Molly's Hawaiian Banana Bread

A banana bread recipe from 1943!

It's been a while since we turned to the book that inspired many a childhood fantasy of fancy themed parties with historically accurate games, crafts and food: The American Girl Party Book was something I frequently flipped through to admire all the fun party ideas as a kiddo. My mom and grandma helped organize and throw my really amazing ninth birthday party with lots of ideas straight from this book, and it's still provided a lot of inspiration for posts for the blog... as well as future themed parties once I finally have a living space (and paycheck) big enough to entertain and decorate the way I'd like to. 

One of the Molly parties is themed around Hawaii, offering suggestions for making your own leis, tropical themed drinks and snacks, as well as invitations and games. Just as Samantha's Nutting Party or Felicity's Twelfth Night Party are representative of actual parties people in the past celebrated, Molly's Hawaiian themed party is wholly authentic to the 1940's, and features recipes that are just as "faux Hawaii" as the recipes marketed in home magazines, advertisements, and cookbooks of the period were. Read on to find out more about this trend!

There's a popular myth that nearly all Americans had never heard of Hawaii before the attack on Pearl Harbor, or weren't at all familiar with the geography of where it was. I'd like to gently point out that the western world has had an obsession with Polynesia and (for Americans, at least) specifically Hawaii since their "discovery" in the 1700's. Molly and her family absolutely would have had a concept of it as a tropical, far away place, and probably saw it depicted in movies, books, and art before World War II began. They also would have been eating canned and fresh products grown in Hawaii and sold by companies like Dole. 

The confusion comes because in the hundreds of anecdotal stories of people remembering when they first heard about the attacks on the radio, most people didn't know where Pearl Harbor was, and why would they? Most people don't have a detailed knowledge of far away military bases, and many people even today aren't very confident in their geographical knowledge of the United States, let alone what was then a distant territory. 

What is true is that the war boosted people's knowledge of Pacific geography, and also threw Hawaii into the public sphere in a much more unavoidable and personal way than before. Suddenly friends and family members were being shipped off to a place they never could have afforded to visit before the war, and they would send back letters detailing the fun they were having in Honolulu, along with souvenirs of their visits to beautiful beaches and interesting restaurants. The attack on the islands also created a patriotic boost of good feelings towards Hawaii: a territory many Americans probably didn't even know was fully a part of the United States was suddenly a place Americans had been attacked and killed, and so taking an interest in the islands became a way to be a good citizen. 

Since Hawaii was still very expensive to visit casually, it was still seen as a very exotic, idyllic place, and so luau parties and other Hawaiian inspired get togethers became very common on the mainland. The trend continued well after the war was over, with publications promoting "Hawaiian" recipes, tablescapes, party favors and costumes. Many of these ideas were just very loosely inspired by traditional Hawaiian culture and were produced by companies as a way to promote their product. Need to inspire someone to buy your canned pineapple? Write a recipe for pineapple salad, say it's Hawaiian, and take pictures of it surrounded by orchids, ti leaves, and coconuts. 

Of course, all of this raises a lot of questions about cultural appropriation and commodifying a culture without their consent, and its against these stereotypes that Native communities in Hawaii and Polynesia more broadly push back against, or have adopted to appeal to tourists visiting the islands. 

The American Girl Party Book includes recipes for Hawaiian banana bread, fruit skewers, and a tropical themed drink. Annoyingly, like a lot of the recipes included in the book, they don't provide a full recipe for you to make yourself, instead instructing you to just make your favorite banana bread recipe and then decorate with icing and fruit. But this time, I had the perfect ace up my sleeve: my grandmother's copy of the 1943 edition Women's Home Companion Cook Book!

Sure enough, there was a recipe for banana bread in the index, which at that point was a well established favorite for Americans. Like a lot of war time cake recipes, this banana bread calls for shortening instead of butter, and uses a relatively little amount of sugar thanks to the bananas providing flavor and sweetness. Bananas could still be tricky for families in parts of the country to get, but a recipe that minimized the use of sugar (which was rationed), and allowed you to use a different fat than the more versatile butter (which was rationed, along with shortening and vegetable oil) made this a relatively feasible recipe to make during the war for many Americans. 

To start off, you need to mash up a cup of bananas, so about two bananas.

Next, cream together 1/3 of a cup of shortening with 2/3 of a cup of sugar. Add two eggs and beat until smooth before adding about half of your dry ingredients: 1 3/4 cups of flour, 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder, and 3/4 teaspoon of salt.

Add about half of your bananas, and then continue adding your dry ingredients alternately with the bananas until all the ingredients are mixed together. 

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake it in a 350 degree oven for about an hour.

My loaf came out pretty domed, but it had cooked all the way through in an hour, which I'm always excited about because our oven tends to run a little cool.

Now, of course you're good to go if you just want to eat your bread as is, but The American Girl Party Book suggests frosting your loaf and decorating it with tropical fruit. The photograph it provides makes it look like this frosting should be more of a glaze...

But the recipe included in the cookbook makes a very, very thick frosting. It asks you to combine 2 tablespoons of milk, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and 1 tablespoon of melted butter before beating in 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar. I only used about 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar before it got to a really thick consistency and decided to call it quits. It definitely wasn't the glaze the cookbook makes it look like it should be. 

To decorate it, I used the rest of my bananas and some kiwi. I wish I had some starfruit like the cook book suggests, but our grocery store didn't have any.

I sliced into it to try and recreate the look of the cook book photo.

The loaf was extremely dense, and had the fun black speckled interior that good banana bread always has.

So, first things first: I think the frosting - while good to eat, because you know, it's frosting - was unnecessary and ultimately didn't really add anything to the banana bread. It's also definitely not period accurate, for all the concept of having a Hawaiian themed birthday party is extremely representative of the period. It was probably done because this is meant to be a girl from the 1990's birthday cake, and so plenty of frosting is just a given. But in 1943, using that much powdered sugar for frosting a banana bread just doesn't make a lot of sense - why not just make a chocolate or vanilla birthday cake at that point? The rest of the recipe isn't exactly super conservative ration points wise. 

The banana bread itself was pretty tasty, and smelled amazing while it was baking. It's a nice, no frills banana bread recipe that didn't require a lot of prep time or any unusual ingredients. I'd definitely make it again, especially since it was a big hit with my wife and then with my coworkers when I brought the leftovers in to work. If you're looking for a historical recipe that folks won't even recognize as historical, this is a good one to try. 

Overall, this was a fun way to represent the 1940's trend of celebrating all things tropical, while not really understanding much at all about what traditional or authentic Hawaiian cuisine was actually like. 

Next up, we're heading to the 1950's for a recipe I've been very curious about trying for quite some time... but first, a quick detour to a fun road trip we went on! Any guesses where we went?

Hint: both Molly and Nanea tagged along!