Household Hints, Part 1.

I am particularly fond of the sort of household manual that is not afraid to meet the challenge of assisting the housewife to cope with the myriad demands that the role requires. Sadly, no-one seems to publish these any more, and I am left to fend for myself in the matter of removing stains from silk gowns, making blacking for the stove, and concocting remedies for the green sickness. The Victorian housewife was luckier, for the publishing industry went wild for these books at the time, and she had a vast choice of such books to make her life easier, her servants better behaved, and her husband happier.

Methinks that there may still be much to learn from these books, in spite of their advice being nearly two hundred years old. To test the theory, I went first to Household Hints to Young Housewives, published in London in 1852. I chose this one because of the author’s name - or rather, her pseudonym – ‘Mary Careful.’ The name itself positively breathes reassurance, doesn’t it? It is just the thing that a new bride needs. The fact that the author chose a pseudonym is interesting in itself too. It is difficult to imagine, living in an age when celebrity rules as it seems to do today, that anyone wanting to publish a cookery book – or any book for that matter – would choose anonymity.

Mary Careful, in her lengthy preface, mentions her seventy-five years, her arthritis and her eight sons as if these in themselves give her some authenticity – and perhaps they do. She advises the newly-wedded wives to whom the book is addressed that ‘the helm of a vessel fully freighted with affection, wealth, and happiness is placed in your hand to guide – one false step may cast you on a rock of sorrow.’ The advice in her book will ‘place young housekeepers at once within the magic ring of wedded happiness’ by assisting them with ‘the trifles which make up the sum of human bliss.’ Now, I say without fear of correction, that those sentiments are not to be found in any current books on cookery or marriage, or life, - seafaring for that matter.

Mrs Careful gives some sample menus and this one caught my eye for its odd fragment of food etiquette advice below the menu proper.

MONDAY’S DINNER.

Soles – Melted Butter

Minced Beef, with Potatoe Wall.

Bread and Butter Pudding.

Spinach.

It is not etiquette to serve up potatoes with fish. If you fancy them, a distinct order must be given.

Believe me, faithfully yours

Martha Careful.

I have never come across this piece of advice before, and this demonstrates to me the need for a return of the general household manual. I might have been saved from the culinary faux pas of serving potatoes with fish, had I had the benefit of such a manual on my kitchen bookshelves in my formative cooking years.

Perhaps it was part of the longstanding prejudice (and its accompanying misinformation) about potatoes that persisted into the early nineteenth century? Another book of the time,
Cottage comforts, with hints for promoting them, gleaned from experience: enlivened with authentic anecdotes, by Esther Copley (London, 1830), has this to say:

Potatoes should not be boiled in the liquor of which soup is made; they render it unwholesome. If you choose to have potatoes with your soup, let them be boiled in another vessel.

Another regular bad habit of mine exposed – actually cooking potatoes in the soup.

A second, minor point: I am equally intrigued by Mrs Careful’s placing of the spinach on her menu after the pudding.

Here is her recipe for the pudding, which is a rather nice version of this English staple.

Bread and Butter Pudding.

Cut very thin bread and butter; grate on it lemon peel, almond and nutmeg; place it in layers in a dish, strewing a few well washed currants or marmalade between each piece; till the dish up with custard a quarter of an hour before baking; a quart dish will require three quarters of an hour. The pudding may be turned out on a flat dish, and powdered with white sugar.

Custard for this, or any baked pudding, is made as follows:—Beat three eggs with whites, well sweeten and flavour it, then stir it into pint of new milk. An extra egg will increase the richness when required, and varied flavourings can be used—lemon, almond, noyeau, ratafia, cinnamon, coriander, orange, nutmeg, &c.

Bread and butter pudding flavoured with coriander – now that’s an idea!

Quotation for the Day.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.
Douglas Adams.

Letters from Abroad.

I have over six thousand menus jammed into the little notebook computer which I am using right now - and only 365 of them made their way into Menus From History: menus and recipes for every day of the year. It seems a shame to ‘waste’ the rest of them, but I am bereft of other ideas for their use, save that of doling them out to you at intervals. This I will do during the next five days.

The ‘menus’ are not exclusively decorative table cards listing a formal bill of fare for a civic dinner or restaurant or some such. I use the term loosely for any reasonably comprehensive meal description. Most are specifically dated, which allows me to start my story with ‘On this day in …’, a phrase which I like very much.

On this day in 1860, an English physician called William Bullar was just getting into the swing of a voyage ‘abroad’, apparently for medical reasons. The medical reasons are not spelled out in his subsequent book Letters From Abroad, From A Physician In Search Of Health, but one presumes they were personal, not academic.

Letter number 1 was addressed to his father, and dated February 22, 1860: in it he describes his dinner for the previous day (i.e ‘this day in 1860’). In it we find that the physician-passenger was aboard ‘the good ship Ceylon’, and on the day of writing was ‘about half-way across the Bay of Biscay; the weather all that the most squeamish could hope for, the sun now shining after some gentle rain, and the wind such as to make us carry all our sails.’ He writes:

It is difficult, however, to find a want which is not supplied. The daily dinner may give you an idea of the bounteous table which is kept here; so I send you a copy of yesterday’s “bill of fare;” - Giblet soup, fried and boiled turbot, roast beef, boiled shoulder of mutton, roast goose, boiled calf’s head, roast ducks, boiled rabbits, roast and boiled fowls, corned pork, roast haunch of mutton, corned beef, minced veal and poached eggs, roast loin of veal, pigeon pies, roast leg of pork, mutton puddings, croquets of beef, roast quarter of lamb, jugged hare, ham and tongue, curry and rice.

Second course – Black-cap puddings, fruit tarts, rice puddings, sandwich pastry, jam tartlet, macaroni, cheese, college dumplings. Ale, porter, soda-water, sherry, madeira, port flowed in an unlimited stream. This is the dinner, and the breakfast is very much like it.

It would have been interesting if the good doctor had let us know what his own healthy food choices were for the day. Not many of the dishes listed would be immediately thought to be ‘healthy’ today, but one must remember that calorie-dense foods were prized in an era when ‘consumption’ was rife. I wonder if that was his problem?

For the recipe for the day inspired by this story I have chosen the black-cap pudding. We have met ‘black caps’ before, so what is this ‘pudding’ version? It seems that there are several interpretations of the idea, mostly containing currants.

Black-Cap Pudding.
Make a thin light batter, and just before it is poured into the cloth, stir into it half a pound of currants well cleaned and dried. These will sink to the lower part of the pudding and blacken the surface. Boil it the usual time, and dish it with the dark side uppermost. Send it to the table with a sweet sauce.
The Young Wife’s Cookbook; Hannah Mary Peterson, 1870.

Quotation for the Day.

He that would travel much, should eat little.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) Poor Richard’s Almanac.

A Novel Recipe for Ginger Pudding.

I cannot resist giving you my serendipitous find for the week – ‘a novel recipe for ginger pudding’, found whilst I was browsing the Australian newspaper archives for something far more important. There may be an element of political incorrectness in giving this recipe, appearing as it does to take some of its novelty value from poking fun at the educational standard of the cook. I have chosen however to see it as a paean to several hundred years’ worth of cooks (mothers, grandmothers, aunts …) who, despite lack of education or access to cookbooks, just kept on cookin’ good food anyway, and sometimes left behind a treasured legacy of scribbled, badly-spelled recipes.

The recipe appeared in The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld) on Saturday 25 April 1896.

A Queensland correspondent writes to the “Australasian”:- Whilst visiting a friend who has a most excellent cook, I tasted some ginger pudding which was “positively ambrosial”. The cook wrote the recipe for me as follows:-

Gingar Puddin’

Won cup of Flor

Won cup of Brad Crums

Won spoonful of gingar

Tree ounce of suit

Half-cup of trackel

Won cop of shugar

Won cup of sor milk

Won pinch of spise

Won pinch of sode.

Quotation for the Day.

Hell is a place where the motorists are French, the police are German, and the cooks are English.
Anon?

Choosing a Pudding.

Regular readers will know that I have a particular fondness for books that provide a recipe or menu for every day of the year. I don’t believe I have used Puddings & sweets, 365 receipts (London, 1877) previously, so I assumed that would allow me to indulge my interest in ‘calendar’ recipe books, keep me on the dessert theme for the week, and give me an easy post while I am on holiday.
As it turns out, there are indeed 365 receipts in the book, but they are given alphabetically – the author has not pre-selected one for each specific day of the year. So, I cannot give you the pudding for January 6, but am forced to make my selection by my other favourite system – the intriguing-name method. I hope you like my choices.

Bole Comadree Pudding.

Extract a cupful of milk from two cocoa-nuts, and set it aside; make a syrup of half a pound of sugar; mix into it half a pound of finely sifted rice flour; fry with the yolk of an egg the scrapings of the cocoa-nuts ; add half a pound of treacle and a few grains of aniseed; then mix the whole together; when the oven is well heated pour the mixture into a well buttered dish and bake until set.

Don Juan Pudding.
Blanch and pound up a pound of sweet almonds with a dessert-spoonful of rose water; then add the yolks and whites of six eggs. Beat all together well for half-an-hour; pour the mixture into a rich paste, and bake in a moderate oven.

Ostrich Omelette.
Well beat up an ostrich egg*. Warm some fat in a pan, and pour the egg in; when done on one side turn it over and cook the other side. Let it rise well, and be a nice light brown.

*the author gives no advice as to sourcing an ostrich egg in Britain.

Just Dessert.

I often get queries when I give menus from the seventeenth century which seem impossibly exhaustive in the first place, and then appear to be followed by another ‘banquet.’ Originally the word ‘banquet’ referred specifically to the dishes served at the end of a feast (which was an entertainment as much as a meal.) The banquet was often taken in a separate room – or sometimes even a ‘banquetting house’ set in the grounds of an aristocratic estate – while the servants cleared the tables in the main feasting hall. In medieval times this consisted of sweetened wine and wafers, but as time went on more and more elaborate sweetmeats and fruits were included.

Early in the seventeenth century a final ‘course’ of predominantly sweet dishes became called the ‘dessert’. The word is derived from the French desservir, meaning to de-serve, that is, to clear the dishes from the table. The notion of ‘dessert’ as a separate course was seen initially by some in England as a French affectation which was bad for the health. Eventually however, popular appeal over-rode nationalism and medical opinion, and ‘dessert’ became an established and essential part of the meal, confectionary became a new career, and dentistry was no doubt also given a boost.

For the Recipe for the Day I give you the entry for this day, January 3, from 365 desserts; a dessert for every day in the year by Harriet Schuyler Nelson (Philadelphia, 1900)

Cocoanut Sponge.
Thicken 1 pint of milk, in which is dissolved ¾ cup of sugar, with 2 tablespoonfuls of cornstarch. Cook thoroughly in a vessel set into boiling water. When cooked and boiling hot, beat this into the whites of 3 eggs beaten stiff. After standing a few minutes add 1 cup of grated cocoanut. Flavor with vanilla and turn into a mould with grated cocoanut on top. Serve with cream sweetened and flavored with wine.

Quotation for the Day.

The dessert, properly prepared, contributes equally to health and comfort; but 'got up' as confectionary too often is, it is not only distasteful to a correct palate, but is deleterious and often actually poisonous.

The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-Cook, and Baker (1864)

Sherry Therapy

Last week I gave you a recipe for a treacle posset intended as a remedy for a cold. The source was Cookery for Invalids: Persons of Delicate Digestion, and for Children by Mary Hooper, published in London in 1876. I want to refer to this book again today, because it is a wonderfully refreshing home medical text for the era, for one particular reason.

The author is clearly in favour of alcohol for medicinal purposes – and not just any old alcohol. She stresses the importance of the lady of the house developing her palate for wine in order to ascertain its quality and avoid being cheated by dealers - if wine is a ‘necessity’ for her family.

“Port and Sherry are costly wines, and it is difficult to procure them genuine; indeed, much sold under these names are chemical compositions or vile adulterations, and so uneducated is the public taste that it accepts anything described by the vendors as Port or Sherry. Ladies are very much at the mercy of unscrupulous merchants, and will do well to avoid advertising firms, and still better, if wine is a necessity for themselves or their families, to acquire a correct taste and judgment in the matter.”

If you like her attitude on wine in general, I am sure you will like her specific thoughts on champagne – and so true and important I fell they are that I hope to immortalise them by using them in the Quotation for the Day, which you will find, as usual, at the end of this post.

The author recommends weak brandy and water ‘as without doubt the safest and best beverage for persons of delicate digestion’. She also gives a recipe for ‘Orange Tonic’ which is essentially brandy infused for a month with the peel of Seville oranges, and which can be used to add value to a glass of sherry or claret cup! She also suggests brandy be added to egg-drinks, gruel, wine jelly, tapioca jelly, and custard cream.

Today, however, I want to share with you a selection of Mary Hooper’s recipes which use sherry. Naturally she adds sherry to various puddings and drinks as well as wine jelly. I particularly like the idea of her sweet Sherry Macaroni – it might be just the thing next time I feel a bit poorly.

Sherry Macaroni
Break half an ounce of best Italian macaroni into a quarter of a pint of sherry mixed with a quarter of a pint of water ; let it boil until it is tender and has absorbed the liquid. It can then be served dusted over with sifted sugar, mixed with a pinch of ground cinnamon, or be made into a pudding in the same manner as rice custard pudding.

Sherry Sponge Pudding.
Put two penny sponge-cakes into a buttered tart dish, pour over them a wineglassful of sherry, let them stand until the wine is absorbed. Boil half a pint of milk with two or three lumps of sugar, beat an egg up with it, pour it over the cakes, and bake in a slow oven until the custard is set, when turn out, and serve.

Quotation for the Day.

First class champagne is expensive, but when it is necessary must be looked upon as medicine, which nobody dreams of as getting second or third rate.
Cookery for Invalids: Persons of Delicate Digestion, and for Children; Mary Hooper, 1876

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

When is a Fruitarian not a Fruitarian?

I came across a reference to ‘fruitarian’ the other day, and wondered when the term originated – and what it means, exactly.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines it very simply, and extremely strictly, as “one who lives on fruit”, and gives the first citation from 1893, in something called The National Food Magazine. This definition naturally requires that one knows what fruit is – which is not as silly a statement as it might at first sound. Botanically speaking, fruit is “the edible product of a plant or tree, consisting of the seed and its envelope” – which means that a strawberry is not a fruit (each of the little seeds speckled over its surface is a fruit), nor is a banana. The tomato however, is a fruit – although the United States legal system in decided in 1893, in spite of botanical evidence to the contrary, that it was a vegetable.

Individual ‘fruitarians’ interpret the idea widely, with varying impact on their nutritional security. Some apply the common-usage definition (the sweet dessert or snack food definition), some admit the botanical definition and include pulses (thus reducing their risk of nutritional suicide). Some will eat only fruit which has naturally fallen to the ground, thinking not to harm the tree. Some only eat ‘fleshy’ fruits – the rationale being that Nature (feels like this needs a capital here) made them thus to encourage animals to eat them and thence assist in seed dispersal – I am not sure of the sanitation arrangements of urban fruitarians who follow this particular practice, and would rather not enquire, thankyou.

Most fruitarians include nuts and seeds in their diets, but some high-minded adherents refuse them on the grounds that they contain future plants. Some allow cereals (that is, edible grains - which are only seeds after all), others eschew these as being “unnatural” food for humans (but seem unclear as to why they are merely unnatural, rather than a method of plant infanticide). Some only eat raw food (applying heat to food also apparently being abnormal, or unethical, or something), others allow a random percentage of cooked food to be included.


Amazing, isn’t it - the human capacity to justify almost every lifestyle choice in an apparently logical or morally sound way?

One interesting man associated with the fruitarian movement was Dr. Josiah Oldfield (1863-1953), who set up a ‘fruitarian’ hospital in Kent, England, in the early twentieth century. His definition included “the produce of harvest field, garden, forest and orchard, with milk, butter, cheese, eggs and honey” – which isnt even "vegan", by today's definition. One of his recipes was included in The Kitchen Garden and the Cook: an alphabetical guide to the cultivation of vegetables, with recipes for cooking them, by Hearst and Herndon (1913).

Margaret Plum Pudding.

(as used at the Lady Margaret Fruitarian Hospital) .

One pound of grated bread-crumbs, one pound of stoned raisins, one pound of sultanas, half a pound of candied peel, half a pound of sweet almonds, a few bitter almonds, a quarter of a pound of butter, half a pound of pine kernels, a quarter of a pound of shelled Brazil nuts, half a pound of brown sugar, the grated rind of threelemons, six eggs. Finely cut up the peel and blanch all the nuts, except the pine kernels, pass through the nut mill; the latter are to be simply chopped. Rub the butter into the bread-crumbs; add the fruit, sugar, grated lemons, and lemon peel; then the eggs, well beaten and mixed together. Put into a basin and boil in the usual way for six hours. The eggs may be replaced by a cupful of milk, half a cup of syrup, and a teaspoon of baking powder.
(Dr. Josiah Oldfield, Fruitarian Diet.)

Inevitable, isn’t it, that most of us would see fruitarians as being amusing eccentrics at best – as in this lovely extract from H.G.Wells’ 1909 novel Ann Veronica?

“Very central in Miss Miniver’s universe were the Goopes. The Goopes were the oddest little couple conceivable, following a fruitarian career upon an upper floor in Theobald’s Road. They were childless and servantless, and they had reduced simple living to the finest of arts. Mr. Goopes, Ann Veronica gathered, was a mathematical tutor and visited schools, and his wife wrote a weekly column in New Ideas upon vegetarian cookery, vivisection, degeneration, the lacteal secretion, appendicitis, and Higher Thought generally, and assisted in the management of a fruit shop in the Tottenham Court Road. Their furniture had mysteriously a high-browed quality, and Mr. Goopes when home dressed simply in a pajama-shaped suit of canvas sacking tied with brown ribbons, while his wife wore a purple djibbah with a richly embroidered yoke. He was a small, dark, reserved man, with a large, inflexible-looking convex forehead, and his wife was very pink and high-spirited, with one of those chins that pass insensibly into a full, strong neck. Once a week, every Saturday, they had a little gathering from nine till the small hours, just talk and perhaps reading aloud and fruitarian refreshments – chestnut sandwiches buttered with nutose, and so forth – and lemonade and unfermented wine; and to one of these symposia, Miss Miniver after a good deal of preliminary solicitude, conducted AnnVeronica."

Quotation for the Day.

Avoid fruits and nuts. You are what you eat.
Jim Davis (creator of “Garfield” )

A Bespoke Pudding.

Yesterday we considered the joys of bespeaking the suet for an authentic Christmas pudding. Today I give you a cautionary tale about bespeaking a pudding itself.

This tale does not take place at Christmas, but at a time when puddings had a regular place at every dinner. These were suet puddings, boiled in a cloth and meant to fill the belly, often with the specific purpose of ekeing out the more expensive meat – in which case they were ‘plain’ and served with the broth or gravy. Often of course they were the everyday version of the Christmas pudding – sweetened, and hopefully studded with raisins or apples or other fruit – and, if you were very lucky, perhaps served with a sweet sauce.

The heroes of our tale are none other than the famous Dr Samuel Johnson, and his young biographer James Boswell. We have met the pair before on a number of occasions, and already know Dr Johnson’s mindfulness of his belly, and his particular reverence for pudding. The story takes place during the journey the pair took to Scotland in 1773. It is related by “a traveller” in Scotland many years later, who, with a storm approaching, took refuge in small inn.

Dr Johnson’s Pudding.

The landlord I found to be as the Scotch generally are, very intelligent, and full of anecdote, of which the following may serve as a specimen.
“Sir,”said he, “this inn was formerly kept by Andrew McGregor, a relation of mine, and these hard-bottomed chairs in which we are now sitting, were years ago filled by the great tourists Dr Johnson and Boswell, travelling like the lion and jackal. Boswell usually preceded the doctor in search of food. Being much pleased with the cooks of the house he followed his nose into the larder where he saw a fine leg of mutton: he ordered it to be roasted with the utmost expedition, and gave particular orders for a nice pudding. ‘Now,’ said he ‘make the best of pudding.’ Elated with his good luck he immediately went out in search of his friend, and saw the giant of learning slowly advancing on a pony.
‘My dear sir,’ said Boswell, out of breath with joy and good news, ‘I have just bespoke in a comfortable and clean inn here, a delicious leg of mutton; it is now getting ready, and I flatter myself we shall make an excellent meal.’
Johnson looked pleased. ‘And I hope,’ said he ‘you have bespoke a pudding.’
‘Sir, you have your favorite pudding,’ said the other.
Johnson got off the pony, the poor animal relieved of the giant, smelt his way into the stable. Boswell ushered the doctor into the house, and left him to prepare for the delicious treat. Johnson felt his coat rather damp from the mists of the mountains, went into the kitchen, and threw his upper garment on a chair before the fire. He sat on a hob near a little boy who was very busy attending to the meat. Johnson occasionally peeped from behind his coat, while the boy kept basting the mutton. Johnson, moreover, did not like in the least the appearance of his head, when he shifted the basting ladle from one hand, and the other was never idle; and the doctor thought at the same time he saw something fall on the meat, upon which he determined to eat no mutton on that day.
The dinner being announced, Boswell exclaimed –
‘My dear doctor here comes the mutton. What a picture! Done to a turn and looks so beautifully brown!’
The doctor tittered. After a short grace, Boswell said, -
‘I suppose I have to carve as usual. What part shall I help you to?’
The doctor replied, ‘My dear boy, I did not like to tell you before, but I am determined to abstain from meat to day.’
‘O dear, this is a disappointment,’ said Bozzy.
‘Say no more, I shall make myself ample amends with the pudding.’
Boswell commenced the attack and made the first cut at the mutton. ‘How the gravy runs! What fine-flavoured fat, so nice and brown too! Ah, sir, you would have relished this prime piece of mutton.’
The meat being removed in came the long-wished-for pudding. The doctor looked joyous; fell eagerly to, and in a few minutes nearly finished all the pudding. And Mr Boswell said, -
‘Doctor, while I was carving the mutton, you seemed inclined to laugh; pray tell me what tickled your fancy?’
The doctor then literally told him all that had passed at the kitchen fire about the boy and the basting. Boswell turned as pale as a parsnip, and sick of himself and the company, darted out of the room. Somewhat relieved on returning, he insisted on seeing the dirty little rascally boy, whom he severely reprimanded before Johnson. The poor boy cried, the doctor laughed.
‘ You snivelling fellow.’ said Boswell, ‘why did you not put on the cap I saw you in this morning.’
‘I couldn’t sir,’ said the boy.
‘Why couldn’t you?’ said Boswell.
‘Because my mamma took it from me to boil the pudding in.’
The doctor gathered up his herculean frame - stood erect - touched the ceiling with his wig - squinted – indeed, looked any way but the right way.
At last with mouth wide open, and none of the smallest, and stomach heaving, he with some difficulty recovered his breath, and looking at Boswell with dignified contempt, he roared out, -
‘Mr Boswell, sir, leave off laughing, and under pain of my eternal displeasure, never utter a single syllable of this abominable adventure to any man living while you breathe.’ ”

[From The cyclopaedia of anecdotes of literature and the fine arts, by Kazlitt Irvine, 1856]


To sweeten the pudding, I give you a brief idea from yesterday’s recipe source, a 1939 edition of The Times.

Honey and Butter Sauce.
Mix a cupful of heated strained honey with a third as much melted butter and a tablespoon of rum.

Other Stories featuring Dr Johnson and James Boswell are to be found here, here, here, here, and here.


Quotation for the Day.

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.
Washington Irving (1783-1859)

Bespoke Suet.

I dedicate today’s story to those of you who have had the purity and foresight to order bespoke suet for your Christmas pudding, as well as to those who have ever tried to earn a living wage from their writing.

From the New Monthly Magazine in 1822, I repeat for your enjoyment, the following letter to the editor:

REFLECTIONS ON PLUM PUDDING BY A POOR GENTLEMAN.

MR EDITOR, - For the sake of giving harmonious clearness to this Essay, let me describe the circumstances that have induced me to send it. This is beginning ab ovo, or from the egg; but what then? is a fresh egg an unimportant ingredient in a plum pudding? I must also speak of myself. But be so good, Sir, as to respect me; for though poor, I am a gentleman. I am no admirer of such vulgar plum puddings as are doled out to the unwashed artificer from the common cook's shop or the wheelbarrow. No, Sir, I love only such as breathe, like Milton's music, “a steam of rich distilled perfumes.” Such were those which were once revealed to me from beneath the silver cover of my friend; - but he is gone, and with him the days of pleasurable and pudding recollections - perhaps never to return.
I live genteelly in an attic lodging up three pair of stairs, and support myself and a grey cat in a state of honourable independence and sleekness - (I apply the sleekness to my cat and not myself.) Necessity, however, drove me lately to make a sly attempt at employment from a bookseller. I called on Messrs. Blank and Blank – (well may I call them blank, for they sent me away very blank, and I could have piously tossed them in a blanket.) I inquired about literature, and how authors contrived to live. “On bullock's liver,” said the bookseller. “We have two hundred sermons a year from the Reverend Hum Drum, and fifty volumes of history from Dr Dryrott , warranted to us better than Hume's, or Robertson's, at the rate of a halfpenny a paragraph. High feeding Sir, makes authors abdominous and stupid. What clever selling elegies Boyce would have written, with his hand stuck through a hole in the blanket, had you kept him from porter. But we are liberal, Sir, - nobody more so.” I thought to myself, there is no plum-pudding to be found here; and went home chop-fallen to dine on a solitary chop. But the thoughts of plum-pudding still haunted me. Next morning came the red-cheeked and curly-pated butcher's boy to my door, and hinted his expectation of a Christmas-box by a message desiring to know if I wanted any suet for a Christmas-pudding; for that the apothecary over the way had bespoken nine pounds of suet for the aforesaid dish. “Go,” said I, “boy, learn of the apothecary's cook how many guests are to consume this pudding, and be assured of thy Christmas-box.” He returned like lightning. Cook was positive that the dining room could dine only eighteen persons. Now then began I to reflect. Nine pounds of suet, suppose as many of flour, and twice as many of fruit, besides etceteras. Here is half a pound of suet to each particular stomach, without reckoning other things. Let me call upon you Mr Editor, by all that is dear to you in Christmas revels, to reflect on the sublime and beautiful conception of this apothecary's plum pudding. What “double double toil and trouble” to his cook, and what clanging of pestles and future employment for his prentices, thus providently stored up by his hospitality in the bowels of his friends and customers! - I meant to have written a long Essay on the subject, but hope that what 1 have written will bring me a sum sufficient to save me from the horrors of spending Christmas without a pudding. And with respectful compliments from my grey cat, which a punning friend calls a cat of praise-worthy humour, (or laudable pus,) I remain your respectful humble servant,
LORENZO LANKSIDES

There are instructions for many suitably suety puddings in the Vintage Christmas Recipes archive. Here is a nice way to ring the changes to any one of them, from The Times of December 18, 1939.

A Good Way with Plum Pudding.
For a change, when dishing up plum pudding, scoop a piece out of the top as large as a teacup. Put four ounces of Demarara sugar in this cavity, and fill up with either clotted cream or brandy butter.

Quotation for the Day.

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.
Peg Bracken.

Putting the Coffee into Christmas.

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 there has been no Internet access in the local area for 24 hours (although our provider is assuring its customers that it will be restored by this afternoon).

But, dear readers, rest assured, there will be posts – cant spoil a four-year old record, can we? Today’s story is reaching you – albeit belatedly - via a USB stick and my daughter’s computer in another suburb.

So - why are there no ‘plums’ in plum pudding? Because Once Upon A Time, the word ‘plums’ was used generically for any dried fruit, that’s why. The idea of ‘plum pudding’ can therefore be interpreted very widely indeed – if you need proof, just go over and browse the offerings in the Vintage Christmas Recipes Archive.

It seems that the word ‘Creole’ can be interpreted widely too. Here is a ‘new’ plum pudding recipe from a wartime edition of an Australian newspaper (the Melbourne Argus). Please do not be reticent with your theories as to what is ‘Creole’ about this dish!

The pudding is a nice take on the old standby, methinks, and happily also a new addition to the coffee recipe archive (go to the link in the sidebar - until I can regain Internet access I cannot find the direct url – sorry!)

This ‘new note in plum puddings’ won a prize of £1 worth of war savings certificate and 5/ worth of war savings stamps for the contributor (Mrs Cecile Besnard). The recipe for Creole Coffee Pudding was, according to the cookery columnist ‘succulent enough for the all-important Christmas festival dinner. Here it is.

Creole Coffee Pudding.
Take 3 oz. of light brown sugar, 4 oz of maple or golden syrup, 4 oz. sultanas, 2 cups of flour, 1 egg, ½ teaspoon carb soda dissolved in a little warm water, ½ cup of chopped almonds, 2 tablespoons black coffee, 1 tablespoon brandy (can be omitted). Unsweetened coffee essence can be used instead of the ordinary black coffee.
Heawt the butter, syrup, and coffee, and stir until melted not hot. Add the egg, sift in flour, then add sultanas, almonds, brandy, and lastly soda. Beat thoroughly, and steam 2 ½ hours. Serve with the following sauce:
Take one cup of milk, 1 dessertspoon of butter, 1 tablespoon of syrup, I tablespoon of coffee. Heat these ingredients in a saucepan, and thicken with 1 tablespoon of cornflour blended in a little cold milk. Bring to the boil, stirring well. Mask the pudding with this, or if preferred, serve in a sauce-pan.
[The Argus, Nov 21, 1944]

Quotation for the Day.

The discovery of coffee has enlarged the realm of illusion and given more promise to hope.
Isidore Bourdon.

Stirring up the Pudding.

Yesterday was ‘Stir Up Sunday’, the traditional day to make your Christmas pudding. Did you mix yours? For some of you, in the other half of the world, it may still be Sunday when you read this, so you still have time.

The ‘tradition’ is a nice example of the association of ideas. According to the Anglican Church calendar, yesterday was the last Sunday before the season of Advent. The day became popularly known as ‘Stir-Up Sunday’ because of the opening words of the opening prayer of the day (which date from the sixteenth century):

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

These words also happened to be a timely reminder to the housewives and families that the preparations for the Christmas feasting should be gotten underway, if they weren’t already. Children would skip happily home from church singing their own, very secular, interpretation of the concept:

Stir up, we beseech thee, the pudding in the pot;
And when we get home we'll eat the lot.

It became the tradition to ‘stir up’ the pudding later in the day – all family members taking their turn, and making a wish as they stirred.

The keeping qualities of plum puddings were a great advantage in early times when there were few food-preserving alternatives. Plum puddings were not just served at Christmas, but were a stand-by for all important dinners and gatherings. An efficient Mistress of a reasonably well-to-do household would always have the makings in the pantry, and perhaps several actual prepared puddings.

I don’t think Pudding Emergencies are high on our list of potential household dramas or embarrassments today, but at least one nineteenth century cookbook writer considered a ready supply of plum puddings to be a good contingency plan.

CHRISTMAS PUDDING.
One pound of bread crumbs, rubbed through the colander; half a pound of flour; one pound and a quarter of suet very finely chopped; quarter pound of sugar; one pound of currants; half pound of rasins, stoned and chopped. Mix well together, and then add - two ounces candied citron; one ounce ditto orange-peel; one ditto lemon peel; one nutmeg, grated; a little mace, cinnamon, and three cloves pounded; quarter of a tea-spoonful of powdered ginger; the peel of one lemon finely chopped. Mix well again, and then add - one wine-glassful of brandy; one ditto white wine; the juice of one lemon. Mix well together, and then stir in gradually six well-beaten eggs. Boil five hours, and sift sugar over the top when served.

It is exceedingly convenient when making Christmas pudding, to boil several at once in various sized moulds or basins, as they will keep well for a month or six weeks, and can be served on an emergency by merely re-boiling them - say one hour for a pint basin. After the first boiling remove the cloth, and when the pudding is cold cover it with a dry clean cloth.


[The housekeeper's book: comprising advice on the conduct of household ...by Frances Harriet Green, 1837]

I think we have a new addition to the Vintage Christmas Recipes archive!



Quotation for the Day.

There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime. Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them.”
P.J. O'Rourke

Oxford John.

Today, everything going according to plan, I will be in Oxford for the annual Symposium on Food and Cookery.

There was a paucity of “London” recipes for yesterday’s theme. Not so with Oxford. With the sole criterion being that “Oxford” must be part of the name, there is much from which to chose. We have previously had Oxford Punch and Oxford Sausages, so what to have today? My favourite is “Oxford John” – an intriguing name for plain old mutton collops, cutlets, or chops. Here is one version of the recipe.

Oxford John.
Cut very thin collops from a leg of mutton, and take out all the sinews and fat; season with pepper, salt, and mace, and strew over a little parsley and two or three shalots; put a lump of butter into a stewpan, and when it is hot put in the collops; stir them with a wooden spoon till three parts done, then add half a pint of stock and a little lemon juice; thicken with flour and butter; let them simmer for four or five minutes when they will be done: put them into a dish, with the sauce, and throw fried pieces of bread cut in dice over and round them garnish: with pickles
The Imperial and Royal Cook, Frederick Nutt, 1809

To follow we will have one of the many versions of:

An Oxford Pudding.
A quarter of a pound of bisket grated, a quarter of a pound of currants clean washed and picked, a quarter of a pound of suet shred small, half a large spoonful of powder-sugar, a very little salt, and some grated nutmeg; mix all well together, then take two yolks of eggs, and make it up in balls as big as a turkey’s egg. Fry them in fresh butter of a fine light brown; for sauce have melted butter and sugar, with a little sack or white wine. You must mind to keep the pan shaking about, that they may be all of a fine light brown.
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse, 1784.

And we will finish by sharing a draught from:

The Oxford Grace Cup.
Extract the juice from the peeling of a lemon, and cut the remainder into thin slices; put it into a jug or bowl, and pour on it three half pints of strong home-brewed beer and a bottle of mountain wine; grate a nutmeg into it; sweeten it to your taste; stir till the sugar is dissolved, and then add three or four slices of bread toasted brown. Let it stand two hours, then strain it off into the Grace Cup.
Oxford Nightcaps: being a collection of receipts for making various beverages used in the University, 1835.

And hopefully we might still have sufficient appetite for Oxford Pancakes, Oxford Dumplings, Oxford Brawn (with Oxford Brawn Sauce), Oxford Pie of Soles, Oxford Cake, and Oxford Bishop (another beverage).


Quotation for the Day.

The English never smash in a face. They merely refrain from asking it to dinner.
Margaret Halsey.

London Pudding.

I am still in London (Oxford tomorrow), so some London-themed food seems a good fun idea. I have previously given you the curious recipe for London Pie, from the curiously named cookery book of the mid-seventeenth century - Archimagirus Anglo-Gallicus, by the physician to King Charles I, Theodore Mayerne, so today we must find the other dishes for our meal.

Pea soup would be appropriate for a London dinner. The the thick yellow smogs that used to plague London before the enactment of the Clean Air Laws used to be called “pea-soupers” – and in turn, the famous historic London restaurant Simpson’s in the Strand calls its pea-soup “London Particular”.

We can wash down our dinner with a draught of “London Ale” – the ale preferred by fourteenth century ale connoisseurs, if we are to believe Chaucer, who mentions it in his Canterbury Tales, and one of the beverages served at the enthronement feast of William Warham as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1504. Was it the superior quality of the Kentish hops that made London ale particularly good? Or was it the water?

We must have a London Pudding to follow the soup and pie. Here are two examples, from the year 1915.

London Pudding.
2 oz. of Allinson steamed cooked oats (to be obtained from any grocer in 2 lb. boxes), 1 large tablespoonful of sugar, ½ pint of milk, 1 oz of butter and 1 pint of custard made with Allinson custard powder. Boil the milk with the oats, butter, sugar, cook gently for 15 minutes, then pour into a pie-dish and add to the mixture 1 pint of custard made according to the recipe given, stir carefully, and bake for 1 ½ or 2 hours; let it cook for a short time before serving.
N.B. This is a most delicious pudding.
The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book, 1915.

London Pudding.
(For using up stale buns)
Cut the buns in two, and spread with a little jam; make into sandwiches. Lay at the bottom of a pie-dish and sprinkle with a little grated suet; then beat up two eggs with one dessertspoonful of sugar and three-quarters of a pint of milk. Pour over the buns and bake in a moderate oven. Bits of cake may be used up in the same way.
The Best Way – A Book of Household Hints & Recipes, 1915

Quotation for the Day.

It is lamentably true that, too often, has a carefully planned society dry raid been spoiled because the host noticed that one of his guests was wearing white socks with a black tie, or that the intruder was using his dessert spoon on the hors d’oeuvres.
Donald Ogden Stuart; Perfect Behaviour.

En route to South Australia.

Emigrants to the new province of South Australia in the early nineteenth century faced a gruelling voyage of many months. A previous post (several years ago) considered the shipboard victualling of a group of emigrants on their way to seek their fortunes in the newly discovered Australian gold-fields of the 1850’s. Today we find out a bit more about the arrangements for the various groups of travellers.


How comfortable the emigrant was on the journey depended on a number of factors, not the least of which was the “class” in which they travelled. There was plenty of advice available for those about to undertake the journey - and one such source was The History of the Rise and Progress of the New British Province of South Australia .. with hints to various classes of emigrants … by John Stephens, published in 1839.

There were essentially three classes of passengers: cabin, intermediate, and “free”. About the meals and provisions, the author of today’s source had a number of comments and suggestions:

“Cabin passengers mess with the captain of the ship, and are entitled to a good dinner of fresh meat every day, and every reasonable comfort; including a pint of wine, and a moderate quantity of spirits and malt liquor each person: so that no private stores are required; but a small assortment of common medicines, and a quantity of Seidlitz, soda and ginger beer powders will be found agreeable under the line, and a supply of sago, arrow-root, and groats, in case of illness, should not be omitted. A small stock of preserved meats may likewise be of service. These stores should be packed so that access can be had to them on board ship if necessary.

To those who can dispense with appearances, and particularly families, an intermediate passage is recommended, as the saving effected (except a small portion which might be expended in extra stores and comforts) would be very desirable on landing in the colony, and would amply compensate for the supposed distinction between the cabin passenger and the intermediate passenger. In such cases a few pounds might be advantageously spent in some of the following articles; viz. tea, sugar, flour, suet, and preserved fruit for puddings, bacon or ham, rice, arrow-root, carbonate of soda and tartaric acid, lime juice, half a dozen bottles of good port wine or bottled porter (a most excellent thing after sea-sickness) a few cases of preserved meats, &c. Five pounds judiciously laid out will procure a good stock of these articles, and persons disposed to be economical, or whose funds are limited may effect a considerable saving by taking their passage in this manner.”

The “free” emigrants were those, generally “from the labouring classes who have not capital enough to be landed proprietors or tenants, if young, honest, and industrious.” Their fare was paid by the emigration authorities, and the emigrants were to provide labour in the new province, and, in their turn, to provide employment for others when they became established themselves. These passengers were required to be under thirty years of age, and it was aimed to ship approximately equal numbers of men and women (for obvious reasons) on each voyage. Children (who would be a liability for the province for some time), were accepted under certain conditions, but usually a fare had to be paid for them. Each free emigrant provided their own bedding for the journey, and were expected to supply the necessary tools of their own trades. As would be expected, their victuals were not luxurious, and were and strictly rationed – but quite likely they were no worse than the usual daily fare for the urban labouring poor.

The following is the dietary for free emigrants to South Australia:- The passengers are in messes of six, or altogether, as may be determined by the surgeon superintendent, and are victualled according to the annexed scale, per head.

Bread ¾ lb daily

Meat ½ lb daily

Water 3 quarts daily

Flour ½ lb daily

Tea ¼ oz daily on alternate days

Coffee ½ oz daily on alternate days

Cocoa 1 oz daily on alternate days

Potatoes ¾ lb 4 days in the week

Suet 1 oz daily

Butter 6 oz per week

Rice 1 lb per week

Sugar ¾ lb per week

Peas 1 pint per week

Raisins ½ lb per week

Vinegar ½ pint per week

Oatmeal ½ pint per week

Mustard ½ oz per week

N.B Women receive the same rations as men; children receive rations in proportion to the charges made for their passage.

In case of illness, barley is served out; and, when the potatoes are expended, 1 oz of rice may be substituted for 3 lbs of potatoes.

It is highly likely that the free emigrants ate a lot of solid suet puddings, both plain and fruity – they were a staple back home on land, and the list of ration ingredients is suggestive. They were filling, and could be made in a number of ways, depending on available ingredients. Here is a basic recipe from the era, from A New System of Domestic Cookery, Maria Rundell (1833)

Baked Suet Pudding.
Boil a pint of milk; when it become cold, stir into it eight ounces of flour, and six of shred suet; add two eggs and a teaspoonful of salt. If to be plum pudding, put in eight or ten ounces of stoned raisins, and omit the salt.


Quotation for the Day.

The next time I have meat and mashed potatoes, I think I'll put a very large blob of potatoes on my plate with just a little piece of meat. And if someone asks me why I didn't get more meat, I'll just say, "Oh, you mean this?" and pull out a big piece of meat from inside the blob of potatoes, where I've hidden it. Good magic trick, huh?
Jack Handy

A Rum Time of It.

I am always intrigued by the special dishes that attend special life events. I wrote a story last year about some of the food traditions associated in previous times with a ‘lying-in’ or a ‘groaning’ (childbirth), and thought that I had exhausted the topic. It seems that this is not the case.


A recent hunt for an entirely different food tradition turned up a book with the amusing title of The Remains of John Briggs: Containing Letter from The Lakes; Westmorland as it Was; Theological Essays; Tales; Remarks on the Newtonian Theory of Light And Fugitive Pieces, (by John Briggs, 1825). Mr Briggs was clearly not afraid to spread his subject matter far and wide. He could have benefitted from a little editorial advice however, as he tackles the same topic (food at a lying-in) twice in the chapter on Westmorland As It Was.


Firstly, he writes:

At a lying-in the matrons of the lating, were regaled with furmity [frumenty] and sweet butter; the latter of which was a compound of sugar and butter boiled together, and seasoned with spices and spirits: this and a new milk cheese were always provided a few weeks before they were wanted; and amongst poor people the expense attending these preparations for each addition to a family was defrayed by a “gathering” amongst the gossips.

A little later he refers to the practice again:

“Lying-in:” It has not been our fortune to obtain very much of the customs formerly practised on these occasions, though we believe there were some very interesting ones What we have obtained we shall give. Previous to the time, a quantity of sweet butter was prepared; for many of the Dale-landers believed that a lying in woman would never recover unless she had plenty of sweet butter. It was thus prepared. The butter was melted (not boiled) in a brass pan, till the milk ran to the top, and the salt sunk to the bottom. The milk was then scummed off, and the butter decanted clear from the salt. A quantity of rum and sugar having been well beat together in a bowl, with a little grated nutmeg, was then mixed with the butter, when all was stirred till the mixture began to cool. Thus prepared it would keep for any length of time, and few houses were without a pot of sweet butter at all seasons of the year.

The word ‘lating’ (spelled elsewhere in the book as ‘laiting’) is a bit of a mystery – not just to me, but to the OED and its colleagues too. The connection with milk would seem obvious (lait is French for milk), but I cannot find any support for that idea. The verb late used to mean ‘to seek or find, or examine’ – but I cant fit that concept into the reality of childbirth either.

By way of another linguistic aside, I must come to the defence of ‘gossips’. A gossip was not always a talkative busybody. The word was originally godsibb, and indicated ‘one who has contracted spiritual affinity with another by acting as a sponsor at a baptism [in other words a godparent]’, and also, specifically ‘a woman's female friends invited to be present at a birth’.

I love that idea of wetting the baby’s head with rum (he mentions this elsewhere), and the new mother being fed rum and butter and sugar!

In honour of those genuine old gossips, and all women approaching their lying-in, I offer this rum and butter and sugar (and bread and milk … ) recipe. The recipe intrigues me greatly because I don’t believe I have ever seen a sweet milk pudding containing cayenne pepper before.


Bread and Butter Pudding.
Stone half a pound of raisins, wash and dry half a pound of currants, cut some slices of bread very thin, pare off the crusts, and butter them. Butter the shape [mould] well and stick the raisins in rows in the inside of the shape. Put in a slice of bread, the buttered side next the shape; lay in some raisins and currants, then a slice of bread, then fruit and so on, alternately until the shape is three fourths full. Beat up six eggs with one table spoonful of sugar, a little lemon juice, grated nutmeg, and cayenne, a little milk and one glass of brandy or rum; mix them well together, and pour into the shape, butter the cover, and boil or steam it for two hours. Serve it with wine sauce in a tureen.

The Practice of Cookery and Pastry, by I.Williams, 1862.


Quotation for the Day.

Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.
Ambrose Bierce.

Old Pudding Time.

On July 27th in 1774, our old friend Parson James Woodforde - a graduate of Oxford - entertained six guests there. Somehow this seems auspicious to me as I have spent a large part of the weekend finalising my plans to visit Oxford in September for the annual Symposium on Food and Cookery.

So, what did the good parson enjoy at his little dinner party on this day (it is already the 27th in Oz, I assure you)?

“I breakfasted, dined, supped and slept again at College … [Six Gentlemen] dined and spent the afternoon with me at New College. I borrowed the Chequer Room of the Bursars for my company to dine in. We were very merry and pushed the Bottle very briskly. I gave my Company for dinner, some green Pea Soup, a chine of Mutton, some New College Puddings, a goose, some Peas and a Codlin Tart with Cream. Madeira and Port Wine to drink after and at dinner some strong Beer, Cyder, Ale and small Beer. … I had a handsome dish of fruit after dinner… I gave my company only for supper cold mutton. After supper I gave them to drink some Arrac Punch with Jellies in it and some Port Wine. … We drank 8 bottles of Port one bottle of Madeira besides Arrac Punch, Beer and Cyder. I carried of my drinking exceedingly well indeed.”

There are many different dishes called College Pudding in the very vast English pudding repertoire. The earliest known recipe is usually quoted to be that in William Kitchener’s The Cook’s Oracle (1830), and his version is:

College Puddings.
Beat four eggs, yelks and whites together, in a quart basin, with two ounces of flour, half a nutmeg, a little ginger, and three ounces of sugar; pounded loaf sugar is best. Beat it into a smooth batter, then add six ounces of suet chopped fine, six of currants well washed and picked; mix it all well together; a glass of brandy or white wine will improve it. These puddings are generally fried in butter or lard but they are much nicer baked in an oven in patty pans; twenty minutes will bake them: if fried, fry them till they are of a nice light brown, and when fried roll them in a little flour. You may add one ounce of orange or citron minced very fine; when you bake them, add one more egg or two spoonfuls of milk. Serve them up with white wine sauce.

However - there is a recipe specifically named New College Puddings in The Compleat Housewife, by E. Smith, published in 1736.


To make New-College Puddings.
Grate a penny stale Loaf, and put to it a like quantity of Beef-suet finely shred, and a Nutmeg grated, a little Salt, some Currants, and then beat some Eggs in a little Sack [sherry], and some Sugar, and mix all together, and knead it as stiff as for Manchet, and make it up in the form and size of a Turkey-Egg, but a little flatter; then take a pound of Butter, and put it in a Dish, and set the Dish over a clear fire in a Chafing-dish, and rub your Butter about the dish till ‘tis melted; put your Puddings in, and cover the Dish, but often turn your Puddings, until they are brown alike, and when they are enough, scrape Sugar over them and serve them up hot for a side Dish.
You must let the Paste lie a quarter of an hour before you make up your puddings.

Something very like this recipe also appears in a book about the college itself - New College, by Hastings Rashdall (1858-1924) and Robert Sangster Rait (1874-1936), published in 1901. Unfortunately the authors don’t reveal its provenance, although the wording suggests that it is significantly earlier than 1901 – perhaps it is the real original from the college kitchen archives?


New Colledge Puddings.
For one duzon take a penny halfe penny white bread and grate it an put to that halfe a pound of beefe suett minced small half a pound of curantes one nutmeg and salt and as much creame and eggs as will make it almost as stiffe as past then make you in the fashon of an egg, then lay them into the dish that you bake them in one by one with a quarter of a pound of butter melted in the bottom, then set them over a cleare charcole fire and cover them, when they are browne, turne them till they are browne all over, then dishe them into a cleane dishe, for yr sause take sack, suger, rosewater and butter, pour this over yr puddings and scrape over fine suger and serve them to the table.

We have shared many previous meals with Parson Woodforde. If you would like to repeat the experience, they are at the following links:

http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2007/04/belated-feast.htm

http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2005/12/keeping-cool-over-christmas-ham.html
http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/02/parsons-tongue-and-other-parts.html
http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/05/great-culinary-mystery.html
http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/06/scarcity-root.html
http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/09/feeding-farmhands.html
http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/10/solace-of-ripe-plums.html
http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2007/05/any-fruit-with-that.html
http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2007/06/calfs-head-and-pigs-face.html
http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2007/08/fry.html
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2008/01/odds-and-ends-for-dinner.html
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2008/05/prodigious-pike.html
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2008/09/georgian-dinner.html
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2009/01/blancmange-and-black-caps.html


Quotation for the Day.

It's not improbable that a man may receive more solid satisfaction from pudding while he is alive than from praise after he is dead.
Anon.

Stick-jaw.

I always thought that ‘stick-jaw’ was toffee. I was right, but only partially. It seems that before it was toffee, stick-jaw was a pudding. Not a delicious pudding, but a pudding whose sole purpose was to occupy space in the digestive system and provide calories – especially to those living in institutions of various kinds. It was apparently ranked alongside scrap or resurrection pie as the bane of the nineteenth century boarding schoolboy’s life.


The dictionary describes stick-jaw as “a pudding or sweetmeat difficult of mastication’. To a schoolboy it was “pudding crammed down our throats to take away our appetite for the meat to follow.”

Sometimes it was a simple boiled pudding with the solidity and flavourlessness that only large amounts of suet and completely absent fruit (sugar, butter, eggs, spices) can provide. Often, like resurrection pie, stick-jaw pudding was made from scraps – in this case the scraps of bread accumulated over the course of the week.

Bread pudding, properly made, has a lot going for it of course. Here is a nice version from The Accomplished Housekeeper, and Universal Cook (1797), by T. Williams

A Bread Pudding.
Boil half a pint of milk with a little cinnamon, four eggs well beaten, the rind of a lemon grated, half a pound of suet chopped fine, and as much bread as necessary. Pour your milk on the bread and suet, keep mixing it until ocld, then put in the lemon peel, the eggs, a little sugar, and some nutmeg grated find. You may either boil or bake this pudding.

Quotation for the Day.

Books cannot always please, howver good;
Minds are not ever craving for their food.
George Crabbe (1754-1832), The Borough Schools.

Extreme Raw Food, Part 2.

Yesterday’s brief insight into the early uncooked food movement of the nineteenth century aroused some interest (or should I say disgust?), so today I give you another glimpse into the mind-workings of the perpetrators. One of those responsible was a man called Eugene Christian, who not only wrote a book on the topic, but promoted the cause by organising New York’s first ‘Uncooked Banquet’, in 1903. It was, apparently, a feast of ‘marvelous dishes’ (vegetarian, no condiments of any sort) prepared without the ‘relic of barbarism’ that was a cooking fire (or heat in any other form), by the only ‘elementary cook’ in the city. It also provided a journalistic feast for the newspapers, who, as you can imagine, reported the event with great amusement. The menu, which is astonishing in its awfulness, is detailed in my forthcoming book Menus from History, which is to be released later in the year.

From the Preface of Eugene Christian’s book, Uncooked Foods & How to Use Them: A Treatise On How To Get The Highest Form Of Animal Energy From Food With Recipes for Preparation, Healthful Combinations and Menus (1924), here is his explication.

WHY THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN.

SOME years ago we, the authors of this work, both became so impaired in health as to almost totally disqualify us for the performance of our daily work. A very exhaustive study of our condition convinced us that it was caused mainly, if not wholly, by incorrect habits in eating. This brought forth a very careful and studied series of experiments in diet which was confined entirely to cooked foods, because we at that time accepted implicitly the common theory that foods could be predigested and improved by heat.
Failing utterly in this, our attention was turned toward what have been called natural foods, but what in reality mean food in its elementary or unchanged state. Less than a year of study and experimenting with this system of feeding resulted in the total elimination of all stomach disorders and our complete restoration to perfect health. From scientific research, in addition to these failures and successes, we have studied out a system of both eating and drinking, which has been tried by many others under our direction, and in every instance health, strength and vitality have come to those who have obeyed our instructions.
In order to bring this theory more conspicuously before the public we gave a seven course dinner or banquet of uncooked foods, which was attended by many distinguished New York people. It received much attention by the New York press, and was widely commented on all over this and foreign countries through the press exchanges. A flood of inquiries concerning the use of uncooked food, especially referring to their remedial values, followed this publicity. This gave the first hint of the great interest that the public is now taking in this method of living.

The dedication to the book is also worth repeating.

To the Women of America
on whom depend the future greatness
of our glorious country,
we most affectionately dedicate
this work.

Which is followed by this abomination:

We may live without poetry, music and art,
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends, we may live without books,
And civilized man can live without cooks.
(Apologies to Owen Meredith.)

After many pages of explanation and exhortation, there are in the book a selection of recipes – or should that be ‘assembly instructions’, given that there is no application of heat required (apart from a couple of heavily and reluctantly justified exceptions)? The salad and fruit recipes are reasonable enough, for the obvious reason that even non-reformers of health serve them uncooked. A few recipes include ‘warm milk’ – presumably because it is merely warmed, not ‘cooked’?

Here, for your delectation, are a couple of ideas from the book:

Sweet Potato Pudding.
Sweet Potatoes, Eggs,
Cream, Nutmeg,
Sugar, Gelatine,
Milk.
Grate potatoes on a large grater and then drain on a sieve. To six heaping teaspoonfuls of potato add two of cream, two of sugar, yolk and beaten white of one egg, nutmeg or vanilla extract. Prepare heaping teaspoonful of jelly powder. Add to mixture and set in cold place. Turn out of mold and serve with cream.

Pea Or Bean Soup.
There is a pea and bean flour in the market from which soup is easily made by adding to it warm milk or cream. It should be made and allowed to stand an hour or two before serving.

Quotation for the Day.

It is certain that the custom of flesh eating among the ancients began with the direst necessity, with the choice between that or death by starvation.
Uncooked Foods & How to Use Them

The Poor Author’s Pudding.

I have decided, purely on the basis of blog-writer’s whim (try arguing with that; just you dare try), to temporarily discontinue the Gawthorpe Hall series. Instead, I have decided, purely on the basis of fun, to give you a couple of recipes from the wonderful Eliza Acton (Modern Cookery for Private Families, 1845). They seem particularly apt, given that my book Pie: A Global History was released a few months ago, and the next magnum opus (make that double magnum) – Menus from History, is finally in the hands of the production team (which means that the dreaded indexing is finished. Hallelujah!)

The Poor Author's Pudding.

Flavour a quart of new milk by boiling in it for a few minutes half a stick of well-bruised cinnamon, or the thin rind of a small lemon; add a few grains of salt, and three ounces of sugar, and turn the whole into a deep basin: when it is quite cold, stir to it thrce well-beaten eggs, and strain the mixture into a pie-dish. Cover the top entirely with slices of bread free from crust, and half an inch thick, cut so as to join neatly, and buttered on both sides: bake the pudding in a moderate oven for about half an hour, or in a Dutch oven before the fire.
New milk, 1 quart; cinnamon, or lemon-rind; sugar, 3 oz.; little salt; eggs, 3 ; buttered bread : baked ½ hour.

The Publisher's Pudding.

This pudding can scarcely be made too rich. First blanch, and then beat to the smoothest possible paste, six ounces of fresh Jordan almonds, and a dozen bitter ones; pour very gradually to them, in the mortar, three quarters of a pint of boiling cream; then turn them into a cloth, and wring it from them again with strong expression. Heat a full half pint of it afresh, and pour it, as soon as it boils, upon four ounces of fine bread-crumbs, set a plate over, and leave them to become nearly cold; then mix thoroughly with them four ounces of maccaroons, crushed tolerably small; five of finely minced beef-suet, five of marrow, cleared very carefully from fibre, and from the splinters of bone which are sometimes found in it, and shred not very small, two ounces of flour, six of pounded sugar, four of dried cherries, four of the best Muscatel raisins, weighed after they are stoned, half a pound of candied citron, or of citron and orange rind mixed, a quarter saltspoonful of salt, half a nutmeg, the yolks only of seven full-sized eggs, the grated rind of a large lemon, and last of all, a glass of the best Cognac brandy, which must be stirred briskly in by slow degrees. Pour the mixture into a thickly buttered mould or basin, which contains a full quart, fill it to the brim, lay a sheet of buttered writing-paper over, then a well- floured cloth, tie them securely, and boil the pudding for four hours and a quarter; let it stand for two minutes before it is turned out; dish it carefully, and serve it with the German pudding-sauce of page 403.
Jordan almonds, 6 oz.; bitter almonds, 12 ; cream, ¾ pint; breadcrumbs, 4 oz.; cream wrung from almonds, ½ pint; crushed macaroons, 4 oz.; flour 2 oz.; beef-sue^ 5 oz.; marrow, 5 oz.; dried cherries, 4 oz.; stoned Muscatel raisins, 4 oz.; pounded sugar, 6 oz.; candied citron (or citron and orange-rind mixed), ½ lb.; pinch of salt; ½ nutmeg; grated rind, 1 lemon; yolks of eggs, 7; best cognac, 1 wineglassful; boiled in mould or basin, 4 ¼ hours.
Obs.—This pudding, which, if well made, is very light as well as rich, will be sufficiently good for most tastes without the almonds: when they are omitted, the boiling cream must be poured at once to the bread-crumbs.

Don’t you love the idea of obtaining the almond cream by wringing it “with strong expression” ?

Eliza gives two versions of the suggested German pudding sauce:

A German Custard Pudding Sauce.

Boil very gently together half a pint of new milk or of milk and cream mixed, a very thin strip or two of fresh lemon-rind, a bit of cinnamon, half an inch of a vanilla bean, and an ounce and a half or two ounces of sugar, until the milk is strongly flavoured ; then strain, and pour it, by slow degrees, to the well-beaten yolks of three eggs, smoothly mixed with a knife-end-full (about half a teaspoonful) of flour, a grain or two of salt, and a tablespoonful of cold milk; and stir these very quickly round as the milk is added. Put the sauce again into the stewpan, and whisk or stir it rapidly until it thickens, and looks creamy. It must not be placed upon the fire, but should be held over it, when this is done. The Germans mill their sauces to a froth; but they may be whisked with almost equally good effect, though a small mill for the purpose—formed like a chocolate mill— may be had at a very trifling cost.

A Delicious German Pudding-Sauce.

Dissolve in half a pint of sherry or of Madeira, from three to four ounces of fine sugar, but do not allow the wine to boil; stir it hot to the well-beaten yolks of six fresh eggs, and mill the sauce over a gentle fire until it is well thickened and highly frothed; pour it over a plum, or any other kind of sweet boiled pudding, of which it much improves the appearance. Half the quantity will be sufficient for one of moderate size. We recommend the addition of a dessertspoonful of strained lemon-juice to the wine.
For large pudding, sherry or Madeira, ½ pint; fine sugar, 3 to 4 oz.; yolks of eggs, 6; lemon-juice (if added), 1 dessertspoonful.
Obs.—As we have already said in the previous receipt, it is customary to froth sweet sauces in Germany with a small machine made like a chocolate-mill. Two silver forks fastened together at the handles may be used instead on an emergency, or the sauce may be whisked to the proper state, like the one which precedes it.
Great care must be taken not to allow these sauces to curdle. The safer plan is to put any preparation of the kind into a white jar, and to place it over the fire in a pan of boiling water, and then to stir or mill it until it is sufficiently thickened : the jar should not be half filled, and it should be large enough to allow the sauce to be worked easily. The water should not reach to within two or three inches of the brim. We give these minute details for inexperienced cooks

Quotation for the Day.

I pray that death may strike me in the middle of a large meal.
I wish to be buried under the tablecloth between four large dishes.
Marc Desuagiers