23 September 1956 “Food Shopping and Kitchen Equipment: The Essentials”

I thought I would share with you today some of the information from my 1950’s homemaker’s guides. Though the information might be dated for some, I find good common sense is timeless.
Here are some good lists to stock your pantry. (Click to enlarge)I would add to the diary a different variety of cheese, as I don’t usually like the taste of American cheese, but you could certainly follow this list to a T and be quite fine.
Isn’t it also interesting to note that many ladies had shopping baskets (as in the picture). Another point where we were ‘green’ in the 1950’s without even knowing what green was. A shopping basket or personal cart was rather normal. Paper bags were becoming popular at the large supermarkets, but many women were used to going to the local grocer and only filling their marketing basket. This especially continued in the cities, while in the new suburbs, shopping was not as frequent so you bought more and could carry it in your car as opposed to a bus or walking, so the paper bag became the norm.
Today I carry a vintage 1950’s circus canvas fabric basket from an old 1950’s grocery store. It folds up nicely and is easy to carry with my shopping bags.
I think this is a good way to approach a list. The idea of breaking it into percentage is a good solution and even could easily cater to your own needs. One could break it into any number, though this is a good solid foundation. This, by the way, is basically the formula that I use. I find that by having my marketing list annotated to these various needs it makes shopping simpler and easier to stay on budget.  A calculator (something not available to a 1950’s housewife) is also a good asset to this list. This allows one to tally up their products before reaching the checkout. Then, if something is putting you over your limit (and remember if you are shopping with cash you cannot just say, “Oh, well” because although the debit/credit card doesn’t care, the store will most likely frown on your trying to buy 50 dollars worth of groceries with 40 dollars.)

This is a fun little list to have. It gives a homemaker a good goal to reach for her stocked kitchen. One needn’t have all these things, but perhaps tacked up in the pantry as a sort of ‘wish list’ would certainly help. I have almost all of these things listed, including the deep fat fryer with basket. Mine is a vintage 1950’s variety I bought at a church bazaar for all of one dollar and is similar to this one. One day I would like a vintage stove that has one built in, like this: A gal can dream, can’t she?
Many of these items can be bought ‘vintage’ and rather inexpensively. And, as I have almost always found, if it has lasted the past 60 years, it is well made.

Well, I hope you enjoy these little tips from my guides and I am sorry for the lateness in my posting today.
Until tomorrow Happy Homemaking.