Raising Pies.

I cannot believe that I have never written a story on this blog about “raising” a pie in the grand English tradition. The long immersion in the topic while I was writing Pie: A Global History must have confused me. I am going to make it up today.

There are a lot of reasons to make raised pies. An important one is so that a great, and very old, tradition might be preserved. Once upon a time, before there were such conveniences as baking tins, refrigerators, and lunch-boxes, a ‘coffin’ of thick dough performed the functions of all three perfectly well. So well that the contents were said to be able to be kept for many months (even a year), although I do not suggest that you risk the experiment today.

A second reason is that they are great fun to make. If you like hands-on cooking, then the process is definitely for you. If you are afraid of making pastry, it is also for you, because the traditional pastry-making rules of keeping everything cool and using a light hand, are the opposite of what is required. If you are a frustrated sculptor, or your parents didn’t let you mess about with play-dough when you were a child, then the fun will be all the greater.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, raised pies – especially raised PORK pies in the style of the famous Melton Mowbray pies – are an absolutely delicious experience (if they have been done properly and well, of course.)

If three good reasons are not sufficient to convince you to at least buy and try a good raised pie - even if you cannot or dare not make one - then I fear you may be a lost cause.

Here, from the marvellous English classic, Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (1870’s) are detailed instructions on the method:

Paste for Raised Pies.

In making raised pies the first consideration is whether the pastry is intended to be eaten or not. If it is intended merely to form a mould in which to hold the meat, it may be made firm and compact without very much diffculty, and may be beaten with the rolling-pin or kneaded with the knuckles to make it stiff and hard. If it is intended to be eaten, greater care will be necessary. It must be remembered that small pies are much easier to make than large ones, and the very easiest and best way for inexperienced persons to make them is to use one of the tin moulds manufactured for the purpose, which opens at the sides. The French pastry named Pâte Brisée, the recipe for which is given (see Crust, Pâte Brisée), makes a good crust for small raised pies. When the pastry is not to be eaten, dissolve three or four ounces of lard in half a pint of boiling water, and stir in as much flour as will make a stiff smooth paste. A little more than a pound of flour will be required. Knead it thoroughly with the fingers, and when it is sufficiently firm to keep its form when moulded, put it into a bowl, and cover with a cloth until it is nearly cold. Dredge a little flour on the pastry-board, put the pastry upon it, and roll it with the hands into the shape of a sugar-loaf or cone, with the diameter of the lower part rather less than the size required for the pie. Place the cone upright, and flatten the top until it is half the height. Press it down with the knuckles of the right hand, at the same time forming the walls of the pie with the left. When the sides are smooth, and of equal thickness, fill the pie, roll out the cover, lay it on, and make a hole in the centre. Fasten the edges securely with a little egg, ornament the pie according to fancy, glaze it by brushing it over with the beaten yolk of an egg, and bake in a quick oven. An easier way of shaping a raised pie is to roll out the pastry to the required thickness, and then cut out a piece for the top and bottom, and a long strip for the sides. These pieces must be fastened with egg, and the edges pressed over one another, so as to be securely fastened. The pie may then be finished according to the directions given above. When the crust is intended to be eaten, the pastry may be made according to the directions given for Pâte Brisée (see Crust, Pâte Brisée) or as follows : Rub a quarter of a pound of butter into a pound of flour. Sprinkle over it a small tea-spoonful of salt. Put another quarter of a pound of butter into a saucepan, with the third of a pint of milk. Stir it over a gentle fire until the butter is dissolved, then pour the liquid over the flour, and stir it to a smooth stiff paste. Dredge some flour over it; give it two or three turns, and mould it into the proper shape before it has had time to cool. Time to bake raised pies, from two to five hours, according to size. 

Quotation for the Day.

The Fine Arts are five in number: Painting, Music, Poetry, Sculpture, and Architecture--whereof the principle branch is Confectionery.
Antonin Carême

Green Sauce.

The how and why of recipe-naming is a constant source of blog-post material for me, and to judge by the emails and comments I get, I think it is interesting to many of you, too. We have puzzled over and laughed over the names of many dishes, but a too-simple name merely introduces another sort of mystery.

A short while ago we considered a number of variations of ‘black sauce.’ Today I want to look at ‘green sauce.’ In food terms, ‘green’ used to mean ‘fresh’ or ‘young’, as in green cheese and green goose. In sauces, it can mean almost anything, but in any given era or locality the diners would most likely know what to expect.

Let us start with the concept of green sauce in Ancient Rome. I have given this recipe before, but it is useful to repeat it here for completeness. It is from the Vehling translation of Apicius’Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome:

Green Sauce for Fowl.

Pepper, Caraway, Indian Spikenard, Cumin, Bay Leaves, all kinds of green herbs, Dates, Honey, Vinegar, Wine, Little Broth, and oil.

And as an example of ‘green’ meaning young, below is a recipe from La Varenne’s The French Cook, 1653. I have no idea what colour this sauce would actually turn out to be, not having tried to make it. I would love to hear from any of you who have experimented with the recipe.

Green-sauce is made thus; Take some green corn [i.e wheat], burn a tost of bread, with vinegar, a little peper and salt, and stamp it all together in a mortar, and strain it through a linen cloath, then serve your sauce under your meat.

Hannah Glasse goes all green (colour) in her sauce for green goose. From her famous book The Art of Cookery (1784) we have:

Green Sauce …. Is made thus: take half a pint of the juice of sorrel, if no sorrel, spinach juice: have ready a cullis of veal broth, about half a pint, some sugar, the juice of an orange or lemon; boil it up for five or six minutes, then put your sorrel juice in, and just boil it up. Be careful to keep stirring it all the time, or it will curdle; then put it in your boat.

 And another couple of indisputably green-coloured sauces from The Professed Cook (1812) by B. Clermont.

Sauce Verte.
Green Sauce.

Take chervil, parsley, Tarragon, and burnet; wash all well; squeeze out the water, and pound them very fine; then put it on the fire with good consomme; sift it in a stamine with expression, and add butter rolled in flour, pepper and salt; simmer it without boiling.

Sauce Verte d'une autre Facon.
Green Sauce of another Kind.

Scald a handful of spinach for half an hour, with parsley and tops of green shallots; then take all out, squeeze it well, and pound it very fine; put into a stew-pan a few mushrooms, sliced onions, two cloves of garlick, two or three Tarragon leaves, one of laurel, a little basil, two cloves, a little butter, two spoonsful of cullis, and as much white wine; boil it a moment, then add your green sauce, and sift it in a stamine; add pepper and salt, and simmer it without boiling.

Finally, a ‘green sauce’ sauce from Dr William Kitchiner’s The Cook’s Oracle (1845)

Green Mint Sauce.

Wash half a handful of nice young fresh-gathered Green Mint, (to this add one-third the quantity of Parsley,) pick the leaves from the stalks, mince them very fine, and put them into a sauceboat, with a teaspoonful of moist Sugar, and four tablespoonsful of Vinegar.

Obs. – This is the usual accompaniment to Hot Lamb; - and an equally agreeable relish to Cold Lamb.

I hope there is a green sauce here for everyone, but please do add any others that you find, or like.

Quotation for the Day

The difference between good and bad cookery can scarcely be more strikingly shown than in the manner in which sauces are prepared and served. If well made....they prove that both skill and taste have been exerted in its arrangements. When coarsely or carelessly prepared....they greatly discredit the cook.

Eliza Acton, Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845)

Frozen Cucumber and Iced Parmesan.

I don’t know if you have ever found a frozen cucumber in the depths of your refrigerator, thanks to a thermostat malfunction. It is not nice. A crisp salad ingredient has become a messy disposal problem. I never thought I would find a recipe for frozen cucumber, but here it is, from The Complete Cook Book (Philadelphia, 1900), by Jennie Day Reese. Your refrigerator disaster might just do for the filling in this dish.

Frozen Cucumber Salad - Original.

Take six large green cucumbers, cut a slice lengthwise from each one, and with a silver teaspoon or your fingers remove the seeds and pulp, and throw the hulls in cold water until ready to use. Peel and chop coarsely two whole cucumbers, add to them the seeds and pulp of the other six and let it stand in salted ice water one hour. Cucumbers should have a thick peeling taken off of them, as they are bitter near the skin.

Now drain the water from them, add two tablespoonfuls of chopped chives, one teaspoonful of grated onion, two tablespoonfuls of chopped celery, one tablespoonful of Durkee's dressing, one cup of mayonnaise salt and tabasco sauce to taste. Color with spinach green and freeze. When frozen stuff the cucumber hulls with it, place them on fresh crisp lettuce leaves and serve at once. It should be a light green when frozen. This is new and beautiful as well as good.

Another recipe in the book mentions the recent (for then) fashion for iced suppers. They sound  like a fashion worth reinstating for hot evenings in the tropics – in which case the recipe in question might be worth serving alongside the frozen cucumber.

Iced Parmesan Pyramids.

A favorite savory for the iced dinners that are so popular a whim at present is iced Parmesan pyramids. Roll thin some puff paste, cut in neat squares, and bake in a quick oven. Whip some cream to a stiff froth, flavor with a little cayenne, white pepper, salt and Parmesan cheese to taste; when the squares are cold, pile them with the cream, and place over ice before serving.

Quotation for the Day.

Then a sentimental passion

Of a vegetable fashion

Must excite your languid spleen.

An attachment a la Plato

For a bashful young potato,

Or a not too French French bean!

W.S. Gilbert, in the libretto to Patience (1881)

A Nice Batch of Tronchines.

I came across a rather delicious-sounding recipe for a little meringue-like cake recently, and was intrigued by the name. The recipe appeared in The Times of India January 13, 1908, and here it is:

Tronchines.

Ingredients: 3 ozs of castor sugar, the rind of two limes (or one lemon) grated, 1½ oz of flour, four whites of eggs (Indian.)

Method: Beat the whites of the eggs to a firm froth, stir into it the sugar and lemon-rind, lastly add the flour, and spread the mixture on a greased tin very thinly, about as thick as the back of a knife. Bake in a quick oven and cut into small pieces, or cut in long pieces, and roll up while warm.

The name ‘tronchines’ set me hunting. I found only a very few references to them in the usual sources, but was delighted that one of the first that did turn up was in a newspaper from my home town of Brisbane. The recipe, as you will see below, is essentially the same as the example in The Times of India. It was in a feature headed ‘Swiss Cakes.’

Tronchines.

These are small thin cakes, available to serve with ices or stewed fruit.

Take 3 oz. of castor sugar, 1½ oz. flour, and the grated rind of a lemon, together with the whites only of three eggs. Whisk the latter to a stiff froth, stir in the sugar, and lemon rind, lastly the flour. Spread on tins, which have been rubbed with white wax, to the thickness of the back of a knife, and bake. Cut in squares before they are quite cold, and leave to stiffen.

The Brisbane Courier, February 15, 1911

I would love to find out more about these cakes. Are they Swiss? And what is the origin of the name – who or what is a ‘tronchine’? if you know them or cook them, please let us know.

Quotation for the Day.

When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and every meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It's also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be.

Molly Wizenberg, A Homemade Life.

An Incomplete History of Hash Browns.

I meander rather carelessly around the Oxford English Dictionary at times, so it is not surprising that sometimes, something trips me up, and sometimes that something is interesting. Take ‘hash browns’ for example. I found them by accident while I was pottering about and considering the meaning of ‘hash’ in general – and was immediately surprised.

I was surprised because the OED gave the first mention of ‘hash browns’ as being in 1917, or, in their alternative name of ‘hashed brown potatoes’, as appearing first in 1900.  Surely this is a mistake?

‘Hashing’ leftovers is not a new concept by several centuries at least, and it has come up a number of times on this blog in the past. Surely folk have been frying up leftover potatoes as long as they have been boiling too many potatoes, which is probably ever since they have been cooking them, which, in the Old World is since the sixteenth century?  

The defining feature of hash browns seems to be the ‘cake’ or omelet style. Naturally, it goes without saying that the browning is crucial, otherwise they are merely ‘hashed potatoes’ and not nearly so irresistible. When I speak of irresistible of course, I am, referring to the freshly-assembled, freshly-cooked, very hot, very crisp and golden, very potatoe-y version, not the sort that look and taste like dirty bath sponges soaked in grease that are so ubiquitous at breakfast buffets and cafés

The OED is quite definite on the point that hash browns – are ‘chiefly US’ in origin. I guess it depends what you mean by ‘origin’. I think we all agree that recipes are built on previous recipes, and there is a lot about hash browns that is reminiscent of the röesti of Switzerland (which I understand from the purists is made from raw potato), the latkes of the Jewish cookery, and the tortilla de papas of Spain, for example.

In the end, I think that the ‘hash browns’ debate is really (as it so often is in matters of cookery) about the name, not the overall concept.

It does seem correct, however, from my quick reading around the topic (the title of this post warns that this is an incomplete history) that the specific name did originate in the USA. References and recipes using one or other form (hashed brown potatoes, hash browned potatoes, brown hashed potatoes etc) are fairly common in the 1890’s, so I was about to assume that this was when the dish (name) originated, when I found the following recipe from the Minnesota Farmers' Institute Annual of 1835. The journal has hash potatoes (cooked in milk, but not browned), brown hashed potatoes and brown creamed hash potatoes. You will note that the second one is oven-baked.

Brown Hashed Potatoes.

Chop cold boiled potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Put some clarified butter into the frying pan. Add the potatoes, cover, and cook slowly until the potatoes are nicely browned on the underside. Fold and turn out on a warm platter.

Brown Creamed Hashed Potatoes.

Chop four cold boiled potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, together, one tablespoon of butter and a heaping teaspoonful of flour and add to it a cup of milk. Stir until it boils. Put some clarified butter, or fat, in a frying pan, add the potatoes, and pour over them the sauce. Set in the oven, on the floor, and let them bake until a brown crust is formed on the underside. Fold and turn out on a warm platter.

Are there earlier recipes? Did you invent the dish, you Minnesotans?

I now give you the recipes quoted as firsts by the OED.

Hashed Brown Potatoes.

One large boiled potato chopped fine; grease a pan with one tablespoonful of butter and press the potatoes

into it with the palm of your hand. Dust with a little salt and sprinkle over the top one tablespoonful of finely

chopped parsley. Place in the oven and when brown fold like an omelet and serve.

The Complete Cook Book (Philadelphia, 1900), by Jennie Day Reese

Hash-Browned Potatoes

3 cupfuls cooked potatoes, chopped fine.

6 tablespoonfuls milk

1 teaspoonful salt

2 tablespoons butter or drippings

1 teaspoonful salt

¼ teaspoonful salt

Combine all the ingredients except the butter. Melt the latter in a frying pan, add the potato mixture, and

smooth down, pressing it in shape. Cook for a moment over a quick fire and then slowly for twenty minutes,

watching carefully that it does not burn. Then fold as an omelet, pressing the parts together. Turn onto a

heated platter, and serve garnished with parsley and bacon, if it is to serve as a substantial dish.

Mrs. Allen’s Cook Book (Boston, 1917)

This simple dish is infinitely variable of course, and I give you a selection of ideas (all American, you will be pleased to know) to prove my point, and for you to choose your favourite.

Hashed Brown Potatoes.

Try out fat salt pork cut in small cubes, remove scraps; there should be about one-third cup of fat. Add two cups cold boiled potatoes finely chopped, one-eighth teaspoon pepper, and salt if needed. Mix potatoes thoroughly with fat; cook three minutes, stirring constantly; let stand to brown underneath. Fold as an omelet and turn on hot platter.

Boston Cooking School Cook Book (1896) by Fannie Farmer

And three variations from

Hashed Brown Potatoes

Chop cold boiled potatoes (about two cups) into small bits. Season with salt and pepper. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a pan, add the chopped potatoes and toss and turn frequently until they show brown, then add a half cup of cream and put in a hot oven to brown. Serve hot.

The Neighborhood Cook Book (1914) by the Council of Jewish women.

Hashed Brown Potatoes, Lyonnaise

Finely hash up six cold boiled potatoes and keep on a plate. Heat one tablespoon of butter in a frying-pan, add a finely chopped onion, and lightly brown for three minutes, then add the potatoes. Season with one-half teaspoon of salt and two saltspoons of white pepper, evenly sprinkled over, then nicely brown them for ten minutes, occasionally tossing them meanwhile. Give them a nice omelet form, brown for eight minutes more, turn on a hot dish, sprinkle a little freshly chopped parsley over and serve. These potatoes may be prepared with fat in place of butter.

The International Jewish Cook Book (New York, 1919), by Florence Kreisler Greenbaum.

And a couple of variations from Mrs Allen’s cook book:

Hash-Browned Potatoes with Ham.

3 cupfuls chopped potatoes.

1 cupful milk

1 cupful chopped ham

Few grains salt and pepper.

Mix together the potatoes, ham, milk and seasonings.

Put 3 tablespoonfuls of drippings into a frying pan, melt and, when hot, pack in the potato mixture. Cover and

cook slowly until the milk is absorbed and the mixture is brown on the bottom; fold over and turn as an omelet.

Mrs. Allen’s Cook Book (Boston, 1917)

Hash-Browned Potatoes with Nuts.

Use the proportions included in Hash-Browned Ham Potatoes, substituting chopped peanuts for the ham.

Mrs. Allen’s Cook Book (Boston, 1917)

I am surprised to find at the end of my post that in my excitement I have given you NINE recipes today.

Quotation for the Day.

Peace of mind and a comfortable income are predicted by a dream of eating potatoes in any form.

Ned Ballantyne & Stella Coeli, Your Horoscope and Your Dreams (1940)

Foamy Food.

There really is no such thing under the sun as brand new idea in cookery. Take foam for example. Foam-making seems to have been raised to an art form by modern chefs at the cutting edge of cuisine, and for all I know, the skill to produce foam of a particular stability, texture, colour, fragrance, or flavour may be a requirement for graduation from some culinary schools. The concept of foamy-textured food is not new however.

Today I give you some old ideas to help you introduce a little more lightness into your food life.

Foaming Sauce [a pudding sauce]

Beat 1 cup sugar and ½ cup butter together. Add the yelks of 2 eggs and the grated rind and juice of a lemon. Beat the two whites stiff and mix all together. Just before serving, stir in quickly 1 cup boiling water

Breakfast, Dinner and Supper (1887), Battle Creek Co. Michigan.

Foamy Eggs [a pudding sauce]

1 egg, ½ cup maple sugar, ½ tsp. vanilla, ½ cup whipped cream.

Beat egg white until stiff, beat in gradually the maple sugar powdered; when smooth and light, add vanilla and well-beaten yolks. Stir in whipped cream, serve at once.

"Win the War" Cook Book (1918) published by St. Louis county unit,

Woman's committee, Council of National Defense.

Foam Omelette.

Beat the yolks of two eggs till they are thick and light; add half teaspoon of pepper and two tablespoons of milk, then the whites beaten stiff. Spread on a hot buttered omelette pan. Run a knife along the edges, and occasionally underneath, to prevent burning.  Let it cook till well browned underneath. Fold carefully, and serve at once.

Queensland Figaro, (Brisbane, Qld) May 19, 1928

And here is an interesting idea from World War II – an austerity recipe using dried eggs and lemon cordial.

“Fresh eggs are precious. Don’t let them vanish in cakes, puddings, or sauces – save them for children, invalids, or a very special breakfast!”

Hot Foam Sauce

Here is an unusual recipe for a fluffy pudding sauce, flavoured with lemon cordial. It is a cunning substitute for the luxury foam sauce made with fresh egg and wine. Sieve two level tablespoons egg powder and one tablespoon vanilla flavoured custard powder into a small but deep saucepan (or basin). Add one tablespoon sugar. Pour one-third teacup of lemon cordial into a cup 1 measure. Add two-thirds cold water. Use to blend the egg-powder mixture to a smooth thin liquid. Stand saucepan in a larger pan with gently simmering water to come two thirds up the sides. Stir liquid until warm. Then whisk with rotary whisk until very light and foamy and slightly thickened. Serve at once. If required cold, it will be a delicious type of thin custard. Whisk up before use; add extra vanilla flavouring.

NOTE: Once egg-powder has been reconstituted. It should be used within 24 hours. In hot climates it should not be left uncooked for more than a few hours.

Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld.) May 28, 1946

Orange Foam Sauce.

One and a half cups milk, l tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon cornflour, 1 egg (separated), rind and juice of 1 orange.

Combine the sugar and cornflour, blend with a, little cold milk, and add the egg yolk. Place the remainder of the milk on to boil. When boiling pour on to the blended mixture. Return to saucepan and stir until the mixture boils and thickens. Add the orange rind and juice. Beat white of egg and pinch of salt to stiff froth, and fold into the hot sauce. Allow to cool.

The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) July 22, 1954

Quotation for the Day.

The dishes of the present day are very light, and they have a particular delicacy and perfume. The secret has been discovered of enabling us to eat more and to eat better, as also to digest more rapidly....The new cookery is conductive to health, to good temper, and to long life. ...Who could enumerate all the dishes of the new cuisine? It is an absolutely new idiom. I have tasted viands prepared in so many ways and fashioned with such art that I could not imagine what they were.

                        Louis Sebastien Mercier, Tableau de Paris, 1781-82

Jubilee Puddings.

One more jubilee post for the time being, folks, for the royalists, the pudding fans, the word lovers, and the eternally historically curious amongst you. 

The word ‘jubilee’ was originally from the concept of a ‘jubilee year’, which, as I understand it, is a Jewish concept. The Oxford English indicates that the phrase has been in use in the English language since the fourteenth century, and explains it thus:

“Jubilee Year”: A year of emancipation and restoration, which according to the institution in Lev. xxv was to be kept every fifty years, and to be proclaimed by the blast of trumpets throughout the land; during it the fields were to be left uncultivated, Hebrew slaves were to be set free, and lands and houses in the open country or unwalled towns that had been sold were to revert to their former owners or their heirs.”

And later:

A year instituted by Boniface VIII in 1300 as a year of remission from the penal consequences of sin, during which plenary indulgence might be obtained by a pilgrimage to Rome, the visiting of certain churches there, the giving of alms, fasting three days, and the performance of other pious works.

It was at first appointed to take place every hundred years, but the period was afterwards shortened to fifty, thirty-three, and twenty-five years, and now ‘an extraordinary jubilee is granted at any time either to the whole Church or to particular countries or cities, and not necessarily or even usually for a whole year’ ( Cath. Dict. 1885).

In time, the concept became expanded to encompass any ‘time of restitution, remission, or release’, or a ‘season or occasion of joyful celebration or general rejoicing.’ More specifically, it came to refer to:

The fiftieth anniversary of an event; the celebration of the completion of fifty years of reign, of activity, or continuance in any business, occupation, rank or condition. silver jubilee (after silver wedding), a name for the celebration for the twenty-fifth anniversary; so diamond jubilee, applied to the celebration of the sixtieth year of the reign of Queen Victoria.

I don’t know if there is a particular qualifier for a seventieth anniversary, but given the apparent good health of Queen Elizabeth, and the longevity of her mother, I hope English wordsmiths are already onto it.

Given that any family or organisation can celebrate their own jubilees, there is no shortage of ‘jubilee puddings’ in the caveat that there is no knowledge or promise of any royal connections whatsoever in any of them.

Firstly, a variation on the universally popular theme of baked apples.

Jubilee Pudding.

Take six well-shaped apples, remove the cores, and put a piece of cinnamon in each. Placethe apples in a flat-bottomed basin, and pour a teaspoonful of brandy over each. Cover the top with a sheet of paper, and set in a pan ofboiling water to steam. When soft remove the cinnamon, and put a teaspoonful of strawberry jam in its place. Then dish them up in a pyramid, and pour over them all half a pint of whipped cream, flavoured with vanilla and sweetened with sugar.

Warwick Examiner and Times (St. Lucia, Qld.) May 16, 1896

And a jelly studded with jewelled fruits.         

Jubilee Pudding.

Make a pint of claret jelly: pour it into a small border mould; whip half a pint of cream in which is a quarter of an ounce of dissolved gelatine. When it is whipped solid, stir in one ounce of candied angelica, one ounce of preserved ginger, and one ounce of preserved apricot – the ginger and angelica cut small. Set on ice; then turn out. Pile the whipped cream and fruit in the centre, and decorate according to fancy.

Choice Cookery, (Bedford, MA, 1889) by Catherine Owen

And a choice of two steamed puddings, in case you live in one of the cooler parts of the world.

Jubilee Pudding

“641” (Melbourne) asks for a recipe for jubilee pudding which appeared some considerable time ago in these columns.

The recipe required may be one of the following: - (1) Put 2oz. of butter m a basin with quarter pound of sugar, the juice of half a lemon a little grated rind, a grate of nutmeg, and a pinch of powdered cinnamon. Work the butter to a cream, add two eggs, and beat for five minutes Then put in quarter pound of breadcrumbs, 3oz. sultanas, 2oz currants, 1 oz, crystallised ginger (chopped small), 1 ½ oz. chopped apple, l oz. of either raspberry or plum jam. Mix all together, put in a buttered mould, and steam for two hours. Serve with sweet sauce or cream. (2) One egg, two tablespoonfuls sugar, one and a half cupfuls milk, one tablespoonful butter, one cupful flour, one teaspoonful baking powder. Flavour with grated lemon rind or essence of lemon. Steam in a buttered mould for 35 minutes. Serve with sauce or jam.

The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.) 14 July 1920

Quotation for the Day

Ponder well on this point: the pleasant hours of our life are all connected by a more or less tangible link, with some memory of the table.

Charles Pierre Monselet (1825-1888)