Informal cooking schools were popular in the early 20th century. In November 1913, the Aberdeen Daily World newspaper invited Mary Lewis Haines to teach three weeks of free classes in Aberdeen and Hoquiam.
Domestic Science Comes to Grays Harbor
Mary Haines was a domestic scientist from New York. The American diet was rapidly changing as food production became more processed and mechanized. A new group of college-educated women brought together new technology and advances in nutrition science. Later called home economists, these women researched, wrote and taught. Some worked in schools while others, like Mary Haines, toured the country giving lectures and demonstrations. And they revolutionized how people ate.
“We live in an age of reforms and upheavals,” Haines told her Grays Harbor pupils. Good home cooking, she argued, was the foundation of a thriving society. Her focus on simple, economical, and healthful food reduced the cost of living. She emphasized using leftovers and inexpensive cuts of meat.
Haines had just published a 216-page cookbook, “Helpful Hints for Housewives.” The book, she wrote in her introduction, was meant to inspire her students “to conquer new fields of cooking.” Printed by the Recorder Press of Olympia, it sold for a $1 at her classes.
Mary Lewis Haines Cooking School in Grays Harbor
Week 1: Aberdeen Cooking School
The “World Free Cooking School” opened Tuesday, November 4, 1913, in the Electric Building on Heron Street. Classes were held daily from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., after a 30-minute concert by the Emeneker Piano Company.
The front of the Quinault clubrooms had been transformed into a kitchen, complete with a gas range, cupboards and modern, for the time, utensils. Each class began with a short lecture followed by a demonstration of several recipes. People could ask questions throughout or put questions in a box. Her women students brought notebooks and pencils to write down the recipes. They also were encouraged to bring a small dish and spoon to sample the food afterwards.
On the first day, Haines shared 25 ways to cook hamburger, demonstrated planked chicken, an egg, milk and butter free cake, and the sponge starter for her famous 2-hour bread.
Each day brought new ideas. On the November 5, Haines shared recipes for salads and salad dressings, butterscotch pie, round steak creole en casserole, and sunshine cake with butter icing. The next day she made chicken a la king, fruit meringue pie, chicken supremes, boiled fruit cake and oyster salad. She also created her specialties, 2-hour bread and quick Parker House rolls, which took much less time than traditional recipes. November 7 brought planked chicken, velvet white cake, chocolate fudge icing, escallope of leftovers, and the economical poor man’s rice pudding.
She ended the week with a cooking contest on Saturday, November 8. Bread needed Olympic Flour, white layer cake used Crescent Baking Powder and apple pies and doughnuts required Crisco. Salads needed to be artistically decorated. The special ingredients were provided free. Prizes included groceries from local merchants and cash. Domestic science students received separate prizes.
Entries were sold afterwards and the proceeds, $18.43, went to Franklin School PTA to establish a hot lunch program, cooked by the mothers of the PTA. In total, over 1,200 attended the event.
Week 2: Hoquiam Cooking School
The cooking school then relocated to the Grayport Hotel, 711-721 Simpson Avenue in Hoquiam. Daily classes began Monday, November 10. Haines repeated some recipes and added others. While the first day’s menu is lost, the next day was potatoes au gratin, marshmallow trifle, mayonnaise, tartar mousselaine mayonnaise, and Palace Salad and cheap plum pudding with vanilla and hard sauces that served eight for 12 cents.
On November 12 Haines demonstrated fish croquettes with mornay sauce, veal birds, Sunshine cake with butter icing, 2-hour bread, quick Parker House rolls and spaghetti royale. November 13 was stuffed lamb kidneys, lamb croquettes with leftover meat, peas and carrot sauce, supremes of leftover lamb, little velvet walnut squares, milk icing, potatoes cake, chocolate fudge icing, potato Vienna rolls, surprise croquettes, rice croustades and bread croustades. November 14 found her making planked fish, velvet white cake, mapeline fudge frosting, lemon fluff pie and cheese souffle.
She held another contest on Saturday, November 15. Prizes were groceries and subscriptions to the Aberdeen Daily World.
Week 3: Aberdeen Cooking School
Haines returned to teach a final week in Aberdeen. Classes were held from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. daily in the Comeau Furniture Company building, on the corner of Market and G Streets. She began on Monday, November 17 with stuffed pork tenderloin, baked stuffed onions, peach short cake, devil’s food cake and uncooked fudge frosting.
The next day she showed mock duck, veal oysters, baked green peppers, sweet potatoes southern style, cream puffs and rice compote. November 19 was 2-hour bread, Parker House rolls as well as steamed pudding with foamy sauce, potatoes au gratin, and kidneys en casserole and salad. November 20 was roast lamb shoulder, peach pudding, almond sauce, eggplant en casserole, pimento potato salad, snowballs and maraschino sauce, and cake with prune filling.
On November 21, an expert from Independent Meat Company demonstrated, identifying cuts of beef and where they came from the animal. Haines showed how to truss and prepare poultry for roasting, and made nut bread, angel food cake, new boiled frosting, crab cutlets and Olympia Oyster Salad. For her final day, Haines chose chocolate triangles, planked steak, salad of left-overs, apricot delights and sandwiches royale.
Although her time in Grays Harbor was short, her students had learned much. Women like Mary Haines, with her emphasis on science and education, helped transform American cooking into what it is today.
