Having a ball with food.

February 12

The National Croquet League in Philadelphia had the wit to include croquettes at their annual awards banquet on this day in 1880. There appears to be an obvious assumption behind this catering decision - that croquettes are so called because they resemble a croquet ball (or vice-versa), but like so many obvious assumptions, this one is completely wrong.

Croquet gets its name from one of the other three essential pieces of equipment in the game – the mallet - which, if you squint at it the right way, could be mistaken for a gigantic crochet hook, which if you squint at it (in French) through a magnifying glass, does slightly resemble a croche, or shepherd’s crook. Funny, how language works, isnt it? A lawn game that became terribly fashionable in the mid-nineteenth century is linguistically related to Granny’s knee rugs and to the good souls who tend the animals that give us Roquefort and chèvre.

A 'Croquette' - the edible ‘compound made of delicious Stuff'd Meat, some of the bigness of an Egg, and others of a Walnut’ – has been around for longer – since at least the very early eighteenth century. It also claims a French heritage (which you probably guessed from the pretentious ‘- ette’ on the end), but this word comes from the verb croquer, meaning 'to crackle under the teeth, to crunch'. The actual material from which the croquette is made is immaterial – almost anything will do to provide a base for its singular virtue – the one which gave it its name – the crisp, crackly, crunchy, shell. There is no culinary secret to this shell – all the base needs is a good crumb coating and a good deep frying.

We have had a recipe for sweetbread croquettes in a previous story, so here are a couple of other suggestions for the supporting framework for that crisp, crackly, crunchy shell.

Sweet Potato Croquettes.
Boil, peel and mash six large sweet potatoes; season with salt, a tablespoon of butter, one of sugar and a little pepper. When cold, mold into croquettes, dip into beaten egg, then into finely rolled bread crumbs, and fry brown in hot fat.
Practical Vegetarian Cookery, 1897

Veal Croquettes.
2 cups chopped cold cooked veal
Few grains cayenne
¹/₂ teaspoon salt
Few drops onion juice
¹/₈ teaspoon pepper
Yolk 1 egg
1 cup thick sauce made of White Soup Stock. Mix ingredients in order given. Cool, shape, crumb, and fry same as other croquettes.
Fannie Merritt. 1918.The Boston Cooking School Cookbook.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Time for parents.

Quotation for the Day …

To Adam and Eve: "You first parents of the human race ... who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you have done for a truffled turkey?"
Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826)

The Other Mrs. Child.

February 11

Lydia Maria Child (née Francis) was born on this day in 1802. She was a teacher, prolific writer, religious scholar, radical abolitionist, early feminist – and a cookbook writer.

Miss Francis learned her household skills from her older sister, with whom she lived after her mother died. These skills stood her in good stead when she married Mr. Child – a lawyer by profession, but with a man so distracted by his own social reforming zeal that he never managed to earn a decent living. After one year of marriage and the honing of her housekeeping and budgeting skills, Lydia Maria wrote a book called The American Frugal Housewife. Dedicated to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy (1829). It became very popular almost immediately, and provided a source of some income for the Childs as it was reprinted a number of times over the years.

“I have attempted to teach how money can be saved, not how it can be enjoyed. If any persons think some of the maxims too rigidly economical,--let them inquire how the largest fortunes among us have been made. They will find thousands and millions have been accumulated, by a scrupulous attention to sums 'infinitely more minute than sixty cents.'

The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost. I mean fragments, of time, as well as materials. Nothing should be thrown away so long as it is possible to make any use of it, however trifling that use may be; and whatever be the size of a family, every member should be employed either in earning, or saving money.”

She then gave a lot of “odd scraps for the economical”, from which I give you a selection:

Look frequently to the pails, to see that nothing is thrown to the pigs, which should have been in the grease-pot.

Look to the grease-pot, and see that nothing is there which might have served to nourish your own family, or a poorer one.

See that the beef and pork are always under brine; and that the brine is sweet and clean.

See that the vegetables are neither sprouting, nor decaying; if they are so, remove them to a drier place and spread them.

Examine preserves, to see that they are not contracting mould; and your pickles, to see that they are not growing soft and tasteless.

Suet keeps good all the year round, if chopped and packed down in a stone-jar, covered with molasses.

It is poor economy to buy vinegar, by the gallon. Buy a barrel, or half barrel of really strong vinegar, when you begin house-keeping. As you use it, fill the barrel with old cider, sour beer, or wine-settlings, &c. left in pitchers, decanters, or tumblers, weak tea is likewise said to be good: nothing is hurtful, which has a tolerable portion of spirit, or acidity.

If beer grows sour it may be used to advantage for pancakes and fritters.

Have all the good bits of vegetables and meat collected after dinner, and minced before they are set away; that they may be in readiness to make a little savoury mince meat for supper, or breakfast.

As far as it is possible, have bits of bread eaten up before they become hard. Spread those that are not eaten, and let them dry to be pounded for puddings, or soaked for brewis. Brewis is made of crusts, and dry pieces of bread, soaked a good while in hot milk, mashed up, and salted and buttered like toast. Above all, do not let them accumulate in such quantities that they cannot be used. With proper care, there is no need of losing a particle of bread, even in the hottest weather.

She also, of course, included some cooking advice. Vegetables were decidedly not served crisp and crunchy in those days – although there is also the argument that older horticultural types did not have the tenderness that has been bred into modern varieties, so perhaps they did in fact need more cooking.

Cooking Vegetables.
Cabbages need to be boiled an hour; beets an hour and a half.
The lower part of a squash should be boiled half an hour; the neck pieces fifteen or twenty minutes longer.
Parsnips should boil an hour, or an hour and a quarter, according to size.
New potatoes should boil fifteen or twenty minutes; three quarters of an hour, or an hour, is not too much for large, old potatoes; common sized ones half an hour.
Asparagus should be boiled fifteen or twenty minutes; half an hour if old.
Green peas should be boiled from twenty minutes to sixty, according to their age;
string beans the same.
Corn should be boiled from twenty minutes to forty, according to age.
Beet-tops should be boiled twenty minutes; and spinnage three or four minutes. Put in no green vegetables till the water boils, if you would keep all their sweetness.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Having a ball with food.

Quotation for the Day …

Omit and substitute! That's how recipes should be written. Please don't ever get so hung up on published recipes that you forget that you can omit and substitute.
Jeff Smith (the Frugal Gourmet)

Pork Pie, without the Pork.

February 8

The Internet firmly believes that Cape Breton Island was granted to Sir Robert Gordon of Lochinvar by Charles I, on this day 1631 – which was going to lead me to an anniversary exposé of the strangely porkless ‘Cape Breton Pork Pie’. I fear that The Internet has it a little wrong however, as in the fine print elsewhere it claims that Sir Robert died in 1628, and that he received the gift in November 1621. Any Scots or Nova Scots historians who can clarify, please do let us know the real truth.

A little factual confusion must not be allowed to get in the way of a good story however – so the famous pies it is. The Internet is strangely silent on the story of the porkless pork pies, save that they exist, and contain dates where the pork would be expected to be, and sugar, which would not be expected at all. The provenance is in great doubt, with a number of alternative myths where the history ought to be.

Cape Breton was settled by the Scots, then the French, then the Irish, then there was a second wave of Scots immigration in the first half of the nineteenth century. There is no doubt that the island culture proudly reflects its Scots heritage, and it is assumed (where any assumptions are made at all) that the porkless Pork Pies are a legacy of that heritage. To me, this seems unlikely. Pork in any form is not writ large in Scotland’s culinary history. Surely Cape Breton Pies with a Scots history would be muttonless mutton pies?

Perhaps they once did have pork in them, in the grand tradition of medieval mincemeat pies, and they kept the name after they lost the pork? Perhaps there used to be pork fat in the pastry? Perhaps they are so called because they stand up proudly like little raised pork pies (the same rationale for the naming of pork-pie hats)? Maybe the name is – like that of Welsh Rabbit (poshly called rarebit) – an ethnic slur by outsiders or a bit of self-mockery by insiders?

The Internet has many recipes for the date tart that fancies itself as a pork pie, and I invite you to ask Google to show you some Cape Breton Pork Pie instructions. If a definitive, historical recipe with provenance turns up, please do announce it to us all. In the meanwhile, there is a Scottishly frugal recipe for apple pie in Cookery and pastry. As taught and practised by Mrs. Maciver, published in Edinburgh in 1787.

An Apple Pie with Potatoes.
Boil some potatoes; pair [pare] and cut some apples; lay a row of apples in the dish, and a row of potatoes above them; then put some pieces of fresh butter above the potatoes; put apples, potatoes, and butter alternately until the pie is filled up; sweeten it to your taste; take rather more apples than potatoes; it is much better of having a little citron and orange-peel in it; put at little water in all apple pies; cover it with puff’d paste.

(Presumably this refers to sweet potato at this point in history.)

Monday’s Story …

The Other Mrs. Child.

Quotation for the Day …

Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time. Chinese Proverb

Happy Birthday to Charles.

February 7

Today is the birthday of Charles Dickens (in 1812). This wonderful story-teller’s works are rich with images of food – not surprising for a man who had been a hungry boy forced to work in a boot-blacking factory at the age of twelve. Food quotations alone from his stories could give us fodder for this blog as long as I will be writing it, so my problem today was – which one to choose?

Gravy is under-represented in food writing, methinks. One day I might attempt the definitive book on gravy (and custard? England’s two main sauces, and who needs any more when they are done to perfection in one of their infinite varieties?)

Mrs. Todger, in Dicken’s Martin Chuzzlewitt, runs a boarding house. The job has taken its toll on her good looks, and she explains why:

“Presiding over an establishment like this makes sad havoc with the features… The gravy alone is enough to add twenty years to one's age, I do assure you… The anxiety of that one item, my dears, keeps the mind continually upon the stretch. There is no such passion in human nature as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen”.

Mrs. Todger was quite right to take gravy seriously. The preparation has a seriously long heritage, and the word an obscure etymology – two good reasons for reverence. The OED hazards a guess that the word derives from a mis-reading of the Old French word grané, meaning ‘grain’, meaning ‘anything used in cooking’ – which is as obscure and brave an explanation that one would wish. If grané refers to grain as in flour as in thickening for meat juices, then we have arrived at ‘English’ gravy, in which case it is a perfect explanation, for English gravy is a different dish from French ‘gravy’ which is merely ‘jus’.

There are recipes for gravy in the earliest English cookbook, the Form of Cury, written about 1390. It consists of the rabbit broth, thickened with ground almonds, not flour, and spiced with sugar and saffron.

Connynges in Grauey.
Take Connynges..and drawe hem with a gode broth with almandes blanched and brayed, do therinne suger and powdor gynger.

By the nineteenth century, when Charles Dickens was considering gravy, ‘when properly done’ it was an incredibly labour-intensive process. I blame progress and its accompanying serious dearth of servants for the decline of good gravy and the invention of boxed gravy powders.

Miss Eliza Acton devotes a complete chapter to Gravies, and I give you an extract from it, to show how serious gravy can really be:

GRAVIES are not often required either in great variety, or in abundant quantities, when only a moderate table is kept, and a clever cook will manage to supply, at a trifling cost, all that is generally needed for plain family dinners; while an unskilful or extravagant one will render them sources of unbounded expense. But however small the proportions in which they are made, their quality should be particularly attended to, and they should be well adapted in flavour to the dishes they are to accompany. For some, at high degree of savour is desirable; but for fricassees, and other preparations of delicate white meats, this should be avoided, and a soft, smooth sauce of refined flavour-Should be used in preference to any of more piquant relish.

To deepen the colour of gravies, the thick mushroom pressings of Chapter V., or a little soy (when its flavour is admissible), or cavice, or Harvey's sauce may be added to it; and for some dishes, a glass of claret, or of port wine.

Vermicelli, or rasped cocoa-nut, lightly, and very gently browned in a small quantity of butter, will both thicken and enrich them, if about an ounce of either to the pint of gravy be stewed gently in it from half an hour to an hour, and then strained out.

She decries gravy which is over-thickened and greasy:

“ … gravies, which should not, however, be too much thickened, particularly with the unwholesome mixture of flour and butter, so commonly used for the purpose. Arrow-root, or rice-flour, or common flour gradually browned in a slow oven, are much better suited to a delicate stomach. No particle of fat should ever be perceptible upon them when they are sent to table … ”

She gives a number of recipes, starting with:

A RICH ENGLISH BROWN GRAVY.
Brown lightly and carefully from four to six ounces of lean ham, thickly sliced and cut into large dice; lift these out, and put them into the pan in which the gravy is to be made; next, fry lightly also, a couple of pounds of neck of beef, dredged moderately with flour, and slightly with pepper; put this when it is done over the bam; and then brown gently, and add to them one not large common onion. Pour over these ingredients a quart of boiling water, or of weak but well-flavoured broth, bring the whole slowly to a boil, clear off the scum with great care, throw in a saltspoonful of salt, four cloves, a blade of mace, twenty corns of pepper, a bunch of savoury herbs, a carrot, and a few slices of celery: these last two may be fried or not, as is most convenient. Boil the gravy very softly until it is reduced to little more than a pint; strain, and set it by until the fat can be taken from it. Heat it anew, add more salt if needed, and a little mushroom catsup, cayenne-vinegar, or whatever flavouring it may require for the dish with which it is to be served: it will seldom need any thickening. A dozen small mushrooms prepared as for pickling, may be added to it at first with advantage. Half this quantity of gravy will be sufficient for a single tureen, and the economist can diminish a little the proportion of meat when it is thought too much.

At risk of drowning you in gravy recipes and wearying you of the gravy word, in order to briefly indicate the range of gravy offerings in the Dickensian era, I give you a small selection:

ORANGE GRAVY, FOR WILD FOWL.
Boil for about ten minutes, in half a pint of rich and highly-flavoured brown gravy, or espagnole, half the rind of an orange, pared as thin as possible, and a small strip of lemon-rind, with a bit of sugar the size of a hazel-nut. Strain it off, add to it a quarter pint of port or claret, the juice of half a lemon, and a tablespoonful of orange-juice; season it with cayenne, and serve it as hot as possible.
Gravy, ½ pint; ½ the rind of an orange; lemon-peel, 1 small strip; sugar, size of hazel-nut: 10 minutes. Juice of ½ a lemon: orange-juice, 1 tablespoonful; cayenne.
[Miss Acton, Modern Cookery for Private Families, 1845]

GRAVY TO MAKE MUTTON EAT LIKE VENISON.
Pick a very stale woodcock or snipe, cut it in pieces (but first take out the bag from the entrails), and simmer with as much unseasoned meat-gravy as you will want. Strain it, and serve in the dish ; but if the mutton be not long kept, it will not acquire the venison flavour.
[Murray's modern cookery book. Modern domestic cookery, by a lady 1851]

BROWN GRAVY FOR LENT.
Melt a piece of butter about the size of an egg, in a sauce-pan, shake in a little flour, and brown it by degrees, stir in half a pint of water, and half a pint of ale, or small beer which is not bitter, an onion, a piece of lemon-peel, two cloves, a blade of mace, some whole pepper, a spoonful of mushroom pickle, a spoonful of ketchup, and an anchovy; boil altogether a quarter of an hour, and strain it. It is an excellent sauce for various dishes.
[The practical cook, English and foreign, by J. Bregion and A. Miller, 1845]

On Dickens …

There have been previous stories in this blog on dinner with Dickens, the Dolly Varden Cake inspired by one of his characters, and also one on the menu book authored by his wife.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Pork Pie, without the Pork.

Quotation for the Day …

Polly put the kettle on, we'll all have tea. Charles Dickens, in Barnaby Rudge

Air Force One.

The President of the United States of America has got to get better in-flight food than the rest of us, Yes? It should be even better than First Class for the First Man?

Here was the menu for lunch aboard Air Force One, on February 6, 1994.

Assorted Relishes
Vegetable Soup
Tuna Melt on Croissant
Chips

Choice of Beverage

Cookies

It seems a homely menu indeed. Perhaps there was an urgent need for comfort food on that particular day?

I was tempted to divulge the many secrets of ‘relishes’ today. Then ‘chips’ caught my eye. American ‘chips’, presumably. In other words French fries made from super-thin slices of potato. Otherwise known as ‘crisps’, if you eat them (cold) from a packet in the U.K. Initially I decided against ‘cookies’ as a topic because I have previously puzzled over this superb example of the linguistic divide between the English-speaking countries. If you missed the discussion, a ‘cookie’ is a ‘biscuit’ in England – where an American ‘biscuit’ is a ‘scone’. But then I remembered that there is another cookie puzzle.

The accepted origin of the American word ‘cookie’ is that it comes from the Dutch word koekie, meaning little cake, which begs the question of why then are ‘cookies’ not in fact like little cakes but like English biscuits (even if it does fit with the historic fact that the Dutch got an early foothold in the country.) The puzzle deepens when you find that ‘cookie’ is also an old Scottish word – although the OED is unable to hazard a guess as to the Scottish etymology. The idea that the same word/idea could possibly come from two different origins sounds a unlikely to me, but I am a mere linguo-phile, not a linguist. Did the Scots get it from the Dutch, or the Dutch from the Scots, or the Americans from the Scots? Any linguists out there please help.

The Scots ‘cookie’ according to the OED is neither a cake nor a biscuit but a small plain bun – no spice, no fruit. Its first usage is given by the OED as being in about 1730, but there is a mention (spelled 'cuckie') in a Scottish laird’s household book of 1701. The origin of the OED citation is a letter written by a ‘gentleman’ in the North of Scotland to his friend in London, and the full text gives some interesting information:

‘As the Lowlanders call their part of the country the land of cakes, so the natives of the Hills say they inhabit a land of milk and honey. P. S. In the Low-country the cakes are called cookies; and the several species of them, of which there are many, though not much differing in quality one from another, are dignified and distinguished by the names of the reigning toasts, or the good housewife who was the inventor,—as for example, Lady Cullen's cookies, &c.’

So, a Scots cookie is from the Lowlands, and it sounds suspiciously like the many variations could contain fruit and spice, no matter what the OED thinks. For today’s recipe therefore I hied me away to the cookbooks of eighteenth and nineteenth century Scotland, but was unable to find anything called cookie, cuckie, or cukie. Perhaps the Scots cookie is too homely to make it into cookbooks. I will give you instead an American cookie recipe, which is quite nice, even if it should be called a biscuit recipe, and even if it calls for them to be cooked in muffin rings, and eaten like scones.

From the New York Times of 1908, because only the best is suitable for Mr. President, and because I like the idea of using fresh coconut, not the modern improved dried sweetened shredded and hygenically packaged variety ….

Cocoanut Cookies.
To make them cream very lightly ¾ cup of butter with 2 cups of sugar. Add the beaten yolks of two eggs, 1 cup of grated fresh cocoanut, and 1 teaspoon baking powder mixed with a very scant cup of cracker dust. Bake in buttered muffin rings, filling them half full, and place on a baking sheet covered with buttered paper. When baked, allow them to cool, split them open, and spread whipped cream between and on top of each.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Happy Birthday to Charles.

Quotation for the Day …

You can travel fifty thousand miles in America without once tasting a piece of good bread. Henry Miller (1891-1980)

Primrose Day.

February 5

The flower of the day, according to the much quoted but perhaps mythical medieval monks’ calendar, is the primrose (Primula vulgaris), and it is dedicated to the saint of the day, St. Agatha.

The only common culinary use of flowers nowadays seems to be a few tossed into a salad for colour. A number of things have contributed to the decline in the use of edible flowers – the habitat of wild flowers is shrinking, cultivated flowers have been sprayed with pesticides, roadside flowers are tainted with vehicle exhaust fumes, and they are not generally sold in supermarket produce departments. ‘Tis a pity, for they were once used widely to make wine and spirits, pickles and jams and confections; they were added to composed salads and to 'made dishes' for both their flavour and colour. It seems unlikely that flowers will ever have such widespread culinary use again.

Flowers also used to be used medicinally. The primrose was a veritable panacea for a wide range of problems including rheumatics, paralysis, gout, wounds, headaches, insomnia, chest problems and hysterical disorders. Sadly or otherwise, its value in these complaints has long since been superceded by modern medicine - but modern medicine offers no substitute for one other very important attribute of the primrose.

It used to be said that eating primroses enabled you to see fairies, and surely we need more fairies to be more visible in our lives? Certainly there are other substances known to give the gift of seeing fairies (or little green elephants, or perfumed music, or Elvis leaving the building etc), but these are associated with other risks, not the least of which are toxicological and legal. Those of you who live in temperate primrose-growing countries are very lucky. If you have access to huge amounts you can make:

Primrose Vinegar.
To fifteen quarts of water put six pounds of brown sugar; let it boil ten minutes, and take off the scum; pour on it half a peck of primroses; before it is quite cold, put in a little fresh yeast, and let it work in a warm place all night; put it into a barrel in the kitchen, and when done working, close the barrel, still keeping it in a warm place.
[The Mysteries of Trade, Or, the Source of Great Wealth … David Beman, 1825]

If a handful of primroses is all you can manage, you can make a tart, and perhaps it will be enough for a single fairy visitation. The recipe (a variation of a ‘Tansy’*) uses only the leaves, so you can use the pretty flowers in an accompanying salad.

To make a Spring Tart.
Gather such Buds, in the Spring of the Year, that are not bitter, also the Leaves of Primroses, Violets, and Strawberries; take also a little young Spinage, boil them, drain them in a Colander; then chop them very small, and boil them over again in Cream; add to them Naples Bisket grated, and so many Yolks and Whites of Eggs as will make the Cream very thick, colour all green with the Juice of Spinage; season with Salt, Nutmeg, Cinnamon and Sugar, and bake it in Puff-paste or otherwayes.
[The cook’s and confectioner’s dictionary, 1733]

*There are other flowers in other stories:

Marigolds are HERE
Lime Flowers are HERE
Violets are HERE
Woodruff is HERE
A conserve of Flowers is HERE
Borage flowers (and marigolds and cowslips) are HERE

Tomorrow’s Story …

Air Force One.

Quotation for the Day …

How many flowers there are which only serve to produce essences, which could have been made into savory dishes. Charles Monselet (1825-1864)

An explosive cocktail.

February 4

A veteran of the Battle of Trafalgar called Thomas Davey officially took over as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) on February 4, 1813. By most accounts he was completely unsuitable for the position, being lazy, incompetent, and hard-drinking. His only real claim to fame is as the inventor of a famous drink called ‘Blow my Skull’ which was said to be mixed in a cask and served in half-pint glasses. The ‘original’ recipe for this beverage is in Australia’s first cookbook, written by the Tasmanian politician Edward Abbott. Abbott describes the drink as a mix of boiling water, sugar, lime or lemon-juice, ale or porter, rum, and brandy – making it a very potent cocktail (or punch) indeed. Other ‘original’ recipes include a variety of other ingredients such as Madeira, gin, claret, opium and cayenne pepper.

Abbott says that Davey enjoyed his drink as an accompaniment to roast pig, but the idea made me wonder about the more modern accompaniment to cocktails – the little snacks known by the Frenchified word ‘canapes’. The OED describes a canape as ‘a piece of bread or toast, etc., on which small savouries are served’, and gives the first use of the word as appearing in an 1890 version of Mrs Beeton’s famous cookery book. I have to say that the OED frequently falls down in the culinary quotations area. It certainly appears in English cookbooks several decades earlier, and an example (I don’t know if it is the very earliest) is in Richard Dolby’s book The Cook’s Dictionary (1831). Interestingly, Dolby gives two interpretations (and spellings) of the word, and consequently two recipes.

CANAPES.
Roll out three quarters of a pound of puff-paste, keeping it long and narrow ; do not let it be more than a quarter of an inch thick, and about three inches wide. Cut the paste across with a sharp knife, in slips three-eighths of an inch in width, and place them on the cut side, on a baking-plate, each two inches apart; bake them in a hot oven, and when nicely coloured, sprinkle them with sugar, and glaze them. When done, remove them from the plate; and just before they are served, mask them with apricot marmalade, or any other you may like better, und arrange them on your dish en couronne.

CANAPIES.
Cut some pIeces of the crumb of bread about four inches long, three inches wide, and one inch thick, fry them in boiling lard, till of a light brown colour ; then рut them on a drainer, and cut into slips some breast of fowl, anchovies picked from the bone, pickled cucumbers, and ham or tongue. Then butter the pieces of bread on one side, and lay upon them alternately the different articles, till filled. Trim the edges, and put the pieces (cut into what form you please) upon a dish, with slices of lemon round the rim ; and serve in a sauce-boat, a little mixture of oil, vinegar, cayenne pepper, and salt.

A canape is also, according to the OED, ‘a sofa’. I presume the name for the savouries came about because the little puffy squares of fried bread embroidered with pieces of chicken breast or anchovies resembled upholstered cushions? Any French scholars out there care to take a stab at explaining the English usage of the word for a snack?

Tomorrow’s Story …

Primrose Day.

Quotation for the Day …

[The cocktail hour] The pause between the errors and trials of the day and the hopes of the night. Herbert Hoover.

Very Wild Meats.

February 1

When Charles Darwin was in deepest darkest South America, he was eating supper one night and was suddenly ‘struck with horror at thinking I was eating one of the favourite dishes of the country, namely a half formed calf, long before its proper time of birth.’ He was somewhat relieved to find that his supper was in fact another local delicacy – puma. Funny, how puma was acceptable to him but unborn veal was not. As Dr Samuel Johnson said ‘It is not easy to fix the principles upon which mankind have agreed to eat some animals and reject others; and as the principle is not evident, it is not uniform.’

A butcher-man called Thomas Farrington De Voe wrote a wonderfully detailed and fascinating account of the public markets of the city of New York in 1867, and it is one of the treasures of the Feeding America site (look for The Market Assistant). Mr. de Voe noted that the advance of agriculture had played its part in the extermination of many of the wilder species of game, and that in earlier times, when ‘anything unusual’ appeared, it was generally noticed in the press. He gives as an example an advertisement that had appeared several decades before, in the Commercial Advertiser, on February 1, 1823:

"WILD MEATS. Our markets are not only well supplied with every variety of domestic meat and fowls, but there is a great variety of wild meats and wild game. Mr. Sykes (who kept the New York Coffee-house) has a fine bear (weighing two hundred pounds), which he is soon to serve up to his friends; and we yesterday saw, at Fulton-market, two wagons, from Sullivan County, N.Y., the one filled with white hares and partridges, and the other with venison. On the top of the bucks, which were stowed closely, stood a fierce-looking panther, almost eight feet long, as if to guard the buck-tailed tribe. The panther was killed in Sullivan County, about two weeks since."

The big cats, even if it when it was not ethically incorrect to eat them, were never regular and common items of diet for relatively modern humans. Carnivorous beasts do not seem to be favoured fodder for the human omnivore. We prefer our food to have taken its food from green pastures (or at least we like the myth that they do.) Another limiting factor in the consumption of big cats is obviously the danger inherent in hunting them, and most of our information about the taste of the meat comes from adventurers like Charles Darwin, who said ‘the meat is very white, and remarkably like veal in taste’, or fearless frontiersmen who have described it as being ‘excellent eating, ‘a good deal like mutton’, having ‘a sweet and cattish taste’, and certainly better than ‘wolf mutton’ (coyote meat).

I don’t know if there are panthers anymore in Sullivan County N.Y. If there are, it is surely and rightly prohibited to hunt and eat them. Clearly I cannot give you a recipe for panther meat, so instead offer one of the ‘out-takes’ from my book on the history of the pie. It is a Hottentot pie – a brief culinary mystery of the eighteenth century, perhaps named for its exotic mix of ingredients.

Hottentot Pie.
Boil and bone two calf’s feet, clean very well a calf’s chitterling, boil it and chop it small, take two chickens and cut them up as for eating, put them in a stew-pan with two sweet-breads, a quart of veal or mutton gravy, half an ounce of morels, Chyan [cayenne] pepper and salt to your palate, stew them all together an hour over a gentle fire, then put in six force-meat balls that have been boiled, and the yolks of four hard eggs, and put them in a good raised crust that has been baked for it, strew over the top of your pie a few green peas boiled as for eating; or peel and cut some young green brocoli stalks about the size of peas, give them a gentle boil, and strew them over the top of your pie, and send it up hot without a lid, the same way as a French pie.
[The Experienced English Housekeeper; Elizabeth Raffald; 1769]

Monday’s Story …

An explosive cocktail.

Quotation for the Day …

The most basic rule of survival in any situation is "never look like food”. Park Ranger, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Restoring the Cooks Palate

January 31

The issue of the cook’s palate becoming dulled and insensitive seems to have become a non-issue – or perhaps when it happens nowadays the cook moves on and becomes a celebrity and makes TV appearances and writes books. It was certainly an issue for William Kitchiner, the eccentric author of The Cook’s Oracle, in 1817, and although - most unusually for the time - he cooked and cleaned up for himself, he did have some most considerate advice for those who employed a cook:

The Master, who wishes to enjoy the rare luxury of a table regularly well served in the best style, must treat his Cook as his friend—watch over her health with the tenderest care, and especially be sure her taste does not Suffer from her Stomach being deranged by Bilious Attacks.

Thc greatest care should be taken by the man of fashion, that his Cook's health be preserved : one hundredth part of the attention usually bestowed on his dog, or his horse,will suffice to regulate her animal state.

If worst came to worst, Dr. Kitchener had the solution:

If you find your Cook neglect his business, — that his Ragouts are too highly spiced or salted, and his cookery has too much of the ' haut goȗt,' — you may be sure that his Index of Taste wants regulating, — his Palate has lost its sensibility, — and it is high time to call in the assistance of the apothecary, — who will prepare him by two days' aqueous diet, and then administer a Potio Purgans — regulating the dose according to the greater or less insensibility of his Palate:—give him a day's rest. — " Purger encore" — let him have two days' rest after his second dose, and you may then hope to have at the head of your stoves a man altogether renovated. "
" Purger souvent" is the grand maxim in all kitchens where le Maitre d'Hotel has any regard for the reputation of his table. Les Bonnes Hommes de Bouche submit to the operation without a murmur; — to bind others, it should be made the first condition in hiring them. Those who refuse prove they were not born to become masters of their art; — and their indifference to fame will rank them, as they deserve, among those stupid slaves, who pass their lives in as much obscurity as their own stew-pans.

Not having ever worked in a professional kitchen, I cannot say with any certainty that this routine has been abandoned, but I suspect it has or surely Mr. Bourdain would have mentioned it at least briefly in his Kitchen Confidential.

For today’s recipe, I give you a simple bread and butter pudding from Dr.Kitchiner’s book. It should not need repeated tasting while in the making, and will not cause your cook (or yourself) to need the attention of your friendly local apothecary.

BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING.
You must have a dish that will hold a quart,—wash and pick two ounces of currants ; strew a few at the bottom of the dish; cut about four layers of very thin Bread and Butter, and between each layer of Bread and Butter strew some currants ; then break four eggs in a basin, leaving out one white ; beat them well, and add four ounces of sugar and a drachm of nutmeg ; stir it well together with a pint of new milk ; pour it over about ten minutes before you put it in the oven,—it will take three quarters of an hour to bake.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Very Wild Meats.

Quotation for the Day …

A man's palate can, in time, become accustomed to anything. Napoleon Bonaparte.

A Papal Penchant for Coffee.

January 30

There is a recurring, and probably apocryphal story, that pops up all the time in articles on the history of coffee, and it relates to Pope Clement VIII who was elected on this day in 1592. Ippolito Aldobrandini was of a distinguished Florentine family before he got the Big Job, and Italy was the place in Europe where the potential of coffee was first taken seriously. The problem was that coffee was an ‘Arab drink’, and Clement was as profoundly anti-Islam as he was anti-Semitic. On this basis his advisers wanted it banned, but unfortunately he (and no doubt another powerful lobby group) rather enjoyed it. So, the story goes, he had it baptized, thus converting it to a truly Christian drink. I have never seen a shred of evidence that there is a shred of truth in this story, but will reserve full approval until either I have time to research it, or – even better – someone else lets me know the truth.

There were, however, repeated attempts by leaders in various places to ban coffee in those early centuries of its progress through Europe. There were two broad reasons why this happened: (a) it was new and suspect on that ground alone, and (b) coffee making and drinking required special equipment so could not be done at home (at that stage) and therefore people gathered in coffee houses – with the potential for chatting about rebellion over a few cups.

There was one other interesting petition asking for the banning of coffee, and it is real enough – or at least the paper is real, although the actual writers and actual intent are not so certain. It is, however, absolutely hilarious. It is the Women’s Petition Against Coffee – a broadsheet dated 1674. The writers (‘several thousands of Buxome Good-Women) complain it makes their men impotent, and distracts them when they are sent out for the midwife. I give you an edited version below – it continues on for quite some time on the same theme. If you would like the full transcription, please email me.

To the Right Honorable the Keepers of the Liberties of Venus… The Humble Petition and Addrss of several Thousands of Buxome Good-Women, Languishing in Extremity of Want.

SHEWETH,

That since ‘tis Reckon’d amonst the Glories of our Native Country, To be a Paradise for Women: The same in our Apprehensions can consist in nothing more than the brisk Activity of our men, who in former Ages were justly esteemed the Ablest Performers in Christendome; But to our unspeakable Grief, we find of late a very sensible Decay of that true Old English Vigour; our Gallants being in every way so Frenchified, that they are become meer Cock-sparrows, fluttering things that come on Sa sa, with a world of Fu[ry] but are not able to stand to it, and in the very first Charge fall down flat before us. Never did Men wear greater Breeches, or carry less in them of any Mettle whatsoever. There was a glorious Dispensation (‘twas surely in the Golden Age) when Lusty Ladds of seven or eight hundred years old Got Sons and Daughters; and we have read, how a Prince of Spain was forced to make a Law, that Men should not Repeat the Grand Kindness to their Wives above NINE times in a night; but Alas! Alas! Those forwards Days are gone; the dull Lubbers want a Spur now, rather than a Bridle; being so far from doing any works of Supererregation that we find them not capable of performing those Devoirs which their Duty, and our Expectations Exact.

The Occasion of which Insufferable Disaster, after a serious Enquiry, and Discussion of the Point by the Learned of the Faculty, we can Attribute to nothing more than the Excessive use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish liquor called COFFEE, which Rifling Nature of her Choicest Treasures, and Drying up the Radi[c]al Moisture, has so Eunuch[t] our Husbands, and Crippled our more kind Gallants, that they are become as Impotent as Age, and as unfruitful as those Desarts whence that unhappy Berrry is said to be brought.

For the continual sipping of this pittiful drink is enough to bewitch Men of two and twenty, and tie up the Codpice-point without a Charm. It renders them that use it as Lean as Famine, as Rivvel’d as Envy, or an old meager Hagg over-ridden by an Incubus. They come from it with nothing moist but their snotty Noses, nothing stiffe but their Joints, nor standing but their Ears; …

The Recipe for the Day …

It was some long time before coffee was used as a recipe ingredient, and I refer you to the Coffee Archive for a selection. Today I thought I would take as my topic the other theme in the story, and I give you a recipe for Matrimonial Cake (or Matrimony Cake) – so called presumably because there are two distinct mixes, united in one dish. It is an oldish theme, and we have touched on it before with Matrimony pudding and sauce. This particular interpretation seems to have been a Canadian invention of the ‘30’s – although I stand to be corrected on that statement. This version is from an American newspaper (Elyria, Ohio) in 1933.

Matrimonial Cake
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups pastry flour
2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp soda
1 cup butter or oil
Filling:
1 lb stoned dates
¼ cup brown sugar
juice of 1-2 lemons
1 ½ cups boiling water.
Cook slowly over a low fire until soft. Cool. Mix often to prevent burning.
Mix all dry ingredients with butter. Grease shallow cake pan. Cover with ½ of ingredients and then cover withdate filling and with balance of dry ingredients . Bake in oven at 325 degrees F. for about 45 minutes or until golden brown. When cold, serve with whipped cream. Serves about 15.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Restoring the Cooks Palate

Quotation for the Day …

Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow they may make it illegal. Anon.

Diet Gurus.

January 29

The story of Byron and his diet dilemma a few days ago created bit of feedback. It seems that the topic interests quite a few of you, and it whet my interest to see what the ‘experts’ have suggested over the years for the treatment of corpulence.

In a lovely bit of synchronicity, today is the birthday of the American novelist and essayist Edward Abbey (1927), who is the perpetrator of one of my favourite pithy sayings on the topic of diets.

‘Nobody seems more obsessed by diet than our anti-materialist, otherwordly, New Age, spiritual types. But if the material world is merely an illusion, an honest guru should be as content with Budweiser and bratwurst as with raw carrot juice, tofu, and seaweed slime.’

I started to work backwards, so have a few gleanings from the works of some nineteenth century physicians for you. It seems that they were all in agreement that less food and more exercise was the key, but it was in the details that they differed from each other, and in their attitude that they differ from modern gurus. No modern expert would get away with the patronising sexist approach of “A Physician” in 1828, who, in reference to the “fair readers” of his advice on the Reduction of Corpulency noted that:

‘It behoves them, however, to remember, that physical beauty is necessarily associated with the flowing curve, and the crescent, and, therefore, that to the perfection of beauty in the female figure, the existence of some degree of embonpoint, is absolutely necessary. Nature abhors, so to speak, the straight line and the angle, so commonly combined with leanness, almost as much as she does a vacuum.

He repeated ‘Old Parr’s rule, which was. ‘If you are inclined to get fat, keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.’ He also suggested that ‘friction ought to claim particular notice, as a domestic exercise, from all ladies who are desirous of reducing their embonpoint. Half an hour a day, friction all over. Interesting.

Rather alarmingly, he also advised restriction of liquids – as low as 16 or 20 ounces in a day, specifying ‘Of liquid aliment, the best is cyder, perry, light acidulous wines, tea, and water. The wines to be preferred are, Red Hermitage, Rhenish, Hock, Barsac, Claret, and Champagne; but those who can do without wine will be most successful in their plan of reduction. Cream of tartar and water forms a useful drink for the corpulent.”

I don’t suppose there is any profit in cream of tartar and water for the weight loss industry.

Another physician (in 1863) recommended hot baths to promote copious perspiration, and diet of course, but insisted that more fat is required for ‘hard brain-workers’.

A few leaned to giving culinary advice. Here is a physician in 1850:

“ I cannot help pausing an instant to speak of the absurdity of our usual way of dressing macaroni. After being boiled and made palatable, it is sprinkled with cheese, and placed before the fire, so as to form a tough, rancid, empyreumatic crust, nauseous and indigestible in the extreme. Boiled till soft, and eaten with French mustard or jam, it makes a soluble and wholesome diet, pleasing to the palate and the reason.”

Friction (or ‘dry rubbing’ with or without powder’), a tight band around the abdomen (enables exercise to be taken with more facility; and ‘appears also by pressure, to afford some assistance to the absorption of fat’), and even bleeding and purging were suggested in some cases by the macaroni-doctor. He liked the idea of bitter tonics too – because “they enable the stomach to digest more easily and rapidly, and therefore be contented with a smaller quantity of really nourishing food.”

Byron believed in the slimming power of vinegar, but one physician claimed that it only produced thinness by ‘injuring the digestive organs’, and in fact he felt that the opposite was what was indicated due to the ‘chemical affinity of alkalies for fat’. He therefore prescribed what was in essence a slightly soapy solution of ‘liquor potassae’, so long as this was not used in inappropriate cases however, such as in debilitated gouty subjects and chronic stone in the bladder, else much harm would be done.

In the spirit of Edward Abbey and his remarks on silly diet gurus, just to spite those silly gurus, I give you several decidedly un-dietary carrot recipes.

Sweet Carrots. (Entremets.)
Boil quite tender some fine highly-flavoured carrots, press the water from them, and rub them through the back .of a fine hair-sieve; put them into a clean saucepan or stewpan, and dry them thoroughly over a gentle fire; then add a slice of fresh butter, and when this is dissolved and well mixed with them, strew in a dessertspoonful or more of powdered sugar, and a little salt; next, stir in by degrees some good cream, and when this is quite absorbed, and the carrots again appear dry, dish and serve them quickly with small sippets, a la Reine placed round them.
[Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery, 1858]

Carrots a la Orleans.
TAKE a few young carrots, turn them of an equal size, and cut them in slices of about the eighth of an inch thick, and blanch them well. Next lay them on a towel to drain; put them into a stew-pan with a lump of sugar and a little broth, and let them boil over a large fire. When reduced to glaze, add a good bit of fresh butter and a little salt. Mind that the butter must adhere to the carrots when you serve up, as no sauce must be seen.
[Louis Eustache Ude, The French Cook, 1822]

Ragout Of Carrots
Scrape your carrots, and scald them in boiling water; cut them in long fillets, and put them to stew, with some butter, salt, pepper, and chopped parsley. When the carrots are done, before you serve, add some yolks of eggs. If you wish to make a ragout of carrots in a different mode, put them into a stewpan with small pieces of bacon, salt, pepper, chives, and parsley; moisten with jus and stock; then stew slowly till done enough.
[French Cookery adapted for English Families; Frances Crawford. 1853]

Tomorrow’s Story …

A Papal Penchant for Coffee.

Quotation for the Day …

I've been on a constant diet for the last two decades. I've lost a total of 789 pounds. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet. Erma Bombeck

On Coconuts.

January 28

Francis Drake may not have been responsible for bringing the potato to England, but he did have some interesting food experiences. On this day in 1578 in the Cape Verde islands he was in search of provisions, and came across the coconut.

“Yet the next day (28th) our General sent to view the island [Mayo, Cape Verde], and the likelihoods that might be there of provision of victuals, … Amongst other things we found here a kind of fruit called cocos, which because it is the fruit groweth in clusters, hard at the top of the stem of the tree, as big every several fruit as a man's head; but having taken off the uttermost bark, which you shall find to be very full of strings or sinews, as I may term them, you shall come to a hard shell, which may hold in quantity of liquor a pint commonly, or some a quart, and some less. Within that shell, of the thickness of half-an-inch good, you shall have a kind of hard substance and very white, no less good and sweet than almonds; within that again, a certain clear liquor, which being drunk, you shall not only find it very delicate and sweet, but most comfortable and cordial.”

The name ‘coconut’ is a puzzle, and the OED almost gives up on it, eventually seeming to agree with the opinion that it comes from a Spanish or Portuguese word indicating a grin or grimacing expression – referencing the appearance produced by the three ‘holes’ at the base. One of the OED’s own supporting quotations however (from 1555) suggests that it may have been an ‘Indian’ word for the cry of a monkey, as the holes ‘doo represent the gesture and fygure of the cattes cauled Mammone, that is munkeys, when they crye: which crye the Indians caule coca.’ The credibility of this writer is somewhat in doubt as he says there are four holes in the coconut shell (‘there are seene two holes, and aboue them two other naturall holes’), whereas most of us can only identify three – so perhaps the expert had never seen one himself.

That the coconut is an incredibly useful tree and fruit has never been in doubt. One Polynesian wanderer in the 1840’s summed up its usefulness by quoting:

‘The Indian’s nut alone,
Is clothing, meat,and trencher, drink and can,
Boat, cable, sail, and needle – all in one.’

It seems to me that there is too much dried, sweetened (for Goodness’ Sake!), packaged, dessicated coconut in the world. Coconuts with their hard shells don’t have the packing and transport problems of soft and rapidly ripening fruit like the banana for example, but of course the problem for those of us without a single machete in the kitchen is how to extract and shred the flesh. I understand that there are special gadgets that will do this, but I do not have one. Do they work? If they do, I will try recipes such as the following, taken from The Indian Cookery Book, published By Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta, circa 1900.

Cocoanut Rice Pudding
Soak a breakfastcupful of fine rice in water until quite soft; scoop out the contents of a hard cocoanut; extract all the milk with a little boiling-hot water, then boil the rice in it, sweeten it to taste with some date jagree or treacle, and put in a few grains of aniseed. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding-dish and bake it slightly.

Cocoanut Pittas
Scrape finely a cocoanut, brown it with some jagree and a few grains of the black cardamom seed, and set it aside; then prepare a pastry of finely-sifted rice-flour (it must be kneaded with boiling-hot water, and will not roll out); take as much as the size of a duck's egg, and press it out flat in the palm of your hand to the size of a large saucer; put a tablespoonful of the fried cocoanut into it, and close it up in a half-moon shape, with the help of a little water. Have a wide-mouthed large earthen pot of boiling water; stretch and tie over its mouth a napkin, and steam the pittas or cakes over them; they will be ready in half an hour, and may be eaten hot or cold.

Cocoanut Cheesecakes
Grate a good-sized nut very fine, and add to it four or five spoonfuls of rich syrup and one spoonful of rose-water; set it over a few coals, and keep stirring till it is mixed; then take it off the fire and let it cool; next mix the yolks of two eggs well with it, and bake in small paps in the shape of cheesecakes. The pastry for the pans must be made with flour and yokes of eggs, rolled as thin as possible; wet the tops of the cakes with rose-water; sift some refined sugar over them, and bake them in an oven at a gentle heat.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Diet Gurus.

Quotation for the Day …

One of these nuts is a meal for a man, both meat and drink [on coconuts]. Marco Polo.

Cakes for Australia Day

Today is Australia Day, so I give you a selection of cake recipes from a lovely little charity cookbook compiled by the Women’s Auxiliary for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The book is undated but looks to be from the late 60’s, or perhaps 70's.

Early Settler’s Birthday Cake.
Cream 2 cups dripping with 2 cups sugar. Add 1 emu egg, beating well. Flavour with vanilla.
Sift two teaspoons soda and 4 teaspoons cream of tartar with 6 cups flour. Add this a little at a time alternately with 2 cups milk. Add 2 cups currants.
Bake in 3 large tins in moderate oven.

Butterscotch Cake.
2 cups S.R. flour, pinch salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 cup brown sugar, ½ cup shortening, 2 eggs, ½ cup strong, cold coffee (1 tablespoon coffee essence in half cup cold water) ¼ cup milk.
Combine milk and coffee, sift flour and salt, cream butter and sugar, add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add essence, then flour alternately with liquid and beat batter until smooth.
Bake in 8 inch pans in moderate oven 25-30 minutes.

Mission Loaf.
Put in saucepan and bring to the boil – 1 tablespoon butter, 1 cup stoned dates, 1 tablespoon full walnuts, 1 teaspooon carb soda, 1 cup boiling water, ¾ cup sugar.
Allow to cool and add – 1 egg well beaten, 1 cup S.R. flour, ½ cup plain flour, 1 tablespoon cocoa.
Bake 2 minutes.

Getting a Grip on Sausages.

January 25

Virginia Woolf the English writer was born on this day in 1882. She was born into a family that had wealth, social standing, and a rich intellectual and literary life. She became famous as a novelist, slightly infamous as a member of the ‘Bloomsbury Group, and ultimately she became a tragic story herself.

In addition to her published, public, writing, Woolf kept a journal. Early in World War II, on March 8, 1941 she wrote:

“And now with some pleasure I find that it’s seven; and must cook dinner. Haddock and sausage meat. I think it is true that one gains a certain hold on sausage and haddock by writing them down.”

Less than three weeks later, on March 28, fearful of the return of the mental illness which had plagued her all her life, she loaded up her pockets with stones and drowned herself in the river Ouse near her Sussex home.

There are many references to food in Virginia Woolf’s diaries, and it is clear that it was one of the pleasures in her life. Even though she noted the pleasant anticipation of cooking her wartime dinner, perhaps her diary entry also tells of her awareness of her fragile hold on day to day things. Or perhaps it was a writer’s awareness that writing about it is a way of getting a grip on any subject at all.

I give you a wartime sausage-meat recipe, from Ministry of Food Facts Leaflets produced in 1941.

Meat Roll.
(Mrs. L. Harbourne)
First of all, soak a large slice of bread in milk. Now mix together ¼ lb minced veal, ¼ lb. minced beef, ¼ lb. sausage meat and a few minced bacon pieces. Add to them a small onion or one or two spring onions (if you can get them) sliced finely, a grated raw potato and salt and pepper to taste. Squeeze the milk out of the slice of bread and mash the bread into the meat mixture. If you can spare it, bind the mixture with a small beaten egg; otherwise use the milk in which the bread was soaked. If necessary, add enough white breadcrumbs to make the mixture firm enough to shape into a roll. Sprinkle thickly with brown breadcrumbs or medium oatmeal that has been toasted in an oven, put into a greased baking tin, cover with butter or margarine paper, and bake in good oven for an hour.
This roll can be served hot or cold. It looks most attractive when decorated with strips of anchovy or some sliced, cooked carrot sprinkled with a little chopped parsley.

Monday’s Story …

On Coconuts.

Quotation for the Day …

One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well. Virginia Woolf, ‘A room of one’s own.’

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.

Odds and Ends for Dinner.

January 23

Our old friend Parson James Woodforde has given us much wonderful information about the dining habits of the middle class in the second half of the eighteenth century. He was clearly a man who enjoyed his food, and frequently made quite detailed report of his dinners. On this day in 1795 however, he was uninspired, noting simply: “Dinner to day, odds and ends &c.” One can almost hear the plaintive, disappointed voice.

He uses this same phrase in other entries, not telling us any other information. There are people who cook specifically to have leftovers, – I am one of them myself – there are others who abhor the idea, and are either much more calculating cooks than I am and are able to prepare just the right amount for one meal, or they are more daring and are able to dump the remains into the garbage.

The problem with leftovers (if it is a problem), is largely in the name, which hints at toothprints and saliva residue at best, and loss of flavour and serious bacteriological contamination at worst. What else to call them? Parson Woodford’s other phrase, ‘heatups’, is no better. ‘Re-cycled’ sounds ethically correct but somehow not delicious.

One eighteenth century author tried hard with ‘secondary cookery’, which at least is a little intriguing. The full title of the book is The family save-all, a system of secondary cookery, and it was published in 1861. It is a fascinating book, and the author tries valiantly to add excitement to many dishes that surely do need it, by renaming them in they style of a ‘Capital Dinner from Ox-Cheek’ and ‘Capital Soup from Cow Heels’.

My favourite is this one:

A Marbled Dish of Remnants.
A sort of marbled mass is sometimes made by shaking together in a mould remnants of various coloured Blanc-manges cut nearly of the same size, and then filling it up with a clear jelly.

His creativity falls short of glamourising some dishes however:

Economical Dish of Baked Faggots.
Leaves of Mangel Wurzel as a Table Vegetable.
Delicious Pie of Sheep’s Head and Trotters.
Tails, Various Uses Of.
Various ways of Cooking and re-Cooking that unmanageable dish, Ox-heart.

The book contains much other useful advice on such things as getting rid of vermin, removing stains from clothing, etc, and a whole lot of other things that you didn’t even realise you needed to know, such as:

Important Hints on Breathing.

and

How to Eat an Egg with Satisfaction !
WHAT ! mean to insinuate that, after all these years, we don't know how to eat eggs properly ? Never mind: don't be above taking a hint. By the usual mode of introducing the salt into a boiled egg, it will not incorporate with the egg; the result is, you get either a quantity of salt without egg, or egg without salt. In order to make the two mix properly, after cutting off the top of the egg, put in a drop of water, tea, coffee, or other warm liquid that may be on the table ; then add the salt, and stir. The result is far more agreeable - the drop of liquid is not tasted.

And this very useful idea, using ‘English chilies’. I don’t believe I have ever read the phrase before.

Home-made Cayenne Pepper, of superior Flavour.
Those who desire to obtain good Cayenne Pepper, free from adulteration and poisonous colouring matter, should make it of English chilies. By so doing they half the heat of the foreign. A hundred large chilies, costing only two shillings, will produce about two ounces of cayenne - thus the superior home-made is as cheap as the commonest red pepper. The following is the way to make it:—Take away the stalks, and put the pods into a colander ; set it before the fire for about twelve hours, by which time they will be dry. Then pour them into a mortar, with one-fourth their weight in salt, and pound and rub them till they are as fine as possible; sift through a little muslin, and then pound the residue, and sift again.

Tomorrow’s Story …

An anthropologist does dinner.

Quotation for the Day …

Give us this day our daily taste. Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in and sauces which are never the same twice. Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with ...
Robert Farrar Capon.

Much Depends on Dinner.

January 22

The English poet Lord George Gordon Byron was born on this day in 1788. He is best known to foodies as the source of the quotation that inspired the title of the wonderful book by Margaret Visser, Much Depends on Dinner.

The quotation is from The Island, and the full stanza reads:

“All human history attests That happiness for man, - the hungry sinner! - Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.”

The sub-title of Margaret Visser’s book is The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal, which is ironic, given that Byron found negotiating the meal table to be full of perils , having a troubled relationship with food – perhaps even so far as having what we would call an eating disorder.

His journals and letters certainly suggest an unhealthy attitude to eating. He is known to have struggled with his weight, loving good food but occasionally adopting severe weight loss regimes involving crash diets (becoming ‘a leguminous-eating Ascetic’), intense exercise regimes, purging and sweating.

His sister Augusta commented in a letter to another that “his way is to fast till he is famished & then devour more than his stomach in that weak state can bear - & so on”

A couple of his own letters will also illustrate:

“Sunday, I dined with the Lord Holland in St. James's Square. Large party …. Stuffed myself with sturgeon, and exceeded in champagne and wine in general, but not to confusion of head. When I do dine, I gorge like an Arab or a Boa snake, on fish and vegetables, but no meat. I am always better, however, on my tea and biscuit than any other regimen, and even that sparingly.”

And:

“To-day I have boxed one hour - written an ode to Napoleon Buonaparte - copied it - eaten six biscuits - drunk four bottles of soda water.”

Byron did not like to be seen eating, and his romantic views of women preferred that they be seen in an ethereal light, not doing something so gross as eating. He refused to eat with his wife when she was obviously pregnant, and had his meals sent to another room.

“A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine & becoming viands.”

Presumably, if it was OK for women to eat lobsters, a very delicate way to eat them would be to avoid the pesky shells altogether and have them potted. This recipe is from a domestic medical text.

To Pot Lobsters.
Take out the meat as whole as you can; split the tail, and remove the gut: if the inside be not watery, add that. Season with mace, nutmeg, white pepper, salt, and a clove or two, in the finest powder. Lay a little fine butter at the bottom of the pan, and the lobster smooth over I; cover it with butter, and bake it gently. When done, pour the whole on the bottom of a sieve; and with a fork lay the pieces into potting pots, some of each sort, with the seasoning about it. When cold, pour clarified butter over it, but not hot. It will be good next day; or highly seasoned, and thick covered with butter, it will keep some time.
[Thomas Cooper, M.D. A Treatise of Domestic Medicine, intended for families, in which the treatment of common disorders are alphabetically enumerated. To which is added, a Practical System of Domestic Cookery, …also The Art of Preserving. 1824] {American}

Tomorrow’s Story …

Odds and Ends for Dinner.

Quotation for the Day …

Man is a carnivorous production,
And must have meals, at least one meal a day;
He cannot live, like woodcocks, upon suction,
But, like the shark and tiger, must have prey;
Although his anatomical construction
Bears vegetables, in a grumbling way,
Your laboring people think beyond all question,
Beef, veal, and mutton better for digestion.”
Lord Byron (1788-1824.) Don Juan

TV Cook, Number One.

January 21

The whole TV celebrity chef thing started on this day in 1937 when the French restaurateur Marcel Boulestin demonstrated how to make an omelette on the BBC program Cook’s Night Out.

His full name was Xavier Marcel Boulestin (1878-1943), and he was a man of many and varied talents. His obituary in The Times described him as ‘music critic, novelist, both in French and English, actor, caricaturist, designer and decorator, broadcaster and restaurateur’ whose cookery lessons by television ‘were greatly helped by the expressiveness of his face and of his gestures.’

Boulestin must have been a man of great stamina too. He wrote for Vogue magazine, taught cookery at Fortnum & Mason, and wrote three books - Simple French Cooking for English Homes, What Shall We Have Today, and The Conduct of the Kitchen. He also found time to run his restaurant: in 1925 it was the Restaurant Français in Leicester Square, and two years later he moved to Covent Garden and opened the Restaurant Boulestin.

Sadly, the details and transcript of that first program no longer exist, or so I am told. I wonder why Boulestin chose an omelette to cook for his first show? Because it is so simple anyone can do it, or because it is so tricky it is difficult to get it just right? He certainly chose a classic, with no international boundaries, and a long history. The word was originally ‘amulet’, from the same word used to mean a thin plate such as the blade of a sword or knife – so the same origin as ‘laminate’ and ‘lamina’.

By some terrible oversight, I don’t have a single one of Boulestin’s cookbooks, but it hardly matters as the following recipe for a 'lamina of eggs' proves that some things have not changed for centuries. I could have picked an earlier version, but this early eighteenth century recipe is just fine: the only concession to the era is the final flourish of verjuice, butter, and sugar.

Amulet, to make.
Take twelve Eggs, beat them and strain them, put to them three or four spoonfuls of Cream, then put in a little Salt, and having your frying-pan ready with some Butter very hot, pour it in, and when you have fryed it a little, turn over both sides into the middle; then turn it on the other side, and when it is fryed, serve it on the Table with Verjuice, Butter, and Sugar.
From: Salmon, William. The family dicitionary, or houshold companion …. 1710.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Much Depends on Dinner.

Quotation for the Day …

Do not be afraid to talk about food. Food which is worth eating is worth discussing. And there is the occult power of words which somehow will develop its qualities. Marcel Boulestin