A few weeks ago I gave you a menu from the Dallas County Jail in the 1930’s. The story was actually about the food in the infamous prison at Alcatraz, but at the time I could not find an Alcatraz menu from this decade. I still cant - but can move a step closer, thanks to the online image gallery of the prison museum.
I am delighted to report that on this very day in 1946 (a Monday), the daily menu for the inmates of Alcatraz was as follows:
Breakfast:
Stewed prunes.
Bran Flakes.
Fresh Milk.
Sugar
Orange Roll.
Bread and Coffee.
Dinner:
Split Pea Soup.
Roast Shoulder of Pork.
Sage Dressing.
Brown Gravy.
Mashed Potatoes.
Stewed Corn.
Apple Pie.
Bread and Coffee w/Milk.
Supper:
Split Pea Soup.
Boston Baked Beans.
Tomato Catsup.
Beet and Onion Salad.
Canned Pears.
Bread & Coffee.
Not bad, for the worst prisoners in the federal system, was it? As I indicated in the previous blog post, the policy at Alcatraz was to provide better than the usual prison fare, in an attempt to reduce rioting – prison food being a common source of complaint by prisoners. I guess it would also be harder to get up the energy to riot with a belly full of pea soup and roast pork and apple pie, wouldn’t it?
Beet and Onion Salad.
1 large cooked Spanish onion.
1 large cooked beet.
1 teaspoonful chopped tarragon.
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley.
Salt and pepper to taste.
4 tablespoonfuls olive oil.
2 tablespoonfuls vinegar
Slice the onion, add the beet chopped and the seasonings, oil, and vinegar. Mix well and serve with cold roast beef.
Salads, Sandwiches, and Chafing Dish Recipes, by Marion Harris Neil (Philadelphia, 1916)
Quotation for the Day.
Everything I eat has been proved by some doctor or other to be a deadly poison, and everything I don't eat has been proved to be indispensable for life. But I go marching on.
George Bernard Shaw
Showing posts with label beetroot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beetroot. Show all posts
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Sweet Beets.
Today, January 2nd …
The conditions of war have often been a powerful force for developments in food technology. There is the challenge of feeding large numbers of troops - often in awful situations - for example. As we saw in a previous story, the production and acceptance of condensed milk got a huge boost during the American Civil War when it proved ideal for this situation.
Another common effect of war is that normal supply lines for imported foods may be disrupted, and unless an alternative source or alternative product is found, the populace must do without. As the Napoleonic wars dragged on for the decade after Trafalgar, France found herself in danger of being without sugar. A prolonged and successful blockade of continental Europe by the British meant that cane sugar from the Caribbean was not getting into the country – and sugar was not merely a luxury in a country at war, it was vital for food preservation.
Napoleon’s need to feed a huge land army had already spurred advances in the preservation of food by canning, and he now turned his attention to an alternative source for sugar. He had heard of the pioneering work done on the extraction of sugar from beets by Marggraf in Berlin 50 years earlier, and the progress made by Marggraf’s student, Franz Achard, but it was still not possible to produce large quantities efficiently. On March 25th 1811 he issued a decree intended to stimulate experimentation in this area. It set aside 80,000 acres of land for production of beets, and established schools, scholarships, and factories in beet sugar production.
On this day in 1812 Napoleon awarded the Légion d'Honneur to Benjamin Delessert for his technical advances in the clarification of sugar which enabled the process to be carried out on a viable scale. By 1814, there were 40 beet sugar factories were in operation in France, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. The industry did temporarily decline after Napoleon’s defeat., but eventually revived, and by the late 19th century, beets had again become the major source of sugar.
Did Napoleon actually realise his wish to tell the British they could dump their sugar in the Thames? I don’t know, but he sure started something – 30% of the world’s sugar now comes from beets.
Beetroots are a fine vegetable in their own right of course, with their intrinsic sweetness being brought out by roasting, or counter-balanced with vinegar in pickling. It is not even necessary to extract the sugar to enable beets to be used in “sweet” or dessert-type dishes. In previous stories we have seen beets used in wartime puddings, pink pancakes, and mincemeat for pies (links to these are below).
To keep it simple, here are a couple of recipes from the classic Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fannie Farmer (1896) – one in case your beets are not sweet enough, and one in case they are too sweet for your taste.
The conditions of war have often been a powerful force for developments in food technology. There is the challenge of feeding large numbers of troops - often in awful situations - for example. As we saw in a previous story, the production and acceptance of condensed milk got a huge boost during the American Civil War when it proved ideal for this situation.
Another common effect of war is that normal supply lines for imported foods may be disrupted, and unless an alternative source or alternative product is found, the populace must do without. As the Napoleonic wars dragged on for the decade after Trafalgar, France found herself in danger of being without sugar. A prolonged and successful blockade of continental Europe by the British meant that cane sugar from the Caribbean was not getting into the country – and sugar was not merely a luxury in a country at war, it was vital for food preservation.
Napoleon’s need to feed a huge land army had already spurred advances in the preservation of food by canning, and he now turned his attention to an alternative source for sugar. He had heard of the pioneering work done on the extraction of sugar from beets by Marggraf in Berlin 50 years earlier, and the progress made by Marggraf’s student, Franz Achard, but it was still not possible to produce large quantities efficiently. On March 25th 1811 he issued a decree intended to stimulate experimentation in this area. It set aside 80,000 acres of land for production of beets, and established schools, scholarships, and factories in beet sugar production.
On this day in 1812 Napoleon awarded the Légion d'Honneur to Benjamin Delessert for his technical advances in the clarification of sugar which enabled the process to be carried out on a viable scale. By 1814, there were 40 beet sugar factories were in operation in France, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. The industry did temporarily decline after Napoleon’s defeat., but eventually revived, and by the late 19th century, beets had again become the major source of sugar.
Did Napoleon actually realise his wish to tell the British they could dump their sugar in the Thames? I don’t know, but he sure started something – 30% of the world’s sugar now comes from beets.
Beetroots are a fine vegetable in their own right of course, with their intrinsic sweetness being brought out by roasting, or counter-balanced with vinegar in pickling. It is not even necessary to extract the sugar to enable beets to be used in “sweet” or dessert-type dishes. In previous stories we have seen beets used in wartime puddings, pink pancakes, and mincemeat for pies (links to these are below).
To keep it simple, here are a couple of recipes from the classic Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fannie Farmer (1896) – one in case your beets are not sweet enough, and one in case they are too sweet for your taste.
Sugared Beets.
4 hot boiled beets.
3 tablespoons butter.
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar.
1/2 teaspoon salt.
Cut beets in one-fourth inch slices, add butter, sugar, and salt; reheat for serving
Pickled Beets.
Slice cold boiled beets and cover with vinegar.
Tomorrow’s Story …
Fame through Advertising.
A Previous Story for this Day …
Last year the story for the day was about Montelimar Nougat, and was called "A Sweet Start to the New Year".
On this Topic …
Wartime Beetroot Pudding from Nella Last.
Eighteenth century Pink Pancakes.
Wisconsin Mince-Meat
Quotation for the Day …
The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. Tom Robbins
4 hot boiled beets.
3 tablespoons butter.
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar.
1/2 teaspoon salt.
Cut beets in one-fourth inch slices, add butter, sugar, and salt; reheat for serving
Pickled Beets.
Slice cold boiled beets and cover with vinegar.
Tomorrow’s Story …
Fame through Advertising.
A Previous Story for this Day …
Last year the story for the day was about Montelimar Nougat, and was called "A Sweet Start to the New Year".
On this Topic …
Wartime Beetroot Pudding from Nella Last.
Eighteenth century Pink Pancakes.
Wisconsin Mince-Meat
Quotation for the Day …
The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. Tom Robbins
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Nella's Sadness.
More on this week’s theme of WW II food.
Today, Wednesday 22nd March …
Nella Last was an ordinary British housewife – a bored, slightly neurotic one, prone to headaches and nervous turns – when she responded to the call for volunteers for the Mass Observation campaign of WW II.
The simple act of keeping a diary of the day to day events of the war provided her with a creative outlet that she had not known she needed, and her lowly ‘knack’ of making something out of nothing suddenly made her a local expert in wartime domestic management. She lost her headaches and thrived.
Ironically, she never knew that she had become a writer (an impossible fantasy in her pre-war life) – and a very good one - as her diary was not published until after her death. ‘Nella Last’s War’ is not only a marvellous record of everyday life on the home front, it is a wonderful story of one woman finding fulfillment through day-to-day activities in the most awful circumstances.
On this day in 1941, Nella wrote her diary after returning from the market.
“There were closed stalls everywhere in the market today … no eggs, fowls or golden butter … golden honey or glowing home-made orange marmalade. …Only muddy-looking – and far too small – cockles and pieces of most unpleasant beetroot … I wandered about with sadness in my heart …”.
Nella was far more resilient than she knew, and I have no doubt that once she got home she would have just gotten on with making something pleasant from the unpleasant beetroot, or whatever it was that she finally purchased that day.
The Ministry of Food’s ‘Food Facts’ leaflet No. 40 had a recipe for “using the sweetness of beetroot to make a nice sweet pudding with very little sugar”, which would have been perfect.
Beetroot Pudding.
First mix 6 oz. wheatmeal flour with ½ teaspoonful baking powder, Rub in 1 ½ oz. fat and add 1 oz. sugar and 4 oz. cooked or raw beetroot very finely grated.
Now mix all the ingredients to a soft cake consistency with 3 or 4 tablespoonfuls of milk. Add a few drops of flavouring essence if you have it. Turn the mixture into a greased pie dish or square tin and bake immediately in a moderate oven for 35-40 minutes. This pudding tastes equally good hot or cold.
More Stories about Nella Last appear in 'Nella's Orange Jelly' and 'An indifferent Rabbit'.
Tomorrow: A scarcity of fat.
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