Food fit for a Cottager.

Household hints are not the only treasures to be found in the depths of books such as yesterday’s source, Cottage comforts, with hints for promoting them, gleaned from experience: enlivened with authentic anecdotes, by Esther Copley (London, 1830.) Sometimes they give us recipes for things long-forgotten – forgotten to most of us city-dwellers and supermarket-shoppers that is. Occasionally they even supply the instructions for some of the down on the farm dirty peasant stuff that no cottager’s wife would have needed to read because she would have learned the skill growing up. Such stuff is chitterlings.

Esther’s instructions for the preparation of chitterlings give the distinct impression that she had never actually prepared them from scratch, herself. Before I give you her instructions for this decidedly not-modern dish, I cannot resist sharing her introductory platitudes, which perhaps go some way to explaining why she does not appear to have put her own hands inside a pig and pulled out its innards. She was in an entirely different social class than the folk who normally prepared such stuff, that’s why.

‘The writer of this little volume has long been accustomed to observe the habits, resources, and privations of the labouring classes of society, and to cherish a lively interest in their welfare and happiness. Under a conviction that the outward condition of these classes might be materially meliorated by an improvement in their moral and prudential habits, she has often indulged the wish that some enlightened and benevolent friend to their true interests would furnish them with a familiar compendium, calculated to meet their daily round of wants, feelings, circumstances, and duties, and to suggest friendly and profitable hints relative to each.’

When the hocks, feet, or cheeks are boiled, it would never enter into the head of a wasteful slattern, that the liquor was good for any thing—it would never enter the head of a careful manager to throw it away. She knows very well, that when cold there will be a cake of fat settled on the top, enough to make a good pudding: and that the liquor boiled up with a few peas and herbs, will make good soup; (a capital breakfast this for a hard labouring man, on a cold frosty morning.) Even from the liquor in which bacon has been boiled, very good fat may be gained, and freed from salt, by skimming it from the liquor while warm, and dropping it into a vessel of cold water—the salt will go to the bottom, and the fat remain at the top. Even the brine that runs off from salting the bacon is useful. A spoonful or two of it put into the saucepan with potatoes, causes them to boil light and flowery: this is particularly useful during the latter part of the winter and spring, when potatoes are old and indifferent, and other vegetables scarce.

Chitterlings.— I am surprised that I cannot, in any cookery book that I have seen, find directions for preparing these: it is a shame they should be wasted — however, I believe all the matter is, immediately they are taken out of the pig to turn them inside out, and give them many, many washings in salt and water, till they are perfectly sweet and clean, and then slowly boil them for several hours.

Quotation for the Day.
He fell upon whate'er was offer'd, like
A priest, a shark, an alderman, or pike.
Lord Byron

Eating 'à la française'.

It is a bit difficult to avoid a French flavour to today’s post, it being Bastille Day (or La Fête Nationale, or simply Le Quatorze Juillet, if you prefer.) I am quite intrigued by what various authorities and cookbook writers consider makes a dish French-style (à la française). When I started looking, it quickly became apparent that the question is not answerable in a short blog post, it requires the work of at least a dozen PhD students working round the clock for a number of years. The range of ingredients and combinations of ingredients is so great that I can only say there is no possibility of consensus. It appears that a dish is à la française if the cook names it so.

My 1961 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique seemed a good place to start. On garnitures à la française, it gives this description:

Small nests made from Duchesse potatoes, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, fried and hollowed out, filled with diced mixed vegetables; bunches of asparagus tips; braised lettuces; flowerets of cauliflower, coated with Hollandaise sauce … [used] for large cuts of meat.

As for sauce à la française , the Larousse quotes Careme (1784-1833), in his Art de la Cuisine Française aud XIXe siècle, noting that this sauce is for fish.

Put into a saucepan some Béchamel sauce based on fish stock. When it is almost boiling, add a little garlic, a little grated nutmeg and mushroom essence. When it has boiled for a moment, and just before serving, add crayfish butter to give it a pinkish colour.

Note: Shelled crayfish tails and small peeled mushrooms may be added to this sauce. I served this sauce for the first time in the house of Prince Paul de Wurtemburg.

Richard Dolby’s The Cook’s Dictionary and Housekeeper’s Directory (1832) includes the following:

Croquignoles à la française:

Break up half a pound of bitter macaroons, so small as to be able to sift them; and having laid half a pound of sifted flour on your slab, and made a hole in the middle, put in the macaroons, with six ounces of powdered sugar, three yolks of eggs, three ounces of fresh butter, and a grain of salt; make these ingredients into a paste, and form the croquignoles of the shape and size of olives; dores them lightly, and bake them in a gentle oven. These must be of a lighter colour than other croquignoles.
Instead of macaroons you may use any other ingredients you please.

In Dainty Dishes from Foreign Lands (1909), the author starts her chapter on Some Delicious French Dishes with the caveat

I do not think that the French have so many distinctive dishes as other nations, but have, rather, a certain style of cooking all things. The recipes which I give, herewith, convey something of the French spirit.

She goes on to single out truffles and mushrooms as being “considered, quite rightly , to distinguish French cookery, but too often they are bedevilled out of all resemblance to their original succulent selves by people who imagine they must be cooked elaborately.” She then provides a few recipes which are simple, and ‘genuinely French.’

Mushrooms with Chicken Livers.

Mushrooms with chicken livers is a dish literally fit for a King; to make it take a dozen (or as many as you want) of chicken livers, and fry them with one or two strips of very thin, very sweet bacon; when the livers are just turning brown, add at least a dozen mushrooms, peeled, and wiped very dry. Simmer five minutes, or until the mushrooms are soft, and serve on hot toast. Into the grease left in the pan drop a tablespoon of flour, and let it brown, stirring constantly. Make this into a gravy by pouring into the pan, very quickly, a cup of cold milk; let it boil up once and pour over the toast, livers, bacon and mushrooms.

And finally, from 365 Foreign Dishes: a foreign dish for every day in the year (1908), a recipe for apple dumplings. I am at a loss to know what the author considered quintessentially French about this dish.

French Baked Apple Dumplings.

Peel and core apples; sprinkle well with sugar. Then mix some cold boiled rice with 1 egg, a pinch of salt, sugar and cinnamon, flour enough to make a dough. Cover the apples with this dough; put in a well-buttered baking dish with 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, and bake to a delicate brown. Serve with whipped cream.

Quotation for the Day.

“Even the coeur flottant merveilleux aux fraises, presented with a great flourish, made little impression, for it was no more than what may happen to the simple, honest dish of strawberries and cream once it falls into the hands of a Frenchman.”
Dr. Watson in 'Sherlock Holmes and the Hapsburg Tiara' by Alan Vanneman (2004)

Street Boys Fare.

I am too intrigued by the street vendors of Victorian London to cast them aside just yet, so I hope you are not bored by another post on the topic.

As we discovered, the street food was not for the hoi-polloi, but for the folk lower down the social scale, many (perhaps most) of whom had limited or no cooking facilities in their homes. As always, the well-to-do can rationalize the situation of the poor, and I give you a fine Victorian London example today, from a gentleman who almost convinces that the street boys eat as well as the gentlemen in their clubs – Nay! Better, because cheaper, and more fun!

From yesterday’s source (Mayhew’s London Poor), we have:

Mr. Albert Smith, who is an acute observer in all such matters, says, in a lively article on the Street Boys of London:

"The kerb is his club, offering all the advances of one of those institutions without any subscription or ballot. Had he a few pence, he might dine equally well as at Blackwall, and with the same variety of delicacies without going twenty yards from the pillars of St. Clement's churchyard. He might begin with a water souchée of eels, varying his first course with pickled whelks, cold fried flounders, or periwinkles. Whitebait, to be sure, he would find a difficulty in procuring, but as the more cunning gourmands do not believe these delicacies to be fish at all, but merely little bits of light pie-crust fried in grease; - and as moreover, the brown bread and butter is after all the grand attraction, - the boy might soon find a substitute. Then would come the potatoes, apparently giving out so much steam that the can which contains them seems in momentary danger of blowing up; large, hot, mealy fellows, that prove how unfounded were the alarms of the bad-crop-ites; and he might next have a course of boiled feet of some animal or other, which he would be certain to find in front of the gin-shop. Cyder-cups perhaps he would not get; but there would be gingerbeer from the fountain, at 1d. per glass; and instead of mulled claret, he could indulge in hot elder cordial; whilst for dessert he could calculate upon all the delicacies of the season, from the salads at the corner of Wych-street to the baked apples at Temple Bar. None of these things would cost more than a penny a piece; some of them would be under that sum; and since as at Verey's, and some other foreign restaurateurs, there is no objection to your dividing the "portions," the boy might, if he felt inclined to give a dinner to a friend, get off under 6d. There would be the digestive advantage too of moving leisurely about from one course to another; and, above all, there would be no fee to waiters." After alluding to the former glories of some of the streetstands, more especially of the kidney pudding establishments which displayed rude transparencies, one representing the courier of St. Petersburg riding six horses at once for a kidney pudding, Mr. Smith continues - "But of all these eating-stands the chief favourite with the boy is the potato-can. They collect around it as they would do on 'Change, and there talk over local matters, or discuss the affairs of the adjacent cab-stand, in which they are at times joined by the waterman whom they respect, more so perhaps than the policeman; certainly more than they do the street-keeper, for him they especially delight to annoy, and they watch any of their fellows eating a potato, with a curiosity and an attention most remarkable, as if no two persons fed in the same manner, and they expected something strange or diverting to happen at every mouthful."

Kidney pudding
Procure one ox or eight mutton kidneys, which cut into slices the thickness of half-a-crown piece; lay them upon a dish, seasoning well with black pepper and salt, and shaking one ounce of flour over; mix all well together to absorb the flour and seasoning, then have a pudding basin lined as directed for beefsteak pudding, finish, boil, and serve as there directed. A pudding made with one pound of steak and a beef kidney is also very excellent.
The Modern Housewife, Alexis Soyer, 1851

Quotation for the Day.

The weather here is gorgeous. It's mild and feels like it's in the eighties. The hot dog vendors got confused because of the weather and thought it was spring, so they accidentally changed the hot dog water in their carts.
David Letterman.

Lost and Found.

There are some regular themes in this blog that are beautifully illustrated in this week’s source (The Art of Cookery and Pastery … by J.Skeat, 1769). Some of them are:

- That there are dishes which were once desirable, popular, and common which are now unfashionable, unpopular, or just plain unavailable.

- Other dishes which seem wonderful and elegant and are still eminently do-able even in our time-poor, economically anxious, and servant-free lives - yet have inexplicably disappeared and should be considered for reinstatement.

- There are many dishes which we think are modern, yet can be found alive and well hundreds of years ago, their only disguise being a different name.

I would like to give you an example from each category, from Mr.Skeat’s book.

No one eats lamb’s ears anymore – at least not in recogniseable form (no doubt they get into sausage meat). The following recipe makes no attempt to disguise the ears, indeed, it flaunts their useful anatomical shape.


Ragou’d Lamb’s Ears.
Take care to have them well cleaned, and kept as whole as possible; fill the hollow part with good forcemeat; wash them over with an egg, and send them to the oven: have ready a rich gravy for the dish against they come from the oven, with stew’d sorrel around it.

The following recipe is a very glorious take on the humble rice pudding. May I suggest individual servings for a very elegant dinner-party dessert?

To force Oranges.
Fill two preserved oranges full of rich whole rice pudding boil’d in cream, eggs, sugar, nutmeg and wine, and stir in a piece of butter and some sugar; then have a set custard, and fill the dish; put the oranges in the middle, and garnish with sweetmeats and flowers.

And finally, the humble meat patty, rissole, or burger in a very superior pre-incarnation. Served with the recommended spinach it becomes Burgers Florentine, does it not?


Savoury Cakes.
Take a pound of the lean of veal, half a pound of beef suet, a quarter of a pound of bacon, and cut them small; then mix well together the yolks of six hard eggs, some crumbs of bread, half a shallot, nutmeg, pepper, and salt; and break up an egg to mix them to a sort of paste; make them up in round cakes, and fry them brown; lay them before the fire whilst the sauce is making, which is stew’s spinnage, melted butter, or a good ragout sauce in the dish; for either way is good.


Quotation for the Day.

"Offal" is used about 67 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language
Webster’s Online Dictionary

Culinary Puzzles.

There are several dishes in our eighteenth century source for the week (The Art of Cookery and Pastery … by J.Skeat, 1769) about which I am mystified, and look forward to your input.

As I discussed yesterday, the rather puzzling names of some of the dishes in this book can be explained as an English cook’s interpretation of the classic French names (‘calf’s foy’ being calf’s foie, or liver). A few have really defeated me, and I ask for your suggestions. First, we have this intriguingly-named dish:


Beef Troublon.
Take a brisket piece of beef, tie it up, and put it into a brazen pot, with the fat of bacon, four bay leaves, three whole onions, a fagot of sweet herbs, two turnips and two carrots; just cover your beef with liquor, and put in a handful of salt, half a pint of vinegar, some mace, cloves, allspice, and pepper; set it over a slow fire, and when tender, which will be in four or five hours, make your sauce for it thus:
Take scooped turnips, carrots, and a few capers, have a clean stewpan,with some good gravy, and be sure to let it be of a high colour; then put in your ingredients, and thicken it with a little flour, and some of the gravy that is cold; for in all things where thickening is required, this method is better than rubbing flour and butter together. Season it to your taste.

Why ‘Troublon’ for a simple dish of boiled beef with caper sauce?

The other puzzling dish I want to give you today is this:


Ragou’d Mela.
Take sweetbreads, and cut them in large pieces, then add artichoak bottoms, cocks-combs, beef palates, forcemeat balls, truffles, and morels; toss them up the same as a fricasey; do this white, then make a leasing, which is cream, nutmeg, lemon, the yolks of egg, and a little flour. When you put in your leasing, serve it up as soon as possible. Garnish with patties.

It is unlikely that you will see a dish such as this on the menu of your local restaurant soon, but in the eighteenth century these were all the most delicate and desirable ingredients. A pie containing these delicious tidbits would have been called a Battalia Pie, the word coming from beatilles, or beautiful little things. I am stumped as to the name ‘mela’. The Oxford English Dictionary gives mela as being ‘Hindu religious or cultural festival. Also more generally in South Asian communities: a fair’, and ‘ In Carnatic music: a scale type around which a raga is formed’. Neither of these seem likely. Is it somehow related to the French miele for honey?

Quotation for the Day.

On ‘Escargot’ - Nobody is sure how this got started. Probably a couple of French master chefs were standing around one day, and they found a snail, and one of them said: 'I bet that if we called this something like "escargot," tourists would eat it.' Then they had a hearty laugh, because 'escargot' is the French word for 'fat crawling bag of phlegm.'
Dave Barry, Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need, (1991)

Culinary Franglish.

This week’s source of inspiration (The Art of Cookery and Pastery … by J.Skeat, 1769) has many recipes with bizarre names I’ve never seen in modern cookbooks. Names like Beef Meriton, Beef Troublon, Calf’s Foy, Rabbits Pouleard, Ragou’d Mela, Pigeons a la Perigode, and Palpitune of Pigeons. And what, pray is a ‘Baragade’? Are these ‘lost’ dishes, begging to be rediscovered in the twenty-first century?

The naming of some of these dishes remains a mystery to me, and we will leave them until tomorrow to puzzle over. A few however, come a little clearer when you say them with French attitude. French food became increasingly fashionable in England in the seventeenth century following the return of King Charles II from his prolonged exile in Europe in the aftermath of the Civil War. There was a reaction against this ‘Frenchification’ in the eighteenth century (see Hannah Glasse’s words at the end of this post), but the classic names of classic dishes were far too entrenched to be reversed. Besides, it was convenient, for the name of a dish spoke the style to a chef or sophisticated diner, meaning that a lengthy description was not needed. We have to remember that even the spelling of English words was not standardized at this time, and it is not rare to see the same word spelled two different ways on the same page. As for “French” words – most chefs neither spoke nor read French, so the names were interpreted phonetically (and not necessarily accurately, as most would not have heard the word spoken by a fluent speaker of French.)

For example, bisshmell and beshmell both appear in this book, and are dishes with thickened white sauces – in other words, they are béchamel. Several dishes are cooked in, and served with a cooley, which in the short glossary is called ‘white broth or weak gravy’ – so methinks it is an interpretation of coulis.

As for our named dishes, Palpitune is from polpettone, and Perigode is presumably from à la Périgord. The latter classically refers to a dish which includes truffles, but in this book is a simple dish of roasted pigeons in gravy (or ‘cooley’). Say ‘Calf’s Foy’ with a bad French accent and you get Calfs Foie – or Calf’s Liver. Sure enough, here is the recipe.


A Calf’s Foy.
Take a calf’s liver, and fry it in slices not quite enough; then drain off the fat and put them in good gravy, with some chopt parsley and shallots. Garnish with rolls of bacon, and fry’d parsley or stewed spinage.

More puzzles tomorrow.


Quotation for the Day.

So much is the blind Folly of this Age, that they [Gentlemen] would rather be imposed on by a French Booby, than give encouragement to a good English Cook!
Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747)

Justifiable Homicide, Chef Style.

Those of you who have ever felt themselves to be insufficiently appreciated cooks will enjoy today’s story – an often repeated and somewhat apocryphal tale, quoted on this occasion in The Stag Cook Book: Written For Men By Men (New York, 1922)

In the early seventies a French nobleman, living in the neighborhood of Barbizon, was found seated at the table with his face in a plate of soup. Because of the fact that a butcher knife had been inserted via the back between his fourth and fifth rib on the left side, he was quite dead. Clues led nowhere. It became one of the mysteries.
Long afterward an old man tottered into the office of the Prefect and announced that he wished to make a confession.
"Proceed," said the official.
" 'Twas I," responded the ancient, "who delivered the death stroke to the Duke de la … thirty-five years ago."
"What inspired you to make this confession?"
"Pride."
"I do not comprehend. The details, if you please."
"By profession I was a chef," said the self-accused. "The Duke, at a fabulous price, enticed me into his service. His first request was that I make for him a perfect consomme. Voila! For three days I prepared this perfection. With my own hand I placed before him the soup tureen. With my own hand I ladled it out.
He inhaled its divine essence; and then, Your Honor, he reached for the salt, Mon Dieu I destroy him!"
The Prefect embraced the artist and took him out to lunch. Thus art was vindicated and the incident closed.
In the chemistry of cooking, "enough is too much."

Today’s recipe, taken from the same book, requires the prior preparation of some consommé, and according to the contributor, should only be attempted by an artist.

Tripe à la Mode de Caen à la Roy Carruthers.
Contributed by Samuel G. Blythe (1868- 1947) American author and newspaperman
Only an artist should attempt to make Tripe à la Mode de Caen because only an artist can make it. It requires the soul of a poet, the spirit of a painter, and the exaltation of a violin virtuoso in the maker as a prerequisite for its concoction. Of course, it may be eaten by the commonalty, but it is too good for them. It really is a dish for the intelligentsia.
There are not more than a dozen people in the United States who have the temperament and the touch required. One of these is Roy Carruthers. And herewith, as my favorite recipe, I set down the complicated but necessary, procedure for producing this work of art:
Take four pounds of fresh honeycomb tripe and one pound of fresh manyplies tripe (the thickest part) and wash thoroughly in many changes of fresh water. Drain
well, and scrape to have all absolutely clean. Take two calf's feet and carefully bone each foot and cut into pieces two inches square. Have a large earthen pot, scrupulously clean, and line sides and bottom of this pot with very thin slices of larding pork. Place tripe and cut up feet in pot. Add two small red carrots, two white onions with two cloves stuck in each, and half of a sound, seeded pepper.
Make a bouquet of two leeks, two branches of celery three branches of parsley, and a sprig of thyme, marjoram, a blade of mace and a bay leaf - only one. Put this bouquet
in the pot and pour in a half pint of white wine, a pint of cider and a quart of consomme or white broth. Season with a full teaspoon of salt and half a spoon of black pepper.
Now make a stiff dough with a pound of white flour and two gills of water, roll out on a table until you have enough to cover the pot, and cover closely, making sure there can be no evaporation.
Place pot in a very slow oven and cook for fifteen hours.
Then lift up the cover, skim of£ the fat, and remove the bouquet of herbs and the vegetables.
Chop together six shallots, or scallions if shallots are not procurable, the red part of a carrot, a bean of sound garlic, two ounces of raw ham and an ounce of raw lean
pork. Place this hash in a saucepan with a tablespoon of melted butter, cook gently on the fire for five minutes, stirring lightly, and then pour in half a gill of cognac and
let it reduce briskly imtil it is nearly dry.
Put the contents of the pot on the saucepan, add a gill of pure tomato juice, mix lightly with a wooden spoon, and cook slowly for forty-five minutes.
Then dress the tripe on a deep hot dish, sprinkle a little freshly chopped parsley over and send to table very hot with twelve slices of toasted French bread.
That is real Tripe à la mode de Caen. All others are imitations.

Quotation for the Day.

… “At the first shrill notes of the pipe
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,
And putting apples, wondrous ripe,
Into a cider- press's gripe:
And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,
And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,
And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,
And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks;

Robert Browning; from The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Leftover Gingersnaps.

I have no idea where I got the following recipe from, but it has intrigued me for a long time.


Sweet sour sauce for boiled tongue.
5 gingersnaps
½ cup brown sugar
4 tab vinegar
1 cup hot water
1 lemon, sliced
¼ cup raisins
Crush the gingersnaps, and mix with the sugar, vinegar, and hot water. Cook until well blended and smooth.
Add the lemon and raisins.
Serve over sliced tongue.

Gingersnaps? In sauce? Interesting. If anyone has any ideas of its history, I would be most grateful. In the meantime, it is probably eligible for the Through the Ages with Gingerbread archive, is it not?

At least it sounds more interesting than this sauce, from the famous Boston Cooking School Cook Book (1896)

Sauce for Tongue.
Brown one-fourth cup butter, add one-fourth cup flour and stir together till well browned. Add gradually four cups of water in which tongue was cooked. Season with salt and pepper and add one teaspoon Worcestershire sauce. One and one-half cups stewed and strained tomatoes may be used in place of some of the water.

Of course, it is likely that these recipes are of no practical significance for you, as tongue, like most other offal, is sadly out of fashion today. Once upon a time, no self-respecting luncheon sideboard would be without a platter of cold tongue. For old time’s sake, here is a recipe from one of the nineteenth century masters.


Beef’s Tongue with Sauce haché.
Take a tongue that is quite fresh; let it disgorge, blanch it to take away any tripy taste it may have retained; then stew it in a good braize. When done, flay it, cut it in two, spread it open and mask or cover thickly over with the sauce haché. This is but a very common entrée.


The Sauce Haché, or Minced Sauce.
This sauce, although seldom or ever used in good cookery, is frequently to be met with at taverns and inns on the road. Such as it is , it is made in the following way. Chop gherkins, mushrooms, capers, and anchovies, and throw them in some brown Italian sauce, which is called a sauce haché, or minced sauce. The reason that I have called this a tavern or common inn sauce is because, to make it, it is not requisite to have an Italian sauce well prepared. A common browning made with butter and flour, moistened with a little broth, or gravy, and some fine herbs in it, will answer the purpose.

The French Cook, by Louis Eustache Ude, 1829

Quotation for the Day.

Make not the sauce till you have caught the fish.
English Proverb.

A Risky Dinner?

Were they still in existence, the members of the Thirteen Club of old New York would have been especially excited about their November meeting in 2009. The club was formed in 1881 by a group determined (in a good-humoured way) to debunk the superstitions associated with the number 13. In particular they enjoyed challenging the widespread belief that if thirteen sat around the table together, one of them would be dead within twelve months. This belief was so entrenched in some places – specifically nineteenth century Paris - that it was possible for a gentleman to make a career as a quatorzième or fourteenth guest, available at short notice to make up a less terrifying number at the table.

As you may have noticed, today, the thirteenth falls on a Friday – and Friday the thirteenth, or Black Friday is a particularly inauspicious and terrifying date for those suffering from triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13). It was, therefore a particularly fun-filled evening for members of the Thirteen Club, which invoked the number 13 in every possible way. As well as always taking place on the thirteenth of the month, with 13 at table, the dinners started and finished at 13 minutes past the hour, and there were always 13 dishes and 13 toasts. Club members also thumbed their noses at Fate, or The Gods, or whatever, in as many other ways as they could devise. They might deliberately spill salt, or wear the colour green, or have the dining room decorated with funeral accoutrements, or images of death (note the skull and crossbones on this particular menu).

One of the dinner menus from the club is featured in my book Menus from History: Historic Meals and Recipes for Every Day in the Year. Today I give you another menu, from the meeting of December 13, 1896. On this evening for some reason, the club chose to have an Austrian theme for their dinner.

Austrian Dinner

of the

Thirteen Club

At Café Boulevard, 156, Second Avenue,

December 13, 1896, at 7.13pm

ASIETTEN.

Caviar Salat.

SUPPE.

Leberknödel.

FISCH.

Gefüllter Hecht.

ENTRÉE.

Steirisches Schöpsernes. Heurige Erdäpfel

BRATEN.

Wiener Backhendl.

Häupt-Salat. Gerösste Kartoffel.

COMPOT.

Zwetschken.

MEHLSPIESE.

Topfen-Taschkerl. Semmelbrösl.

Caffee Melange.

WEIN

Grinzinger Heurigen $0.75

Bisamberger 1.00

Gumpoldskirchner 1.50.

How about you? How many at your dinner table tonight? Any plans to tempt the Fates?

Leberknadel (Calf’s Liver Dumplings)
Chop and pass through a collander one-half pound of calf's liver; rub to a cream four ounces of marrow, add the liver and stir hard. Then add a little thyme, one clove of garlic grated, pepper, salt and a little grated lemon peel, the yelks of two eggs and one whole egg. Then add enough grated bread crumbs or rolled crackers to this mixture to permit its being formed into little marbles.
Aunt Babette's Cook Book (Cincinnati, c1889)


Quotation for the Day.

Mark Twain told a friend of an invitation to be the 13th guest at a dinner party. Horrified, the friend advised him, “Don’t go! It’s bad luck!” To which Twain replied, “Nonsense.” The next day, Twain met the friend again and said, “I admit that you were right about the dinner. It WAS bad luck. There was only enough food for twelve.”

Humble Pie.

July 8 …

Samuel Pepys, bless him, alerted me out of my topic-neglect with his diary entry for this day in 1663. His wife was away in the country, but he managed not to starve.

“And then at noon home to dinner alone, upon a good dish of eeles given me by Michell the Bewpers-man. … I stepped to Sir W. Batten and there stayed and talked with him, my Lady being in the country, and sent for some lobsters; and Mrs. Turner came in and did bring us an Umble-pie hot out of her oven, extraordinarily good, and afterward some spirits of her making (in which she has great judgement), very good, and so home, merry with this nights refreshment.”

I can hardly believe that I have not given you a story about ‘umble pie’ in almost three years of blogging – and me about to give birth to a pie book sometime almost soon. I hope. A pie book has a gestation period of about fifty images, did you know that? The writing was the easy bit. No need to understand pixels, dpi’s, KB’s, jpegs, or how to get rid of red-eye. A piece of chalk and a blank wall will suffice, for words. But I digress.

‘Umbles’ or nombles, or humbles are ‘the inwards of a deer or other beast’ – in other words, the offal from your venison. A most prized part of the beast in Samuel’s day, not one to be shuddered at briefly before being slipped to the hounds or made invisible in sausages. A part traditionally the perquisite of the gamekeeper, but occasionally snaffled by the ‘better class of folk’ for their own enjoyment in ‘umble pie’. An interesting dish, Umble Pie. Quite paradoxical, really. Inferior enough to give us the ‘humble pie’ we eat symbolically when we are mildly humiliated, yet capable of being ‘extraordinarily good’ - good enough to give all fresh and hot from the oven, to your visitors. Desirable enough that if you didn’t have any umbles handy, a recipe book of 1617 could tell you how to fake the recipe, so that no-one could tell.

To make an Umble-pye, or for want of Umbles, to doe it with a Lambes head and Purtenance.
Boyle your meate reasonable tender, take the flesh from the bone, and mince it small with Beefe-suet and Sparrow, with the Liver, Lights, and Heart, a few sweet Hearbes and Currans. Season it with Pepper, Salt, and Nutmeg: bake it in a Coffin raised like an Umble pye, and it will eate so like unto Umbles, as that you shall hardly by taste discerne it from right Umbles.
[A New Booke of Cookerie; John Murrell, 1617]

Lamb’s Purtenance? The ‘innards or entrails of an animal, esp. as used for food’. Sheep Umbles, in other words.

Tomorrow’ Story …

Entertaining the Queen.

Quotation for the Day …

I think that I should like to sing of pies

Walter Elliot

Using your brains.

May 7 ...

Today, if you will excuse a reverse of the usual sequence of events, I wish to start with a recipe. It will speak for itself, I believe.

Sauces for a Pig.
When you have cut up the pig, take out the brains and chop them, put them into a stew-pan with half a pint of white broth or gravy, the seasoning in the inside, and the gravy that comes from the pig, put a little flour and butter in to thicken it, and as quick as you can give it a boil up, and put it in the dish under the pig.
[The English Art of Cookery, According to the Present Practice. Richard Brigg. 1788]

Often, very old recipes have something about them that suggests the very modern – recipes that have at their heart some idea that would not be out of place at the sharpest cutting edge of cuisine. Fennel with ginger, chicken with grapes, turkey with raspberries for example. Worthy of rediscovery and rebranding. I cannot, however, imagine this pig sauce recipe on a modern menu.

Certainly, brains do appear on modern menus. In fact, they can be quite trendy. They are, however, usually the star item, not the sauce-bulker. The only real reason for using them in a sauce as in the above recipe is not to waste something that cannot otherwise be preserved, once you have sacrificed a beast for the table. Brains, let us face the truth squarely, are bland. The crispy coating (give me Parmesan breadcrumbs) are good in the way that any fried crumb coating is good. The sauce (black butter please) is also good. But the brain as an ingredient is pretty tasteless. Brains are the tofu of the carnivore world. This, to me, is the primary reason for not chosing them over osmazome/umami rich real meat. Or osmazome/umami rich mushrooms. Or a Vegemite sandwich.

There are other reasons why some eaters eshew offal (“the edible parts collectively which are cut off in preparing the carcass of an animal for food. In early use applied mainly to the entrails; later extended to include the head, tail, and internal organs such as the heart, liver, etc.”) Vague prejudice for one. This is a reason I refuse to take seriously from folk who are quite happy to scoff down industrial quantities of industrial-chemical laden foods such as commercial ice-cream or chicken nuggets. Why are these OK, but a slice of pure and natural fresh liver (with onions) is not?

The possibility of an edibly-transmitted unpleasantness such as mad-cow disease is a reasonable barrier, I grant. There was an extremely unpleasant similar condition called kuru which used to occur amongst the Fore people of Papua New Guinea – until researchers discovered that it was due to the tradition of honouring one’s dead by eating their brains – a privilege of the women and children of the society. I accept that in countries where mad-cow disease is prevalent, it may be prudent to avoid bovine brains, and I have never promoted eating one’s granny, but these exceptions aside, I do not believe anyone can quote disease risk as a legitimate reason for avoiding this particular morsel.

As an aside, my own dear mother (bless her Alzheimer’s riddled brain) firmly believed in brains as a suitable food for small children – on the basis that it made them brainy. This is a remarkably persistent medieval idea. But I digress.

There is the ‘totemic’ aspect of course. If one believes that the brain is the seat of the mind, and the mind is the ‘person’ (which may or may not be the same as the soul - I am shaky on the subject of souls) – then it may be inappropriate, insulting, or evil to eat the brain of a fellow-creature.

Having exhausted in this short story the reasons for eating, or not eating brains, I will end by giving you Richard Briggs’ alternative recipes for sauce for pig.

Sauces for a Pig.
Take the crumb of a penny loaf and rub it through a cullender, put it into a stew-pan with a pint of milk, wash a quarter of a pound of currants well, dry them in a cloth and pick them, put them in, boil it gently, keeping it stirring till it is smooth, and put it in a sauce-boat.
Take the crumb of a penny loaf, cut it in thin slices, put it in a stew-pan with a pint of milk, boil it, keeping it stirring and beat up till it is smooth, cut three or four heads of pickled samphir and put in, give it a boil up, and put it in a sauce-boat.

Tomorrow’s Story …

A fig for some liver.

Quotation for the Day …

An epicure eats with his brain as well as his mouth. Charles Lamb.

Fry.

Today, August 8th ...

Offal is not as popular as it used to be – or perhaps ‘popular’ is the wrong word to use when talking about times when people did not have the luxury of being able to be choosy. Funnily enough, it must always have had some vague connotations of ‘rubbish’ as the word ‘offal’ also applies to ‘that which falls or is thrown off from some process, as husks from milling grain, chips from dressing wood, etc.; residue or waste products’.

Historically speaking, people were once much less finicky about the exact nature of edible animal protein – it was always valuable - and it is difficult to understand how the word as it applies to certain bits of animals came to have such a negative connotation. The OED calls these bits ‘the edible parts collectively which are cut off in preparing the carcass of an animal for food. In early use applied mainly to the entrails; later extended to include the head, tail, and internal organs such as the heart, liver, etc.’ Which is an odd definition, really. Although the parts are defined as ‘edible’ it is the rest of the carcass which is really being prepared for food. The sense of something less than appealing is confirmed in the next explanation of the use of the word in the OED – ‘The parts of a slaughtered or dead animal considered unfit for human consumption; decomposing flesh, carrion. Also (in extended use): slain bodies or mutilated limbs.’ Perhaps this is the nub of it – the recognition that offal ‘goes off’ more quickly than ‘real’ meat.

On the principle that a rose by another name just might taste very different, humans have gotten around the decomposing flesh connotations of offal by calling it something less scary. On this day in 1801, good old Parson James Woodforde had for his dinner “Calfs Fry & Heart rosted &c.” Calf’s fry is Calf’s liver, called ‘fry’ presumably because this is how it is usually cooked. ‘Fry’ can also refer to the testicles, which have many alternative names from the downright misleading (prairie oysters or mountain oysters) to the very prosaic (stones). In the following late eighteenth century recipe it seems that both lamb’s liver and lamb’s testicles are used. It is a sort of fry-up of two sorts of ‘fry’.

Lamb’s Fry.
Cut your fry into pieces about two inches long, the liver into thin slices, pepper, salt, and flour it well, take the skin off the stones: have a pan of hogs lard or beef dripping boiling hot, put the fry in, and when you think it is half-done, put in the liver, keep it turning, fry it quick of a fine brown, and then put it on a sieve to drain; fry a handful of parsley crisp, put a fish-drainer in the dish, put the fry on that, and garnish with the fried parsley, with plain butter in a boat; or you may give it a scald first, but not theliver, rub it over with the yolk of an egg, sprinkle bread crumbs over it, and fry it as before.
[The new art of cookery, according to the present practice … Richard Briggs; 1792.]

Tomorrow’s Story …

The Zen of Fishing

Quotation for the Day ….

The best thing about liver is how virtuous it makes you feel after you've eaten some. Bruce Jay Friedman.

Bloomsday Breakfast Recipes (2)

Tomorrow, the 16th of June is Bloomsday, an Irish holiday to celebrate the life of the writer James Joyce. All of the 'action' of James' novel Ulysses takes place on June 16th 1904, and the chief protagonist is Mr Leopold Bloom.

"Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine."

Last year I gave you a recipe for one of Bloom's favourite dishes - fried kidney ( and I have repeated it below for the sake of completeness), so today I give you recipes for some of his other favourite dishes, so you can have yourself a Bloomsday breakfast or dinner.

Heart, Calf’s [Roast]
Wash the heart very clean, soak it in vinegar and water, fill it with a forcemeat made of four ounces of crumb of bread, two ounces of butter, two table-spoonfuls of chopped parsley, half a tea-spoonful of finely-minced lemon rind, and a little salt and cayenne. Fasten the heart securely and roast before a clear fire for an hour and a half to two hours. Serve it with goodmelted butter mixed with a table-spoonful of lemon juice or vinegar. A calf’s head is improved by partially boiling it before it is roasted.
[Cassell’s “Dictionary of Cookery” (1870’s)]

Liver, Fried.
Cut one pound of liver into slices, a quarter of an inch in thickness, and dredge some flour over them. Take an equal number of slices of bacon, fat and lean together. Fry the bacon first, and when it is done enough, draw the rashers from the fat, and place them on a hot dish. Fry the slices of liver in the same fat, and when lightly browned on both sides, dish bacon and liver in a circle, a slice of each alternately. Pour the fat from the pan, and dredge a little flour into it. Add a quarter of a pint of broth, a little salt and pepper, and a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup. Stir smoothly together until the sauce boils, and pour it into the dish with the liver. Garnish with sliced lemon. If liked, a table-spoonful of finely-minced gherkins or pickled walnuts may be added to the sauce.
[Cassell’s “Dictionary of Cookery” (1870’s)]

Giblet Soup.
Stew the giblets (i.e head, neck, feet, gizzard, liver, heart, &c., “all the parts of a goose that are left behind when it goes to the spit to be roasted”), in 3 pints of water, and cook until the gizzard is tender, by which time all the other parts are sure to be well done; a little thyme should be used to flavour, and salt and pepper to season; strain the liquor, and when it is cold remove all fat and grease. Cut up the cold giblets into small pieces ready to add to the soup when required.
Beef stock must be added to the giblet stock, in quantitu according to the number of diners; the beef stock to be of course flavoured with vegetables, onion, &c. Add the minced giblets to the combined stocks. Heat well, and serve as hot as possible.
Have ready some light and delicate suet and flour dumplings, the size of a large walnut, well boiled and tender, to be served in the soup; allow 2 or more for each person.
Add the freshly made dumplings to the soup when it is in the tureen.
[The Cookery Book of Lady Clarke of Tillipronie; 1909]

Kidney Fritters.
Make a batter with four well-beaten eggs, mixed with half a pint of new milk, and flavoured with a little pepper, salt, and pounded mace. Stir into this a teaspoonful each of finely shredded chives, parsley and mushrooms, and a table-spoonful of the remains of a cold veal kidney finely minced, and mixed with half its weight of fat. Beat together for two or three minutes, then melt an ounce of butter in the frying pan, pour in the mixture, and stir it until it is set. When it is browned on one side, turn it on a hot dish, hold a salamander or red-hot shovel over it for a minute or two to colour it on the other, and serve immediately.
[Cassell’s “Dictionary of Cookery” (1870’s)]

Of course, any potato dish would be suitable for an Irish day; there are plenty to chose from in the Fun with Potatoes archive.

I am on the hunt now for an appropriate recipe for cod roe ....