Bloomsday Breakfast.

Today, June 16th …

Today is, as many literature fans are aware, “Bloomsday” - the day that James Joyce fans around the world celebrate his writing, and in particular his novel “Ulysses” - the novel said by some to be the least read, but most significant novel of the 20th century.

The day is named for the chief protagonist Leopold Bloom, an Irish Jew and newspaper advertising salesman in Dublin, and all of the action takes place over the single day of June 16th 1904.

If the stream of consciousness style of the book is not everyone’s cup of tea, neither are Leopold’s food preferences:

Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.
Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things on the humpy tray.

Bloom goes out to the “ferreteyed porkbutcher”, (not Kosher, that) and in the window “A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last.” He fears that the customer already in the shop will buy it, but she does not, so he parts with three pence and puts the “moist tender gland” in his pocket – and almost burns it when he cooks it for breakfast.

Offal, and in particular the parts which are scented with urine, inspire horror and disgust in many otherwise adventurous eaters. If you are one of those who thinks offal is awful, how do you feel about leftover offal re-cycled for another meal? This recipe from Cassell’s “Dictionary of Cookery” (1870’s) shows you how:

Kidney Fritters.
Make a batter with four well-beaten eggs, mixed with half a pint of new milk, and flavoured with a little pepper, salt, and pounded mace. Stir into this a teaspoonful each of finely shredded chives, parsley and mushrooms, and a table-spoonful of the remains of a cold veal kidney finely minced, and mixed with half its weight of fat. Beat together for two or three minutes, then melt an ounce of butter in the frying pan, pour in the mixture, and stir it until it is set. When it is browned on one side, turn it on a hot dish, hold a salamander or red-hot shovel over it for a minute or two to colour it on the other, and serve immediately.

UPDATE: You can find more recipes for Leopold Bloom's favourite dishes in the 2007 update HERE.

On Monday: Royal Puddings.

Quotation for the Day …

Take advantage of the gracious condescension of the elegant calf's kidney, multiply its metamorphoses: you can without giving it any offence, call it the chameleon of cuisine. Des Essarts (1740-1793) French actor.

Practically straight cucumbers.

Today, June 15 …

We recently discussed the legislation that determined, in the face of botanical evidence to the contrary, that the tomato was a vegetable. At least actual evidence can be refuted. What is a committee to do when it has to determine the acceptable degree of bend for a cucumber to be a good quality cucumber? Personal preference is impossible to refute.

An EEC committee rose to the challenge however, and on this day in 1988 agreed on Regulation NO. 1677/88, which stated that cucumbers must be “well shaped and practically straight”, with a Class I quality having a maximum arc of curvature of 10mm per 10cm length. How many hours of agonising debate and deliberation did that decision take?

Of course, not everyone would agree that cucumbers are worth any effort at all. Dr Samuel Johnson is famously quoted as saying “A cucumber should be well sliced and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing”, and Samuel Pepys was convinced that one of his friends died from eating “cowcumbers”.

Nice straight cucumbers would work best for today's dish, albeit it is from the blissful days when no-one usually had to worry how bendy they were. Even Samuel Johnson might have found them acceptable this way.

From William Salmon’s “The Family Dictionary: or, household companion” (1705)

Cowcumbers, to Pickle in the likeness of Mangoes.
Take large Cowcumbers, but not too ripe, nor the seeds grown hard, cut off about one Inch at the Stalk end, and with a Scoop take out the Seeds, and let the substance remain as thick as you can; then make Brine of Pump-water, and Salt so strong as an Egg may swim [float] therein, in which put your Cowcumbers, and let them continue there 48 Hours, cover’d close, and take them out and dry them with a coarse Cloth, put as much Vinegar as will cover them. To one Gallon of Vinegar put half a pint of Mustard-Seed half bruised, Salt according to your Pallate, boil altogether for Pickle; into each Cowcumber put two or three bits of Horseradish of the bigness of a Dye, and one Shallot, with two or three whole Corns of Jamaica-Pepper, then stop them in with the piece of Cowcumber you cut off at the end: lay your Cowcumbers in smooth and handsome in the Vessel you pickle them in, and pour your Pickle boiling hot upon them, stopping or tying them up very close; boil your Pickle every other day for twelve days, pouring it boiling hot upon them, and afterwards once in three Weeks, boil and pour it in hot as before, and by keeping them stopt close they will hold good a Year.

Tomorrow: Bloomsday Breakfast.

Quotation for the Day …

At an English tea-party, according to Sir Compton MacKenzie: “You are offered a piece of bread and butter that feels like a damp handkerchief and sometimes, when cucumber is added to it, like a wet one”

The Chicken Marengo Story.

Today, June 14th …

Today in 1800 was indisputably the day that Napoleon defeated the Austrians at the battle of Marengo. It is also indisputably NOT the day that the dish “Chicken Marengo” was invented. The story that Napoleon’s chef, Dunan(d) scrounged the makings of this dish from the local area after the battle, and created it on the spot, is simply that – a good story. It can be denied on a number of counts: Dunan(d) was not in Napoleon’s service until after the event and the dish was not mentioned in contemporary accounts or cookbooks until nearly 2 decades later.

There is no need for an indisputable truth to get in the way of celebrating the classic dish however, for it was indisputably named FOR the famous event, in the grand tradition of nineteenth century chefs, who also named “Chicken Austerlitz” in honour of Napoleon’s victory over the Russians in that battle in 1805.

One major problem in re-creating the classic dish, is that there is no indisputable list of ingredients. Other than the rather obvious chicken (probably cooked in oil not butter), various interpretations include tomatoes, crayfish, mushrooms (especially truffles), garlic, parsley, ham, and lemon juice, with a garnish of croutons and/or fried eggs.

It seems reasonable to give a recipe from the correct century, so here is the version from Baron Brisse, from his 1868 cookbook.

Chicken à la Marengo.
Cut up a chicken into joints, and cook in olive oil and a little salt, put in the legs before the other pieces, as they take longer to cook. When a good colour and nearly done, add a bouquet of mixed herbs, pepper, mushrooms, and some slices of truffles; place the chicken on a dish, and add the oil drip by drop to some Italian sauce; stir the whole time. When warm, pour over the chicken, and garnish with fried eggs and sippets of fried bread. If preferred, clarified butter may be used instead of oil.

Italian Sauce.
Simmer a lump of butter as big as two eggs in a saucepan, with two tablespoonsful of chopped parsley, one tablespoonful of chopped eschalots, and the same quantity of minced mushrooms, add a bottle of white wine; reduce the sacue, and moisten with a tumblerful of velouté sauce and half a tumblerful of stock; boil over a quick fire, skim off all grease, and as soon as the sauce is thick enough, take off the fire, and keep warm in a bain-marie.

Tomorrow: Practically straight cucumbers.

Quotation for the Day …

We did not immediately come up with béarnaise, Bercy, and poivrade sauces. It took more than a single attempt to discover reduced cream, marinade, and forcemeat. We did not straightaway invent barding fat, the touch of garlic, and the thin slice of truffle under the skin .... While genius is spontaneous, its manifestations nevertheless require the passage of time before glorious perfection is achieved. This is particularly true in the area of food and drink .... Magical dishes, magical words: a great cook is, when all is said and done, a great poet. . . . For was it not a visit from the Muses that inspired the person who first had the idea of marrying rice and chicken, grape and thrush, potatoes and entrecôte, Parmesan and pasta, aubergine (eggplant) and tomato, Chambertin and cockerel, liqueur brandy and woodcock, onion and tripe? 'Cinquante Ans a Table' (1953) Marcel Étiennegrancher (1897-1976)

The English Breakfast.

Today, June 13th …

The English writer Dorothy L. Sayers, the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey, the aristocrat amateur detective, was born on this day in 1893, at the tail-end of the Victorian era. This eminently quotable writer must have loved food, surely? Why else would she say things like:

“What? Sunday morning in an English family and no sausages? God bless my soul, what’s the world coming to?”

“I have never regretted Paradise Lost since I discovered that it contained no eggs-and- bacon”.

The eggs, bacon, and sausages beloved of Dorothy Sayers are merely the distillation of what was, until the Great War, a much larger breakfast spread - the English firmly believing that one must “breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dine like a pauper” – which modern dietitians would probably support in principle.

The Victorian gold-standard was of course duly recorded by Mrs Beeton, and her comments about dishes appropriate for breakfast should be read in their entirety. Several other cookery books of the era had daily menu suggestions and recipes, which are very enlightening.

For June 13th breakfast, if you were from a household of “moderate circumstances”, “Cre-Fydd’s Family Fare”(1869) suggested: “Tongue, broiled ham, fried eggs, fruit, rolls.”

A decade later, Phyllis Browne’s “A Years Cookery” suggested “Potted Beef, Buttered Eggs, Scones, Dry Toast, Watercress, Brown and White Bread and Butter, and Milk Porridge” - this for a family with “moderate income, moderate domestic help, and ordinary kitchen utensils”.

The balance of breakfast then was firmly on the savoury side, and there is one savoury concept much beloved of the English - the Anglo-Indian “devil” – eminently suitable for the peculiarly English final savoury course to a long meal, as well as for supper and breakfast.

So for those who cant think of breakfast without eggs, from those lovely ladies Mrs Leyel and Miss Hartley in “Gentle Art of Cookery” (1920’s), here is a recipe for:

Devilled Eggs.
Eggs, two tablespoonfuls of Worcester sauce, one dessertspoon of French mustard, one ounce of butter, thick brown gravy, salt and cayenne pepper.
Boil the eggs for eight minutes; peel them, cut them in half, and remove the yolks. Make a paste of the yolks, cayenne and salt. Cut a tiny piece off the bottom of each half white to make it stand up, and fill each one with the paste. Pour over them a sauce made of the gravy, French mustard, and Worcester sauce. Serve very hot, and sprinkle them with chopped parsley.

Tomorrow: The Chicken Marengo Story.

On this Topic …

The eccentric William Kitchiner had something to say about “devils” in “The Cook’s Oracle” (1817).

Isabella Beeton's comments on breakfasts are here.

Quotation for the Day …

Oysters are the usual opening to a winter breakfast…..indeed they are almost indispensible. Grimod de la Reyniere.

Corn Talk.

Today, June 12th …

When Harriet Martineau wrote of sweet corn “The greatest drawback is the way in which it is necessary to eat it … It looks awkward enough: but what is to be done? Surrendering such a vegetable from considerations of grace is not to be thought of”, she was writing about a delight sampled by few of her countrymen and women.

The radical social scientist, political commentator, and writer was born on this day in 1802 in England - her French name indicating her Huguenot origins – and must have been introduced to sweet corn during her couple of years in America in the 1830’s.

Harriet was an early feminist who apparently chose independence over marriage, and then, when the family circumstances changed radically, had to earn her own living, which proved a powerful stimulus to her writing career. She made no gender specific comments about the eating of corn, unlike the mysterious Charles Day (who was he?) in 1844:

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.

I like to think that as a writer she would have had some interest in the word “corn”, which in America was “maize”, but in her native England meant “grain” (especially wheat), and by extension anything grain-like or “granular” (think of pepper-corns). Salting meat is “corning” it because of the use of grains of salt which often then appear on the outside (which is why it is also called “powdering”). Would she have had fun with the two countries already divided by their common language?

Cassell’s ‘Dictionary of Cookery’ (c 1870) regretted its rarity in England:

Maize, Boiled.
It is a subject of regret that this vegetable, so highly esteemed in America, is not to be obtained in this country, at least not in a fresh state. It can, however, be procured preserved in tins, and though in that state much of its freshness is lost, it will be much appreciated by those housekeepers who study variety. Strip the stalks of the fibre and the outside covering, boil from twenty to twenty-five minutes; drain, place a piece of toast at the bottom of the dish, and pour rich melted butter over the ears. Maize is in America simply boiled, and served with a piece of fresh butter. One ear of grain is sufficient for one person.

Tomorrow: The English Breakfast.

Quotation for the Day …

Sex is good, but not as good as fresh, sweet corn. Garrison Keillor.

APOLOGY! The "comments" link accidentally became disabled on this post (TOF blames cyberspace gremlins), so if you have a burning desire to comment on this particular post, please email me vial the link in the sidebar.

A Banquet for Mr. Stanley.

Today, June 9^th …

Henry Morton Stanley, the man immortalised by his famous words “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” on finding the lost explorer in 1871, received a mixed reception on his return to Britain. His reports were disbelieved by some, his methods were criticised by others, and episodes of previous ungentlemanly behaviour were quoted. The British were probably simply offended that he had taken up American citizenship.

Time re-gilds many tarnished reputations however, and by the 1890’s he was on the equivalent of the speakers circuit. On this day in 1890, he was banqueted by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and the event was reported in detail the next day in ‘The Scotsman’. There was “an influential company, numbering 120 gentlemen” – no ladies of course - and the theme was unashamedly African (apart from the obligatory Scottish pipers who played at intervals during the evening) .

Behind the chairman was “a miniature African forest, formed of tall palms and grasses, which had a fine appearance”, and the menu “while including the usual dishes, had also a number suitable to such a gathering. There was, for example, White Nile soup, salmon with Red Sea sauce, Pigeon cutlets à la Congo, Zanzibar curry and rice, Egyptian quails and cresses, ivory jelly, Niam-Niam cream, and bananas à la Ruwenzori”.

As was usual practice “After dinner, the balcony was occupied by ladies”, whose role was to be both decorative and suitably impressed by the men’s after-dinner speeches.

The recipe inspired by today’s story is from an 1890’s Scots cookbook of “high class and household recipes” called “Choice Cookery. ‘La Bonne Cuisine’” by Mrs. Black. It is for a very decorative and impressive way of cooking leftover mutton - impressive provided you can turn it out of the mould successfully!

[Warning: long recipe takes us beyond the allowed word count – but if an African theme can include Scottish pipers ….]

Chartreuse of Mutton.

2 carrots,1 turnip, 6 potatoes, ½ lb cooked mutton, ½ pint brown sauce, 1 yolk.

Have a plain mould (a Charlotte mould will do)
well buttered; prepare the carrots and turnip, and boil them till cooked (but not too soft) in salted water. Then cut the carrot in inch-lengths, and , with a tube-cutter, punch out the red part into tubes 1 inch long; do the same to the turnip. Now arrange the pieces around the mould thus [see image at top of this post], and cover also the bottom of it in the same way. Have the potatoes boiled and carefully mashed; add to them on the fire, the yolk and a little seasoning, and stir over the fire till the yolk is cooked. Carefully line the mould about ½ an inch thick with the potatoes.

Now put the mould in the oven for a few minutes, to get hot. It must not brown, or remain long, or the vegetables will get discoloured. Then fill with the following hash, and immediately turn out and serve.

Hash:

Cut the mutton I rather large small slices in this case; put into a saucepan 1 teaspoonful of dripping; make it quite hot, and fry a chopped onion in it till very brown. Add 1 large tea-spoonful of flour, and fry it a little; then add a little salt, pepper, mustard, ½ teaspoonful red currant jelly, 1 small tomato cut up, and ½ pint of stock; stir this till it boils; let it boil 10 minutes, then strain, Return to the pan, put in the pieces of mutton to heat, not to boil; then put all in the mould to fill it quite, and immediately turn out and serve.

On Monday: Corn Talk.

Quotation for the Day ...

Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water. W.C .Fields.

A Good Gooseberry Tart.

Today, June 8th …

The Hon. John Byng (later fifth Viscount Byng) was an eighteenth century gentleman diarist who is surprisingly not as well known as his contemporaries, Samuel Johnson and Parson James Woodforde. He took a series of journeys around England in the years between 1781 and 1794 - to escape the busy fashionable life of the city, to escape the embarrassment of being spectacularly cuckolded, but it seems primarily for the adventure.

When first Imagination fills the Mind,
And Hope delusive leaves slow doubt behind,
The eager Tourist hastens to begin
His fancied Journey to a pleasant Inn;

The Hon.John had a sentimental view of Old England, or England as She Should Remain, and railed against many of the changes being wrought by the increasing industrialisation of the country – enclosures, turnpike roads, and the “improvements” of landscape gardeners. He recorded his impressions and opinions of all these things as he travelled, and of course, also noted his experiences at the coach-houses and taverns where he spent the nights.

Hope certainly can delude the traveller, as we are all aware. Not all of the inns were pleasant, and he notes with annoyance the meals of such things as “miserable stale trout, some raw, rank mutton chops and some cold hard potatoes” or a “fusty old tart of last years fruit”. But on this day in 1789 he was in Southwell, near Newark in Nottinghamshire, and stopped at the Saracen’s Head, (which happily still exists), and all was well.

… put up at the Saracens-Head Inn, at ½ past one o’clock; (having been on my ride four hours and an half), where, to my great contentment, I was instantly Served, in a large Room, with Cold Beef, Cold Veal, and Gooseberry Tart … fared sumptuously …

So, here is a recipe for Gooseberry Tart from the eighteenth century cookbook “The Compleat English cook; or prudent housewife …” by Catharine Brooks:

For making a Gooseberry Tart.
Taking your Crust, then sheet the Bottoms of the Patty-pans, and strew them over with Powder Sugar; then take green Gooseberries, and fill your Tarts with them, and lay a Layer of Gooseberries and a Layer of Sugar; close your Tarts, and bake them in a quick Oven, and they will be very fine and green.

A fine Paste for Patty-pans.
Work up a Pound of Flour with half a Pound of Butter, two Ounces of fine Sugar, and Eggs.

Tomorrow: A banquet for Mr Stanley.

Quotation for the Day …

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land, it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land. G. K. Chesterton.

The Dinner of the Three Emperors.

Today, June 7th …

In 1867, Paris hosted a Universal Exposition – partly to show the British they too could do it – and the royals and important dignitaries of the world were invited, so that in the end, “Paris was bloated with Majesties and Highnesses”.

Three of the important majesties attended a dinner on this day at the Café Anglais (which sadly no longer exists): Tsar Alexander II, the Tsarevich (the future Alexander III), and Kaiser Wilhelm I of Prussia (accompanied by Prince Otto von Bismarck).

The dinner was prepared by the famous Adolphe Dugléré, who had himself been a pupil of the legendary Carême, and the menu he prepared for “The Dinner of the Three Emperors” demonstrates what can be done when the guests must be impressed, the country’s honour is at stake, and no expense need be spared.

MENU

Potages:

Impératrice
Fontanges

Releves:
Souffle à la Reine

Filets de Sole a la Venitienne

Escalope de Turbot au Gratin

Selle de Mouton Purée Bretonne

Entrees:

Poulet à la Portugaise

Pâté Chaud de Cailles

Homards à la Parisienne

Sorbets au Champagne

Rôts:

Canetons a la Rouennaise

Ortolans sur Canape

Entremets:

Aubergines à l'Espagnole

Asperges en Branches

Cassolette Princesse

Bombe Glacée

VINS:
Madere Retour de l'Inde 1810
Xeres Retour de l'Inde 1821
Châteaux d'Yquem 1847
Chambertin 1846
Châteaux Margaux 1847
Châteaux Lafite 1848

No possible cause for complaint there, you would think. There is, however, a persisting rumour that the Tsar did complain about the lack of foie gras – he was in France, after all. The quick-thinking chef supposedly said "Sire, in Gastronomie Française it is not the custom to eat foie gras in the month of June. If you will but wait until October, you will have no cause for regret."

Most of the dishes on the menu are from the classic French repertoire. The only eponymous dish mentioned – the Potage Fontanges, a soup of peas and sorrel - was named after Mlle. de Fontanges, Marie Angelique de Scorailles, one of the mistresses of Louis XIV. The tradition of naming dishes after royal mistresses seems to have died out, more’s the pity, as methinks it adds an extra flavour to the dish.

From Larousse:

Potage Fontanges.
Prepare 6 cups (1 ½ litres) of Purée of fresh pea soup, dilute it with a little consommé and add to it 4 tablespoons of a chiffonade of sorrel cooked in butter until soft, and some chervil leaves.
This soup is sometimes thickened with a liaison of yolks and cream.

Tomorrow: A fine Gooseberry Tart.

On this Topic …

It is the intention of The Old Foodie to source contemporary recipes for each of these dishes over the next week or two and post them on the Companion site, in case an enthusiastic reader wishes to recreate the meal. In which case, The Old Foodie expects an invitation to herself would be fair reward. Will someone please organise the wine?

Quotation for the Day …

The only cooks in the civilized world are French cooks. . . . Other nations understand food in general; the French alone understand cooking, because all their qualities - promptitude, decision, tact - are employed in the art. No foreigner can make a good white sauce. 'La Vie parisienne', 1853. Louis Victor Nestor Roqueplan.

Ices, Baked.

Today, June 6th …

The Baron Brisse was perhaps the first food journalist in the world. Not much seems to be known about him, apart from the fact that he wrote for “La Liberte” in the mid-nineteenth century, and that he published a book called “366 menus and 1200 recipes” in 1868. The recipes were apparently gleaned from various places – the good Baron, as befitted a gentleman of presumably aristocratic birth, did not himself do any cooking – and even at the time many of the dishes were considered outlandish.

On this day in 1866 his newspaper column reported the dinner of a Chinese delegation at the Grand Hotel in Paris, at which “baked ices” were served. The story has become one of several about the “true” origins of “Baked Alaska”.

The basic ingredients – ice-cream and meringue – have been around for quite a few centuries, so the debate is about who put them together in such an outrageous way. Other contenders are a list of the usual suspects:

- Thomas Jefferson, who served some sort of ice-cream with a crust in 1802.
- Benjamin Thompson, aka Count Rumford, in Monaco
- Charles Ranhofer at Delmonico’s, supposedly to mark the occasion of the purchase of Alaska.

Unfortunately, Jefferson and Rumford did not leave recipes for us. Ranhofer’s “Alaska, Florida” – which seems oddly named if it was to celebrate Seward’s Folly - contains apricot jam, cake, and banana and vanilla ice-creams, which is in complete contrast to the recipe recorded by the good Baron, which is very minimalist, and more like baked-not-fried ice-cream.

Baked Ices.
Make your ice very firm, roll out some light paste thin, and cut it into small squares, place a spoonful of ice in the centure of each piece of paste, and fold it up carefully so that no air may get in, and bake. The paste will be cooked before the ice can melt. In this dish gournamds have the pleasure of eating hot light paste, whilst their palates are cooled by the refreshing ice.

In a nice piece of synchronicity, for those readers who like such things, on this day in 1912 the largest volcanic eruption of the 20th Century began at Novarupta on the Alaska peninsula. Cold on the outside and hot inside? Sounds more like the “Inverse Alaska” of the physicist Nicholas Kurti, discussed in an earlier Old Foodie.

Tomorrow: The Three Emperors' Dinner.

On this Topic …

Charles Ranhofer’s recipe for “Alaska, Florida” from his famous book “The Epicurean” (1894) can be found on The Companion to The Old Foodie site here.

The story about “Inverse Alaska” was retropectively posted when the blog was started, and appears in the March archive, so after you click here you will have to use Ctrl+Find for “November 18”.

Quotation for the Day …

I doubt the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream. Heywood Brown (1888 – 1939).

Moffett's Musings.

Today, June 5th …

Popular myth has it that the nursery rhyme “Little Miss Muffet” was about the daughter of Thomas Moffett, a physician and entomologist who died on this day in 1604. It is pure myth, but it is easy to see how the connection arose. Moffett (Muffet, Mouffat) was a physician and interested in nutrition and his particular hobby was spiders.

His posthumously published book “Health’s Improvement” gives great insight into medical and nutritional ideas of the day.

Sea-birds were a mystery with religious implications:

Puffins being Birds and no Birds, that is to say Birds in shew and fish in substance, or (as one may justly call them), feathered fishes, are ill taste and worse digestion; how dainty so ever they seem to strange appetites, and are permitted by Popes to be eaten in Lent.

Ideas of “terroir” are not new:

The best Mutton is … that which is taken from a short hilly and dry feeding, is more sweet short and wholesome, then that which is either fed in rank grounds, or with pease-straw (as we perceive by the taste) great fat and ranck fed sheep, such as Somersetshire and Lincolnshire sendeth up to London, are nothing so short nor pleasant in eating, as the Norfolk, Wiltshire, and Welsh mutton …

Neither is food snobbery:

Barnicles both breed unnaturally by corruption, and taste very unsavoury. Poor men eat them, rich men hate them, and wise men reject them when they have other meat.

Bread, however, was truly the Staff of Life, “never out of season, disagreeing with no sickness, age or complexion”, and a fine inspiration along with the mythical Miss Muffet for our recipe for the day, from “The Compleat Cook” (1655).

To make a great Curd Loafe.
Take the Curds of three quarts of new milk cleane wheyed and rub into them a little of the finest flower [flour] you can get, then take half a race of Ginger, and slice it very thin, and put inot your Curds with a little salt, then take halfe a pint of good Ale yeast and put to it, then take tenne Eggs but three of the whites, let there be so much flower as will make it into a reasonable stiffe Past [paste], then put into an indifferent hot Cloath, and lay it before the fire to rise while your Oven is heating, then make it up into a Loaf, and when it is Baked, cut up the top of the Loaf, and put in a pound and a halfe of melted Butter, and a good deale of Sugar in it.

Tomorrow: Ices, baked.

Quotation for the Day …

Acorns were good till bread was found. Francis Bacon

Crowning Glory.

Today, June 2nd …

Queen Elizabeth II was crowned on this day in 1953, and after what was no doubt an exhausting ceremony for the young queen, the family and guests sat down to dinner at Buckingham Palace. Several very elaborate, and no doubt equally exhausting official banquets followed over the ensuing few days, but on this day, the family dinner could not have been simpler: steak, salad, and ice-cream. To be exact, the royal version was:

Consommé Royale
Filet de Boeuf Mascotte
Salade
Glace a la Mangue

Which translated means:

Chicken Consommé garnished with cubes of egg custard.
Fillet of Beef garnished with quarters of artichoke bottoms, tossed in butter with cocotte potatoes and slices of truffle.
Salad
Mango Ice Cream.

The plebs on the other hand, were, if they were patriotic, tucking into “Coronation Chicken”, the cold curry-mayonnaise chicken salad dish invented specially for the occasion by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume of the Cordon Bleu cooking school, and promoted on the basis that because it could be prepared in advance and served cold, Mum would not have to drag herself away the new-fangled thing called a TV to cook the family dinner, thus missing some of the spectacle. Considerate, Huh?

Constance Spry’s cookbook also contains a recipe for the garnish for the consommé, so in case you want to reproduce the Coronation dinner for your family tonight, here it is:

Custard for Consommé à la Royale.
1 egg white, 4 tablespoons cream, seasoning.
Put the mixture into a dariole mould or a tea-cup, and steam gently until set. For a yellow custard, take 2 egg yolks to 3 or 4 tablespoons cream, season, and cook in the same way.

The garnish “à la Mascotte” is as described, so unless the truffles are beyond your budget, the steak dish should be easy.

As for the mango ice-cream, from whence could the mangoes have originated? Did HM’s loyal Commonwealth citizens in India or here in sunny Queensland send over some frozen mango pulp? In honour of that possibility, I humbly offer my own mango ice-cream recipe, sadly not used this past season which was unspeakably bad – even The Old Foodie’s Mum’s backyard tree had only about five mangoes, and the fruit-bats got those.

Mango Ice-Cream.
Make a custard base in the usual way, using 2 cups each of cream and milk, 4 egg yolks, and 4 tablespoons of caster sugar. Add the flesh of three ripe mangoes, pureed. Chill and churn as per usual.

On this Topic …

Constance Spry’s recipe for Coronation Chicken, and her comments on the perils of serving something such as curry to guests of “varying and unknown tastes” are on the Companion site here.

On Monday...

Muffet’s Musings.

Quotation for the Day …

A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.

Day One at the Ritz.

Today, June 1st …

The Paris Ritz Hotel opened on this day in 1898 – one of the greatest, if not the greatest hotels in the world, certainly the ritziest, and surely the one with the most celebrity stories. It is the the hotel that Coco Chanel made her home for over thirty years, including during the Nazi occupation (allegedly facilitated by her German lover), the hotel that Ernest Hemingway claimed to have personally liberated at the end of WW II, and about which he said “When I dream of the afterlife in heaven, the action always takes place at the Paris Ritz” (so they later named a bar after him), and the hotel where Princess Di had her last meal shortly before her death by motor-vehicle accident.

Discussing the hotel is impossible without slipping into an orgy of name-dropping, and no ritzy name is more famous than that of Auguste Escoffier, who ran the kitchens at the Paris Ritz for years between his sojourns at the London Savoy and the London Ritz. Strangely, there do not seem to be any famous dishes particularly associated with his time at the Paris Ritz – or if there are any, TOF does not know about them.

So, what to chose for a recipe?

The Mimosa cocktail was first invented at the Paris Ritz, unless you believe that a French barman stole the strangely similar “Buck’s Fizz” from a London club and re-named it and claimed it. Which would be ironic, because the word “mimosa” alludes to the supposed “mimicking” of animal movement by the moving leaves (so says the OED, so it must be true). Mimosa blossoms are small fluffy yellow things, so can be mimicked by chopped up egg yolks, hence “Salade Mimosa” which is essentially salad topped with chopped up egg yolks.

One version of a Mimosa cocktail is:

2 ounces orange juice
6 ½ ounces Champagne
1 teaspoon Grand Marnier.

What the hell, it might be a Savoy Hotel recipe (another pretty ritzy pub), but here is a later version of Escoffier’s Pêche Melba, which he invented for the opera star Nellie Melba.

Pêche Melba

Peaches, sugar, vanilla ice-cream, raspberry puree, sliced “green” almonds.
Peel and stone the peaches and sprinkle with sugar, Put the ice-cream into a serving dish or individual dishes, arrange the peaches on top, and cover with the sweetened puree.
Note: finely sliced “green” almonds may be sprinkled on top, but dried almonds should not be used.

Tomorrow: Crowning Glory.

Quotation for the Day ...

When evening quickens in the street, comes a pause in the day’s occupation that is known as the cocktail hour. It marks the lifeward turn. The heart wakens from coma and its dyspnea ends. Its strengthening pulse is to cross over into campground, to believe that the world has not been altogether lost or, if lost, then not altogether in vain. Bernard de Voto

Grubs and Roots.

Today, May 31st.

In 1840-1 Edward John Eyre lead an expedition across 1200 miles of some of Australia’s most unforgiving country, to open up the route between Adelaide and West Australia.

By this date, the party was reduced to Eyre and Wylie (his young aboriginal assistant and guide) and their situation was perilous. Eyre wrote:

… I halted for the night, to rest myself and give Wylie an opportunity of looking for food. … There were many grass-trees in the vicinity, and as several of these had been broken down and were dead they were full of the white grubs of which the natives are so fond. From these Wylie enjoyed a plentiful, and to him, luxurious supper. I could not bring myself to try them, preferring the root of the broad flag-reed, which, for the first time, we met with at this stream, and which is an excellent and nutritious article of food. This root being dug up, and roasted in hot ashes, yields a great quantity of a mealy farinaceous powder interspersed among the fibres; it is of an agreeable flavour, wholesome, and satisfying to the appetite. In all parts of Australia, even where other food abounds, the root of this reed is a favourite and staple article of diet among the aborigines.

The white grub so relished by Wylie was, of course, the witchetty or witjuti grub, the larva of a moth found in the roots of some species of wattle known to Central Australian aboriginals as the witjuti bush, or “food tree”. They are usually eaten raw and alive, straight from the wood - although for faint-hearted tourists they are usually cooked. Their flavour is something like chickeny scrambled eggs, and they are highly nutritious - ten large ones will provide sufficient daily protein for one adult.

No recipe is needed then, for the grubs, and Eyre has given us instructions for preparing the reed, so lets jump to a much later period in the settlement, and try another delicacy.

Mrs Rawson’s Roast Bandicoot.
A bandicoot is a very disagreeable animal to clean, therefore it should be done as soon after killing as possible, and then the flesh can be left in strong vinegar and water for a few hours before dressing. Sweet potatoes and onions make a good stuffing for bandicoot, which is good either boiled or baked.

Tomorrow: Day One at the Ritz.

Quotation for the Day:

Why is not a rat as good as a rabbit? Why should men eat shrimps and neglect cockroaches?. Henry Ward Beecher.

A Mission Menu.

Today, May 30th …

A luncheon was held aboard the H.M.S “Aquitania” on this day in 1918, in honour of the American Mission to the allied countries. The “Aquitania” was a British Cunard Line cruise ship chartered by the United States during WW I for use as a troop ship, although to judge by the menu, the food retained some element of the luxury associated with peace-time cruising.

There are a couple of small glitches in interpreting the menu: a few words were difficult to read due to the condition of the paper, and the dishes all appear to be named in honour of individuals who presumably had something to do with the war effort. The “Salade de Wilson” is obvious, but The Old Foodie eagerly awaits enlightenment on the other names from someone with a knowledge of U.S history of the time.

Potage McCormick
-
Davis Rarebits-Meredith
Johnson’s Haricot Ox Tail
Short’s Mutton Chops Frey Potatoes, Dunn, Wright
Green berry Peas Scotts Mashed Potatoes
COLD
Lovejoy’ York Ham Higgins’ Roast Beef
Salade de Wilson
-
Compote of Plums & Custard a la Ryan
Grenfell Cheese – Seccor (?)
Nestor Coffee – Spraggon (?)

Meanwhile, back on the American mainland, where normal folk were living with nominated meatless, wheatless and porkless days, a menu such as this – with ham and roast beef at the same meal, would have seemed an impossible dream. Instead they had to make do with dishes such as these, from “Daily Menus for War Service” by Thetta Quay Franks:

Boston Roast (Farmers Bulletin 487)
1 pound can of kidney beans or equivalent quantity of cooked beans; ½ pound of grated cheese; breadcrumbs, salt.
Mash the beans or put them through a meat grinder. Add the cheese, and sufficient breadcrumbs to make the mixture stiff enough to be formed into a roll. Bake in a moderate oven, basting occasionally with butter and water. Serve with tomato sauce. This dish may be flavoured with onions, chopped, and cooked in butter and water.

Mock Chicken (Columbia War Papers)
Cooked beans, 2 cups; stale breadcrumbs, 1 ½ cups; Butterine, 2 tablespoons; Milk, ¾ cup; Salt, ¾ teaspoon.
Press the beans through a fine strainer, add the milk.Arrange alternate layers of bean pulp and buttered crumbs in a buttered baking dish. Cover with crumbs and bake in a moderate oven 45 minutes. Serve with tomato sauce.

Tomorrow: Grubs and Roots.

Quotation for the Day …

In America, even your menus have the gift of language. . . . 'The Chef's own Vienna Roast. A hearty, rich meat loaf, gently seasoned to perfection and served in a creamy nest of mashed farm potatoes and strictly fresh garden vegetables.' Of course, what you get is cole slaw and a slab of meat, but that doesn't matter because the menu has already started your juices going. Oh, those menus. In America, they are poetry. Laurie Lee.

Advance Holiday Postings.

The Old Foodie will be away attending her son's wedding in Greece (and how much fun is that!) from today 12th May to Monday 29th May.

So as not to disappoint, a little story has still been written for each day.

The Old Foodie expects you to do the honourable thing, and not read them in advance.

On the correct day, simply click on the title of the story, and you will be taken there instantly.

May 12th: To Pickell Walnuts Green.

May 15th: Bordeaux and the rest

May 16th: Saintly Pastry.

May 17th: Delights of Mafeking

May 18th: First, Coffee.

May 19th: Pork, Pease, and Pie?

May 22nd: The Elegance of Beans.

May 23rd : Several Seville Suggestions.

May 24th: Fat Cake for the Queen.

May 25th: Lettuce Revisited

May 26th: A Great Culinary Mystery

May 29th: Mint on the Mountain

Until we meet again: Happy Feasting, From The Old Foodie.

P.S emails may or may not be answered during the holiday, so please be patient while you wait for a response to your comments and questions.

Quotation for the Day ..

One of the gladdest moments of human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of routine, the cloak of many cares and the slavery of home, man feels once more happy.
Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890)

Mint on the Mountain.

On May 29th …

Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay became the first men to reach the summit of Mt Everest on this day in 1953. They stayed only fifteen minutes, took some photos, and had a small snack before heading back down.

“We made seats for ourselves in the snow, and sitting there in reasonable comfort we ate with relish a bar of mintcake”

Specifically, what they had was Kendal Mint Cake, from England’s Lake District. It is a essentially an opaque sugar cake flavoured with mint, and the story is that the invention was the result of a mistake. A local confectioner making “glacier mints” cooked the sugar syrup a little too long, and it started to form crystals again and became cloudy. It became a local delicacy, then in 1953 the company was asked to provide supplies for the Everest expedition at short notice, and it achieved international fame. The mint cake was chosen presumably because it was a conveniently packed and efficient form of calories for extreme activity.

The “cake” may have gotten to Everest, but it was refused entry to New York in the 1950’s by Customs officers who ruled that “cake” should have flour in it, and ordered a whole shipment dumped in the sea!

As for the recipe, the ingredients for the cake are simple, even if the method is tricky – sugar, glucose, and peppermint oil. The concept of flavoured sugar – in other words “candy” is not new, and historically many other flavours were used in the past. Here is a rose-flavoured sugar cake from a 1671 publication “A Queens delight, or, The art of preserving, conserving and candying …”

Sugar of Roses.
Take the deepest coloured red Roses, pick them, cut off the white bottoms [the small piece at the base of the petal], and dry your red leaves [petals] in an Oven, till they be as dry as possible, then beat them to powder and searce [sieve] them, then take half a pount of Sugar beaten fin, put it into your pan with as much fair water as will wet it, then set it ina chaffing-dish on coals, and let it boil till it be sugar again, then put as much powder of Roses as will make it look very red, stir them well together, and when it is almost cold, put it into pailes, and when it is thoroughly cold, take them off, and put them in boxes.

Tomorrow: A Mission Menu.

On this Topic …

There are some wonderful recipes for sugar and violets at 18th C Cuisine.

Quotation for the Day …

Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold. Judith Olney.

A great culinary mystery.

On May 26th …

The diary of Parson James Woodforde of Norfolk is a wonderful source of information about day to day life in England in the second half of the eighteenth century. He regularly recorded details of his meals, and made several mentions over the years of a most puzzling dish. This day in 1784 was one of them.

I took a ride afterwards to Du Quesne’s and ther dined and spent the Afternoon with him ….We had for Dinner some Pike and Maccarel, a fore Qr. of Lamb rosted, Pidgeon Pye – Charter &c. &c. I carried Mr. Du Quesne a Cucumber in my Pocket.

What is this thing called “Charter”? The good Parson first mentions the dish in 1777 when he has it at the house of another gourmet batchelor cleric. In 1785 he refers to it as “the” Charter, perhaps suggesting that it was a dish in its own right, not just an unattached adjective.

One source says it is “chicken pie, with heavy cream and onion”, which seems far-fetched, given that pies were usually called “pies”, except when they were “pyes”. The Parson Woodforde Society considers from minute examination of the many volumes of the diary, that it was some sort of custard, and a recipe supposedly representing it and consisting of custard and stewed dried apricots was published in an English newspaper in 1984. This also sounds rather fanciful.

Is the name a corruption of “charlet”, from which we get “charlotte”? The OED says charlet is “ A kind of custard containing milk, eggs, brayed pork, and seasoning, boiled to a curd” (which means the first source may not be so wrong after all), and this name probably derives from the old French word for minced meat. By the time “charlet” gets to be “charlotte” it is a thoroughly modern, and absolutely meat-free dessert.

There are recipes for charlet in “The Forme of Cury”, England’s first cookbook from the Master Cooks of Richard II, which dates from the end of the fourteenth century. This one contains pork.

Charlet.
Take Pork and seethe it wel. hewe it smale. cast it in a panne. Breke ayrenn [eggs] and do therto and swyng [shake or mix] it wel togyder. do therto Cowe mylke and Safroun and boile it togyder. salt it & messe it forth.

On Monday: Mint on the Mountain.

Quotation for the Day …

There are only two questions to ask about food. Is it good? And is it authentic? We are open [to] new ideas, but not if it means destroying our history. And food is history. Giuliano Bugialli

Lettuce revisited.

On May 25th …

The first “French Hospital” was set up in London in the early eighteenth century to cater for the Protestant Huguenot refugees from France. In one form or another, in one location or another, the respite facility has continued to the present day to assist the descendants of these refugees.

IN 1905, the thirty-seventh annual dinner was held in aid of funds for the hospital and dispensatory. The French ambassador was in the chair, assisted and supported by the Lord Mayor of London and the the Sheriffs and Under Sheriffs of London. The venue was the Hotel Cecil, and the menu was as follows:

Hors d'Oeuvres Variés

Consommé Carnot Crème Milanaise

Truite Saumonée, Sauce Chablis

Salade de Concombres.

Curry de Homard et Crevettes à l'Indienne

Caille aux Petits Pois à la Française

Aspic de Foie Gras en Belle Vue

Selle d'Agneau à la Broche

Champignons grillés Laitues Farcies

Pommes Nouvelles

Sorbet au Kirsch

Poularde à l'Américaine

Salade NiçoiseAsperges d'Argenteuil, Sauce Mousseline

Fraises Melba glacées

Paniers Nationaux de Petits Fours

Dessert

Café

Vins

Chablis
Berncastler Doctor

Champagnes

Perrier Jouet, Ex. Sec., 1895

Delbeck. Ex. Reserve Dry, 1893

Duc de Montebello, 1893
ClaretBranairre Ducru, 1893

Port:

Dow's 1890

Otard's Liqueur de fine Champagne 1875

Bénédictine

Eaux Minérales

It is always good to discover, or re-discover an interesting dish on an old menu. The Consommé Carnot sounds intriguing, and was presumably named for Sadi Carnot, the President of France from 1887-1894, but alas there does not seem to be a recipe for this dish in any of the standard texts of the time. Escoffier does have one for stuffed lettuce however. How long is it since you stuffed a lettuce?

Laitues farcis.
Lettuces, chicken forcemeat, chopped ham, truffle, 3- 4 tablespoons demi-glace sauce, fried croutons.
Blanch the lettuces, cut in half lengthwise and braise as in the preceding recipe.
On each half place 1 tablespoon forcemeat with a little chopped ham and truffle. Fold each half lettuce over onto itself and put into a buttered dish. Sprinkle with a little of the cooking liquor. Cover and put into a slow oven for 4-5 minutes, just long enough to poach the forcemeat. Add demi-glace sauce to the rest of the cooking liquor and strain the sauce over.

Tomorrow: A great culinary mystery.

Quotation for the Day …

I worry about scientists discovering that lettuce has been fattening all along. Erma Bombeck.

Fat Cake for the Queen.

On May 24th …

May 24th was the birthday of Queen Victoria, and was celebrated throughout the Empire by her Majesty’s loyal subjects, including the Bavarian explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, stuck somewhere in the far north of Australia on this day in 1845, and half-starving.

It was the Queen's birth-day, and we celebrated it with what - as our only remaining luxury - we were accustomed to call a fat cake, made of four pounds of flour and some suet, which we had saved for the express purpose, and with a pot of sugared tea. We had for several months been without sugar, with the exception of about ten pounds, which was reserved for cases of illness and for festivals. So necessary does it appear to human nature to interrupt the monotony of life by marked days, on which we indulge in recollections of the past, or in meditations on the future, that we all enjoyed those days as much, and even more, than when surrounded with all the blessings of civilized society; although I am free to admit, that fat-cake and sugared tea in prospectu might induce us to watch with more eagerness for the approach of these days of feasting.

The empty sugar bags were saved in anticipation of celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo on June 18th , when they were boiled up with their tea.

Leichhardt’s “Fat Cakes” could not have been as elegant as this recipe in Dorothy Hartley’s classic book “Food in England”.

Take some of the dough from the bread. Roll it out a quarter of an inch thick, dot with dabs of cold stiff lard aobut the size of half walnuts, sprinkle with crystallised sugar, and fold the dough into three, or end to end, pinching the sides together to keep in the air. Fold it over once more from the side and roll again, beginning to roll from the open end, so as to imprison the little pockets of air within the dough. Do this three times, putting the dabs of lard between the bubbles showing through where the first dabs were imprisoned. The last time strew very lightly (over the sugar and lard) with spice – barely a breath of nutmeg or a suspicion of cinnamon or allspice (spice very delicately indeed, a sthe lard takes up the aroma strongly).
Roll out to the size of the baking-tin, marking it across and across, for lardy cakes should be broken down their cracks, never cut. Bake in a hot oven.

Tomorrow: Lettuce revisited.

Quotation for the Day …

Traveling carries with it the curse of being at home everywhere and yet nowhere, for wherever one is some part of oneself remains on another continent. Margot Fonteyn

Several Seville Suggestions.

On May 23rd …

Elizabeth Purefoy was an English gentlewoman living on the family estate in Buckinghamshire in the mid-nineteenth century. The landed gentry were easily self-sufficient, but it behoved their station to obtain delicacies from London to augment their own produce. One of Elizabeths former servants had married and moved to London with her husband, who ran an inn in Islington, and he acted as her agent in the city. She sent him requests, he did his best to fill them, and she let kept him informed as to the condition of the foodstuff when she received it. The fish she loved was often disappointing and “stinking” before it reached her, and sometimes containers leaked or broke. On this day in 1747 she wrote to him:

I received your pickled salmon, and the pot of anchovies, & six Sevill oranges which were all very good & wee return your thanks for them. The salmon was very good but jumbled into pieces & the liqor all run out…I have sent you with your butter a stone Bottle which I desire you to get filled with thevery best sallet oyll & sent as soon as may be.

I wonder what she intended for the oranges? Seville oranges are practically only used in marmalade nowadays, but in the mid-eighteenth century cooks used them far more frequently and in ways we would now consider quite adventurous.

Hannah Glasse’s famous cookbook “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy” was published in the same year that Elizabeth wrote her letter. She used Seville oranges in marmalade of course, and many other sweet dishes such as syllabub, bread pudding, and apple “tort” and “florendine”, but she also used them in “spinage pudding”, “potatoe pye” and this interesting dish of eggs.

To broil Eggs.
Cut a Toast round a Quartern Loaf, toast it brown, lay it on your Dish, butter it, and very carefully break six or eight Eggs on the Toast, and take a red-hot Shovel and hold over them. When they are done, squeeze a Seville Orange over them, grate a little Nutmeg over it, and serve it up for a Side-plate. Or you may poach your Eggs, and lay them on the Toast; or toast your Toasts crisp, and pour a little boiling Water over it, season it with a little Salt, and then lay your poached Eggs on it.

Tomorrow: Fat Cake for the Queen.


Quotation for the Day …

This special feeling towards fruit, its glory and abundance, is I would say universal.... We respond to strawberry fields or cherry orchards with a delight that a cabbage patch or even an elegant vegetable garden cannot provoke. Jane Grigson

The elegance of beans.

Today, May 22nd …

Vincent van Gogh was voluntarily confined in the asylum at Saint- Rémy in 1889 after a mental breakdown. He but kept up his correspondence with his brother while he was there, and on this day wrote:

The food all right as far as it goes. It tastes a bit musty, of course, as in a cockroach-infested restaurant in Paris, or in a boarding-house. The poor wretches here, having absolutely nothing to do (not a book, nothing more to distract them than a game of boules or a game of draughts), have no other daily distraction than to stuff themselves with chickpeas, haricot beans, lentils and other groceries and colonial produce, in set quantities and at stated hours. As the digestion of these foodstuffs offers certain difficulties, they fill their days in a way as offensive as it is cheap.

We have already touched on this entertaining aspect of beans in an earlier Old Foodie story, so it is time to re-dress the balance, and look for the elegance that is also in them. Vincent was in France, and there is no doubt that the French do elegance very well, so here are a couple of nineteenth century recipes for French-style beans.

From “366 Menus and 1200 recipes”, a book by the Baron Brisse, nineteenth century food journalist for La Liberté:

French beans and haricots à la maitre d’hôtel.
Boil equal quantities of French beans and fresh young haricot beans in salt and water; when cooked, drain and place in a dish near the fire. Melt a large lump of butter, flavour with chopped herbs, salt and pepper, warm the beans in this, and serve very hot.

Haricot beans with capsicum butter.
Boil the beans with salt and water, when done, drain them and toss in a saucepan with some capsicum butter.

Capsicum butter.
Pound some dried capsicums, and stir into butter; it is generally used for sandwiches.

French beans with white sauce.
Cut up your French beans; soak them in cold water, and boil in boiling salt and water; when done, plunge them into cold water and drain. Warm some chopped onions in fresh butter, but do not brown them; when nearly cooked, stir in a little flour, salt, pepper, chopped parsley, chives, and a wine-glassful of stock, add the beans, and when boiling, thicken the sauce with yolks of egg, and flavour with lemon juice. Do not let the sauce be too thin.

Tomorrow: Several Seville Suggestions.

On this Topic ...

See the earlier posts on April 25th Beans Means Ventosyte, and another food story about Vincent van Gogh at An Admirable Receipt for Eggs.

Quotation for the Day ...

To be a gourmet you must start early, as you must begin riding early to be a good horseman. You must live in France, your father must have been a gourmet. Nothing in life must interest you but your stomach. Ludwig Bemelmans

Pork, Pease, and Pie?

Today, May 19th …

Queen Elizabeth I was released from the Tower of London at one o’clock on this day in 1554, and according to popular legend she went first to church to give thanks, and then on to the King’s Head Tavern in Fenchurch St (sadly no longer there), for a meal of boiled pork and pease pudding.

It is highly unlikely that the cook at the tavern could read, never mind own a cookbook, cooks learned on the job how to make the standard dishes such as pork and pease. Naturally then, a cookbook published around about this time with the impressive title of “A Propre newe Booke of Cokerye, declarynge what maner of meates be beste in season, for al times in the yere, and how they ought to be dressed, and serued at the table, bothe for fleshe dayes, and fyshe dayes. With a newe addition, verye necessarye for all them that delyghteth in Cokerye” assumed this knowledge and did not include recipes for them.

We dont know if Her Majesty had any “dessert” (not that this course existed then as it does now), but there are some good things in the Propre Book which would have been very suitable, such as these pies.

To make pyes of grene apples.
Take your apples and pare them cleane and core them as ye wyll a Quince, thenmake youre coffyn after this maner, take a lyttle fayre water and half a dyche of butterand a little Saffron, and sette all this upon a chafyngdyshe tyll it be hoate then temperyour flower with this sayd licuor, and the whyte of two egges and also make yourcoffyn and ceason your apples with Sinemone, Gynger and Suger ynoughe. Then putte them into your coffin and laye halfe a dyshe of butter above them and so close your coffin, and so bake them.

To make a tarte of goseberies.
Take goseberies and parboyle them in whyte wyne, claret or ale, and boyle withall a lyttle whyte breade, then take them up, and drawe them throughe a strayner asthycke as you can with the yolckes of syxe egges, then season it up with suger, halfe adische of butter, so bake it.
[This little book also contains the first known written recipe for pastry, which was given in an earlier Old Foodie story, on December 7th. This story was retrospectively posted so appears in the March archive; you will need to use Ctrl+F to search for the date after you click HERE.]

Quotation for the Day …

… apple pye with custard all on the top, it's the most acceptable entertainment that could be made; they scald their creame and milk in most parts of these countrys and so its a sort of clouted creame as we call it, with a little sugar, and so put on top of the apple pye; I was muched pleased with my supper … .
Celia Fiennes; , "My Great Journey to Newcastle and Cornwall" (1698)

First, coffee.

On May 18th …

A Bavarian physician and botanist called Leonhard Raowolf set off with a friend on this day in 1573 on a three year journey to the East, specifically to seek new medicinal plants. He travelled through Syria, Armenia, Constantinople, Baghdad and Jerusalem, recording all sorts of details about day-to-day life in these very foreign places. He was the first European to describe the use of coffee, which he saw in Aleppo:

A very good drink they call Chaube that is almost as black as ink and very good in illness, especially of the stomach. This they drink in the morning early in the open places before everybody, without any fear or regard, out of clay or China cups, as hot as they can, sipping it a little at a time.

One “first” always precipitates a series of others, and the new drink did not take long to start its world take-over. The first record of coffee-drinking in England was in 1637, in the diary of John Evelyn who noted:

… there came in my time to the college one Nathaniel Conopios, out of Greece. He was the first I ever saw drink coffee.

The university town of Oxford was also the location of the first coffee house, in 1650. London followed, with the first establishment there opening in 1652 in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill. It was widely advertised for its medicinal benefits, with the first known coffee advertisement saying, in part:

... It suppresseth Fumes exceedingly, and therefore good against the Head-ach, and will very much stop the Defluxion of Rhuems, that distil from the Head upon the Stomack, and so prevent and help Consumption and the Cough of the Lungs. It is excellent to prevent and cure the Dropsy, Gout and Scurvy.

It seems fitting to give the first known instructions for the roasting of coffee, from 1662.

The coffee berries are to be bought at any druggist, about three shillings the pound; take what quantity you please and over a charcoal fire, in an old pudding pan or frying pan, keep them always stirring until they be quite black; and when you crack one with your teeth that it is black within as it is without. Yet if you exceed then do you waste the oyl, which only makes the drink; ... The berry prepared as above, beaten, and forced through a lawn sive is then fit for use.

Tomorrow: Pork, Pease, and Pie?

Quotation for the Day …

The coffee falls into your stomach and straightaway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army on the battlefield when the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensign to the wind." - Balzac, "Treatise on Modern Stimulants"

The delights of Mafeking.

On May 17th …

The siege of Mafeking was lifted on this day in 1900, in the most decisive British victory of the second Boer War. The commander of the garrison was Colonel Robert Baden-Powell (of Boy Scout fame), and the action made him a national hero. As national heroes do, he later wrote his memoir and called it “Lessons from the Varsity of Life”. In it he described the siege food:

… we learned to economise very rigidly in the matter of food, and also to devise food substitutes. When a horse was killed … His skin, after having the hair scalded off, was boiled with his head and feet for many hours, chopped up small, and with the addition of a little saltpetre was served out as “brawn”. His flesh was taken from the bones and minced in a great mincing machine and from his inside were made skins into which the meat was crammed and each man received a sausage as his ration. The bones were then boiled into a rich soup, which was dealt out at the different soup kitchens; and they were afterwards pounded up into powder with which to adulterate the flour. … Our flour was made from the horses’ oats, pounded and winnowed. … We managed thus, however, to issue every man daily a big biscuit of oatmeal. The husks of the oats were put to soak in large tubs of water for a number of hours, at the end of which the scum formed by the husks was scraped off and given as food to the hospital chickens, while the residue formed a paste closely akin to that used by bill-stickers. This was called sowens, a sour kind of mess, but very healthy and filling … Amongst other things we supplied for the invalids in hospital a special blancmange which was made from the Poudre de Riz from the hairdressers and chemists shops.

While they were eating horse sausages, sour porridge and dessert made from hairdressers powder, the soldiers probably fantasised about a simple luxury such as this traditional Scottish oatmeal dish:

Brose.
3 oz. oatmeal; salt to taste, ½ oz butter; boiling water to cover.
Put the oatmeal into a wooden bowl, preferably of birchwood, add the salt and butter and enough boiling water to cover it well. Stir it with a wooden spoon, allowing lumps to form. It is good eaten with sweet milk or buttermilk.

Tomorrow: First, coffee.

Quotation for the Day …

Oats: a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people. Definition from Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755)

Saintly Pastry.

On May 16th …

Today is the feast day of St. Honoré, the patron saint of bakers, pastrycooks and confectioners. So, unless you are too full of zarzuelas, barquillos, churros, and buñuelos from yesterday’s feast for San Isidro, a pastry feast is in order. The choice is easy, because St. Honoré has a cake specifically named for him – a delicious choux pastry, cream filled gateau topped with little balls of pastry (as in profiteroles) and attributed to the famous Parisian pastrycook Chiboust in 1846. Did he really name it in honour of the saint, or the Parisian district where he ran his business? Does it matter?

Chiboust certainly did not invent the choux pastry for the Gateau St Honoré, its origins are somewhere in misty antiquity, perhaps in the sixteenth century, as an adaptation of a fritter dough. He was presumably however, responsible for the “Crème Chiboust” that fills the cake. It is essentially a standard crème pâtissière made lighter by having stiffly beaten egg whites folded through it.

From Larousse, the paste and the filling:

Chou paste I (d’office):
Pour 4 cups (a litre) of water with ¾ cup (200 gms) of butter and 1 ½ teaspoons of salt into a pan. Bring to the boil. Remove from the fire and add 4 ¾ cups (625 gms) of sieved flour, pouring it all in at once. Mix well.
Cook this composition on the fire, stirring with a wooden spoon until it dries and comes away from the walls of the pan.
Remove from the fire and, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon, add from 12-14 eggs (depending on size) putting them in two at a time.

Cream filling for the Saint-Honoré:
3 cups (3/4 litre) of French pastry cream (Crême patissière). Heat it, and add to it while warm 6 leaves of gelatine (or 1 ounce of granulated gelatine) previously soaked in cold water and softened.
Beat 6 egg whites stiffly, sprinkling them lightly with sugar when stiff, to prevent them from separating. Incorporate them rapidly into the pastry cream, and fill the inside of the Saint-Honoré with the resulting cream, using a forcing (pastry) bag and a large, fluted nozzle.

You’ll have to assemble it yourself from an illustration, or you can simply make profiteroles and fill them with the cream – it will be much easier to serve!

Tomorrow: The delights of Mafeking.

Quotation for the Day …

Baking is just like driving a car; you can read every manual you can get your hands on, but until you get in and do it, you won't really learn how. Marion Cunningham.

Bordeaux and the rest.

On May 15th …

The Exposition Universelle de Paris began on this day in 1855, and its enduring legacy has been the Bordeaux Classification of wine. The Exposition was France’s response to England’s Great Exhibition of 1851, and naturally they wanted to upstage their historic rivals. The obvious thing to do was to showcase French wine, and the Bordeaux Wine Brokers' Union was given the task of developing a classification system to accompany the display.

The good men ranked sixty-one wines in five classes or “growths” (crus) for red wines – all from the Medoc region apart from Château Haut-Brion from Graves - and two for white wines from Sauternes and Barsac. Within each class the wines were again ranked according to quality, which essentially equated to price. In spite of ongoing controversy about its relevance and its resistance to modification, the classification is still in use 150 years later.

Members of the jury who were lucky enough to taste them all apparently commented:

The Wines of Bordeaux give tone to the stomach, while leaving the mouth fresh and the head clear. More than one invalid abandoned by the doctors has been seen to drink the good old wine of Bordeaux and return to health.

Meanwhile, across the Channel, for most drinkers it would still be simply “claret”. There must have been a significant amount of indifferent claret in England at the time, if the number of recipes to “flavour” it are any guide.

Dr. William Kitchiner (1775-1827) was one of the wealthy eccentrics that England does so well. He was an enthusiastic cook, and his book “The Cook’s Oracle” (1817) went to many editions, which is not surprising because it is a very readable, delightful mix of recipes, advice, common sense and gossip.

In case you have some indifferent claret (or “burgundy” or tokay), here are a couple of ideas from his book.

Chili, or Cayenne Wine.
Pound and steep fifty fresh Red Chilies, or a quarter of an ounce of Cayenne Pepper, in half a pint of Brandy, White Wine, or Claret, for fourteen days.

Essence of Allspice for Mulling of Wine:
Oil of Pimento, a drachm, apothecaries measure; Strong spirit of wine, two ounces.
Mixed by degrees: a few drops will give the flavour of Allspice to a pint of Gravy, - or Mulled Wine, - or to make a Bishop. Mulled wine made with Burgundy is called Bishop; with old Rhenish wine, Cardinal; and with Tokay, Pope.

Tomorrow: Saintly Pastry.

Quotation for the Day …

“French wines may be said but to pickle meat in the stomach, but this is the wine that digests, and doth not only breed good blood, but it nutrifieth also, being a glutinous substantial liquor; of this wine, if of any other, may be verified that merry induction: That good wine makes good blood, good blood causeth good humors, good humors cause good thoughts, good thoughts bring forth good works, good works carry a man to heaven, ergo, good wine carrieth a man to heaven.”James Howell (1594-1666)

To Pickel Wallnutts Green.

Today, May 12th …

A seventeenth century Mistress of Capels Manor in Enfield, England kept a “receipt book” and inside she inscribed: “Madam Susanna Avery, Her Book, May ye 12th, Anno Domini 1688”.

She included this recipe:

To Pickel Wallnutts Green Let your nutts be green as not to have any shell; then run a kniting pin two ways through them; then put them into as much ordinary vinegar as will cover them, and let them stand thirty days, shifting them every too days in ffrech vinegar; then ginger and black peper of each ounce, rochambol* two ounces slised, a handfull of bay leaves; put all togeather cold; then wrap up every wall nutt singly in a vine leaf, and put them in putt them into the ffolloing pickel: for 200 of walnutts take two gallans of the best whit vineager, a pint of the best mustard seed, fore ounces of horse radish, with six lemons sliced with the rins [rinds]on, cloves and mace half an ounce, a stone jar, and put the pickel on them, and cork them close up; and they will be ffitt for use in three months, and keep too years.

No-one pickles their own walnuts anymore. No-one does much pickling of anything, that’s part of the problem, but walnuts are problematic even in the hands of enthusiastic picklers. That’s the problem in a nut-shell (pun intended) – the hands. How on earth did Mistress Avery do it without rubber gloves to protect her lily-white gentlewoman’s hands? Walnuts contain walnut stain – of the very same dark colour as is applied to wood, and it wont wash off, it has to wear off.

Nonetheless, they must have been considered worth the effort, judging by the number of recipes in old books. Mrs Raffald (1769) gives variations to pickle them black, green, or “an olive colour”, and also notes:

You may make exceedingly good catchup of the alegar** that comes from your walnuts by adding a pound of anchovies, one ounce of cloves, the same of long and black pepper, one head of garlic, and half a pound of common salt to every gallon of your alegar. Boil it till it is half reduced away and skim it very well. Then bottle it for use and it will keep a long time.

*Rocambole (rochambole) is a type of garlic, also called Spanish Garlic or Sand Leek.

**Alegar is sour ale ( i.e vinegar formed from the fermentation of ale)

So, go make some!

On Monday: Bordeaux and the rest.

Quotation for the Day …

On Walnuts: “With onions, salt, and hony, they are good against the biting of a mad dog or man, if they be laid upon the wound”. From John Gerard’s Herbal (1633)

An uncertain soup.

Today, May 11th …

William the Conqueror crowned himself King of England on Christmas Day 1066, but it was not until this day in 1068 that his wife, Matilda was crowned Queen consort. The coronation was naturally followed by a lavish banquet, and a new dish was created for it which was to become a coronation tradition until the reign of George IV in 1821.

William’s cook was a Norman (naturally) by the name of Tezelin. He came up with a white soup called “Dilligrout”, and the story is that William was so pleased he gave Tezelin a manor at Addington in Surrey, on the condition that the manor provide this dish at future coronations in perpetuity. A manor for a bowl of soup!

We will never be sure as to the exact recipe for this soup. The OED is unable to help, saying only that it is some sort of pottage, and is unable even to clarify the derivation of the word. It is possible that it has the same root as groat and grit, referring to coarse grain – although this would hardly seem likely to simulate such royal generosity. Other sources say it was “ .. compounded of almond milk, the brawn of capons, sugar and spices, chicken parboiled and chopped, and was called, also, ‘Le mess de gyron,’ or, if there was fat with it, it was termed maupigyrnun.”, which would have been an expensive, elegant dish and much more appropriate to set before the king.

If this latter description is correct, then the dillegrout/maupigyrun must have been similar to the original “blancmange”, which meant “white food”, and was made from chicken and almond milk. There are no recipes from the time of William’s reign, so we must be content with one from Englands oldest cookery manuscript, the late fourteenth century “The Forme of Cury”.

Blank Maunger.
Take Capouns and seeth hem, thenne take hem up. take Almandes blaunched. grynd hem and alay [mix] hem up with the same broth. cast the mylk in a pot. waisshe rys and do therto and lat it seeth. thanne take brawn of Capouns teere it small and do therto. take white grece sugur and salt and cast therinne. lat it seeth. yhenne messe it forth and florissh it with aneys in confyt rede other whyt. and with Almaundes fryed in oyle. and serue it forth.

Tomorrow: To Pickel Wallnutts Green.

Quotation for the Day …

Beautiful soup! Who cares for fish, game, or any other dish? who would not give all else for two pennyworth only of beautiful soup? Lewis Carroll.

The legality of tomatoes.

Today, May 10th …

After a six-year battle a U.S. court decided on this day in 1893 that the tomato was a vegetable. This was in complete disregard for the science of botany, many experts, and numerous dictionaries, but with complete and touching regard for “the common language of the people”, culinary convention (“any plant or part thereof eaten during the main dish is a vegetable … If it is eaten at any other part of the meal it is a fruit”) and - not surprisingly- the economics of the tomato trade.

The problem had started with the Tariff Act of 1883, which placed 10% duty on imported vegetables but not fruit. In the interest of raising revenue, the NY Customs department declared the tomato a vegetable. The ruling was challenged in 1887 by an importer attempting to recoup duty paid on tomatoes brought in from the West Indies. Six years later the decision was finally made, and he lost.

There are many other examples of botany and cookery and the law defining things differently. The pumpkin is in the same predicament as the tomato, it is botanically a fruit, although usually thought of as a vegetable. Does it attract duty I wonder? The reverse story is that of rhubarb – botanically a vegetable, but culinarily used as a fruit. Bananas grow on giant herbs, not trees, and the strawberry itself is not a true fruit, it is merely the red fleshy “pseudocarp” (so technically is a vegetable) which holds the true fruits – what we call the tiny “seeds”. Is that clear?

In the midst of all this confusion, the comforting certainty is that the tomato is a very versatile food, and in spite of the U.S court decision, it can be cooked as a fruit as well as a vegetable. Here is an example, from “Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers” by Elizabeth Lea (1869).

Green Tomatoes for Pies
Pick the green tomatoes before they are much frosted; scald them and take off the skins; put them in your kettle and let them boil for half an hour; cut them up, and put in a pound of sugar to three pounds of tomatoes, and let them cook for half an hour longer; season them with the juice and peel of a lemon, and put them away in jars. They make very good pies in the winter, and resemble gooseberries.

Tomorrow: An uncertain soup.

Quotation for the Day …

What I love about cooking is hat after a hard day, there is something comforting about the fact that if you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick! It's a sure thing! It's a sure thing in a world where nothing is sure; it has a mathematical certainty in a world where those of us who long for some kind of certainty are forced to settle for crossword puzzles. Nora Ephron.

High tea, low tea.

Today, May 9th …

Today we are going to clarify some of the misunderstandings about the meaning and conduct of “High Tea”.

If you want to play high-and-mighty, and crook your little finger just so, what you really want is “Low Tea”. The Daily Telegraph on this day in 1893 explained:

A well-understood `high tea' should have cold roast beef at the top of the table, a cold Yorkshire pie at the bottom, a mighty ham in the middle. The side dishes will comprise soused mackerel, pickled salmon (in due season), sausages and potatoes, etc., etc. Rivers of tea, coffee, and ale, with dry and buttered toast, sally-lunns, scones, muffins, and crumpets, jams and marmalade.

In other words, high tea is a substitute for dinner, taken in the evening at a high table, and is definitely low class in its origins. Low tea, on the other hand, is taken in the afternoon at low tables and is indisputably a high class affair (only the upper classes being able to sit about in the mid-afternoon.)

So, if you want your high tea to be well understood, you must master the art of grand pie making. Unfortunately the recipe for the Yorkshire pie may be intimidating for all but the bravest, so is hidden away in safety on the Companion site.

If you are not sure whether it is low tea or high tea you want to serve, “Sally Lunns” will be acceptable at either. These are sweet buns with much interesting fake-lore attached to their name, and really require a whole 400 words to themselves just as soon as possible.

There are three versions of the recipe in Cassell’s “Dictionary of Cookery” (c1870’s). The most elegant is supposedly Carême’s own, but space only permits this short one.

Sallylunns (another way)
Take two pounds of flour, one pint of milk, four eggs, and two spoonfuls of yeast; make a paste of these ingredients, and work until well risen. Then knead into it a pound of butter and a little salt; let it stand an hour, then bake, and rasp the tops. A little pounded sugar may be added to taste to the above ingredients.

Cassell’s “Household Guide” advises:

When wanted, slice, toast, and butter your Sally Lunns, and serve piping hot on a plate which you cannot hold with your naked fingers.

And cautions:

There are two objections to these and the following [muffins] - they are indigestible, and are also terrible "stroys" [destroyers] for butter.

Tomorrow: The legality of tomatoes.

On this Topic ...

Usually nowadays when we think of Afternoon Tea, we think of something like Devonshire Tea, with scones and cream. Scones are certainly popular afternoon fare in Australia. You can read about the Great Aussie Scone Fest on Miss Eagle's site at Oz Tucker, or if you didn't check it out after the post on "Colonial Kosher", check out Gillian Polack's diary Even in a Little Thing for May 4th - she has given some of the scone recipes from the cookbook of her Jewish grandmother who migrated to Australia in the 1850's.

Quotation for the Day …

In nothing more is the English genius for domesticity more notably declared than in the institution of this festival - almost one may call it - of afternoon tea. The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose. George Gissing (1857- 1903)