Luncheon with the Royals.

May 2 ...

Russian salad is the puzzle of the day today. It did not start out as a puzzle, it started out as one of the dishes served to the King and Queen, and the Duke and Duckess of York on this day in 1924 – and I thought it was about time I gave you another historic menu. The royals were making an ‘informal inspection’ of the palaces at the British Empire Exhibition being held at Wembley – the Palaces of Industry, Engineering etc that is. After four hours of touring the exhibits ‘almost as precisely as ordinary visitors do’, they were allowed a luncheon break before continuing their inspection.

This was the luncheon menu:

Les Canapes souveraine.
--
Les petites soles Colbert.
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Les côtes d’agneau double grillées.
Les petits pois frais à l’Anglais.
Les pommes nouvelles vapeur.
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Les canetons à la gelée d’orange.
Jambon en cornet.
La salade à la Russe.
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Les asperges froide vinaigrette
--
Les fraises Romanoff.

All things Russian were still quite fashionable at the time of this menu, and some of you will know the final dish - the Strawberries Romanoff – from the 70’s, when it had a second brief reign as the dessert at pretentious tables.

The prevailing theory of Russian Salad (via Wikpedia and The Rest) is that it was invented in the 1860’s by a French chef called Lucien (or it might have been Jacques) Olivier who served it in his restaurant in Moscow (or it might have been Germany), and the said Lucien or Jacques may or may not have been at some time in the employ of the Tsar. The ‘Olivier’ bit is probably correct as the same salad is called ‘Salade Olivier’ in some parts of the culinary world. The dish consists of a very variable mix of vegetables and meat (the exact composition being in a constant state of improvement and adjustment depending on available and affordable ingredients), bound by a dressing whose original recipe went to the grave with M. Olivier.

The puzzle comes because, if the dish was invented in the 1860’s in Russia (or Germany), how come it was on the menu at the Inauguration ball of President James Buchanan in Washington in 1857? I have not, so far, found an earlier mention, but there may well be one. A reinforcement of the puzzle is that there is a recipe for Russian Salad in an English cookbook of 1863 – an awfully short time for it to appear in such a book if it was only just invented and the recipe was a secret. The book is The Cook’s Guide and Housekeepers and Butler’s Assistant, by the one-time chef for Queen Victoria, Charles Elmé Francatelli.

Russian Salad.
This is composed of cooked carrots, beetroot, parsnips, either punched or scooped in shapes, or merely cut in neatly-formed squares or oblongs; to these add common gherkins also cut, a few capers, some scraped horseradish, lobster or prawns, or ham, or any kind of meat cut up in small squares; season with mayonaise, vinegaret, or Tartar sauce; and when dished up either in a bowl or in an aspic, or cold vegetable border, garnish the surface of the salad with very small round balls of Russian caviare, to be obtained at Crosse and Blackwells, Soho-square.

The history of Strawberries Romanoff (as distinct from the myth-tory) is as yet unclear to me due to a serious shortage of research time. It is a dish worthy of return to the limelight however, so I give you a recipe from The Times in 1939.

Strawberries Romanoff.
Hull 2 lb. berries: put them in a basin and sprinkle them with orange juice and curaçao: allow to macerate on ice for some time. Then place them in a serving dish, surrounded by ice, and cover with Crème Chantilly.
Whip half pint thick cream and one white of egg till stiff, adding 1 ½ oz. sugar and a little vanilla if liked. Put this in a piping bag with fluted pipe, and completely mask the berries.

Monday’s Story …

Potato and Cheese.

Quotation for the Day …

To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist -- the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar. Oscar Wilde.

Shakespearian Strawberries.

Today, June 13^th …

The story of the disappearance (and presumed murder) of the royal princes in the Tower of London in the fifteenth century has spawned a lot of books and movies, and in almost all of them the evil-doer was their uncle and Protector, the Duke of Gloucester who then became Richard III. One of the writers who contributed to Richard getting the rap (there are significant doubts that he was actually the perpetrator) was no less than William Shakespeare, in his play Richard III. He has Richard (still at this point the Duke of Gloucester) casually ask the Bishop of Ely for some of the fine strawberries from the Bishop’s gardens, while he is planning his dastardly deed.

My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries in your garden there;
I do beseech you, send for some of them!

Ely: Marry, I will, my lord, with all my heart."

Shakespeare, like many other dramatists of his time, used the Chronicles of Raphael Holinshed [1529 – 1580 approx.] as a resource. The Chronicles were also written long after the events, but if Holinshead was correct, the strawberry dialogue actually took place on this day in 1483. Holinshead says:

“On the Friday (being the 13th of June, 1483) many lords were assembled in the Tower, and there sat in council, devising the honourable solemnity of the king's [12 year old Edward V] coronation, of which the time appointed then so near approached, that the pageants and subtleties were in making day and night at Westminster, and much victuals killed therefore, that afterwards was cast away. These lords so sitting together, communing of this matter, the Protector came in amongst them, just about nine of the clock, saluting them courteously, and excusing himself that he had been from them so long, saying merrily that he had been a sleeper that day. After a little talking with them, he said unto the Bishop of Ely, 'My lord, you have very good strawberries at your garden in Holborn; I require you let us have a mess of them.' 'Gladly, my lord,' quoth he. 'Would God I had some better thing as ready to your pleasure as that.' And therewithal, in all haste, he sent his servant for a mess of strawberries.”

So how would Shakespeare’s contemporaries have enjoyed strawberries? Perhaps like this:

Tarte of Strawberies.
Seson your Strawberyes with sugar, a very little Sinamon, a little ginger, and so cover them with a cover, and you must lay upon the cover a morsell of sweet Butter, Rosewater and Sugar, you may Ice the cover if you will, you must make your Ice with the white of an egge beaten, and Rosewater and Sugar.
[From: A Boke of Cookrye, published in 1591]

Tomorrow’s Story …

The Fourteenth Guest.

Quotation for the Day …

The strawberry grows underneath the nettle;
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality.
Shakespeare; King Henry V. Act I. Scene 1.

Prayers in the kitchen.

Today, December 7th …

On this day in 1824 the Royal Horticultural Society of London heard "An Account and Description of the Different Varieties of Strawberries which have been cultivated and examined in the garden of the Horticultural Society". The strawberry had finally yielded to several hundred years of natural and deliberate hybridisation of Old and New World wild varieties, and become a berry that we would find familiar today.

Wild strawberries were enjoyed for centuries before this of course, and we probably still agree with the ex-monk, physician and nutrition writer Andrew Boorde that simple is best. He said “Rawe crayme [cream] undecocted, eaten with strawberyes … is a rurall mannes banket [banquet]” (1542)

There were some recipes for cooking with strawberries in the sixteenth century, but the problem with trying to recreate recipes from this era is that the cookbooks were, to say the very least, minimalist. They were meant as memory aides for the few literate household staff, and, (like computer manuals today) were based on much assumed knowledge. There was less information to impart anyway – there were no strict cooking times (no clocks in kitchens), no cooking temperatures (no thermometers) and ingredient amounts were vague (no standardised measuring implements).

Literacy rates were very low, but even illiterate kitchen staff were expected to be able to say their prayers, and cooking times were sometimes given as the duration of a particular prayer, or combination of prayers. A short time might be several “Paternoster whiles” or “Ave Maria whiles” - which, I am reliably informed, are about 20 seconds and 13 seconds each respectively.

The anonymous author of “A Propre New Booke of Cokery” (1545) assumes that you know how much butter and how many strawberries to use, and the number of crusts for a strawberry tart. You will need to have your oven “hot enough”, and cook the tart “till it be done”.

To make a tarte of strawberies.
Take and strayne them with the yolkes of foure egges and a little white brede [bread] grated, then ceason it up with sugar and swete butter and so bake it.

“Anonymous” does, however, give us the first known recipe for pastry.

To make short paest for tarte.
Take fyne floure and a cursey of fayre water and a dyshe of swete butter and a lyttel saffron, and the yolckes of two egges and make it thynne and tender as ye maye.

Tomorrow … To tease a jaded palate.