How to Ornament a Tongue as a Dolphin.

Can food be art? To rephrase the question (or perhaps it is a slightly different question?) – can art be made from food?

Without further ado I give you the information which led me to ponder on the food-as-art question, and look forward to your comments and opinions. From The Pastrycook and Confectioners Guide (London, 1889) by Robert Wells:

Ornamental Butter-Work.

Your butter must be tough, waxy, and as white as possible; old firkin butter is best, made from poor land; for this kind of work, wash it well in spring water, then work it on a marble slab, and put it again into fresh spring water; as the water gets warm, remove it for cold.

To Ornament a Tongue as a Dolphin.

Boil an ox tongue and lay it straight, except at the tip end, which you must bend a little; when cold, pare it neatly, and fix it upright upon a dish with a bit of butter; then model butter in the shape of the head and mouth of a dolphin, and fix it to the thick part of the tongue; make also the fins, eyes, teeth, &c., after which model a tail and fix it to the tip end; vein it neatly with a very small pointed skewer, anf fix two currants in the proper place for the eyes. You must use skewers to fix the butter.

To Ornament a Tongue with Flowers.

Boil a tongue and lay in in a small hair sieve. When cold pare it neatly and set it on your dish; force butter through the squirt; run some of the wires on the tongue to represent the stalk, and place leaves on each side; model rosebuds and roses – or any other sort of flowers your fancy directs – and fix them in different parts of the tongue. This will make a neat supper dish if well executed.

The book does contain “real” recipes too, so here is another way to use up some butter:

Princess Beatrice Cakes.

Take 1 ½ lbs. of butter, 2 lbs. of castor sugar, the yolks of 20 eggs and the whites of 10 eggs, 1 ¾ lbs. of flour, and the grated rind of 4 oranges; cream the butter and sugar together, add the yolks and the grated rind of the oranges, have the whites of the eggs well beaten. Then add the flour and stir all gently together; put into hoops nicely papered, and bake in a moderate oven; ice them over when cold, and pipe them with icing coloured with a little carmine.

How to Make Vaunts and Flampoints.

A short while ago I posted on the topic of tarts (here, and here) and several of you asked for a little more on vaunts and flampoints. I love getting special requests, and do try to accommodate them - so, here are a few more words on these old-fashioned types of tart.

First, the vaunt. The Oxford English Dictionary says this is “a kind of fruit pie” and admits that the word is of obscure origin. In the recipe given below however, the thin omelet-like sheets of egg which form part of the construction are themselves referred to as vaunts, and in at least one French-language cookery book of the era (Ouverture de Cuisine, 1604)  they are called votes. Take note, OED. 

The first reference to a vaunt in written English is given as occurring in 1508 in Wynkyn de Worde’s Boke of Kervynge [Book of Carving, ] and the first recipe that I know of for a vaunt appears in the Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin (1594.) The recipe includes beef marrow, which seems strange to us today for a fruit pie, but in past times fatty bone marrow was commonly included in such dishes to add richness.

To make a Vaunt

Take marrow of Beefe, as much as you can hold in both your hands, cut it as big as great dice. Then take ten Dates, cut them as big as smal dice: then take thirtie Prunes and cut the fruite from the stones, then take halfe a handfull of Corrans, washe them and picke them, then put your marrow in a cleane platter, and your Dates, Prunes, and Corrans: then take ten yolks of Egs, and put into your stuffe afore rehearsed. Then take a quartern of Sugar, and more, and beat it smal and put to your marow. Then take two spoonfuls of Synamon, and a spoonful of Sugar, and put them to your stuffe, and mingle them all together, then take eight yolkes of Egs, and four spoonfuls of Rosewater, straine them, and put a litle Sugar to it. Then take a fair frying pan, and put a litle peece of butter in it, as much as a Walnut, and set it vpon a good fire, and when it looketh almost blacke, put it out of your pan, and as fast as you can, put halfe of the yolkes of Egs, into the midst of your pan, and let it run all the bredth of your pan, and frie it faire and yellow, and when it is fryed put it in a faire dish, and put your stuffe therein, and spread it al the bottome of the dish, and then make another vaunt euen as you made the other, and set it vpon a faire borde and cut it in faire slices, of the breadth of your litle finger, as long as your Vaunt is; then lay it vpon your stuffe after the fashion of a lattice window, and then cut off the ends of them, as much as lyeth without the inward compasse of the dish. Then set the dish within the Oven or in a baking pan, and let it bake with leisure, and when it is baken ynough the marrow will come faire out of the vaunt, vnto the brim of the dish. Then draw it out, and cast theron a litle sugar, and so you may serue it in.

Now for the flampoyne  or flampoint (or flaumpeyn etc.) The OED defines this as “a pie or tart ornamented with pointed pieces of pastry,” and suggests that the name comes from  ‘flame point’ or flan pointé.

I give you a recipe for flaumpeyns from Forme of Cury (1390.) They are shallow tarts (an inch deep) filled with minced pork and cheese.

Flaumpeyns.

Take fat pork y sode. pyke hyt clene. grynde hit smale. grynd chese & do ther to with sugur and gode poudours. make a coffyn of an ynche depe & do this fars ther inne. make a thynne foyle of gode past & kerve out ther of smale poyntes. fry hem in fars. and bake hit up, & serve hyt forth.

Dinner of the Thirteen Club, 1907.

Warning: if you suffer from triskaidekaphobia (morbid fear of the number 13) – read no further!

The members of The Thirteen Club of New York had an especially good time at their regular dinners - held on the thirteenth of the month - when that day fell on a Friday, as it does today. In a post several years ago I described the club’s raison d’être and general shenanigans (including of course a menu), and I featured one more of their dinners in Menus from History. It being the thirteenth of the month today, I want to share with you the details of the club dinner on July 13, 1907 (a Saturday) as reported in the New York Times the following day. As was their usual routine, the number 13 figured prominently in all parts of the evening, including the dinner menu, and many attempts were made to tempt fate by defying commonly-held superstitious beliefs – one of which clearly backfired on this occasion!

THIRTEEN CLUB BRAVES EVERYTHING. 

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LADDER HITS SECRETARY

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Hard knocks for All Superstitions at the Annual Dinner at Brighton Beach.

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Efforts to break the old-time superstitions and prove that thirteen is not a hoodoo were not as successful as they might have been when tried by 213 members of the Thirteen Club in banquet hall No. 13 of the Brighton Beach Hotel last night.

            Most of the 213 guests assembled at 13 minutes after 6 o’clock for the purpose of attending a reception at that hour. The reception did not start until 13 minutes after that time, and at 13 minutes 7 o’clock the hour named for taking seats at the tables set for thirteen guests each, it was a thirteen to one shot that there would be a delay.

            There were thirteen horses scheduled for the big Suburban at the Brighton Beach track yesterday, and many times thirteen people assembled at the track to watch the ponies run. Many of these took a thirteen to one shot, and won, and they had to spend their winnings in food and wine.

            The assembly filled the various dining salons to such an extent that it was two hours and thirteen minutes before the members of the Thirteen Club could gain access to the dining room, and then there was another delay of thirteen minutes to patch up the bruised and bleeding nose of Secretary J.R. Arabanell – received by being struck squarely in the face by the falling of a ladder he was hanging over the door to defy the old superstition of walking under a ladder.

            With these few mishaps, the dinner started off in great glee, and merriment reigned for several hours. Mirrors were smashed, salt was spilled promiscuously, punch and wine were drunk out of miniature skulls, and under dimmed lights old superstitions was buried with solemn ceremony, a huge black coffin, properly inscribed, being carried through the banquet hall on the shoulders of thirteen members of the club.

            …. Other speakers were Judge William B. Green, who told what it meant to be scared by suspicion. To prove his lack of belief in any superstition, he smashed a large looking glass into smithereens and defied the seven years of bad luck which are supposed by some to follow such an act.

            Each of the guests was furnished with thirteen littleneck clams on the half shell, thirteen radishes, thirteen olives, thirteen tablespoonfuls of clam consommé en tasse, broiled bluefish with thirteen small potatoes, thirteen grains of sweet corn on the cob, roast Philadelphia chicken thirteen weeks’ old, thirteen inches of watermelon in the rind, and thirteen drops of cognac, while a 13-year old Susanne Rocomore sang a thirteen-verse song entititled “I Just Cant Believe My Eyes,” and responded with thirteen verses of the old-time “Goo-Goo Eyes.”

            Just 13 minutes past midnight the 13th of July was voted the best 13th of the month celebration the club has had in thirteen years, then in groups of thirteen the tired and weary Thirteeners wended their weary way to the train, which pulled away from Brighton Beach just thirteen minutes later.

As the recipe for the day, may I tempt you with a little clam bouillon? Feel free to serve it in whatever quantity you wish, per guest.

Clam Bouillon

Wash and scrub with a brush one-half peck clams, changing the water several times. Put in kettle with three cups cold water, cover tightly, and steam until shells are well opened. Strain liquor, cool, and clear.

The Boston Cooking School Cookbook (1896)

Fannie Merritt Farmer.

Fancy Pork Lips Today?

I know that many of you dislike offal. Perhaps you feel more strongly and hate it, and refuse to eat it, and are not fooled by the names ‘variety meat’ and ‘fancy meat.’ Some of you of course love it. I hope both camps find something of interest in today’s post.

In the early twentieth century, commercial refrigeration was coming into its own. One U.S. meat-supply company of the time believed (or hoped) that their new refrigeration process would increase the popularity of ‘fancy meats’ by making them more convenient to use and more easily available. In the time-honoured way of food producers everywhere, they produced a recipe booklet to promote their products. It was called Unusual Meats. Recipes prepared by Mrs. Harriet Ellsworth Coates (1919).

Methinks this introduction is a little too defensive for a company trying to promote its product:

Some meat foods that have always been considered delicacies by the most discriminating, epicures of Europe, and that have been used in many delicious dishes by famous hotel chefs in the United States, have been neglected by the American housewife.

Fancy Meats, as they are known to the trade, consisting principally of livers, hearts, brains, melts, and kidneys, have not been given the place on the menus in this country that they deserve. Because of their perishable nature, it was not until recent years possible at all times to deliver them in perfect condition. With the use of modem refrigeration in plant, car, and branch house, we are able to promise prompt delivery, at all seasons, of these meat products at the very height of their perfection.

When your dealer opens a case of Swift & Company's Fancy Meats to fill your order, he, finds a product that was under the watchful eye of United States Government Inspectors during, its progress through a plant equipped with every known device for insuring perfect cleanliness; a product that was packed in a new cloth and paper lined wood case, and promptly frozen; then shipped in a refrigerator car as spotlessly clean as soap and hot water could make it; stored in a branch-house cooler maintained with great care at a low temperature, and delivered in a condition guaranteed to be perfect.

This booklet contains a few new recipes by Mrs. Harriet Ellsworth Coates, the well-known authority on domestic science. These dishes have been given careful study and trial and will be found to be unusually palatable and very nutritious. Similar recipes can be found in most cook books, in many magazines, and in the daily newspapers.

The use of Fancy Meats, in attractive ways, such as are herein described, will give a pleasing, variety to the home menu, will result in a very decided reduction in the cost of the meat item of the family budget, and will help the solution of the present world problem of food production.

If your dealer does not have a full assortment of these products, he will be glad to get them promptly for you from our conveniently located branch.

Swift & Company.

U. S. A.

And from the book, for your delectation, a very fancy recipe for pork lips and an equally fancy one for pork tails.

Pork Lips - Favorite

Scald pork lips, scrape, wash and put into stewpan with cold water and bring, to a boil; strain, cover again with cold water, simmer till the lips are tender; take up, wash two quarts of spinach thoroughly and put into stewpan in the pork lips liquor. When cooked, drain thoroughly, add salt, pepper, a little grated onion, juice of half a lemon; turn out onto a hot dish in a mound shape, arrange pork lips in circles, sprinkle with grated cheese. Serve mustard sauce for the pork lips in separate dish.

Mustard Sauce: Cream two tablespoonfuls butter; add the juice of one raw onion, saltspoonful cayenne pepper, one of salt, a tablespoonful of prepared mustard, mix with vinegar to soft paste.

Pork lips offer a high food value at a very low cost. Serve them as directed above and surprise your family. They make an appetizing dish.

Pork Tails - Westchester

Wash and trim two or three pork tails; divide them into two- or three-inch pieces at the joints; put them into a stewpan and cover with cold water; when it boils, take off the scum and add a bunch of herbs, a small onion cut into slices, a blade of mace, and a little salt and pepper; let the tails simmer slowly until they are tender; when done,

take them out, thicken the gravy with a tablespoonful of flour, strain the gravy, and add two tablespoonfuls of catsup. Serve the pork tails on a bed of boiled samp and pour the gravy over them.

When preferred, boiled rice may be used in place of samp.

Pork tails are cheap and full of nutriment. They are widely used in the old countries and will be in American homes when more is known of the economy of their use. 

Making Cakes and Chili Sauce.

I have recently been trolling (for recipes of course) some of the American newspapers digitised by the Library of Congress. Many of the newspapers are aimed at particular social and ethnic groups. There is a real treasure-trove available here: there are French and German language papers, papers for Jewish readers and Irish readers, and papers with titles such as The Colored American, and the Indian Advocate. As far as I can determine from my admittedly limited readings, many of the articles are taken from the larger newspapers of the cities, and to date I have not been able to find any cookery columns with local content – perhaps because local readers did not need instructions for their own special dishes.

Nevertheless, there are some interesting gleanings. The following general article on cake-making in the days of wood-fired ovens appeared in The Spanish American of November 07, 1914.

AS TO MAKING CAKES

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EXPERT ADVICE FROM DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

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Cases Where Rendered Beef or Veal Fat May Be Substituted for Butter –

Introducing Variety Into the Confections.

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There are, generally speaking, only two kinds of cake made by the American housewife; namely, sponge cakes and butter cakes. The former never have butter in them and are frequently raised entirely by means of eggs. The eggs usually provide the only moisture used, but when eggs are expensive, economy sometimes demands that water be added and baking powder used. In the latter kind, butter is generally used on account of its flavor. Its effect on dough is to make it tender and brittle instead of tough and elastic.

Sponge cakes are mixed differently from butter cakes and should be baked in a cooler oven, and about one and one-fourth times as long. The tests and rules for baking are the same for sponge cakes and butter cakes.

Gingerbread and other highly spiced cakes may be classed as “butter cakes,” but for economy’s sake pure rendered beef or veal fat may be substituted for butter as the flavor of the fat will not be so evident as in other kinds of cakes.

A cooky also comes under the class of “butter cakes,” any butter cake recipe being applicable to cookies if only one-third to one-half the amount of milk called for is used.

Much variety can be made in cakes by introducing fruits, nuts, spices, or different flavoring extracts into the dough, or by using only the whites of eggs for white cakes or a larger number of yolks than whites for yellow cakes. Brown sugar may be used for dark fruit cake.

Pastry flour will make lighter and more tender cake than standard flour. If standard flour is used take take two tablespoonsfuls less for each cupful measured. In making cake only fine granulated or powdered sugar should be used as a rule.

If a wood or coal fire is used there should be a small or moderate-sized fire, but one that will last without much addition through the baking. Regulate the oven long enough before the cake is to go in to have the dampers adjusted as they are to remain throughout the baking. If this is not done  the dampers must be changed to regulate the heat during the baking, and the cake will not be so well bake. Most cakes can be at once removed from the pan when baked, but very rich and dark fruit cake will be liable to break unless allowed to stand about five minutes.

The article directly following the above was this:

Spicy Chili Sauce.

To make chili sauce cut 24 tomatoes up in small pieces and cook as for the table. Run twelve green peppers and eight onions through the meat chopper. Rub the tomatoes through a sieve or colander and have the peppers and onions ready to add to the tomatoes, with two tablespoonfuls each of ground cinnamon, ground cloves and allspice, four tablespoonfuls of brown sugar, four tablespoonfuls of salt and three quarts of cider vinegar. Mix all together and boil for three hours. Put, when hot, int sterilized jars or bottles and keep in a cool place.

I cannot help but notice the complete absence of hot chilis in this recipe. There is clearly some national variation in the understanding of the concept of ‘chili sauce,’ which in Australia would be assumed to be chili-hot. But then we would spell it ‘chilli sauce.’ We also call ‘peppers’ by the name of ‘capsicums’, so this sauce would probably be named ‘Tomato-Capsicum Sauce.’ We are indeed divided by a common language.

A Little More About Tarts

The whole pie-tart debate which was the topic of yesterday’s story was not likely to have been an issue for our medieval ancestors. Their culinary language was rich with words to describe pastry dishes with fillings - which is clearly a reflection of the range of offerings at the tables of the wealthy at the time.

Here are some of the medieval variations on a tart theme, as far as I have been able to summarise them!

A florendine (several spellings) was a covered pie (or tart!).

A vaunt was a fruit pie – but in the medieval tradition was enriched with bone marrow.

A flampoyne (various spellings) was a ‘tart’ ornamented with pointed pieces of pastry. The name perhaps comes from ‘flame point’ or flan pointé.

A herbelade was filled with minced pork and herbs.

A talmouse was a sort of cheesecake, often made in a triangular shape.

A flaune, or flawn is obviously linguistically related to the modern ‘flan’, and was an open tart, like a custard-pie or cheesecake.

I give you a nice fifteenth century recipe for a tart filled with minced or finely-chopped pork, fruit and spices reminiscent of a genuine mincemeat pie. It is cooked in a pastry shell which has been partially pre-cooked in the oven.

Herbelade

Take Buttes of Porke, and smyte hem in pecys, and sette it ouer the fyre; and sethe hem in fayre Watere; and whan it is y-sothe y-now, ley it on a fayre bord, and pyke owt alle the bonys, and hew it smal, and put it in a fayre bolle; than take ysope, Sawge, Percely a gode quantite, and hew it smal, and putte it in a fayre vesselle; than take a lytel of the brothe, that the porke was sothin in, and draw thorw a straynoure, and caste to the Erbys, and gif it a boyle; thenne take owt the Erbys with a Skymoure fro the brothe, and caste hem to the porke in the bolle; than mynce Datys smal, and caste hem ther-to, and Roysonys of Coraunce, and pynes, and drawe thorw a straynoure yolkes of Eyroun ther-to, and Sugre, and pouder Gyngere, and Salt, and coloure it a lytel with Safroune; and toyle yt with thin hond al thes to-gederys; than make fayre round cofyns, and harde hem a lytel in the ovyn; than take hem owt, and with a dysshe in thin hond, fylle hem fulle of the Stuffe; than sette hem ther-in a-gen; and lat hem bake y-now, and serue forth.

Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.: Harleian Ms. 279 (Ab. 1430), & Harl. Ms. 4016 (Ab. 1450), With Extracts From Ashmole Ms. 1439, Laud Ms. 553, & Douce Ms. 55.: Edited By Thomas Austin.

A Little About Tarts.

Are you confused about tarts? Specifically, how do you differentiate between a tart and a pie?

There is no universally agreed correct answer to this – it depends on your own culinary and linguistic heritage. I cover the debate in some small depth in Pie: a Global History, and wont repeat some of the opinions here, but suffice it to say that the definition of a ‘tart’ (and ‘pie’, for that matter), has never been crystal clear. Both words have been around since at least the thirteenth century, and some cookbook authors use the words interchangeably.  Even the Oxford English Dictionary is unclear. It suggests that for a pie, that it is the top crust that is essential, (except in America where the reverse is the case), and it then defines a ‘tart’ as ‘nearly the same as a pie’.  One of the correspondents to a long debate in the correspondence pages of  The Times (of London) in 1927 rather colourfully insisted that the word ‘tart’ was from the same root as ‘torture’, on account of the twisted lengths of pastry which were used to decorate the top of the tart. The OED prefers the idea that it is related to ‘tourte’ and ‘torta’, which originally meant a sort of round flat disc of bread.

The discussion about the number and location of crusts that define a tart probably misses the point. The original difference may have been to do with the depth of the dish – tarts being shallow compared to pies. ‘Pies,’ at their most elemental consisted simply of lumps of meat and other ingredients wrapped in dough and baked. The development of mouldable dough (we don’t know for sure when this happened) such as the well-known ‘hot water crust,’ enabled free-standing coffins to be made, and these functioned like casserole dishes do today. It was now possible to cook soft fruits and custards which required only short times in the oven in shallow coffins, the contents then being scooped out from the shell by the lucky diner.

We don’t know for sure when the first deliciously edible pastry was developed. The first known detailed instructions for fine pastry appear in an English cookbook of 1545, but it was certainly around for a long time before that. It is likely that pastry- making (of the buttery, ‘short’ kind) was raised to an art form by the Italians during the Renaissance, and spread to the rest of Europe from there. Fine pastry such as this could not support large quantities of filling, but did allow the cooking of ‘wetter’ ingredients such as custards which cooked quickly, and were intended to be eaten within a short time.

By the end of the sixteenth century, cookbooks gave many recipes for tarts. In one book published in 1591, called A Book of Cookrye, there are several recipes for tarts. The fruit tarts are often given in two versions – with and without a ‘cover’, suggesting that the number and location of crusts was not the defining issue. Here are a couple of recipes for tarts from the book – one with plums, one filled with a delicately spiced custard, and both baked blind before filling, just as we would do now.

To make a Tarte of Prunes [Plums].

Take Prunes and wash them, then boile them with faire water, cut in halfe a penny loaf of white bread, and take them out and straine them with Claret wine, season it with sinamon, Ginger and Sugar, and a little Rosewater, make the paste as fine as you can, and dry it, and fill it, and let it drie in the oven, take it out and cast on it Biskets and Carawaies.

To make a Tart of Cream.

Take Creame and Egs and stir them, togither, and put them into a strainer till the whay be come out, then strain it that it may be thick, season it with Ginger, Sugar, and a little Saffron, and then make your paste with flower, and dry your paste in the Oven, and then fill it, and set it into the Oven to dry, and then take it out, and cast Sugar on it, and so serve it forth.

The Queen of the Household.

They say you cant (or shouldn’t) judge a book by its cover. I don’t know about the literal truth of that statement, but I do know that I am easily tempted to old cookery books by their title. How could I not give you something from Queen of the household: a carefully classified and alphabetically arranged repository of useful information on subjects that constantly arise in the daily life of every housekeeper. A guide to the best and easiest ways of accomplishing home work in its various departments. (Detroit, 1896.) by Mrs. M.W. Ellsworth?  The book was apparently an updated version of The Successful Housekeeper, first published in 1882, and the preface indicates that it contains new and useful information:

For example, the chafing dish has come to be a fixture in many homes, and as it becomes known its use increases. To meet this a section of recipes has been added.

The advent of the chafing dish has been slow but sure, and those who have experienced its convenience for quick tasty dishes, will yield it willing homage. Once begin its use, and the range of savory dishes which can be cooked is surprising. A point to be emphasized is that the graceful and expeditious use of it require that, as far as possible, materials be measured and prepared beforehand.

Though this section has been prepared for the chafing dish especially - all of which recipes can be cooked on the ordinary stove - there are many others in various sections of this book which, with little or no modification, can be used the same as these; while for those who use the range these will be found equally useful.

A chafing-dish, according to the Oxford English Dictionary is “a vessel to hold burning charcoal or other fuel, for heating anything placed upon it; a portable grate.” The OED gives the first known written use in English as being in 1483, in an English Act of Parliament, but there can be no doubt that the method itself had already been in use for a long time. No doubt as the nineteenth century progressed, and more and more individual households had cooking ranges, the chafing-dish was no longer a necessity and became subject to the dictates of fashion – hence the comment by the author of our book of the day about the resurgence of its popularity.

I have chosen several recipes from The Queen of the Household. Naturally I could not resist Welsh Rarebit - which we all know should be Welsh Rabbit – but I give you  a couple of others too to show that you can use your chafing-dish to cook really posh food (reed birds) and also sweet dishes too. 

WELSH RAREBIT.

Cut ½ pound fresh cream cheese into small pieces, and put it in the chafing-dish before lighting the lamp. Stir it and, as soon as it begins to melt, add i1tablespoon butter. When it begins to look

smooth add 2 eggs, beaten light, and  ½ cup cream. Cook,  stirring all the while, until it is smooth and of the desired consistency. Season with salt, a little white pepper and a dash of cayenne, or use no pepper and season with Tabasco. Serve on crackers or on toast. If salted wafers are used, be careful about the amount of salt used.

Welsh Rarebit No. 2. - Melt a lump of butter the size of a walnut in the chafing dish, then add 1 pound of cheese, cut in small pieces, with I teaspoon of dry mustard. When melted, pour in slowly ½ cup milk or cream, being careful not to curdle. Season with salt and cayenne pepper, and pour on hot buttered toast.

STEWED REED BIRDS.

Put in the chafing dish about 2 walnuts of butter, or sufficient to float the birds, and when quite hot put in 4 reed birds. Season with salt and pepper and cook for 6 minutes, turning them frequently. Lay 2 birds on each slice of toast and pour over them a gravy made from ½ cup rich stock and  1 teaspoon vinegar. Serve quite hot.

ORANGE SOUFFLE.

Pulp and juice of 2 oranges, ½ teaspoon orange extract, 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons butter, 3 tablespoons powdered sugar,  ½ teaspoon caramel,  ½ saltspoon salt. Beat the yolks of the eggs until light

and thick. Beat the white of  1 egg until stiff, add gradually 1 tablespoon of the sugar, fold into the yolks, add salt, spread carefully into a hot buttered chafing dish, when well puffed spread the

pulp of the oranges over the top, spread over that the other beaten  white, to which the sugar and extract are added gradually, when well puffed and brown, fold, sprinkle on the caramel, pour over all the orange juice and serve.

Recipes from 100 years ago today.

Today’s post is brought to you courtesy of a mere whim. An uninvited idea popped into my head the other day, and I followed it. Wouldn’t it be fun to look for recipes published one hundred years ago to the day?

From the rural Australian newspaper, the Canowindra Star and Eugowra News (NSW), I give you the entire recipe column for 5 June, 1914:-

Egg Cutlets. — Take three eggs freshly boiled very hard, and chop them very fine. Make a nice white sauce rather stiff; mix in the eggs, pepper and salt the mixture, and spread on a plate to cool. Then shape the mixture into cutlets, egg-and-breadcrumb them, and fry them a golden brown.

Marble Jelly.—Fill an oiled mould with irregularly-shaped pieces of jelly of various colours and flavours, such as orange, raspberry, apple or pineapples. Dissolve a half-pint block of vanilla jelly, using boiling milk instead of water. When it is quite cold, but still liquid, pour it gently into the mould and leave to set. The pieces of coloured jelly must, of course, be dissolved and allowed to set in the usual way before they are put into the mould.

Celery Souffles.—Well wash two heads of celery and then cut them into small pieces and boil them in milk. When they are quite tender, take them up and drain them well. Prepare a white sauce with an ounce of flour, one ounce of butter, and the milk in which the celery was boiled. Add this sauce to the celery and when it is nearly cool, beat in the yolks of two eggs and season it with pepper and salt. Whisk the whites of the eggs stiffly and add them to the mixture. Then butter some small china dishes, partly fill them with the mixture, and bake the souffles for ten

minutes.

Bengalese Hash. — Cut into thin slices any cold meat to be used, removing all skin, bone, and fat. Mix a dessertspoonful of mixed mustard with a dessertspoonful of brown sugar a teaspoonful of salt, and half a teaspoonful of pepper. Chop an onion, and let it cook till tender in a small saucepan, with half a teacupful of ketchup and a third of a gill of vinegar. When the onion is tender, stir in the other mixture (mustard, sugar, etc.), a teacupful of stock, and a teacup each of chutney and of red-currant jelly. Thicken with one ounce of browned flour. Put in the slices of meat, and let them heat in the sauce. Serve very hot.

Timbale of Turkey.—Separate the remains of cold roast turkey— or chicken —from bones and skin, and mince very finely, Season with salt, pepper, a dessertspoonful of finely chopped onion, a spoonful of mushroom ketchup, the yolk of an egg, and two ounces of breadcrumbs. Boil some rice till soft, Then drain, and line the bottom of a mould with the rice, as well as the sides. Fill the mould with the minced turkey, cover with the rest of the rice, and place in a stewpan of boiling water. Steam for about an hour. In the meantime prepare a mushroom sauce, and when the timbale is ready, turn it out and - pour the sauce round it.

Raspberry Pudding.—(Four ounces of butter, four ounces of castor sugar, three eggs, four ounces of white breadcrumbs, raspberry jam. First put the butter and sugar in a basin, and beat them to a cream, then add the eggs, beating each one in separately. Lastly, add the crumbs. If you are using crusts, the best thing to do is to run them twice through the mincing machine. Then well butter a piedish, sprinkle the inside over with a few crumbs, put in a layer of the mixture, then a layer of raspberry jam, and so on until the dish is full. Sprinkle a few crumbs over the top layer. Put the dish in a moderate oven, and bake the pudding for one hour. When done, turn the pudding carefully on to a hot dish. Put about two tablespoonsful of raspberry jam in a small saucepan, with about a tablespoonful of water, heat it, then add a few drops of lemon juice, and strain this round the pudding.

Oriental Food, Part 2.

I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s post as I want to give you a few more opinions today on the concept of “Oriental Food.” I elected not to get into the “authenticity” debate yesterday as it is in the too-hard basket for me because the concept seems to be in the in the family memory and tastebuds of every eater - which means that there are far too many opinions for my brain to analyse and synthesise.

However, I can give you a few opinions on the Oriental way of cooking from 1834-1940:-

Saute of Chicken the Oriental way.

Prepare the fillets of four chickens as in No. 401 [skin, flatten, and trim]; decorate one side of them with pieces of West Indian pickle, fancifully cut; keep the fresher side of the pickle outward; when put into the saute pan turn this decorated side downwards; garnish the under fillets in the same way; form them in semicircles, and put them in the oven a few minutes; when you have passed the fillets in the saute pan, drain them on a cloth, trim them, and dish them en miroton, with the ring of under fillets on the top; pour in the middle a white poivrade (No. 51), coloured with infusion of saffron, in which you have put a little of the liquor from the pickle; fill up the centre with West Indian pickle.

Simpson's Cookery, Improved and Modernised (1834 ) by John Simpson.

Oriental Mulligatawny.

This is the true Oriental recipe for making this delicious soup. Boil a pair of fowls with care, skimming continually whilst boiling, and keeping them covered with water. When tender, take out the chicken and remove every bone from the meat; put a large lump of butter in a frying pan, and dredge the chiclien meat well with flour ; lay it in the hot pan and fry it a nice brown, and keep it hot and dry. Take a pint of the chicken water, and stir in two large spoonsful of curry powder, two spoonsful of butter and one of flour, one teaspoonful of salt and a very little cayenne. Stir this until smooth; then mix it with the broth in the pot; when well mixed, simmer five minutes; then put in the browned chicken. Boil a pint of rice very dry to serve with it.

Cookery as it should be (1856) by Mrs. Goodfellow.

Oriental Fruit Bread.

To one quart of lukewarm water add a pinch of salt and a small teacupful of olive oil. Wash and seed a pound of dates, put all or nearly all of them in the water. Grind your wheat very coarse on a Mazdaznan Mill and add enough of it to the above to make it like chicken feed. Do not have it too moist. Prepare it at night before going to bed. In the morning put in the rest of the dates and about half a pound of the seeded raisins. Work it into the consistency of gum. Do it with your hands. Use covered pans. Put a little of the dough into the pan and sprinkle with raisins. On top of this put in more dough and again raisins and so on until all of it is in the pan. Cover the pan and set in an oven of slow fire. Place a big pan on bottom of the oven, fill with water, putting the grate on it, and on this place your bread pan. Keep the lower pan always filled with water. You may bake this bread for six hours. It will be perfectly soft and exceedingly palatable. To steam it you may put it in pails and hang them in the boiler, but be careful that no water gets into your bread pails, and boil for six hours. Sometimes it is well to add a little water and work the flaxseed in. Always grind your own flaxseed, and if you want the bread to be sweet, without any aftertaste, use the whole flaxseed. This bread will answer many demands by those of organic complications as well as others. Sliced and toasted, this bread will make rich blood.

Mazdaznan Encyclopedia of Dietetics and Home Cook  Book (Chicago, 1909.)

Oriental Rice.

As rice is a bland food, practically lacking in flavor, any flavoring material that may be added in tis preparation or serving aids in making it more appetizing. Oriental rice, which is prepared according to the following recipe, therefore makes a very tasty dish and one that may be used in place of vegetable for lunch or dinner.

ORIENTAL RICE.

(Sufficient to serve Six)

1 c. rice                                                1 slice onion

2 ½ c. stock, or meat broth     ½ c. canned tomatoes

2 Tb. Butter

Steam the rice in the stock until it is soft by the method given for steaming rice. Then brown the butter and onion in a frying pan, add the tomatoes, and heat thoroughly. Pour this mixture into the rice, mix well, and serve.

Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 (Scranton, PA, 1921)

Oriental Marmalade.

One breakfast cup dates (stoned), 2 breakfast cups apricots (dried), 1 breakfast cup figs, 2 oranges, 2 lemons, 1 lb. sugar, 4 breakfast cups cold water.

Method. Cut up dates, apricots,and figs. Grate the rinds of the oranges and lemon. Extract the juice and put all the ingredients in to soak in the cold water for 24 hours. Boil gently for half an hour, add the sugar, and boil until the marmalade sets. Pot and cover in the usual way.

Examiner (Launceston, Tasmania) 28 February, 1940.

Observations on Oriental Cookery, Part 1.

Ah! Oriental food. Don’t you love something exotic on your plate now and again? Of course, there is always the question of authenticity, but let us not get into a long debate on that right now – let us just enjoy the idea of strange and exotic foods from far distant climes.

First, let us clarify that the Orient is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

 “That part of the world situated to the east of a particular point; eastern countries, or the eastern part of a country; the East …Originally used with reference to countries lying immediately to the east of the Mediterranean or Southern Europe (i.e. east of the Roman Empire); now usually understood to mean East Asia … ”

I guess that most of us in the Occident are pretty familiar with the food of the Orient nowadays, and although this familiarity has not led to contempt, it has surely reduced its excitement level. One of the first English language cookery books to invest a significant amount of space to the concept of Oriental Cookery was A New System of Domestic Cookery (1808) by Maria Rundell. Here is what she had to say on the topic:

ORIENTAL COOKERY.

Owe of the great characteristics of Oriental cookery is the mixture of acids in all savoury dishes. Besides the lime, which answers to our lemon, the natives of Asia possess the juice of pomegranates and of tamarinds, for which we have no equivalent; and also in Persia a seed, the sumach, which, when dried and pounded, is employed in dredging the kabobs, and imparts to them a fine acid flavour. Curds are also another ingredient very extensively employed, while the general fault, at least in India, is the quantity of oiled butter which is allowed to appear in the gravies when not wholly absorbed by the rice. The Turkish and the Persian mode of cookery far surpass in excellence that of Hindostan, though occasionally they are a little strong: such, for instance, as a dish of finely-sliced onions fried in butter, and saturated with pomegranate juice, and sent to table with eggs fried in the same butter and placed on the top. Garlic is often allowed to preponderate rather distressingly, but in other cases it is managed with great delicacy, the Delhi cooks perfectly understanding the French method, and boiling it in different waters until it is as mild as almonds. It is then placed whole in the Chetney. A mixture of sugar, curds and raisins, in savoury dishes, is also a peculiarity of Oriental cookery; and Lucknow, especially, is celebrated for its sweet pickles. In the native cookery of India, the Mohammedan, generally speaking, far excels that of the Hindoo, in which the absence of meat is too abundantly supplied with ghee (clarified butter.) The Madras Brahmins, however, are famous for their vegetable curries, and Europeans soon acquire a taste for the butter and onions, which form so essential a portion of all. The following receipts are those which have been adapted to English tables by gastronomes of eminence. As a slight deviation in the ingredients, in dressing of a curry, makes an amazing difference in the flavour, many receipts, bearing great names, are given, which can be well authenticated as genuine. Several of the polaos or pillaws have been brought to perfection by the officers of Gardiner's Horse, a native corps of irregular cavalry, in which the few Europeans who are attached to it, live very much in the Mohammedan fashion. The author has, in her possession, a book of receipts, translated from the original Persian, written out expressly for her use, by the khansamar of the late King of Oude, but not being suited to an English table, they do not appear.

Note.—An exception has been made in favour of pickled lemons, which is worthy of a trial, being very good in India.

I want to add a little more to this story tomorrow, but in the meanwhile, I give you Mrs. Rundell’s recipe for pickled limes or lemons, which, as she says, is certainly worthy of a trial.

The Lucknow Receipt for Pickling Limes or Lemons.—E. R.—Bruise the limes or lemons on a stone, then throw them into water, and place them afterwards in an earthen vessel, covered with salt, for two or three days, shaking the vessel frequently; take out the limes when they are soft, spread them on a cloth, and let them dry; the open air,is sufficient in India, but in England they must be placed at the side of a stove. When dry, add vinegar and the juice which came from them, when in the earthen vessel.

A New System of Domestic Cookery (1808) by Maria Rundell.

Banquetting Stuffe.

Once upon a medieval time, a ‘banquet’ was the final course of a grand feast or entertainment, not the feast itself. The banquet has thus morphed into our dessert course. It used to consist of offerings of fruits and sweetmeats which were taken with hippocras, a sweet spiced wine used as a digestive.

The word banquet comes originally from the Italian word banchetto, meaning a bench, because the sweet delicacies were often displayed on a long side table, so that they could be admired in advance. In later centuries, this part of the meal was often taken away from the main dining area – sometimes even in a purpose-built Banquet House, perhaps situated in the grounds of the residence.

The Italian celebrity chefs of the Renaissance developed the art of making fine sweetmeats and incredible sugar sculptures, and for a time these were exported to the rest of Europe. Sugar at this time was very, very expensive. It was used in small quantities as a spice, and was believed to have medicinal qualities as did most other spices. It was taken as a digestive, particularly in the form of sugared spice seeds called comfits – think of the brightly coloured sugar-coated fennel seeds that are often at the cash register at Indian restaurants.

Because sugar was expensive, it was a status symbol for the wealthy (cones of sugar were often given as gifts or bribes). As sugar became more accessible (but still not cheap,) its use became a fashionable way to impress one’s guests – and the more varied the ways of using it, the better. Even in very wealthy households the preparation of these banquet sweetmeats was the responsibility of the lady of the house and her daughters because it was too valuable an ingredient to allow the household cook to have access to – and in any case sugar-working was also a special new skill and not part of the repertoire of most household cooks and chefs of the time. The other reason for this role division was because it was always the responsibility of the mistress of the household to prepare home remedies for medical problems. Many of these included sugar, and many were also made by distillation in the ‘still-room’ which was definitely the domain of the mistress, and very conveniently was a warm dry place with a good source of heat such as usually charcoal.

Whole chapters of sixteenth and seventeenth century cookbooks were given over to recipes for ‘banquetting stuffe’. Sugared spices (comfits) and sweetmeats were the earliest delicacies. They were classed as ‘wet’ (in a syrup, like Italian mostarda), or dry (as in crystallised ginger). Over time, sugar became more easily available, and more exotic ingredients were imported and used liberally (rosewater was very popular). Brilliantly coloured and decorated jellies and ‘creams’ (firm custards), small crisp biscuits (similar to macaroons and biscotti), gingerbread (which was more like firm fudge than cake), a great deal of marzipan, ‘composts’ (fruit in spiced syrup), and fruit pastes similar to the quince paste we now eat with cheese were all added to the banquet table.

Gervase Markham in his Country Contentments: the English Huswife, published in 1615, gave over considerable space to the preparation of banquetting stuffe. Amongst the recipes is this early form of iumbals (‘jumbles’ or ‘jumbals’) - a sort of sweet spiced biscuit (in the English sense of the word, which equates to the American ‘cookie.’

To make the best Iumbals, take the whites of three egges and beat them well and take of the viell; then take a little milke and a pound of fine wheat flower and suger together finely sifted, and a few Aniseeds well rubd and dried; and then work all together as stiffe as you can work it, and so make them in what forms you please and bake them in a soft oven upon white Papers.

(There is a recipe for Jumbals from 1724 in a previous post, here.)

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