Vintage Recipe for Cole Slaw Dressing

As many of you probably know, the Midwest has been socked with sweltering weather for the last few days.  This has made it so that we haven't had any desire to fire the Margin Gem since the 17th, and we have been avoiding cooking much with the gas stove, too. Tonight, however, I headed down to the summer kitchen to try a quick vintage recipe.

During the summer, I spent some time looking at more of the recipes in the 1926 West Pottawattamie County Farm Bureau Women's Cookbook (some of you may recall that I had tried a candy recipe from this cookbook just before Christmas).  I know that many of the regular readers of this blog are interested in homesteading and self-sufficiency, so when I ran across this recipe, I made a mental note to try it because it uses ingredients that many homesteaders would either be able to produce on their own or would usually keep on hand.  I'm excited to also tell you that it turned out to be delicious!

For one head of cabbage, you'll need 3 egg yolks, 2/3 cup sugar, 2/3 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup cream, salt and pepper. 

Here is what you do:

In a heavy saucepan, beat the egg yolks.  Then beat in the sugar.  Add the vinegar and place it over the fire to bring it to a boil.  Stir constantly.

The egg yolk, sugar, and vinegar mixture on the fire.

I was able to cook the dressing on a very small fire
made only of corn cobs and pieces of bark picked
up from the ground in the shed where we split our
firewood.

Once the egg, sugar, and vinegar mixture has come to a good boil, add the 1/2 cup cream.  Bring back to a hard boil and then remove from heat.

The salad dressing once the cream has been added.  I was using
cream from our own cow, so you see white lumps of cream
which were very thick and had not yet melted when I snapped
the picture.

Add salt and pepper to taste, and then chill the dressing mixture.  It will congeal to a soft set as it cools in the refrigerator.

Nancy shredding the carrots and cabbage using
Granny's Saladmaster.

While the salad dressing was chilling in the refrigerator, Nancy and I prepared the cabbage and carrots with my grandmother's ancient Saladmaster.  Somewhere I have the advertising brochure that went with the Saladmaster cookware set. It was purchased for three hundred and some dollars in the 1960s, and I'm sure that it was a major purchase for my grandparents at the time. 

I can remember Granny making cole slaw with this machine when our house was still her house in the late 1970s.  Her cole slaw was always outstanding, but she made the dressing with Miracle Whip--which, of course, would have meant that there would have been no reason to fire up the Riverside Bakewell and write a blog post. :)

When the cabbage and the carrots were ready, the dressing was cool.  We combined everything and threw in a few dried cranberries.  The results were great!

The finished cole slaw.

Here is how the recipe originally appeared on page 129 of the 1926 cookbook:

Dressing for Cabbage Slaw

Mrs. Geo. J. Ward

3 egg yolks beaten                            2/3 cup vinegar

2/3 cup sugar                                    Salt and pepper



Beat the sugar into egg yolks, add vinegar and seasoning.  Boil this mixture, stirring all the time.  Add 1/2 cp sweet cream, let boil again.  When cold mix with chopped cabbage.


Again, I have to say that I'm very impressed with this simple old recipe.  It is easy and delicious, made of things that I always have on hand, and I can pronounce everything that is in it.  That's what I'd call a winner.