Introduction: In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to learn what our ancestors served for Christmas dinner. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book “From the Family Kitchen.”
Even though the Thanksgiving meal is not quite a faint memory, it’s already time to start planning the Christmas feast. What are you serving this year? As I started thinking about what we would be dining on for Christmas, I became curious about what generations past might have eaten.
Looking through GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives from the 20th century gave me some of those answers. One thing that hasn’t changed? One of the staples of a Christmas dinner in the past was turkey.
1910s
In some cases, our grandparents and great-grandparents ate some of the same dishes we do today, such as roast turkey, mashed potatoes, and salad. This 1911 California newspaper column, “The Kitchen Cupboard,” includes a menu for a Christmas dinner as well as pointers for how to save some time preparing and serving a large meal.
For example, the author Anna Thompson explains that the fruit cake can be made “a couple of months” in advance. She also recommends making the cranberry jelly, doughnuts, and pies the day before, as well as setting and decorating the dining room table.
Not everyone has the luxury of celebrating Christmas at home. One group that is consistently absent are soldiers stationed far away from home. In the case of U.S. soldiers during World War I, that December might have been the first they were absent from their families.
Newspaper articles gave those on the home front a sense of what their soldiers might be experiencing during the holidays, including this article about what was being served to the soldiers stationed in France. That Christmas the soldiers dined on soup, turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce, vegetables, apple and mincemeat pies, fresh fruit and nuts. They were also supplied with candy, tobacco, and gifts courtesy of the YMCA and the Red Cross.
Genealogy Tip: As I perused GenealogyBank’s newspapers for Christmas menus, I found menus for soldiers, prisoners, and asylum inmates. Searching for these menus might help to better understand an ancestor who spent time away from home during the holidays.
1920s
Not everyone wants to cook dinner, something that was true for our ancestors as well as the present-day generation, so going out is a nice solution. This 1924 advertisement from the Hotel Hillsborough in Tampa, Florida, includes their “tempting menu.” Notice that there is not one detail missing. The menu includes everything from the Oyster Cocktail to start the meal to the after-dinner mint. In case you’re wondering what Creme de Vollaille is, it is a French cream of chicken soup.
Restaurants were competing for your ancestors’ Christmas dinner business, as shown in this page of restaurant ads from 1929 for Christmas dinners ranging in price from 75 cents to $2. Besides showing off their menus, they made promises like second helpings of turkey, and a whole cooked turkey for parties of six or more, and even promising customers they could “pay as much as you like.”
I love to see the differences in the restaurants and what they serve. At the top is Mrs. Van with her request to “eat with me.” For $1.25 (about $17.65 today) she was serving a Merry Widow cocktail which is a martini cocktail, with appetizers that included olives, nuts, cheese crackers, celery hearts, and “Cuban Soup.” Contrast that with an advertisement for Rippe’s and their $2 meal (about $28.24 today) that included everything from Canape of Russian Caviar, Fresh Crab Cocktail, Mock Turtle Soup, and baked suckling pig. That was some feast!
1930s
The 1930s marked the Depression years in the United States. Although people were having a difficult financial time, newspapers still printed holiday meal ideas that did not skimp on the festivities. This 1932 menu includes step-by-step preparation instructions, starting with the day prior to the feast. It begins with a quote from Dr. Samuel Johnson: “A man seldom thinks of anything with more earnestness than of his dinner.” It goes on to admonish readers to “get out of the depression for Christmas,” and then proceeds to dictate how to do that with their “Elaborate Christmas Dinner” menu which fed eight and cost $10. This dinner included turkey, twice baked potatoes, broccoli with link sausage garnish, avocado and grapefruit salad.
A 1931 newspaper article from New Orleans takes a more practical approach and stresses that Christmas dinner could not only be partly prepared the day before but also done on a budget. “If – because of preference or the limitations of the family budget – turkey has no place on the menu, a very satisfactory dinner can be built around roast beef, roast pork or other meats.” This menu includes mashed potatoes, buttered onions, cranberry sauce, cabbage salad, and bread and butter. Dessert was a steamed pudding, coffee, assorted nuts and candy.
What’s on Your Christmas Menu?
I love to see what past generations had for dinner and, of course, I’m looking forward to the meal I’ll be preparing in just three days. What will you be serving? Have you thought about taking photos, documenting the recipes, and sharing them as part of your family history? They are an important part of your family traditions, and saving those recipes will, in years to come, be a good reminder of Christmas 2017.
Merry Christmas!
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