The 1920s One Hour Dress (a Great Misnomer)

I've been dabbling in the 1920s recently.

Last September, there was a Great Gatsby Lawn Party in Atlanta, that Jay and I went to with our friends Heather and Hannah.  Dardanella hosts these public parties in various cities and if you ever have the opportunity to get tickets for one, I highly recommend it.  Attending was a last minute lark, so I only had 24 hours to come up with something to wear.  (I ended up wearing a late 1910s dress that I already had on hand and stitched a couple of big millinery roses to a picture hat) Then Heather hosted a private Miss Fisher/Great Gatsby party, and now there is another Gatsby Lawn Party in May that we are going to. Great fun.  But I needed something more 1920s than my late 1910s dress.

I'd always wanted to play with making a "One Hour Dress," so step one was..  you guessed it:  research. A quick search in the Historical Sew Fortnightly FB group, turned up a number of blog posts on the dress and 30 minutes of reading blogs lead me back to a tips for the One Hour Dress at Vintage Dancer (VintageDancer.com is a lovely site for down and dirty dressing for historical parties/events that don't require strict historical accuracy-if I'd had sense, I probably should have checked Vintage Dancer first)

Following the changes in fashion in the 1920s (and there were many!) took me down a rather fascinating rabbit hole and I finally settled on 1923-early 1924 as the look I wanted to emulate.

The One Hour Dress concept is credited to Mary Brooks Picken of the Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Scranton, PA. The reprint I have includes a photo of a letter from August 3, 1923 and attests that Miss Leonore McCormack of the Women's Institute made the One Hour Dress in 34 minutes at a public demonstration at the second National Merchandise Fair.

There seem to be several versions of the original booklet out there: one, possibly two versions from 1924, a 1925 printing reportedly with some style variations and a 1929 edition called Easy Ways to Pretty Frocks)  Better still, there are several sellers on Etsy that are selling PDF scans that they have restored to excellent readability of the booklets.

I had a gorgeous black tissue silk saree with deep pink beading and embroidery that I do not remember buying (because it wasn't suitable for any sort of sewing that I do) but it was absolutely perfect for the 1920s.

I've been doing a lot of 16th century Italian lately and I was astounded at how little fabric a One Hour Dress takes;  I plenty of leftovers...  which was good because despite making a mockup, I managed to cut the top 6" too short.  *facepalm* I had enough fabric to totally re-cut the top -if I didn't mind losing the random embroidery motifs scattered over the fabric.  To keep those, I ended up adding a piece around the bottom to bring the waist low enough for the silhouette.  But with some judicious use of the excess border trim, my oops wasn't noticeable.

It's not a mistake.  It's a feature!

The dress definitely took more than an hour, but it was a pleasant and restful project and if we keep doing 1920s events, I may make several more to expand my 1920s wardrobe.  Now to figure out what I am going to do about a hat!

Roman Moretum (or Strong Garlic Cheese)

Several friends have asked for my version of this recipe, so a blog post it is!

I first found this recipe while I was researching a Roman themed Royal Lunch last autumn in Grainger & Dalby's Classical Cookbook.  Grainger takes her redaction from the poem Moretum by Virgil. 1    Full disclosure: I did not do my own redaction initially; at the time I was focused on a palatable menu not experimental archaeology so I read her translated excerpt of the poem and used her redaction as written for my initial batch.

2 heads (25 cloves) garlic (no, this is not a typo)
8 oz Pecorino Romano cheese
large handful coriander leaves (coriander is the British name for cilantro)
2 heaped tsp chopped fresh celery leaf
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp white wine vinegar  (one of the people this was for was sensitive to vinegar so I used white wine)
1 tbsp olive oil

The Roman way to combine everything would be in a mortarium with lots and lots of grinding.  I used Grainger's alternate method:  my food processor.

   Reproduction mortarium from Der Romer Shop  

I kind of want one to try just one batch the real Roman way.

I have a Vitamix and I just tossed everything in and turned it on. Surprisingly, it was hard work getting everything combined.  Grainger says that the garlic juice and notes that the vinegar and olive oil are to soften the mixture not turn it into a spread.  I ended up having to add a little more wine & olive oil just  to get everything to congeal but followed the caution not to make it a spread.

It was so garlicky it was spicy.  The other garlic lovers at the taste test liked it, but I though it was a bit too much garlic (and I consider myself a garlic-lover). It was also a bit hard and crumbly and difficult to get onto bread to eat.

The next batch I dropped the garlic down to 20 cloves but it was still pretty in-your-face garlic. And it was still kind of crumbly.

My current version is very much a "based on" the original recipe.  I've toned down the garlic and added enough liquid to make it semi spreadable, just for ease of serving.  Is it entirely HA?  No.  But my first goal is to serve food people want to eat, so I am OK with my changes.

12 cloves garlic
12 oz Romano cheese
handful cilantro, chopped (I have never had anyone that dislikes cilantro notice it was in the recipe)
2 tsp celery salt  (buying celery that will go unused just for 2 fresh tsp of leaves seems wasteful to me)
white wine/white wine vinegar & olive oil as needed

Toss the garlic in the food processor & chop until juicy.
Toss the chopped cilantro & celery salt in and blend
Add the cheese, 2 tbsp white wine & 2 tbsp olive oil and combine, stopping frequently to scrape the sides.
Keep adding white wine alternated with olive oil and blending after each addition until your desire consistency is reached.

This past January Tavola Mediterranea (a fascinating food archaeology site that I follow) posted recipes for several other versions of moretum, at least one of them in a primary source I already own. One of these days I may make all the versions and host a moretum tasting party.  

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Dalby, Andrew and Sally Grainger. The Classical Cookbook. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996.

Monaco, Farrell. "Edible Archaeology: Columella's Fresh Cheese and Herb Moretum." Tavola Mediterranea. January 15, 2018. Accessed April 25, 2018. http://tavolamediterranea.com/2018/01/15/columellas-moretum/.