Waldorf What?

March 4 ...

Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana arrived in New York on this day in 1932, and headed straight for the Waldorf Astoria. According to the New York Times, his first statements were to declare that any good Democrat could win the Presidential election, that the country was in trouble because it had departed from the statutes of the Lord, and that the remedy for the Depression was an equitable distribution of wealth. He then ordered a Waldorf Sandwich.

When his sandwich arrived, ‘it wasn’t the old sandwich at all’, so he called Oscar (i.e Oscar Tshirky, or ‘Oscar of the Waldorf’) and complained. Oscar rang ‘a former chef’ for advice, and a short while later the sandwiches ‘prepared in the old Waldorf style’ were sent up. According to the Senator, a real Waldorf Sandwich consisted of:

‘ … slices of chicken, broiled bacon, and Swiss cheese, with lettuce, between two slices of toast, the whole sandwich then being dipped in batter and fried in butter.’

The good Senator advised that in return for the correct sandwich he was going to send Oscar the recipe for “pot likker”, which, he said, was a favourite in Louisiana, and which he himself had helped to popularize. Oscar later made the comment that the addition of the slice of Swiss cheese and the frying of the sandwich was ‘a special order’ (And it appears that he was underwhelmed by the offer of the Senatorial pot likker recipe.)

Oscar was familiar with ‘improvements’ being made to perfectly good culinary ideas. We have seen in a previous story to what lengths people were prepared to go to ‘improve’ the original Waldorf Salad. He would no doubt have been horrified had he lived long enough to discover Waldorf Salad Cookies. Yes, Cookies. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid of Inspiration Striking in Certain Quarters.

There you have it, a triumph of branding – a complete meal, Waldorf style – Salad, Sandwich, and Cookies. Preceded by a Waldorf Cocktail or three of course.

Waldorf Cocktail.
1 ½ ounces bourbon
¾ ounce Pernod
½ ounce sweet vermouth
1 dash angostura bitters
Shake well together with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass

Tomorrow’s Story …

Scurvy Seamen.

Quotation for the Day …

Everyday happiness means getting up in the morning, and you can't wait to finish your breakfast. You can't wait to do your exercises. You can't wait to put on your clothes. You can't wait to get out - and you can't wait to come home, because the soup is hot. George Burns (1896-1996)

An anthropologist does dinner.

January 24

Desmond (John) Morris the English anthropologist and author of The Naked Ape was born on this day in 1928. Is there anyone better qualified than he to comment on our dining behaviour?

“Observe diners arriving at any restaurant and you will see them make a bee-line for the wall seats. No one ever voluntarily selects a centre table in an open space. Open seating positions are only taken when all wall seats are occupied. This dates back to a primeval feeding practice of avoiding sudden attack during the deep concentration involved in consuming food.”

The Hirsute variety of Ape still faces this risk of course, whereas we, the Naked Therefore Fully Clothed variety of Ape have evolved and become civilised. Consequently, the risks associated with dining are far, far, more complicated.

Sitting against the wall in the breakfast nook does not protect from attack within the ranks. The family mealtable, since we evolved enough to be able to have “relationships” and their associated “issues”, can be fraught. Winston Churchill was well aware of this when he said “My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked.”

Progress does sometime pay off however. We have dispensed largely with etiquette – that perilous quicksand of ever shifting, uncertain social rules that were broken at considerable cost in previous times. We are left with a few little situations to negotiate, - how to escape before the inevitable dishwasher stacking argument, to risk taking a good bottle of wine and have it disappear into the host's cellar and a poor one offered at dinner, and how to divide up the bill at a restaurant, for example. It was not always quite so simple.

I give you a random list of nineteenth century etiquette rules, for your edification.

When the various members of the party are assembled in the drawing room, the mistress of the house, or the master, supposing him a bachelor or a widower, points out to you the lady you are to lead into the dining room. You, the lady indicated, will have to take precedence according to rank. … The rank of ladies is decided by that of their male relatives … As the lady’s rank gives the precedence, so it decides the order of procession to the dining room.

Coming down stairs, give the lady to the wall; lead her into the room, and seat yourself beside her.

If you pass to dine merely from one room to another, offer your left arm to the lady.

Both ladies and gentlemen remove their gloves when they sit down to dinner.

It is considered vulgar to take fish or soup twice.

Eat peas with a dessert spoon, and curry also.

It is not elegant to gnaw Indian corn. The kernels should be scored with a knife, scraped off into the plate, and then eaten with a fork. Ladies should be particularly careful how they manage so ticklish a dainty, lest the exhibition rub off a little desirable romance.

To shine at the dinner-table requires much conversant practice with polite life. A double duty devolves upon the gentlemen, that of feeding with elegance, and of attending to their fair neighbours.

Today’s recipe gives a tiny nod to anthropologists and archeologists and ancient historians. It is from Modern Ways with an Ancient Food. Addressed to Mothers. It is an advertising booklet for the Hecker brand of ‘farina’, which is the Italian word for flour, but in this case is the same as ‘Cream of Wheat’, which is essentially ‘cornflour’ made from wheat, not corn, which is quite confusing, I must say.

I chose this recipe because it sounds awful in the way that is sometimes quite tasty, in the secret-eating kind of way.

Cream-Farina Cheese Sandwich Filling.
2 tablespoons uncooked Cream-Farina
1 ¼ cups ( ¼ lb) grated cheese
⅛ teaspoon pepper
1 cup strained tomato pulp
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup ( ¼ lb.) cooked ham, ground or chopped
Paprika
Heat strained tomato pulp in double boiler; add salt and Cream-Farina and cook 7-8 minutes with frequent stirring. Add grated cheese and heat until melted. Remove from fire, add remaining ingredients, and allow to cool before spreading on bread.
Makes 1 ½ cups filling.

Please confess if you’ve ever made this.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Getting a Grip on Sausages.

Quotation for the Day …

I expected (purely on statistical grounds) to die ten years ago … something has gone wrong with my prediction because I am still here, and I have a feeling that part of the reason could be that I have managed to maintain a deep disrespect for all the health police, the faddist gurus and the diet fascists who plague our bookstalls, radio stations and newsagents. Desmond Morris.

With the foxhounds.

November 29 ...

Yesterday’s post reminded me of a great lady and a little gem of a book that I met while I was in Norfolk, England, in September. I stayed for a few days with my cousin, who – knowing my interest in all things to do with food – invited her neighbour over one day for a cuppa. This lady is of fine Norfolk stock, and the local cooking guru it seems. She was a fund of knowledge about Norfolk specialties, and brought a bundle of little old local cookbooks which she loaned to me for my stay.

One of the books was “The West Norfolk Foxhounds Cookery Book”, and it was quite amusing. Most of us don’t tend to associate foxhunters with humour, but I assure you this book is quite funny, in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. It starts by describing fox-hunting as “… Not unlike adultery. Hours of hanging around punctuated by moments of high passion. Both highly immoral and very expensive.”

I learned that provisioning for a fox-hunt is quite a different thing from that of shooting parties, which we learned about yesterday. There are no picnic niceties like folding chairs and brass centrepieces full of fruit, because fox-hunters are serious about hunting - refreshment is for sustenance only and is taken on the run (or should that be on horseback?) so to speak. The repast consists solely of sandwiches.

“Hunting sandwiches are eaten under vigorous conditions and they should be prepared with that in view. They should be cut, formed, and packed so that they can be eaten on the back of a runaway mustang in a hurricane of wind and cold rain by a man who has recently broken his right wing.

In cut, the repast should favour the practical rather than the aesthetic. Too small a sandwich involves too many incursions of the gloved hand into the pocket: too large a sandwich may involve the jettisoning of the major part of the unconsumed portion of the day’s ration should the pack be so inconsiderate as to find a fox while the meal is in progress. … the sandwich should be packed with more thought for accessibility than for hygiene …. the ideal package should be capable of being opened by one numbed, gloved, hand withoug being removed from the pockets.”

Naturally there was a list of suggested fillings for robust sandwiches in the book. They are to be made “after breakfast” – which explains the ingredients of my favourite idea:

Bacon and Marmalade Sandwiches.
Excellent to stuff your pocket for Cub Hunting.
Fry bacon until crisp and cut to bits. Toast two thick slices of bread and then split horizontally. Spread marmalade on the untoasted side, put bacon on top and place the other piece [of toast] on top. Squash down and cut off crusts and repeat with other slices.

Stomach not up to it? “For those whose digestions sneer at solid food taken during strenuous exercise, the only solution may be egg beaten up in port, carried in a flask of vast dimensions.”

Tomorrow’s Story …

Tamarinds, by Twain.

Quotation for the Day …

Bread that must be sliced with an axe is bread that is too nourishing. Fran Lebowitz

Surprising Food For April Fool’s Day.

Tomorrow is April Fools' Day, the day when you are entitled to play tricks (before midday only) on your friends and family. There is no rule that I am aware of that says these must be of the embarassing or cruel variety.

If you are a tender-hearted or generous soul you can still play a trick on on the fun people in your life by cooking a Surprise Recipe. We have already collected a few of them in previous stories.

Surprise Potatoes [on the Companion Site]
Rabbits Surprised, from The London Art of Cookery, by John Farley (1800)
Rabbit Surprise [WW II recipe from Marguerite Patten]
Eggs en Surprise [2 recipes, from 1832 and 1912]

Here are a few more for your enjoyment:

Chicken Surprize.
If a small Dish one large Fowl will do, roast it, and take the Lean from the Bone, cut it in thin Slices, about an inch long, toss it with six or seven Spoonfuls of Cream, and a Piece of Butter roll’d in Flour, as big as a Walnut. Boil it up, and set it to cool; then cut six or seven thin Slices of Bacon round, place them in a Petty-pan, and put some Force-meat on each side, work them up into the form of a French Roll, with raw Egg in your Hand, leaving a hollow Place in the Middle. Put in your Fowl, and cover with some of the same Forcemeat, rubbing them smooth with your Hand with a raw Egg; make them the Height and Bigness of a French Roll, and throw a little fine grated Bread over them; bake them three Quarters of an Hour in a gentle Oven, or under a Baking Cover, till they come to a fine Brown, and place them on your Mazarine, that they may not touch one another, but place them so that they may not fall flat in the baking; or you may form them on your Table with a broad Kitchen Knife, and place them on the Thing you intend to bake them on: You may put the Leg of a Chicken into one of the Loaves you intend for the Middle; Let your Sauce be Gravy thickened with Butter and a little Juice of Lemon. This is a pretty Side Dish for a First Course, Summer or Winter, if you can get them.
[From Hannah Glasse’s Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy; 1747]

Surprise French Rolls.
Take some French rolls of bread, cut a slit in the side. Remove some of the crumb from the centre, and insert strawberry or raspberry cream mixed with whipped or Devonshire Cream.
[From The Gentle Art of Cookery, by Mrs. C.F. Leyel and Miss Olga Hartley; 1925]

(T.O.F suggests they may well be delicious filled with a chocolate cream instead.)

Have Fun!

The Death of a Queen.

Today, January 22nd …

Queen Victoria died on this day in 1901, a few months short of her 82nd birthday, after 63 years and 7 months on the throne - the longest reign in British history. She had watched the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution on the way of life in Britain, had seen to it that the Empire was consolidated, and had strengthened her country’s ties with Europe by marrying her children into its royal families. Most of her subjects had known no other royal ruler.

The culinary fashion of the time was to name dishes after those one wished to honour, and it is probably true to say that there are more dishes named after Victoria than any other single person. Should you wish to commemorate her life on this anniversary of her death, you could simply cook your favourite ‘small cut of meat’, and dress it with the classic garnish ‘à la Victoria’, which according to the Larousse is:

Small tomatoes stuffed with purée of mushrooms; quartered artichokes simmered in butter. Sauce: Meat juices of the main dish blended with Madeira or port and thickened veal stock. Uses: For small cuts of meat.

Alternatively, should you feel so inclined, you could sit down to an entire menu ‘à la Victoria’. Here is one selection.

Soup: Cream of Pearl Barley à la Victoria
Fish: Sole Victoria, OR Salmon à la Victoria.
Chicken: Poularde Victoria
Salad: Salade Victoria
Dessert: Bombe Victoria OR Victoria Pudding (with Victoria Sauce, of course).

Of course, it would be perfectly appropriate to sit down to a simple Afternoon Tea in her honour, and partake of one (or more) of the many varieties of cakes and biscuits named for her. The Larousse describes a Victoira Cake ‘made like plum cake’ leavened with baking powder and containing almonds and crystallised cherries. Her chef Francatelli’s cake also has cherries, but he adds brandy, leavens it with German yeast, and makes it in the manner of ‘a German kouglaüffe’ – perhaps a nod to her very German heritage and completely German husband. Mrs Beeton and several other cookbook writers of the era give recipes much closer to our (now) traditional idea of a Victoria Sponge with its jam filling, although they call it a ‘Victoria sandwich’. Not a Victoria Sandwich Cake. This distinction is made clear in Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (1870’s) which lists:

Victoria Sandwiches, Savoury.
Victoria Sandwiches, Sweet (which turns out to be a cake recipe.)

Naturally, if you opt for the Afternoon Tea option, you will wish to also have on your table the savoury sandwiches with her name, so here they are:

Victoria Sandwiches, Savoury.
(for breakfast, luncheon, &c.)
Wash six or eight anchovies, cut off their heads and fins, take out the back-bones, and divide each fish in two, from the shoulder to the tail. Cut an equal number of thin slices of brown bread and butter, put between two slices alternate layers of hard-boiled eggs, mustard and cress cut small, and the fillets of the anchovies; press the slices closely together, and with a sharp knife cut them into neat squares. Place them on a dish covered with a napkin, and garnish with parsley. If not wanted immediately, cover them with a napkin wrung out of cold water to keep them moist.

Tomorrow’s Story …

To Dress A Cod’s Head.

On this Topic …

Queen Victoria's Christmas Dinner, 1899.

Queen Victoria's Luncheon on January 17th 1899

Quotation for the Day …

Family dinners are more often than not an ordeal of nervous indigestion, preceded by hidden resentment and ennui and accompanied by psychosomatic jitters. M.F.K Fisher.

Green butter and the Art of Sandwiches

Today, November 24th …

The word “sandwich” first appeared on this day in 1762, in the journal of the historian Edward Gibbon.

“I dined at the Cocoa Tree ... That respectable body … affords every evening a sight truly English. Twenty or thirty of the first men in the kingdom, supping at little tables upon a bit of cold meat, or a Sandwich”

Tradition has it that the sandwich was “invented” by John Montague, Fourth Earl of Sandwich, to enable him to eat at the gaming table. Another culinary myth I am afraid, perpetuated from a single gossipy mention by a travel writer of the time. Montague was variously Postmaster General, Secretary of State, or First Lord of the Admiralty between 1753 and 1782, busy, and not known to be a gambler.

Montague’s name may have attached to the sandwich, but “bread and meat” has been around as long as there has been bread, and meat – which is long before cutlery and plastic food wrap. It was the original transportable dinner, and at its worst still has that murky association with the desperate search for food on the road.

Anthony Trollope must have suffered, for he wrote:

“The real disgrace of England is the railway sandwich - that whited sepulchre, fair enough outside, but so meagre, poor, and spiritless within, such a thing of shreds and parings, with a dab of food.”

Caterers could do epicurean sandwiches instead of sepulchral if they read “The Gentle Art of Cookery” (1925) by those elegant ladies Leyel and Hartley:

“ … many hostesses who offer their friends indifferently cooked but pretentious lunches could, with far less trouble, gain an epicurean reputation if they were content with the simplicity of wine and sandwiches.

They give 38 variations starting with this one:

Green Butter
Well wash and bone two ounces of anchovies. Boil a large handful of very green parsley, just cover it with water and leave the lid off the pan it boils in. Boil for about five minutes then immediately put the parsley under the cold water tap. Strip the parsley from the stalks and chop it very fine (a parsley cutter costs only a few pence and saves a lot of time). Beat the parsley, the anchovies and a quarter of a pound of butter together into a paste, and pot it. This will keep for a week.

Naturally, they recommend champagne as the proper accompaniment.

Tomorrow … A co-incidence of princesses.