Tips from the archives: Boiling an egg

"Have ready a saucepan of boiling water; put the eggs into it gently with a spoon, letting the spoon touch the bottom of the saucepan before it is withdrawn, that the egg may not fall, and consequently crack. For those who like eggs lightly boiled, 3 minutes will be found sufficient; 3 3/4 to 4 minutes will be ample time to set the white nicely; and, if liked hard, 6 to 7 minutes will not be found too long."

Mrs Beeton's Household Management by

Isabella Beeton. First published 1861

Everyone knows how to boil an egg, right?

Right? 

Apparently, not.

I'd always assumed there was just one way to boil an egg, and that was my way.  But watching my husband boil eggs this morning, I realised he uses a completely different method.

So I consulted the oracle of domesticity, Mrs Beeton, and it seems she sides with him.  While I had been labouring under the misapprehension that eggs were placed into cold water and then brought to the boil before starting the timer, Mrs Beeton and my husband put the eggs into water that is already boiling.

What do you think? Start from cold, or drop into boiling?

The Triangle of Happiness

In the late 18th Century, before our time, my ancestors mostly lived in small villages across Scotland. They would have worked within walking distance of their homes and shopped for anything they didn't grow or produce themselves at the local village shops.

Their work/sleep/shop triangle would have been very small and therefore, according to Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000) they were happier than if they had a large triangle between those points.

Putnam, who is a Harvard political scientist and Professor of Public Policy, is credited with the 'Triangle of Happiness' theory.

Putnam likes to imagine that there is a triangle, its points comprising where you sleep, where you work, and where you shop. In a canonical English village, or in a university town, the sides of that triangle are very short: a five-minute walk from one point to the next. In many American cities, you can spend an hour or two travelling each side. “You live in Pasadena, work in North Hollywood, shop in the Valley,” Putnam said. “Where is your community?” The smaller the triangle, the happier the human, as long as there is social interaction to be had. In that kind of life, you have a small refrigerator, because you can get to the store quickly and often. By this logic, the bigger the refrigerator, the lonelier the soul.

'There and Back Again.The soul of the commuter' by Nick Paumgarten. New Yorker, April 16 2007

Putnam points out however, that a small triangle equals a happier human only when social interaction is also involved. Reducing your triangle to one of working from your bedroom and ordering all the groceries on-line for delivery would be counter-productive to your happiness!

My local shops are walking distance, but getting to and from my workplace and my kids' school (and their various after-school activities) requires the car.  Some days my life as a chauffeur looks more like the Oblong of Exasperation than the Triangle of Happiness, but that is the reality of the life we have chosen to lead, and the key is to minimise the angst of the time spent in the car. 

I've tried a number of ways of making time in the car productive - listening to audio books, brushing up on a foreign language using audio programs and if the children are in the car, using the time to talk about their days. The most enjoyable activity when it's just me however, is to ensure the car radio is on a quality (usually ABC) talk radio station so that my time in the car is informative and/or entertaining. 

My 'commute' is under 10 kilometres, which is not much at all. However, a recent Federal Government report Population Growth, Jobs Growth and Commuting Flows in Melbourne, predicted ''an increase in journeys to work involving a road distance of more than 30 kilometres and an increase in the average commuting distance'' as the city is expected to add another million residents by 2025.

That's a really large Triangle of Happiness/Unhappiness for a significant proportion of our city's population, and the challenge ahead will be to try to create more jobs on the outskirts of the city - thereby reducing the size of those triangles.


What geometric shape is your work/sleep/shop life in?

Wisdom on Wednesday: Samuel Ullman

 

Ten random tips to foster enthusiasm

1. Make time for friends and family
2. Challenge your brain
3. Always have a project on the go
4. Switch around your exercise routine
5. Recognise and celebrate milestones, however small
6. Have future plans to look forward to
7. Learn new skills
8. Join an organisation or group
9. Create and maintain family traditions
10. Find ways to help others

What tips would you add?

Tips from the archives: Handling good china

"Always allow good china to cool after being washed in hot water and before stacking the pieces together. Prevents glaze from cracking."

The New Idea, 7 October 1959, p.44

The glazes used on everyday crockery now are a lot more durable than those from before our time, but reading this tip from the archives made me wonder whether there are some 'rules' that apply to putting china into the dishwasher today.

I checked our dishwasher manual, and it says that most modern china patterns are dishwasher safe. As most dishwashers operate with water heated to somewhere between 40 and 70 degrees C, modern crockery is designed to withstand the heating and cooling without damage. Heating the water to these levels helps to dissolve the stains and also disinfects the dishes.

However, the manual also states that antique items, hand-painted china, items with patterns painted over the glaze or ones with gold rims, may be more sensitive to machine washing, and that if there is any doubt to wash them by hand.

Interestingly, the manual also says not to empty the dishwasher immediately after washing. It recommends opening the door slightly to allow steam to escape and waiting until the dishes are warm to the touch before unloading.  In a  modern day update to today's tip from the archives, this is not to save the glaze from cracking, but to ensure that the dishes are dried properly.

Do you have any china-handling habits to share?

Wisdom on Wednesday: Eleanor Roosevelt

Is this right?

Was it perhaps more true of women in Eleanor Roosevelt's time when it wasn't always so usual for women to display their strength publicly?

I do know several women who, in dealing with adversity in their lives, have shown incredible dignity and strength of character, but then I also know some women who show their strength every day, not just in times of crisis.

What do you think?

Good things come to those who wait

There's a school of thought that we do our children a disservice if we don't teach them to wait for things.

Citing the famous Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, Michael Grose (an Australian leading parent educator, parent coach, writer and speaker on parenting and family matters) suggested in one of his blog posts that it's important, "to encourage your children to delay gratification, practise self-discipline and build character along the way."

The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment was conducted by a psychologist called Walter Mischel in the late 1960s.  Pre-schoolers were given a marshmallow and told they could have it, but if they waited 20 minutes they could have both the first marshmallow, and a second marshmallow. About two-thirds of the kids either ate the first marshmallow straight away, or tried to resist, but gave in within the 20 minutes. The remaining third waited the full time and got their two marshmallows. Many years later Mischel followed up his subjects, who were then in high school, and discovered, among other things, that the children from the first group had experienced more behavioural problems at school and home, had attained lower SAT scores than the second group and had struggled more with friendships.

Mischel's conclusion based on hours of observations was that the delayed gratification kids possessed coping techniques to use with their 'hot emotion' (i.e the desire for the marshmallow) such as distracting themselves from the object of desire, which they then applied to other stressful situations in their lives.

However, in the interesting article in The New Yorker magazine about this topic, Mischel acknowledges that the challenge is to turn some of those tricks into habits.

“This is where your parents are important,” Mischel says. “Have they established rituals that force you to delay on a daily basis? Do they encourage you to wait? And do they make waiting worthwhile?”

So let's just say that's what we've been doing here at beforeourtime.com. We've been encouraging you to wait...

and wait...

...for us to start posting again.

And now we're very pleased to announce that we intend to make the waiting worthwhile.

Not only have we given the blog a bit of a makeover, we also have an interesting and thought-provoking line-up of posts to come. There will be:

• Our usual erudite and informative posts examining aspects of life pre-1970 and ascertaining their relevance (or not!) to our 21st Century lives
• 'Wisdom on Wednesday' - wise words from the past
• 'Tips from the Archives' (every Sunday) - hints and tips for everything from stain removal, pest control and food storage to etiquette, relationships and time management
• Plus posts examining the changes in corporate life since 1970...for better or worse?

We're very excited to be back on deck and look forward to you joining us for the journey.  Check the sidebar on the right for all the ways you can follow us (Google Friends, Twitter, email...) or just stop by the blog the old-fashioned way by typing beforeourtime.com into the address bar of your browser. If you're a Facebook user, you can 'Like' us by searching for the 'Before Our Time' page, and you'll be notified of any new posts in your News Feed.

For those of you visiting Before Our Time for the first time - welcome!  Please, browse through some of our past posts.

So, are you pleased we made you wait?

Quinces re-heated

As it is annual quince-paste-making day in our household, I thought I'd re-heat an old post! Enjoy.

"QUINCE PASTE If the full flavour of the quinces be desired, stew them sufficiently tender to press through a sieve in the prepared juice of page 456; otherwise in just water enough to about three parts cover them; when they are soft quite through lift them out, let them cool and then pass them through a sieve; reduce them to a dry paste over a very clear fire and stir them constantly; then weigh the fruit and mix it with an equal proportion of pounded sugar or sugar boiled to candy height, we find the effect nearly the same whichever method be pursued and stir the paste without intermission until it is again so dry as to quit the pan and adhere to the spoon in one large ball; press it into shallow pans or dishes; cut it as soon as cold into small squares and should they seem to require it, dry them with a very gentle degree of heat, and when they are again cold store them in tin cases with well dried foolscap paper between them: the paste may be moulded when more convenient and kept until it is wanted for table in a very dry place. In France where the fruit is admirably confected the pate de coigns or quince paste is somewhat less boiled than we have directed and dried afterwards in the sun or in an extremely gentle oven in square tin frames about an inch and a half deep placed upon clean slates"

Modern cookery for private families reduced to a system of easy practice, in a series of carefully tested receipts, in which the principles of Baron Liebig and other eminent writers have been as much as possible applied and explained By Eliza Acton, Published by Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864 (via Google books)

There's been a lot of talk lately about eating local foods, and eating them seasonally. And when you do so, it creates a certain rhythm to the year: berry desserts in summer, root vegetable stews in winter, fresh shelled peas in spring.

However, the canny cook from before our time also knew that there was a rhythm to the pickling, bottling and preserving of these foods, which allowed variety on the dinner table all year round.

Tomato-sauce-making-day for instance, continues to be a tradition among some Italo-Australian families I know. Held towards the end of the summer when the tomatoes are cheap and plentiful, a day of chopping and boiling in the company of friends and family creates a store of pasta sauce to carry the family through the year ahead.

In my own family home, I remember the citrus season was marked by a day of chopping and peeling to make jars and jars of marmalade which would be consumed on toast throughout the year and also given as gifts to the less citricly-endowed (yes, I know citricly is not really a word...just indulge me.)

At this time of year in Southern Australia, the rhythm of seasonality dictates that it is quince paste making time.

This is the second year that I have made quince paste. Last year's didn't quite set like it should have, but I now have a legion of fans for my legendary "quince jam". In fact, one friend who I have given several containers to has begged that I make it in exactly the same way this year. If only it were that simple. She seems to think I have some control over the process!

Megan has already posted about her quince paste making experiences and I use the same basic recipe that she did.

One of the great delights of making quince-paste on a cold early winter's afternoon is that it gives you an excuse to loiter around the house. Oh no, I can't go out...I have to stir my quince paste. And the reward for judicious stirring is watching the fruit turn from a light flesh to a deep red colour. Made to perfection it should be as glossy and reflective as rubies.

There is a certain magic in turning a couple of kilos of furry fruit into a delicious dark treat to be enjoyed with cheese the year round, and given to friends as gifts.

What seasonal food preparation days mark your yearly calendar?