The Four Styles of Breakfast.

However adventurous we are about the other meals of the day, we tend not to tolerate novelty at breakfast, and make our personal choices from a narrow range of options. In the West, we usually consider a grain-based option (bread or hot or cold cereal), or perhaps eggs, with the biggest decisions being secondary – do we have milk or yoghurt with our cereal, marmalade or strawberry jam on our toast, or our eggs boiled, poached, fried or scrambled?

It was not always quite so simple, according to The Breakfast Book, by Georgiana Hill, published in London in 1865. Ms Hill says:

“What shall we have for dinner, is a question easily answered; but what can we have for breakfast is quite another thing. The object of this work is to solve the domestic difficulty.”

And she continues:

“Generally speaking, breakfastst may be classified under four heads: the family breakfast, the déjeuner à la fourchette, the cold collation, and the ambigu. The first is with us entirely made up of hors d’oeuvrres, or by-dishes, either hot or cold, which are served without sauce. In a déjeuner à la fourchette things are introduced in courses, similar to a dinner. Cold collations need scarcely to be defined: almos all recherché things are proper for them, provided they are prepared for the purpose, so as to produce an ornamental effect. The ambigu is an entertainment of a very heterogeneous character, having resemblance to a dinner, only that everything is placed upon the table at once: and relevés, soup, vegetables, and hot entremets are held to be ineligible. Our everyday breakfasts are in a small way served en ambigu, inasmuch as broiled fish, cold pasties, devilled bones, boiled eggs, cold ham, etc, all appear together.”

I admit that until I came across this summary, I had never agonised over what style of breakfast to offer my family. The Breakfast Book is helpful in this regard, and includes chapters on such topics as has chapters on Things most commonly served at family breakfasts, and Savory Pies for Eating Cold. It also has suggested bills of fare for breakfasts throughout the year. Here are the author’s suggestions for breakfast for 8 or 10 persons for the Spring Quarter.

Middle of the Table.

Ox-tongue, glazed.

--

4 By-dishes, Cold.

Prawns. Potted Birds.

Potted Oysters. Preserved Sardines.

--

4 By-dishes, Hot.

Sausages, tossed. Sweetbreads, grilled.

--

2 Entrées.

Rump Steaks, broiled. Fillets of Sole, tossed.

--

Marmalades, Creams, Dried Fruits, Biscuits or Bonbons at discretion.

I assume ‘tossed’ as it applies to the sausages and fillets of sole means tossed in a hot pan (as suggested by Ms, Hill’s recipe below), I am intrigued by the idea of bonbons at breakfast, and I am heartily grateful that this range of breakfast options is no longer expected by the modern family.

Sausages
It is the usual practice to simply toss sausages in lard or butter, for if broiled they are apt to become smoky before they are properly done. As they take some time to cook, first prick them with a needle to prevent the skins from breaking. Garnish with pickled red cabbage, or apples sliced and tossed till nicely browned. Observe that underdone sausages are execrable.


Quotation for the Day.

I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time". So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.
Stephen Wright

The language of menus.

July 14 ...

Just a simple little story today, friends. A little musing on the naming of dishes. Once upon a time, when the language of menus was French, French, or French, every averagely sophisticated diner would have understood the likes of Truite à la Normande or Sweetbreads à la Financière, even if they could not hum La Plume de Ma Tante or ask the price of a pedicure. Then, as the nineteenth century wore on and eventually gave way to the twentieth, Americans and Britishers began questioning the practice, for reasons of national pride. A couple of world wars reinforced the changes, and although royals and heads of state hung out the longest - for reasons of elitistm, I guess – French was eventually dropped from menus everwhere but in its own country.

By the sixties and seventies, the desire for novelty (often for its own sake) meant that the ability to provide this became part of the definition of culinary skill and creativity. A new dish was required every week. Gone were the days (centuries or decades, actually) when one’s ancestors would have recognised every item on the menu in your hand. Classical menu phrases gave way to long-winded descriptions that almost substitute for recipes.

Away from restaurant dining and civic banquets and high-profile chefs, the little woman at home had a different menu challenge. How to disguise the leftovers as a new dish. And then – what to call it so that the family did not guess the ruse. Occasionally, home cooks almost willfully refused to be part of that deception, and presented things with names such as Old Maid Pie (or Scrap Pie).

I give you a couple of other failures to hide the culinary truth by the use of creative language. The first is from that canny Scot, Mrs.Dalgairns, who undoubtedly saw frugality as a virtue to proclaim.

Debris Pudding.
Mash a few boiled potatoes with a little salt, milk, and a good bit of butter; mince very finely the lean part of some cold boiled salted beef, mix it with the mashed potates, and brown it in a Dutch oven in the same way that a salt fish pudding is done. This pudding may be made of the remains of a piece of boiled beef, allowing to one pound of the beef one pound and a quarter of potatoes.
[The Practice of Cookery; Mrs Dalgairns. 1830.]

The second one puzzles me. Why not call it Bread and Butter Custard?

Save-All Pudding.
Put any scraps of Bread into a clean saucepan, — to about a pound, put a pint of Milk ; set it on the trivet till it boils, beat it up quite smooth, then break in three Eggs, three ounces of Sugar, with a little Nutmeg, Ginger, or Allspice, and stir it all well together. Butter a Dish big enough to hold it, put in the pudding, and have ready two ounces of suet chopped very fine, strew it over the top of the pudding, and bake it three quarters of an hour ; four ounces of Currants will make it much better.
[Cook’s Oracle, William Kitchiner, 1823.]

Tomorrow’s Story …

?

Quotation for the Day …

In America, even your menus have the gift of language.... "The Chef's own Vienna Roast. A hearty, rich meat loaf, gently seasoned to perfection and served in a creamy nest of mashed farm potatoes and strictly fresh garden vegetables." Of course, what you get is cole slaw and a slab of meat, but that doesn't matter because the menu has already started your juices going. Oh, those menus. In America, they are poetry. Laurie Lee.

Freudian Food.

April 24 …

Clement Freud, grandson of Sigmund, politician, celebrity chef, restaurateur, and food writer was born on this day in 1924. He is responsible for more than his fair share of quotable quotes, which seems like a good place to start today’s story.

“In moments of considerable strain, I tend to take to bread-and-butter pudding. There is something about the blandness of soggy bread, the crispness of the golden outer crust and the unadulterated pleasure of a lightly set custard that makes the world seem a better place to live.”

“If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don't actually live longer; it just seems longer.”

“Congealed fat is pretty much the same, irrespective of the delicacy around which it is concealed.”

“Breakfast is a notoriously difficult meal to serve with a flourish.”

“To barbecue is a way of life rather than a desirable method of cooking.”

“Eating is to put off the evil moment when one has to write an article. I trot into the kitchen instead of sitting down. I make some mayonnaise and open a can of tunny fish, and I eat tunny mayonnaise which I don’t really want. This is obviously how one gets so fat and slothful.”

Mr.Freud gives his favourite foods as caviar, foie gras, and oysters. “I love angels-on-horseback. Oysters wrapped in bacon, smoked streaky bacon, however socially desirable back of bacon may be. Never fry bacon, grill it. Skewer the bacon round the oyster and grill it. You can get it crisp this way because the fat runs off.”

Angels on horseback. When was the last time you had Angels on Horseback? The 1970’s? Are they so retro they are due for a re-run?

It seems that Angels on Horseback are older than I thought – although they used to go by a different name. Here is a recipe from an American cookbook called Favorite Dishes, by Carrie V.Schuman, 1893.

Pigs in Blankets.
From Mrs. Isabella Laning Candee, of Illinois, Alternate Lady Manager.
This amusing and appetizing dish is easily made.Take large fine oysters and drain them well, and season with salt and pepper, and a drop of lemon juice if desired. Cut fat bacon into very thin, even slices, and wrap each oyster in a slice of bacon, fastening securely with a wooden skewer – a toothpick will do. Two cloves can be inserted at one end of the roll to simulate ears. Have the frying pan very hot, and cook the little pigs until the bacon crisps. Serve immediately upon small pieces of toast.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Anzac Day.

Quotation for the Day …

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon. Doug Larsen.

Advice for the Melancholy.

Today, October 15 ..

Firstly ….

Before I tell you today’s story, I want to make a little announcement. Small changes are afoot on this blog. I may move away, a little, from the strict “on this day” format (don’t worry, there will still be a story every weekday.)

There are two reasons. One – the negative one – is that I am aware that another blog is systematically stealing my content on a daily basis, with no acknowledgement (I think it is called a “scrapping”). So - if you are reading this and the name The Old Foodie is not at the top of the page, then you are reading this on the site of a word thief. My blog is almost two years old. As the weekend days become weekdays in each succeeding year, if I continue this format by the end of another twelve months I will have covered all 365 days. It is still my hope that I will publish something along the lines of a Food History Almanac in the future, and although I have ample more material for every day of the year, it has been suggested to me that I may be giving away potentially the entire content for such a book to some other thief.

I might add that this person is doing the same thing to another blogger who runs a site called The Art of Drink. By all means go there and say hello to Darcy, who alerted me to the theft and is also trying to get this guy to cease and desist. And no, I am not going to give you the thief’s site address, because if you go to it you will assist him to earn money from the Adsense ads he is running. At this point in time the perp has been notified to the Google Adsense team knee-capping department (at least, I hope that’s one of their disciplinary techniques.)

The second reason for the change – the positive one, I hope – is that there are a lot of lovely stories that do not have a specific date, but do not deserve to be neglected on that account. This applies particularly to the more ancient stories. So, for a little while, or from time to time, I will just give you a random story. It also means that if you have a particular question or idea, then that just might be able to be accommodated too.

And Finally, our story for the day ...

The experts now say that eating chocolate increases our naturally happy-hormones, the endorphins – something that most of us didn’t need scientists to tell us, although their evidence is useful for decreasing any break-through chocolate-guilt.

The idea that food can affect mood is far from new. The ancient Greek Doctrine of the Humours underpinned medical thought until well into the Middle Ages, and it was firmly based in food as medicine and medicine as food and food as potentially mind-altering (and it was not referring only to a certain variety of mushroom). A gross over-simplification of the complex concept that was Humoral Theory goes something like this:

Everything in the natural world is made up of the four elements: Fire, Earth, Water, and Air. Each of these has a particular “quality”: fire is hot, earth is dry, water is moist, and air is cool. A combination of two of these elements gives each natural thing or process its “complexion”, which has an associated “humour”. The four humours are represented in humans by blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile (or choler). A persons “temperament” depends on which humour has “sovereignty”, so there are four basic temperaments:

SANGUINE: complexion is “hot and moist”, blood is the dominant humour.

PHLEGMATIC: complexion is “cold and moist”, phlegm is the dominant humour.

CHOLERIC: complexion is “hot and dry”, yellow bile is the dominant humour.

MELANCHOLIC: complexion is “cold and dry”, black bile is the dominant humour.

Disease was believed to be due to an imbalance of the humours, which is why it was perfectly logical to perform blood-letting if the condition was understood to be due to an excess of that particular humour, or of administering purges or diuretics for other excesses. Alternatively, deficiencies in a particular humour could be addressed by administering a medicine or food which was rich in that humour.

The system was of course more complicated, with varying “degrees” of a quality being assigned to a food, the influence of age, gender and a multitude of astrological and occult influences also having to be taken into account.

To return to our specific topic of the day, first, the diagnosis: a melancholy person could be recognised by these physical signs: digestion slowe and yll, tymerous and fearefull, anger longe and frettynge, seldome laughynge,pulse lytell, urine watry and thynne.

Secondly, the treatment: this was two-pronged. Foods with similar characteristics (i.e that were “cold and dry”) should be avoided, and foods that were “warm and moist” should be eaten. This refers of course to the actual complexion of the food, not its cooking and serving method.

So, if you are of a gloomy temperament, or are in a sad mood, the foods to avoid because they ingendre melancholy are:

Biefe
Gotes flesshe
Hares flesshe
Bores flesshe
Salte flesshe
Salte fysshe
Coleworts
All pulses except white peason
Browne breadde course
Thycke wyne
Black wyne
Olde Cheese
Olde flesshe
Great fysshes of the see.

As to what to eat, that is proving slightly more complicated for me to advise you. Pork is certainly “hot in the first degree”, so should be good, but I have not been able to find out if it is “moist” enough from a humoral point of view to be suitable for a melancholy person. From a culinary point of view it would certainly be wonderfully moist cooked according to this sixteenth century recipe, if you follow the instructions and use the recommended good store of butter. It is cooked in a pastry “coffin” which functioned like a casserole dish.

To bake a Pigge.
Take your Pig and flea [skin] it, and draw out all that clean which is in his bellye, and wash him clean, and perboyle him, season it with Cloves, mace, nutmegs, pepper & salt, and so lay him in the paste with good store of Butter, then set it in the Oven till it be baked inough.
[A book of cookrye Very necessary for all such as delight therin.1591]

Tomorrow’s Story …

The virtues of coffee.

Quotation for the Day …

Pork - no animal is more used for nourishment and none more indispensable in the kitchen; employed either fresh or salt, all is useful, even to its bristles and its blood; it is the superfluous riches of the farmer, and helps to pay the rent of the cottager. Alexis Soyer 1851.

A Mystery of Cooks.

Today, July 12^th

On this day in 1482, King Edward IV granted the Cooks of London their first charter, thereby incorporating it as The Company of Cooks.

The preamble to the charter said “ "...the freemen of the Mystery of Cooks have for a long time personally taken and borne and to this day do not cease to take and bear great and manifold pains and labour as well at our great feast of St. George and at others according to our command...".

What is this “Mystery of Cooks”? I thought at first it was a collective noun, and there are few linguistic things more collectible than collective nouns. I can understand flock, and herd, and flight, but how come a ‘pitying of turtledoves’ and a ‘muse of capons’? On second thoughts, capons probably have much to muse about. A crash of rhinoceroses, a tower of giraffes, a pomp of pekingese, and a blessing of unicorns seem to fit, but a bind of salmon and a hover of trout are strange. For human groups we have conflagration of arsonists (obvious, that one), goring of butchers (ditto) and a shuffle of bureaucrats (ditto ditto). I particularly like an unction of undertakers, a converting of priests, and an ambush of widows too, but the food professions really caught my eye.

We have a tabernacle of bakers, a feast of brewers, and a glozing of taverners. A tabernacle is a sanctuary or place of worship, and a feast needs no explaining, so these nouns seem to fit the professions of baking and brewing quite well. ‘Glozing’ comes from an old English verb meaning ‘to interpret, explain away’, and means to use flattery or cajolery (to ‘gloss over’), which I guess can happen when one is exposed to the work of taverners, so it fits too. What we do not have is a mystery of cooks. The correct collective phrase is 'a hastiness of cooks’. Go figure, as they say.

A mystery, in the sense used in the fifteenth century charter, was ‘a trade guild or company’. It also means a ‘craft, art; a trade, profession’, and as far as the mystery of cooking goes I like the suggestion of things alchemical and secret and religious in the name. It would make a much better collective noun for a number of cooks than ‘a hastiness’, don’t you think?

This archaic use of the word mystery is often found in the titles of old cookbooks, such as today’s recipe source The complete practical cook: or, a new system of the whole art and mystery of cookery. Being a select collection of above five hundred recipes ... by Charles Carter, published in 1730. What to choose from it? Well, the OED gives another use of the word ‘mystery’ which touches on the cooking theme. It is in relation to ‘mystery meat’, which is ‘inferior meat of dubious origin, served as corned beef, sausages, etc.’ The supporting quotations also include hash and canned meat in the definition. ‘Hash’ is chopped meat (from the French verb hasher, meaning to chop). Here endeth the word lesson for the day. The recipe for the day, from Charles’ cookbook, is therefore for hash. But not a hash of dubious meat at all.

Hash’d Capons, Pullets, Turkeys, Pheasants, Partridges, or Rabbits.
Brown a Piece of Butter gold Colour, and put to it fine clear Gravy; hash the brawny and fleshy part of your Fowl very thin and small, and put to it your thicken’d Gravy; season with a little Pepper, Salt and Nutmeg, a whole Onion, and a Bundle of Thyme and Parsly; stove it a little, and take that out again: Put in the small Bones of your Fowl, and hack and broil the Legs; toss up your Hash with some thick Butter, and the Juice of an Orange or Lemon; let it be thick, and dish it on Sippets, and lay your small Bones and Legs about it and garnish it with Lemon or Orange.

P.S if you really want to know about dubious mystery meat, see my notes on the tinned Australian meat perpetrated upon the Brits in the late nineteenth century. It is on the Companion site HERE. Now I have been reminded of the project, I promise to post a few more of the recipes at the weekend (I bet you cant wait)

Tomorrow’s Story …

A Muddy Cake Story.

Quotation for the Day …

A cook, when I dine, seems to me a divine being, who from the depths of his kitchen rules the human race. One considers him a minister of heaven, because his kitchen is a temple, in which his ovens are the altar. Desaugiers, 19th C French poet.