This past week was, as they say, a doozy. My area suffered through three long days of high heat and humidity (in June!) that left me headachy, lethargic, and reluctant to move away from my trusty fan, and so I read very little.
On my latest browsing of the Project Gutenberg library, I happened upon a series of five books published in the 1920s by the Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences (not, as I first thought, the British Women's Institute (WI), but an American organization founded in 1916). This collection was intended as a comprehensive resource and reference for homemakers regarding food and how to best use it in making nutritious, economical dishes. Although the stilted, formal language it adopted made some very simple concepts seem overly complex, and its notions about nutrition are now rather outdated, I found Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads definitely worth reading. The section on grains, which contains general information on the most common varieties, their origins, functions and uses, followed by recipes as well as ways in which they may be served, particularly held my interest — especially its suggestions on making the most of any leftovers, which still prove valuable today. The part that deals with "hot breads" (what we name quick breads) also includes a most instructive discussion on the different leavening agents. I look forward to the nuggets of wisdom I'll glean from the next four volumes!
Despite the heat, my brain refused to be kept on short rations, and so I consumed audio contents instead, in the form of the "Victory Kitchen Podcast." Although I thought the topic itself —food on the American homefront in World War II — was absorbing, I must say that I was often irritated beyond measure by the host's constant chortling (I can't in all good conscience call it laughing), as well as by her self-avowed inability to follow or indeed even properly read a recipe. Listener, beware.