Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Fresh Canned Coconut, Southern-Style.

The American Food Journal was first published in 1906, as “The National Magazine of the Food Field.” In 1928 I was merged with the Home Economist, which unfortunately ceased publication at the end of that year.

Home economics teachers were amongst the target audience of the journal, and in Volume 21, published in December, 1926, they received a special offer from one of the advertisers, which I give in detail below. I have no idea if Southern-Style Canned Coconut is still available, nor what distinguishes Southern-style from that of the North, East, or West, but I do love coconut in all its forms (bar the cheap and nasty versions of dessicated coconut which is often dry, gritty, powdery, and too sweet) so I am sure, had I been a Home Ec. teacher at the time, I would have taken advantage of the offer and to hell with any Conflict of Interest. The advertisement is also interesting today as an example of politically incorrect racist stereotyping. Here it is:

Leading cookery editors and Experts are enthusiastic over this
New Fresh-canned Coconut.

Since the discovery of this new way of packing coconut in tins, leading cookery editors and experts say that they make a dozen coconut dishes now to every one they made before. Baker's Canned Coconut, Southern-Style, is no more like the old-fashioned, dried kind than choice canned fruits are like dried fruits. It is fresh coconut, shredded ready for use and sealed in tins. It gives you the rich flavor, the delicate tenderness of fresh coconut just as it comes from the shell.

Try these new recipes by two of America's leading cookery editors. Made with Baker's Canned Coconut, they will give you an entirely new idea of how good coconut can be.

Let the family enjoy all their favorite coconut dishes often - for coconut, put up this way with all its tenderness and with all its valuable vitamins and proteins, is one of the most nourishing and digestible of food

A Free Supply for Class Work.
We want you, as home economics teacher, to see for yourself how marvelously better this new fresh-canned coconut makes cakes, pies, puddings – all the popular coconut dishes. And so, if you will fill out the coupon below and mail it to us, we will be glad to supply you with enough Southern-style for a class lesson.

A Cake Recipe an Old Southern Mammy gave us.
MISS ALICE BLINN, Associate Editor of The Delineator, especially recommends this unusual cake recipe.

COCONUT LAYER CAKE: Use any favorite layer cake recipe. Put the layers together with this coconut cream filling and cover first with the filling and then with the coconut.
Coconut Cream Filling: ⅞ cup sugar, ½ cup flour, ⅛ teaspoon salt, 2 cups scalded milk, ¾ cup Baker's Canned Coconut, Southern-Style, 1 teaspoon vanilla, yolks 2 eggs. Mix the sugar, flour and salt, add the yolks of eggs slightly beaten, and add this mixture gradually to the scalded milk. Cook the mixture for 15 minutes in a double boiler, stirring it constantly until it is thickened and after that stirring it occasionally. Cool the mixture, add the coconut and flavor it with the vanilla. The filling is then ready to spread on cake.
The old familiar kind, too.
The old fashioned shredded kind, sugar-cured, made from the meat of the same fine coconuts as Southern-Style. Bakers Old Fashioned Shred Coconut is more daintily and finely cut, more carefully prepared than any dry shredded coconut you have used before, and packed in a double-wrapped stay-fresh package.

These tarts are especially delicious made with fresh-canned coconut.
MISS MARIE SELLERS, Home Economics Editor and Director of Home Bureau of Pictorial Review, says you will like these tarts.

SUNSHINE TARTS. Hot Water Pie Crust: Cream ⅓ cup shortening with ¼ cup boiling water. Cut in 1 cup sifted flour and ¼ teaspoon salt. Roll thin. Perforate well with silver fork. Bake. Above pie crust makes 6 tarts.
Tart Filling: Stir a rounded tablespoon cornstarch with cold water to a smooth consistency: pour on 1 cup boiling water and stir till the whole is boiling. Add ½ cup sugar and cook in double boiler 15 minutes, Beat 2 egg yolks to which add gradually ½ cup sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt, and stir into the hot mixture. Cook until mixture is light and puffy. Beat in 1 teaspoon butter, juice of 1 lemon, and 1 cup Baker’s Canned Coconut, Southern-Style. Fill pastry cases shortly before serving. Cover with meringue, brown, and sprinkle with Baker’s Canned Coconut.


1 comment:

  1. I remember canned coconut. These days you can find it in plastic bags. They don't call it Southern Style anymore, but I'm pretty sure it was called that because it was more moist than the plain dried stuff. Coconut cake (especially for Easter) and coconut cream pie are still very popular in the American South.

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