simply peel an eggplant and cut it into strips "as for French frying." Dip them in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs, and drop them in hot oil for three minutes (our idea of french fries is smaller than the 1939 idea, so I shortened the frying time accordingly). The crispy fried exterior is a wonderful foil for the surprisingly soft, almost creamy eggplant interior. And for an entrée, I turned to a recipe that, in 1939, must have seemed exotic, Chicken Creole. But this recipe came from the world-famous Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans, the only restaurant of the recipes I sampled that is still in existence. And Antoine's Chicken Creole is not just any Chicken Creole; it is one of the dishes that came to define Creole cooking for a generation of Americans. It has a rich mixture of bold flavors, but it is not overwhelming. Chicken Creole is no longer on the menu at Antoine's. But if you make its old recipe, or any of the other recipes in the book, it is like taking a bite out of the 1940s. ?Daniel Neman is a food writer. Follow him on Twitter @DNemanFood ___ (c)2014 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Visit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at www.stltoday.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |