A plea for Cheesecake.

Before quiche and the likes of marbled-mocha-vanilla-strawberry-topped-hazelnut-crusted cheesecake, there was simply cheesecake. Cheesecake has a very long history indeed. Not all cheesecakes have cheese in them (we will perhaps have a nice Chester Cheesecake soon.) They have never been ‘cakes’ either, in the modern sense of the word, but they have mostly been thinnish and flattish like a ‘cakes’ of soap, or mud. Neither have they always been ‘tarts’ – there was a crustless variety called a pudding-pie (although the Kentish Pudding-Pie of relatively recent history does have a crust.) It was confusing enough before the French imposed quiche on us and snobby English-speaking folk adopted it.

Cheesecakes were raised to an art form due to the inventiveness of European cooks trying to get around the many meatless days decreed by the Church. They became sweeter as sugar became cheaper, as the sixteenth century progressed. The ‘savoury’ version appears to have become quiche early in the twentieth century (the 1920’s, if the OED is correct.)

I accept and rejoice in the fact that the English language is a constantly adapting and evolving, but I do not understand why we take up a word when we have a perfectly good one already. English does not have words that will transmit exactly the same sense as the Spanish macho or the French ennui, and the French now have le weekend, whereas once upon a time they had only Saturday and Sunday – so these seem like reasonable trades. At one time, the British at table had a bill of fare, then the Victorians changed it to menu, which is silly, because menu means little, and most Victorian bills of fare were not. The famous historic restaurant of Simpson’s on the Strand has always refused to convert its Bill of Fare into a Menu. May I make a plea for the return of the Savoury Cheesecake? Just because I feel a little ornery today – and I don’t believe we have an English-English equivalent of the (I think) American-English ornery, which is not at all the same as feeling ordinary, which is the old name for a pub, anyway.

Tart de Bry.
Take a Crust ynche depe in a trape. take zolkes of Ayren rawe & chese ruayn. & medle it & þe zolkes togyder. and do þerto powdour gyngur. sugur. safroun. and salt. do it in a trape, bake it and serue it forth.
From: The Master-Cooks of King Richard II, The Forme of Cury, c.1390

Note: ‘Bry’ appears to refer to the region where this cheese tart originated: ‘ruayn’ was apparently a soft autumn cheese. The amount of sugar is not specified in this recipe, but sugar was very expensive at the time and was used more like a spice. This was probably close what we would call a ‘savoury’ type of cheesecake today (although no such distinction between sweet and savoury dishes was made back then.)

Cheesecakes, Savoury.
Mix thoroughly a pint of well-drained curd, three ounces of butter, and the yolks of six and the whites of two eggs well-beaten. Rub them through a coarse sieve, and add a quarter of a pound of grated Parmesan, and a little salt and pepper. If preferred, the curd may be omitted, and a little cream substituted. Of course, in this case, there would be no necessity to rub the mixture through a sieve. Line some tartlet tins with good crust, fill them three-parts with the mixture, and bake in a good oven for about twenty minutes.
Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery, c1870’s.

Quotation for the Day …

Foreigners cannot enjoy our food, I suppose, any more than we can enjoy theirs. It is not strange; for tastes are made, not born. I might glorify my bill of fare until I was tired; but afer all, the Scotchman would shake his head, and say, "Where's your haggis?" and the Fijan would sigh and say, "Where's your missionary?"
Mark Twain in A Tramp Abroad

Spanish Potatoes.

Today, July 27^th

William Eden, a British diplomat in Spain, wrote to his mother on this day in 1788, and mentioned the food:

“I must not forget to mention that we find here two excellent articles for the table – good bread, and as fine potatoes as I ever saw”

Was he referring to the potato, or the sweet potato? The potato was certainly being grown in England at that time but it was hardly popular, particularly on the tables of the well-to-do. One writer of the time (David Davies, in The Case of the Laborers in Husbandry, 1795) said:

“Today the whole laboring people have neither meat nor cheese nor milk nor beer in sufficient quantities, they eat white bread where everybody else eats it. Though the potato is an excellent root, deserving to be brought into general use, yet it seems not likely that the use of it should ever be general in this country.”

One of the problems in unravelling the early history of the potato in Europe is that many of those who wrote about the new exotic plant had not actually seen it and confused it with other roots. Botanists were no exception to this, and even the famous Gerard added to the confusion by mistakenly believing it came from Virginia, and giving it the name Batata virginiana in 1597. The potato already had the botanical name which it still bears today - Solanum tuberosum, which was given to it in 1596. By naming the plant Batata, Gerard also confused the actual plant with the sweet potato, which is Batata edulis.

There is confusion too in early cookbooks, which sometimes refer to the ‘Spanish Potato’ – which we take today to mean the sweet potato. It is not always so clear-cut however, and even the OED is not sure. Here is what it says on the two species:

- A plant, Batatas edulis, family Convolvulaceæ, having tuberous roots, for which it is cultivated for food in most tropical and subtropical regions of the world; = BATATA. Its native region is unknown, but it appears to have been seen by the Spaniards first in the West Indies c1500. Now distinguished as sweet or Spanish potato.

- The plant Solanum tuberosum (family Solanaceae), a cultigen of South American origin, now grown commercially worldwide for its starchy underground stem tubers. Originally more fully potato of Virginia, Virginia potato. Also called white potato and (formerly) Carolina potato, Spanish potato, Chilian potato, Irish potato.

It is not always possible to be certain which ‘potatoes’ are being referred to in early cookbooks, and sometimes it does not matter from a culinary point of view, as they can be substituted.

The first recipe almost certainly means the sweet potato:

Potato-Pye.
Your crust being ready, lay in Butter, then your Potato boil’d tender, then some whole Spice, and Marrow, Dates, and the yolks of hard Eggs, blanch’d Almonds, and Pistacho Nuts, candied peels of Citron, Orange, and Limon, put in more Butter, close it and bake it; then cut it open, and put in Wine, Sugar, the Yolks of Eggs and Butter.
[Salmon, William. The family dictionary: or, houshold companion. London 1710]

As does this one:

Potato, or lemon cheesecakes.
Take six ounces of potatoes, four ounces of lemon-peel, four ounces of sugar, four ounces of butter; boil the lemn-peel till tender, pare and scrape the potatoes, and boil them tender and bruise them: beat the lemon-peel with the sugar, then beat all together very well, and let it lie till cold: put crust in your pattipans, and fill them a little more than half full: bake them in a quick oven half an hour, sift some double refin’d sugar on them as they go into the oven; this quantity will make a dozen small pattipans.
[Carter, Charles. The London and country cook: …London, 1749]

But what about this one?

To make Potato Fritters.
Boil and beat half a dozen of potatoes; mix them with four beat eggs, about a gill of thick cream, some sugar and nutmeg, a little salt, a bit of fresh butter oiled, and a dram; beat them all well together, and drop them in the boiling dripings; fry them a light brown. Dish them hot, and strew sugar over them.
[Cookery and pastry, as taught and practised by Mrs MacIver; Susanna MacIver; 1789]

If you still want more historic potato recipes, you can go over to the Potato Recipe Archive.

P.S Now that my pie book is off to the publishers (it is in the mail today!!) I just might amuse myself part of this weekend by starting to put together a Potato Timeline. What do you think?

Monday’s Story …

Eating Camel.

Quotation for the Day …

Pray for peace and grace and spiritual food. For wisdom and guidance, for all these are good. But don’t forget the potatoes. John Tyler Petee.

Cheesecakes for Supper.

Today, May 17th …

Jane Austen wrote a letter to her sister Cassandra on this day in 1799, from the town of Devizes in Wiltshire.

“Our journey yesterday went off exceedingly well; nothing occurred to alarm or delay us. We found the roads in excellent order, had very good horses all the way, and reached Devizes with ease by four o'clock. I suppose John has told you in what manner we were divided when we left Andover, and no alteration was afterwards made. At Devizes we had comfortable rooms and a good dinner, to which we sat down about five; amongst other things we had asparagus and a lobster, which made me wish for you, and some cheesecakes, on which the children made so delightful a supper as to endear the town of Devizes to them for a long time.”

Cheesecakes for supper sound like a wonderfully indulgent holiday treat for children, but then the nature of cheesecakes is such that they can be varied to suit any occasion. Once upon a long time ago, they were simpler and perhaps more elegant, made from curds and eggs, sweetened to a greater or lesser amount, maybe spiced a little, and perhaps enriched with butter or marrow (the marrow from bones that is, not the vegetable) and baked in a shallow “coffin” to a delicate custard consistency.

There are many recipes for cheesecakes in our earliest surviving cookbooks as they were eminently suitable for the large number of fast days decreed by the Church. A Lenten version was made with almond milk and rice, a crustless version was a ‘pudding pie’, a triangular-shaped one was sometimes called a talemouse, and one with added currants made for an extra-lucky consumer. One thing these early cheesecakes did not contain was cream cheese, as this is a thoroughly modern invention. This and the other modern invention of the refrigerator have allowed the invention of unbaked ‘refrigerator cheesecakes’ which may or may not be an abomination compared to the original thing, but which are certainly less work than the original thing.

Recipes for the original thing frequently begin along the lines of ‘first make your curds’, an instruction which usually assumed you had first milked your cow. Here is the method from The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, Opened, published in 1669.

To Make Cheesecakes
Take 12 quarts of Milk warm from the Cow, turn it with a good spoonfull of Runnet. Break it well, and put it in a large strainer, in which rowl it up and down, that all the Whey may run out into a little tub; when all that will is run out, wring out more. Then break the curds well; then wring it again, and more whey will come. Thus break and wring till no more come. Then work the Curds exceedingly with your hand in a tray, till they become a short uniform Paste. Then put to it the yolks of eight new laid Eggs, and two whites, and a pound of butter. Work all this long together. In the long working (at the several times) consisteth the making them good. Then season them to your taste with Sugar finely beaten; and put in some Cloves and Mace in subtile powder. Then lay them thick in Coffins of fine Paste and bake them.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Gourmet Eggs and Giant Eggs.

This Day, Last Year …

We were sampling the delights of the siege of Mafeking.

Quotation for the Day …

Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink
That is the finest of suppers, I think
When I'm grown up and can have what I please,
I think I shall always insist upon these.
Christopher Morley
(Founder of Saturday Review, 1924-1941)