Time Machine Tuesday: Cooking in 1945

The way we eat has certainly changed in the last three quarters of a century, as can be seen in the 1945 Colorado Experiment Station publication Venison on the Menu. This guide was published to offer ideas on how to cook the meat brought home from a hunt. “It will prove of unlimited value to the hunter and his wife, who will welcome tested recipes for the good cooking of good game,” the Colorado Game & Fish director wrote in the introduction. It is interesting to contrast these recipes with the way we would cook today. For instance, many of the recipes use lard, and there are no grilling recipes — everything is cooked in the stove or in the oven. The publication was reissued in 1984, and although it contains many of the same recipes, they have been adapted, for instance, to use butter or oil instead of lard. The 1945 booklet, and its contrast with the 1984 edition, provides an interesting look at cooking in a past era.