Informal cooking schools were popular in the early 20th century. In September 1913, the Morning Olympian and Olympia Daily Recorder newspapers brought Mary Lewis Haines to teach free classes.
Mary Haines Brings Domestic Science to Olympia
During this time, the American diet was rapidly changing as food production became more processed and mechanized. A group of college-educated women brought together new technology and advances in nutrition science. New York’s Mary Haines was one of these domestic scientists. Later called home economists, the women researched, wrote and taught. Some worked in schools while others, like Haines, toured the country giving lectures and demonstrations. And they revolutionized how people ate.
Haines’ Olympia classes were offered at the “Forum,” a meeting room at 505 Columbia Street. It was two doors down from the public market and across from the post office. Classes were offered daily for two weeks from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. The newspapers co-sponsors heavily advertised the school, with headlines like “Mysteries of Fine Cooking Made Simple.”
The classes also had corporate sponsorship. Haines cooked on an electric range from Olympia Light and Power Company with utensils from Olympia Hardware Company. She baked with Holly Flour from local grocer C.H. Bethel and used milk and butter from the Capital City Creamery and groceries from the J.F. Kearney store.
Haines’ classes were geared towards young women and inexperienced cooks. Her focus on simple, economical, and healthful food reduced the cost of living, especially using leftovers and inexpensive meat cuts. Good home cooking, she argued, was the foundation of a thriving society.
Students were encouraged to ask questions or put them in the question box. They were told to bring a notebook and pencil to write down recipes as well as a small dish and spoon to sample recipes. At the end, organizers promised, attendees would have their own handwritten cookbook, “containing some of the most useful and serviceable recipes known to science.”
Week 1: Olympia Cooking School 1913
Classes opened on Wednesday, September 10, 1913. After a short lecture, Haines demonstrated recipes. The first day’s theme was “20 Ways to Cook Hamburger.” She transformed this “plebian dish” into an array of dishes including plain beef loaf, hamburger Spanish, hamburger Creole, hamburger macaroni, hamburger balls, hamburger en blanquette, and hamburger souffle. “It was all hamburger,” the Morning Olympian wrote in awe.
Thursday Haines shared recipes for veal birds on toast, spaghetti royale, corn oysters and hamburger croquettes. Using leftovers was her specialty. The next day she followed with parsnip balls, lemon fluff pie, halibut en blanquette, and boiled or “royal” fruit cake.
Haines ended the week on Saturday, September 13 with her signature two-hour bread, which took less time and work than traditional recipes. She also prepared quick Parker House rolls, fruit meringue pie, kidneys country style and chicken a la king.
Week 2: Olympia Cooking School 1913
Haines started up again on Monday with cheap steamed pudding that served eight for a mere 15 cents, soft gingerbread, roast shoulder of lamb with special stuffing, marshmallow trifle, and Sunshine cake with butter icing. She also demonstrated again her two-hour bread. She followed the next day with economical poor man’s rice pudding, potato cake, chocolate fudge filling, potatoes au gratin and country-style round steak.
September 17 was a busy day. She made fritot of chicken and a supreme of chicken that she promised would be, “quite a surprise to the ladies.” Haines also prepared Palace Salad, lemon salad dressing and southern style green tomato pie. Her mayonnaise dressing recipe, she promised, would be a hit with those whose mayo always curdled. And it only took four minutes to make!
She followed the next day with cheese mayonnaise, devil’s food cake, cream puffs, fruit gelatin salad to serve the next day, kidney sauté and planked chicken. On Friday she ended demonstrations with chicken salad, chocolate triangles, and milk icing. Her main dish was planked fish with maître d’hotel butter, a rich mixture of butter and lemon juice.
Olympia Bread-Baking Contest
Haines ended her cooking school on Saturday, September 20 with a bread baking contest. 25 women entered loaves. Bread could be any recipe, but loaves needed be a minimum of five by nine inches, cut in halves, and baked fresh that morning. Judges were Katheryn Boardman, Mrs. L. Portland and Minnie Hilderbrand, who operated the Cafeteria Restaurant with her husband Allen.
Cynthia McKenny, mother of famed environmental activist Margaret McKenny, won first prize, which was a barrel of Holly Flour. Second place, Nellie Johnson, got a half barrel of Holly Flour and Georgia Miles received 50 pounds of Holly Flour for being third.
After the contest, the bread was sold, raising $450 for the Washington Children’s Home. “The school in Olympia,” Haines told the papers, “has been a wonderful success.” Over the course of her visit, she averaged 100 students per class. Many days had nearly 125.
Haines returned in late November to pick up her book, “Helpful Hints for Housewives,” hot off Olympia’s Recorder Press. Why a non-local writer would choose this press in Olympia is not clear. She sold copies from her room at the Mitchell Hotel. Demand was high.
Although Mary Haines’s time in Olympia was short, her students had learned much. Women like Haines, with her emphasis on science and education, helped transform American cooking into what it is today. “Try to get away from the beaten paths in cooking,” she told her audience. “Learn to experiment with the familiar dishes that you have all grown tired of. You will find that cooking is not so monotonous when you vary it from the ways you have been cooking for so long.”
