The Kitchen Front: Potatoes (1940)

Yesterday I referred to the phrase “the kitchen front” used by the WW II Minister for Food, Lord Woolton, according to a report in The Times of April 13, 1940. The phrase was coined – presumably by Lord Woolton himself - at the beginning of a campaign targeted at the housewife. The aim was to encourage the home-makers of the land to play their part in the war effort by assisting the country to reduce its dependence on imported food by a variety of strategies – including vegetable gardening, reducing waste, and working around shortages and rationing. Aside from the obvious benefit of being self-sufficient during wartime, another important benefit was that transport ships would be freed up for military use.

The first use I have found so far of the phrase “the kitchen front” pre-dates the article referred to yesterday by less than a week. In an article in The Times of 8 April, the phrase appears in quotation marks, suggesting it was a new “thing” on that date. The article was on potatoes – the staple vegetable at the heart of British cuisine.

Potatoes.

The humble potato comes into its own in wartime. Appealing to housewives for cooperation in holding “the kitchen front” resolutely whatever conditions may arise, Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food, has taken the potato as one example of an excellent food which is not used to full advantage in many homes. The best part of the potato lies just under the skin, and yet potato peelings are usually thrown away. If an enterprising borough council collects household swill, as more authorities are doing today, the waste is not so serious, but the truth remains that the housewife is not obtaining the full value from the potatoes she uses. There is no dearth of potatoes in the country. There have been plenty for every one so far, and the Ministry of Food has just asked potato-growers to increase the acreage for this season. There have been doubts in the minds of farmers and those with allotments about the wisdom of growing more potatoes. Apparently farmers have expected that allotment holders and gardeners would provide the additional production needed this season, while allotment holders and gardeners have been expecting the same of farmers.

In normal years this country grows almost all the potatoes required for consumption in times of plenty, when foodstuffs of all times are freely available. Next winter the potato may be needed to take the place of food, which, for one reason or another, it is desirable to import in smaller quantities. The potato is a great standby, as the last War proved, and the kitchen front will be held more securely if the crop is plentiful to excess. Any surplus potatoes can be used for feeding livestock, and there are to be six potato factories in the chief growing areas, where various useful products can be manufactured. No-one need doubt that all the potatoes grown will be used in one way or another.

Potatoes did, in fact, become in short supply at a few times both during the war itself and the rationing period which continued for many years after it ended. In the autumn of 1940 however, there was no fear of a potato-less diet, although in the spirit of encouraging the housewife to innovate, new ideas for their use were suggested by the Ministry of Food.

From Food Facts No. 7, produced by the Ministry in the second week of September, 1940, here is a new idea – potato salad!

A New Salad.

Wash and drain a crisp lettuce, put it in a bowl and pour over it a dressing made by mixing thoroughly 2 tablespoons salad oil, 1 tablespoon vinegar, with salt and pepper to taste. Turn the lettuce over and over in the dressing with a wooden spoon; then line your bowl with it. Pile in the middle a grated raw carrot, a chopped apple, a cupful of cooked diced potatoes, and decorate with chopped mint and a small chopped onion.

Efficiency on the Kitchen Front (1940)

The British wartime Ministry of Food did not waste any time getting the British housewife on side and fully armed with knowledge as to how to manage within the fledgling rationing system. An article in The Times of April 13, 1940 showed that the Ministry also worked to assist the alliance between industry and the nation’s home cooks.

Efficiency on the Kitchen Front.
How £200,000,000 a Year Could be Saved.

A four-course luncheon consisting of entirely unrationed foods – fruit, eggs, sweetbreads, kidneys, vegetables, and ice pudding – was served at the Dorchester yesterday at the opening of the gas industry’s national food education campaign.

      Sir David Milne-Watson, who presided, stated the s industry had 11,000,000 customers, and the Food Minister had done well to enlist this large body of women. The largest item in our expenditure abroad was food. Imported food – 20,000,000 tons of it – cost us in peace-time £400,000,000 a year. By alteration in their catering at home the women of the country could cut half of the foreign purchases off the shopping list, and save £2000,000,000 a year. This could only be done by adopting new ideas on foods and cooking. Every housewife had to prepare 1,000 meals in a year, and therefore had an important part to play in working for victory.

     The subject was far wider than simply the avoidance of waste, vitally important though that was. It was the task of housewives to keep the whole population fit. It was a question of health and moral, as well as anti-waste. There was a great opportunity for improvement in cooking. Moreover, household peace and harmony between the sexes was much assisted by efficiency on the kitchen front. Face powder might catch a man, but it took baking powder to hold him.

     A great new profession had grown up in the gas industry – that of trained an qualified domestic science demonstrators employed as home advisers and consultants. The industry had already assured Lord Woolton that these women would extend the work they were already doing to include instruction on wartime buying, catering, cooking, and economy. There were nearly 1,000 showrooms, 200 demonstration theatres, and 400 demonstrators ready to work not merely in the showrooms, but in ever place where women could gather together to hear them.

Women Anxious to Learn.

     Lord Woolton, Minister of Food, promised that in no circumstances would he ration baking powder. He was the last person to disturb domestic felicity. He was anxious to enroll a new army for war service. There were so many who wanted to help, and now they were to be given the opportunity. He was not only fortunate, but he was grateful to the gas industry for the magnificent effort it had placed at the disposal of the Ministry of Food. Judging by the postbag following his recent broadcast, the domestic science demonstrators would find a large number of women anxious to benefit by their tuition. The demonstrators were going out on a great national crusade. Women were eager to know what to do in the national emergency.

     Miss Ethel Willans, chief woman adviser to the Gas Light and Coke Company, maintained that English women were, on the whole, good cooks. If men would take notice and praise their wives’ culinary efforts, and be prepared to try new dishes, English cooking would reign supreme.

A staple store-cupboard item for the wartime housewife was a tin of sardines. A feature in The Times a little over a week after the above article gave some ideas for their use:

Sardines are full of vitamins and make wholesome eating. As a palatable addition to the supper-table, they are much to be commended. If we do not wish to serve them quite plain there is a variety of excellent recipes to choose from.

Sardine Tartlets.

Pound the contents of a small tin of sardines to a paste with a little of their oil. Add a chopped, hard-boiled egg, pepper and salt to taste, and a drop of vinegar. Fill up small pastry cases with the mixture, and bake until nicely browned.

A Scottish Recipe.

Put in a stewpan four beaten egg yolks, half an ounce of margarine, a dessertspoonful of chutney, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir over slow heat to a fairly firm paste. Thoroughly mask the sardines (dried on a cloth) with the mixture. Egg-and-breadcrumb each separately, fry to a light brown in clarified margarine. Serve them on thin, hot, crisp toast.

The Evolution of the Club Sandwich.

The generally accepted view is that the club sandwich is an American invention. Indeed, Wallis Simpson - “that American woman” for whom King Edward VIII gave up the throne – claimed to have introduced it to England. A more specific, and oft-repeated point of history about the club sandwich is that it was invented at the Saratoga Club House in New York in about 1894.

The truth is of course that the club sandwich was not “invented” at a specific moment in time nor a specific location nor by a single individual. As with all recipes, the club sandwich evolved from existing ideas. This is no less interesting a process, of course, to those of us who love unravelling these things, but it does not provide the single-sentence ‘bite’ so convenient for quickie-writers – hence the perpetuation of many of the myth-tories of food history. My particular favourite myth-tory in relation to the sandwich is one that I am sure you all know – that it was “invented” by the Earl of Sandwich himself one night when he was reluctant to leave the gaming table for a proper meal, and called for a bit of meat wrapped in bread that he could eat in his hand.

Firstly, let us go to our first port of call in this sort of investigation: what does the Oxford English Dictionary says about the club sandwich?

club sandwich  n. (orig U.S.) a thick sandwich containing several ingredients, as chicken or turkey, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, etc.; also fig.

What I find a little odd, and rather disappointing, about this entry is that it makes no mention of what I feel sure most of us would agree are the key features of a club sandwich – that it is made up from three slices of toast (not bread) and two (not one)  layers of filling.

The earliest reference I have found so far (after an admittedly very brief search) to the club sandwich pre-dates that in the OED, and comes from a British newspaper, which hints at British roots:

Sandwiches. …. The well-made sandwich is of inestimable value. … The use of lettuce as a filling for sandwiches is comparatively new, and has met with unqualified favour. Dressed with mayonnaise, and laid with bits of chicken or beef or any other kind of meat between thin slices of toast, it makes claim to the title of club sandwich.

Westminster Budget of October 16, 1896

Note however, that although this description specifies toast, it not assume multiple layers.

Here is a rather interesting and amusing Englishman’s view of Americans and of sandwiches eaten in gentlemen’s clubs (and the “formulators” of such things,) which may also point to the ancestry of our dish of the day:

Speaking of Americans, reminds me that I read in a New York newspaper the other day a long account of a Mr. E. Ely Goddard, who seems to have been outrunning the constable out there. According to the newspaper, Mr. Goddard “holds a rather picturesquely pro-eminent position in the local gallery of social celebrities,” whatever that means, and rests his claim to social recognition upon having become one of the founders of the Tenderloin Club and “the formulator of the equally famous Union Club sandwich of toasted bread and sliced chicken.” What a giddy eminence Mr. Ely. Goddard has fallen from! And what a very young people the Americans are. They were serving chicken sandwiches on toast at Pratt’s, Limmer’s and Long’s long before Mr. Goddard was born, but no one troubled to know the name of the “formulator.”

London Man Of The World (London, England) of July 29, 1891

So, another hint that the idea of a sandwich made from toasted bread may have been a popular offering at the English gentleman’s club.

The investigation of the evolution of multi-layered sandwiches is taking a little more time, and will probably provide fodder for another post in the future. They were certainly common in the first decade of the twentieth century, but I feel sure that their existence can be pushed back a little further.

As for the American connection, I give you a couple of mentions from the early twentieth century:

Lawmakers at Lunch: What Statesmen eat in the Capitol Cafes.

…. while Vreeland, of New York, finds no other luncheon quite so satisfactory as a club sandwich.

The Washington Post of 27 May 1900.

And from The Washington Post of 12 August 1905, an article taken from the Baltimore News about a self-styled expert in the art of making a club-sandwich, who includes his own personal recipe:

Dr. George D. Cromwell, of St. Paul, lifted off the top piece of toast, in the café of Joyce’s.

“They say there is nothing in which a man with a good stomach is so fastidious as sandwiches and coffee,” he remarked. And by the way he imports coffee, and says it is all a mistake that there isn’t a pound of genuine Java or Mocha in this country, and that its all used up in England. There’s loads of it, he says.

“But speaking of sandwiches,” he continued, cutting into a choice chunk of chicken, “I think I make the best club sandwich and the best oyster stew in the world. It’s like carrying coals to Newcastle to talk about my oyster stew in Maryland, but the sandwich – listen: People, as a rule, don’t know how to toast bread. Bread should be just browned, not toasted in the oven or in an ordinary toaster. The best way is to cut your slice medium thick from a fresh and close-kneaded loaf. Have ready some slices of mealy chicken, without a grain of toughness in it some broiled ham, some crisp bacon, some fresh and young lettuce, some mayonnaise dressing, and a hot pot of coffee. If you like them, some thin slices of tomato, or better still, the tomato pulp crushed. Now, throw your bread on the lid of a hot stove, and the minute it starts to smoke, turn it quickly. When it is browned, but not hardened, take off and butter generously. Lay on a cover of lettuce, next a piece of bacon, then your chicken, then your mayonnaise, then another piece of toast, piping hot. Then another piece of lettuce, a slice pf ham, a layer of tomato, chicken again, mayonnaise again, plenty of lettuce, and your third slice of toast. A club sandwich, to be right, should always be three stories high, with bacon in one slice and ham in the other. This sounds thick and clumsy, but it depends upon how you make it. And a club sandwich without coffee isn’t worth eating.”

Recipe books are known to lag behind common practice, sometimes by several years, and sometimes much more. I was therefore delighted to find a genuine toasted bread, multi-layered, pretty traditionally-filled and well-mayonnaised club sandwich in a cookery book of 1899. An American cookery book, I might add.

Club Sandwiches.

(Steamer Priscilla style.)

Have ready four triangular pieces of toasted bread spread with mayonnaise dressing; cover two of these with lettuce, lay thin slices of cold chicken (white meat) upon the lettuce, over this arrange slices of broiled breakfast bacon, then lettuce, and cover with the other triangles of toast spread with mayonnaise. Trim neatly, arrange on a plate, and garnish with heart leaves of lettuce dipped in mayonnaise.

Salads, sandwiches and chafing-dish dainties, by Janet McKenzie (Boston, 1899)

Epicurean Clergy.

From time to time I amuse myself by adding to my collection of recipes “themed” to a particular profession. It constantly surprises me how many dishes are named for various clerics or clerical roles. A recent find in Hotel Meat Cooking (Chicago, 1884) by Jessup Whitehead may partly explain this phenomenon.

Epicurean Clergy

It is a remarkable fact that the epicures of the world should be so largely indebted to the French clergy for the luxuries they enjoy. It has been suggested that during the long season of Lent these holy men have been in the habit of relieving their privations by employing their ingenuity in the invention of pleasant foods and drinks in readiness for the return of the days of feasting. Whether there is any foundation for this or not is not positively known, but the fact remains that the clergy, from whatever cause, are capital inventors of all comestibles. One of the largest oyster parks in the country was started by the Abbe Bonnetard, the cure of La Teste, whose system of artificial cultivation was so successful that last year, of 151,000,000 ovsters distributed through France, 97,000,000 were produced by the abbe. Canon Agen was the discoverer of the terrines of the Nerac. The rilettes of Tours are the work of a monk of Marmoutiers. The renowned liqueurs Chartreuse, Trappestine, Benedictine, and others betray their monastic origin in their names, and the strangest part of their production is that they should be the work of the most severe and ascetic of religious bodies. The Elixir of Garus is the invention of the Abbe Garus. The Beziers sausages were first prepared under the direction of the Prior Lamouroux. The popular Bergougnous sauce was first mingled by the Abbe Bergougnous. The delicate Floguard cakes are the invention of the Abbe Floguard. Even the immortal glory of the discovery of champagne is attributed to a monk. To these may be added the innumerable delicacies in bon-bons, confectionery, and the like, which owe their origin entirely to the nuns.

As the recipe for the day I give you a long-time favourite concept named for a religious man at the opposite end of the hierarchy from the abbott. There are many versions of the friar’s omelet – which some say has Scottish origins – and many contain apple.

A Friar's Omelette.

Boil a dozen apples, as for sauce; stir in a quarter of a pound of butter, and the same of white sugar; when cold, add four eggs, well beaten; put it into a baking dish thickly strewed over with crumbs of bread, so as to stick to the bottom and sides ; then put in the apple mixture; strew crumbs of bread over the top; when baked, turn it out and grate loaf sugar over it.

Enquire Within Upon Everything (1896) by Robert Kemp Philp.

Dumplets or Dumplings?

I love coming across a new (to me) food word, so I was delighted to come across a fine example recently in the German Cookery section of The Magazine of Domestic Economy (London, 1840.)

Cream Dumplets, with Parmesan

Put half a pint of sweet cream into a saucepan with a good spoonful of butter, set it on the fire, and as soon as the cream begins to boil, beat in four spoonfuls of flour and mix together into a dough until it leaves the sides of the saucepan. When quite cold, work up this dough with four or five eggs, until it is neither too thick nor too thin, for if the consistence be not exactly right, the balls in the former state of the dough will be too hard, and in the latter fall to pieces. Cut off the dough for the balls with a spoon dipped each time in milk, and plunge them overhead in three pints of boiling milk, kept ready on the fire: keep them covered, but take care not to let the milk boil over, and when the balls rise to the surface they will be done. These dumplets are to be served on a dish on which Parmesan cheese is sprinkled, with melted-butter poured over them and Parmesan again above this, and the whole browned in a moderate oven, or with a hot shovel.

So, a dumplet is, quite simply, a dumpling by another name. I don’t know whether to be disappointed, or to be inspired to coin a new name for an old concept, in the hope it gets picked up by the Oxford English Dictionary.

In fact, the OED has not discovered the dumplet, although it does include:

dumple, v.

a. [nonce-formation from dumpling.] trans. To make or cook, as a dumpling. Obs.

b. [? < dumpy adj.2] To bend or compress into a dumpy shape.

I assume the cook who coined the word wished to suggest a rather special, perhaps lighter, perhaps richer, version of the dumpling, which even the OED imbues with ideas of stodgy solidity.

a. A kind of pudding consisting of a mass of paste or dough, more or less globular in form, either plain and boiled, or enclosing fruit and boiled or baked.

To help you to dumple your next batch of dumplings, may I also give you the following recipe?

Light Dumplings.

Mix together as much grated bread, butter and beaten egg (seasoned with powdered cinnamon) as will make a stiff paste. Stir it well. Make the mixture into round dumplings, with your hands well-floured. Tie up each in a separate cloth, and boil them a short time, about fifteen minutes. Eat them with wine sauce, or with molasses and butter.

Miss Leslie’s Complete Cookery (Philadelphia, 1851)

Tharf-cake for Guy Fawkes Night.

In the North of England there is a longstanding tradition of eating gingerbread on the anniversary of the attempt in 1605 to blow up the Houses of Parliament. The version of gingerbread which is best known in association with the night of the Gunpowder Plot is made with oatmeal, and is called ‘parkin’. On a previous Bonfire Night (as it is also called) I wrote about parkin (see the links after this post) but today I want to explore the tradition a little further.

The roots of the tradition appear to go back to ancient times, and likely have pagan origins. A Victorian text suggests that parkin has evolved from an ancient ‘bread’ called tharcake which has a connection with Norse mythology.

From Old English Customs Extant at the Present Time (1896):

               In Lancashire, in the neighbourhood of Oldham, it is still the custom at the beginning of November to make what is called Harcake. The origin of this custom is lost in the mists of antiquity. It is probably a relic of an ancient pagan festival. Har was one of the names of Odin, and the word appears in many place-names in the neighbourhood, e.g. Harrof, Hargrave, Hargate, &c. In this making of harcake there is doubtless preserved the memorial of an old Norse festival.

               In Nodal and Milner*s "Lancashire Glossary” the word is given as Tharcake ; but this need not sever its connection with Northern mythology, as Tharcake or Thor-cake suggests the name of the deity in whose honour the special cake was eaten. It is a kind of oatmeal gingerbread, made of meal, treacle, and butter, and is sometimes called parkins.

The word ‘tharf’ is said by the Oxford English Dictionary to mean ‘unleavened, unsoured’ and written usage is recorded from the tenth century.

On tharf-cake, the OED says:

A cake of unleavened bread; now spec. a flat circular cake of oat-, rye-, or barley-meal, unleavened, and sometimes flavoured with butter and treacle; in the latter case = parkin n.

The first written reference to tharf-cake is given as appearing in Piers Plowman (c. 1362)

                           A þerf Cake, And a lof of Benes and Bren I-Bake for my Children

So far we have two theories as to the origin of tharf-cake: it was named for the Norse god Thor, or it simply means unleavened. There are a couple of other theories in relation to associated words:

-         Tharf is an old Saxon word meaning ‘need, necessity’ (OED): written reference from the ninth century.

-         Tharf-cake is a corruption of hearth-cake (several references, but no evidence that I can find.)

Well, I think we have established the antiquity of tharf-cake, although we are a long way from establishing the process by which a cake of unleavened bread became sweet, treacly, oatmeal gingerbread. 

I give you a couple of recipes for ginger nuts as a change from parkin for your November 5^th celebrations:

Gingerbread Nuts – The Yorkshire Receipt.

Mix half a pound of flour, the same quantity of butter and of brown sugar, with three ounces of ginger, with as much treacle as will make it into a paste. Roll it out thin, and bake for about twenty minutes in a slow oven.

Gingerbread Nuts – the Suffolk Receipt.

Put a pound of brown sugar, and a pound of honey, with half the rind of a lemon grated, into a saucepan, and simmer them well together; then add four ounces of good fresh butter and one ounce of ginger; mix the whole with two pounds of flour.

N.B These receipts come with extraordinary recommendations.

A new system of domestic cookery ... By M. E. Rundell (66e., London,1843)

Previous ‘Guy Fawkes Night’ posts:

Guys and Gingerbread: A GuyFawkes story and a recipe from 1602.

Gunpowder, Treason, and Parkin.

Gunpowder in theKitchen

Food in the Time of Guy Fawkes.

Gingerbread Night.

Yorkshire Parkin

Mrs. Vanderbilt’s Reception: the Decorated Dishes.

The art and skill of creating the ‘subtelties’ which played a hugely important role in the great feasts of medieval times has never really, truly died out – or at least, the wish for them has not, even if the realization of the concept is a rare event nowadays. There was a resurgence of the idea during the so-called ‘freak dinners’ of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These were events held by the obscenely wealthy and terminally bored citizens whose main pre-occupation, it seems, was the search for ‘novelty’ to impress their obscenely wealthy and terminally bored friends.

There are some fine examples of outlandish theme dinners in the chapter entitled Fantasies of Party Givers in The Steward's Handbook and Guide to Party Catering (Chicago, 6e. 1903). I give you a short piece from the book about a reception held by the extremely wealthy Gilded-Age New York matron, Mrs. Vanderbilt. I think the dishes described could qualify as subtelties. Do you agree?

DECORATED DISHES AT MRS. VANDERBILT'S RECEPTION.

“One piece was a game pie of pheasants, the pie resting on a flat surface of wax, the entire piece upheld with deer's antlers. The sides of the pie were trimmed with quails. Underneath were two rabbits playing cards, while to the side of the players was a bridge, under which gleamed a lake of water with goldfish swimming about.

“Another was a fruit dish in wax, in which were placed imitation eggs and potted reed birds.

“Another piece was a fillet of beef, with a garniture of vegetables of all kinds resting on the shoulders of a Hercules; on either side were placed some cupids, the figures being of wax and very cleverly executed.

“One of the most artistic pieces was a two-foot salmon, resting in a wax boat, while on the back of the fish sat a cupid; the boat was supported by a Neptune at each end, seated in sea shells and driving sea horses before them in a lake of real water in which fish were swimming around.

“A fine piece was a flying Mercury poised upon a ham, the ham being finely ornamented with a delicate tracing of truffles.

“About midnight the following artistic supper was served:"

MENU DU SOUPER.

Consommé en tasse                         Huitres à la poulette

Croquettes de volaille                      Bouchées à la reine

Terrapin à la Maryland                   Canvas-back duck

Galatine de chapon

Filet de boeuf , jardinière

Aspic de foie-gras, belle vue

Chaudfroid de mauviettes              Pâte de gibier, chasseur

Pâte de Strasbourg, naturel

Saumon à la Vatel                            Jambon à la gelée

Salade de poulet                               Salade de homard

Volière de cailles                              Sandwiches varies

Charlotte moderne

Gelée macedoine aux fruits            Glacés assorties

I chose it because although quail (caille) is one of my favourite foods, I rarely seem to feature it!

Cailles au Riz.

To return to my list of specialties of Parisian restaurants, I would advise all diners who visit Laperouse's house on the Quai des Grands Augustine during the autumn months to order, whether it be on the daily menu or not, a dish of cailles au riz, sometimes called cailles a la Duchesse. To prepare them at home proceed as follows: Clean and scorch 12 fat quails, putting their livers back; put them into a pan with some lard and about ½ Lb. of salt pork (petit sale) cut into little dice. Brown rapidly by tossing them in the pan over a brisk fire; when three-quarters cooked, pour over 2 glasses of good bouillon, add a bouquet of parsley, a leaf of laurel, a clove of saffron, and some cayenne-pepper. Let the liquor reach boiling point three or four times, and then pour into it ¾ Lb. of picked rice which has been previously washed with care. Three minutes later cover up the pan, and allow the rice to cook over a slow fire. When this has taken place, take out the bouquet of parsley, and serve the rice on a plate, surrounded by the birds.

Neapolitan and Napoleon Cakes.

In a post last week I gave a recipe for ‘Neapolitan Cake’ from a French cookery book published in 1869. The cake was a rather elegant gateau made with layers of rich sweet almond pastry and jam, and topped with pieces of puff paste. At the time of finding the recipe, I was puzzled by the name. This cake was a mille-feuille, otherwise known to me as a ‘Napoleon’ – or in its every-day cake-shop form filled with custard, as a Vanilla Slice.  

When I was growing up, anything ‘Neapolitan’ (i.e. cake or ice-cream) consisted of three distinct layers: pink (strawberry,) white (vanilla,) and brown (chocolate,) which is certainly not representative of the cake in last week’s post.

There does seem to be a bit of confusion in the culinary usage of the words Neapolitan and Napoleon, and the purpose of this post is simply to throw out a few examples of this usage in the hope that further research (any volunteers?) will throw some further light on the topic.

First, of course, to the Oxford English Dictionary for clarification. Under the compound uses of the word Napoleon it has the following:

Napoleon cake n. N. Amer. Obs. Rare.

1892   T. F. Garrett & W. A. Rawson Encycl. Pract. Cookery I. 246/1   Napoleon Cake. Lay in a Napoleon-cake pan..a layer of puff paste, spread over that a layer of pastry cream, cover with puff paste, glaze the top with sugar, and bake.

As for Neapolitan, the OED knows no cake with this name, but it does have:

Neapolitan ice cream  n. ice cream made in layers of different colours and flavours.

The first reference cited for Neapolitan ice-cream is an advertisement in an American paper (pamphlet?) from 1868. The second is from 1895 and is a simple description:

Neapolitan ice-cream. This cream is molded in brick form in three layers of different flavors and colors.

The third reference gives us our first ‘recipe’ (a simple set of instructions) for the ice-cream: it is from Fannie Farmer’s Catering for Special Occasions (1911)

Neapolitan Ice Cream

Pack orange ice cream and chocolate ice cream in layers of equal depth in a brick mold. Pack in salt and ice (using four parts finely crushed ice to one part rock salt) and let stand two hours.

So, where are we with Napoleon / Neapolitan Cake? I give you several random findings, and hope that one of us, one day, can do a little more sleuthing into the use of the names.

Napoleon Cake.

Puff pastry, sponge cake, pastry. Cream for the pastry, 1 lb. flour, 1 lb. butter. Rub a piece of butter the size of an egg into the flour; mix with enough water to make a stiff dough; roll very thin and cover with butter; fold up and roll out again, repeating this until the butter is used; roll out very thin and bake in two slabs in a quick oven. Make a layer of sponge cake the same size (use sponge sandwich for this); when cooked put pastry for bottom layer, spread with pastry cream, cover with sponge cake, then more pastry cream and another layer of pastry; spread the top layer with pastry cream and sprinkle with chopped almonds and cocoanut.

For pastry cream, 1 cup milk, 2 oz. sugar, 1 oz. cornflour, 1 egg, and a little butter. Boil for a short time.

The Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA) 12 December 1909

Neapolitan Ribbon Cake.

Weight of three eggs in butter, castor sugar, and flour, two teaspoonful of John Bull Baking Powder, a little milk. Cream the butter and sugar, add the flour and baking powder. Mix well for three or four minutes. Leave one part its natural colour, colour another pink with a few drops of cochineal, and add one pennyworth of melted chocolate to the other part. Divide each portion into two parts, and bake the six divisions thus obtained in sandwich tins. When done, turn out, and when cold, pile on top of one another, with a little icing between each layer to stick them together. Ice the whole cake with the following icing: Mix half a pound of icing sugar with orange juice, spread over the cake with a knife, and decorate with cherries cut in half.

Western Champion (Parkes, NSW) 16 January 1913

The following and final recipe hints as to the origin of the name of the cake:

Neapolitan Cake.

There are two entirely different cakes bearing this name; the one a variety of the White Mountain Cake, sometimes very elaborate and costly,—the other a plain, rich Almond Cake, given below as No. 2.
The first is made of three or four sheets of cake of different colors,—more properly three, red, white and green, the stripes of the Neapolitan Flag,—in which case one of the layers is made of Silver Cake, White Cake or the like; the next of any other white cake, flavored with almond or pistache, and colored with Spinach Green. The third is flavored with currant or other red jelly, or with rose-water, colored with a few drops of carmine.
If four colors are preferred, Gold Cake may be used for yellow and Chocolate or Caramel for brown.
Any plain cake, without fruit, that bakes well in thin sheets will answer. Each layer must harmonize in flavor and color.
Coat each differently; one with a mock cream, like that of cream-puffs, another with meringue, either plain, or with almond or cocoanut paste, and a third withchocolate, caramel, rose or pistache, or other to the taste.
Ice the top with Tutti Frutti Icing.
From the various receipts given in this volume there may be made a great variety of combinations for this dainty and elegant “Gateau d’ Elite.”

Ice-cream and cakes: a new collection of standard fresh and original receipts for household and commercial use; by an American (New York, 1883)

The Larder and Kitchen for the Month of November (1843)

A new month is underway, and if we want to eat seasonally, we may need to get some local information. I have some advice for you on this topic from The Magazine of Domestic Economy, and Family Review (London, 1843) - although it comes with the caveat for my Southern Hemisphere family and friends that of course, this temperate-climate, Northern Hemisphere advice is completely inappropriate for those of us in the other half of the globe who are moving towards a tropical summer. Save these suggestions for May, my Down-Under friends!

THE LARDER AND KITCHEN

FOR THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER.

Fastidientis est stomachi multa degustaro.—Seneca.

Good cheer, as it is called, but, more correctly speaking, strong animal food, being now less injurious to the stomach, may be indulged in rather more freely than during the hot weather. The pretext of field-sports brings numerous guests to partake of the hospitality at the castles and mansions of the high-born and the wealthy; whilst among those who have migrated to fashionable watering-places, or to inhale the sea-air upon the coast, dinner-parties are frequent.

Unfortunately, moderation in food is very rare among "persons of a certain age:" instead of " the feast of reason and the flow of soul” they have the feast of turtle and game, and the flow of champagne. What is the consequence? The foundation of gout and indigestion is laid; and upon it a superstructure of disturbance is gradually raised, until the climax, at Christmas, determines those attacks which, during the spring months, confine many a middle-aged Sybarite to the solitude of his apartment, his back propped with pillows, his aching legs reposing upon cushions of the softest down, and the torture he is compelled to endure souring the most placid temper. …

... Meantime, we recommend our readers to read our dissertations on Cookery published in the first volume of the Magazine of Domestic Economy.

The larder, this month, is stored with a variety of good things, which we shall enumerate,

1. FISH.—Turbot, cod, haddocks, skate, plaice, flounders, soles, eels, congers, and herrings, are very cheap and abundant. The autumn mackerel have been particularly fine during the last month, and there has been, and continues to be, a plentiful supply, but at a rather high price. It is with very great regret that we see salmon still brought to market; for it is of such questionable quality, that we warn our readers against purchasing it, if they would keep themselves free from disease. Oysters are plentiful and very cheap at Billingsgate market. The large tea-oyster may now be bought for pickling, and also for making oyster-ketchup, for the preparation of which see volume I. page 42. Crabs and lobsters, though still pretty abundant, fetch a high price. The large crawfish, which is much cheaper, is equally good for sauce, and for curry. Shrimps are cheap and plentiful.

2. BUTCHER'S MEAT AND VENISON.—There is an excellent supply of butcher's meat in the market. Beef is very prime; the salting pieces are most seasonable. Hung beef may be advantageously cured this month, according to the receipt in volume IV. page 147; hunting beef, also, the mode of preparing which will be found in vol. I. page 71 ; and Dutch beef, as explained in vol. II, page 215. Beef to be eaten grated upon bread and butter may now also be cured for winter. The meat, free from fat, a piece of the buttock in preference, must be salted during twenty-four hours, then wiped and put into the Suffolk-ham pickle (vol. IV. p. 117), in which it must remain six weeks. The beef is then taken out and boiled, after which it is put by during a fortnight. It is then fit for grating, and will keep for any length of time—care being taken to grate, each time, only so much as is required for immediate consumption.

Mutton is in prime order—Southdown, Scotch, and Welsh. The fine Dartmoor mutton, equal, in our estimation, to venison, can be obtained, in the greatest perfection, at the Devonshire warehouses in town, and sent from thence to any part of the country. Indeed, the supply of this dainty is more certain from the London houses than if it were ordered at Exeter, or even at Oakhampton, whence it is generally forwarded to the Metropolis. We ourselves usually obtain it from Tucker's in the Strand, whence we send it to our friends in the country. The date of its being killed is written upon a bit of paper or parchment attached to each haunch.

Lamb is also in the market, but is getting rather out of season. There is an abundant supply of veal for those who like it. In our estimation, English veal is not very wholesome. In a former article we have stated why. Dairy-fed pork b now of excellent quality, and sold at a reasonable price.

Venison is at present so cheap, that all parts except the prime haunches are sold at the price of butcher's meat. A good haunch still maintains its price of from two to three guineas. Fawns are to be had at seven or eight shillings each. Kids are very scarce, because there is no encouragement, in this country, for continuing the supply. The kid is only a chance dainty, and makes its appearance at very few tables exclusively English.

3. POULTRY AND GAME.—The market and the poulterers' shops are most abundantly supplied with capons, fowls, chickens, geese, full-grown turkeys, pigeons, green and golden plovers, and larks. Game is also in great plenty: pheasants, partridges, grouse and moor fowls. This month ushers in also woodcocks and snipes. That rare bird the ptarmigan also makes its appearance in North Britain; and the Metropolitan markets are well supplied with wild ducks, widgeon, teal, curlews, and all other kinds of wild fowl. Hares, rabbits, and roasting pigs are plentiful and in high season.

4. VEGETABLES AND FRUITS.—Vegetables of all kinds are cheap and abundant, except green peas, which fetch a very high price, though they are without flavour. Cabbages, cauliflowers, and kidney beans are of particularly excellent quality, owing to the fine weather and genial temperature which have prevailed ever since the commencement of the autumn.

Though exotic and hothouse fruits are dear, there is a cheap abundance of native produce. Apples for boiling and baking, pears for the same purposes, are exceedingly good and of reasonable price. There is a large crop of nuts and filberts this year, as well as of walnuts; and now is the time to lay in a winter store of all three. They should be preserved in jars, in alternate layers of nuts and sawdust,—the latter baked in a slack oven until quite dry, and used when cold. The jars should be closed so as totally to exclude the air.

It is very necessary, this month, to examine carefully the apples laid up for winter store, separating for immediate consumption those bearing the smallest spot, or otherwise showing the least symptom of decay. The good ones should be well wiped with dry cloths, for the purpose of removing the moisture which has exuded from them in the form of perspiration, and with which they are usually covered. It is recommended to pack them in hampers or chests, in alternate layers of clean straw and fruit, so that the air may be excluded from the latter. We much doubt the efficacy of this plan. We ourselves always keep them in open bins without straw, each particular sort being heaped in a bin by itself. The straw is liable to be decomposed, and to impart the putrid ferment to the fruit.

With regard to the finer kinds of pears intended to be kept until February, they should not be placed upon one another, as they are of too frail a texture to bear any weight. Great care should be taken, also, that their stalks be not bruised. Each pear should be encased in fine paper, and laid in rows upon shelves. Both the apples and pears should be examined and wiped, from time to time, throughout the winter.

THE KITCHEN.

Soups.—In addition to the soups already mentioned in the preceding articles, we beg to recommend one which is now in season, and which is relished by all lovers of vegetables.

Cabbage Soup.—Cut three or four cabbages into quarters, and blanch them in boiling water salted. Let them boil dining fire minutes, then drain and press them. Put them into a stewpan, with a couple of carrots cut into bits, two large onions, one turnip cut into slices, and a piece of bacon, or the knuckle bone of a boiled ham from which all the meat has been removed. Fill the stewpan two-thirds full of hot water. Lot the whole boil until the vegetables are tender. Then remove the bacon, which may be served up with veal or fowls, or kept and warmed for another day. If, instead of bacon, you have a ham bone, remove it in like manner. Now add a wineglassful or more of mushroom ketchup, and a good thickening of flour and water. Boil gently during a quarter of an hour longer, then serve up in a soup tureen, with toasted bread in a dish. To give a colour to this soup, you may use a little burnt sugar, or a small bit of bread toasted as if for toast-and-water.

[more recipes follow]