Mrs. Wilbur Heckman's Dumplings

The following recipe is one I copied out of the Anita, Iowa, Centennial Cookbook.  This is a very old-fashioned recipe with a very old-fashioned flavor.  It is too warm for soup, and we have used all of our home-grown potatoes, so I made them the "artificial potatoes" way in the lower half of the recipe.

This is the way the recipe appeared in the cookbook:

Grandma (Mrs. Wilbur) Heckman's Dumplings

(Copied just as she wrote it to her granddaughter)

I used one egg and 1/2 cup of milk, a pinch of salt, about a cup of flour with one teaspoon baking powder, stir good, have your soup broth deep enough to an inch or more above other ingredients and boiling.  Now drop by teaspoonful but have your spoon dipped first in hot broth.  Place lid on for five minutes, or until they look done, or porous on top.  But, don't peek at them until 5 minutes are up.  When we were short of potatoes in the spring, I would feed the family by doubling the recipe, have several inches of salted water boiling and drop by tablespoons in water, let cook, then take those out onto a platter and drop more in.  I would have butter browning with bread crumbs and onions and cover each layer of dumplings with that.

Mighty good!  The boys (she had seven sons) called them artificial potatoes--easy and filling.

Vesta Bailey Duensing

Here is what the dumpling batter looks like when it is all mixed up.  I put perhaps an extra tablespoon of flour in them.

I browned onions and bread crumbs in butter just like she suggested.  If I make these again, I'm going to forego the bread crumbs. They were unnecessary and added kind of a sandy texture to the outside of the dumplings.

I couldn't take a photograph and spoon the dumplings into the boiling water, so you'll have to settle for a picture of what they looked like when I removed the lid after the five minutes of boiling time had elapsed.

I scooped them into a frying pan of hot browned butter and then added the browned onions and bread crumbs.

Once again, Marjorie the Margin Gem is 
desperately in need of a bath!  Poor girl.  She's
always getting her picture snapped when she's
not at her best.

The dumplings were faintly like boiled potatoes, and they certainly weren't bad.  I ate them with a lettuce and cabbage salad and hamburgers that I had canned last summer on the Hayes-Custer.

In these days of heightened awareness about carbohydrate consumption, I don't suppose these will enjoy renewed popularity.  However, back in the day when farming involved constant physical labor, you can see where these little balls of energy would be welcome on the noon dinner plate if the potato bin was empty.

Great Majestic Ranges

I want to share another fun piece of cookstove media from my collection.  The scans below are from an oversized booklet showing the ranges which were being manufactured by the Majestic Manufacturing Company of St. Louis, Missouri, in the late 1910s.  Because of the size of the pages, I had a difficult time getting full-sized scans.

As with so much of the wood cookstove ephemera I have, no publishing date is present anywhere in the booklet.  Thus, we use various clues to arrive at an approximate date, and the first clues appear on the front cover.

The woman's hairstyle in the photograph above screams 1915-1919.  The style of her blouse also is appropriate for that time period.

Our next clue comes from the inside cover, which states that the Great Majestic Range is "The Range with a Reputation" because it won a gold medal, the highest award given at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, California.  More commonly known as the San Francisco World's Fair, this event opened on February 20, 1915, and did not close until December 4 of that same year.

Another indicator of the date is the fact that none of the stoves in the booklet have any porcelain enamel on them.  As I understand it, the capability of using porcelain enamel on stoves was developed right around the turn of the twentieth century, but it wasn't until the 1920s that it became widely popular.

The Majestic Manufacturing Company, sometimes called the Majestic Stove Company, produced about two million ranges between the 1880s and the 1940s and was one of the ten largest stove producers in the United States prior to World War II.  Many of their ranges are still in use today, and they are very commonly found in stove restoration shops.

The section about malleable iron on the above page is interesting.  It touts the superiority of malleable iron over cast iron, saying in part that the life of a Majestic Range is three or four times as long as an all casti-iron range.  I would be interested to hear what modern-day stove restorers have to say about that.  It is my understanding that the all-cast-iron ranges built in the Northeast are far easier to restore, and from the looks of what is on the internet, a lot of them have lasted pretty well.  I invite those who are much more knowledgeable than I to put their two cents worth in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

The information about the "Pin Extension Malleable Iron Water Front" on the next page explains how the Majestic waterfront provides more hot water than any other design.  The Majestic waterjacket design was certainly unique.  It had a series of circular "pins" that protruded from the top right side, thus vastly increasing the surface area where water could be heated.  Majestic used this design for many years.  I think it probably worked very well.  

I would have to say, however, that in the range where I saw one installed, I think the pins would have been in the way when trying to put larger chunks of wood in the fire.  You can sort of see the front pin sticking out over the piece of wood burning in the firebox in the photograph below.  This range was at Mill Creek Antiques in Paxico, Kansas.

This is an earlier model Great Majestic than what you see in the catalog.
You can tell that because it has the ornate "Tea Pot Shelves" that this
catalog says were unsanitary on the next page.

Following that, is the obligatory information about how wonderful the oven is.  I have yet to run across any stove brochure, flyer, or advertisement that doesn't advertise how wonderfully the oven bakes--and always on so little fuel!

The text that was cut off at the bottom of this page simply reads,
"and see for yourself."

The page below talks about the warming closet below the baking oven.  This was a feature that some New England ranges had, but in Midwestern ranges I believe it was unique to Home Comfort and the cabinet-style Majestics.  They advertise that you can dry wood and shoes down there.

And now for the pictures of the stoves!

The Great Majestic cabinet style "Square Range."

In the text boxes at the top right of each picture, you can see the different sizes that each model range came in.

The pictures on the right side always show the same Great Majestic Range
model except with legs.

I wonder how well the range in the picture below actually sold.  To me, it looks very inconvenient to operate because the only draft is located below that whole reservoir assembly!

A very similar stove to the one above is currently for sale on Ebay.  You can see it here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Great-Majestic-Stove-functional-and-new-chrome/303742237307?hash=item46b872ba7b:g:MdkAAOSwYvNfl5Wf

Ranges that were equipped with both a water reservoir and a waterfront and boiler were quite common in houses where running water had been installed.  The reservoir was most often used to heat rainwater, which was collected from the roofs of houses in cisterns.  It was valued for washing dishes, clothing, and hair because it was "soft."  In other words, it didn't have all the minerals of well water and therefore cooperated with soap better and provided better cleaning.

The waterfront and range boiler were usually connected to water systems providing well water or city water, which would be under pressure so that it could be piped throughout the home.

Combination ranges were coming into fashion during this time.  The gas side was used during warmer weather when the ability to shut the heat off as soon as cooking was finished kept the kitchen much cooler.

And now for the pie´ces de re´sistance:

Someday...someday I hope to get a chance to cook on a stove like one of these!

The largest range of this style came with three 23" x 23" ovens and weighed
in at a whopping 1740 pounds!

I would love to know how the flues in the range above were designed because the description says "One fire box will heat one, two, or three ovens, as needed, or entire top can be heated without heating the ovens."  How did that work?

According to the information here, Majestic was the largest manufacturer of hotel ranges in the world.  These ranges could be "twinned" with as many of them as were desired, thus making the long, multi-ovened beasts you see in historic photographs of places like the White House kitchen.  Man!  Cooking on one of these looks like so much fun!

So, are any of you dear readers cooking on a Great Majestic?  If so, tell us all what you think of it in the comments below.

Request for Help from a Flameview Owner

Yesterday, a comment was placed on this post about the Flameview that I feel needs a little more attention than it will probably get in its original location.  The comment is below.  If any of you Flameview owners can help this fellow wood cookstove owner out, that would be great.

Help!  I have a Flameview wood stove with warming shelf and am in need of the manual. Can't find the sucker anywhere.  Can someone on here email it to me, please? 

djmontowski@gmail.com  Thanks in advance!

Grandma Marian's Rice Pudding

Both Meme and Grandma Marian were of the school of thought that rice should be cooked forever in the top of a double boiler.  I know Meme's mother (my great-great-grandmother) cooked it in the same manner, and it was always served on Saturday night for supper.  Thus, I almost laughed aloud when I read the following bit from page 50 of my reprint of the 1933 Home Comfort Cookbook:

"Rice should not be put into a double boiler and cooked slowly into a pasty mass."

That is EXACTLY what they both did, and I ate it happily every time!

If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that Grandma only made rice once per month.  It was served instead of the ever-present potato with a sprinkling of sugar and a dash of cinnamon once it was on our plates.  Other than that, it was completely unseasoned.  (I had never even heard of salting rice until I was in college, and I had never had Chinese food either.)  If any rice was leftover, she would make it into rice pudding for dessert a day or two later.  Since she didn't ever know how much rice she would have (she was constantly cooking for large groups of family and hired men), there was never any recipe for her rice pudding.  Furthermore, sometimes it all fit into a small custard cup, and sometimes it needed an 8" x 10" Pyrex dish.  Obviously, this dish is very flexible.

Also, I should give fair warning that though Grandma always called this "rice pudding," it is really more of a baked custard with rice in it.  Thus, if you are looking for a rice pudding that is more similar to a cornstarch pudding, this isn't going to fit that bill.

To start with, you need leftover cooked rice, eggs, milk, sugar, and vanilla.  You can see in the picture below that I had two different containers of leftover rice, and I would estimate that they amounted to about 2 1/2 cups altogether.

To this amount of rice, I added three eggs and some milk, a splash of vanilla, and perhaps a quarter cup of sugar.  I could have put more sugar in--Grandma certainly would have--but I like this best served with ice cream, so I didn't want it to be all that sweet.

Three eggs didn't seem to be sufficient, so I added a fourth and a dab more milk.  That's the thing with this sort of "recipe": you have to carefully observe what things look like so that you know how to adjust your proportions.  In this case, you want there to be enough egg and milk mixture to cover the rice completely.  You can see that things looked better after I added these extras.

Finally, add whatever amount of raisins you would like.  I think I put in a heaping half cup into this batch.  

Lightly sprinkle cinnamon on the top of the pudding once you put it in whatever dish you are going to bake it in.

This is a particularly good recipe to bake in a wood cookstove because you don't have to have a certain oven temperature.  I imagine Grandma baked it at 325ºF, but you just have to have a slow to moderate oven.

Watch the pudding carefully, baking it until it is firm in the middle.  Depending on the size of your pudding, this can take quite a while.  Again, just watch it carefully and don't let your fire get too hot!

I like this rice pudding best when served warm.  Grandma always served it with Cool Whip, milk, half & half, or ice cream.  My favorite is ice cream.

We have some family friends who make a very similar dish that they just call "Baked Rice."  Theirs is less sweet, has a bit of salt added to it, and is served as a starchy side dish for the main meal rather than a dessert, but it is the same basic idea.  Both their family and Grandma's has a lot of German influence, so I wonder if this is a German dish.

Please fill up the comments with information about whether you or your family make something similar, and let us all know how your method differs.

Enterprise Stoves from the Phillips & Buttorff Corporation of Nashville, Tennessee

I thought I'd share one of my 2020 Christmas present with all of you.  This stove catalog is from the Phillips & Buttorff Corporation of Nashville, Tennessee, and lists all of their coal and wood ranges, stoves, and heaters.

It has been very difficult to find information about the Phillips and Buttorff Corporation anywhere on the internet.  What little I've found says that when Henry W. Buttorff, who was born in 1837, came of working age, he started as a sheet metal apprentice and worked his way into being a leading businessman in the state of Tennessee.  The Phillips & Buttorff Manufacturing Corporation was incorporated in 1881 but had been in business as Phillips, Buttorff & Company for several years before that.   

There is no date anywhere in this catalog, but my best guess is that it dates from 1946 - 1950.  I base this on the following evidence:

a) The style of stoves shown in the catalog.

b) The font styles used for the text.

c) Page 1 identifies this as catalog "T."

My research uncovered that Catalog "H" came out in 1932.  If a single catalog were published each year, Catalog "T" should have come out in 1944.  However, we all know that World War II stopped stove production in the U.S. since all foundries were retooled to produce munitions or other products needed for the war.  

The catalog does say that Phillips & Buttorff also produced a complete line of electric and gas stoves at the time it was published.  During my research, I found several pictures of Enterprise gas stoves from this company, some of which looked as though they were produced in the 1960s.  I was not able to find any information about the company's end, though.

Before you take a look at the pictures below, let me say that I was initially confused about this catalog because I expected it to depict the Enterprise stoves which were manufactured in Canada.  I now know that the Canadian Enterprise stove line was manufactured by Enterprise Fawcett in Sackville, New Brunswick, and had no connection that I can find to the Tennessee company using the same branding.

Enough comments, Jim.  Let the pictures speak for themselves!

The ten-page gap here is because the omitted pages all had to do with their heating stoves.

The page above, my friends, is the type of thing that caused me to start this blog.  Notice how scant the directions really are.

If any of my readers has a Phillips & Buttorff Enterprise stove, please comment below about your experiences with it.  Also, if anyone who reads this knows more about the Phillips & Buttorff Corporation, by all means, utilize the comments to let us all know more about this company!