Yellow today.

Colouring food with various things natural and unnatural has a long history, and not just to give an entire dish a new colour. Sometimes food colouring has been used like paint. There are many references in medieval records of feast dishes decorated to look like heraldic symbols for example. Moving forward to the nineteenth century, in 1846 Alexis Soyer greatly impressed the visiting Pasha of Egypt with an edible portrait on a pineapple cream.

Cream of Egypt à l’lbrahim Pacha … an elegant cream à l’ananas, … What was his Highness's astonishment however, on again looking at the spot, to observe in the cream, as under a glass, a highly-finished portrait of himself, surrounded by a very carefully-executed frame. … “The portrait in the cream is drawn on wafer-paper, which being placed on the damp jelly representing the glass, dissolves, and nothing remains of the wafer-paper but the appearance of the portrait painted in light water-colours. Tbe imitation of the gilt frame is made with the eau de vie of Dantzic and gold water mixed with the jelly, the gold leaf of which forms the frame.” … Though everything was eatable in it, this magnificent dish was respected, and remained untouched until the end of the banquet, though everybody tried to partake of the fruit which surrounded it.

A chef with a truly artistic touch! I do wonder if the ‘light water-colors’ were truly edible however.

Yesterday it was cochineal that caught my eye, but other red colourings that have been used in the past are sandalwood, brazilwood, red fruits such as redcurrants, barberries, and pomegranate juice, or beets, crushed red roses, and alkanat or orchanet (a plant of the borage family). All very natural, as is a another red called vermilion, which comes from the natural mineral cinnabar, and consists of mercuric sulphide, which is a very dangerous natural toxin. Think on this sort of thing next time you find yourself attracted to a package that says ‘all natural’ ingredients. It is a marketing phrase, my friends, nothing more. I doubt that vermilion is used anywhere in food today, as we have Allura Red (E129) instead, and probably others, which is quite unnatural and may or may not be harmful.

It was red yesterday, so it is yellow today. Yellow colourings used in the past are safron, yellow lily, and things such as ‘yellow smalt’ made from natural minerals and used as paint pigment. Today, saffron is so prohibitively expensive that we would not be likely to use it just for colour, and I shudder to think how much this recipe for yellow colouring would cost.

Yellow Colour.
Yellow Colour for the ornamentation of pastry must be prepared by placing an ounce of hay-saffron in a sugar-pan with a gill and a half of water, a small quantity of alum, and half an ounce of sugar. Se the pan on the fire, let the liquid boil for ten minutes, then pass it through a napkin.
Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery. London. c1817.

(Hay saffron is the crocus stigmas dried in their loose state, not compressed into cakes. It is the most desirable, partly because it is more difficult to adulterate.)

Nowadays, turmeric is a cheaper substitute when a yellow is wanted, and here it is in pickle. - where it very advantageously also adds its flavour. Or is it that it coincidentally adds its colour?

Yellow Pickle.
Take six firm heads of cabbage, take off all the loose leaves, quarter them and dip them separately in a kettle of boiling water; lay them in dishes, and sprinkle them well with salt; lay them in the sun until the water is pretty well drained from them, then dip them separately in strong, boiling vinegar; let them be well saturated. Prepare your spice; an ounce of cinnamon, an ounce of cloves, one of mace, black pepper, orange-peeling, and ginger; let them be all well pounded. Three ounces of white mustard-seed, scald them in vinegar and let them stand and soak at least two hours; a half pound of horseradish, nicely sliced in long narrow pieces, these must be scalded also, as you do the mustard-seed. Then take a stone jar, put in a layer of cabbage, a layer of spice, horseradish, and mustard-seed, and a bag of tumerick, about as large as a hickory nut, then another layer of cabbage, then one of spice, horseradish, mustard-seed, and another bag of tumerick. On the top layer put a bag holding a half ounce of tumerick, then fill up with cold vinegar; have your jar air-tight, and do not disturb it for at least three months; they are always best when undisturbed, for at least a year. I have seen pickles made by this receipt, seven years old, which were delicious. Pickles should always be kept a long time before using them.
The Great Western Cook Book, or Table Receipts, Adapted to Western Housewifery.
New York. 1857.

Quotation for the Day …

I'm frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes ... have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I've never tasted it. Alfred Hitchcock.

A Georgian Dinner.

This is Georgian week and I can do no better than give you a menu from our old friend Parson Parson James Woodforde. In his diary on this day in 1780 he wrote:

“Mr Custance ...asked me to dine with the Company at Ringland at 2 o’clock ….We had for dinner a Calf’s Head, boiled Fowl and tongue, a Saddle of Mutton rosted on the Side Table, and a fine Swan rosted with Currant Jelly Sauce for the first course. The Second Course a couple of Wild Fowl called Dun Fowls, Larks, Blamange, Tarts etc etc and a good Desert of Fruit after amongst which was a Damson Cheese. I never eat a bit of Swan before, and think it good eating with sweet sauce. The Swan was killed 3 weeks before it was eat and not yet the lest bad taste in it.”

Swan might have impressed Parson James, but I have never fancied it, which is just as well as it is as impossible to get as the elusive Bath Chaps I have been seeking this week. If you want to roast a swan, and can get one legally, there is a previous post on how to do it.

A Damson Cheese is the dish of the day. A ‘cheese’ can be anything that is made in a mould, like cheese. It is a French concept, so in France you can have a fromage glacé, if you want ice-cream, or if you really want to get confused you can order a fromage d’Italie, which is sometimes a Bologna sausage. The idea is very old. It is overcooked jam, really. The modern version are the fruit ‘cheeses’ made into chewy little strips for children’s lunch boxes, or little blocks of quince paste to put on the cheese platter. It is the candy you have when you should be having fruit.

Here is Mrs. Rundell (1824) again.

Damson Cheese.
Bake or boil the fruit in a stone jar in a saucepan of water, or on a hot hearth. Pour off some of the juice, and to every two pounds of fruit weigh half a pound of sugar. Set the fruit over a fire in the pan, let it boil quickly till it begins to look dry; take out the stones and add the sugar, stir it well in, and simmer two hours slowly, then boil it quickly half an hour, till the sides of the pan candy; pour the jam then into potting-pans or dishes about an inche thick, so that it may cut firm. If the skins be disliked, then the juice is not to be taken out; but after the frist process, the fruit is to be pulped through a very coarse sieve with the juice, and managed as above. The stones are to be cracked, or some of them, and the kernels boiled with the jam. All the juice may be left in and boiled to evaporate, but do not add the sugar until it has done so. The above looks well in shapes.

Time for parents.

February 13

Were we living in Ancient Rome, today we would be preparing for Parentalia, the religious festival in honour of the dead – specifically the deceased from one’s own family. The festival lasted nine days, and during this time, families would make offerings of food - grain, bread, wine, salt etc – as well as flowers (especially violets and roses) at the tombs of their ancestors.

We have no such national festival today, at least in our modern Western culture. We do sometimes honour our ancestors however, (at least, our female ones) in quite a different way. If we are lucky, we have tatty old handwritten notebooks containing their family-famous recipes – and if we are very lucky indeed, their names live on in the recipe titles. Perhaps you are the proud guardian of of Aunt Gertrude’s famous Braised Okra with Rhubarb recipe, or Cousin Aggie’s Deep Fried Banana Muffins?

I would like to think that we might all consider cooking one of these family recipes, in our own private Parentalia week. If you do not have a scruffy, stained, hand-me-down cookbook, then do not let your descendants feel the loss – start one yourself immediately. In the meanwhile, feel free to adopt the following more generic “family” recipes, taken from various sources.

We have previously enjoyed “Mum’s Delight” from The Calendar of Puddings, by the Country Women’s Association of South Australia (undated but late 1950’s?), and from the same source I give you:

Auntie’s Pudding.
Rub one tablespoon butter into 1 cup S.R. flour and ½ cup sugar. Make into a soft dough with one beaten egg and ½ cup milk. Bake in a moderate oven, in greased piedish, about 40 minutes. This is nice with apples, jam, or treacle underneath.

The amazing Eliza Acton gives us, in her Modern Cookery for Private Families. 1845, the following:

The Good Daughter’s Mincemeat Pudding.
Author’s Receipt.
Lay into a rather deep tart-dish some thin slices of French roll, very slightly spread with butter and covered with a thick layer of mincemeat; place a second tier lightly on these, covered in the same way with the mincemeat; then pour gently in a custard made with three well-whisked eggs, three-quarters of a pint of new milk or thick cream, the slightest pinch of salt, and two ounces of sugar. Let the pudding stand to soak for an hour, then bake it gently until it is quite firm in the centre: this will be in from three-quarters of an hour to a full hour.

And finally, from Cassells’ Dictionary of Cookery (1870’s), here is:

Grandmama’s Pickle.
Take a sound white cabbage and a young cauliflower. Divide the latter into small sprigs, and cut the cabbage into thin shreds, in the same way as cabbage is cut for pickling. Spread them out on separate dishes, and cover them with salt. Let them remain forty-eight hours, then set the pieces of cauliflower on a sieve, and let them drain before the fire. Squeeze the salt from the cabbage with the hands, and put the cabbage and cauliflower in layers in pickle-bottles or jars. Boil as much vinegar as will amply cover them, allowing an inch of whole ginger, broken into pieces, half an ounce of mustard seed, and half an ounce of pepper, to every quart of vinegar. Let these ingredients boil together for two or three minutes, and when cold, pour them into the bottles. A tablespoonful of turmeric may be mixed with a little cold vinegar and added to the rest while boiling. Put the spices at the top of the pickles, and cover the jars closely. Fresh vinegar must be added when necessary.

Have fun.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Raisins of all sorts.

Quotation for the Day …

My family dumplings are sleek and seductive, yet stout and masculine. They taste of meat, yet of flour. They are wet, yet they are dry. They have weight, but they are light. Airy, yet substantial. Earth, air, fire, water; velvet and elastic! Meat, wheat and magic! They are our family glory! Robert Tristram Coffin (1892-1955)

The Scarcity Root.

Parson James Woodforde of Norfolk has left us with a wonderful legacy of descriptions of the food of the rural middle class in the second half of the 18th century, but on this day in 1787 he noted in his diary something of interest to himself as a farmer.

"Sr Wm. Jernegan sent me by Mr. custance a Treatise on the Plant called Scarcity Root"

The good parson was very up-to-date with his agricultural reading: the treatise was undoubtedly that of the Abbe de Commerell, who wrote the first known description in 1787 of a variety of yellow beet that was proving very useful as a fodder crop in the Rhineland. The origin of the name is interesting: originally "mangold wurzel", or "root of the beet", in a Chinese whispers sort of way it underwent a transformation to "mangel wurzel", meaning "Scarcity root", which was even more appropriate as the plant was able "to constantly thrive, and to produce a very great crop, even when other kinds of roots and vegetables fail, and when there is a general scarcity of forage".

Although this "edible and salutary" plant was primarily grown as animal fodder, it was edible for humans too. Although one writer did suggest it migh also "furnish an agreeable variety to the tables of the opulent", it eas the poor who were the usual recipients of this new agricultural largesse. The root itself may have been
cheap and wholesome", but it must also have been a culinary challenge; the leaves however were said to "exceed spinach", and the stems and stalks of the larger leaves "eat like asparagus".

Virtuously wholesome the root may have been, but delicious and appetising - possibly not. Time-honoured ways of dealing with very ordinary edibles include making them into alcohol, and pickling them. As befits its German origins, here is a recipe from "Mary at the farm and book of recipes compiled during her visit among the 'Pennsylvania Germans'", by Edith M. Thomas (1915)

Pickled Mangelwurzel.
A vegetable in taste, very similar to very sweet, red beets; in shape, greatly resembling carrots. Wash the manglewurzel and place in a stew-pan with boiling water ad cook until tender (allow about an inch of top to remain when preparing to cook). Skin the mangelwurzel, slice and pour over the following, which has been heated i a stew-pan over the fire: One cup of vinegar and water combined, one tablespoonful of sugar, one teaspoonful of salt, a dust of pepper. Stand aside till cold then serve. Or serve hot like buttered beets.

Tomorrow: Chicken Tetrazzini.

Post-Script ...

As for the alcohol, Mrs Dalgairns - who gave us a cheap treacle beer recipe in the March 30th story - also gives us a very canny Scots recipe for even cheaper mangel-wurzel beer.

Mangel-wurzel beer.

For a ten-gallon cask, boil in fourteen gallons of water sixty pounds of mangel-wurzel, which has been well washed and sliced across, putting some kind of weight on the roots to keep them under water; having boiled an hour and a half, they may be taken out, well broken, and all the liquor pressed from the roots; put it, and that in which they were boiled, on again to boil, with four ounces of hops; let them boil about an hour and a half, then cool the liquor, as quickly as possible, to 70° Fahrenheit; strain it through a thick cloth laid over a sieve or drainer; put it into the vat with about six ounces of good yeast, stir it well, cover it, and let it stand twenty-four hours; if the yeast has then well risen, skim it off, and barrel the beer, keeping back the thick sediment. While the fermentation goes on in the cask, it may be filled up the beer left over, or any other kind at hand; when the fermentation ceases, which may be in two or three days, the cask must be bunged up, and in a few days more, the beer may be used from the cask, or bottled.

These small proportions are here given to suit the convenience of the humblest labourer; but the beer will be better made in larger quantities; and its strength may be increased by adding a greater proportion of mangel-wurzel. By this receipt, good keeping table-beer will be obtained.

Quotation for the Day ...

In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is strength, in water there is bacteria. David Auerbach.

Another sort of shipboard victuals.

Today, December 20 …

In 1853, the good ship “Sir Edward Parry” left Plymouth on this day, bound for South Australia, its passengers hungry for the gold recently discovered in the colony. They were usually pretty hungry on the three month voyage too.

The recommended ration for adults aboard emigrant ships run by “respectable shipowners” was:

Every day: 8oz. of “ships’ biscuit”, 6 oz. flour, 3 oz. oatmeal, and 3 Quarts of water.
Meat: Saturdays: 8 oz. Beef ; Monday, Wednesday and Friday: 6 oz. pork; Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday: 8 oz preserved meat.
Weekly: Coffee: 2 oz.; Tea 1 ½ oz; Treacle 8 oz.; Raisins 8 oz; Suet 6 oz; Pease 2/3 pint; Rice 12 oz; Butter 4 oz; Cheese 4 oz; Preserved Potatoes 8 oz.
Also each week: mixed pickles one gill; mustard, ½ oz., salt 2 oz. and pepper ½ oz.

Many passengers supplemented the ration with personal supplies, but it was still pretty grim fare for most, particularly when you take into account that the flour and biscuit would almost certainly have been weevily, and the meat so heavily salted and tough as to be uneatable except by the very hungry.

The preserved potatoes were almost always hated. One emigrant to New Zealand in 1879 wrote “We had preserved potatoes today for the first time. None of our Mess could eat them so we threw them overboard”. Many preserving methods were tried, but the usual method for use at sea involved covering them with quicklime, which must certainly have added something to the flavour. A simple drying method would have kept them more palatable, but keeping them dry on board ship would have been impossible.

If you have a bumper crop, you could try the recipe from the very useful book “Enquire Within Upon Everything” (1894).

Preserving Potatoes
The preservation of potatoes by dipping them in boiling water is a valuable and useful discovery. Large quantities may be cured at once, by putting them into a basket as large as the vessel containing the boiling water will admit, and then just dipping them a minute or two, at the utmost. The germ, which is so near the skin, is thus destroyed without injury to the potato. In this way several tons might be cured in a few hours. They should be then dried in a warm oven, and laid up in sacks, secure from the frost, in a dry place.

Tomorrow: Drowning in Armagnac.

The goodly litter of the cupboard.

Today, December 16th …

Today is the traditional beginning of the mince(meat) pie season, so if you haven’t organised your supply by now, it is almost too late.

We don't put meat in our mincemeat now, partly because we have lost our taste for sweet-savoury foods, but also because we no longer need to preserve meat this way. A pie with a thick crust, unless it got damp or cracked, would keep meat for a long time before refrigeration.

Mince pies evolved from the special occasion “plum porridge” mixture that also gave us Christmas cake and pudding. At Christmas, the “ goodly litter of the cupboard, thus various in kind and aspect, was carefully swept into one common receptacle; the mingled mass enveloped in pastry and enclosed within the duly heated oven … ” and Lo! Mince Pies!

They were briefly banned during the Puritan era, along with everything else that was fun, one killjoy writer even going so far as to describe them as “idolatry in crust”, but thankfully they were restored to the Christmas menu with the Restoration of the monarchy. Sometimes they were very large, and the envy of foreign visitors to England, such as the Frenchman M. Misson. In 1698 he wrote that "Every family against Christmas makes a famous Pye, which they call Christmas Pye. It is a great Nostrum the Composition of this Pasty. It is a most learned Mixture of Neats-tongues, Chicken, Eggs, Sugar, Raisins, Lemon and Orange Peel, various kinds of Spices etc."

If you want extra Christian symbolism with your traditional pie, you can make them crib-shaped (they used to also be called “crib pies”) to represent the manger, and add three spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves) to represent the gifts of the three wise men. If you want extra secular tradition with the tradition, eat one every day of the twelve days of Christmas (until January 6th) to have twelve lucky months.

In Queensland of course, at this time of the year “the goodly litter of the cupboard” includes mangoes, so here is a mincemeat recipe from the Australian Women’s Mirror in 1932.

Queensland Mincemeat.
Peel and slice enough green mangoes to make, when run through mincer 1 cup of pulp (minus excess juice). Add ½ cup sugar, 1 cup currants, 1 cup raisins cut up finely, 2 heaped Tabs. Home-made orange marmalade, 1 heaped Tbs. Butter and 1 ½ tsp. Mixed spice. Mix thoroughly.

On Monday: Some baloney about Bologna.

2006 Update: There is a collection of Vintage Christmas Recipes HERE.

A prophet in the kitchen.

Today, December 14 …

Michel de Nostredame, better known by his Latinised name of Nostradamus was born on this day in Provence in 1503. What has this “prophet” got to do with food, you ask? Well, it just goes to show that the interest in his “prophesies” is so great that it has completely overwhelmed his work as a physician. And what has his work as a physician got to do with food, you ask? Well, in those days they believed that medicine was food, and food was medicine – a modern idea, no?

His “prophesies” were written in such obscure and convoluted language that they may be interpreted as broadly as the interpreter wishes. Luckily, his other book, “An excellent and most useful little work essential to all who wish to become acquainted with some exquisite recipes”, also published in 1555, is much more straightforward.

There were numerous jellies and sweetmeats amongst the more obviously medicinal recipes, including this one:

How to make a jam or preserve with heart-cherries, which the Italians call 'amarenes'.
Take some of the nicest heart-cherries you can find, good and ripe … Take three pounds or so of them. Then take a pound-and-a-half of sugar, and let it dissolve in the juice of three or four pounds of other heart-cherries. And take care that once the juice has been extracted you add it to the sugar at once. .. Boil it up as quickly as possible … When you have removed all the scum and can see that your sugar is as red as it was to start with and is thoroughly clarified, … immediately put in the heart-cherries to boil, stirring them neither too much nor too little, until they are perfect, all the while removing the scum on the top with a spatula. Do not take them off the fire until they are cooked right through ... Then put one drop on a pewter plate, and once you see that it will not run down in either direction, they are ready. … pour them while still hot into small containers holding three or four ounces each. You will then have beautiful red, whole heart-cherries with a wonderful taste that will keep for a long time.

… if a sick person takes just a single one, it will be to him like a balsam or other restorative.
Might come in handy for the post-Christmas sloth, yes?

Tomorrow: Sex and Science in the kitchen.

Marmalade, madams, and maladies

Today, November 4th …

Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary on this day in 1663 “Home to dinner and very pleasant with my wife, who is this day also herself making of Marmalett of Quince, which she now doth very well herself.”

Elizabeth’s marmalade would have been a dry paste such as we now eat with cheese - cut with a knife, stored in boxes and served as an after dinner sweetmeat. Over time, other fruit came to be used such as “Wardens, peares, apples, & Medlars, Seruits or Checkers, strawberys everyone by him selfe or els mixt it together as you think good.” Eventually it became our familiar citrus jelly with rind suspended in it, perfect for spreading on breakfast toast.

For some odd reason the Scots have claimed marmalade as their own by perpetuating a couple of myths. One idiotic explanation for the name “marmalade” is that it came from the medicinal use of candied orange (“to cool the stomach”) by Mary Queen of Scots, who suffered sea-sickness on her voyage from France to Scotland in 1561 - hence “Marie est malade” became “marmalade”. The word of course comes from the Portuguese word “marmelo” for quince, and was in use well before Mary’s travels. “Modern” orange marmalade was also decidedly not invented by Janet Keillor of Dundee in 1797, there being recogniseable recipes for it from almost a century before.

If not a medicinal excuse to indulge, why not aphrodisiacal? Quinces were always believed to be aphrodisiacs, and oranges were extravagant (therefore enticing) delicacies in the seventeenth century, so the reputation became attached to marmalade, which is probably why prostitutes were called “marmalade madams” in Pepys’ time.

Perhaps Mrs Pepys had a copy of “The French Cook…” by La Varenne (1653), which contained this recipe:

How to make the Marmalat of Quinces of Orleans.
Take fifteen pounds of Quinces, three pounds of sugar, and two quarts of water, boil all together; after it is well sod, pass it by little and little through a napkin, and take out of it what you can; then put your decoction in a bason with four pounds of sugar, seeth it, for to know when it is enough, trie it on a plate, and when it doth come off, take it quickly from the fire, and set it up in boxes, or somewhere else.

Aphrodisiac anyone?

On Monday … Elephant (not) on the menu.