A Typical Sunday in Midwood

For the adults in the Solomon family of Midwood, Sunday morning was for sleeping in. For the kids, it was for reading the funny papers before their mother awoke and sent them on errands to the bakery and deli. The funny papers were a big part of the Sunday morning ritual for most New Yorkers in 1946, even those who didn't have kids. New York had a lot of papers in 1946 and the Solomons apparently had a lot of favorite strips. According to Mimi Sheraton, her family subscribed to the Sunday editions of the Brooklyn Eagle, Herald Tribune, News, Journal-American and Mirror, mostly for the comics. They also subscribed to the Sunday Times, which then as now carried no comics. See The Sunday News under Newspapers for a run-down of the comics that appeared this week,

Sunday morning breakfast was a big deal with bacon and eggs (in this non-Kosher household), or griddle cakes, waffles or French toast, often with the addition of traditional Jewish favorites such as smoked fish and salmon, bagels and cream cheese or cheese blintzes. Also in classic American style of the time, the big Sunday dinner was at 1:30 or 2:00 PM, despite Beatrice's complaints about having to prepare both a big dinner and a supper on Sunday. Grilled cheese sandwiches were a Sunday supper standby for much of America. The Solomons sometimes solved their Sunday supper problem with an evening excursion to a restaurant. In When Brooklyn Was the World, Elliot Willensky said Chinese restaurants, which abounded in Jewish neighborhoods, usually were filled with families on a Sunday evening.

In From My Mother's Kitchen, Sheraton wrote that the Sunday dinner was often smoked or pickled tongue with stuffed cabbage, roast beef with roasted potatoes or peas, or roast leg of lamb. The roast beef and the lamb would have been a problem in April 1946 when there was an acute meat shortage but the tongue likely would have been available. In the afternoon they might visit friends or relatives or put out the cut-glass candy dish to entertain. Otherwise the grownups took a nap while the kids returned to the funny papers or hung out with friends.