The Savoy, Christmas Eve 1899.

Herewith the menu, prepared by Escoffier himself, for Christmas Eve, 1899 at the Savoy Hotel in London.

Caviar frais      Bouquet de crevettes     Royal natives

Tortue claire       Bortsch à la russe

Suprêmes de soles à l'aurore

Filets de rougets aux laituces

Poulardes royales

Timbales de truffes au champagne

Selle de chevreuil grand veneur

Mousseline d'écrevisses

Délices de bécasses

Sorbets dame blanche

Ortolans cocotte

Cailles à l'orange

Salade des capucins

Asperges nouvelles

Foies gras pochés au Clicquot

Soufflé Chantilly

Ananas glacé

Mandarines à l'orientale

Biscuits aux avelines         Mignardises

Galettes écossaises

Fruits

Vins

Johannisberger cabinet, 1874

Pommery, extra sec, 1884

Château Coutet, marquis de Lur-Saluces Mise du Château Etampé, 1861

Grande Champagne, 1830

Grandes liqueurs

Café turc

As the Recipe for the Day, I give you Escoffier’s blushing pink (like the goddess Aurora’s dawn light) sauce for your sole.

Aurore Sauce.
Into ½ pint boiling veloute put the same quantity of very red tomato purée and mix the two. Let the sauce boil a little, pass it through a tammy, and finish, away from the fire, with 3 oz butter.

Quotation for the Day.

The merry Christmas, with its generous boards,
Its fire-lit hearths, and gifts and blazing trees,
Its pleasant voices uttering gentle words,
Its genial mirth, attuned to sweet accords,
Its holiest memories!
The fairest season of the passing year –
The merry, merry Christmas time is here.
George Arnold.

Pudding Sauces.

Yesterday we looked at some slightly different ideas for Christmas pudding and mince pies; today I want to offer you a couple of slightly different sauces for your chosen pudding.

Teetotal Pudding Sauce.
is made with melted butter, to which a little cream has been added, sweetened to taste, and flavoured with any of the favourite spices.
The Corner Cupboard, Robert Kemp Philp, 1853

Orange Sauce.
½ cup orange juice
2 teaspoons orange marmalade
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
1 teaspoon lemon juice
½ cup sugar
4 eggs separated
⅛ teaspoon salt
Cook orange juice, marmalade, rind, lemon juice, sugar, and egg yolks in a double boiler or a heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. Beat egg whites with salt until they hold firm peaks. Fold egg whites into orange custard mixture before serving.
Life, Dec 8, 1961

Or how about this rather tropical idea from, of all people, the very English Eliza Acton, in 1845? One shudders to think of the availability (and price) and quality of pineapples at the time.

A Very Fine Pine-Apple Sauce Or Syrup, For Puddings Or Other Sweet Dishes.
After having pared away every morsel of the rind from a ripe and highly flavoured pine-apple, cut three-quarters of a pound of it into very thin slices, and then into quite small dice. Pour to it nearly half a pint of spring water; heat, and boil it very gently until it is extremely tender, then strain and press the juice closely from it through a cloth or through a muslin strainer* folded in four; strain it clear, mix it with ten ounces of the finest sugar in small lumps, and when this is dissolved, boil the syrup gently for a quarter of an hour. It will be delicious in flavour and very bright in colour if well made. If put into a jar, and stored with a paper tied over it, it will remain excellent for weeks; and it will become almost a jelly with an additional ounce of sugar and rather quicker boiling. It may be poured round moulded creams, rice, or sago; or mingled with various sweet preparations for which the juice of fruit is admissible.
*It is almost superfluous to say that the large squares of muslin, of which on account of their peculiar nicety we have recommended the use for straining many sweet preparations, must never have a particle of starch in them; they should he carefully kept free from dust and soil of any kind, and always well rinsed and soaked in clear water before they are dried.
Modern Cookery, Eliza Acton, 1845

From a previous post: Honey and Butter sauce.

Quotation for the Day.
A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together
Garrison Keillor

No Brandy.

Not everyone in Britain would have taken up Messrs. Hennessy’s offer of free brandy in 1905, as was discussed in yesterday’s post. There are those who, for various reasons, eschew the use of alcohol.

The temperance movement had been alive and well in both Britain and the USA since at least the mid-nineteenth century, and Christmas was a particularly challenging time for its would-be adherents. To this end, the movement discovered, invented or modified and promoted alcohol-free recipes specifically for the season. Many appeared during the thirteen-year long ‘noble experiment’ of Prohibition in the USA, but many also pre-dated this by decades. In the Vintage Christmas Recipes Archive you will find ‘Mincemeat without Intoxicants’, from 1909. Today I give you an even earlier one recipe for ‘temperance mincemeat’, which sounds quite intriguingly delicious with its cream and molasses base.

Temperance Mince Pies.
Take one quart of good rye or wheat bread, after it is chopped fine, and one quart of sour apples, chopped fine; add the juice of six lemons, two large spoonfuls of ground cinnamon, a large teaspoonful of salt, a pint of cream or milk, a pint of the best sugar bakers’ molasses, and a pint of washed raisins. Grate in a lemon peel. Bake them one hour.
The young house-keeper: or, thoughts on food and cookery, William Andrus Alcott, 1839

Quotation for the Day.

...Christmas is a season of such infinite labour, as well as expense in the shopping and present-making line, that almost every woman I know is good for nothing in purse and person for a month afterwards, done up physically, and broken down financially
Fanny Kemble, writing on December 31, 1874.

Free Brandy.

The British public received an offer almost too good to believe in November 1905. The makers of Hennessy’s Brandy offered, via display advertisements in the newspaper, “free of charge and carriage pain, a quarter-pint sample” of their One-Star brandy - just in time for Christmas. Customers were to enclose their visiting card with the request form, which was to be cut from the newspaper. The free sample amount of half a pint was double the volume of the smallest bottle sold by James Hennessy, so it was not an insignificant freebie.

Messrs. Jas. Hennessy had two apparent reasons for their generosity. They expressed a heartfelt concern for the decline of Brandy and Soda as a popular national beverage, gave a considered opinion as to the reasons for this decline (a problem which presented ‘a curious psychological study’), and offered as a solution their One Star brandy. They also deeply regretted ‘that “cooking brandy” is synonymous in every home with inferior brandy’, and warned ‘do not imagine that a brandy which makes a superb brandy and soda is too good for cooking purposes.’ The lengthy advice noted that ‘on bad raisin would only spoil a corner of the pudding, but one ounce of bad brandy will spoil the whole pudding’.

The problem of inferior and imitation brandy was not only a problem of the Christmas season, of course. The article (one can hardly call it merely a Display Advertisement) continued:

‘The damage done by the use of inferior and spurious brandy does not stop short at the Christmas pudding, nor at Christmas time; for Brandy is employed in the preparation of numberless dishes. “Mrs Beeton’s Cookery Book” gives over fifty recipes in which Brandy is a necessary ingredient; and she very often qualifies the word brandy with the adjective “good”, probably from her own experience of the brandy which is usually used for cooking purposes.’

“Mrs Beeton’s Cookery Book” had gone through many alterations and revisions by 1905. The original work was published in 1861 as The Book of Household Management, and was far more than a mere recipe book. It contained, as its title suggests, a wide range of advice on such things as the management of servants, the laundry and linen requirements of a home, and legal matters pertaining to women. It is marvellous that four decades after publication of the book (and the author’s death), when this Hennessy advertisement was made, Isabella Beeton’s monumental work was still the gold standard English cookery.

Mrs Beeton’s Christmas Cake recipe is in the Vintage Christmas Recipes archive. Today I give you her brandy-inclusive Christmas Plum Pudding recipe, from the original edition.

CHRISTMAS PLUM PUDDING.

(Very Good.)

Ingredients.—l ½ lb. of raisins, ½ lb. of currants, ½ lb. of mixed peel, ¾ lb. of bread crumbs, ¾ lb. of suet, 8 eggs, 1 wineglassful of brandy.
Mode.—Stone and cut the raisins in halves, but do not chop them; wash, pick, and dry the currants, and mince the suet finely; cut the candied peel into thin slices, and grate down the bread into fine crumbs. When all these dry ingredients are prepared, mix them well together; then moisten the mixture with the eggs, which should be well beaten, and the brandy; stir well, that every thing may be very thoroughly blended, and press the pudding into a buttered mould; tie it down tightly with a floured cloth, and boil for 5 or 6 hours.
It may be boiled in a cloth without a mould, and will require the same time allowed for cooking.
As Christmas puddings are usually made a few days before they are required for table, when the pudding is taken out of the pot, hang it up immediately, and put a plate or saucer underneath to catch the water that may drain from it. The day it is to be eaten, plunge it into boiling water, and keep it boiling for at least 2 hours; then turn it out of the mould, and serve with brandy-sauce. On Christmas-day a sprig of holly is usually placed in the middle of the pudding, and about a wineglassful of brandy poured round it, which, at the moment of serving, is lighted, and the pudding thus brought to table encircled in flame.
Time.—5 or 6 hours the first time of boiling; 2 hours the day it is to be served.
Average cost, 4s.
Sufficient for a quart mould for 7 or 8 persons.
Seasonable on the 25th of December, and on various festive occasions till March.
Note.—Five or six of these puddings should be made at one time, as they will keep good for many weeks, and in cases where unexpected guests arrive, will be found and acceptable, and as it only requires warming through, a quickly-prepared dish.

Quotation for the Day.
From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it.
Katharine Whitehorn, The Office Party, 1962

Poetical Christmas Recipes, Part 2.

Another short and sweet – and musical – post today for you, folks. I hope your holiday season plans are going very smoothly, and your holiday catering even more smoothly. If you have not yet made your Christmas pudding, and you fancy one with a historical spin, you could refer to the Vintage Christmas Recipes archive. Alternatively, you could sing along with the following recipe from The Poetical Cookery Book, from the inimitable nineteenth century Punch (1852) magazine .

The Christmas Pudding.

Air: Jeannette and Jeannot.

If you wish to make a pudding in which every one delights

Of a dozen new-laid eggs you must take the yolks and whites;

Beat them well up in a basin till they thoroughly combine,

And shred and chop some suet particularly fine;

Take a pound of well-stoned raisins, and a pound of currants dried;

A pound of pounded sugar, and a pound of peel beside;

Stir them all well up together with a pound of wheaten flour,

And let them stand and settle for a quarter of an hour;

Then tie the pudding in a cloth, and put it in the pot,-

Some people like the water cold, and some prefer it hot;

But though I don’t know which of these two methods I should praise,

I know it ought to boil an hour for every pound it weighs.

Oh! If I were Queen of France, or better still, Pope of Rome,

I’d have a Christmas pudding every night I dined at home;

And as for other puddings, whatever they might be,

Why those who like the nasty things should eat them all for me.

Quotation for the Day

"Oh! All that steam! The pudding had just been taken out of the cauldron. Oh! That smell! The same as the one which prevailed on washing day! It is that of the cloth which wraps the pudding. Now, one would imagine oneself in a restaurant and in a confectioner's at the same time, with a laundry nest door. Thirty seconds later, Mrs. Cratchit entered, her face crimson, but smiling proudly, with the pudding resembling a cannon ball, all speckled, very firm, sprinkled with brandy in flames, and decorated with a sprig of holly stuck in the centre. Oh! The marvelous pudding!"
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Poetical Christmas Recipes, Part 1.

A short, commentary-free post today, folks – I have Christmas preparation to do myself, don’t you know? And my pantry is still disorganised after the house move.

From Rhymed Receipts for Any Occasion , Imogen Clark (Boston, 1912), I give you these two poetry gems.


Christmas Charlotte Russe.
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
– Walter Scott.

Whip up a pint of well chilled cream
Till it’s a fairy fluff,
Then powdered sugarfold within,
Your taste is guide enough.

Add tablespoon of gelatine
Dissolved in water cold
(The cup should be but quarter full,
And drop by drop it’s told).

Next candied cherries, chopped in bits,
Ruddy and gleaming bright,
From a big cup are turned upon
The mass of snowy white.

Serve this within a sponge-cake shell,
The dish all wreathed about
With holly leaves, between whose green
Red berries twinkle out.

[Charlotte Russe was discussed in a previous post here.]


“Bethlehems”
They are ever forward in celebration of this day.
— Henry VIII.

Of all the cakes that come for Christmas Day
The little Bethlehems must lead the way,
So simple, too, to make, as you will see
If you will read this rhyme attentively.

First butter take, about a fourth of cup,
Then sugar - brim but once same measure up.
Cream these together till they're smooth as silk,
And add straightway half-cup of sweetest milk.

Next sift one cup - and half one more - of flour
Into the bowl - a sudden fairy shower! –
With two teaspoons of baking-powder white,
Now beat - and beat again - till all is light;

Then in the mixture fold with careful hand
Whites of two eggs, whipped so they stiffly stand,
And, last of all, a dash of flav'ring sweet.
Rose, or vanilla, and the whole's complete.

Put in star pans, but give each room to grow,
And bake in oven, neither quick, nor slow;
Then, when the little shapes have grown quite cold,
Wrap them in softest frosting smoothly rolled;

Let some the red of holly berries wear,
While others don a snowy mantle fair,
But white, or red, this do they clearly say:
" We wish you all a Merry Christmas Day!"

Quotation for the Day.

Now good digestion wait on appetite
And health on both.
Macbeth.

Christmas in 1507.

Medieval manorial households were like miniature self-sufficient villages, and keeping the community fed was a massive undertaking. In addition to the extended family members and frequent guests, there were large numbers of household staff (including bakers and brewers) and farm workers, and there was also an obligation to provide hospitality to any travellers (and their servants) passing by.

The job of recording the comings and goings from the household and the management of the accounts fell to the steward, who kept a detailed day to day tally in the Household Book. Some of the surviving household books are a marvellous source of information on daily life on a manorial estate, and one of them is a source for us today.

Thornbury is near Bristol in Gloucestershire, England. In 1508, the holder of the manor, the Duke of Buckingham, began to ‘castellate’ the manor – which then became Thornbury Castle, which you can visit today. The Duke’s household book records the guests and provisions for the Christmas just before this conversion began.

Thornbury, The Feast of the Nativity, Saturday 25th December 1507.

Dined 95 gentry, 107 yeoman, 97 garcons. Supped 84 gentry, 114 yeoman, 92 garcons.

Archates: 4 swans price 12s, 4 geese 2s, 5 suckling pigs 20d, 14 capons 8s, 18 chickens 18d, 21 rabbits 3/6d, 1 peacock 2s, 3 mallards 8d, 5 widgeons 10d, 12 teals 12d, 3 woodcocks 8d, 22 syntes 12d, 12 large birds 3d, 400 hens eggs 3/4d, 2 dishes of butter 20d, 10 flagons of milk 10d, 1 flagon of rum 6d, 2 flagons of frumety 4d, in herbs 1c.

Kitchen spent of the Lord’s store:

1 carcase and seven rounds of beef 20s

9 carcases of mutton price 16s

4 pigs 8s

1½ calves 4s

Cellar spent:

11 bottles and 3 quarts of Gascony wine price 13s

1½ pitchers of Rhenish wine price 15d

½ pitcher Malvoisey price 6d

Butter:

Spent in aile [ale] 171 flagons, 1 quart, price 13s 7½d

In spite of the spelling, it is not difficult to understand the basic meats and so on served at this dinner. This menu is rich in birds – considered fine food partly because, having an aerial life, they were closer to God, and therefore suitable for the fine aristocratic body, especially on a holy day.

It is interesting that ‘flagons’ of ‘frumety’ were purchased. ‘Frumenty’ was a sort of wheat porridge – a staple food for most ordinary folk, but a mere side-dish for the wealthy, and almost obligatory alongside venison. On ‘fish’ (that is, not-meat) days, the well-to-do might have it with porpoise or whale, as in the following recipe, taken from the Form of Cury (the book of the Master Cooks of King Richard II, written about 1390)


Furmente With Porpeys.
Take clene whete and bete it small in a morter and fanne out clene the doust, þenne waisthe it clene and boile it tyl it be tendre and broun. þanne take the secunde mylk of Almaundes & do þerto. boile hem togidur til it be stondyng, and take þe first mylke & alye it up wiþ a penne. take up the porpays out of the Furmente & leshe hem in a dishe with hoot water. & do safroun to þe furmente. and if the porpays be salt. seeþ it by hym self, and serue it forth.
[Form of Cury, c.1390]

Quotation for the Day.

He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree.
Roy L. Smith