Dining Through the Decades: Food of the 1920s by David Leite

1920-29

< back The Roaring Twenties were indeed a deafening decade. The music was loud, the people wild and the stock market boisterous. We had money and were willing to spend it in the most conspicuous ways. Novel electrical gadgets like toasters, refrigerators and gas stoves were being sold by the thousands. Maîtres d'hôtel (as in earlier decades, the best food was still found in hotels) were tripping over themselves to serve the most sumptuous and costly dishes.

The unwelcomed appearance of Prohibition did little to curtail the drinking habits of the masses. The Noble Experiment, as it was called, actually encouraged us to drink more, which is why in part it was repealed in 1933. In fact, the majority of the drinks we know today were concocted during Prohibition.

Speakeasies sprang up everywhere, and patrons slunk into these underground establishments by the millions to drink and to listen to the new music called jazz. To accommodate them, and to soak up some of the harsh bathtub gin, proprietors began offering finger foods. Delights such as Shrimp Patties, Oyster Cocktails and Mushrooms Stuffed With Pimientos filled makeshift bars. Customers brought the idea into their homes, and the cocktail party was born.

While the more affluent crowd sipped and chattered away at their parlor parties, the rest of us repaired to the dining room (or eat-in kitchen) for dinner. Something was missing from most tables, though. "Salads were considered effeminate and French," says Krishnendu Ray, a food historian at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. "They were looked upon with suspicion by conservative, middle-class Americans." That, however, was soon to change.

On July 4, 1924, in Tijuana, Mexico, Caesar's Place was packed with Hollywood folk who had headed south for the holiday to evade the restriction of Prohibition. By the end of the busy night, the kitchen was nearly empty except for a few ingredients — romaine lettuce, Romano cheese, bread, olive oil and some eggs. With these, proprietor Caesar Cardini whipped up the famous Caesar Salad.

Regarding the pomp of the salad's tableside tossing, food columnist and cookbook author Arthur Schwartz wrote in a 1995 article for the New York Daily News that Cardini believed "give the show people a little show and they'll never realize it's only a salad." He was right.

Word spread, and Hollywood swells and average joes flocked to Tijuana and sat elbow to elbow feasting on Cardini's sensation and delighting in his peerless showmanship. Together with The Brown Derby's Cobb Salad and the Palace Court's Green Goddess Salad, the Caesar secured a place for salads on menus and tables across the country.

But the one item that best defines the 1920s is nether fish nor fowl nor leafy green. It's the Martini. No sophisticate would dare be seen without a Martini nonchalantly cupped on one hand and a Camel cigarette cocked in the other.

The origin of the Martini remains unknown. Experts name several sources of pedigree, all of them happy to claim credit. Regardless of its heritage, what's special about the shimmering, silvery Martini is its elegance. It was the perfect accessory for the slender flapper and the sleek Dapper Dan — the full-figured ideal of the previous decades disappeared, never to return.

No other cocktail has incited such passion or ire when it comes to the proper way to make one. Some, like the genetically cool James Bond, say it should be served "shaken, not stirred" so as not to "bruise the gin." Somerset Maugham insisted that "martinis should always be stirred, not shaken, so that the molecules lie sensuously on top of one another." Either way, the best Martini is always served ice-cold.

The decade's giddiness from unprecedented wealth — and a surfeit of Martinis, no doubt — came to a gut-crushing halt on October 29, 1929, when the Dow Jones plummeted a then staggering 30.57 points. more >