Department for Women Readers
I was doing research in the library today, and I thought you'd appreciate this item from the Jan. 8, 1900, issue of the Toronto Evening Star, published on page 5 under the banner "Department for Women Readers." 
Curiously, the illustration seems to be the fashion hint -- I couldn't find any text to go with it. (Maybe that's why it's just a "hint"?) Anyway, quite the hats. The top one must be a hat, right? And not just a bird of some sort that has crash-landed onto the lady's head? I think a woman must have needed one of those giant fur collars to keep her head propped up under the weight of such an enormous specimen of millinery.
And the menu below was also free of explanatory text, so we are to suppose that it is just a good day's worth of eating for a woman -- and we are left to ponder the significance of the quotation that seems unrelated to ... everything. I hope you can read it (click the image to make it bigger). It's quite the complex menu, and I can't imagine anyone preparing these three meals at home in one day. (I'm totally going to find a recipe for Potato Balls, though. What could be bad about Potato Balls?)
10 comments:
Potato bisque with a Potato ball chaser. I'm sure there are no carbs in that, right?
But what the heck could pickled walnuts be like? Interesting.......
That sounds like a lot of food!
pickled walnuts? no thank you!
I think most women who could afford to take such fashion hints also had cooks and servants to take care of such elaborate menus. We forget that most people (middle class and upward) had at least one, if not two or three servants in their homes. Oh, if only someone would make my dinner every day!
thoroughly entertaining!
is the lying comment in reference to what you did or did not eat for the day? who knows...
Doesn't everyone wear birds on their heads? I thought that was still in...
No more grilled cheese for me ... it's toasted cheese canapes from here on out. And more birds for my head.
Fashionable clothing is one thing... a fashionable menu is another...
I was immediately reminded of a photo that I posted AGES ago of my great grandmother and a few of her friends -- in GLORIOUS HATS such as those!! knitorious.typepad.com/knitorious/2005/04/education.html
And we think we have to be superwoman. Wearing one of those hats and cooking like that would be more stress than I can manage in a day. Imagine running out to the grocery store for a forfotten jar of pickled walnuts; it would take an hour to attach the hat to your head.
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