tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post1731948838526946626..comments2024-03-06T09:43:09.476+10:00Comments on The Old Foodie: The Truth about Carpetbag Steak.The Old Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00766403052971301718noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post-69640194051830666332014-04-24T13:23:25.082+10:002014-04-24T13:23:25.082+10:00There's an interesting version of this dish in...There's an interesting version of this dish in the 1912 <i>Neighborhood Cook Book</i>, published by the Council of Jewish Women in Portland, OR. This was only the second Jewish cookbook to be published after the reform of Judaism, so there are a great many non-kosher recipes. Their version is called "Saddle Bags a la Rothchild," which nods both to the fact that saddlebags are more useful out West, but also to the wealth of the person eating it; it's named for Fred Rothchild, who, besides owning a liquor distribution in Portland (and a downtown building to house it), was the first vice-president of the Bankers and Lumbermen's Bank in 1907.<br /><br />Here's the recipe (on p 67): <br />Saddle Bags a la Rothchild <br />Slit a pocket in a large tenderloin steak, fill it with oysters (small ones) which have been seasoned with salt, pepper and catsup or a little Worcestershire sauce; broil or bake the steak, adding butter and more seasoning. Heather Arndt Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03946308432186046091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post-26725686795764893322014-03-21T10:15:57.310+10:002014-03-21T10:15:57.310+10:00South Australian Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - ...South Australian Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1895) <br />Saturday 6 December 1890<br />Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1878 - 1954)<br />Monday 4 May 1891<br /><br />STEAK AND OYSTERS.-<br />Rump steak with brown oyster sauce is a standard English dish.<br />The following recipe is recommended :-<br />Cut a steak at least two inches thick, split through and fill it with a layer of raw oysters lightly seasoned with cayenne and lemon-juice. <br />Sew up the steak and boil carefully for twenty minutes or half an hour, according to its thickness. <br />No sauce is required with this mode of preparing. <br />Rubbing a steak over with salad oil before cooking is the easiest and best method of preserving the juices of the meal and ensuring its appearance at table a deep, rich brown outside mid red inside, tender and succulent. <br />All savoury butters are good served with steak. Horseradish butter is perhaps the newest.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post-61238309778149051092012-01-07T20:48:50.027+10:002012-01-07T20:48:50.027+10:00Marvellous, Dee! May thanks to you and you grandfa...Marvellous, Dee! May thanks to you and you grandfather for a lovely contribution to the story.The Old Foodiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00766403052971301718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post-48063312101067434762012-01-07T16:13:55.109+10:002012-01-07T16:13:55.109+10:00I showed this post to my grandfather earlier this ...I showed this post to my grandfather earlier this week, and he got a kick out of it. We chatted about it afterwards over a few beers.<br /><br />My grandfather, who owned a cattle ranch here in Florida until the 1970's, said that beef really wasn't a big part of the Southern diet until after WWII. <br /><br />He said that most of the beef that was produced down (or up) here in the Southern US was either shipped to the stockyards up north, sold to the Brits, or was purchased by the Federal government to feed the US Army and Navy bases which still dot across the Southern US after our civil war. <br /><br />So beef was fairly scarce, which drove up the price, locally. <br /><br />Also from the end of the US Civil War until the late 1940's, and some areas even as late as the 1980's, many regions across the Southern US were economically depressed due to the postwar looting which was carried out by the carpetbaggers during the Reconstruction. The regional depression was further exacerbated by 50 to 60 years of corrupt and inept local governance. <br /><br />So until the late 1940's, many Southerners who lived within these depressed regions simply couldn't afford beef. <br /><br />As for oysters; unless you lived along the coastal regions of the US South, up until the 1940's; you needed serious money to ship a crate or two of oysters inland, and keep them cold enough to safely eat. So stuffing oysters inside of a cut of steak was considered an extravagance by most Southerners of the time. <br /><br />So my grandfather said that a menu featuring "Carpetbagger Steaks" would have been a meal which only some rich damyankee, who liked to rub your nose in their ill-gotten money, could ever hope to afford...Deenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post-80882158529536007582011-11-09T06:41:42.433+10:002011-11-09T06:41:42.433+10:00I mean, does it mean something more specific? stuf...I mean, does it mean something more specific? stuffed steak in itself was not uncommon, so I think maybe it indicates something specific, not just cheapness. Maybe an oyster difference between north and south?<br />I will keep looking folks, watch out for chapter 2!The Old Foodiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00766403052971301718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post-84497833409886615002011-11-09T06:36:24.453+10:002011-11-09T06:36:24.453+10:00Hi All.I was briefly concerned there about the Civ...Hi All.I was briefly concerned there about the Civil war erupting again ....<br />I wonder if there is a metaphor here - if it turns out likely to be a Southern dish, does the concept of oysters inside a steak 'mean' anything?The Old Foodiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00766403052971301718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post-3194767845038897562011-11-08T08:23:01.714+10:002011-11-08T08:23:01.714+10:00Hi, Sesanner -- No, ma'am, carpetbags themselv...Hi, Sesanner -- No, ma'am, carpetbags themselves were not initially held in disesteem. It was the unscrupulous actions of the Northern interlopers who arrived carrying them that gave them their bad reputation in the South. I grew up with oyster stuffing for fowl, also, and still prefer it although we use wheat bread (my father's family came from Kentucky and southern Illinois).Petenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post-68569749748491688192011-11-08T07:32:48.467+10:002011-11-08T07:32:48.467+10:00That made interesting reading. The whole concept o...That made interesting reading. The whole concept of 'surf and turf' I find a bit weird in any case, but I like the evolution from oysters to kidneys in the steak and kid pie. How times have changed.firefoodiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10998508363568255408noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post-91436912823295034802011-11-08T04:05:17.385+10:002011-11-08T04:05:17.385+10:00Theorizing on the basis of nearly forgotten Welsh ...Theorizing on the basis of nearly forgotten Welsh family history.<br /><br />The carpetbag fabric itself . . . remembering my grandmother's travel bag from the late 1880's . . . could certainly be of rich, elegant design. Rugs from Persia, even from less exotic sources, were surely prized. Common sources of household pride, one might surmise, among the classes that could afford them. <br /><br />In their early use, were carpetbags necessarily born into disrepute? My grandmother would have denied that rather brusquely.<br /><br />Perhaps steak and oysters were similarly esteemed at some time?<br /><br /><br />From another branch of the family, oysters appeared on the table in a cornbread stuffing served with turkey. Its recipe came North with an inlaw from Kentucky, U.S.<br /><br /><br />(It is reassuring to read the staid "OED is seriously deficient" having also recently read that verdict of our newfangled Wikipedia.)<br /><br />sesannersesannernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24170237.post-75516323345729126652011-11-07T08:31:45.404+10:002011-11-07T08:31:45.404+10:00Since the term carpetbag itself entered the langua...Since the term carpetbag itself entered the language 1820-30, and carpetbagger in 1865, that should limit the name research, especially if the recipe was already falling out of favor by 1891. Carpetbaggers in the US were interlopers known for their shoddy tricks on the locals; perhaps naming a stuffed steak after them was a way of pointing to the (original) cheapness of the filling? I suspect it would be easier to find the recipe in cookbooks from the American South than the American North, since "carpetbagger" is really a pejorative.Petenoreply@blogger.com