Compared with, say, chocolate, the potato was slow to be adopted in the Old World for a number of reasons touched upon in previous blog posts (here, and here.) It started to become established in Europe and Britain in the dying decades of the eighteenth century, but a hundred years later the writers of agricultural tracts and cookery books still felt it necessary to give explicit instructions for the most basic ways of preparing this most useful vegetable.
It may seem quaint, now, this need to inform on such an elementary cooking technique, but before you scoff at the ignorance of our recent ancestors, be aware that studies have shown that a large proportion of our urban youth does not know how to proceed when faced with a dirty, raw potato. To this cohort, their knowledge of cooking the potato extends to the microwaving of frozen products including ‘chips.’
I give you extracts from two nineteenth century sources on simple potato cooking methods, one from America, one from England.
From the American agriculturist, Volume 25 in 1866, an article entitled About Potatoes, and Cooking Them gives an explanation of the starch and water content of the potato in comparison to other foods, and then goes on to advise about the mode of cooking them.
COOKING: The starch in potatoes exists as little grains 10 or 12 of them together, in cells. Heating the potato by boiling, steaming, or baking, causes these cells to burst, and the water unites with the starch grains, swelling them. If all the water contained in the potato thus unites with its starch, the potato cooks dry and mealy. If only part of the water is absorbed by the starch, the potato is watery. The best mode of cooking this esculent is by baking, which drives off all the water that does not unite with the starch. If boiled, cook them rapidly, and when just done, dry them out; then they are improved by mashing fine to free them from indigestible lumps; this, of course, can be done by the teeth of those who prefer their potatoes ‘undressed’. Frying them dries up the starch, leaving it similar to charcoal, and when done brown they are almost as indigestible as so much charcoal or wood.
From the English publication The Gardener's magazine and register of rural &domestic improvement, in 1826, there is support for the beautiful notion of butter with potatoes.
On the Culture of the Early Potatoe as practised in Lancashire, and on the Mode of cooking the Potatoe there.
Perhaps the Lancashire mode of dressing early potatoes may not be unacceptable to some of your readers. Brush off the skins, set them on the fire in cold water; when boiled, pour off the water completely; add a little salt, and dry them well on the fire. An iron pot I conceive is the best vessel for the purpose, and the sooner they are eaten with cold butter the better. London, February 1826.
Quotation for the Day.
I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them. Nora Ephron, Heartburn.
I have heard it said that the best time to have lived was in a country estate in England, between the wars – if one lived upstairs, of course. If you have seen the movie Gosford Park, you will know what I mean.
I was browsing a cookery book of this era recently – New Standard Cookery Illustrated, by Elizabeth Craig (1933), when I came across a chapter heading I don’t believe I have ever seen in a modern cookery book. Page number 545 begins with the heading ‘To Put on Weight’. A few pages later there is the sub-headings ‘Fattening Recipes.’ This sort of advice being sadly lacking in modern cookery books, we are lucky that history has come to the rescue.
TO PUT ON WEIGHT.
Generally speaking, it is easy to prescribe a diet for leanness, which is usually caused through run-down tendencies. Very often the introduction into the diet of foods containing plenty of vitamins will build up the body, but care should be taken to provide only food that is easy to digest. For unless the food that is taken is easily assimilated, the indigestion that will result will cancel the value of the food itself.
One should start a campaign for putting on weight by planning well-balanced menus, and then by adhering strictly to them.
WELL BALANCED DAILY MENU FOR WINTER.
BREAKFAST:- Half a grapefruit. Cereal and milk. One steamed egg and 2 grilled rashers of bacon. Toast, butter, and honey. Coffee or tea.
LUNCHEON OR SUPPER:- Tripe and onions, mashed potatoes. Baked rice pudding, stewed figs. Celery, biscuits or toast, cream cheese. Small cup of black coffee.
TEA:- Brown bread and butter, as much as liked, jam, bloater cream. Ham, tongue, and celery sandwiches, or sandwiches made of brisling paste. One piece of plum, cherry, seed, madeira, or sponge cake, or a choice of ginger snaps and gingerbread.
DINNER:- Barley mutton broth. Large portion of roast beef, chicken or game, large portion of buttered greens, spinach or Brussels sprouts, baked potatoes. Pancakes, followed by fresh fruit, if liked.
Much other general advice follows, and then comes the sample of fattening recipes, from which I give you the Potato Soufflé. It will make a nice change from mashed potato, I think - and you don’t have the bother of making a béchamel sauce.
Potato Soufflé.
2 cupfuls hot mashed potatoes, 1 tablespoonful of butter, 1 tablespoonful chopped Parsley, ½ cupful tepid milk, Mint, 4 whites of eggs. Utensils: Saucepan, soufflé dish, knife, chopping board, tablespoon, wooden spoon, cup, basin, wire whisk, grater. Enough for 2 persons.
Season the potatoes very delicately with powdered mint, then stir in the parsley, butter and salt, and pepper to taste. Add the milk, and beat well till smooth, then stir in the egg whites and bake at once in a buttered soufflé dish till puffy and brown on top. Serve sprinkled with grated cheese.
Quotation for the Day.
I worry about scientists discovering that lettuce has been fattening all along. Erma Bombeck
Well, we have had a couple of interesting breads this week, so how about an interesting-sounding spread to go on them? A new American product launched in Philadelphia in 1882 caught my eye in this regard.
The problem is, I don’t know if ‘Olive Butter’ is being made anymore, and if it is, the manufacturers would certainly have had to make some changes to its labelling. The ‘butter’ turns out to be not a bit ‘buttery’ (in the sense of being spreadable) at all – it was a cooking oil. It also turns out not to have had any olives in it either – although it was, however, olive greenish in colour. Olive Butter was actually made from cottonseed oil – a product now ubiquitous in many commercial bakery items, especially biscuits (by which I mean ‘cookies) because it adds crunch.
At the beginning of the small recipe booklet that was released along with the product were a number of testimonials from ‘The Press.’ The one that I have chosen, from the Public Ledger, (Philadelphia),of October 1882 says much, and I don’t mean just about the product itself.
“The new olive butter is excellent for frying purposes. There's something ina name, but, probably, nothing of the "olive" in the butter, except its color; but, besides being assured by chemists that this is a perfectly pure vegetable oil, allhousekeepers who have tried it will agree that it is extremely economical and makes a very delicate frying material. Here was formerly the situation in the kitchen over the frying-pan: You could take lard, which was not cheap and "used up" very fast; you had butter, which, besides being expensive, required a skilful cook to keep it from burning; or you could use salad oil, which, though costing alarmingly to begin with, required so little to do the work that the cooking school would tell you it was like the widow's cruse - it did not seem to lose perceptibly; after frying fifty oysters the bottlewas nearly as full as before. But very few American housekeepers could be brought, by its first expensiveness, to try using sweet oil, which is the frying material of all South Europe. We leave out of the list "clarified fat," or dripping, because there is seldom enough of this to do the entire cooking with, even with a conscientious person in the kitchen who understands how to save and use it all, as should always be insisted on.
The two best known vegetable oils that this country produces are cotton-seed oil and peanut oil, both of which are understood to have been for years exported to Europe, coming back to us in wicker-covered flasks as Italian olive oil. Real olive oil from California is too small a product, as yet, to count much in the home market. The manufacturers of the new Olive Butter - which is not butter at all, but a clear, greenish oil - have agreed to give us a home product, warranted pure, without the ocean voyage; though, to conciliate our ridiculous American prejudices, do not label it cotton-seed or peanut oil, the former of which it probably is.
Anybody who tries it will agree that it cooks as well as salad oil; and as all vegetable oils heat at a lower temperature than the solid animal fats, it does not burn away or waste as rapidly as lard. It comes in convenient cans, with a mouth-piece, like the kerosene oil cans.
And another testimonial manages to appeal to jingoism, invokes authorised opinion, and suggests a challenge, all in two sentences:
Frenchmen have for a long time re-sold the oil to us both as pure olive oil and as a packing for sardines. An Atlanta authority defies any one to tell the difference between a steak fried in lard and one fried in cotton-seed oil.
Evening Telegraph, August 1882
How well did the product compete with the genuine article (which I take to be genuine olive oil)? Here is an unequivocally French dish as interpreted by the manufacturers, from the promotional recipe book mentioned above. How good would it be with cottonseed oil instead of the traditional real olive oil do you think?
Lyonnaise Potatoes.
Pare two large potatoes and cut them into dice. Put two tablespoonfuls of Olive Butter into a frying pan, in which fry two sliced onions; put in the potatoes, and toss them now and again until they have a nice yellow colour; add a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Shake the pan until all are well mixed; dish and serve very hot.
Quotation for the Day.
Except the vine, there is no plant which bears a fruit of as great importance as the olive. Pliny (AD 23-79)
20Marshmallows made with tomato may be intriguing, but lets face it, the tomato is never going to be the number one confectionery ingredient of choice, is it? Potato might make it though.
I once, many years ago, held a dinner party in which all the dishes were based on potatoes – although I stopped short of potato alcohol, for obvious reasons. I remember that I served after-dinner mints made with potato fondant. I have no idea what happened to the recipe for those mints, but I found a substitute in the marvelous book that gave us the tomato marshmallows - Candy-Making Revolutionized: Confectionery from Vegetables (1912)
Mints can be made from the potato fondant recipe in the book – just add peppermint oil to taste, and green colouring, if you must.
POTATO FONDANT
Uncooked Fondant. — Potato fondant is another base — even more useful than potato paste — upon which many confections may be built. There are two kinds — cooked and uncooked. To make the uncooked, boil or steam Irish potatoes, drain, and force them through a fine sieve. In all
candy-making with potatoes, these directions are of the utmost importance. Unless the potato is carefully forced through a fine sieve, the candy made from it will have hard and gluey spots after it has dried out. Mix one-half cupful of the potato so prepared with the unbeaten white of one
egg. Add gradually confectioner's sugar until the whole mass assumes the consistency of bon-bon cream. Several uses for potato fondant will be described below, but it may be substituted for French fondant in any of the confections of which that is a part.
Cooked Potato Fondant.— With one-half cupful of potato, prepared as for the uncooked fondant, very thoroughly mix two cupsful of sugar and thin with two-thirds of a cupful of milk. Place the mixture on an asbestos mat over the fire and cook until thick — to the sticking point. Pour the mass on a cold, damp marble and “cut in” like plain fondant. Knead small quantities at a time until the whole batch is smooth. Pack in tins lined with wax paper.
The fondant can be used without additional sugar and does not stick to the hands. It is particularly useful as a covering.
Potato fondant shows particular superiority over the almond paste in the making of small objects and all fine and thin work. The results are as attractive to the palate as to the eye, although candy modeled from potato fondant does not have the peculiar oily richness of the products fashioned from almond paste.
New Potato. — A particularly appropriate form in which to model the potato fondant is that of the new potato. Work the proper sized piece of fondant into as close an imitation as possible of the new potato. As this new potato has perhaps more of the fondant than many people will wish to eat at one time, several partial substitutions are possible. That statement, by the way, is no reflection upon the fondant, for any piece of candy, no matter how good, of the size of this is likely to be rather too much to be eaten at one time if of one flavor. Marshmallows, pitted dates with nut meats, pulled figs closely rolled, or English walnut meats are some of the things that may well be used as centers. Whatever is used should be rolled in enough of the fondant to make pieces of the desired size and form and then immediately rolled in dry cocoa. The result will be strikingly convincing — and good to eat.
Quotation for the Day.
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart. Erma Bombeck
Methinks I have neglected the potato lately, which is not laudable, given that this blog has a special archive called Fun With Potatoes.
Once, long ago, I made coconut ice with potatoes: it was not memorable and has never been repeated. Nevertheless, it demonstrated the great adaptability of the potato to sweet as well as savoury dishes – thanks to all that high-carb (Shhh!!) starch.
Potatoes were adapted for use in bread in Europe in the eighteenth century, the starch eking out the more expensive wheat flour. The result was nutritionally very acceptable, but rather more dense and damp than pure wheat bread – and very suitable, according to the mores of the time, for feeding the poor. Taking advantage of the starch in potatoes in sweet baked dishes (apart from in pies) came later. By the mid-nineteenth century, the one-time chef to Queen Victoria, Charles Elmé Francatelli included the following very elegant recipes in his book The Modern Cook (1846)
POTATO CAKE
Bake eighteen large York potatoes, and when done, rub their pulp through a wire sieve; put this into a large basin, add four ounces of butter, eight ounces of sifted sugar, a spoonful of pounded vanilla, a gill of cream, the yolks of six eggs and the whipped whites of two, and a little salt; work the whole well together, and then place it in a mould previously spread with butter, and strewn with bread crumbs; bake the cake for about an hour, and when done, dish it up with a fruit sauce poured round the base, made in the following manner:-
Pick one pound of either currants, raspberries, cherries, damsons, strawberries, or apricots; place them in a stewpan with eight ounces of sifted sugar and half a gill of water; boil the whole down to the consistency of a thick pureé, and then rub it through a sieve or tammy.
POTATO FLOUR SOUFFLE
Ingredients: Six ounces of potato flour, ten ounce of sugar, four ounces of butter one pint of cream or milk, twelve eggs, two sticks of vanilla, and a little salt. Put the milk or cream to boil, then throw in the vanilla; cover the stew pan with its lid and allow the infusion to stand for about half an hour in order to extract the flavour of the vanilla. Next put the potato flour, the sugar, butter, salt, and one egg into a stewpan, and mix the whole well together; then add the milk and the vanilla, and stir the preparation on the stove fire until it boils, when it must be worked with the spoon to make it perfectly smooth; after adding the yolks of ten eggs, set it aside while the ten whites are being whipped quite firm, and then add these in with the soufflé batter pour the whole lightly into a soufflé dish, having a broad band of buttered cartridge paper round the outside, and then set it in the oven to bake: this will take about three quarters of an hour. When the soufflé is done, place it (on its baking sheet) upon another baking sheet covered with hot embers of charcoal, and let it be thus carried to the dining room door; just before dishing it up remove the bands of paper, shake some sifted sugar over the top, place it in the soufflé dish and serve immediately.
Note: Soufflés of flour, ground rice, semolina, arrow- root, tapioca, tous les mois (a kind of potato flour, ) should all be prepared as the above substituting either of these for the potato flour. Soufflés may be flavoured with orange, lemon, cinnamon, orange-flowers ,or with any kind of essence or liqueur
Quotation for the Day.
What I'm doing here is seeking to offer protection from life, solely through the means of potato, butter and cream... there are times when only mashed potato will do. Nigella Lawson.
I thought that in the remaining few posts before Christmas day we would look at some historic menus for the season. There is no doubt that when times are hard (especially when someone is also a long way from home), personal and traditional celebrations take on a new significance. Often a great deal of determination and defiance is needed to carry on regardless – not to mention a great deal of imagination and humour.
One English army officer of WW I wrote a letter to The Times in which he described the very satisfying surprise Christmas dinner he enjoyed “somewhere in France” in 1915.
FOUR COURSES AT THE FRONT.
DINNER AND “CRACKERS” ON SERVICE.
A non-commissioned officer in an Infantry regiment writes from France:-
I’ve got quite settled down again, and am at present suffering from bad indigestion consequent upon a huge and most unexpected Christmas dinner. It happened thus.
We are quartered in a large chateau “somewhere in, &c.”, and the C.O. gave a swagger dinner to the officers – a real imitation of the Ritz affairs. I have a little room to myself (the study of the one-time owner, now an officer in the French army), and was sitting disconsolate therein. The adjutant strolled in, and asked me what I liked to drink! Result – one bottle of port. He then gave orders that a portion of the banquet should be brought in for me and one of my clerks, which was awfully decent of him. In about ten minutes came course 1 – soup. Course 2 – turkey, peas, greens, and “spuds”, and gravy followed; and then close on the heels of this came course 3 – plum pudding and brandy sauce. No.4 consisted of cherries and blancmange, and this was hotly pursued by fruit, nuts, coffee, cigars, crackers (with paper hats!), various drinks and liqueurs. How’s that for Christmas on active service,eh?
The sequel was amusing. I gravely discussed some business matters after dinner with an officer decorated with a paper “baby’s bonnet”, and a wreath of paper festoons, myself likewise ornamented with a gaudy plumed helmet and flourishing a bunch of grapes.
The Vintage Christmas Recipes archive has many choices for the soup, turkey, and pudding on this menu, so I invite you to visit it for inspiration. The Christmas recipe archive does not, however, appear to have any recipes for ‘spuds’- for these you will have to visit the Fun With Potatoes collection.
Before I could turn to the challenge of giving you a WW I recipe for ‘spuds’ the word itself. The first port of call, of course, is the Oxford English Dictionary. This gives a number of definitions for ‘spud’, my ridiculously brief and highly selective summary of which is:
- in the fifteenth century it meant ‘a short and poor knife or dagger’
- in the seventeenth century it meant ‘an iron head or blade socketed on or fixed to a plough-staff’, and also ‘a digging or weeding implement of the spade-type, having a narrow chisel-shaped blade.
- by the early nineteenth century it was ‘a digging fork with three broad prongs’
- by the mid-nineteenth century it had come to mean ‘a potato’ – with the specific citation being from the
English social researcher Henry Mayhew’s extensive writings on ‘London Labour and the London Poor.’ The context was of ‘spuddy’ as ‘a nickname for a seller of bad potatoes.’
The word ‘spud’ itself is, (as if you could not guess), of ‘obscure origin.’ I am sure someone somewhere has some theories, and one day I am going to continue this little research thread.
In the meanwhile, the recipe idea for the day comes from an article on ‘Simple Hints for Light Dishes, appearing in The Times just before Christmas in 1915.
Stuffed Vegetables.
Besides stuffed tomatoes, it is possible to make light and seasonable lunch dishes by stuffing baked potatoes or baked onions with ordinary mince, having removed the centres, and then putting them back into the oven to get quite hot. A pinch of chopped herbs, a little chutney, or a tiny pinch of mace makes a good seasoning, but this part must never to overdone.
Quotation for the Day.
It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes. Douglas Adams.
Well folks, I usually have a week’s worth of stories posted ahead, but these have now been all used up. I am rather busy and pre-occupied with non-bloggy stuff at present, so my posts may be rather more brief than usual over the next week or so. On top of that was no Internet access in the local area for over 24 hours - and although it appears to be back, I cannot currently connect from home.
I know that many of you are keen bakers, and stories about cakes often get the greatest interest. Just for the fun of it, a few weeks ago I did some searching for ‘unusual cakes’, and now have quite a little store for your future delectation. Here is my pick for today, from a feature article extolling the domestic skills of the wives of government officials, in The Washington Post of January 1914.
Raisin Potato Cake.
This unusual cake is made as follows: One cup of butter, one cup of mashed Irish potatoes, one-half cup pecans, one cup of grated chocolate, one-third teaspoonful ground cinnamon, one third teaspoonful ground nutmeg, two cups of sugar, two cups of flour, one cup of seeded raisins, four eggs, one-third teaspoonfl cloves, two teaspoonfuls baking powder, one-half cup of milk.
Cream the butter and the sugar, add the eggs, which have been beaten separately, and also the milk. Stir in the chopped raisins and the pecans, both of which have been floured, and also the chocolate. Sift the flour, baking powder, and the spices together, and add gradually to the rest of the ingredients, beating until very light. Add the mashed potatoes last, being sure that they are light and creamy and entirely cold.
This cake is best when baked in layers, the quantity above being sufficient for four layers. [Recipe from Mrs. John N. Garner, wife of Representative Garner, of Texas].
A good thing about this substantial cake is that it is a worthy addition to the Fun with Potatoes archive too.
I had the opportunity to sample three different forms of ‘boxty’ (or boxtie) in Dublin last night. Foolishly, I had ordered Irish Stew to follow. Boxty is an Irish potato cake, and there are numerous regional variations – boiled, baked, fried, and with (or without) various additional ingredients. My sample platter at Gallagher’s Boxty House was listed as an appetiser and was a modern version of the concept as it was served with two sauces for dipping – blue cheese and honey-whisky.
Boxty is perfectly explained in an edition of The Dublin University Magazine of 1854.
"In the formation of potato starch the fibrous portion of the tuber, when separated and squeezed from the watery part, was mixed with coarse flour or oatmeal, and by the addition of a little kitchen stuff [i.e fat rendered from meat]or butter formed into a cake popularly known in the vest as boxtie, and in the south denominated “buck bread”, “Scotchy”, or “stampy”. This was so much admired, that the children in country parts used to make a grater out of the side of an old tin can, by punching it with an awl in order to rasp lumpers for a feast of boxtie. If we have reserved to the last, the potato-cake, made by bruising with the bottom of a tin porringer, two cold well-boiled potatoes, and mixing therewith a pound of the finest flour, the yolk of a fresh egg, a print of butter, and a sup of new-milk, the whole being well kneaded then pounded with a rolling pin, made into a cake five eighths of an inch thick, cut into squares and diamonds, baked on a griddle, and when properly browned and mottled, each piece torn asunder like a muffin, and a bit of butter slipt in to melt in the interior, and then eaten at tea or breakfast but particularly at the former, it is because it was the most widely disseminated, and universally admired form of potato-eating known to all tea-drinkers and cup-tossers from Cape Clear to the Causeway."
So then, boxty can be a griddle cake (or scone), a fried potatoe cake, a type of boiled (or baked) potato ‘pudding’ (for want of a better word), or something nearer a pancake. It can be made with grated raw potato or mashed up cooked potato. It can be sole food or soul food or far too solid an appetiser.
And, as an added bonus for our consideration, in the short description given above, we have two interesting word usages – ‘lumper’, for potato, and ‘a print’ of butter, meaning a single moulded block.
Quotation for the Day.
Boxty on the griddle
Boxty in the pan
If you don't eat boxty
You'll never get your man. Traditional Song.
One of the most important and famous food writers of recent times was the vaguely aristocratic and adventurous British woman, Elizabeth David (1913-1992). Elizabeth David convinced the British that French (or French provincial food) was, in fact, no only OK, but quite interesting and do-able, thereby changing British attitudes and tastes forever.
David was slightly shocking for her time – she left home to be an actress, had many lovers, and got involved in some mildly naughty diplomatic incidents (at one stage being deported from Italy, where she was living, to Greece – and that was only the start of her wartime adventures.)
She was also, apparently, not shy of lending her name for marketing purposes. In the 1950’s, at the peak of her fame and influence, her name headed some “suggested menus” in the classified ads section of The Times in London. The menu ideas were sponsored by a tobacco company, so naturally, the meals ended with a tobacco course.
On this day in 1955, the advertisement read:
ELIZABETH DAVID
recommends:
Diner 13 Aôut
Consommé glacé à l’estragon
Canard aux olives
Pommes de terre fondantes
Côte Rôti 1951
Tarte aux pêches
Château Filbot Sauternes, 1947
Lambert & Butler’s Straight Cut Cigarettes
Henry Clay Cigars
What can I say but “Oh Dear!”
David’s contribution to cuisine in general and food writing in particular – her tobacco endorment notwithstanding – is enormous, as I am sure every reader is aware. In her honour, I give you the following recipe to assist you to repeat the menu above. It is a classic from that other famous cook – Auguste Escoffier.
Pommes de Terre Fondantes.
Cut the potatoes to the shape of large, elongated olives, and let each weigh about 3 oz. Gently cook them in butter, in a sautépan, and take care to turn them over.
When they are cooked, withdraw them, so as to flatten them slightly with a fork without breaking them. Drain away their butter; return them to the sautépan with 3 oz fresh butter per every 2 lb. of their weight, and cook them with lid on until they have entirely absorbed the butter.
Quotation for the Day.
In the 20th century, the French managed to get a death on the myth that they produce the world's best food. The hype has been carefully orchestrated, and despite the fact that the most popular food in the last quarter has undoubtedly been Italian, the French have managed to maintain that mental grip. Clarissa Dickson Wright, 'Food' (1999)
The concern about food adulteration and safety which led to the formation of the “Poison Squad” and the eventual promulgation of the Food and Drug Law in the United States (which provided yesterday’s story) did not belong solely to enlightened food chemists and socialist writers. The story was taken to the women’s clubs by at least one convert – Mrs. Winifred Harper Cooley. The New York Times in March 1909 reported her address to the ladies of the Rainy Day Club.
“Mrs. Winnifred Harper Cooley told the members of the Rainy Day Club at their meeting yesterday afternoon in the Hotel Astor, that “the food goblins would get ‘em in they didn’t watch out.” She told them that the food adulterators neither slumber nor tarry, and that, while it was alright to take drugs under the doctor’s order, it was dangerous to mix up a lot of them “in our midst,” as bad food people will hand them out to us if not watched.
To show how many opportunities there are to take in bad food, Mrs. Cooley read a schedule of food eaten by one Englishwoman if she lives to be 70 years old. The statistics are guaranteed by a man by the name of Soyer, who, with a passion for facts, and, perhaps, an antipathy to the female sex, compiled them. In her three-score years and ten of life, according to the figures, the Englishwoman will eat 30 oxen, 200 sheep, 100 calves, 200 lambs, 50 pigs, 1,200 fowls, 300 turkesy, 260 pigeons, 120 turbot 140 salmon, and 30,000 oysters.
“Think what a chance for typhoid germs!” interpolated Mrs. Cooley.
Also she will eat 5,745 pounds of vegetables, 244 pounds of butter, 24,000 eggs, 4 ½ tons of bread, an indeterminate quantity of fruit and candy, and she will drink 3,000 gallons of tea and coffee.
“These next two specifications, I think, must have been intended for men,” said Mrs. Cooley, as she wound up the awful array with 548 gallons of spirits and 49 hogsheads of wine.
“Prof Shepard, State chemist of South Dakota, has proved that in the day’s three meals one may take in thirty-five doses of poison … and 14,000 does in a year.”
Potates are pure, and it looks like we might have to live on them.
In sausages there may be found coal tar, dye, and borax; bacon is cured with creosote, (liquid smoke), maple syrup is made from glucose and hickory bark and contains sodium sulphite; pure oatmeal is eaten for breakfast with cream preserved with formaldehyde; blue points [oysters] are preserved with powdered borax, and there is formaldehyde in pork and beans. ….
… The country is in a serious condition. The commission appointed by the President has reported that some chemicals are not harmful to food, though Dr Wiley has proved that they are. He is a man who could not be bought, and no one knows what he has suffered, for there is no doubt that the Board of Agriculture is against him. (Applause). But by taking pains and looking at the formulas on the wrappers and patronizing honest dealers, we can protect ourselves. Some canned goods are put up under better conditions than they could be in a private kitchen. It ahs been proved that things can be put up without preservatives, and we can find out the good manufacturers if we try.”
A one-hundred year-old battle – and I fear that we have far more ‘safe’ chemicals in our food now than when Mrs Cooley made her speech. What do you think?
In honour of Mrs. Cooley’s idea of safety in potatoes, I give this recipe from The New York Times of September 1910. The article was on Emergency Dishes for the Hostess, and the writer tells the story of one housekeeper suddenly surprised by ‘a guest of epicurean habits … with nothing more special than a broiled beefsteak as the main course of her meal.’ She comes up trumps with the steak and shows her resourcefulness with the potato dish.
Delicious Potato Fluff.
… made of six leftover potatoes, which in less skillful hands might have been warmed up or fried.
The skins of these tubers were removed, and they were put through a colancer, after which there were added one gill of hot cream, a tablespoon of salt, a small piece of butter, and the well-beaten whites of three eggs. The preparation was cooked in a baking dish (using a moderate oven) until prettily browned all over, and was served at once.
Quotation for the Day.
How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to the young? Paul Sweeney.
In 1863 the Epidemiological Society of London conducted an inquiry into the state of health of young women employed in the large dressmaking and millinery houses of the West End of that city. Unfortunately the inquiry could not be completed because “the time which could be devoted to it proved to be too short for its successful prosecution.” The contributing reasons for the difficulty in completing the study are in themselves very illuminating. The young women “lived in” at the great houses, and worked punishing hours, especially during “the season”, so could only be examined“after work hours or during a short relaxation from business late in the evening and then for a brief time only.” Another factor was that “the examined were very reticent” – a similar issue to that which had “to a great extent foiled the official investigations of the First Children's Employment Commission and of the Select Committee of the House of Lords in 1853 on this subject.
The reason for the reticence on the part of the employees was obvious. The young women were concerned “lest they should in some way or other compromise themselves with their employers … some declined because they held that it would not be right to give information concerning the state of the employed and internal economy of the houses of business in which they were living … ”. Some employees “freely avowed that the existing state of things in millinery and dressmaking so far as the employed were concerned was as a rule most unsatisfactory, but they maintained that it would not be honourable whilst eating the bread and living under the roof of an employer to make any statement which might be prejudicial to him whatever just source of complaint there might be.”
The working day usually started at 8.30 or 9, and a 12 hour day was usual - but during the peak season, the women often worked until the early hours of the morning. The arrangements for food and meals in four “first-class” houses (of dressmaking an millinery” were included in the report. This is the report from house number IV.
"Breakfast at 7 am summer: 8 am winter: tea bread and butter. Dinner from 1 to 2 pm Chiefly beef and mutton, sometimes roast, sometimes boiled beef, steak pies, cabbage pies, kidney pies. Monday “resurrection pie” and potatoes. Tuesday hot joint, but not regularly. Wednesday, cold joint. Thursday, boiled salt beef. Friday, cold boiled beef Saturday, beef steak pudding, Yorkshire pudding with roast joint. Fruit puddings or pies very rarely. Rarely any vegetable but potatoes.Sameness of meat and vegetables repulsive. Cooking very inferior. Tea - hour very irregular - from 5 to 7 pm: tea, bread and butter. Supper 10 pm at the earliest: bread and cheese sometimes butter.
Occasionally an egg in place of cheese or butter. No occasional refreshment however late work may be protracted. A very limited quantity of beer allowed. The meals are not nicely served The food is placed on the table in a disorderly manner and the table linen and furniture are far from clean. The drinking vessels are pot mugs not glasses. The quantity of food is not stinted and the quality is very fair if it were properly prepared."
All I can say is - Thank goodness for modern labour laws!
It is the “resurrection pie” that captures my imagination today. It refers to a pie made from the previous weeks leftovers and scraps (a concept we came across in a previous post), often served in boarding schools and similar institutions. I have seen one reference to a similar concept being called “Gunpowder Pie”, on account of the large amount of pepper included to disguise the taste of the elderly ingredients. There is no “recipe” of course, by definition – a resurrection pie being a mere assembly of the detritus of the pantry, most usually, it seems, mixed with a lot of potato. Instead then, I give you a pie of potatoes only – with pepper (feel free to make it gunpowder-hot). The recipe is from the inimitable Dr William Kitchener’s Cook’s Oracle (1836).
Potato Pie.
Peel and slice your Potatoes very thin into a pie dish; between each layer of Potatoes put a little chopped onion (three quarters of an ounce of onion is sufficient for a pound of Potatoes); between each layer sprinkle a little pepper and salt; put in a little water and cut about two ounces of fresh butter into little bits and lay them on the top; cover it close with puff paste. It will take about an hour and a half to bake it.
N.B. The Yolks of four Eggs (boiled hard) may be added; and when baked a table spoonful of good Mushroom Catchup poured in through a funnel.
Obs. - Cauliflowers divided into mouthsful and Button Onions seasoned with Curry Powder &c make a favourite Vegetable Pie
Quotation for the Day.
If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
The English novelist Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) lived in Paris between 1903-1913. He invariably ate out in the first few years, before he married his French wife, Marguerite. Bennett could easily have been a restaurant reviewer, had he not been a novelist – if restaurant reviewing have been a regular profession back then. Many of his comments could apply equally well today, to dining in any big city.
On this day in 1904 he recorded his diary his impressions of the meal he had eaten at Paillard’s – supposedly one of the best restaurants in the city – the previous day.
“Yesterday when I was in Paillard’s it occurred to me that the difference between the most excessively chic restaurant and an ordinary good one is very slight. Paillard’s has the reputation of being the best, or one of the three best in Paris, and therefore in the world. Yet it is small, and not in the least luxurious, and the waiting is no better than it is elsewhere. The monde has no special appearance of smartness. The food was very good, and so was the wine. But scarcely appreciably better than at Sylvains, Maire’s or Noel and Peters. And the prices were about 25 per cent dearer that at those other places – not more. In the evening, at Boulant, I had for 6d. a bifteck and soufflé potatoes beter than which could not be obtained anywhere, at no matter what price. When you have thoroughly good, well-flavoured, tender meat, perfectly cooked – you cannot surpass that.”
Souffle Potatoes
Peel the potatoes to oval shape. Do not wash but wipe with a napkin. Cut lengthwise in strips about an eighth of an inch in thickness. Place in swimming fat or hot lared that is merely warm and put on fire to get hot. When the potatoes are nearly done they will swim on top of the fat and swell up like little cushions. When all are on top take out and throw into very hot fat to color them. Remove, salt, and serve on napkin. The Hotel St Francis Cook Book. Victor Hirtzler, 1919.
Today, let us imagine we are back in those glorious (if you were rich) between-war years. It is the morning of April 9, 1927, and we are returning from our European holiday aboard the Red Star Line’s passenger steamship SS ‘Arabic’. We left Antwerp on April 1, are scheduled to arrive in New York on April 11 (but will not get in into the following day.)
It was a lovely evening, last evening, was it not? A fine dinner and some dancing with some fine fellow-guests. It is cool, this early morning somewhere in the Atlantic. We have had our early morning stroll around the deck. Now, the first big decision for the day. What to have for breakfast?
That meal was so good that I think we will lunch aboard SS ‘Arabic’ tomorrow.
What did you choose?
Two things intrigue me on this menu. A breakfast cereal called Force? As in ‘May the Force be with you’? A great name for a breakfast cereal. Anyone know what happened to it?
The second thing is the Potatoes Lord Byron. I think potatoes are an under-rated and under-used breakfast opportunity, and I am particularly intrigued by the name of this dish. Byron on one occasion (during one of his eating disorder episodes) disgusted his host by eschewing all the fine dishes put in front of him in favour of mashed up potatoes doused in vinegar.
There are several variations of the dish called Pommes Byron. Most start with a baked potato, and include butter, cream, and cheese – a far cry from the abomination created by Byron himself, and no doubt invented by a disgusted chef who felt that potatoes were destined for higher things.
Here is Escoffier’s recipe. It is a variation of Pommes Macaire, so I give this first.
Pommes Macaire
Bakes some Dutch potatoes in the oven. As soon as they are done, empty them and collect their pulp on a dish; season it with salt and pepper, and work it with a fork; adding to it, the while, 1 ½ oz butter per lb.
Spread this preparation in the form of a galette on the bottom of an omelette pan containing some very hot clarified butter, and brown it well on both sides.
Pommes de Terre Byron.
Prepare the amount of Pommes Macaire, and cook in butter in a small frying pan. Dish; sprinkle copiously with cream and grated cheese, and set to glaze quickly.
Quotation for the Day.
What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow. A.A.Milne
The source from yesterday, the Australian wartime book edited by Dr. Phyllis Cilento (The Truth and Daily Mirror Cookery Book, c1943) contains numerous ‘austerity’ dishes. In view of the economic doom and gloom, it may be as well to have a few of these up our community sleeves.
There are recipes for sugarless cakes and butterless biscuits and so on, but I am particularly attracted by the recipes that have ‘austerity’ in the title. No harm in advertising the fact to those who dine at your table that you are doing your bit.
Here is a complete austerity dinner for you:
Austerity Spiced Steak.
Take one pound of beef steak (cheap cut), and cut into squares about two inches; roll in a little sugar and nutmeg, then in flour, and put into a piedish. Mix one tablespoonful each of tomato and Worcester sauce, and one cup of cold water, and pour this over the meat; cover with a lid and bake in a moderate oven for two hours. Serve with mashed potatoes and vegetables.
Austerity Potatoes.
Required: Potatoes, breadcrumbs, milk, butter, salt, water. Use half usual quantity of potatoes, cut into quarters, boil in a little salted water. When cooked, drain off water, but leave a little in the saucepan. Add breadcrumbs, 1 tablespoon to every two medium-sized potatoes, mix with vegetable so that crumbs take up water. Let stand few minutes, add lump butter, and little warm milk. Mash thoroughly. Little chopped onion or parsley may be added if liked.
Austerity Ginger Pudding.
Required: ¼ lb butter or dripping, ½ cup sugar, 1 egg, 1 ½ cup treacle or golden syrup, 1 cup milk, 4 cups flour, 3 teasp ginger, 2 teasp spice, 1 teasp cinnamon, 1 teasp soda bicarb. Cream butter, sugar, add egg, beat well, add treacle, beat again. Sift all dry ingredients together add alternately with milk. Bake in a well buttered tin 1 ½ hours slow oven. Serve with sauce made from 1 tabsp syrup mixed with ½ pint hot water, thickened with a little blended arrowroot.
Quotation for the Day …
Frugality … It is not equivalent to parsimony, the latter being an excess of frugality and a fault. Frugality is always a virtue. Nor is it synonymous with thrift, in its proper sense; for thrift is the effect of frugality. Webster's, 1st ed., 1828
A friend once said that he hadn’t yet met a potato he didn’t like (you know who you are.) I feel the same way myself – with the exception of the sort of mashed potatoes that manage in one and the same mouthful to be watery/gluey/gritty/crunchy. I live in terror that the low-carb fashion presages the extinction of the potato. I feel the need to start a Potato Fan Club, or a Save the Potato Campaign. The very least I should do is pay attention to the Fun with Potatoes archive, and bring it over to this blog from the defunct Companion Site.
It was all very different in WW II. The specially created ‘Potato Pete’ character promoted himself as an energy food, a protective food and a good soup-maker. He was also used in bread, to eke out precious wheat. The Ministry of Food’s Food Facts Leaflet No. 29 (February 1941) focused on the potato – and, listen to this and weep with nostalgia, you potato lovers! - the Ministry recommended potatoes THREE TIMES A DAY.
"Potatoes help to protect you from illness. Potatoes give you warmth and energy. Potatoes are cheap and home-produced. So why stop at serving them once a day? Have them twice, or even three times – for breakfast, dinner, and supper."
To remind you of the reasons to eat potatoes (including the patriotic), the leaflet provided this jingle:
P’s for Protection Potatoes afford’ O for the Ounces of Energy stored; T’s for Tasty, and Vitamin rich in; A’s for the Art to be learned in the kitchen; T’s for the Transport we need not demand; O’s for Old England’s Own Food from the land; E’s for the Energy eaten by you; S’s for the Spuds that will carry us through.
Potatoes are indeed nutritious. What we do to them often destroys the good stuff in potatoes and adds a whole lot more of the bad stuff. An average-sized baked potato is about 150 gm. Naked except for its own skin, it is virtually fat-free (and you cant say that about any naked human) contains about the same protein as half a glass of milk, the same amount of potassium as a banana, almost half the daily requirement of Vitamin C, and goodly amounts of lots of other vitamins and minerals. All this in return for about 26 gms of of carbohydrate (only 1 gm of which is in the form of sugars), lots of bowel-friendly fibre, and a total of 110 calories. Sounds like a good set of trade-offs to me.
A couple of weeks ago I gave you the recipe for Potato Coffee Scones from this leaflet. Today, to assist you to eat potatoes three times a day, I give you this recipe – adaptable to any meal as it points out, and I am sure would adapt well to other fillings. Maybe finger food for your next party? At least they are not deep-fried.
Surprise Potato Balls.
Cook 1 lb. potatoes and beat well with a fork. Add a large grated carrot, 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley and some salt and pepper. Use a little milk, if necessary, to bind the mixture, but do not make it wet. Form into balls. Make a hole in eat, drop in a small teaspoonful of sweet pickle, and close the hole. Roll the balls in browned breadcrumbs, place on a greased baking sheet. Bake in a moderate oven for 15 to 20 minutes. These are good for any and every meal.
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 Pettee, 'Prayer and Potatoes'
I have been considering the history of bouillon cubes recently, to determine what role they will play in my forthcoming book Soup: A Global History. In my own growing-up life in the North of England, with my dear mother who hated cooking, there was only one player – the OXO cube.
The OXO company developed out of the nineteenth century Liebig Extract of Meat Company. The little foil-wrapped cubes that I remember from my childhood developed out of the liquid extract, but OXO had already indisputably been part of the British food tradition for many decades. The history of the company itself is worthy of a blog post, but today because of time constraints I want to go straight to an interesting recipe. It comes from a product advertisement during World War I, from a newspaper dated December 12, 1917. The ad urges the use of OXO ‘To make many inexpensive delicious dishes which will to a great extent take the place of a meat course, and help to save rations.’
Curried Mayonnaise of Vegetables.
Ingredients: Cooked vegetables, such as potatoes, spinach, carrots, onion (about 2 lb in all.) 2 teaspoonfuls of OXO, 2 oz. dripping, 1 dessertspoonful of curry powder, a small piece of butter, 1 teaspoonful of flour, salt, pepper, and a little lemon juice.
Cut all the vegetables into neat pieces, mix them together. Melt the dripping in a frying-pan and add the vegetables. Toss them about in the pan until they are thoroughly hot. Then dissolve the OXO in a little hot water, and mix with the curry powder, stir into the vegetables. Add a piece of butter and a dust of flour, and stir until all are well mixed. Season with salt and a sprinkle of lemon juice just before serving. Send to table with a dish of nicely boiled rice.
What intrigued me about this recipe (it was certainly no anticipated deliciousness!) was the name – ‘mayonnaise’ as a noun referring to a dish thickened with flour! Anyone else seen the word used this way?
Quotation for the Day …
Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion. Ambrose Bierce.
The problem with many early recipes (16th – mid 18th centuries) is being sure what is meant by “potato” as often sweet potato was intended, and the earliest known written recipe for “Earth Apples” (German, 1581) is now thought to refer to a type of squash.
The following recipe seems to clearly mean Solanum tuberosum, and is an interesting cook-in-a jar method.
To make a Potatoe Herrico.
Scrape the skin clean off four pounds of good raw potatoes, then wash them clean; take two pounds of beef, one of mutton, and one of pork; or, as you like best, four pounds of any of these meats; cut them into pieces of three or four pounds each, season them very well with pepper and salt, and a good onion chopped very small; have ready a strong wide mouthed jar such as hares are usually jugged in; slice a thin layer of the potatoes into the jar, then a layer of the seasoned meat over them, and so alternately layers of potatoes and meat; let your uppermost layer be potatoes, so that your jar be about three quarters full, but put no water into your jar; then close or stop the mouth of it with a large well-fitted cork, covering the same with a strong piece of canvas, and tying it down with pack thread, so as only a little of the steam may escape in stewing; for a little should constantly evaporate from the sides of the cork to save the jar from bursting. Then place your jar up right in a kettle of cold water on the fire, so as the mouth of the jar may be always two inches above the water in the kettle, when boiling. The herrico in the jar will begin to boil some minutes sooner than the water in the kettle, and that for obvious reasons. In about an hour after the water in the kettle begins to boil, your herrico will be fully stewed. Then take out and open the jar, pour out the herrico into a deep dish, and serve it up.
[Taylor, E, “The lady’s, housewife’s, and cookmaid’s assistant: or, the art of cooker, explained and adapted to the meanest capacity … ”; 1778]
IN A PAPER BAG:
If you don’t have a jar to cook your spuds in, you could try cooking them in a paper-bag, as promoted by Nicolas Soyer, the grandson of Alexis Soyer, and author of “Paper Bag Cookery” (1911).
Here is how:
New Potatoes.
Peel, halve and put sufficient in a paper-bag for three persons with three tablespoonsfuls of cold water. Add one leaf of mint and a little salt. Seal up bag. Place gently on the broiler. Allow 30 to 35 minutes in hot oven. All potatoes should be cut in two.
Baked Potatoes.
Thoroughly wash twelve good sized potatoes. Make a few small slits in them but do not peel. Place in a paper-bag with one tablespoonful of water. Cook for 35 to 40 minutes, according to size.
Potatoes Chateau.
Peel and blanch two dozen small potatoes and drain well, Put htem in a bag and add two ounces of butter. Seal up and bake in a very hot oven for 35 minutes. Place on a very hot dish, season to taste, and serve.
Potatoes Paysanne.
Cut half-a-dozen good-sized peeled potatoes into large dice; parboil for a minute or so. Place in a paper-bag and add a chopped onion, four ounces of ham finely diced, and two ounces of butter. Seal up and bake for 30 minutes.
Potatoes Mâitre d’Hotel.
Cut up six cold boiled potatoes, place in a well buttered bag, add half a glass of milk, salt and pepper, an ounce of butter, a little chopped parsley, and grated nutmeg. Cook for 15 minutes.
FOR AMUSEMENT.
You don’t have to buy a Potato-Man kit to have fun with potatoes, some recipes sound like fun just on account of their names.
Surprise Potatoes.
Wash some large potatoes, but do not peel them; cut a small piece off the top and scoop out the centre; fill with sausage meat; replace the lid and bake in rather a hot oven from one to one and a half hours; a slice should also be cut from the bottom part of the potatoes, that they may stand flat on the dish.
[From: “The Day by Day Cookery Book”; Mrs A.N. Whybrow; 1900]
Potatoes for Pilgrims.
(a Trappist recipe).
Boil six or eight potatoes, and cut them in slices. Make a little frying batter, and dip in it half a dozen onions thinly sliced; fry these in hot fat, and when they are browned, put the potatoes into the pan with them. Pour over them as much milk as will barely cover them. Sprinkle powdered sugar upon them, let them stew gently a short time, and serve very hot. Time to stew, five or six minutes. Probable cost, 8d. Sufficient for four or five persons.
Frying batter.
To four ounces of flour add a gill of lukewarm water, a pinch of salt, and two-tablespoonfuls of salad oil. Let the mixture stand awhile, and, before using, dash in the whites of two eggs whisked till firm.
[Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery; 1870’s]
Potato Snow
The Potatoes must be free from spots, and the whitest you can pick out; put them on in cold water; when they begin to crack, strain the water from them, and put them into a clean stew-pan by the side of the fire until they are quite dry, and fall to pieces; rub them through a wire sieve on the dish they are to be sent up in, and do not disturb them afterwards.
[Kitchiner; Cook’s Oracle; 1845]
Shoo-fly Potatoes.
There is a machine which comes for the purpose of cutting shoo-fly potatoes; it costs two dollars and a half. The potatoes are cut into long strips like macaroni, excepting that the sides are square instead of round. They are thrown into boiling lard, sprinkled with salt as soon as done, and served as a vegetable alone, or as a garnish around meat. (1878)
[Story of July 4th 2006]
FOR ALL CLASSES:
Potatoes are the most versatile of vegetables, suitable for your guests whichever stratum of society they represent.
For the Working Class, from Francatelli’s “A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes”( 1861)
Potato Pie.
Slice up four onions and boil them in a saucepan with two ounces of butter, a quart of water, and pepper and salt, for five minutes; then add four pounds of potatoes, peeled and cut in slices; stew the whole until the potates are done, and pour them into a pie-dish; cover this with stiff mashed potatoes, and bake the pie of a light colour.
For the Middle Class, from the “Middle Class Cookery Book”, The Manchester School of Domestic Economy and Cookery, 1903
Potato Salad.
2 large cooked Potatoes; ½ Teaspoonful Salt; ¼ Teaspoonful Black Pepper; 2 Pickled Gherkins; 2 Tablespoonfuls Oil; 1 Tablespoonful Vinegar.
Cut the potatoes into slices about half an inch thick, or rather less; divide these into dice; divide the gherkins lengthwise; cut into pieces; mix with the potatoes in a salad bowl, Mix the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper well together; pour over the potatoes.
For the High Class guest, a recipe from “High Class Cookery Recipes”; The National Training School for Cookery, Mrs. Charles Clarke; 1893
Pommes de Terre à l’Anna.
Two pounds of Potatoes; two ounces of grated Cheese; one and a half ounces of Butter; Salt and pepper; one teaspoonful of chopped Parsley.
Butter a plated dish, peel the potatoes and cut them into rather thin slices. Lay these slices in close even rows on the dish, and sprinkle over them the cheese, salt, pepper, and parsley; put a piece of butter here and there on the top, and bake in a moderate oven for an hour and a quarter.
RANDOM FUN.
Potato and Pop Corn Balls.
Mix two cupsful of hot mashed potatoes, one teaspoonful of chopped onion, one tablespoonful of chopped parsley, two tablespoonfuls of butter, salt and pepper to taste, then shape them into small balls, open the center and put in some popped corn – Nelson’s makes the crisp and flaky grains – place on a buttered dish and cook in a moderate oven a quarter of an hour, sprinkle ground popped corn over them before removing from the oven, and serve alone or with tomato sauce.
