Cinnamon Moon

A Bonaparte Breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:09:00 +0000

He will need both hands free to make that omelette

We know that Napoleon Bonaparte liked omelettes, because once when he was in Bessières, in southwestern France, he had one at an inn one night. He was so delighted with his dinner that he made everyone in Bessières pool all their eggs the next day and make one for him and his entire army. There is still a Giant Omelette Celebration there today.

Did you know that he and Josephine also tried to make an omelette at home? It didn't go all that well. A certain Baron Meneval is the source for this anecdote that's in several 19th century biographies of Napoleon. Meneval says that one day the Empress Josephine decided to make an omelette to recapture the spirit of her early "domestic life" - before she lived in palaces and had people bring her things on fancy trays.

"He always thinks he knows everything" NYPL

Anyway, Napoleon walked in on her in the middle of her preparations and she was really embarrassed. She tried to hide the pans and egg shells and things behind her. But Napoleon smiled and said, "It seems to me I perceive a singular odour, as of frying." One of the great kitchen entrance lines in history, possibly.

Then Napoleon had a good look around and saw the eggs, the frying pan, and the melted butter. He declared that she knew nothing about making omelets and he was going to do it. You can just imagine Josephine - with the same expression that she has there on the right - thinking, "And you do?"

Well, for the proverbial hot minute, he did. Up until it was time to flip the omelet over in the frying pan, that is. Napoleon gave the omelet a mighty, dramatic flip and - the omelet landed on the floor. He is quoted as saying "I have given myself credit for more exalted talents than I possess" and - smiling - left the room. Poor Josephine - or rather the poor servants - had to clean up.

This is a scene that I would give a lot to see, wouldn't you?

Source: Abbott, John Stevens A., The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (1860, p. 377).

A Box of Jordan Almonds

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:40:00 +0000

Jordan almonds tend to be associated with wedding favors, but I remember them best as my favorite movie candy - they were a special treat that I only ever saw for sale at movie theaters, back in the 1970s (I didn't get around that much, certainly not to weddings, back then). They are, of course, sugar coated whole blanched almonds, usually tinted with pastel colors, usually with a matte finish (panned candies, as you probably know, have a glossy look).

But why are they called Jordan almonds, and when did they first become popular? That's what I'd like to know, said I to myself. This is what I found out:

One school of thought says that Jordan is a corruption of the French word "jardin," meaning garden - and this was to indicate that the almonds were grown specially. Other sources point out that the candy was made from almonds that were grown near the Jordan River, which borders present-day Israel and Jordan. They are a kind of dragée, or candy used to symbolize something - they are used as wedding favors because the supposedly bitter almond and sweet coating represent the two sides of married life. I suppose they could also represent movies that had mixed reviews, but this is not a traditional meaning!

Jordan almonds (confetti) in Sulmona

Wikipedia mentions that they were first made in Sulmona, Italy, but does not say when. They are called confetti and are still made there today. You can see that they are made in much darker, more vivid colors in Sulmona - and frequently in flower shapes, too. I found a site devoted to Sulmona confetti that shows lots of varieties - all quite delicious looking!

Traditionally, dragées were given to guests at christenings in France and Italy and by the 1880s there are several mentions in English and American magazines of people imitating this custom - either with dragées or other fancy confections - at christenings and weddings. You could buy them in shops, or make them at home - but that would take a lot of time and effort. Charles Fracatelli writes in 1862 in The Royal English and Foreign Confectioner that Almond Dragées made with Jordan almonds must be coated six times in sugar syrup, then coated with a mixture of sugar, starch and gum arabic, then air dried.

Over at Candyblog, there's a review of the kind of Jordan Almonds I used to get at the movies - same kind of box, too. What was your favorite movie candy when you were growing up?

Barbara's Party Trick

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

If you read my last post about the sublime, cereal-obsessed 1940s cookery queen Barbara B. Brooks (and thank you so much if you did, that's excellent) - you won't be surprised to learn that her party recipes involve bran flakes. Oh, so many bran flakes. But then she was a home economist for Kellogg's. It all makes sense.

Yes, your guests will thank you (maybe) for this effervescent and celebratory bread. It has cherries! And bran! And it is party bread, whatever that means. This is from the Tonawanda, New York Evening News of November 27, 1941. From a column entitled "November Nuggets." So don't tell Barbara we are going to make this in February:

TJS Graphic Design Labs

Cherry All-Bran Party Bread

1 Tb butter
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped Maraschino cherries
1/4 cup chopped nut meats

2 1.2 cups flour
4 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 1/4 cups milk
2 Tb melted shortening
1 cup All-Bran
1/3 cup Maraschino cherries
1/4 cup chopped nut meats

Melt butter in loaf pan and sprinkle sugar, cherries and nut meats evenly over bottom of pan. Sift flour with baking powder, sugar and salt. Beat egg, add milk and shortening; stir in flour mixture. Add All-Bran, cherries and nut meats. Pour over cherries mixture and bake in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) 1 hour. Remove at once from pan. Cool before slicing. Yield:1 loaf (5 1/4 x 9 1/2 inch pan). Note: Loaf may be baked, omitting cherry nut mixture in bottom of pan.

Dyed and packed with sugar: party on!

But Miss Brooks, we ask timidly, why is this a Party Bread? Well, she tells us in the "November Nuggets" column! It is because:

-"No one could produce a masterpiece any handsomer than Cherry Bran Party Bread." Not even Escoffier or any of those other French master chefs. They might think they are mighty fancy with their puff pastry and their fancy confectionery. But they are wrong. Cherry Bran Party Bread wins out over delicious gâteaux every time!

-Because the cherries and nuts on the bottom of the pan make "a gorgeous-looking top and taste sublime." Oh, Miss Brooks. I like the odd maraschino cherry in a nice, retro whiskey sour - but sublime is not a word that leaps to mind when you see a jar full of those neon-red, supersonically sweet things that were once actual cherries.

And I'm trying to imagine Miss Brooks serving this at a fancy party. If only there was a picture of that in the Tonawanda paper. Unfortunately, there is only a little ad, just under the Party Bread recipe, with a smiling line-drawing lady telling us to try Pertussin if Coughing is spoiling our day. And why not serve it with a leftover maraschino cherry?*

*She doesn't say that, actually.

The Wrong Breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:44:00 +0000

What did you have for breakfast today? Well, whatever it was, it was wrong. Did you know that? Barbara B. Brooks knows. You didn't prepare the correct January 27th menu, I'm sure (if you did, please, please let me know in the comments!).

Barbara B. Who? you may be asking. Well, Barbara B. Brooks was a cookbook writer and newspaper columnist who was associated with Kellogg's in the 1930s and 40s. She wrote a number of books including My Best All-Bran Recipes, Kellogg's Book of Good Things to Make and Eat, and "Oh, What Shall I Serve?" (which is pretty much what I ask myself every afternoon around 5).

Now, Kellogg's liked to brag about letting you have lots of choices at meal time (check out the ad on the right, for example). Sure, pick anything you like to eat. As long as it's Kellogg's cereal. But still - they are so much less bossy than Barbara.

I've been trying to find out about Barbara because I own a little book she wrote with another cookery lady named Breta L. Griem called Three Menus A Day For A Year. It's a little book, slightly larger than a 3x5 notecard, first published in 1944; it went through several editions. Mine is the 1951 one. It looks pristine, unused. Stick with me and you'll see why.

The funny thing about Three Menus is that that is all it is - no recipes or anything. Nope, you're on your own after you receive the edict for the day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all listed separately, so you have to hunt around in the little book - assuming anyone ever took their advice - and then, by gum, you'd better make exactly what Barb and Breta tell you to. Shall we have a look at January 27th? Oh, lets. Otherwise there won't be much of a post today, right? (There isn't anyway, but you know what I mean).

The menus are like little freeform haiku: rooted in the natural world (lots of potatoes, for example) yet - enigmatic. This is what you were supposed to make for breakfast:

Chilled Orange and Grapefruit Juice, Bran Waffles, Tiny Sausages, Melba Toast, Beverage.

The waffles must contain bran (good Kelloggsian thinking, Barbara). The sausages must be tiny. The toast can be nothing but Melba. Never mind that people don't eat Melba toast for breakfast. Just - just do it, OK? All that bran and some strong caffeinated beverage (you have free will here, at least) will give you the strength to proceed to the January 27th lunch menu:

Bread and butter pickles. Creamed tuna fish. Potato cakes. String beans, raw carrot and grated onion salad. Cherry Betty.

Cherries, yes; apples, no!

Please do not make an Apple Brown Betty. Please do not try to get away with ordinary tuna sandwiches. Do not neglect to grate onions and make potato cakes. And after you make and serve all this - and clean up - please note the dinner menu for today:

Grapefruit juice. ["But Barbara, we already had this at breakfast!"] Hot lamb sandwich with mushroom sauce. Mashed potato. ["Wait, didn't we have potato cakes a few hours ago?"] Peas, carrots, celery, onion. Banana cream pie.

I'm just exhausted thinking about making all this stuff. Maybe people did eat like this back in the 1940s but - well, not in my family. My grandmother was quite traditional, in the Sunday-dinner and meat-and-two-veg in the evening way, but even she would let loose a snort of laughter at the thought of making two fancy desserts a day. And at the Melba toast and tiny sausages.

But happily, Barbara B. Brooks was not always so stingy with her recipes and culinary secrets. Next time, I'm going to share one with you. It's a party recipe neither you nor any of your guests will ever forget.

Behold the Power of (Canadian) Cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:26:00 +0000

Today we're going to start with some cheesy (in both senses of the word) poetry, and finish up with a recipe as full of mysteries as - well, as a Swiss cheese is full of holes. Which is to say, somewhat full.

James McIntyre (1828-1906) of Ingersoll, Ontario, also known as "The Cheese Poet," is best known for his ode to a giant cheese (7000 pounds) that was made in Ingersoll in 1866 and exhibited in Toronto, Saratoga, New York and even went to England. You can read more about it on the Ingersoll town site here - they have a Cheese and Agricultural Museum there, too.

McIntyre's ode to this "Queen of Cheese" is famous for lines like "All gaily dressed, soon you will go.../To be admired by many a beau/In the city of Toronto." The Oxford County Library even holds an annual poetry contest in honor of the great man, called by some the Chaucer of Cheese.

McIntyre's book, Poems of James McIntyre (1889), is probably the only poetry collection that has an entire section devoted to "Dairy and Cheese Odes." For this alone I love McIntyre - so straight-faced, so absolutely awful at poetry. So today I am going to share with you McIntyre's "Oxford Cheese Ode" and then a bonus recipe for Canada Cheese Cakes which comes from a cookbook printed in Kentucky - this being loopy enough to fit in with the double theme of this post: cheese and loopiness. First, I give you a bit of McIntyre's ode to the cheese makers of Oxford, Ontario:

Library and Archives Canada

The ancient poets never did dream
That Canada was land of cream.

They ne'er imagined it could flow
In this cold land of ice and snow,
Where everything did solid freeze
They never hoped or looked for cheese.

A few years since our Oxford farms
Were nearly robbed of all their charms,
O'er cropped the weary land grew poor
And nearly barren as a moor
But now their owners live at ease
Rejoicing in their crop of cheese.

...There are a few more stanzas, but they merely reiterate the opening two, so we'll skip over them - except to add McIntyre's rhymed advice to the dairy farmers: "For cows do dearly love their ease/ Which doth insure best grade of cheese." Very true.

I looked for a 19th century, Canadian cheese-based recipe to add here but a search of the internet and my cookbook collection didn't turn anything up except "cheese cakes" that didn't have cheese in them (for example, a lemon cheese cake that consisted of lemon curd and some other stuff).* I did find one attributed to Canada, though. But it isn't exactly from Canada. Let's have a look now at what the Southern Presbyterian Church Missionary Society of Paris, Kentucky has to tell us about Canadian cuisine in their 1881 book, Housekeeping in the Blue Grass.** Fun fact: Mary Todd Lincoln was born in Paris, Kentucky and lived there until she was 14.But I don't know what she thought about cheese (apparently she did like strawberries a lot, but that is neither here nor there):

CANADA CHEESE CAKE
One-half pound of cheese, chopped fine; quarter pound of grated crackers; one pint new milk; pinch of salt; tea-spoonful of sugar; lump of butter size of a hen's egg. Heat through thoroughly. After cooling, beat four eggs together, and put in. Place in pan, and bake like ordinary pudding. Serve hot or cold. A nice tea dish. -- Mrs. Thos. I. Brent. [pp 173-4]

This is a dish full of enigmas. How are we supposed to grate crackers? What if my hens lay particularly large or small eggs relative to Mrs. Brent's?And finally: why is this a Canada cheese cake? I even checked the Brents in the 1880 census (I know, totally excessive, but I've been working on genealogical stuff a lot lately and I couldn't resist). How great it would be if I could tell you that she was actually Canadian! But no. Mary Brent was born in Kentucky and so were her parents. Thomas was a "produce merchant," though - so maybe he imported some of that terrific and queenly Ingersoll cheese. You never know.

*Maybe there are some - there probably are - but I really can't spend all day on it. There's other stuff I need to get on with. You know what I mean, of course. We have to stop somewhere!

**Named for Poa pratensis, or Kentucky Bluegrass, which grows abundantly you-know-where. The flower heads are blue when the grass grows tall. The actual grass is green, however.

May Irwin's California Hackschnitzel

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:33:00 +0000

May Irwin [NYPL]

May Irwin - born Georgina May Campbell in 1862 in Whitby, Ontario - is probably best remembered for starring in the 1896 Edison kinetoscope "The Kiss." But she was also a well-known actress and singer - in vaudeville, theater and in early 20th century silent movies. She made a few records in the early 1900s, some of which are on YouTube. She also wrote song lyrics, including those for the George M. Cohan song "Hot Tamale Alley."*

And not only that - she also wrote a cookbook, May Irwin's Home Cooking (1904). I was hoping to find May's recipe for hot tamales in this book, because that really would tie in nicely with her musical career. But we're going to have to settle for something with May's favorite culinary qualifier in the title: California.

For a Canadian-born, East Coast based actress, she certainly has a thing for recipes called California Something: Rusk, Waffles, Poplar Chips, Gingerbread, Indian Pudding, Plum Pudding, Salad Dressing and Ice Cream. I guess it was supposed to sound exotic and exciting. The movie industry hadn't even moved out to LA yet, not in 1904 (the first movie studio in Hollywood was Nestor Studio, opened in 1912).

Hackschnitzel: real, not edible

The book is interspersed with drawings and not terribly amusing (sometimes even politically incorrect) jokes and anecdotal material, which we'll skip over. If you are interested, May's book is over here at Open Library, where there are loads of vintage cookbooks and other pre-1923 book treasures. The one California recipe that startled me a bit was the one entitled Poplar Chips. But it is not made out of anything related to trees.

And May didn't make it up, apparently - see here and also here (item #71). It looks like Poplar Chips was a Pennsylvania recipe known at least by 1900. The above photo of real wood chips, by the way, is from Wikimedia Commons and (since it is German) is entitled Hackschnitzel. Which would be a much better name for May's little snack, don't you think?

CALIFORNIA POPLAR CHIPS

Two eggs, well beaten; a pinch of salt; flour enough to mix stiff. Roll out as thin as a knife blade, cut in fancy shapes, and fry in deep fat. These are delicate, and nice to serve with a cup of tea.

You'll notice that May doesn't like to mess around with too much cooking advice. The gingerbread recipe is just a list of ingredients. It's like an early 20th century Modern Poem. Minimalist. And also peculiar: why must the molasses be from New Orleans? And if it is, why not call it New Orleans Gingerbread?

CALIFORNIA GINGERBREAD

One cup of cold strong tea.
One cup of molasses (New Orleans).
One cup of brown sugar.
Two and a half cups of flour.
One teaspoon of soda.
One tablespoon of ginger.
One cup of chopped raisins.

And that's all she wrote...Thank you, Miss Irwin. We'll do our best with that. You can get back to kissing John C. Rice now:

*Unfortunately most of the songs are horribly racist, if the sheet music covers over at NYPL Digital Gallery are any indication (and I think they are). Ugh, May. Just stick to Poplar Chips recipes from now on, please.

The Queen of Night

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:51:00 +0000

Here is a festive drink from the Only William's 1892 drinks classic, The Flowing Bowl, called the Queen of Night. To accompany the recipe, I am including a picture of Swedish actress Louise Michaelis (1830-75) in her role as - you guessed it - Nattens Drottning, which is to say, Queen of the Night. It looks like she could use a glass of the same, too.

Now the Only William didn't have any New-Year's-Eve-specific beverages. So I picked this one for the sort of inspiration I'll need to be regal (yet fun!) right until midnight:

The Queen of Night

A glass, with a dash of chartreuse in the bottom,
2/3 of port wine,
1/3 of Madeira,
1 dash of brandy,
1 dash crème de roses
2 dashes of gum.
Fill your glass with ice; mix well; strain, and serve in a cut glass.

Crème de roses, by the way, is literally a cream-based liqueur flavored with roses. You can substitute crème de violettes or crème de vanille or something if you any of those in your liquor cabinet. And gum or gomme syrup is just a sugar syrup that adds a nice smooth velvet -y texture to your retro cocktail or drink. It is made with gum arabic, water and sugar.

Now all I need are crème de roses, gum syrup - and a fancy costume. Or maybe just some white wine and flannel pajamas. Either will be fine. I hope you all have a splendiferous New Year's Eve!

A Very Bitter Apple

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 17:09:00 +0000

UCLA Digital Collections

Bitter apple (also known as bitter cucumber, as it is related to the cucumber), or citrullus colocynthis, is a vine native to Turkey, Israel, parts of Africa and the Mediterranean. The bitter apples, which are really a kind of gourd, look a bit like lemons. And not surprisingly, they are very bitter. An oil can be extracted from the seeds, which are also bitter, but edible.

In the Middle East, it is traditionally used as a very powerful laxative. The ancient Greeks used bitter apple to cure diseases such as dropsy and as an abortifacient. And the Bedouin people make a traditional bread from bitter apple seeds. The pulp mixed with water was also used as a purgative drink in the Middle East. It is still used today in homeopathic medicine. Of course, since it is so powerful, it must only be used very sparingly.

It's also worth pointing out that bitter apple spray is also used to keep birds from plucking their feathers out, and as an animal deterrent in general. In an 1873 publication called Hardwicke's Science-Gossip, a lady wrote in to recommend bitter apple powder in little bags as a substitute for mothballs.

All in all, bitter apple isn't something you want to take too much of. So why title the ad "When Ignorance Is Bliss"? I can't even imagine. Because it won't be bliss if you are ignorant and take too much bitter apple: stomach and bowel pain follow in alarming degrees, and in some cases it is fatal (see here for some Victorian cases). Mr. Patterson sold it, in the late 19th century, as a "sure cure" for malaria and sick headache, though I'm sure you're only supposed to take a tiny bit. I assume that the people in the ad, who are so pleased at having been stuffed into a striped laundry bag, either haven't had any bitter apple yet, or only took the smallest possible dose - several days ago.

The Only William's Only Christmas Tipple

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:14:00 +0000

The One and Only William!

Here is a Victorian fellow who looks remarkably like my great great grandfather August, who was a streetcar driver in New York in the 1880s. But this man is The Only William, otherwise known as William Schmidt, a famous New York bartender in the second half of the 19th century and the author of my new favorite weird-drinks-recipe book, The Flowing Bowl (1892).

There is a little bio of him over at liquor.com, which tells us that he was a German immigrant who was discovered tending bar in Brooklyn by a newspaper reporter. He was one of the first people ever to invent his own special alcoholic concoctions. He'd have his own show on the Food Network now, I suspect. Because what concoctions they were: drinks called the Pope, the Brain-Duster, Base-Ball Lemonade and the Queen of Night - and that's just for starters.

Some port, not yet a punch

He might have looked like a streetcar driver, but the Only William had the soul (and the mustache) of a great and wacky inventor. So here, just in time for the holidays, is his recipe for what the New York Times called, in 1907, "the most appropriate of Christmas tipples":

Port Wine Punch

A bottle of claret, a bottle of Rhine wine, and a bottle of port wine are heated with two pounds of sugar, until the sugar is dissolved; do not let it boil; meanwhile squeeze the juice of four lemons into a tureen, add half a bottle of fine arrack* and the sweet mixture; stir well and serve.

William also has a drink called Snow-Flakes which is sort of like the punch version of Floating Island - sweetened wine punch (quite similar to the recipe above, actually) but with tiny balls of whipped sweetened egg white. These "snow balls" are cooked briefly in the boiling punch, then removed "carefully with a lifter," dusted with cinnamon, and added as a garnish just before serving. I love The Flowing Bowl and found dozens of recipes I wanted to include. But one can only take in just so much of the Only William's dazzling repertoire per day. But New Year's Eve is coming up. I'll try and find something really memorable from Only W. in time for that.

*Arrack is a South Asian fermented drink made from either coconut palm flowers, fruit or sugarcane. It is often used in cocktails.

Santa Delivers the Plum Pudding

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:36:00 +0000

Michigan State University Sliker Collection

Convenience foods were around back in the 19th century and one of them was Atmore's Mincemeat, made by Atmore & Son of Philadelphia. Atmore's also made ready-to-eat English Plum Puddings, in case you didn't feel like making your own - or had forgot to make one back in October (they have to age for awhile, so ideally you make them around Halloween or in early November).

The charming trade card on the left is from about 1875. The Santa looks different than the typical large, red-suited Santa - he is fairly svelte, dresses in brown and has a round cap. What is also different about him is that he is throwing unwrapped plum puddings down unsuspecting people's chimneys.

Atmore's Mincemeat was advertised as being packed in glass jars to avoid a "woody" taste - presumably, other prepared mincemeat was packed in wooden boxes, which sounds a little unsanitary - not to mention woody.

The 1880 Boston-area advertisement on the right invites "New England people" to visit and inspect Atmore's factory. It adds that the exhibit at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial "was much admired by New England people especially" and that their pudding was "not a cheap imitation." Poor Mr. Atmore seems to be rather - err, cowed - by "New England people" and their extremely high holiday dessert standards.

But at least they had all admired the Atmore's exhibit at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876! It was impressive, as one history of the event* records:

Atmore & Son, of Philadelphia, have a handsomely fitted-up stand, with velvet-cushioned seats, in which they display their mince meats and English plum pudding. The stand is surmounted by a large stuffed cow.

Atmore's was so careful with its products that they got seated on fancy velvet chairs! No wonder all the Boston Brahmins and other "New England people" were so admiring. That is, until Atmore's Santa showed up and started tossing puddings down their chimneys.

*James Dabney McCabe, The Illustrated History of the Centennial Exhibition (1880, p. 481).

Hamburg Tea Party

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:25:00 +0000

Senna alexandrina

Here is a little post about tea, because it is the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party back in 1773. But this post is not about Boston tea at all (or even New Jersey Tea, a subject for another time). It is, in fact, about a medicinal brew popular in the Victorian period known as Hamburg Tea.

No one seems to have agreed on what exactly was in Hamburg Tea, though it seems to have been brought to the US from Germany by a Dr. August Koenig, and was sold originally by A. Vogeler and Co. of Baltimore by about 1870. According to Horatio C.Wood in 1880, this "Hamburger Brustthee" was made up of althaea and licorice roots, marshmallow roots and leaves, red poppy petals and yellow stellaria flowers. The mixture was flavored with fennel and anise oils and powdered rock-candy sugar.

A simpler version of Hamburg Tea is described in the Medical Gazette in 1878 as consisting of "senna leaves, eight parts; manna, four parts; coriander, one part." The senna leaves were a fairly strong laxative, too; an added benefit, or not, depending on your condition. This is the exact recipe that is attributed to Frese and Co. of Hamburg in A Dictionary of Every-Day Wants (1872, p. 493).

Toiling masses

The Chemist and Druggist (1887) gives a more complicated recipe for Hamburg Tea that includes althasa root, liquorice root, mullein leaves, senna leaves, saffron, malva flowers, blue batchelor buttons ("or other blue flowers"), fennel and anise seeds, and some sugar. And another 1880s recipe calls for marshmallow flowers, licorice and orris roots, coltsfoot, mullein flowers and anise seed - or possibly licorice root, red poppy flowers, marshmallow leaves and root, and stellaria flowers.

Hamburg Tea was generally recommended for colds, flu, and various respiratory problems. However, in 1872 it was also being advertised as giving protection against smallpox, and as a blood purifier, in Philadelphia. And I was surprised to see that it is still being sold, for example, here (a South African site) - as a laxative, and mostly consisting of senna leaves. There is a great post about Hamburg Tea at Toiling masses which is where I got the terrific images of the Frese's Hamburg Tea.

Clear Toys and Plaster Molds

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:13:00 +0000

SweetGourmet

Barley sugar clear toys are a kind of hard candy made, of course, from barley sugar - they are brightly colored, translucent, and have been shaped in detailed, elaborate molds. They come in yellow (the natural color of the syrup), cherry red, and electric green. And, not surprisingly, they are shaped like toys and Christmas symbols: cars, rocking horses, trains, teddy bears and snowmen. They were first made in the 18th century, and were immensely popular as a Christmas treat for children in the Victorian period, especially in England, Germany and the US. You can still order them today from places like SweetGourmet (via Amazon, image at left).

Barley sugar only has a very small amount of barley water in it, though. The name actually comes from the French sucre brûlé. The original recipe for barley sugar was concocted by Benedictine monks in 17th century France, out of cane sugar, barley water and cream of tartar. Plain barley sugar drops are good sources of energy for hikers and also make decent cough drops.

swtcreations.com

I remember getting some clear toys once for Christmas when I was a child. They are very sweet and get immensely sticky after you start to eat them, so are a bit hard to deal with if you want to save some for later (and since they are a bit daunting, you probably will). You can get them on lollipop sticks, too, but the ones I got didn't have any. I think I gave up after awhile, but they looked very festive in the box all the same.

Jessup Whitehead has a clear toy recipe for the ambitious home cook (or the professional, ambitious or not) in The Chicago Herald Cooking School: A Professional Cook's Book for Household Use (1883), which is here if you'd like to have a go. Whitehead (1833-1889) was an English-born chef, cookbook author and newspaper columnist based in Chicago.

Whitehead's "Candy for Christmas Toys, Etc." (he enjoyed the term "etc." quite a bit, as you'll see) included granulated sugar, water, powdered gum arabic, cream of tartar and flavoring - nary a grain of barley in sight. He advises you to "pour it into the shallow plaster of Paris molds" (which sounds more than a little weird, and unsafe) in the shape of "doll figures, or figures of animals, fishes, etc. etc." If you want oxymoronic, opaque clear toys, you were to stir the syrup between 10 or 20 times as you are cooking it - no more and no less.

I've never heard of candy molds made out of plaster of Paris, have you? Unless I'm misreading, it sounds like the molds were actually made of plaster of Paris. In Gunter's Modern Confectioner (1870) William Jeanes mentions "round or oval molds in plaster of Paris," too. Yet plaster of Paris was generally used to adulterate and bulk up white cream candy in the Victorian period. Metal molds all around, I say, and leave the plaster in the artists' studio.

Genealogical Proof, and Pudding: The Strange Double Career of Harriet De Salis

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:35:00 +0000

Mary, Countess De Salis (no relation to Harriet)

This is the story of a Victorian lady with two unusual careers. She was not only a successful cookbook author but also one of the great genealogical con artists of the 19th century. Her name was Harriet Anne De Salis (née Bainbridge). And it's probably fair to say that the proof was more in her puddings than in her pedigrees.

Over at Practically Edible there is a very good short biography of English cookbook author Harriet Anne De Salis (1829-1908), who was well known in the1880s and 1890s for her "à la Mode" series of short cookery books. Her first, Savouries à la Mode, appeared in 1886 - the same year that she applied for a patent for a "Folding Watertight Commode." This tells us right away that here is an unusual Victorian lady, indeed.

Speaking of unusual, her very first book was the intriguingly-named Kissing: its Origin and Species, "By A Disciple," in 1873.* This was just a year after 43 year old Harriet married 38 year old clerk William John Salis in 1872; they lived in Kensington, London. I imagine (given Harriet's genealogical career, which we'll get to) that she added the "De" to William's surname in order to seem to belong to an interesting and distinguished family of that name, residing in England but of Swiss/Italian origins and Counts of the Holy Roman Empire. Harriet, as you will see, liked fancy origins - whether they were real, or not.

Sauceboat with De Salis arms: not Harriet's

What was Harriet up to, aside from that book on kissing, before her 1880s forays into cookery? An 1872 item in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register [Vol. 26, p. 434], explains:

GENEALOGY.- Mrs. de Salis née Bainbridge, who continues her professional labors as Genealogist and Herald at her Literary Agency, Gower Street, Euston Square, under her maiden name, has discovered the birth place of John Eliot the Indian Apostle, his mother's baptism and his grandfather's decease. He comes of the old Essex family of Eliots, who originally settled there at a very early period from Devonshire. Mrs. De Salis expects to have the pedigree quite perfect after October...

John Eliot: unsure about his fancy ancestry

The Eliot pedigree might have been "quite perfect" but odds are that it wasn't quite accurate. Because Harriet De Salis, it turns out, was one of the genealogical con artists of the Victorian era, whose high-falutin' ancestries often impressed her clients (but not all, as you will see) - but were, to put it bluntly, works of fiction.

Gary Boyd Roberts, in Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants (p. 337) describes her pedigree of the Machell family as "a partial fraud." This message on Rootsweb's Gen-Medieval-L archives mentions her fraudulent work on the Cudworth and Whitney families' genealogies, too. In particular, she seems to have deceived Stephen Whitney Phoenix, who wrote The Whitney Family of Connecticut (3 vols 1878). Whitneygen.org states that "Mrs. Harriet (Bainbridge) DeSalis...perpetuated a fraud upon [Phoenix]." If you are interested in learning more about the Whitney fraud, genealogist Paul C. Reed's article, "Whitney Origins Revisited," is here (reprinted with permission from The American Genealogist where it first appeared in 1994).

According to Reed, Phoenix was suspicious about Harriet's report of the glorious English ancestry of his particular Whitney line. He hired another English genealogist named Joseph Chester to double check Harriet's work, in 1880. Chester soon found out that she had made up most of her research, including two fictitious Whitney wills. Chester made her promise in writing that she would never work as a genealogist for any more Americans. A few years later, she reinvented herself as a cookbook writer - and the rest, as they say, is history.

Not Countess Pudding quite yet

So let us follow her out of the study and down to the kitchen, where instead of creating fake ancestral documents, she will create for us a dessert fit for a Countess (perhaps even one of the Holy Roman Empire!) - provided, of course, that the Countess is fond of mashed potatoes for dessert:

Countess Pudding

Stir two yolks of eggs and a tablespoonful of castor sugar well together; add half an ounce of pounded almonds and another yolk of egg; thicken with mashed baked potatoes; flavour with vanilla; sit in the whipped whites of the eggs; boil, and serve with whipped cream over. [Puddings and Pastry à la Mode, 1889, p. 20]

*This piece, with the exact title, published anonymously in The St. James Magazine (1871, vol. 28) may well be Harriet's work, which in book form was only 36 pages long.

Benedict Arnold and the Rum Booze

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:26:00 +0000

Benedict Arnold

In March 1894 Appleton Morgan wrote in Popular Science* that he had found the diary of a Revolutionary War officer who had served in the harsh winter of 1775-6. The officer had served under Benedict Arnold, who led troops from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Quebec City as part of an invasion of Quebec (still under British rule then). They had a terrible time of it - the weather was extremely harsh, most of the route was through Maine, a scarcely populated wilderness. And in the end, more than half of the surviving troops were captured, and the rest straggled back south the following spring. Arnold ended up going over to the British, as you probably know, and his name has long been synonymous with "traitor."

Anyway, Appleton Morgan lent his find to a "worthy lady" from New England. She read and returned it - but not without marking it up. She wrote to Morgan, explaining that "I have omitted all references to brandy and eggnog, as not part of our country's history."

1942 bad idea: eggnog with corn syrup and grapefruit juice**

I think that we can agree with Morgan (who was most indignant about this, as you can understand) that eggnog and brandy are very much a part of American history, and that it was a good thing that the Revolutionary soldiers had some when it was so cold and snowy. It has long been a traditional holiday drink, And eggnog (with or without rum or brandy) was often served to invalids in the 19th century, as its milk, eggs, and sugar were nourishing yet easy to digest.

Eggnog, or egg flip, was brought to the US from Britain in the 18th century. It may have had an ancestor in the medieval posset, which is hot milk mixed with spiced wine or ale.In 1827 British writer Richard Cook published Oxford Night Caps, in which he lists all kinds of possets and eggnogs. I was particularly amused by the posset which he calls Rum Booze. Cook says you can also call it Egg Flip - but who wouldn't want to call it Rum Booze? This is just the sort of thing Benedict and his men might have liked to swig as they trudged through Maine. Here is my translation of Cook's recipe (which doesn't give quantities, and is pretty long-winded):

17th-18th century Dutch posset

Beat 8 egg yolks. Separately, mix a bottle of white wine with some "refined sugar," lemon juice, nutmeg, and a bit of cinnamon stick. Put the wine mixture in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Then take it off the heat and put it in a jug. Pour in one glassful of cold white wine. Then very slowly pour the beaten egg yolks into it and keep stirring as you do. Mind they don't curdle. Oh, and you might need to add more sugar. Get another jug and pour the Rum Booze from one jug to the other until you see white froth. You could add a half pint of rum "but it is then very intoxicating." Drink it hot.

It sounds like a bracing drink - one that would get you all the way through the Maine wilderness on a cold winter morning - as long as you substituted milk for that bottle of white wine, and added the rum.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word booze is from the Middle English word bouse, which in turn comes from the Middle Dutch word busen, meaning "to drink excessively." The spelling "booze" was used by the 18th century.

*Appleton Morgan, "Abolish All Primitive Liquor Laws," Popular Science Monthly (March 1894, p.587)

**I came across this horrific 1942 recipe while looking for a nice eggnog image. If you want to make this Extra Fancy drink, beat an egg yolk with 2 Tb corn syrup and blend this with a cup of grapefruit juice. Then fold in one whipped egg white and sprinkle nutmeg on top. Benedict and his men would have stayed back in Fort Ticonderoga if they'd had to drink that.

Wartime Coffee Gelatin

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:21:00 +0000

Gena Philibert Ortega's post today on World War II and wartime food inspired me to have a look at one of my favorite cookbooks, Ida Bailey Allen's Money-Saving Cookbook from 1940. Ida Bailey Allen was a radio host and cookbook author in the 1930s, who lectured on wartime cooking for the the US government during World War II.

Her Coffee Gelatin recipe reminds me that there was - among other, more serious food rationing in the US and of course in Great Britain - a Jell-O shortage in the former,until the late 1940s.

1946 ad [link to bigger version]

That was because sugar was in short supply and it wasn't to be wasted in pre made Jell-O. By 1942 it was produced in much smaller quantities. Also in that year, Jack Benny's The Jell-O Show (sponsored by you-know-what) vanished altogether. Conversely, cooks who found themselves with Jell-O and short on sugar substituted Jell-O for sugar. And occasionally Jell-O was also used as a pie filling to save on cream, milk, fruit and (of course) sugar. Oddly, during the war, in 1942, Jell-O brought out a new, short-lived flavor: cola-flavored gelatin.

It wasn't until the end of the 1940s that Jell-O gelatin and pudding mixes were widely available in stores. The 1946 ad pictured above tells customers to "make the most of every precious package that comes your way" and to be creative when using their "Jell-O treasures."

Ida Bailey Allen's Coffee Gelatin is an excellent non-Jell-O gelatin dessert, only using up a half-cup of sugar. My mother used to make something very similar for us in the 1970s, though not because of rationing, but because it is delicious:

Ida Bailey Allen's Coffee Gelatin

3 cups strong coffee beverage
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 Tb plain granulated gelatin
1/4 cup additional cold coffee

Heat the coffee and sugar to the boiling point. Then add the vanilla. Meantime let the gelatin stand in the cold coffee for 5 minutes. Stir into the boiling coffee, and when dissolved transfer to a mold which has been rinsed in cold water. Chill until firm, about 6 hours. Serve with soft custard, plain cream, or sweetened whipped cream or evaporated milk.

Taffy Ballotines and Candy Ribbons

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 15:33:00 +0000

Madison Square Garden (NYPL)

In February 1900, the New York Times reported on the French Chefs' Ball at Madison Square Garden, where the chefs and their wives danced to the music of a 125 piece orchestra. There was also a display of the French Chefs' fanciest artistic creations - such as the Michaelangelo's David in confectioner's paste, surrounded by candy ballotines decorated with black taffy. A ballotine is a stuffed, braised slice of poultry leg, by the way. What a sight that must have been. So was the huge salmon (made out of heaven knows what candy) in a net made of spun sugar, surrounded by little candy lobsters and suspended above a real pool of water with real goldfish swimming in it.

Candy Warehouse

There was also a flower basket made of candy decorated with ribbon candy. A small feat, perhaps, after Michelangelo and his turkey legs, but still. Ribbon candy was invented sometime during the 19th century, and was certainly known by 1887, when the US Bureau of Chemistry noted that the ribbon candy made by Charles H. Slack of Chicago had ultramarine in it and was colored green and red.

Ribbon candy is made with warm pulled sugar that is drawn into ribbon shapes and crimped into waves, is usually multicolored - red and white peppermint ribbons being common - and is now only seen at Christmas time. Ribbon candy is beautiful and decorative, and you can still find it through old-fashioned-candy dealers - the box on the right has ribbons in flavors like vanilla, strawberry and cinnamon. It looks really good, too. Much better than a black taffy ballotine, don't you think?

[Source: "Chefs' Exhibit and Ball," New York Times, Feb. 7, 1900.]

schadenfreude the crispy garnish that tastes just like its name [please disregard this funny little bit, it will soon be trimmed away like a bit of verbal gristle]

Two Kinds of Dutch Jelly

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:20:00 +0000

An English blancmange (Wikimedia Commons)

In the 1880s, you could either use Dutch Jelly as a skin treatment - or you could have it as a dessert. Well, not the same Dutch Jelly, of course. But you could have a themed day of Dutch beauty treatments followed by dessert: the Victorian equivalent of a spa day.

The dessert version is explained by Arthur Robert Kenney-Herbert in his book Sweet Dishes: A Little Treatise on Confectionery and Entremets Sucrés (1884). It was also called Jaune-Manger (because it had a yellow tint from the egg yolks, and as opposed to a white jelly or blancmange) or flummery. It wasn't really flummery though. Flummery, a traditional English dish, is an oatmeal pudding, cooked until jellied with sugar and milk.

Kenney-Herbert's Dutch Jelly was a jelled mixture of egg yolks, sugar, lime rind and lime juice, and sherry. Kenney-Herbert calls it a "capital sweet entremets." Flummery, on the other hand, was considered to be rather boring. Poet Eliza Acton calls this dessert "Jaumange, or Jaune Manger; sometimes called Dutch Flummery" in her pioneering book Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845).* She calls for lemon rind and juice rather than lime, and adds isinglass as a jellying agent (Kenney-Herbert is confident enough to omit this), and merrily slops in a whole pint of sherry, too.

Why was it called Dutch Jelly? Perhaps because custards and puddings were a typical dessert in the Netherlands. According to Johanna Bates in Let's Go Dutch (1988), baked goods and pastries are served with coffee or tea, not after a meal. Her recipe for a Dutch vanilla custard is here.

There was also an ointment called Dutch Jelly in the 1880s that promised to give you "a beautiful complexion and a perfect skin," according to the 1887 ad on your left. It also healed all sorts of skin irritations and could be used by gentlemen in place of shaving lotion. You could also purchase Arnhem Almond Powder and Holland Bleacher to use in conjunction with Dutch Jelly.

They were both supposed to have been made by one Katherine van Arnhem, whose crest was on every jar (and who assured the public that "the nobility of Holland have used this for many years"**). It was manufactured by the Dutch Jelly Company of Chicago. There was a Katherine van Arnhem who was a singer in the 1880s, but as far as I can determine she had no connection to the Dutch Jelly Company - or to any pudding recipes, either.

*Acton's book was one of the first English cookbooks written for ordinary household cooks, and not for professional chefs. Isabella Beeton leaned heavily on it - copied it, really - when writing her Book of Household Management in 1861.

Over at Historic Food there are some brilliant pictures of jellies, including a jaunemange shaped like a sun.

** Advertisement in Puck, a New York City humor publication roughly equivalent to the English Punch (Issue 12, 1888, p. 32).

The Land of Green Ginger Wine

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:57:00 +0000

Stone's Original Green Ginger Wine is a winter holiday treat from England, a fortified wine flavored with ginger and raisins; it tastes rather like a spicy cream sherry, which is very pleasant if you like ginger (and I do). It was first made commercially in London in 1740 by the Finsbury Distilling Company. Now, of course, it is made by Stone's, named for Victorian London grocer Joseph Stone. Joseph's son John was an apprentice at Finsbury, and Joseph himself was one of their biggest customers. The rest, as they say, is history.

As for the Green Ginger - is it really green? The bottle certainly is, but the wine is a deep sherry brown. It is called Green Ginger Wine because long ago people used to call fresh ginger, green ginger - nothing to do with the green bottle.

Ginger itself is a root (a bunch of roots, really, or rhizome) of the plant Zingiber officinale, which is grown in many parts of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. In The Complete Book of Herbs and Spices, Sarah Garland notes that ginger was a favorite flavoring in medieval dishes. It was also but was used as a preventative medicine against the plague. Similarly, in the 19th century ginger wine was believed to be a good treatment for cholera and was used as such at least during one outbreak in 1832.

Stone's Green Ginger Wine is very similar to traditional homemade ginger wines, such as this one from John Farley's The London Art of Cookery (1787):

Ginger Wine
Boil seven pounds of Lisbon sugar* in four gallons of spring water for a quarter of an hour, and keep skimming it well. When the liquor be cold, squeeze in the juice of two lemons, and then boil the peels, with two ounces of ginger, in three pints of water for an hour. When it be cold, put it all together into a barrel, with two spoonfuls of yest [yeast], a quarter of an ounce of isinglass beat very thin, and two pounds of jar raisins. Then close it up, let it stand seven weeks, and then bottle it. The spring is the best season for making it. [It's probably easier to just buy a bottle of Stone's, I think.]

The Land of Green Ginger: it's a street.

Lisbon sugar: also known as "clayed sugar" was the result of a sugar-refining process practiced mainly in Cuba and Brazil (and probably originally in Portugal). First the sugarcane juice was put into cone-shaped clay pots. When the juice was cool, the pointed ends of the pots were opened and placed over jars. Clay mixed with water was placed on top of the congealed sugar and the water from the clay seems to have carried the molasses down and into the pots, leaving a particularly white, refined sugar. See here and here for even more mind-boggling details.

Isinglass: A kind of gelatin made from fishes' swim bladders (sturgeon or, more cheaply, cod); used to refine beer and wine. Also in pre-gelatin times, used to make jellied desserts.

Jar raisins: Another word for dried raisins, which seems a bit redundant. Also presumably because they came in jars. One food writer notes in 1802 that jar raisins made agreeable wine "when properly managed." He then gives some very tiresome instructions for managing them properly.

Finally, the post title: The Land of Green Ginger - aside from being a 1927 novel by Winifred Holtby - is a tiny street in Kingston upon Hull, England and must be one of the most curious street-names ever. It seems to have been named sometime in the 17th or early 18th centuries, probably for spice dealers in the area.

There are also some great old Stone's Green Ginger Wine ads over here. And the images in this post are from Wikimedia Commons.

Senator Riddle's Omelet

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:08:00 +0000

Mary Foote Henderson (1846-1931) was a cookbook author, and the wife of Missouri senator John B. Henderson. When she wasn't writing about how to make Henriettes (a kind of fried pastry) for tea, she busied herself by improving urban spaces - sometimes with mixed results. In 1913 she got Washington, D.C. to rename 16th Street, Avenue of the Presidents. She then wanted to fill the avenue with presidential busts. The statuary was never approved though - and Avenue of the Presidents became 16th Street again in 1914 because everyone liked that better.

She had a lot more success with omelets. Mary Henderson had a penchant for the omelet. I tweeted yesterday about her idea that one could (and should) throw sugar and rum on top of a plain omelet and flambé it for, one presumes, an exciting breakfast. To be fair, this is a perfectly fine dessert idea, based upon the French omelette aux liqueurs, the most common of which (says my beloved Larousse Gastronomique) includes lashings of rum.

The plain omelet was more of a riddle - that is, unless you had been advised by the Omelet King himself - Senator George Read Riddle. In her staid-looking but quite wonderful Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving (1876)* Henderson writes that

Senator Riddle, of Delaware, a decided epicure, took much pleasure in his superior knowledge on this important subject. Once when breakfasting with Mrs. Crittenden, of Kentucky, a piece of omelet of doubtful appearance was presented to him...[and] said to Mrs. Crittenden, 'Before we proceed with our breakfast, let me teach you an important accomplishment.'

He then proceeded to drag her into the kitchen and show her how to make an omelet. Poor Mrs. Crittenden. I wish we had her version of this cooking lesson.

Riddle: "A decided epicure"

George Read Riddle (1817-1867) who glowers on your left, was the "decided epicure" and Omelet King. Can't you just see him with this exact expression, when presented with Mrs. C's doubtful-looking omelet?**

Mary Henderson adds that she learned how to make omelets from Mr. Riddle, too; and she includes some of his omelet hints for us all:

1. Throw in plenty of salt and pepper with the eggs.
2. You must beat them 12 times exactly, with vigor.
3. Throw an egg-sized lump of butter into a hot pan before you put the eggs in.
4. Shake and toss the egg mixture until it is cooked. Toss it in the air to turn it.
5. If you can't manage this and are making a mess, Senator Riddle will allow you to use a pancake turner.

But if you do use a pancake turner, he will be very disappointed in you. And you will get dragged into the kitchen for a cooking lesson in the middle of dinner.

*Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project states that the book was published in 1877, but my copy distinctly says 1876. Yes, I know it doesn't really matter all that much. And the images are all from Wikimedia Commons, by the way.

**Mary Henderson has the same expression, doesn't she? As if the photographer had just asked each of them what they thought about pancake turners.

Burnt Carrot Coffee

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:27:00 +0000

The world's most expensive coffee, Kopi Luwak, is made in Indonesia and features civet poop - analogous to the panda poop tea we looked at (we may have ordered peppermint tea instead, but we did look at it) last week. The Asian palm civet, you see, stuffs himself full of coffee berries and when they come out the other side, as it were, they are supposedly quite exquisite. It will cost you about $30 a cup to find out if this is true.

And while you are saving up for this, you can economize by making your everyday coffee from something way cheaper: a bunch of ordinary carrots.

Yes, nineteenth-century German immigrants brought the US this interesting traditional way of making a cheap coffee substitute. More popular coffee substitutes include chicory, Postum (made primarily of wheat bran and molasses, and first produced in 1895 by cereal king C.W. Post), and barley or rye.

And then there's carrot coffee, the German laborer's version of a nice mocha java. The Farmer's Every-Day Book (1850) says that "it makes a good drink, and is used by many German immigrants, who say that in their native country there are large factories where it is packed in pound papers and sold." Indeed, Henry Mayhew, in German Life and Manners As Seen in Saxony at the Present Day (1864) mentions that the laborers drank "burnt-carrot coffee." They had it black (or very dark orange, really) with some black bread. In the Food Journal (1871), a J.M. Johnson notes that the Germans used white carrots for coffee and that it was better than a lot of coffee sold in the US. Carrots were actually white or purple, originally; the orange kind were bred in the Netherlands in the 17th century (it isn't necessarily true that they were bred in honor of William of Orange, but it makes a good story).

Schloss Moritzburg, Saxony - no carrot coffee here

Want to try a cup of carrotty ersatz coffee? Here's the recipe: Wash and scrape some carrots and cut them in in half-inch square pieces. Dry them "on a stove" and then "parch and grind like coffee." You can also mix equal parts of carrot grind and regular coffee, to make the latter last longer. Michigan resident C.J.C. wrote to a periodical called The Cultivator in 1856 that the ground dried carrots are mixed "one part carrots to two parts coffee," although some people, he noted, just use the ground carrots.

Check out some carrot history at the World Carrot Museum if you have been intrigued by all of this. And next time you run out of Triple Raspberry Truffle Coffee, just check the vegetable bin in your fridge. If you have carrots in there, you're all set.

The Demorests' Victorian Power Lunch

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 17:25:00 +0000

Red bananas are grown in South and Central America, Asia and Australia (where they are known as Red Dacca bananas). They have dark reddish-purple skins and the insides are pink; otherwise they are just like the ordinary yellow bananas that you see in the grocery store. They were available in the 19th century in North America, though not widely known; Toronto, Canada's first grocery-store bananas were red ones, for some reason.

They must have been sold in New York, too. I was looking for a red banana recipe and found this charming one from the 1878 cookbook, Jennie June's American Cookery Book.* It is called Mr. Demorest's Favorite Fruit-Lunch:

Peel a large red banana, and slice it into a quart of new milk. Add a little pulled French roll and a pint of large red Antwerp raspberries.

Fusion: no; red bananas: yes

Sounds simple enough, as long as you get the right sort of raspberries. And, of course, the right sort of banana.

Mr. Demorest was one William Jennings Demorest (1822-1895) who was famous for being very very busy. He was a magazine publisher, ran for Mayor of New York, founded the Anti-Nuisance League and was a leader of the Prohibition movement (there was a dry town in Georgia founded in 1889 and named Demorest in his honor). He also designed a kind of bicycle and a type of sewing machine.

William's second wife Ellen Curtis Demorest was a milliner who invented the tissue-paper dress pattern and sold patterns of the latest Parisian fashions through Mme Demorest's Mirror of Fashions, a periodical begun in 1860 - and published by William.

Unfortunately Ellen and William never patented her patterns and a fellow named Ebenezer Butterick, who had devised his own paper patterns, did - and you know how that turned out). The Demorests also ran a cosmetics company. In other words, they were a Victorian New York power couple - and certainly needed energy for all their business endeavors.

Mme Demorest (Life,com)

While William was eating his fruit with bread and milk, Ellen seems to have preferred something hot and more substantial. Jennie June includes one of Ellen's favorite recipes, too. No bananas in it, though. It's called Mme. Demorest's Indian Huckleberry Pudding and is simply Indian Pudding (a baked cornmeal-molasses-milk pudding) with huckleberries added.

You can check out both recipes here. And who knows? Maybe after a red banana and some huckleberries, you will be inspired and energized enough to invent a few things, too. Just don't forget to patent them if you do.

*Jennie June was the pen name of Jane Cunningham Croly (1829-1901), and English-born American writer and feminist. She organized several women's congresses and clubs including Sorosis, which was specifically for professional women. She included Ellen and William's recipes in the American Cookery Book chapter called "Sorosis Receipts" - so she probably knew Ellen through the club.

******
By the way...the next posts will be shorter! I know the last few were/are pretty long. And we'll be traveling outside of North America, too. Stay tuned...

A Knickerbocker Glory

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 14:15:00 +0000

Wikipedia

The Knickerbocker Glory is a 1930s British ice cream sundae variant, that is still made today. When you order one you will get a tall sundae glass filled with a few scoops of ice cream (often strawberry and vanilla), alternated with whipped cream, sliced fruit, possibly jelly, syrup (that is to say, fruit gelatin) and a wafer cookie stuck jauntily on top. You might also find meringue, nuts and a cherry in there. If you get one from Harrod's, as you see on the right, you'll also get caramelized sugar, a very nice strawberry, and what looks like a fancy chocolate that tells everyone where you shop for dessert.

Irving in 1809: thinking of dessert?

What particularly intrigued me was the name because Knickerbocker is a name that has a strong association with New York City, where I was born and grew up. Washington Irving's character Diedrich Knickerbocker was the New Amsterdam resident who narrated Irving's A History of New-York (1809). Irving borrowed the surname from a friend of his. Ever since Irving's book, though, the word knickerbocker became slang meaning a wealthy New Yorker of Dutch ancestry. Irving also invented the nickname "Gotham" for New York, and is also famous for his story of the somnolent Rip Van Winkle, the most famous over-sleeper in literary history.

But as far as anyone knows, old New York Dutch families did not eat ice cream sundaes layered with jelly, syrup and meringue. The sundae was a late 19th century American invention, so called because of blue laws forbidding the frivolity of eating ice cream (or possibly drinking soda, or both) on Sundays. There is (naturally) some debate as to who invented it first, and in what state, and when. By the 1890s, in any case,

Hotel Knickerbocker, NY

Several sources, including this one, mention the possibility that the dessert was named after the short, knee-length pants which were called knickerbockers. Maybe the sundae was named for the boys in short trousers who liked it - but presumably lots of people liked Knickerbocker Glories, not just boys.

Or perhaps there is an architectural reason for the name: here, one writer muses about whether it was named for the Hotel Knickerbocker, at Broadway and 42nd Street in New York.The strawberry ice cream would have represented the red brick exterior, the vanilla ice cream the roof, and all the other bits would have stood for the decorative stuff on the outside of the building (window trim and so on). You can judge for yourself by taking a look at the Hotel Knickerbocker over on the right.

I found a bunch of menus from the Hotel Knickerbocker at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery and checked out what they had on the menu for dessert in 1906. The answer: several kinds of ice cream concoctions, including Coupe St. Jacques, the Nesselrode Pudding and the Sorbet Cherry Brandy. No eponymous sundaes. But they did have something called a Deviled Ice Cream Souvenir - what on earth do you think that was? I intend to find out, if I can. I'll let you know if I do.

Professor Rafinesque's Pumpkins

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Rafinesque: pumpkin pie aficianado

Today in honor of Thanksgiving (and of pumpkin pie) I bring you the culinary words of wisdom of the gorgeously-named Professor C.S. Rafinesque, Professor of Botany and Natural History at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783-1840) was born in Constantinople to a French father and German mother, and was a self-taught expert in botany, zoology and a host of other things. The family came to the US when he was a child, but he lived in Italy as a young man, returning to America about 1815 and teaching - as you know - at Transylvania U. He wrote a lot of books, too - about everything from banking to astronomy to poetry. I had no idea he was so well known when I discovered his little treatise on pumpkin recipes.

He writes about the world of American and European pumpkin cuisine in an 1828 letter to the periodical The American Farmer of that year. Professor Rafinesque first tells us that pumpkin seed oil may be substituted for walnut oil in cooking, but that unlike linseed oil it is no good for mixing with paints. He then suggests that if you put young pumpkins into boxes, they will grow square, and then you can make the hollowed shells into boxes, if you like.

Then he moves on to culinary matters. He notes that although the pumpkin pie is popular in New England, people in Kentucky prefer their pumpkin in breads and cakes. The Kentuckians make their pumpkin bread by mixing equal parts mashed pumpkin with corn meal. There is no yeast added, so it is similar to corn bread or other quick breads. He notes: "It is very sweet and of a reddish color. I cannot say that it is very palatable to me, but those that are used to it like it well."

Rafinesque also notes that in Europe pumpkin is cut up in slices and preserved in sugar syrup. And in Tuscany, he adds approvingly, "a very good soup may be made by mashed or diluted pumpkins with oil, butter or both. This dish is called Furlata in Tuscany. Rice is often added to it."

I Googled "Furlata" and didn't find anything, but there is indeed a pumpkin soup made in Tuscany, called (quite sensibly) Zuppa di zucca, or Pumpkin Soup. Guido Pedittoni writes in Tuscan Cuisine that you saute chopped yellow pumpkin in oil, then add to this stock, potatoes, spinach and some milk. You then serve the soup with toasted bread topped with melted parmesan. It sounds really good - the recipe is here.

As for the Kentucky pumpkin cake or bread that Professor Rafinesque dislikes, I give you the recipe for Pumpkin Cakes from Lettice Bryan's 1839 cookbook, The Kentucky Housewife:

Having stewed a fine sweet pumpkin, mash a pint of it very fine, pass it through a sieve, and mix with it one quart of fine Indian meal. Add a small dessert-spoonful of salt, two large spoonfuls of butter, two beaten eggs, and enough sweet milk to make it a thick batter. Drop it by large spoonfuls on buttered tin sheets, and bake them a nice brown in a brisk oven.

One hopes that Mrs. Bryan was also making a pie in that nice brisk oven so that she could give the professor a nice slice of pumpkin pie when and if he turned up for Thanksgiving dinner.

Dinner With Alexandre Dumas

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Just bread and water for Dumas, merci!

This is third or fourth hand, but let's go with it anyway. I read this in an 1884 Lippincott's Magazine, and they said they got it from a publication called Figaro Litteraire. And the Figaro people got it from Madame Emilie Ernst, owner of an autograph album in which Dumas the elder (and some of her other friends) wrote their answers to prearranged questions. To a Victorian meme, in other words.

One of the questions was what is your favorite food and drink. Want to know what was Dumas' favorite? Bread and water. Can you believe it? Bread and water! Not that there's anything wrong with that. I love really good bread. And, um, also really good water (New York City, my hometown, has great tap water because it is all from the Croton reservoir upstate). But Alexandre, come on!

Alexandre Dumas the elder (his son was also an author and playwright) was famous as the author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, among other works. Isn't it ironic, though, that the Monte Cristo sandwich and the 3 Musketeers bar were probably named for these Dumas creations?

The Monte Cristo sandwich is a variation of the croque monsieur - that it to say, it's a ham and cheese sandwich dipped in egg batter and pan fried. Which is about as far from plain bread as it gets. The 3 Musketeers bar was first made in 1932 and was called this partly because it came in three pieces - ideal for sharing - with vanilla, strawberry, or chocolate whipped filling. This filling, touted as being lighter and less fattening than denser chocolate, is based on egg white and sugar syrup - similar to Italian meringue.

But Alexandre will just have a roll and a glass of Perrier, merci beaucoup.

Panda Tea

noreply@blogger.com (Lidian) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:07:00 +0000

Unpanda-fied green tea

Oh yes, I'm sure it tastes wonderful. But maybe I'll just have some camomile tea for now - plain, thanks. No milk, no sugar. No panda poo.

Yes, one of the most expensive teas in the world, I have just learned, has panda poo in it. That is a little surprising, is it not? Wakes you up better than a shot of double espresso. What on earth is that about? Well, according to the New York Daily News, a university professor in China named An Yashi has developed a kind of green tea which is fertilized with panda poo.

Bamboo: it makes a nice snack!

This is chock full of nutrients and cancer-fighting stuff because the panda does not digest his food very well (this is why they have to eat so much bamboo a day. The average giant panda eats between 20 and 30 pounds of bamboo a day. They defecate (I know you really wanted to know this!) about 40 times a day. So An Yashi has got plenty of nice, nutrient-rich tea fertilizer to work with.

Now you may be asking yourself why not just add a bamboo tincture (or something) to the tea instead of messing around with panda poo, but - well, I don't know why you can't do that. And if you do want to buy some health-enriching panda tea it is going to cost you about $36,000 a pound.

Oh, maybe you could just eat some stir-fried bamboo shoots for dinner instead. Just like the pandas.