Guest Post: Salmon Pudding: A Suffrage Staple by Stacy J. Williams

The 1909 Washington Women’s Cook Book was an ingenious political tool. Published by white woman American suffragists before a statewide vote on the issue, the community cookbook helped convince white male voters to give up sole ownership of the franchise. By emphasizing their housekeeping skills, these suffragists demonstrated that women would not abandon their homes and families if they got involved in politics. Reassured that their meals would still be prepared, men were more likely to vote for the cause. 

But that’s not where the politics stopped. Activists doubted men would actually read the recipes, so they tucked subversive tips into the directions for cooking dinner. Take, for example, the recipe for “Salmon Pudding:”

One small can of salmon, two cups of rolled crackers. Two eggs well beaten, two cups of sweet milk. Mix thoroughly and season to taste. Bake one-half hour.

—ANNA W. SCOTT, Seattle.

In isolation, the most striking thing about this recipe might be its fantastic blandness rather than any political agenda. However, placed in context with the rest of the recipes in the Washington Women’s Cook Book, and compared to other community cookbooks of the time, “Salmon Pudding” is part of a tendency for white woman suffragists to support quick and simple cooking. 

Determined to prove to men that women could fulfill their domestic duties and have outside interests like politics, suffragists were keenly interested in recipes and technology that allowed them to feed their family in a shorter amount of time. Importantly, though, these middle- and upper-class white suffragists had the privilege of choosing to pursue external interests, while working-class and African-American women were forced to work outside the home due to economic necessity. 

But something else comes into view when we contextualize “Salmon Pudding” among other recipes in suffrage cookbooks: this dish was all the rage. It was a coast-to-coast phenomenon; recipes for the dish in a California suffrage cookbook were nearly identical to the ones in the cookbook compiled by New York suffragists. Salmon puddings and loaves made up 20% of the fish recipes across all seven suffrage cookbooks known to exist, and several cookbooks contained multiple recipes for essentially the same thing. 

Notably, the trend seems to have been strongest among the white middle class. Black clubwomen in California published a fundraising cookbook in 1910 (this is the only community cookbook from black clubwomen known to exist before 1920), and they didn’t include a single recipe for a fish loaf. One kind of fish loaf is a hallmark of Jewish cuisine, but gefilte fish differs from “Salmon Pudding” by utilizing ground white-fleshed fish, avoiding milk, and including matzo instead of breadcrumbs.  

“Salmon Pudding” is typical of the white, middle-class recipes. A few recipes varied by steaming the mixture rather than baking it, and some heightened the blandness with a “white sauce,” a favorite condiment of domestic scientists at the time. Domestic scientists, who were working hard to influence American kitchens and plates, loved white sauce and mayonnaise for their ability to dress up ingredients without adding something that would (in their understanding) offend one’s digestion. To prepare said sauce, scald 1 cup milk, add a couple teaspoons of flour or cornstarch, and an egg. 

This looked to me like a recipe for soggy, fishy cardboard. Why was it so popular? Was I underestimating it? I decided to make it to find out. 

The recipe is so easy that a two-year-old can make it. In fact, our two-year-old didmake it. Well, he dumped all the ingredients into a bowl and stirred everything together. As he gripped the wooden spoon and tried his best not to fling fish across the kitchen, I thought about how white woman suffragists had politely nudged men to take on more of the cooking at home. Dozens of the recipes in the Washington Women’s Cook Book were contributed by men, proving that cooking could be learned by members of both genders. In suffrage newspapers, activists wrote about teaching their sons to cook and wash the dishes. I think they would be proud of our toddler. 

“Salmon Pudding” also came together in a flash. A busy housewife who was trying to carve out time to volunteer or work for a cause would have appreciated this dish. 

To approximate a “small” can of salmon (the standard can size for salmon used to be 16 ounces, with 8-ounce cans also available), we used a 6-oz can. We used dried breadcrumbs in place of the rolled crackers, and only one cup of whole milk, because the mixture already seemed too moist for what I was envisioning. Since the recipe didn’t specify how I should bake it, I decided to split the mixture into four small ramekins. I preheated the oven to 350°F, slid in the ramekins, and hoped for the best. 

Thirty minutes later, out came four bland and rubbery salmon puddings (perhaps I should have added that second cup of milk). I served the puddings with a dollop of mayonnaise, which, although it isn’t white sauce, it is still in keeping with the time period. My husband and I enjoyed the mayonnaise more than the salmon pudding, but our two-year-old actually enjoyed eating it, so he got to eat the leftovers over the next few days.

Once I confirmed the recipe wasn’t delicious, I was even more curious why it was so popular among white, middle-class women activists. Speed and ease couldn’t be the only reason for eating “Salmon Pudding,” as surely tastier things could be made just as quickly.

There is a myth out there that meatloaf—and the variation of fish loaf—became popular during the Depression as a meat-stretching tool. However, “Salmon Pudding” is from 1909, two decades before the stock market crashed. In fact, all of the suffrage cookbooks, which are so enthusiastic about similar recipes, are pre-Nineteenth Amendment (which enfranchised women in 1920). Granted, there were some significant recessions during the long lifespan of the suffrage movement, so economizing food was an ongoing concern and may have helped salmon loaves become a fixture on white middle-class tables. 

In general, salmon was a favorite inexpensive source of protein. Andrew Smith writes in Food and Drink in American History (2013) that canning technology, railroad freight, and prolific (but eventually decimated) fisheries made salmon the most frequently eaten fish in the country until the mid-twentieth century. 

Finally, suffragists’ salmon loaves were actually not much blander than a lot of things that white middle-class Americans ate at the turn of the century. The prevailing understandings of health, nutrition, and domestic science prioritized digestion over taste. Experts believed that spices, herbs, fats, and generally anything delicious were indulgences that messed with digestion. This helps explain the lack of aromatics or spices in most of the salmon loaf recipes in suffrage cookbooks.  

So would a salmon loaf with updated flavors be any better? I tried a modern recipe that increased the ratio of salmon to breadcrumbs and added onion, dill, and parsley for more flavor. Compared to the 110-year-old recipe, this one tasted much livelier. But it’s still stodgy compared to the foods I like to eat. At least that takes care of our toddler’s dinners for the next few days.