The Old Foodie

The Goldsmiths’ Feast.

2013-05-17T05:00:00.000+10:00

On Sunday it will be Saint Dunstan’s Feast Day, and therefore day when the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths used to hold their annual elections and feast, Dunstan being their patron saint.

In the year 1444, it seems from their account books that the goldsmiths must have had a fine old time with plenty of music and wine and a nice clean hall for their feast.

	₤	s	d
To minstrels	1	6	8
Their hoods and dinner	0	12	8
18 lb of spices	1	1	0
200 pepyns [pippins]	0	1	8
400 blanderett	0	3	8
16 gallons of wine	0	18	8
Bread	0	9	4
Ale	0	9	8
1 hogshead of wine	1	16	4
Keeping of the cupboard	0	0	8
Hire of earthen pots	0	0	4
3 pikes and a jowl of fresh salmon	0	7	8
5 lampreys and 2 green [fresh] fishes	1	10	8
7 crabbys [crabs]	0	0	7
10 roches	0	0	6
Bread	0	0	6
1potel wine, to the cooke	0	0	5
1 quart^r coles [coals]	0	0	7
Washing of napery	0	0	7
For white cupps	0	0	9
For making clean the hall	0	0	2

This all-fish meal was presumably held on a ‘fast” day. The account does rather seem incomplete – there is not much food for the quantity of wine and other beverages, and of spices? On the other hand, I don’t know what “blanderett” are, and neither does the Oxford English Dictionary. The nearest word I can find is blaundrell (“a kind of white apple formerly very much in repute” – but with the pippins, it would have been a real apple feast, which does not seem likely. Any ideas?

From The Forme of Cury, the manuscript cookery book of the Master Chefs of King Richard II, compiled around the year 1390, I give you a nice dish of salmon in an almond milk broth with leeks and saffron.

Cawdel of Saumon.

Take the guttes of Samoun and make hem clene. perboile hem a lytell. take hem up and dyce hem. slyt the white of Lekes and kerue hem smale. cole the broth and do the lekes therinne with oile and lat it boile togyd yfere . do the Samoun icorne therin, make a lyour of Almaundes mylke & of brede & cast therto spices, safroun and salt, seethe it wel. and loke that it be not stondyng [stiff, or thick.]

Extreme Kitchen DIY: Dripping.

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Many, many stories here over the years have included a mention of “dripping” and it is an important ingredient in many of the recipes on the blog. It can be used to make any number of delicious things, including margarine and Dripping Pudding, and should you want or need to, you can even preserve it for long keeping (as on a voyage, for example.)

Dripping is a very versatile, if old-fashioned and not nutritionally-PC, ingredient in the kitchen, but as with so many things, simple is best. Some of you will remember the simple joy of bread and dripping, especially if you scored the crunchy bits on the bottom of the bowl. The best dripping of course does not have crunchy bits at the bottom, it is pure, clean fat. And for that, one needs to know how to clarify it. And for instructions on that, one needs to go to a book of Hard-Time Cookery. Luckily for us, a book with just that title was published in Britain in 1940 by the Association of Teachers of Domestic Subjects.

Clarified Dripping

Put the dripping into a saucepan with enough cold water to cover it, Bring gradually up to the boil, removing any scum as it arises. Strain into a bowl and put aside to get cold. The fat will set on the top of the water. Take it off, scrape the bottom. Put the fat into a saucepan and heat it gently until all the water in it has evaporated. If water is left in the fat it will not keep. Dripping beaten up to a soft creamy consistency is excellent for making cakes, pastry, etc.

Clarified Fat.

Cut the fat into small pieces. Put into a saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Skim well. Boil until nearly all the water has evaporated. Reduce the heat and stir occasionally to prevent the fat from sticking. When the pieces look dried up and sink to the bottom of the melted fat, remove the pan from the fire. Cool slightly and strain through a fine strainer.

Things to do with Fresh Coconut.

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Yesterday’s post got me thinking about coconut, and how we are both helped and cheated by the easy availability of packaged desiccated coconut. I have no doubt that for convenience and availability the trade-off is flavour and texture. If only I had a bulk supply of coconuts and a kitchen slave to remove and grate the flesh I would never again purchase a packet of the too-sweet usually too-dry flakes and would make the following three recipes in a flash:

From The Nabob's Cookery Book, Indian Recipes, by P.O.P. (1870):

Cocoa Nut Pudding.

Procure an exceedingly fresh cocoa nut, and after removing the dark rind, grate it very finely. Chop up an ounce of candied citron very small, and grate the rind of half a lemon; put these ingredients into a basin, adding to them a quarter of a pound of sifted white sugar; oil over the fire two ounces of fresh butter, and pour it over the other ingredients; mix well, and put to them the yolks of three or four eggs ; add a squeeze of lemon, and pour into a tart dish lined with paste, and bake in a slow oven.

Cocoa Nut Cakes.

Grate a fresh cocoa nut, and leave it to dry; add to it a few sweet almonds and one bitter almond, also grated, two or three ounces of sifted white sugar, and sufficient well-beaten white of egg to make the whole into a stiff paste; roll it into round balls, and bake on a greased tin until they are quite dry, and the top of them slightly browned. Then put them off on to a cold dish.

Cocoa Nut Biscuits.

Three quarters of a pound of grated cocoa nut, the same quantity of pounded loaf sugar, and one teaspoonful of arrow root. Mix with one egg, and bake on buttered papers.

I am sure that I would not make the following recipe, although it might be pretty good made with chicken instead of the oysters:

Curried Oysters.

Let a hundred of large sea oysters be opened into a basin, without losing one drop of their liquor. Put a lump of fresh butter into a good sized saucepan, and, when it boils, add a large onion, cut it into thin slices, and let it fry in the uncovered stew-pan until it is of a rich brown; now add a bit more butter, and two or three tablespoonfuls of currie-powder. When these ingredients are well mixed over the fire with a wooden spoon, add gradually either hot water, or broth from the stockpot, cover the stewpan, and let the whole boil up.

Meanwhile, have ready the meat of a cocoa-nut, grated or rasped fine, put this into the stewpan with a few sour tamarinds (if they are to be obtained, if not, a sour apple, chopped). Let the whole simmer over the fire until the apple is dissolved, and the cocoa-nut very tender; then add a strong thickening made of flour, and water, and sufficient salt, as a currie will not bear being salted at table. Let this boil up for five minutes. Have ready also a vegetable marrow, or part of one, cut into bits, and sufficiently boiled to require little or no further cooking. Put this in with a tomata or two; either of these vegetables may be omitted. Now put into the stewpan the oysters, with their own liquor, and the milk of the cocoa-nut, if it be perfectly sweet; stir them well with the former ingredients: boil the carrier, stew gently for a few minutes, then throw in the strained juice of half a lemon. Stir the currie from time to time with a wooden spoon, and, as soon as the oysters are done enough, serve it up, with a corresponding dish of rice on the opposite side of the table. This dish is considered at Madras the 'ne plus ultra of Indian cookery.'

The edible mollusks of Great Britain and Ireland, with recipes for cooking them(1867)

by M.S. Lovell.

These are another definite:

Cocoanut Cheesecakes.

Pare off the rind from a fresh cocoanut, grate the white part, and put it into a perfectly clean saucepan with its weight in sifted sugar and the milk, or, if this is not quite sweet [?], two or three spoonfuls of water. Let this simmer, stirring it gently until tender. When the mixture is cool, add the yolks of two eggs welt beaten and a spoonful of orange-flower water. Line some patty-pans with good puff paste, and put a little mixture into each; bake in a good oven. Sift a little sugar over the cheese-cakes before baking them.

Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld.) September 12, 1887.

Coconut Bacon.

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For bacon lovers and coconut lovers: I give you this:

Coconut bacon.

For this breakfast dish fry some bacon and keep hot. Beat thoroughly one or two eggs, and allow to each egg one small tablespoon flour, 2 small tablespoons coconut, 3 tablespoons milk, a little pepper and salt. Mix well, and fry in bacon fat till brown. Cut into pieces pile on bacon, and serve hot.

The Courier-Mail(Brisbane, Qld.) September 6, 1950

Who’d have thought it? An interesting combination, Yes? I love coconut and I love bacon, and I may well try this.

If your tastes in coconut are rather more conservative, here are a few other recipes from Australian newspapers of the past:

Cocoanut Pie.

Two rich, somewhat extravagant, but delicious cocoanut pies can be made by following these directions: Grate one pint of fresh cocoanut quite fine; beat one quarter of a pound of butter and one of sugar to a cream-like froth; add a tumbler (of ordinary size) full of wine, strongly flavoured with rose water; stir in the cocoanut, and, lastly, put in the whites of five eggs beaten to a froth. Those pies should be baked in deep plates, with a thin lower crust.

The North Eastern Ensign (Victoria) March 2, 1883.

Cocoanut Pie.

Ingredients: One pint of milk, four ounces of desiccated cocoanut, sugar, two eggs, a lemon, a little butter, puff pastry. Method: Boil this milk, shake in the cocoanut and stir it well, let it boil for ten minutes. Pour it into a basin to cool, add the sugar, butter a grating of lemon-peel and a little of the juice, beat up the yolks of the eggs and add them. Line a pie-dish with puff pastry, put in the mixture and bake in a good oven for nearly an hour, whisk the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth and add a little sugar. Put them over the top of the pie and let it just get slightly brown. Serve quickly.

Gippsland Times(Victoria) April 1, 1915

Coconut Bread Pudding

One cup breadcrumbs, 1 cup coconut, 1 pint milk, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon butter, pinch salt, nutmeg, vanilla essence.

Soak the crumbs and coconut in the milk for 15 minutes. Add the beaten eggs, sugar, melted butter, and essence.

Pour into a well-greased pie-dish. Sprinkle with nutmeg. Bake in a moderate oven till the custard is set. Serve either hot or cold.

Australian Women’s Weekly, April 20, 1935

Sangaree, Anyone?

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As you know, I do love a description of a “foreign” meal. I have a very interesting one for you today from Extracts from a Journal Written on the Coast of Chili, Peru, and Mexico, (1826) by Captain Basil Hall.

A Mexican Convité.

In Tepic. On the 12th of April, I made one of a great dinner-party, a sort of feast, or, as it is called in Spanish, a convite. The hour named was one o'clock, but it was half past one before the company were all assembled. We were first invited into a side-room to take a whet, which, to say the truth, looked more like a substantial luncheon than a sharpener of the appetite; for in the middle of the table was placed a goodly ham, flanked by two huge bowls, one filled with punch, the other with sangaree—a mixture of wine, sugar, lemon-juice, and spirits, and a favourite beverage of all hot climates. At each end of the table stood a dish of cheese, ingeniously carved into the shape of radishes and turnips; and at the corners a dish of olives covered with slices of raw onions, floating about in vinegar. I need not add, there was aguardiente and wine in profusion. Such ample justice was done to this whet, that the dinner, I thought, stood a poor chance of being touched, but in this I was much mistaken.

Forty people sat down to one table. At the top were placed the two principal ladies; on their right sat the military Commander-in-chief, while I was requested to sit on the other side, next to the lady of the house. Then came the Alcalde, the chief civil authority, and so on. The master of the house would on no account sit down, but served at table in the capacity of waiter, assisted most good-naturedly by four or five gentlemen, for whom there were no places, or who preferred making themselves useful in this way to dining in another apartment along with ten or a dozen young men, equally shut out by want of room.

At first a suspicious kind of calm prevailed; but the soup had scarcely been removed before there appeared symptoms of an approaching storm. While we were discussing the olla, the dish which always succeeds the soup, a principal person in company rose up and shouted out," Copas en mano!" handle your glasses! But such was the noise and clatter of plates and tongues, that he had to repeat his mandate several times, and to stretch out his tumbler brim-full of wine, before the distant parts of the company stood up in honour of the toast, which I had expected was to have had some point, but was merely one of the common-places of the day, "Union y Libertad." After this signal there was kept up during the whole dinner a constant discharge of toasts and sentiments; and upon an average, towards the end of dinner, there could be no less than ten or twelve gentlemen on their legs all speaking at once, at the full stretch of their voices, and accompanying every remark with some theatrical gesticulation. Others kept their seats, thinking perhaps that they might thereby have a fairer aim at the table, which rung from end to end with the blows by which these jovial orators sought to enforce their arguments.

Meanwhile the dinner went on as if nothing remarkable was passing; the plates and dishes were changed by the servants and the amateur waiters, with such singular dexterity, that in spite of this vast disorder, the bottle passed in safety, and more and more rapidly; the noise increased; the bawlers became more numerous; and by the time the dinner was well over, the party fell to pieces, and all seemed uproar and confusion ; groups of four or five, and sometimes twice that number, might be scene clustered together, all speaking or singing at once. I never was more astonished than at seeing men, on all other occasions perfect models of decorum, suddenly lose their formality, and act like professed topers and merry-makers. At first, judging by the analogy of Europe, I thought this must needs end in blows, and stood prepared to avoid the bottles and glasses, which were soon likely to be flying about. But after a little while, it was easy to discover more sounds of mirth than of anger; and as the ladies, who must have been accustomed to such scenes, sat very composedly, viewing it all with great delight, I became reassured, and kept my place.

It was a difficult choice, but sangareeis the topic of the day. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, sangaree is “a cold drink composed of wine diluted and spiced, used chiefly in tropical countries” and the first reference in English is given as occurring in 1736. The word is a corruption of the Spanish sangria, which literally means “bleeding” and refers (according to the OED,) to “a drink composed of lemon water and red wine.”

Historically, the word sangaree has been applied in the English-speaking world to a whole range of mixed drinks, as shown in How to Mix Drinks, or The Bon-vivant's Companion, (1862) by Jerry Thomas.

Port Wine Sangaree.

(Use small bar glass.)

1 ¼ wine-glass of port wine.

1 teaspoonful of sugar.

Fill tumbler two-thirds with ice,

Shake well and grate nutmeg on top.

Sherry Sangaree.

(Use small bar glass.)

1 wine-glass of sherry.
1 teaspoonful of fine sugar.

Fill tumbler one-third with ice, and grate nutmeg on top

Brandy Sangaree.

(Use small bar glass.)

The brandy sangaree is made with the same ingredients as the brandy toddy (see below), omitting the nutmeg. Fill two-thirds full of ice, and dash about a teaspoonful of port wine, so that it will float on top.

Gin Sangaree.

(Use small bar glass.)

The gin sangaree is made with the same ingredients as the gin toddy (see below), omitting the nutmeg. Fill two-thirds full of ice, and dash about a teaspoonful of port wine, so that it will float on the top.

Ale Sangaree.

(Use large bar glass.)

1 teaspoonful of sugar, dissolved in a tablespoonful of water.

Fill the tumbler with ale, and grate nutmeg on top.

Porter Sangaree.

(Use large bar glass.)

This beverage is made the same as an ale sangaree, and is sometimes called porteree.

Brandy Toddy.

(Use small bar glass.)

1 teaspoonful of sugar.

½ wine-glass of water.

1 ditto brandy.

1 small lump of ice.

Stir with a spoon.

For a hot brandy toddy, omit the ice and use boiling water.

Gin Toddy.

(Use small bar glass.)

1 teaspoonful of sugar.

½ wine-glass of water.

1 ditto gin.

1 small lump of ice.

Stir with a spoon.

Things to do with Curds.

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Milk curds find their way into most of our refrigerators these days in the form of “cottage cheese” – a product with a pure-white, squeaky-clean, virtuous, low-fat, health-food sort of reputation. I like cottage cheese, don’t get me wrong, but I am sure you will agree that it has not a shred of naughtiness associated with it. But it could, Oh! It could, if it were tempted with the right amount of eggs and butter and sugar.

Here is a marvelous yeast-leavened “cake” or sweet bread made with curds and flavoured with ginger, then soaked in melted butter after baking:

To make a great Curd Loafe.

Take the Curds of three quarts of new milk cleane wheyed and rub into them a little of the finest flower [flour] you can get, then take half a race of Ginger, and slice it very thin, and put into your Curds with a little salt, then take halfe a pint of good Ale yeast and put to it, then take tenne Eggs but three of the whites, let there be so much flower as will make it into a reasonable stiffe Past [paste], then put into an indifferent hot Cloath, and lay it before the fire to rise while your Oven is heating, then make it up into a Loaf, and when it is Baked, cut up the top of the Loaf, and put in a pound and a halfe of melted Butter, and a good deale of Sugar in it.

The Compleat Cook (1655).

Or how about this version, with extra sin added in the form of fried snippets of dough?

To Make a Cheese Loaf

Take three chopins of new milk; put in as much runnet [rennet] as will make it curdle; press the whey gently from the curd; break the curd, and take equal quantity of grated bread and curd; beat the yolks of a dozen of eggs, and six of the whites; season with beat cinnamon, nutmeg, and fugar; mix in half a mutchkin of sweet cream and a glass of brandy; mix the bread and curd all together, and put a very little salt in it; work it all up to a paste, and dust in two or three spoonfuls of flour as you work it up; take out a piece of it, and roll it out thin to fry; then make the rest up in the shape of a loaf, and fire it in the oven; cut the fried paste in little bits to put round the loaf; cut a hole in the top of the loaf, and pour in some beat-butter, cream, and sugar; send it hot to the table.

The New Practice of Cookery, Pastry, Baking, and Preserving: Being the Country

Housewife's Best Friend (Edinburgh, 1804)

Things to do with Luncheon Meat.

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I had reason to look up “luncheon meat” in the Oxford English Dictionary recently. That venerable resource is not always fabulous in its culinary definitions. It defines luncheon meat as “a type of pre-cooked meat containing preservatives” and gives the first reference in 1945, in the context of canned meat. I strongly suspected that if luncheon meat was already a canned item at the time, that there would be earlier references.

The term is older than I, and the OED, thought. There was a spate of advertisements in Queensland newspapers in 1879 for “luncheon meats” in a context which seems to suggest that the phrase was used in a generic fashion to indicate a range of canned meats of perhaps a higher quality than we usually expect from the term. The advertisements read:

Pressed Ox Tongues, Sheep Tongues, Corned Beef, Fitzroy Luncheon meats (in 2 lb. and 4 lb..tins), Rounds of Beef (in tins), Camp Pie, Picnic Pies, Potted Meats of all kinds comprising -Ham, Tongue, Strasbourg, Anchovy and Bloater Pastes, Jugged Hare, Roast Grouse, Roast Partridge, Turkey, Chicken, Extract of Meat, &c.

Canned Australian meat became a huge industry in the second half of the nineteenth century. It solved the dual problems of a meat surplus in Australia and a meat shortage in Britain. By the 1940’s the situation had changed however (I am not sure of the factors involved yet) and luncheon meat became an economical product for domestic use. In the 1950’s luncheon meat was a common topic in cookery columns.

Luncheon Meat Patties

To serve a tin of pork luncheon meat and make it really attractive for the family calls

upon one's ingenuity, but why not try this novel and tasty way of serving tinned luncheon meat which is so attractive that guests as well as members of the family will praise you.

The following ingredients are given for making the patties for six people from a tin of luncheon meat containing 12 ounces.

You will also require half a cup of porridge oats, a cup milk, 2 tablespoons of tomato ketchup, 1 teaspoonful of prepared mustard, three cooking apples.

Combine, first, the ingredients with the exception of the apples. When thoroughly mixed (the luncheon meat will, of course, have been chopped or minced), shape into balls and fry until brown.

The cooking apples in the meantime should have been prepared in the usual way for baking with sugar and a drop of water. When these are done, take out carefully and cut in half, placing a meat

pattie on each half. Bake for a further two or three minutes and serve hot.

Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) of Janaury 5, 1952

Luncheon Meat Cakes with Tomatoes, Eggs.

Solve the meat problem with a tin of luncheon meat. Eggs and tomatoes add extra flavour to this interesting dish.

Ingredients:

1 lb tin luncheon meat.

Sweet pickles or chutney.

3 large tomatoes.

Pepper and salt.

1 egg for each person.

2 tablespoons chopped parsley.

1 level dessertspoon butter.

Pepper and salt.

1 tspn. lemon juice.

Method: Open both ends of luncheon meat tin, push out contents to keep shape. Cut into five or six thick slices (one for each person). Arrange slices on well-greased lamington tin. Spread with

pickles or chutney. Cut tomatoes in halves, arrange with cut side up on luncheon meat. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, bake in mod. Oven until meat is thoroughly heated and tomato cooked

(about 20 minutes). Poach or fry eggs until cooked. Place an egg carefully on each meat and tomato cake. Mix together melted butter, parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Put a spoonful on top of each egg just before serving.

Sydney Morning Herald of September 17, 1953.

Breakfast Scramble is Curried

Ingredients:

1 tin luncheon meat (about 4 to 6 oz).

1 level dstspn. butter.

3 eggs.

1 tblspn. milk.

1 level tspn. curry powder.

Method: Grate meat into long shreds, using a coarse grater, melt butter in sauce-pan, add luncheon meat, shake until browned a little. Beat eggs, milk, curry powder, add to luncheon meat, scramble till eggs are lightly set. Serve on hot buttered toast.

Sydney Morning Herald, on September 3, 1953.

I now officially declare the Luncheon-Meat Recipe contest open. Let us see what delights and monstrosities we can find made from this versatile ingredient.

Rhinoceros (Bird) for Dinner.

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The New York Times of March 3, 1905 briefly described an interesting dinner held the previous evening:

The Canadian Camp had its annual dinner at the Hotel Astor last night, and the members and guests had a lot of fun despite scurrilous stories that the piece de resistance, which had been advertised as “filet of Bornean rhinoceros, sent from the Berlin Zoological Gardens with the compliments of his Royal Highness Prince Henry of Prussia,” was ordinary bear’s meat, or moose, or even plain, everyday beef.

Those who ate this dish said that they liked it, but it was noticed that more lips were smacked over “West Park Mephitis Pie,” which down on the farm would have another name. Roast wild turkey from Kentucky was served after the ice-cream.

The best thing about the article is that it gave me an excuse to give you a recipe which has intrigued me for some time:

Potage à la Rhinoceros.

Pigeon Soup called Rhinoceros (from an Indian Bird).

Take three pigeons, without trimming them, trussed for boiling, run a small skewer through the head and neck, to keep it bent upwards; scald and boil them in broth and veal .gravy, with herbs and roots cut small, as for a julienne; stew altogether on a slow fire, and season it well. Place the pigeons in your soup dish, upon the breast, with the heads above, so as to appear as if swimming.

The Professed Cook; or, the modern art of cookery, pastry, & confectionary ... (1812) by B. Clermont.

There is, in fact, such a thing as a Rhinoceros Bird. It is not, however, Indian, but Malaysian, and is so called because of the rather odd-looking horn above its beak. Or maybe it is African, with the proper name of Buphagus africanus - the bird that sits on the rhinos back and lives off the ticks that annoy the big beast?

I have no idea if either of these rhinoceros birds themselves are ever eaten as food, but I am sure there must be an interesting story behind the naming of the soup. If only I knew what it was!

Piccalilli – Picalillo, Part 2.

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Some time ago I gave you a story about piccalilli, and in view of yesterday’s post, I looked it up again. It is here if you want to re-read it. In it, I started by saying that the word is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “of uncertain origin,” and that:

Piccalilli has been known as paco-lilla, peccalillo, piccalillo, pickalilly, and pickylilly – to name but a few. The OED defines it as ‘A pickle made from a mixture of chopped vegetables, mustard, and hot spices’, and tells us that it was ‘formerly also called Indian pickle.’ The first reference given by the OED is from Hannah Glasse’s Art of Cookery (6^th ed., 1758.)

In that earlier post I did not give this “first known” recipe, which seems like a terrible oversight, so here it is.

To make Paco-Lilla, or India Pickle, the same the Mango's come over in.

TAKE a pound of race-ginger, and lay it in water one right; then scrape it, and cut it in thin slices, and put to it some salt, and let it stand in the sun to dry; take long pepper two ounces, and do it as the ginger. Take a pound of garlick, and cut it in thin slices, and salt it, and let it stand three days; then wash it well, and let it be salted again, and stand three days more; then wash it well and drain it, and put it in the sun to dry. Take a quarter of a pound of mustard seeds bruised, and half a quarter of an ounce of turmerick: put these ingredients, when prepared, into a large stone or glass jar, with a gallon of very good white wine vinegar, and stir it very often for a fortnight, and tie it up close.

In this pickle you may put white cabbage, cut in quarters, and put in a brine of salt and water for three days, and then boil fresh salt and water, and just put in the cabbage to scald, and press out the water, and put it in the fun to dry, in the same manner as you do cauliflowers, cucumbers, melons, apples, French beans, plumbs, or any sort of fruit. Take care they are all well dried before you put them into the pickle: you need never empty the jar, but as the things come in season, put them in, and supply it with vinegar as often as there is occasion.

If you would have your pickle look green, leave out the turmerick, and green them as usual, and put them into this pickle cold.

In the above, you may do walnuts in a jar by themselves; put the walnuts in without any preparation, tied close down, and kept some time.

“Greening them as usual” involved cooking in a copper pan. Cooking an acidic (vinegar) mixture in a copper pot results in the production of copper sulphate which certainly provides a nice green colour, but is unfortunately highly toxic. It is no longer recommended!

Here is the piccalilli recipe from the San Rafael Cook Book (1898) which gave us one of the recipes for chow-chow yesterday.

Piccalilli.

1 peck green tomatoes, 8 large onions chopped fine, 1 cup of salt well stirred in. Let it stand over night and in the morning drain off all the liquor, add 2 quarts of water and 1 quart of vinegar; boil all together 20 minutes. Drain all through a sieve or colander, put it back into the kettle again, turn over it 2 quarts of vinegar, 1 pound of sugar, I pint of white mustard seed, 2 tablespoons of ground pepper, 2 of cinnamon, 1 of cloves, 2 of ginger, and 1 of allspice, and ½ teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Boil all together 15 minutes or until tender. Stir it often to prevent scorching. Seal in glass jars. A good relish with meat or fish.

More on Chow-Chow.

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It seems that Chow-chow does not always refer to pickle. A couple of nineteenth century travelers had a very different perspective.

From The Stranger in China: Or, The Fan-qui's Visit to the Celestial Empire in 1836-7:

Chow-chow is another favourite word with the Chinese. When applied to little dogs and tender rats, and other delicate articles of food, it is spoken with great gusto. Where the river is troubled in particular parts near the shores by small eddies, that part of it is called chow-chow water. Baskets, which are procured in Canton, with many compartments, are called chow-chow baskets, while a mixture of different pickles or preserves bears the same alluring title of chow-chow. No doubt the Chinese, when they use these words, have a particular expression of countenance and of emphasis, to suit each idea; but as this is not perceptible when they talk to a stranger, he is apt to be in doubt what is meant, and he discovers that it is owing to the great scarcity of words in the Chinese language.

And from Travels in China, New Zealand, New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, Cape Horn, (1840):

Monday, November 1. After breakfast I returned to Canton with Captain Neish, the Rev. Mr. Abeele, and Mr. Rayne. I found everything going on as formerly, the guns as well as the seamen, having been sent back to the ships at Whampoa. I accompanied Captain Morgan to the wharf, where the Chinese vessel was taking on board his Chow-chow Chop. The word Chow-chow signifies "eating," and the term Chow-chow Chopis consequently applied to the last chop-boat that is loaded for any ship, and which is supposed to carry all the private stores for the captain, officers, and crew.

I guess the question now is, at what point in Western cuisine did chow-chow become a pickle?

Here are two versions from What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, (1881) by Abby Fisher.

Chow Chow.

Take one cabbage, a large one, and cut up fine. Put in a large jar or keg, and sprinkle over it thickly one pint of coarse salt. Let it remain in salt twelve hours, then scald the cut-up cabbage with one gallon of boiling vinegar. Cut up two gallons of cucumbers, green or pickled, and add to it; cut in pieces the size of the end of little finger. Then chop very fine two gallons more of cucumbers or pickles and add to the above. Seasonings: One pound of brown sugar, one tablespoonful of cayenne pepper, one tablespoonful of black pepper, two gallons of pure wine vinegar, two tablespoonfuls of tumerick, six onions, chopped fine or grated. Then put it on to cook in a large porcelain kettle, with a slow fire, for twelve hours. Stir it occasionally to keep it from burning. You can add more pepper than is here given if you like it hot.

Creole Chow Chow.

One gallon of green tomatoes, sliced thin, half dozen silver skin onions;sliced thin, one gallon wine vinegar, two tea-cups of brown sugar, one tablespoonful of cayenne pepper, one tablespoonful black pepper, one tablespoonful of tumerick. Put the onions and tomatoes together in a keg or jar and sprinkle over them one pint of salt and let it so remain twenty-four hours, then drain all the brine off from them over cullender, then put the vinegar to them and add the seasoning, and put to cook on a slow fire, stir to keep from burning. It will take the whole day to cook; you can make any quantity you want, by doubling the quantity of vegetables and seasonings here prescribed, or if you want a less quantity, lessen the proportion, say half the quantity, then you want a half gallon of tomatoes to begin with, and a half of everything else needed in this chow chow.

Jennie June's American Cookery Book(1866) gives three recipes for Chow-Chow, including this one:

Handy Chow-Chow

Chop together very finely a head of cabbage, six green peppers, six green tomatoes, add two tea-spoonsful of mustard, sufficient salt, vinegar to wet it, and if desired a little cloves and allspice. It is ready then for use, and will keep a long time. No better appetizer can be made.

And here is another with onions and cauliflower, from the San Rafael Cook Book (1898)

Chow-Chow.

12 large cucumbers, 4 large or 8 medium onions, 2 heads cauliflower, ½ peck green tomatoes cut in small pieces, 1 quart string beans (white wax beans are best) - string as for cooking, and break once; 3 large red peppers cut in strips, 50 small cucumbers about 2 inches long used whole, 2 quarts small silver onions, peeled and used whole. Pack all down in salt overnight. In the morning wash off the salt, and drain well in a colander. Then boil in 1 ½ gallons of good cider vinegar, adding 1 pound brown sugar. 2 ounces white mustard, 1 ounce celery seed whole. Into 1 pint cold vinegar thoroughly mix 1 small box yellow ground mustard, 4 tablespoons ground black pepper, 1 horseradish root grated, and 2 ounces turmeric; add to the boiling liquid, and boil all together from 2 ½ to 3 hours. Put into glass or stone jars, while still warm.

Another question, for another day, is – how does Chow-Chow differ from Piccalilli?

Pickles, Chutneys, & Chow-Chows.

2013-05-03T06:45:00.001+10:00

Pickles can be confusing, I think. For starters, there is Pickled Pork, which is actually salted pork, and must, absolutely must be eaten with pease pudding, if you want to do it right. Then there are Pickled Onions, which are nothing other than onions in vinegar (malt vinegar, of course, but some recipes – or abominations – use something called ‘white vinegar’ Ugh!) Some pickles on the other hand are really chutneys, which as everybody knows are a sort of jammy, sweet-sour fruit relish to have with cheese (Branston Pickle, please) or as a side to a nice curry. Yesterday’s recipe for Dill Pickles which came from an article in 1914 in The Leader threw another complication into the mix. The article was entitled Pickles and Chow-Chows. I don’t know about you, but I am certainly uncertain about the exact nature of a ‘chow-chow.’ The article did not help as it did not give a recipe for anything called by that name.

Naturally, I went to the Oxford English Dictionaryfor clarification:

Pickle, in a culinary context, can refer to:

Originally: a spicy sauce served with meat (obs.). Later: a salt or acid liquid (usually brine or vinegar, freq. seasoned or spiced) in which food, esp. vegetables or fruit, is preserved; (occas.) any liquid used to preserve something

A whole vegetable, or a piece of one, that has been preserved in vinegar, brine, etc. In later use usu. spec.: (chiefly N. Amer.) a pickled cucumber or gherkin.

A preparation of fruit or vegetables, freq. of a specified type, preserved in vinegar, brine, etc., esp. for use as a relish.

A single grain or kernel of wheat, barley, or oats. [and not forgetting, although the OED appears to have done, a grain of salt, hence ‘pickles’ meat.]

Chutneyis:

A strong hot relish or condiment compounded of ripe fruits, acids, or sour herbs, and flavoured with chillies, spices, etc.

Chow-Chowis:

A mixture or medley of any sort; e.g. mixed pickles or preserves. Also, food of any kind. India and China.

The article in the Leader included the following two recipes. I have no idea whence the name of the first, but perhaps one of you hailing from Philly can suggest or guess at an explanation. The second is the sort of pickle you have when you really want a ‘keeping’ salad, I think.

Philadelphia Pickle.

Six red peppers, six green peppers, three heads of celery, two pints of chopped onions, one small cabbage, half a peck of green tomatoes, half a peck of ripe tomatoes, one cupful of salt, three quarts of vinegar, two cupfuls of brown sugar, one tablespoonful of mustard seeds, one tablespoonful of celery seeds, one tablespoonful of black pepper, one teaspoonful of powdered cloves, one teaspoonful of powdered cinnammon, and half a cupful of grated horse radish. Chop the tomatoes, cabbage, onions, peppers and celery, and mix them with the salt. Let stand overnight, drain well and add the spices, vinegar, sugar and horseradish. Turn into a large kettle, and boil for ten minutes. Seal in glass jars.

Olive Oil Pickles.

Wash, scald, and slice 100 small cucumbers; peel and slice three pints of silver-skinned onions, and seed and slice two green bell peppers. Sprinkle them with salt in layers and let stand for 24 hours. Drain, and cover with cider vinegar, and let stand for six hours. Mix four tablespoonfuls of mustard with four tablespoonfuls of mustard seeds, one tablespoonful of celery seeds, one teaspoonful of black pepper and three-quarters of a teaspoonful of pulverised alum. Mix this thoroughly with the drained cucumbers and onions, then add two cupfuls of olive oil and four cupfuls of cider vinegar. These pickles will be ready for use in 48 hours, and they will keep in glass jars without sealing.

What Flavour Pickles?

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The concept of fruit-drink-flavoured pickles is probably not news to those of you on the other side of the Big Water, in America, but it certainly intrigued me, here in Aussie-land. I cannot imagine what these taste or look like, but now feel obliged to put them on my bucket-list.

Here is a New York Times article on Kool-Aid Pickles:

"A gallon jar of pickles sits near the register at Lee's Washerette and Food Market, a mustard-colored cinder-block bunker on the western fringe of this Mississippi Delta town. Those pickles were once mere dills. They were once green. Their exteriors remain pebbly, a reminder that long ago they began their lives on a farm, on the ground, as cucumbers. But they now have an arresting color that combines green and garnet, and a bracing sour-sweet taste that they owe to a long marinade in cherry or tropical fruit or strawberry Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid pickles violate tradition, maybe even propriety. Depending on your palate and perspective, they are either the worst thing to happen to pickles since plastic brining barrels or a brave new taste sensation to be celebrated. The pickles have been spotted as far afield as Dallas and St. Louis, but their cult is thickest in the Delta region, among the black majority population. In the Delta, where they fetch between 50 cents and a dollar, Kool-Aid pickles have earned valued space next to such beloved snacks as pickled eggs and pigs' feet at community fairs, convenience stores and filling stations. And as their appeal has widened, some people have seen a good business opportunity. Even the lawyers have gotten involved. Children are the primary consumers, but a recent trip through the region revealed that the market for Kool-Aid pickles is maturing...Billie Williams, 56, a special-education teacher at Carver Elementary, never saw one when she was a child. But she did eat dill pickles impaled on peppermint sticks, and she remembers how friends sucked the juice from cut lemons through peppermint sticks repurposed as straws. ''That's the same kind of taste,'' she said. ''Same as how they used to dip pickle spears in dry Kool-Aid mix for that pucker.'' The school sells Kool-Aid pickles from the popular red flavor family at its fund-raisers. ''They're easy to make a gallon,'' Ms. Williams said. ''You pull the pickles from the jar, cut them in halves, make double-strength Kool-Aid, add a pound of sugar, shake and let it sit --best in the refrigerator -- for about a week. The taste takes to anything. A while back I made a mistake and bought a jar of pickle chips instead of halves or wholes. Came out fine. This whole Kool-Aid pickle thing is going so good, you wonder why somebody hasn't put a patent on them.'' No patent application has been filed, but the name Kool-Aid is a trademark owned by Kraft Foods. Upon learning of the pickles, Bridget MacConnell, a senior manager of corporate affairs at Kraft, recovered, and then pronounced, ''We endorse our consumers' finding innovative ways to use our products.''...At the Stephensville Mini-Mart, set amid the cotton fields and catfish ponds between Shaw and Indianola, the owner, Hugh Davis, began stocking Kool-Aid pickles earlier this year at the behest of local children. ''They're not for me,'' said Mr. Davis, 66. ''It's the kids who've done it. They'll create a line of food for you; they'll dab a little something here and there and make it their own. They're good at inventing.'' Recently, some Delta grocers began selling jars of ready-made pickles. And entrepreneurs are emerging. At Lambard's Wholesale Meats in Cleveland, Allen Williams sells plastic gallon jugs of Best Maid dills, plastered with the Kool-Aid packs that denote the flavor within. (Mr. Williams declined to reveal who actually makes his Kool-Aid pickles.)"
A Sweet So Sour: Kool-Aid Dills, John T. Edge, The New York Times, May 9, 2007

Here is an Aussie recipe for Dill Pickles, which is exactly the same as an American recipe, which is, I think, somewhat reassuring.

Dill Pickles.

The true dill pickle is never made with vinegar, but derives its acid from the fermentation which takes place two or three weeks after the pickle is packed into jars or casks. Select medium-sized cucumbers from 5 to 6 inches long; leave on a bit of the stem. Wash in plenty of cold water, then wipe dry with a cloth, and make a brine. Allow one cupful of salt to nine cupfuls of water. Arrange alternate layers of grape leaves and dill until the required quantity has been prepared; put the cucumbers with this. Make the brine with hot water, and after it has cooled pour it over the leaves and the cucumbers. After three days pour off, reheat, cool, and pour over againA plate should be laid over the top of the pickels to keep them down. After they ferment the vessel should be covered as tightly as possible. To keep the brine well, a cloth should be laid over the top and washed frequently.

The Leader(Melbourne) September 26, 1914.

Can You Cook Macaroni?

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If we had French Cheese dishes yesterday, why not Italian Cheese Dishes today - with an old Australian spin, of course?

The women’s pages of the Sunday Times of Perth, W.A. on May 20, 1934 asked the question “Can You Cook Macaroni?” Just in case you answered No! to that question, or even if you answered Yes! - here, for your pleasure are two cheesy mac recipes and a couple of not so cheesy. And of course it is OK – recommended, even – to use Gruyere cheese in an Italian dish.

CAN YOU COOK MACARONI?

Some New Recipes.

Macaroni pudding and macaroni cheese-are the usual manifestations of this pleasant paste in this country, but there is a very large number of ways of preparing it, some of them especially useful.

Macaroni cheese, as commonly made, is generally boiled macaroni In a cheese sauce, with the top browned in the oven. But here are two Italian cheese dishes which some may like to try.

MACARONI ALLA CREMA.

Take three-quarters of a pound of macaroni and boil it for three-quarters of an hour In salted water with a

small onion stuck with a couple of cloves and half-an-ounce of butter.

When it is cooked drain it, remove the onion and put the macaroni back into the pan with a quarter of a pound of butter, the same of grated gruyere cheese and the same of grated parmesan.

Season with a little pepper and nutmeg, add half a pint of white stock and two or three tablespoons of cream, and cook, stirring for five minutes or so. Serve very hot.

MACARONI AL FORNO.

Break the macaroni into pieces about three inches long, and cook till tender (20 minutes or half an hour), in stock or water. Drain it and put a layer in a buttered fireproof dish, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and grated gruyere cheese (but other cheese would do) and repeat these layers till the dish is full. Then

put a fairly thick layer of grated cheese on the top with some fine breadcrumbs over it, dot with butter, and bake in the oven till the top is browned.

MACARONI ALLA MILANESE.

Nearly every Italian town has a special way of serving macaroni. This is one of the fashions from Milan.

Peel and slice, four or five mushrooms and cook them for a few minutes in a little butter. Add to them a tablespoon each of finely-chopped ham and tongue and a tablespoon of tomato puree. Season with salt and pepper and keep warm

Cook the macaroni in water or stock, and when it is done drain it and put it into a saucepan with the sauce. Mix well together, and (if you like) a little grated cheese, and serve as hot as possible.

MACARONI PUDDING.

This way is rather uncommon. Cook three ounces of macaroni in a pint of milk in which you have put the thinly pared rind of a lemon, till it is tender. Put the macaroni into a greased pie dish, and pour in three eggs beaten up in a pint of fresh milk (not the milk the macaroni has been cooked in) with two ounces of castor sugar, and, if you like, a couple of tablespoons of sherry.

A little nutmeg may now be grated on the top, and the pudding baked for half an hour. A hot jam sauce should be served with it.

VERMICELLI

This paste is hardly ever used, except for garnishing a clear soup, one of the names for which is Angel's Hair Soup (Consomme Cheveux d'Anges). It must have been this soup which the poet Cowper offered to the tramp. The man looked at it, and then said, “I may be poor and hungry, but I cant eat soup with maggots in it.” As a matter of fact, crushed vermicelli makes an admirable coating for rissoles (the pastry ones) In place of breadcrumbs. Simply brush the rissoles with beaten egg, and then roll them In the finely-crushed vermicelli and fry them.

French Cheese dishes, à la Australie.

2013-04-30T05:36:00.000+10:00

Cheese is on my mind today, and as I am always intrigued by how one nation interprets the cuisine of another, I give you some “French Cheese Dishes” from an Australian newspaper, the Chronicle of Adelaide, on November 18. 1922. I am particularly intrigued by the idea of baked apples with cheese sauce, and the cheese shells sound pretty delicious too.

French Cheese Dishes.

Here are some delicious and nourishing cheese dishes, easily made and easily digested— and a very good substitute for those who cannot take milk.

Sweet White Cheese.

This is meant to be eaten with fresh fruit, instead of cream or custard. In winter, when fruit is hard to get, offer sponge fingers with it.

Take a quart of good milk, and let it go so sour that it separates itself into solid and liquid parts. Pour it into a clean towel over a basin, and let it drain all night. Next day the curds that remain

in the towel will be dry enough for use.

Put them into a big dish, add a quarter of a pound of finest powdered sugar, and stir them together with a wooden spoon till they are completely mixed, and no little grains of sugar can be felt.

Then begin to add new milk, drop by drop, stirring all the while, till the mixture is reduced to the consistency of whipped cream. Serve as soon as possible. If it must be kept set it in a very cool place.

It has a slightly sharp taste, through all its sweetness, which is very refreshing. Many people prefer it to real cream, and find it easier to digest.

Potted Cheese.

This is perfectly delicious for sandwiches, and it is also very convenient for journeys or picnics, as it can so nicely be moulded into those little cardboard cream jars, which are so light and easy to carry.

Let one quart of milk turn, and drain off the curds as above. Measure them, and mix into them their own bulk of grated cheese. The cheese chosen should be as soft and fresh as possible.

Rub your basin and your wooden spoon with a bead of cut garlic, and then stir the curds and cheese thoroughly together, adding salt and red pepper to taste. When very well mixed smooth into pots. If you want it to keep for more than three days run a little melted margarine on

top.

Cheese Mayonnaise.

Only a very little of this can be eaten at a time, as it is extremely rich.

Make a mayonnaise sauce in the ordinary way, and stir grated cheese into it, till the mixture thickens up to the consistency of butter on a cold day.

The sauce will take up an astonishing amount of cheese provided that it is thoroughly well stirred. Put it through a large rose forcer on to small pieces of bread, and serve as a savory, or spread it between crackers and serve as sandwiches.

Be careful not to add too much salt to the mayonnaise in the first place.

Use a strong cheese - Canadian cheddar is very good indeed.

Cream Cheese Sauce

It is quite a change from the ordinary cold sauces and salad dressings, and it has a fresh, clean flavor, which many people appreciate.

Take half of a small cream cheese, and put it into a basin with half its own bulk of grated cheese, salt, pepper, and just a tiny dash of made mustard. Stir them with a wooden spoon till they are thoroughly well mixed. Now begin to add cold milk, drop by drop, working it in as thoroughly and carefully as you work the oil into a mayonnaise sauce. If you go too fast you will get a curdled result instead of a smooth one. Continue mixing till the sauce is of a pouring consistency.

This is dream-like as a salad dressing, excellent also on cold fish, and on all kinds of cold cooked vegetables.

I eat it with stewed apples, and simply love it. About the greatest treat that madame can give me is baked apples with cream cheese sauce. Only, the sauce must be made without either pepper or mustard. Just try it, and tell me what you think of it.

Cheese Shells

Beat the whites of two eggs to a froth so stiff that the fork will stand in it. Add pepper, salt, and so much grated cheese that the mixture becomes just stiff enough to stand in little piles. Stir the cheese in as gently as possible, in order to avoid crushing down the fluffiness of the egg.

Have ready a deep pan of fat heated to smoking -point. Take up with a fork a little lump of' the mixture, not larger than a walnut. Tap the fork on the side of the pan, to shake off the lump into the fat. In a very few seconds it will turn brown, puff up enormously, and swim to the top. Drain them very well, keep them hot till the time, of service comes, and send in liberal dishful. For, besides being so nice that folks are tempted to eat a great many of them, they are deceptive things, being mere shells, which crumble to nothing in the mouth.

Ships' Biscuits.

2013-04-29T05:00:00.000+10:00

In a mere few days I will be finished The Almanac. In the meanwhile I am choosing the easy route and giving you stories that speak for themselves. In the wake of last week's World War I stories, I thought the following article might be interesting. It is the description of the making of ships' biscuits (hardtack) on a commercial scale in London in the early nineteenth century.The method was described by William Burney, in A New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (London, 1815)

William Burney, in A New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (London, 1815) described the method of making hard biscuits on a huge scale for the British Navy in the early nineteenth century.

The process of biscuit-making for the navy is simple and ingenious, and is nearly as follows: A large lump of dough, consisting merely of flower [flour] and water, is mixed up together, and placed exactly in the center of a raised platform, where a man sits on a machine, called a horse, and literally rides up and down throughout its whole circular direction, until the dough is equally indented, and this is repeated till the dough is sufficiently kneaded.

In this state it is handed over to a second workman, who, with a large knife, puts it in a proper state for the use of those bakers who more immediately attend the oven. They are five in number; and their different departments are well calculated for expedition and exactness.

The first man on the farthest side of a large table moulds the dough, until it has the appearance muffins, and which he does two together, with each hand; then delivers them over to the man on the other side of the table, who stamps them on both sides with a mark, and throws them on a smaller table, where stands the third workman, whose business is merely to separate the different pieces into two, and place them under the hand of him who supplies the oven, whose work of throwing or chucking the biscuits on the peel must be performed with the greatest exactness and regularity. The fifth arranges them in the oven, and is so expert, that though the different biscuits are thrown to him at the rate of seventy in a minute, the peel is always disengaged in time to receive them separately.

So much critical exactness and neat activity occur in the exercise of this layout, that it is difficult to decide whether the palm of excellence is due to the moulder, the maker, the splitter, the chucker, or the depositor; all of them, like the wheels of a machine seeming actuated by the same principle. The business is to deposit in the oven seventy biscuits in a minute; and this is actually accomplished with the regularity of a clock; the clack of the peel, during its motion in the oven, operating it like a pendulum. The biscuits thus baked are kept in repositories, which receive warmth from being placed in drying lofts over the ovens, till they are sufficiently dry to be packed into bags of an hundred weight each, and removed into store-houses for immediate use.

At Deptford, the bakehouse belonging to the victualling-office has twelve ovens each of which bakes twenty shoots daily; the quantity of flour used for each shoot is two bushels, or 112 pounds; which baked, produce 102 pounds of biscuit. Ten pounds are regularly allowed on each shoot for shrinkage, &c. The allowance of biscuit in the navy is one pound for each man per day; so that, at Deptford alone, they can furnish bread, daily, for 24,480 men, independent of Portsmouth and Plymouth.

The Kitchen Warrior.

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I want to keep to the World War I and Australian themes today, but this time to remember that the war was fought at home too. Mothers and wives and sweethearts had their role to play, on what became called the “Kitchen Front” in World War II.

Here, from the Leader (Melbourne) December 1917, are a few recipes for wartime home warriors.

THE KITCHEN.

WAR-TIME RECIPES.

Now that so many of the main foodstuffs are both scarce and dear, the following recipes will be found most useful for the worried housewife. The ingredients are nourishing, economical and easy to cook.

Dumplings.

Required: 4 oz. of flour, 2 oz. of barley flour, a good gill of milk, a pinch of salt, a teaspoonful of baking powder.

Make a batter with the milk and two flours three hours before the dish is required; then, just before cooking, add the salt and baking powder. Have ready a pan with fairly deep fat in it at boiling point, take a tablespoonful of the mixture and drop it in-the batter will form into a kind of dumpling and rise - cook a golden brown, drain on kitchen paper, and put on a hot dish. The sedumplings are delicious served with any kind of meat or by themselves with a nice brown gravy.

Savory Spaghetti.

Required: 6 oz. of spaghetti, 2 tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, a good walnut of butter, a large onion boiled and chopped, a little chopped tomato or tomato pulp, pepper and salt. Have ready some boiling salted water and drop the spaghetti in: boil until tender, drain. Into the saucepan put the butter, let it heat, toss the spaghetti into it, add the tomato pulp, chopped onions, and season to taste. Last of all, sprinkle in the cheese; heat, then serve the mixture very hot

Lentil Pasties.

Required: 4 oz. of boiled lentils, a nut of butter, a pinch of mace, a dessertspoonful of finely grated cheese, pepper, salt, short pastry.

Make the pastry by mixing 8 oz. of dripping into 6 oz. of flour, add a pinch of salt and half a teaspoonful of baking powder.

Mash the lentils up with a fork, add the cheese and seasonings, roll out the pastry thinly, cut into rounds; on each round put some of the mixture, fold over, wet the edges and pinch them together, bake a golden brown, and serve with brown gravy.

Nourishing Cheese Dish.

Required: 2 oz. of maize semolina, 2 oz. of grated cheese, a nut of butter, almost a pint of milk, 1 egg, pepper and salt. Stir the maize into the milk and cook for almost 10 minutes; then add the grated cheese and cook another five minutes, stirring all the time; season, and let the mixture cool a little, then add the beaten yolk of an egg. Whip up the white of egg stiffly, stir well into the rest of the ingredients. Pour all into a greased baking dish. Bake for half an hour and serve very hot.

Anzac Rations.

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On the day that we here in Australia honour the ANZAC heroes who fought and died on the Gallipoli peninsula in World War I, I thought it would be interesting to look at what the Australian contingent received by way of rations.

Military orders stated in April, 1915, “the scale of rations after leaving Egypt [a stopping-point en route to Gallipoli] will be:-”

· 1¼ lbs. Fresh Meat or 1 lb. (nominal) preserved meat.

· 1¼ lbs, Bread or 1 lb. Biscuit or 1 lb. Flour.

· 4 ozs. Bacon.

· 3 ozs. Cheese.

· 2 ozs. Peas, Beans or dried Potatoes.

· ⅝ ozs. Tea. ¼ lb. Jam.

· 3 ozs. Sugar.

· ½ oz. Salt, 1/20 oz. Mustard, 1/36 oz. Pepper.

· 1/10 gill Limejuice. at discretion of G.O.C. on recommendation of S.M.O

· ½ gill Rum. at discretion of G.O.C. on recommendation of S.M.O

· Tobacco not exceeding 2 ozs per week at discretion of G.O.C. on recommendation of S.M.O

There is no recipe for the day to come from these rations, so instead I give you another Aussie recipe, for the ubiquitous pumpkin this time, from nearly a decade earlier. I hope my American friends particularly enjoy this pie!

Pumpkin Pie (Australian Recipe)

Ingredients: Half-pint of pumpkin pulp,- three-quarter pint of milk, two eggs, 2oz. of sugar, mace, or nutmeg, short crust.

Method: Take a ripe pumpkin, pare off the skin, halve it, remove the seeds, and cut it into thick slices. Put it into a lined stewpan or earthenware jar with a small quantity of water, and stew gently until tender. Pass through a fine sieve, measure the pulp, add sugar, yolks of eggs, milk, and a little mace or nutmeg, and lastly the whites of eggs previously whisked to a stiff froth, Have a pie-dish ready, lined round the edges with paste; put in the preparation, cover with paste, and bake in a quick oven. Serve either hot or cold.

The Daily News (Perth, WA,) December 7, 1907

An Australian Stew.

2013-04-24T05:00:00.000+10:00

I have another Aussie story/recipe for you today, the eve of Anzac Day. It is from The West Australian, November 21, 1879, and speaks to a number of issues not strictly related to food, but I feel sure you will enjoy it, and will feel more confident about ordering your next stew pot to be made.

The Editor asks me to write something for his Ladies' Column, and I eagerly seize the opportunity to disburden my mind upon a subject which I have much at heart; I want to teach my West Australian country-women how to stew. There are of course exceptions to every rule; but, as a rule, we know no-thing at all about it, or if we do, we certainly don't practice what we know.

Housewives living in town, have no idea what a part that stew-pot plays in our bush economy. In town you can always get a joint of some sort or another, which requires comparatively speaking but little art in its preparation for the table; but, in the bush, when you are probably supplied with mutton from your own flocks, where the meat is often very poor, very frequently reduced to culls, and you have to make use of all parts of the carcase, a decent joint is often a rarity and the stew-pot comes into constant requisition. Now unless you know how to use that stew-pot properly, how to dress your poor mutton up and convert it into succulent and palateable dishes, you have often fare both monotonous and meagre, with the added pleasure of seeing sulky male faces scowling round your board.

I have had a wide experience in this colony, of many cooks, and many houses, and I have no hesitation in saying that as a rule, good pot cookery is a lost art, or rather perhaps an art which has never been acquired. I will just describe the way in which a West Australian stew is generally made: the meat is cut up, roughly, and thrown untrimmedinto a pot; pepper and salt is dusted over it, an abundance of water is poured on, and then the pot is set upon the fire. Probably no further notice is taken of it until a noisy hissing proclaims the fact that the water has boiled over. Our housewife runs quickly to the rescue, and pulls it to one side, where it will boil more slowly. This occurs probably, at the outside, two hours before dishing up. The stew boils on, at sometimes slowly, sometimes fast, according to the accidental state of the fire beneath it, till, a quarter of an hour before dinner time, it occurs to the cook that the thickening might as well go in. The flour dredge is then put into active requisition, the mess stirred up perhaps a dish of sance is added, another boil is given, and then the stew is served. This method – the method almost universally adopted - makes a washy unpalateable compound, which only accentuates the badness of your lean mutton or tough beef.

I was in darkness myself not long ago, and I will tell my readers how I learnt to use the stew-pot properly. Great had been my trouble about this stew-pot. Where we lived was very cold wet country in winter time. Often for six months in the year, and more, the sheep were very poor, and we could not get a decent joint once in a month. So I made stews, and small curries, and tried the cooking pot in every imaginable way, but all to no purpose. My husband was, like most men, dreadfully unreasonable about his food, always grumbling, and thinking that everything was better done, in other people's houses than in his. He was particularly fond of telling me that I should take a lesson in pot-cooking from old Bill, our shepherd at the swamp. This annoyed me verymuch. I used to look dignified, and make believe I did not hear; but in secret I often cried about lit, and sat up studying Mrs. Beeton till my eyes were dim and sore.

One day it struck me that without letting anybody know, or lowering my dignity at all, I might learn something from 'old Bill,' and profit by it. So I waited for a chance. A good one came ere long; a cow had calved out on the run, and the men being all engaged, I volunteered to fetch it, and once out of sight of home I galloped off in a straight line for 'old Bill's swamp. In front of his hut door, was a great line of ashes, with a pot handle sticking out of it. Nobody was there, so I scraped the ashes carefully away, till I made bare the lid, and could take it off with a forked stick. Then I saw at once what Harry meant! Gently, very gently simmering was a most delicious stew; velvety, smooth, shining, and rich brown in colour. The meat was soft, but not in rags, browned but not burnt; as different as possible in colour, in consistency, and in appearance, from anything I ever made. I tasted it, and tasted it again, and felt quite sorry for poor Harry, and sat down and waited till ‘old Bill' brought in his sheep, to learn the secret of this mystery.

It was soon told. He put his meat into the pot, with a little bit of dripping, and no water. This was placed at dawn upon the ashes, not the fire, and by the time his sheep were ready to draw off, the moisture had run out of the meat, and formed almost sufficient gravy to steam the stew. To this he added a little sauce or curry, and about a wine glass full of water or of broth. Then a big hole was made in his large heap of well-warmed cinders, some cool ashes were spread upon the bottom of this hole, and the pot put upon them, more cool ashes were built round it, and then the hot ones all banked up. The cover of his pot was made dutch-oven fashion, and the ashes were heaped upon it too, until nothing was seen but the black handle, sticking out of this great white cinder heap. Bedded in these ashes, which were not too hot, but kept up the heat that was in them nearly all day long, 'old Bill's pot simmered slowly till the night, and when he opened it, the richest and most succulent of stews was his reward.

I soon learnt, to work upon old Bill's method under the altered conditions of a kitchen range, and I will give the result of my experience. In the first place you should have your stew-pots made with dutch-oven covers. Having such a one, this is how you should proceed. Put your pot on the fire, with a little butter or dripping in it, and while this is melting, cut up your meat and trim it properly, free it from skin and gristle, and everything that is not nice; then dust it with a pinch of salt, put it in the pot and cover up. Place your pot in a very moderately warm position on the fire bars, and put a few hot ashes on the top. In half an hour, look to see if it wants moistening at all, and if it does, use a little drop of stock. (It is very easy to keep a small supply of stock on hand, with any sort of management.) If you wish to use sauce, curry powder, lemon, wine, cayenne, parsley, or anything else to flavour your stew, now is the time to put it in. Cover it up again and put it on with fresh warm ashes on the lid, and let it simmer slowly, very slowly for several hours, three or four at least, adding a little stock when wanted; Never let it approach a boil; it is done for if you do. And you must keep hot ashes on the top if you wish to be successful; the meat must braise, as well as simmer from the heat below. Half an hour before you want to dish if the rich, velvety, dark-brown gravy, which this method of pot-cooking should produce, is not as thick as you would like it, mix a little cornflour or arrowroot with a little stock and add; stir gently, so as not to break up the meat, and simmer on again till ready.

If housewives would give these directions for pot-cooking a fair trial, varying of course the combinations according to their ingenuity and taste, I feel sure their bush dinners would be more frequently successful, and their husbands less frequently provoking!

MARTHA.

Australian Recipes, from Australia.

2013-04-23T05:00:00.000+10:00

In a couple of days it is a day of great national importance in Australia and New Zealand – it is Anzac Day, the anniversary of the day in 1914 that Australian and New Zealand forces landed on the Gallipoli peninsula and met their Turkish enemies. It was meant to be a short campaign, but dragged on for eight months and left 8,000 Australians and many other Allied and Turkish men dead.

So, I want to give some Australian stories this week, and I start with the question of “What is Australian food?” Don’t you hate that sort of question?

From time to time over the years I have been writing this blog, I have given recipes for things I have never eaten, and probably never will – such as skunk, from a few days ago – because they are not available here, and are not on the tourist menu of places I might visit.

It set me to wonder what “Australian Food” means to non-Australians. Often it is something that ordinary Australians rarely eat - unless they have overseas visitors – such as kangaroo. It was a little different a hundred years or more ago, when bush food was more readily available, and more people lived in the bush.

Here was The Queenslander’s (Brisbane) take on “Australian Food” on April 30, 1898.

AUSTRALIAN RECIPES.

The following recipes are from Mrs.Maclurcan's Australian Cookery Book.

Jugged Wallaby.

One small wallaby, two onions, black pepper. Cut the wallaby into small pieces, flour and fry them in a little butter until nice and brown, put them in a jar with the herbs tied together, the onions sliced, and the cloves (about half a dozen), half a teaspoonful of black pepper, and a teaspoonful of salt; cover with water; slice half the lemon, and add the juice of the other half ; put the jar in a saucepan of water, keep it closed very tight and allow it to cook for four hours, keeping the saucepan full of boiling water. Melt the jelly, add to the port wine, and about half an hour before serving put in the jar; thicken with a little brown flour. Serve with red currant jelly.

Roast Scrub Turkey.

Pluck and clean the turkey nicely, rub it over with a little flour, put it in a baking tin with dripping, place pieces of bacon fat over the breast, baste it well all the time; bake for an hour. Serve with bread sauce.

Roast Wild Duck.

Pluck the duck nicely (do not scald it or the flavour will be spoilt), singe and wash it, dry it with a clean towel; rub it over with a little flour, cover with buttered paper, and bake in a moderate oven. It may be stuffed with ordinary stuffing. It is an improvement to squeeze a lemon over it before yon bake it. Serve with slices of lemon and port wine sauce.

Barramundi a la Normandie.

Boil your fish, and remove the skin, then cover the fish evenly with the following preparation :—To the yolk of three eggs add a wine-glassful of white sauce, an ounce of grated cheese, juice of a lemon, a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, a little nutmeg and pepper. Stir this over the fire until it begins to thicken, then then spread it over the fish. Shake over the surface the whites of two hard-boiled eggs and yolks rubbed through a sieve, with a dessert-spoonful of cheese. Twenty minutes before dinner put it in the oven to heat thoroughly and brown. Serve with prawn sauce.

Foreign Food.

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Some time ago I gave you some snippets from the Food Journal Vol. I, (London, 1871) and I have been dipping into it again. It is the journal that just keeps on giving. One article that caught my eye was on frogs, and the French predilection for them as a gourmet item, and the second brief story was on the African manatee. I bet not many of you have eaten manatee. Apparently it tastes like pork.

First, on frogs, the 1871 English view:

We believe that the notion that Frenchmen live principally on frogs, is somewhat discredited in England at present; but the following would go to show that the creed of our grandfathers is not altogether without foundation even at the present day:—" The exportation of frogs to France," says the Echo du Luxembourg, "has developed considerably of late. A man named 'B.,' of Vance, has forwarded 200,000 in the last three weeks; on Thursday he sent off 30,000. They are chiefly sent to Rheims, Nancy, and Paris. A thousand frogs fetch 13fr. (10s. 6d.), and weigh 50 kilogrammes (1 cwt.). They enter France duty free. At Rheims 25 pairs of frogs' legs can be bought for sixty centimes (6d.). The thighs, as everyone knows, make delicious joints (des succulents rolis) with white sauce and in a fricassée. They are thus a dish by no means to be despised. But the rest of the body, and the skin—the sticky, slimy skin—what is done with that? Why, they make turtle soup of it! Yes, that savoury mork turfle (sic!), over which the gourmands lick their lips, has for its chief foundation the animals which haunt the marshes and the fields of Luxembourg. The autumn and the spring are the best time of year for frogs."

Secondly, part of the article on the manatee:

The Manatee. … Indeed, the manatee seems nowhere to have been common; and until the missionaries at Old Calabar sent home a few skulls, it was one of the rarest creatures in museums. Dr. Vogel only got one specimen, and Dr. Balfour Baikie found a head in a Dju-dju, or sacred heap, near a miserable village on one of the interminable dreary creeks at the mouth of the Niger. It is a royal perquisite, like the sturgeon in Britain, and is generally taken to the chief's table; but none of my missionary friends seem to have tasted it. Dr. Vogel, however, speaks of it as very good, its flesh and fat being like pork, and very well flavoured. There is no reason why it should not be so. It is herbivorous, feeding on sea weeds when in the sea, and on grass, etc., when in the rivers or marshes. It reaches i o ft. in length, and becomes very fat. We know, too, that its near relative, the now extinct Rhytina Stelleri, during the short period which elapsed between man's discovery of it, and his eating it off the face of the earth (it was discovered in 1741, and the last survivor was consumed in 1768), supplied a large store of what is described as most excellent food to the whalers who annually wintered at Bearing's Island, where they congregated in numbers for the purpose of economising their stores, and feeding on the fresh supplies which that animal afforded. A similar fate probably awaits the manatee, although its wider distribution no doubt gives it a longer day.

I could find no recipes for manatee, no doubt it is cooked like pork, but perhaps it is protected – I hope. I have frogs for you however.

Grenouilles Frites, or Fried Frogs.

Use only the hind-quarters of the frogs. After washing them in warm water, soak well; then put them into cold vinegar with a little salt, and let them remain one or two hours, after which throw them into scalding water, and remove the skin without tearing the flesh. Wipe them dry, dust flour on them and fry in butter or sweet oil, with plenty of chopped parsley.When brown, dust pepper and a little salt over them, and garnish with crisped parsley. Stewed frogs are seasoned with butter, wine, beaten eggs and parsley chopped fine.

La Cuisine Creole(New Orleans, 1883) by Lafcadio Hearne.

The Daily Dilemma.

2013-04-19T05:00:00.000+10:00

It is time to take a cruise again. This time we are on board the R.M.S Tantallon Castle, en route to South Africa. The time is “shortly before the unfortunate events of the last days of 1895 and the first of 1896” (presumably the Jameson Raid, between the two Boer Wars.) Our virtual host on this vicarious voyage is a Scotsman, David S. Salmond, who wrote about the real journey in

Diary of a Trip to South Africa on R.M.S. Tantallon Castle, published in 1899.

He and his wife board the ship in Blackwall, London, on April 4. At one point in his narrative he gives the menu for a single day’s meals. I like to have fun with these menus, and try to decide what I would have chosen to eat. What would you have selected?

Breakfast, from 8.30 till 10.30 Porridge, grilled bloaters, grilled bacon and straw potatoes, poached eggs on toast, fried and boiled eggs, plain omelette, minced mutton collops and

poached egg, devilled kidneys, chops and steak from the grill (to order), curried mutton, straw and mashed potatoes, rolls and toast. Cold: Boiled ham, German sausage. Tea, coffee, and cocoa.

Luncheon, at 1. Pea soup, mutton cutlets, French beans sauté, savoury hot pot, boiled calfs head, bath chap and parsley sauce, chops and steaks from the grill (to order), baked and mashed potatoes, stewed apples with rice, shortbread. Cold: Salmon en Mayonnaise, sardines, roast shoulder of mutton with mint sauce, roast chicken, boiled York ham, game pie, pickled pork ; roast veal and ham, chicken and ham sausage; celery, cucumber ; Stilton, Cheddar, and

Gorgonzola cheese ; caraway-seed buns, oat-cakes, pulled bread fruit; coffee.

Dinner, 6.30. Olives farcies, anchovy eggs ; consommé royale; fried cod steaks, Dutch sauce; mutton cutletes a la reforme, chicken and truffle patties; roast loin of beef with horseradish, leg of mutton boned and stuffed, onion sauce, corned ox tongue with carrots; roast goose, apple sauce,. Ptarmigan, curried veal a la Bombay; saute ands boiled potatoes, cauliflower, parsley sauce, Canton pudding, lemon jellies, Swiss apple tart, Polish cakes; Stilton, Cheddar,

and Gorgonzola cheese, macaroni au gratin; pine-apples, French plums, oranges, Barcelona nuts; coffee.

Three things on that menu intrigue me: Polish Cakes, Canton Pudding, and Barcelona Nuts. Google tells me that Barcelona nuts are a type of hazelnut (or filbert) so I know I would like them. Polish cakes seems to be a generic name for delicious pastries – but perhaps the recipe below is more specifically correct? Canton Pudding remains elusive; if you know of it, please let us know.

Polish Cakes.

Roll out a piece of puff paste and cut it into squares; then with some yolk of egg and a paste brush touch each corner of the squares, and the middle, and press them down with your finger; brush them lightly over with the yolk of egg, which should be diluted with a few drops of water—about eighteen will be sufficient for a dish; bake them in rather a quick oven; when they are done sift sugar over them, and glaze them with a salamander; while the paste is hot make a little hole in the centre, which is to be filled with marmalade, or with good puff paste: there is an immense variety of pastry to be made, which the ingenuity of the cook will invent.

The Young Cook's Guide, with Practical Observations… (1836) by I. Roberts.

Time for Cake.

2013-04-18T05:38:00.002+10:00

It is time for cake, and perhaps a little trifle. I am perilously close to “finishing” my monstrous Food History Almanac (it will happen today, folks) and I deserve a little sweetness. Trifle has never really been my thing, and I don’t know if today’s offering can really be called trifle, but some of you like it, I know. It is not actually called “trifle” in the recipe anyway, but and it is Charlotte Russe, but it is surely not a genuine version of that dish either.

The recipes come from a “U.S. Expert[‘s] Suggest[ions]s for an Ideal Christmas Dinner in” 1915. They were published in the New York Times on December 19, 1915 and were given as alternative desserts to heavy pudding and cake. The expert was Miss Caroline L. Hunt, of the Bureau of Home Economics. I don’t believe we have such a bureau anymore, in any country, do we?

Both recipes contain honey, which I believe I have neglected in this blog to date.

Honey Charlotte Russe.

1 quart cream

Six lady-fingers [biscuits]

½ cup delicately flavored honey.

Chill the honey by placing the dish containing it in ice water. Whip the cream and add the honey, mixing the two well. Line a dish with the lady-fingers and fill it with the honey and cream. Serve very cold.

Ribbon Cake.

½ cup butter

2 cups sugar

1 cup milk

3 ½ cups flour

5 teaspoonfuls baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons ground cardamom seed

1 ½ teaspoons ginger

¾ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon cloves

½ cup raisins, seeded and cut in pieces

½ cup figs, finely chopped

1 tablespoon honey

4 eggs.

Rub the butter and sugar together and add the yolks of the eggs. Sift together the flour and baking powder and add them to the mixture, alternating with the milk. Finally, add the whites of the eggs, well beaten. Bake two thirds of the mixture in two layer pans. To the remainder add the spices, fruit, and honey, and bake. Put the layers together, with crystallized honey.

Earl Henry’s Household.

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I want to change tack completely today, and give you a glimpse into life in a grand household in the sixteenth century. My source is the Household Books of the third and fourth Earls of Derby, as published by The Chetham Society in 1853.

Henry Stanley was born in 1531 and inherited the title in 1572 on the death of his father, Edward, third Earl of Stanley. His household included 140 servants, plus a constant stream of visitors and guests, and there was also the obligation to feed the large number of “indigent dependants” who flocked to the hall to receive their dole of leftovers.

One the early introductory paragraphs about Earl Henry’s household gives a marvelous picture of what “self-sufficiency” really meant in the sixteenth century. The Chetham Society record says:

The extent of the Earl’s domain supplied him with most of these necessaries of life. His flocks and herds were the produce of his own lands, his park furnished his family with venison, and his warrens and fishponds readily supplied game and fish for the table. The malt was made in his own kilns, and the hops apparently grown on his own lands,‘ whilst the ale, in no stinted quantity, was brewed by experienced hands. The ordinary weekly consumption of the household was about one ox, a dozen calves, a score of sheep, fifteen hogsheads of ale, and plenty of bread, fish, and poultry. The low lands around Lathom furnished turves, and the lordly forests around Knowsley logs of wood for fires, whilst the capacious vaults of stone, called ovens, capable of containing more than an ox at one time, and seldom disused, were kept heated with this homely fuel of the country. Fossil coal abounded in the neighbourhood, but was apparently unknown. Candles of wax, but principally of tallow, proving that rushlights were not ordinarily used, were made by the household Chandler, whilst Carpenters and Rough casters were constantly employed in attending to the repairs and decorations of the massive half-timbered halls. Paneling of oak was little used at this time, and Arras men were engaged throughout the year in making tapestry and embroidering hangings for the superior rooms in the several houses of the Earl. Confectionaries, sweetmeats, and fruits, are not mentioned by name, and the produce of the Gardens might not be large, as only one Gardener is named in the Roll of Servants, landscape scenery and picturesque views, now so much cultivated, being at that time little regarded even by a person of Lord Bacon’s refined taste. It must, however, be admitted that Leicester’s gardens and pleasure grounds at Kenilworth, as described by Laneham in 1575, appear to have been extensive, ornamental, and laid out with much judgment5 Wine is also omitted in the accounts of Earl Henry, although in 1569 Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury stated that two tuns in a month did not suffice for the consumption of his household, and it is an important item in the expenditure of Edward Earl of Derby a little earlier. In 1563 the Steward paid 61.[pounds] a tun for wine, whilst so great was the increase in the price of luxuries during the reign of Elizabeth, that in 1606 half a tun of wine for the use of the Earl of Cumberland’s household amounted to 81. 5s.No delicacies are specified, but these might be included under the general and somewhat comprehensive word Acates, and, like the ordinary fare, would be most abundantly supplied at a Christening,1 at the great festivals of the Church,2 and at large entertainments.

There are many other interesting insights in the records. An order was made, for example, that dogs not be allowed in the dining hall for they would steal from the alms tubs and annoy the guests with their barking and fighting. Elsewhere is a regulation that only a few people were allowed to be present when the Earl’s dinner was being dressed, to reduce the chance of poison being added. I sense some future posts from this wonderful source!

As the recipe for the day, I give you something from one of the few sixteenth century cookery books, The good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin(London 1594.)

To boyle a Mallard with Cabage.

TAke the Cabage and pick them cleane, and wash them, and parboile them in faire water: then put them in a colender, and let the water runne from them, then put them in a faire pot, and as much beefe broth as will couer them, and the Marie of three Mary bones whole. Then take a Mallard, and with your knife giue him a launce along vppon each side of the breast. Then take him of, and put him into your Cabage, and his dripping with him, for he must be roasted halfe ynough, and his dripping saued, and so let them stew the space of one hower. Then put in some pepper and a litle salt, & serue in your Mallard vpon sops, and the Cabage about him, and of the vppermost of the broth.

Instead of Meat, in WW I.

2013-04-16T06:04:00.003+10:00

I was going to change topics today, but it seems that the stories from the last couple of days have touched a chord for many of you, so I will have one more little dip into the wartime leaflet published by the USDA, in 1917.

Naturally, meatless meals were heavily promoted during WW I, and this little leaflet did its best. I thought the following three dishes were interesting, especially the creamed peanut dish. I am also intrigued by the naming of the Calcutta Rice dish.

Pea Soufflé.

4 tablespoons flour

4 tablespoons fat

1 cup skim milk

1 cup mashed cooked peas (any kind)

3 eggs

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Few drops of onion juice

Make a white sauce from flour, fat, and milk, as in preceding recipe. Mash the cooked peas to a pulp. Beat white and yolks of eggs separately. Mix vegetable pulp, seasonings, sauce, and well-beaten yolks. Fold in stiffly-beaten whites, put in greased baking dish and bake in slow oven until firm. Lima beans, split peas, or fresh or canned green peas may be used.

Creamed Peanuts and Rice.

1 cup rice (uncooked)

2 cups chopped peanuts

½ teaspoon paprika

2 teaspoons salt

White Sauce: 3 tablespoons flour, 3 tablespoons fat, 3 cups milk (whole or skim), place in baking dish and bake for 20 minutes.

Peppers and celery may be added, if desired.

Boil rice. Make white sauce by mixing flour in melted fat and mixing with milk. Stir over fire till it thickens, Mix rice, peanuts, and seasoning with sauce

Calcutta Rice.

2 cups rice

2 cups tomatoes

½ pound cheese

1 tablespoon salt

Peppers or celery or onions may be added if desired.

Boil rice. Mix it with tomatoes, grated cheese, and seasoning, and pour into baking dish. Bake half an hour. If peppers or celery are used, cut up and boil with rice.

CHEESE IS A FINE MEAT-SAVER. There is a great deal of food in a little piece of it. Don’t eat it at the end of a meal when you have already had enough. You would not eat a piece of meat then. An inch cube of American cheese contains a third more protein than the same sized piece of lean meat. Cheese is excellent food if eaten at the right time.

Do You Know Cornmeal?

2013-04-15T05:00:00.000+10:00

From the same food leaflet that gave us Friday’s Post ‘Do You Know Oatmeal?’ – the WW I booklet published in 1917 by the U.S Dept. of Agriculture for the U.S Food Administration - I would like to give you some of the ideas for using cornmeal.

Corn comes in for a higher level of promotional enthusiasm than oatmeal. It was quite clear from the leaflet that it was not only economically and nutritionally sensible to use more cornmeal, but it is was an act of patriotism.

Do You Know Cornmeal?

ITS USE MEANS

Service to Your Country

Nourishing Food for You

On subsequent pages are inserted phrases such as:

Corn Saved Our Pioneers

Corn Helps us Feed the World

Corn Meal - Our Ally!

There are a number of recipes for cornbread, but I like this variation on cormeal mush or polenta – with ginger.

Corn Meal and Milk.

Do you use corn-meal mush for a breakfast food? It is both cheap and good. Cooked in skim milk instead of water it is extra fine and the food value of the dish in nearly doubled.Here is a delicious corn meal and milk dessert.

Indian Pudding.

4 cups milk (whole or skim)

¼ cup cornmeal

⅓ cup molasses

¾ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ginger.

Cook milk and meal in a double boiler 20 minutes; add molasses, salt, and ginger. Pour into buttered pudding dish and bake two hours in a slow oven, or use your fireless cooker. Serve with milk. This makes a good and nourishing dessert.

Serves six.

The following recipe is not for cornmeal, it comes from a section on vegetables later in the leaflet. I am intrigued by the method – the slicing through the kernels and the scraping of the remaining half-kernels on the cob. I have never come across this before, and would be interested to know if you know it. I expected the recipe to include an egg or two, but I guess it must thicken a little as it cooks anyway, from the starch in the kernels?

Green-Corn Pudding.

This is a delicious way to serve either sweet corn or the tender field corn. A little sugar may be added to the field corn if desired.

Husk and silk 12 good-sized ears of corn. Slice off half the kernel with a sharp knife, and with the blunt edge of the knife scrape out the milky part that remains on the cob. Add a tablespoon of butter, salt, and pepper, and three-fourths of a cup of milk. Bake for 45 minutes, allowing it to brown on top. This makes a creamy dish, which is best served in the pan or baking dish in which it bakes.