Avocados and Shamrock Bread for St. Patrick.

May I give you, in honour of the day, a St. Patrick-inspired dish? I love avocado in almost any shape or form, and luckily I live in a climate where they grow well and are available cheaply. I do not feel the same about jellied salad however, although I admit to a morbid fascination with the concept, even t0 making one – once. It was tomato-based with sliced pimento-stuffed olives, if I remember correctly. You may feel entirely different about this particular ‘salad,’ and even though I feel that this recipe is an insult to the wonderful avocado which needs no such gilding or fiddling with, and certainly no silly re-naming as ‘calavo’, I give it to you with good St Paddy’s day wishes. Think of it as amusement, if you are with me on the sheer nastiness of the idea. And what on earth is ‘Jell Well’ anyway?

Calavo Erin Salad.

1 package lime cube flavored Jell Well

1 cup boiling water

1 cup cold water

Few drops green food coloring

1 calavo

Lemon juice

Salt to taste

Shredded lettuce

1 package cream cheese

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

¼ teaspoon mustard

Pour boiling water over gelatin and stir until gelatin is dissolved. Add cold water and a few drops coloring, if a deeper green is desired, and stir until well blended. Pour into four molds; set in cool place until firm. Cut calavo crosswise into four equal rings and twist slightly to loosen from seed. Peel and sprinkle cut portions with lemon juice and salt. Place on beds of shredded lettuce and unmold gelatin onto centres of calavo rings.

Combine cheese, mayonnaise, mustard and lemon juice and salt to taste: blend thoroughly and use to decorate edges of calavo rings and top of molded gelatin. Serve French dressing separately. Serves four.

Los Angeles Times of March 15, 1935

I am not at all equivocal about bread, except for the fluffy white type with the texture and taste of polystyrene meat trays -which does not count really, as it is hardly worthy of inclusion in the great category of breads of the world. In honor of bread, may I give you a recipe for some lovely Shamrock Rolls? The recipe is in From Twenty lessons in domestic science: a condensed home study course, glossary of usual culinary terms, pronunciations and definitions, marketing, food principles, functions of food, methods of cooking, etc. (1916) by Marian Cole Fisher (formerly of St. Paul Institute of Arts and Sciences, Chautauqua Lecturer.)

First, you have to make a basic soft dough:

Roll Dough

2 ½ cups water or milk, or both                      6 cups flour

¾ cup sugar                                                     ½ cup shortening

2 eggs                                                              1 cake yeast

1 tablespoon salt                                             2 mashed potatoes or ½ cup flour scalded

Preparation: First make a sponge with the potatoes or scalded flour and the sugar, dissolved yeast and enough of the flour to make a stiff batter. If compressed yeast is used the sponge will be ready in half an hour.

Add to the sponge the egg whites and one yolk well beaten, together with the melted shortening, salt and the balance of the flour.

Knead well about five minutes, return to bowl, brush top with shortening, cover and set in warm, steamy place until double in bulk.

The dough may be worked down again without taking from bowl, or it may then be made into desired form.

The extra egg yolk is reserved to mix with one-quarter cup of water or milk to brush the tops of the rolls before putting them in the baking oven.

Of flour not rich in gluten more than six cups may be required but care must be taken to have the roll dough softer than for bread.

Shamrocks

Use recipe and method for roll dough as given above. Mold into balls of dough slightly larger than walnuts, allowing three of these to each well-greased gem pan.

Brush the palms with melted shortening and deftly roll each ball of dough between the palms, dropping into the gem pans. Let them rise in warm steamy place, and before putting in the oven brush with a mixture of egg yolk and water. Bake in moderate oven twenty minutes.

Upon taking from the oven brush with melted shortening.

St. Patrick’s Day Menu, 1931.

As I am sure I don’t need to tell you, tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. On this day in 1931, the United States Department of Agriculture Radio Service’s regular program Housekeepers’Chat prepared its listeners for the culinary challenges of the celebration with some menus and recipes. Please enjoy the script for the program:

Subject: “St. Patrick’s Day Menu.” Information from the Bureau of Home

Economics, U.S.D.A.

Bulletin available: “Lamb As You Like It.”

The top o' the morning to you! All of us who have Irish blood in our veins - and all of us who wish we had some - will be celebrating the great day of the cheerful patron saint of Ireland tomorrow. How about carrying out the wearir' o' the green on your dinner table tomorrow and serving a meal with a green color scheme? St. Patrick's Day is a fine time for entertaining, especially for giving a luncheon or a dinner. Emerald green is such an attractive, springlike color and is so easily featured in food and also in decorations. And there are so many Irish symbols to use for favors, place cards, tallies for bridge parties or other decorative purposes. Suitable designs include shamrocks, harps, Irish terriers, pigs, potatoes, a pipe for paddy and even woolly lambs or shepherd's creeks, since, according to the old legend, St. Patrick was a shepherd.

Yes, Maureen, your ancestors who lived way back in the fourth century probably knew little Patrick when he was a boy shepherd tending the flocks of an Irish chieftain on the green hills of county Antrim. The story goes that when he was about fifteen and still engaged in this peaceful occupation, he was attacked by bandits who carried him and his flock of sheep off to Connaught and kept him captive there for some years. He finally escaped by boarding a ship headed for the coast of Gaul. After landing there he was taken in by the kindly monks at the monastery, of Lerins where he lived for some years and learned about Christianity. It was there that he had his famous dream, the vision in which he heard the Irish people calling him to come back to them. So he returned as a missionary to teach his people. Back in Ireland ho often used the native shamrock with its three leaves on one stem to illustrate the principle of the Trinity.

The absence of snakes in Ireland is credited to St. Patrick who, as the old legend goes, "drove the frogs into the bogs and banished all the vermin.”

During his long ministry St. Patrick is said to have performed many other miracles. He also founded many churches, among them the church and monastery of Armagh where he died when he was an old man of seventy- two.

But get back to our menus for this good saint's day. I have two menus that I'm sure you'll want to take down. One is a dinner; the other is a luncheon. If you aren't entertaining guests tomorrow, perhaps you will be giving a dinner or a bridge party a year from now. If these meal plans are written down waiting ready in your files or notebook, you won't have to worry about what to serve next time you ask friends in on St. Patrick's Day. Let me suggest that you will find the leaflet, "Lamb As You Like It," useful for both these menus.

Are you ready now for the menu? Leg of Lamb; Broccoli; Green peas in a mashed potato nest; Hot cloverleaf rolls; Mint gelatin salad; Vanilla ice cream garnished with green cherries or bottled grapes; Green and white mints.

I'll repeat that menu. Leg of Lamb; Broccoli; Green peas in a mashed potato nest; Hot cloverleaf rolls; Mint gelatin salad; Vanilla ice cream garnished with green cherries or bottled grapes; Green and white mints.

The broccoli may be served either buttered or with hot Hollandaise sauce. There's a recipe for the hollandaise sauce in your egg leaflet. Keep the natural green color in the broccoli and the peas by cooking in an open kettle in boiling salted water until just tender. Overcooking may cause the color to become brownish.

The recipe I'm about to give you is for the mint gelatin salad - one of those salads that are both very good and very beautiful - a jellied mixture of pineapple and cucumber flavored with mint. If you want to see what it looks like there's a picture of it on the back page of your lamb leaflet.

Eleven ingredients for this good-looking salad:

2 tablespoons of gelatin          ½ cup of diced cucumber

½ cup of cold water                ½ cup of canned crashed pineapple drained from its juice.

1½ cups of boiling water

5 tablespoons of sugar            2 tablespoons of pineapple juice

½ teaspoon of salt                   4 tablespoons of lemon juice

5 drops of oil of peppermint   Green coloring matter

I'll repeat that list. (Repeat)

Soak the gelatin in the cold water for five minutes, add to the boiling water with the sugar and the salt, and stir until all are dissolved. Cool and add the cucumber, the pineapple, the pineapple and lemon juice, the oil of peppermint and enough flavoring matter to make the mixture pale green. Set the container in ice water and stir until the gelatin mixture begins to stiffen. Then rinse a mold with cold water, coat it lightly with some of the clear gelatin mixture and place thin slices of cucumber on the bottom and sides (the jelly will help these slices stick to the mold while the salad mixture is poured in.) Now fill the mold with the gelatin mixture and let it stand in a cold place until firm. Serve with a tart salad dressing on a bed of lettuce.

Now for the luncheon menu which also features a most attractive salad, shamrock salad made from green peppers and soft white cheese. But before I describe the salad let me give you the menu.

Lamb chops; Creamed new potatoes with chopped parsley; Peas, Green pepper rings filled with cottage or cream cheese; Hot biscuits; Mint ice or sherbet or Peppermint ice cream; Wafers or cookies cut in shamrock or other fancy shapes.

To make the salad, wash green peppers, slice off the stem end and scrape out the seeds and extra membrane inside. Stuff with the cheese pressing it down firmly into every corner. Chill the stuffed peppers. Then cut them in slices about one-fourth inch thick using a sharp knife. If the pepper is nicely shaped these slices look like shamrock leaves, and will look even more so if you cut out stems for each from left over pieces of the pepper. Lay the pepper and cheese shamrocks on crisp lettuce and serve with mayonnaise or French dressing.

How would you like a recipe for peppermint ice cream? Good. I have one right here to give you. Ingredients? Just six. I'll read them.

1 ½ pints of single cream                    ¼ teaspoon of salt

½ pint of double cream                       Green coloring

⅔ cup of sugar                                                8 drops of essence of peppermint

That's a simple list, but I think I'll repeat it just the same.

(Repeat). If you prefer a less rich ice cream, you can use all single cream.

Heat ½ cup of the single cream, add the salt and sugar, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Mix with the rest of the cream and add sufficient coloring to give a soft green. Then add enough peppermint essence for a delicate flavoring. Use a freezing mixture of one part salt and 4 to 6 parts of ice and turn the freezer slowly. After freezing remove the dasher, pack the freezer with more ice and salt and let it stand for an hour or more to ripen.

Tomorrow: Ironing is an Art.

If you are hungry for more historical food tidbits releavant to the day, here are links to previous St Patrick’s Day and other Irish-themed posts:

A Dispensation for StPat’s Day.

The Incident of the OrangeSherbet.

St. Patrick’s DayLuncheon, 1911.

 Previous posts featuring Irish Stew:

Table d’Hôte.

Only Apples [includes a recipe for Irish stew with apples!].

A Tale of Timbuktu [includes a recipe for Baked Irish stew]

All in a stew [3 versions of Irish stew].

On Other Irish Foods:

Boxty.

Dublin Turbot.

The Irish ‘Water ofLife’.

And not specifically Irish, but relevant in a fun kind of way:

Variations on a themeof green sauce.

Quick Coloured Sauces.

More on Dining in 19th C Russia.

A few weeks ago I gave you the menu for a Russian dinner in 1875, as described by the French writer Theophile Gautier. All things Russian were trendy in Britain and Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the public were hungry for information about the strange habits of the people of the country. A detailed commentary on the items served at a Russian dinner was also given by John Murray in his Handbook for Travellers in Russia, Poland, and Finland , published in 1868. It is as interesting for its tone as for its content, as travel stories usually are:

II.—The Obed, or Dinner.

1. Soups:—

Okroshka; a cold iced soup of kvas (a beverage made of fermented rye), with pieces of herring, cucumber, and meat floating in it.

Batvenia: another cold soup of green colour, scarcely more palatable.

Stchi: a very good cabbage soup; the sour cream served round should be added.

Ukhà, or fish soup: this is rather expensive if made of sterlet, but is very good of ershi, or stone-perch.

Travellers would do well to order small quantities of each description of potage, in the ratio of one portion for three or four. A mere taste will suffice in the case of the two cold soups.

2. Rastigai: patties of the isinglass and flesh of the sturgeon. Very much like muffins with fish.

3. Solianka, Krasny Perets: a dish composed of fish and cabbage. Recommended. Use cayenne.

4. Pojarskié kotlety: cutlets of chicken à la Pojarski, the patriot. Very good. Veal cutlets are also a speciality of Moscow.

5. Porosënok pod khrenòm: cold boiled sucking pig with horseradish sauce. Not a pretty dish, but very eatable.

6. Barany-bok s-kashoi: roast mutton stuffed with buckwheat. An excellent opportunity of tasting the buckwheat, the staple food of the country.

7. Jarkoé: the roast, consisting of molodyé tétéreva, or young capercailzie (up to September); riabchik, a kind of grouse (all the year round); and dupelia, or double snipe (in September). Salted cucumbers as salad. Vegetables will not be served unless ordered.

8. Pirojnoé  sweet dishes. Gurief pudding, made principally of buckwheat, is not a bad dish.

Order Nesselrode pudding, an excellent combination of plum-pudding and ices, and Moscovite, something between an ice and a jelly, flavoured with the fruit of the season.

Should digestion require it, the Syr, or cheese from the Zakuska, and even the caviar, may be served up again, though it is not customary at a Russian table.

With reference to wines and drinks, it is indispensable, for the sake of harmony and comparison, to order nothing but what is produced on Russian soil. The sherry of the Crimea is a very tolerable brown sherry; the imitations of Bordeaux and Champagne, provided they are really of the Crimean grape, not of the manufactories at Yaroslaf, are better than many inferior marks of the genuine article. Prince Woronzoff s wines are highly recommended. The wine of the Caucasus comes in very appropriately as a Burgundy. Be sure to ask for Kahétinskoé, a very sound and pure wine. The ladies will be pleased with Gumbrinskoé a pleasant sweet wine grown in the Gumbri district of the Caucasus. The champagne of the Don, Donskoé Champanskoé, very often appears on Russian tables disguised as Clicquot, and is really a very potable wine; all the sparkling wines of the Crimea have a slight taste of apples, and the others have the goût du terroir.

         But besides the wines, there are several delicious beverages, under the denomination of Kvas. Order Iablochni kvas, or cider; Grushevoi kvas, or perry; Malinovoi, or raspberry kvas. The best, however, of all, is perhaps the goblet of cool Lompopo, the recipe of which is supposed to have travelled from the Baltic provinces. There is excellent beer to be had at St. Petersburg. "Cazalet's or Kalinkinski Pale Ale" is almost equal to English draught ale. At Moscow "Danielson's" beer is alone drunk. Mead is likewise very pleasant to the taste. All these drinks are served in old silver tankards and beakers of German work. Coffee, liqueurs, and cigarettes complete the feast. Fruits can be had if demanded; excellent in season.

The service is very good; the slightest want is quietly and promptly supplied by the most civil of waiters, attired in bright-coloured silk shirts, worn over another garment of equal effect and neatness.

The cost of a dinner like that described above, exclusive of the zakuska, sterlet soup, wines, kvas, coffee, and fruit, will not be less than 2 rs. 50 cop. per head (7s. 6d), and perhaps 5 rs. (15s.) in a dear season. The charge for a plate of Merlot soup is from l.50 to 3 rs (4s. 6d. to 9s.) according to the size of the fish ordered.

The wines are very cheap compared with those of France or Spain.

The dinner should, if possible, be ordered a day beforehand, although a few hours will suffice to secure most of the dishes named. In ordering it, special mention should be made of the wines of the Crimea, of the Don, and the Caucasus, as well as of the Kvas, as the former are not generally kept on the premises. If the party be numerous, two or three rubles should be distributed among the waiters.

The famous chef Auguste Escoffier included the dish Chicken à la Pojarski in his book A Guide to Modern Cookery, first published in 1903. It is a fine and elegant dish indeed,.

Suprêmes de Volaille à la Pojarsky.

Mince the suprêmes, and, in so doing, combine with them, first, the quarter of their weight of breadcrumbs dipped in milk and well squeezed, and the same weight of fresh butter; and then an equal quantity of fresh cream, which should be added little by little. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Divide up this preparation into portions equal in size to the suprêmes, and shape them exactly like the latter; in short, reconstruct the suprêmes exactly with this mince-meat.

Dredge; cook in clarified butter, and serve as soon as ready.

There is no hard and fast rule for garnishing of these suprêmes; the garnish is therefore optional.

Cooking Programs on the Radio (1961)

I love the scripts written for the United States Department of Agriculture's radio program, and have given you a few from the 1920’s and 1930’s in previous posts. Today I want to sprint forward to 1961, to an episode from the USDA Radio Service series called ‘Question Box.’ In those days, you had to sit by the radio with paper and pencil at the ready to scribble down the recipes. Seems quaint now, doesn’t it?

QUESTION BOX ANSWERS

How make crusty corned beef hash?

Binder for meat loaf? 

How use liquid on canned vegetables?

How stick sticks on Christmas lollipops?

Very often it's just one little trick of cooking or seasoning that makes the difference between a dish that is "just fair" and one that is "perfect." One little cocking trick missed — and the dish isn't what it might be. In the mailbag this week are a number of questions from women who aren't quite satisfied with something they've been cooking. Cookery scientists of the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Home Economics give the reasons why.

The first question is about that old favorite American dish — corned beef hash. The letter says: "The corned beef hash I've been making tastes pretty good, but it lacks the nice golden brown crust my husband likes. When I try to make a crust, the hash burns on the bottom. What's the secret I'm missing?"

Cookery scientists say: The secret is very slow cooking. Cook corned beef hash in a heavy frying pan over low heat. Be sure the hash mixture is not too moist to begin with, For a family of 5 or 6 good proportions are: one pound corned beef 5 boiled potatoes one onion — all put into the food chopper together and chopped fine. Grease a heavy skillet. Then pat the hash in an even layer, and cook over low heat until a golden brown crust forms.

If you want a crust on both top and bottom of the hash, here's how to get it.

When the crust forms on the bottom, place a pan or lid over the frying pan, and turn the hash out upside down, so the crust comes on top. Then slip the hash back in the skillet so the unbrowned side is on the bottom, and cook again over low heat until a brown crust forms on the bottom.

This flopping-over a whole pan of hash takes some skill and experience. An easier way for a beginner is to mold the hash into small cakes and cook slowly on both sides until crusty.

So much for the crust on corned beef hash. Now a question about making a meat loaf that holds together. A letter here says! "I make meat loaf of ground beef, bread crumbs, seasoning and egg. The loaf holds together very nicely before cooking, but when I serve it, it often falls apart. What's the secret of making meat loaf that will stay in a loaf?"

Cookery scientists suggest that you might have better luck if you used thick white sauce instead of an egg to bind the loaf together. After egg cooks it may not be as good a binder as before. With thick white sauce the loaf mixture will have a sticky consistency when you mold it. Bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees Fahrenheit) for about an hour and a quarter, or until thoroughly cooked to the center.

By the way, you generally have better results by molding the meat loaf on waxed paper or parchment paper and then baking it on a rack in an open roasting pan than by packing it in a deep loaf tin like a loaf of bread.

Here's a letter from a mother about cooking liver for the children. She says: "I know liver is one of the best meats for children. My youngsters like calf liver but I should like to serve them lamb or pork liver because these are less expensive. They object to these livers because of their strong taste. What's the secret of cooking lamb or pork liver so it will be more appetizing?'

The secret is scalding the liver in hot water a few minutes before you cook it, then cooking at moderate heat until the liver is lightly browned. You can also grind or chop liver after cooking it just a few minutes and then combine in a loaf with sticky boiled rice, and such flavorsome vegetables as chopped onion, celery and tomato. Bake liver loaf in a moderate oven about an hour.

Now a question about using the liquid on canned vegetables. This question lso comes from a mother. She says: "I know the liquid on canned vegetables has food value and shoald be served with them, not thrown away. But my family complain that it makes the vegetables too watery."

Here's how to use that liquid without making the vegetables too "watery." Drain the liquid from the can into a shallow pan, and boil the liquid down rapidly with a little chopped onion for extra flavor. When very little liquid is left, add the vegetables from the can. Let them heat. Then season and serve.

The last question is about lollipops for Christmas. The letter says: "I have a delicious recipe for a hard candy for lollipops. But I don't know when or how to attach the wooden skewer that makes the handle for the lollipop."

Here's the secret: Lay the wooden sticks flat on a greased baking sheet, and pour the hot candy in small amounts onto the end of each one. The candy will harden on the stick.

No more questions and answers now until Thursday.

Did that bring back any memories for any of you? Do tell.

Breakfast with Moet.

I think we will all agree that breakfast is better with champagne. Sadly, for most of us, the reality falls short of the fantasy, in terms of the frequency with which we enjoy such a meal. For those of royal blood, champagne breakfasts may be rather more regular event. Certainly, when Prince Henry of Prussia visited the United States in 1902, he was served champagne – Moët no less – at many of the official dinners he attended – and at least one of these was a breakfast.

The Omaha Daily Bee of May 12, 1902 carried a large display advertisement which included ‘reproductions of menus of banquets where Moët & Chandon was used exclusively.’ The advertisement was placed by Geo. A.Kessler & Co., - ‘Sole Agents in the United States and Canada,’ and the menus were for events attended by Prince Henry of Prussia, who was at that time on an extended visit to the USA. Here is a menu for the most important meal of the day:

Breakfast

to

H.R.H. Prince Henry of Prussia.

Wednesday, February 26^th, 1902

At Sherrys

New York

Oeufs à la Néva

Homard Cardinal

Carré d’Agneau de Printemps

Pointes d’Asperges      Pommes Rissolées

Terrapène

Canard Canvasback

Salade

Glace   Mousse aux fraises

Fromage                      Fruits

Café

Johannisberger Cabinet ‘93

Moët and Chandon ‘92

Apollinaris

Surely this was a late brunch rather than a breakfast?

I wanted to give you the recipe for Oeufs à la Négva, as it is the most likely dish from this menu that I would have chosen for my own breakfast (it should go without saying that I could not have attempted the whole list of dishes, although the strawberry mousse might have been tempting.) Sadly, I have been unable to find a recipe, which is not surprising really, as it was quite common to tweak an existing classic and re-name it for an honoured guest. The following recipe sounds good enough to take its place however:

Russian Eggs.

On delicate slices of toast, spread a layer of caviar, and place a fresh poached eggs [sic] on top; pepper, salt and a few drops of lemon juice are added and a garnish of parsley; serve at once.

Fort Wayne Sentinel, March 21, 1911.

How to Cook Quandongs.

The Australian joke recipe for mock fish in yesterday’s post mentioned quandongs as one of the ingredients, and I thought this native fruit deserved a little post of its own.

The quandong (Santalum acuminatum) lives in the dry inland regions of Australian states. It is semi-parasitic, and gets some or all of its water from the root systems of other plants. The small red fruit has a large stone and relatively little, very tart, flesh (in spite of which it was euphemistically referred to as the ‘native peach’ by Europeans.) The deeply pitted stone apparently has significant nutritional value too, although it appears this was not much exploited by Australian indigenous people, who did, however, very much value the flesh itself for its food and medicinal value.

Early European settlers quickly caught on to the value of the quandong too - almost anything edible being a welcome treat for pastoralists and stockmen who lived for weeks or months at a time on damper and salt beef. Ordinary householders too, came to appreciate quandongs – fresh or dried - especially during Australia’s regular droughts.

The plant is now protected under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972, although I understand that under some circumstances, Australian Indigenous people are exempt from the prohibition against collecting the fruit. I also understand that, working away in the background, are scientists and horticulturalists who are attempting to develop a commercially viable cropping variety.

So, although most of you, even my Australian readers, will not have access to the fruit, may I give you some recipe for the quandong? First, some basic instructions on how to stew the fruit, and how to dry it for long-keeping, from The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld.) of 10 October 1929.

How to Cook Quandongs.

The wild quandong should ripen in most districts in October, and no doubt many housewives know the value of this fruit and can make many a tasty dish of it, but there may be many who do not know ways of bringing forth its good qualities. The fruit is a little larger than a cherry, but its flavour is far too sharp to eat it raw. Even when cooked, if not properly treated, it is very unpalatable. The fruit should be washed and stoned, and then put on to cook with just sufficient water to cover. Cook gently until quite tender, and a rich red colour. Then, taking about 1 teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda to every 4 cups of the stewed fruit, stir the soda through, and brown froth will rise to the top, and this should all be skimmed off. Add about 2 cups of sugar to 4 cups of fruit, and boil for a few minutes longer until the sugar is dissolved; the soda takes away much of the acid flavour of the fruit. The fruit is delicious served with custard or blancmange or made into a tart and served with whipped cream. One tasty way of serving it is to stir gelatine throughout. Put about 2 oz. to  4 cups of fruit before removing it from the fire and then pour into a mould, and when set, turn it out and decorate with whipped cream. When quandongs are plentiful we always dry some and store them away. We prefer the dried fruit. As it is not nearly so tart as when fresh. To dry them the stones should be removed and the fruit spread on a cloth in the hot sun, taking the fruit in every night for several days until thoroughly dried and hard, just like chips. When treated this way quandongs will keep for years. We recently used some that were dried over four years ago and they were delicious. The dried fruit should be soaked in water over night, and stewed in the ordinary way, but it requires less soda and less sugar than the fresh fruit.

And from the Sunday Times (Perth, West Australia) of 27 January 1935, we have:-

Quandong Jam.

First stone then weigh 3 lb. quandongs, wash well, put into preserving pan with 1 large cup of water. Cook until fruit is soft then add 3 lb. of sugar, boil until it jellies.

Quandong Chutney.

Prepare fruit as for jam. To every 3 lb. of fruit add 1 cup of water and 1 lb. sugar. Cook until fruit is soft, then add 1 small bottle of Worchestershire sauce. Boil for a few minutes. Bottle and cork.

Funny Fish Recipes.

I have a funny little something for you today, from the Sunday Times (Perth, WA) 23 February, 1908. Without further ado, may I give you a very Aussie recipe for mock fish? A glossary follows.

Mock Flathead.

One bungarra (four feet long at least), one pint pot of bardies, six orcunya (yams), 2 lb annual saltbush leaves (scrub spinach).

Boil saltbush for three days, or as long as the log lasts.

Bake orcunya in ashes of old ridge poles for one hour.

With a handsaw cut bungarra at fourth joint from tail-tip, and at hind legs; make deep sosteen at north-east corner of brisket and take out fat, and stuff with chewed grass or cow-dung – camel will do.

Score body with axe or knife, and fill gaps with mustard and axle-grease in unequal parts.

Bend tail into an untrue lovers’ know, and fry in its own fat at coffee-stall temperature.

Strain the saltbush through a wire fence, dust some condensed willy-willy over it, adding stewed quondongs to taste.

A little naphtha and Dago restaurant sauce will lend a Peek-a-boo flavor.

Serve while the guests aren’t looking.

Then run like h----!

Glossary:

Flathead: one of a number of species of rather ugly but common fish in Australian estuaries. A virtuous fish in that it is cheap to buy or easy to catch, although (to my mind) not delicious, being often muddy in taste and dry in texture.

Bungarra: the sand goanna (a type of monitor lizard.)

Bardies: aka witchetty grubs, edible white wood-boring grubs, very popular amongst tribal Australian indigenous people.

Orcunya: this is a mystery. The article itself translates it as yams (which we all know is sometimes confused with the sweet potato.) This particular article is the only one that I have found with the word ‘orcunya.’ I have no idea where the word comes from.

Sosteen: this is the word as far as I can make out in the blurry newsprint; the context would suggest it means ‘cuts in.’ Perhaps a typo?

Quandong: aka ‘native peach’ or Santalum acuminatum, a desert plant and well-known bush food.

Dago: a now completely and deservedly politically incorrect ethnic slur referring to Italians.

There are other ways of making mock fish however, should you wish to do such a strange thing. Here is one of them, from Guide for nut cookery; together with a brief history of nuts and their food values (Battle Creek, Michigan, 1899) by Mrs. Almeda Lambert.

Mock Fish Stuffed and Baked.

Take 6 cups of water; 1 ½ cups of white corn grits or white corn-meal; 1 teaspoonful of salt.

When the water boils, add the salt and stir in the grits, continuing to stir until it boils; let it boil gently for a few minutes, and then place in a steam-cooker, and steam for three or four hours. Make a stuffing of 2 tablespoonfuls of zwieola, 1 tablespoonful gluten No 3, 2 tablespoonfuls pecan meal, and 1 tablespoonful peanut butter, 1 tablespoonful almond butter, 1 hard-boiled egg, ¼ teaspoonful sage, I teaspoonful grated onion, ¼ teaspoonful salt; add just a little water until the mixture makes a stiff batter. Mix thoroughly.

When the corn grits are done, oil a bake tin and put some of the cooked grits on it, spreading them in the form of a fish, making it as long as can be easily served on the platter you intend to serve it on. Then put some of the dressing the whole length of the fish. Make a little trough in the dressing, and put in the yolks of two eggs, chopped and seasoned with celery salt, then cover the egg with the dressing paste, and cover that with the cooked grits. Form more perfectly into the shape of a fish, and spread with a diluted nut butter, using the slices of the white of egg for the gills and mouth, and filberts for the eyes. Press in a row of blanched Jordan almonds down the center of the back to represent the dorsal fins, also use the almonds to make the tail. Lard it across the back (see cut) by sticking in pine-nuts. Bake in a moderate oven for half an hour; if it browns too fast on top, cover with a brown paper, until ten minutes before taking from the oven. Garnish with parsley and curled celery, bank the sides with potato balls made by cutting them from raw potatoes with a scoop made for the purpose, or make balls of mashed potatoes. Roll them in pine-nut butter and bake in the oven until nicely browned. To make the curled celery, take some nice crisp celery, split it into four parts from both ends, leaving about one inch in the center to hold it. Place it into ice-cold water for twenty minutes and it will be curled nicely. If the water is not very cold, leave it in longer.a