Figgy Puddings.

Today, June 6^th …

A young man called James Letcher left his home in Cornwall and set off for the goldfields of Ballarat, Australia in 1857. Life aboard migrant ship was significantly better that that aboard the convict ships of seven decades earlier, but not as luxurious as that aboard cruise ships a hundred years later. Passengers supplemented the ship’s supplies with their own, and took turns assisiting with cooking. James wrote regularly in his journal, which was addressed to his wife and children who were to follow him later.

June 6th Saturday: This day we have a good breeze gained more today than we have before since we left Liverpool, my turn to be cook today, had meat and fig puddings boiled in a bag with a plenty of suet, but I don't like the mode they have for dressing the meat here, put into a large chaldron called copper many hundreds in bags and boiled with sea water, a very pig like way to me, we have a plenty of sugar, tea and coffee and oatmeal served out every week and good many other things but there is so many passengers on board this ship that we can[t] get our meat dressed as we ought, a person that goes to sea he must be rough both in manners and appearance and eat everything that will come along for the first, I can get along very well, but I have to eat here what I should not at home, but some folks here can't eat the meat we have.

Victorian men (unless they were professionals) did not normally cook, and elsewhere in the journal James notes the mild amusement of some of the women aboard ship at seeing him elbow deep in flour. It was probably good training for making damper – the fireside bread which was a staple of the bush and the goldfields. I wonder if his wife had given him a few hints before he left?

Suet pudding was a Victorian staple. There was an almost infinite number of variations both sweet and savoury, and they were all hearty, stick-to-your ribs kind of fare. No need to look any further than Mrs Beeton (1861) for a version such as James might have cooked.

Fig Pudding.
Ingredients: 2 lbs. of figs, 1 lb. of suet, ½ lb. of flour, ½ lb. of bread crumbs, 2 eggs, milk.
Mode: Cut the figs into small pieces, grate the bread finely, and chop the suet very small; mix these well together, add the flour, the eggs, which should be well beaten, and sufficient milk to form the whole into a stiff paste; butter a mould or basin, press the pudding into it very closely, tie it down with a cloth, and boil for 3 hours, or rather longer; turn it out of the mould, and serve with melted butter, wine-sauce, or cream.

The other famous mid-nineteenth century cookbook was Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845). Eliza’s book is the finer there is no doubt, and many of Mrs Beeton’s recipes are taken from it. There is no shortage of suet pudding recipes in Modern Cookery, but Eliza also gives this lovely compote made from figs – again, the dried sort of course, not the fresh.

Stewed Figs (A Very Nice Compote)
Put into an enamelled or a copper stewpan, four ounces of refined sugar, the very thin rind of a large and fresh lemon, and a pint of cold water. When the sugar is dissolved, add a pound of fine Turkey figs, and place the stewpan on a trivet above a moderate fire, or upon a stove, where they can heat and swell slowly, and be very gently stewed. When they are quite tender, add to them two glassfuls of port wine and the strained juice of a lemon; arrange them in a glass dish and serve them ocld. From two hours to two and a half of the gentlest stewing will generally be sufficient to render the figs fit for table. Orange-juice and rind can be used for them at pleasure, instead of the lemon; two or three bitter almonds may be boiled in the syrup to give it flavour, and any wine can be used for it, but port is best. This compôte may be served in the second course hot, in a rice-border, or cold for dessert.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Hellish Food.

Quotation for the Day …

Your face makes my soul want to eat chocolate pudding! Andy Milonakis

War and Sprouts.

Today, June 5^th …

A newspaper article on this day in 1918 described the terrible privations endured by the British Royals during wartime.

The King and Queen gave a small dinner party at Buckingham Palace last evening. During wartime no entertainment of guests on a large scale is attempted, but Their Majesties are keeping in touch with leading members of various branches of society, and last night’s dinner party was the second of a series to theat end. The King and Queen set and maintain an example of rationing, and the dinner last night was practically meatless and the menu strictly moderate.

One can only hope that Their Majesties practically meatless and strictly moderate dinner was not too much of a shock to the Royal Digestive Systems. Meanwhile, Their Loyal Subjects were learning new ways of eating too (apart from having to be very meatless and very strictly moderate). They were learning to embrace foreign food, which probably did not come too easily to British Digestive Systems of the time, but substitutes had to be found for things in short supply. One charming little book was put together by Mrs Brian Luck (I wonder what her own name was?) from recipes supplied by “Belgian refugees from all parts of the United Kingdom”.

I do not know if this was a fund-raising effort, or whether Mrs Brian just wanted to raise awareness of the terrible situation in Belgium, or whether she noted a gap on the bookshop shelves where a Belgian cookbook would fit perfectly. I do know that I have to feature recipes for Brussels Sprouts from it, as a matter of principle. But first, a little from her introduction:

… this small manual is offered for the use of the work-a-day and inexperienced mistress and maid. It is not written in the interests of millionaires. The recipes are simple, and most inexpensive, rather for persons of moderate means. … . A shelf of provisions should be valued, like love-making, not only for itself but for what it may become.

And from her general notes on vegetables and brunettes:

VEGETABLES: Nearly all these are at their best (like brunettes) just before they are fully matured. So says a great authority, and no doubt he is thinking of young peas and beans, lettuces and asparagus. Try to dress such things as potatoes, parsnips, cabbages, carrots, in other ways than simply boiled in water, for the water often removes the flavor and leaves the fiber. Do not let your vegetable-dishes remind your guests of Froissart's account of Scotchmen's food, which was "rubbed in a little water."

And finally, a couple of her recipes for that most opinion-polarising of vegetables:

Brussels Sprouts.
(The best way to cook them)
Having cleaned and trimmed your sprouts, let them simmer in salted water, to which you have also added a little soda to preserve the color. Or, if you do not like to add soda, keep the pan firmly covered by the lid. When tender, take them out and let them drain, place them in another pan with a good lump of butter or fat; stir, so as to let the butter melt at once, and sprinkle in pepper and a tiny pinch of nutmeg.
[The Belgian Cookbook (1915), by Mrs Brian Luck]

Belgian Puree
Cook two pounds of Brussels sprouts in boiling water. Take them out, drain them and toss them in butter for five minutes, sprinkle them with a teaspoonful of flour, and then cook them in gravy (or meat extract and water), fast boiling, over a good fire, and keep the lid of the saucepan off so that they may remain green. Pass them throughthe sieve, leave them in ten minutes, bind the mixture with the yolks of three eggs, a pint of milk; then at the last minute one dessert-spoonful of butter for each pint and a half of soup.
[The Belgian Cookbook (1915), by Mrs Brian Luck]

Tomorrow’s Story …

Figgy Puddings.

Quotation for the Day …

We kids feared many things in those days - werewolves, dentists, North Koreans, Sunday School - but they all paled in comparison with Brussels sprouts. Dave Barry

Old Maid Day.

Today, June 4^th …

According to some almanacs, this day is Old Maid’s Day. In spite of the efforts of the feminist movement, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of overwhelming enthusiasm for celebrating this day. Surprisingly, there are several claimants for the honour of inventor of the occasion sometime in the late 1940’s, in America. It may be an adaptation of the Leap Year idea especially resurrected in honour of returning servicemen and in reflection of the hope of the greater number of available women waiting at home.

I blame the name of the day for the lack of enthusiasm for making merry on the day. I blame it even more on the lack of a special food to celebrate it with. It would hardly help the cause to use the dish sometimes called “Old Maid Pie”, and you will understand why when I tell you its other names are “Scrap Pie” or “Saturday Pie”. It doesn’t take much imagination to realise that this is the traditional pie of the weeks leftovers, the cook trying valiantly to hide their provenance under a pastry lid.

Old Maid’s Pie
This, which is in a manner of speaking made entirely of scraps, is yet very good. Take 4oz or 8oz of any sort of cold meat, poultry, or game — a mixture of one of these with a little chopped lean ham or bacon is perhaps best. Have ready some freshly boiled mashed potatoes. Spread a layer of these at the bottom of a pie dish, then put a layer of the meat.
Cover this with a layer of freshly-fried onions, then sprinkle with grated cheese and fried breadcrumbs. Continue these layers until the dish is full. Moisten with a little stock or gravy; strew the top very thickly with fried onions and breadcrumbs, and grate over the whole 1oz of cheese (any scraps of dried cheese will do just as well as fresh for this); place a few bits of butter here and there, and bake in a moderate oven until of a golden-brown hue. Take out and serve at once. Fish may be used in place of meat if liked.
[Cookery For Worried Housewives; Mrs Alfred Praga; 1948]

Tomorrow’s Story …

War and Sprouts.

Quotation for the Day …

Cooking Tip: Wrap turkey leftovers in aluminum foil and throw them out. Nicole Hollander.

A Guest (G)Astronomer Blogs.

I found myself in a state of supreme ignorance a few days ago when I attempted to make sense of the idea of Heavenly Beer. My plea for help was heard, and a Real Astronomer has generously agreed to be a guest blogger today. Our guest blogger has not only answered my questions and clarified the trillion/million thing, but has provided a lot more fascinating information about that Great Potential Brewery in the Sky.

The identity of this Real Astronomer must remain mysterious. I will say he/she works at one of the universities in the Western part of the U.S.A and studies the sort of things that will forever be mysterious to the rest of us - such things as "large-scale structure (that is, how the universe looks and behaves if you step back and give it a bird's-eye view) and galaxy formation and evolution", but who also says something that we can all agree with:

"The marvelous thing about our universe is that it's fascinating on every scale, from enormous clusters of galaxies and beyond to tiny molecules of ethyl alcohol, and the marvelous thing about astronomy is that it's one of humankind's oldest sciences, deeply entangled with history and culture."

I now hand you over to:

The (G)Astronomer.

The Old Foodie tracked down a manufacturer of booze that makes the Guinness brewery look like a backyard moonshine operation. TOF immediately zeroed in on the important questions:

"How many of these interstellar booze-clouds are there? An approximately Infinite number? (Is `Infinite' a number? ) How can the alcohol be harvested? Is it a renewable resource? Can these clouds be seeded to make it rain beer? Would that be 400 [trillion] trillion pints of low alcohol beer, or high? Presumably, as they were British scientists, they mean British trillions (18 zeros) and not US trillions (12 zeros) . . ."

We astronomers are historically very enthusiastic about our drink; unsubstantiated legend has it that the 16th-century astronomer Tycho Brahe died of a bladder burst by too much ale drunk at a royal banquet. Present-day astrophysicists are also fans, of course.

How many interstellar booze clouds?

After doing some rough calculations assuming a standard British pint (3.5% alcohol by volume), I'm afraid that the "trillion" in the news article indeed refers to the American "trillion" (a one with twelve zeroes after it).

But never despair. There are many varieties of interstellar clouds, and of the type in this case, the "hot molecular core" (generally associated with the births of new stars! no booze in baby's bottle, please), there are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of three to ten thousand in our own Milky Way galaxy. That still means enough booze for up to four million trillion trillion (a four with thirty zeroes after it) pints! That's about a million pints per person on Earth . . . each minute . . . for the next billion years.

Or if you prefer, instead of a million pints, make it seven hundred thousand gin martinis. The bubbly has already been provided; some structural changes in hot molecular clouds are actually called champagne flows by astronomers.

In case you are planning to hold a party, there are also at least another hundred billion other galaxies in our observable universe, presumably with their own alcoholic clouds.

But every overly happy evening must end in a hangover.

How do you bottle some of this exotic brew? Are you sure that you want to?

There are logistical problems, to be sure. A trip to the vicinity of one of these clouds runs a long 10,000,000,000,000 kilometers. Even traveling at the speed of light, that's the difference between a university party man at departure and a somewhat more haggard thirty-something with a mortgage on arrival. And as far as extracting the goods goes: for every one gram of alcohol, such a cloud would also contain about one hundred thousand (100,000) kilograms of hydrogen. Happy distilling!

For the advanced drinkers among us, the pleasure in an excellent beer or cocktail comes not just from that happy buzz disrupting our neurons but from the other vital chemicals that lend a drink its aroma, flavor, body, and color. The vast majority of these acids, salts, oils, esters, and so forth have not been found in interstellar space. Some of the most complex are built painstakingly, atom by atom, in the remarkable laboratories of living cells and tissues. Forget about gin in space; true gin needs juniper, and juniper needs Earth.

These clouds also contain a distressing number of substances guaranteed to leave a headache, such as

• carbon monoxide,
• ammonia,
• hydrogen sulfide (sewer gas),
• formic acid (the sting in bee and ant venom),
• aldehydes (what your frog was pickled in back in Miss Winney's biology class),
• and cyanides, which in tiny incidental amounts can lend rather a pleasant bitter almond flavor to wild cherry wines but which, in slightly less tiny amounts, kill.

Drink 'er down!

Even if hot molecular cores contained real beer; just as in real life, the new baby (star) embedded in the hot cloud would readily get in the way of a good time. Young, hot stars, particularly the large ones, produce an immense amount of ultraviolet and blue light. The same type of light is the reason that many wines and beers come in dark bottles (or — shifting my eyes judiciously — sealed boxes). The high-energy form of light does a number on the brew, instigating chemical reactions that produce sulfurous compounds. If you have ever had the misfortune to taste a beer that has gone off after a few minutes in the air or a "skunked" wine, you know what I'm talking about. Might as well make vinegar from it — yes, that too can be found in space, as can sugars (although the alcohol in space is not generated via Earthly varieties of fermentation).

Never mind all the naysaying. Talking of Old Foodies (or Drinkies): Inanna, a Sumerian goddess of the long-gone first human civilizations, and titled "supreme queen of the heavens" (!), understood the importance of a party of cosmic proportions. She is said to have sung, four thousand years ago:

While I circle around the abundance of beer,
While I feel wonderful, I feel wonderful,
Drinking beer, in a blissful mood,
Drinking liquor, feeling exhilarated,
With joy in the heart [and] a happy liver —
While my heart full of joy,
[And my] happy liver I cover with a
garment fit for a queen!
The heart of Inanna is happy again,
The heart of the queen of heaven is happy again!

Retro Cake Challenge No. IV

There's no stopping that T.W.Barritt over at Culinary Types. We have a few little email converstations about old-fashioned cakes, a little vintage recipe searching, and the recipe hardly pauses in cyberspace before it is cooked, photographed and blogged for your delight. Each story is written in a style appropriate for the cake. The latest is set in the 1950's when the latest fashion was a German Chocolate Cake.

The recipe for this cake appeared in the newspapers in late 1957. The first mention is said to have been in a Dallas newspaper in the fall, but so far I have been unable to track this down. By December it had spread to North Carolina, as The Daily Times-News in Burlington asked on December 17th of that year:

Would you like Recipe for German Chocolate Cake?
There is a new cake that is causing considerable comment here this Christmas. It is a German chocolate cake and everywhere we have been recently someone has been talking about the recipe and how it might be obtained.

In case you missed T.W's other Retro Cakes, they are:

I Lady Baltimore Cake.

II Chocolate Malted Milk Cake

III Watermelon Cake.

Do yourself a favour and check them all out HERE.

Monroe and Potato.

Marilyn (when she was only Norma) may have been Artichoke Queen of 1947, but my friend Peter (who has a bit of a thing for beautiful ladies, especially when they are naked, and to potatoes in any form) pointed me to Marilyn (when she was a Star) dressed in an Idaho potato sack. The famous picture was taken in 1952 as a publicity shot for 20^th Century Fox, the idea apparently germinating from the idea that she would look good even in a potato sack. Which she did, of course.

There is no evidence that Marilyn had anything else to do with the potato industry, but I cannot post without giving you a recipe. I have chosen again from the Lily Wallace New American Cook Book (1946), to show you that Hashed Browns can be beautiful too, when properly made.

Hashed Brown Potatoes.
Melt 2 tablespoons fat in a frying pan. Add 2 cups finely chopped boiled potatoes, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, ½ teaspoon salt, and a few grains pepper. Mix thoroughly, then allow the potatoes to brown on the under side. Fold over like an omelet. Serves 6.

If you want more potato recipes, please go to the Potato Archive.

Queen of Artichokes.

Today, June 1^st

Norma Jeane Mortenson was crowned ‘Artichoke Queen’ in ‘The Artichoke Capital of the World’ on this day in 1947. You probably know her better as Marilyn Monroe, and you will find the town better by looking up Castroville, California. Norma/Marilyn’s career was not to start for a few years, but Castroville had been working for two decades at growing and promoting the “new” vegetable in order to earn its title.

The artichoke is a member of the thistle family and is similar to the cardoon, which is almost as unfamiliar to a lot of us as the artichoke. It probably arose in Sicily or North Africa and arrived in Europe in the fifteenth century, and in America a confused time later.

Like so many other newly introduced plants, the artichoke was first accused (or lauded) as being an aphrodisiac. In the words of one sixteenth century physician "it has the virtue of . . . provoking Venus for both men and women; for women making them more desirable, and helping the men who are in these matters rather tardy." I did ponder – with this mythoid in mind – if this attribute of the artichoke helped Marilyn’s reputation, or vice-versa.

As to the recipe for the day, I thought to provide you with an artichoke recipe from the mid-1900’s, to fit the story for the day. First, I did a quick browse across the centuries and found that in Adam’s Luxury and Eve’s Cookery (1744) there were nine recipes for fresh artichokes; Mrs Beeton (1861) has three; The Lily Wallace New American Cookbook (1946) has two – and the default artichoke is canned. Progress is about improving, adding, learning etc, isn’t it?

It pains me to do it, when a wonderful Fricassy of Artichokes appears in the book of 1744, but somehow I feel I must give you the recipes from the book of Marilyn’s time – we cannot hide from history you know, we must face canned artichokes square-on, with bravery.

Artichoke Hearts.
Drain canned artichoke hearts. Impale on toothpicks. Serve around bowl of mayonnaise.

Artichoke Heart Salad.
5 cups canned artichoke hearts.
Head of lettuce.
¼ cup piquant mayonnaise (NO. 704)*
Drain the artichoke hearts, saving the juice for soup. Chill thoroughly. Arrange on crisp lettuce and serve with mayonnaise. Dust mayonnaise with paprika. Serves 6 to 8. To use fresh artichokes, remove stem and outside leaves. Discard thistle-like center or “choke”. Soak in salted water ½ hour.Boil 25 minutes in salted water.

*chopped sour pickle and pickled onions added.

Monday’s Story …

Old Maid Day.

Quotation for the Day …

These things are just plain annoying. After all the trouble you go to, you get about as much actual "food" out of eating an artichoke as you would from licking 30 or 40 postage stamps. Have the shrimp cocktail instead. Miss Piggy

On Worcestershire Sauce.

Today, May 31^st …

Worcestershire Sauce, an essential ingredient in a Bloody Mary (and even more essential in a Virgin Mary) was trademark registered by Lea & Perrins on this day in 1892. Lea & Perrins had been manufacturing the famous sauce since the 1830’s, but Trademark legislation was not enacted in Britain until 1875. Why did they wait so long to patent their product? They must have been confident that imitations of their sauce would not have been serious competition, which means that they must have been confident that they could maintain the secrecy of the recipe.

The recipe has a mysterious disputed past. The original Worcestershire Sauce bottle label stated that it was “from the recipe of a nobleman of the country”. Most versions say the ‘nobleman’ returned from India with a recipe which he asked the local apothecaries (Lea & Perrins) to make up. They did. It was awful. They all forgot about the idea. They literally forgot about it, and left the barrels in the cellar. Some time later (months? years?) the barrels were rediscovered, and were about to be disposed of when someone thought to taste the contents and Lo! and Behold! – fermentation had improved the brew no end. The rest is marketing history.

The sauce became a standard ingredient in savoury dishes, even in America (although the American version contains white, not malt vinegar), as this recipe from School And Home Cooking By Carlotta C. Greer (1920) demonstrates. Note: it is a text book, so questions will follow. Please pay attention.

Veal Cutlets (Steak)
Clean the meat; then remove the bone and tough membranes. Cut the meat into pieces for serving. Cover the bone and the tough pieces of meat with cold water and cook at a low temperature. (This stock is to be used in the sauce.) Small pieces of meat may be put together by using wooden toothpicks for skewers. Season the veal with salt and pepper. Roll in dried bread crumbs, dip in beaten egg, then in crumbs again. Put 2 tablespoonfuls of drippings or other fat in a frying pan. Brown the cutlets in the fat. Remove the veal; in the frying pan prepare the following:

Sauce for Cutlets.
3 tablespoonfuls drippings
1/4 cupful flour
1/2 tablespoonful salt
1/8 teaspoonful pepper
2 cupfuls stock or water
2 tablespoonfuls chopped parsley
1 teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce
Make a brown sauce, using all ingredients except the Worcestershire sauce (see Brown Sauce). Add the cutlets to the sauce, and cook them at simmering temperature for 1 hour or until tender. Just before serving, add the Worcestershire sauce.

Beef may be prepared in the same way.

QUESTION:
Why is it desirable to use parsley and Worcestershire sauce with veal? Is it desirable to use Worcestershire sauce with beef or mutton? Explain your answer. Why is Worcestershire sauce not cooked with the brown sauce?

I fail. I am unable to answer Ms Greer’s questions. Are you?

Although the exact recipe for Lea& Perrins’ Worcester Sauce remains a secret, there seems to be consensus that it contains salted anchovies, tamarind, molasses, garlic, vinegar, chillies, cloves, shallots, and sugar. As with the famous drink that once contained real Cola, its popularity has ensured that imitators will keep trying. The useful and comprehensive Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (1870’s) gave a recipe for it, using its original name of Worcester Sauce.

Worcester Sauce, To Make.
Mince two cloves of shallot, put the mince into a dry bottle, and pour over it a pint of Bordeaux vinegar. Add three table-spoonfuls of essence of anchovy, three tablespoonsful of walnut ketchup, two tablespoonfuls of soy, and as much cayenne as is approved: the quantity cannot be given as cayenne varies so much in quality. Cork the bottle, keep it in a cool place, and shake it well twice a day for a fortnight. Strain the sauce, put in small bottles, cork closely, and store for use.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Queen of Artichokes.

This Day, Last Year …

We had a story about the Australian explorer, Edward John Eyre

Quotation for the Day …

The English have only three sauces - a white one, a brown one and a yellow one, and none of them have any flavor whatever. Guy de Maupassant, French author.

Heavenly Beer.

Today, May 30^th …

The New York Times ran an interesting snippet on this day in 1995.

Using one of the world's largest radiotelescopes, British scientists have analyzed an interstellar gas cloud and calculated that it contains enough alcohol to make 400 trillion trillion pints of beer.

This is the sort of factoid that begs too many questoids. How many of these interstellar booze-clouds are there? An approximately Infinite number? (Is ‘Infinite’ a number? ) How can the alcohol be harvested? Is it a renewable resource? Can these clouds be seeded to make it rain beer? Would that be 400 trillion pints of low alcohol beer, or high? Presumably, as they were British scientists, they mean British trillions (18 zeros) and not US trillions (12 zeros) – which means that for those of you in the USA, it is better than you perhaps first thought on reading the story.

If there is an Astronomer Reader following this blog, please contact me and offer to do a guest blog post (all the best blogs do this guest-blog thing) and give us some more information on this massive untapped resource.

As for my own thoughts on reading this little article, all I can say is, if I was the Supreme Celestial Cook, I would use some (well, most) of that alcohol to make champagne. I mean, how many beer-drinkers does one Universe really need?

Even with my brave champagne-drinking friends to help (you know who you are), there would surely be much alcohol of all sorts left over to use in cooking. I seem to have posted a number of historic recipes using booze since this blog started (I’m not sure what this says about me). We have had, for example, Foie Gras Souvarov (brandy), Rum Pudding, and Whisky Apples (on the Companion site).

Clearly however, once that Astronomer Reader contacts me and gives us the information we want, that will be an insufficient number of recipes. Here are a few more, all from the 1870’s.

Beer Soup (German Method)
Simmer two quarts of milk beer (it should not be bitter) with the thin rind of a lemon, a few cloves, and a stick of cinnamon, sweeten with sugar, and add it through a sieve to the yolks of sx well-beaten eggs and half a pint of cream. Whilst pouring into the tureen, stir it to a froth with a wire whisk. The beer should be very hot, without boiling, before it is stirred with the eggs. Serve hot with toast.

Champagne Cream.
Beat the yolks of five eggs very thoroughly, and add by degrees some finely-pounded white sugar, sufficient to make it stiff and firm. Then add a bottle of champagne, keep on stirring till it is all mixed. Last of all, put in a tablespoon of brandy. Put the cream in a glass jug, and serve it in champagne glasses.

Rum Omelette.
Beat three eggs in a bowl, and add a very small pinch of salt, a tea-spoonful of finely-powdered sugar, a slice of butter, and a tablespoonful of rum. Fry the omelette in the usual way. Lay it on a hot dish, and pour round it half a tumblerful of rum which has been warmed in a saucepan. Set light to this, and take the omelette to table with the flame rising round it.

Whisky Cordial.
This cordial should be made when white currants are in season. Take the thin rind of a large fresh lemon entirely free from the bitter white part. Put it into a jar with half a pint of ripe white currants stripped from the stalks, and a piece of whole ginger the size of a bean. Pour over the ingredients a quart of whisky, and let them infuse for twenty-four hours. Strain the liquor, sweeten it with half a pound of loaf sugar, let it stand twelve hours longer, and bottle for use. Cork securely.

UPDATE: A real Astronomer DID respond to my plea, and you will find the GUEST BLOG post very informative - and even more importantly - fun. Do read it, you wont be sorry.

Tomorrow’s Story …

On Worcestershire Sauce.

This Day, Last Year …

We looked at an ocean liner menu.

Quotation for the Day …

Whiskey - I like it, I always did, and that is the reason I never use it. Robert E. Lee

King Charles’ Birthday Bash.

Today, May 29th …

In the year of 1660 the Parliament of England declared that this day “the 29 of May, the King's birthday, to be for ever kept as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny and the King's return to his Government, he entering London that day.”

There are three historic events commemorated this day. It was the day that King Charles II re-entered London after the long exile which followed the English Civil War, the execution of his father, Charles I in 1649, and the short life of the The Commonweath of England under Oliver Cromwell. It also happened to be Charles’ 30th birthday, and surely his Restoration was the best present an exiled King could wish for.

The third event is commemorated in one of the common names for the holiday – “Oak Apple Day”. The name reminds of the day in September 1651 when Charles escaped the Roundheads by hiding in a hollow in an oak tree. It became a tradition that Royalists wore an oak sprig or an ‘oak apple’ on this day to demonstrate their allegiance to the crown, and those who did not were set to become the victims of various taunts and minor abuses – which gave rise to another common name for the holiday – Pinch-Bum Day. I should also point out here, in the interests of clarity, that oak trees do not bear apples. The ‘apple’ refers to a ‘gall’ or excresence produced on the tree due to the irritating presence of a type of wasp. A local name for these mini-apple shaped galls gives rise to another name for the 29th of May – Shick-Shack Day. It may well be that the roots of the day lie in very ancient ‘tree worship’ times, hence one more name – Arbour Day.

Now we’ve clarified that (?), lets get onto the food. The seventeenth century in England was a fine time, culinarily speaking. English food (for those who could afford the best) was superb, if we are to judge by contemporary cookbooks. Improved sea-power opened up trade with far away places, and the return of Charles II from exile had stimulated interest in food from Europe (particularly France). Seventeenth century English gourmets could pick the best from everywhere – you may remember Samuel Pepys enthusing over a ‘Spanish Olio’ in a previous story.

It became traditional for the Chelsea Pensioners to be treated with good old English Roast Beef and Plum Pudding on this day. There are plenty of plum pudding ideas in the Christmas Recipe Archive, and roast beef hardly seems regal enough for the day, so we need different inspiration. The most famous cookbook of the time was The Accomplish’t Cook, by Robert May, and he included a recipe for cooking beef to mimic red-deer – a common practice of the time, and perhaps something we would try if the King was coming for dinner unexpectedly and we were out of venison. It will do for our main course.

Charles was not for nothing referred to as the Merry Monarch. He made merry on occasions with Nell Gwynne who was a lowly (but very beautiful) orange-seller. Oranges were expensive imported delicacies in Charles’ time, and a popular way of using them was to preserve the peels in a sugar syrup – and call it orengado. In honour of the Merry Time had by Charles and Nell, I give you a recipe for apple pie flavoured with quinces and orengado from the other famous cookbook of the time, by William Rabisha. The title of the book deserves repeating in full: The whole body of cookery dissected, taught, and fully manifested, methodically, artificially, and according to the best tradition of the English, French, Italian, Dutch, &c., or, A sympathie of all varieties in naturall compounds in that mysterie wherein is contained certain bills of fare for the seasons of the year, for feasts and common diets : whereunto is annexed a second part of rare receipts of cookery, with certain useful traditions : with a book of preserving, conserving and candying, after the most exquisite and newest manner ...

To bake Beef red Deer fashion in Pies or Pasties, either Surloin, Brisket, Buttock, or Fillet, larded or not.
Take the surloin, bone it, and take off the great sinnew that lies on the back, lard the leanest parts of it with great lard, being seasoned with nutmegs, pepper, and lard three pound; then have for the seasoning four ounces of pepper, four ounces of nutmegs, two ounces of ginger, and a pound of salt, season it and put it into the pie: but first lay a bed of good sweet butter, and a bay leaf or two, half an ounce of whole cloves, lay on the venison, then put on all the rest of the seasoning, with a few more cloves, good store of butter, and a bay-leaf or two, close it up and bake it, it will ask eight hours soaking: being baked and cold, fill it up with clarified butter, serve it, and a very good judgement shall not know it from red deer. Make the paste either fine or course to bake’t hot or cold.
To this quantity of flesh you must have three gallons of fine flower heapt measure, and three pound of butter; but the best way to bake red deer, is to bake it in course paste, either in pie or pasty: make it in rie meal to keep long. Otherwayes you may make it of meal as it comes from the mill, and make it onlie of boiling water, and no stuff in it.
[Accomplish’t Cook, May, 1660]

To make a Pie with whole Pippins.
You must pare and core your Pippins, and when your Coffin is made, take a handful of sliced Quinces, and strow over the bottom therof; then place in your Pippins, and fill the core-holes with the sirrup of Quinces, and put into every one a piece of Orangado, so pour on the sirrup of Quinces over your Apples, with Sugar, and close it; these pies will ask good soaking, especially the Quince-pie.
[Whole Body of Cookery dissected, Rabisha, 1661]

For those of you who love words, you will note that these recipes both refer to the food ‘soaking’. It does not mean marinading. ‘To soak’ also used to mean to soak up heat, and specifically "To bake (bread, etc.) thoroughly". Words are Fun, aren’t they?

Tomorrow’s Story …

Heavenly Beer.

This Day, Last Year …

We ate at the summit of Mt Everest.

Quotation for the Day …

The art of cooking as practised by Englishmen does not extend much beyond roast beef and plum pudding". Pehr Kalm a Swedish visitor to England, in 1748

Thankyou Erasmus.

Today, May 28th ...

Tonic water, that essential diluent for gin, was patented by Erasmus Bond in London on this day in 1858. Thankyou Erasmus.

The bitter ingredient in tonic water is quinine (or more commonly nowadays a synthetic mimic), which comes from the bark of the South American Cinchona tree. The bark was used in ancient times by the indigenous people of South America for the treatment of fevers, and it came to the attention of the European usurpers in the seventeenth century as a malaria medicine. How this very bitter ingredient became a drink mixer is attributed to the British in India, who disguised its taste with sugar, lemon – and gin. The nasty “mother’s ruin” of eighteenth century England became the elegant drink of the Colonial masters.

The amount of quinine in regular tonic water nowadays is well below the amount required to prevent or treat malaria, but I would argue that when mixed with gin it still has a therapeutic effect.

What to eat with your G&T? The concept of pre-dinner nibbles or ‘appetisers’ was not known in Erasmus’ time, but that is not to say that recipes of the mid-nineteenth century cannot be adapted to that use. Here are a couple from The English cookery book, receipts collected by a committee of ladies. (1859)

Puree of Fowl.
After chopping fine and pounding the white meat of turkey or fowl, add enough of white sauce to pass it through a sieve, flavoured with lemon-peel and juice, or lemon pickle, and a little cucumber ketchup. This may be heaped in the middle of a dish and garnished with the broiled legs, or it may be served in a wall of mashed potatoes, or rice egged over and browned; if rice, strew upon the egg some fine bread-crumbs before browning.

I reckon if you heap this in a dish it would make a fine and elegant 'pate". A modern processor would help in the making too.

If you are still drinking G&T's at supper, here is a nice, versatile dish to try.

Ramakins.
Scrape a quarter of a pound each of Cheshire and Gloucester cheese, and good fresh butter; beat all in a mortar with the yolks of four eggs and the inside of a small French roll boiled in cream till soft; mix the paste with the whites of eggs previously beaten, and put into small paper pans made rather longer than square, and bake in a Dutch oven till of a fine brown. They should be eaten quite hot. Some like the addition of a glass of white wine. The batter for ramakins is equally good over macaroni when boiled tender; or on stewed brocoli, celery, or cauliflower; a little of the gravy they have been stewed in being put in the dish.

Tomorrow’s Story …

King Charles’ Birthday Bash.

Quotation for the Day …

What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch? W.C Fields.

Snake.

Today, May 25^th …

The Australian explorer John Oxley was in the depths of inland New South Wales on this day in 1817. As is the explorer’s lot, he and his party were hungry for fresh food, and hunger maketh man more liberal in his interpretation of what is food and what is not. Here is part of his journal entry for this day:

May 25. … At two we arrived at the base of a hill of considerable magnitude, terminating westward in an abrupt perpendicular rock from two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet high. The country we passed over was of the most miserable description; the last eight miles without a blade of grass….. This hill was named Mount Aiton. The country having been recently burnt, some good grass was found for the horses a little to the south-west. We therefore stopped for the night, and ascended the face of the mount for the purpose of looking around: a very large brown speckled snake was killed about half way up, which, in the absence of fresh provisions, was afterwards eaten by some of the party. ….We have seen so few animals, either kangaroo or emu, and the country appears so little capable of maintaining these animals, that the means of the natives in procuring food must be precarious indeed. We found just a sufficiency of water to answer our purpose in a drain from the Mount; our dogs are, however, in a wretched condition for want of food.

Peter Lund Simmonds in The Curiosities of Food (1859) has a whole series of snake-eating anecdotes, all from the perspective of a civilised eater observing the ignorant (even if noble) savage or the fearless frontier pioneer. In case you are lost in the wilderness and get hungry and are not afraid to catch a snake (which in Australia is highly likely to be extremely poisonous) and do not already know how to cook one, Simmonds most helpfully quotes a certain Dr Lang’s account of snake cooking in Australia:

“One of the black fellows took the snake, and placing it on the branch of a tree, and striking it on the back of the head repeatedly with a piece of wood, threw it into the fire. The animal was not quite dead, for it wriggled for a minute or two in the fire, and then became very stiff and swollen, apparently from the expansion of gas in its body. The black fellow then drew it out of the fire, and with a knife cut through the skin longitudinally on both sides of the animal, from the head to the tail. He then coiled it up as a sailor does a rope, and laid it again upon the fire, turning it over again and again with a stick till he thought it sufficiently done on all sides, and superintending the process of cooking it with all the interest imaginable. When he thought it sufficiently roasted, he thrust a stick into the coil, and laid it on the grass to cool, and when cool enough to admit of handling, he took it up again, wrung off its head and tail, which he threw away, and then broke the rest of the animal by the joints of the vertebrae into several pieces, one of which he threw to the other black felllow, and another he began eating himself with much apparent relish.”

The observer in snake-eating anecdotes is almost always repelled by the idea, and responds with disgust or admiration at the habits or bravery of the eater. What is it about snake? Newly-hatched birds and other baby animals are said to react in fear to lengths of rope, suggesting that we are biologically programmed to see them as dangerous enemies. Snakes are stealthy creatures too, and we are more inclined to fear that which can sneak up on us. The poor eel is tarred with the same brush. Eels are fish, pure and simple, but they have a snake-like shape and this is often given as the reason for avoiding them. It seems unfair to me.

Here is Charles Elmé Francatelli’s Eel Pie from his 1860’s book The Cook's Guide and Housekeeper's and Butler's Assistant.

Richmond Eel Pie.
Skin, draw, and cleanse two good-sized Thames eels; trim off the fins, and cut them up in pieces about three inches long, and put these in a stewpan with two ounces of butter, some chopped mushrooms, parsley, and a very little shalot, nutmeg, pepper and salt, two glasses of sherry, one of Harvey sauce, and barely enough water to cover the surface of the eels; set them on the fire, tnd as soon as they come to a boil, let them be removed, and the pieces of eels placed carefully in a pie dish; add two ounces of butter, kneaded with two ounces of flour, to the sauce; and having stirred it on the fire to thicken, add the juice of a lemon, and pour it over the pieces of eels in the pie dish; place some hard yolks of eggs on the top; cover with puff-paste; ornament the top; egg it over, bake for about an hour, and serve, either hot or cold.

Monday's Story ...

Thankyou Erasmus.

This Day, Last Year ...

We thought about lettuce.

Quotation for the Day …

To the goggling unbeliever [Texans] say - as people always say about their mangier dishes - "but it's just like chicken, only tenderer." Rattlesnake is, in fact, just like chicken, only tougher. Alistair Cooke.

The Gentleman’s Club.

Today, May 24th ...

The famous Reform Club opened this day in London in 1836. The Gentlemen’s clubs which were an integral part of the life of the Victorian London male had begun life a century and a half earlier as coffee-houses. Coffee took Europe by storm during the seventeenth century, but it was a beverage not easily prepared at home, requiring as it did special equipement for roasting and brewing. Inevitably, people met other people at the coffee houses, and inevitably, people with particular interests tended to gravitate to the same venues. Entire economic and political organisations – such as Lloyds of London – arose from individual coffee houses.

By the early nineteenth century, more and more of the (male) movers and shakers of the Industrial Revolution spent more and more of their time in the Big City, while maintaining homes and families in the country. The gentlemen’s clubs (there were about 30 in London by mid-century) provided “an aristocratic home and admirably-regulated menage, without any of the trouble inseparable from a private household” for several generations of men schooled in the all-male environments of prestigious universities.

London clubland was centred around St James and Pall Mall. The Reform Club was there, and as with most clubs, it was a “special interest” club. In 1832, The Representation of the People Act 1832 (commonly known as the Reform Act) was introduced by Whig politicians to make dramatic changes to the electoral system to reflect the demographic changes resulting from the Industrial Revolution. The Reform Club was decidedly not a Tory club. It became famous on account of its food – thanks to the famous chef Alexis Soyer, who presided over the kitchens from 1837-50. One of his signature dishes was “Lamb Cutlets Reform” – a dish of breaded cutlets served with a sweet-sour sauce based on a classic poivrade sauce. I have been unable to find his original recipe, although he alludes to it in his book, The Modern Housewife. The dish clearly outlived his time at the club, for one of the later chefs, Charles Elmé Francatelli included the recipe in one of his own books, The Cook’s Guide and Housekeepers and Butler’s Assistant.

It is worthy of rediscovery, if you can source some Harvey’s Sauce.

Reform Sauce.
Prepare some poivrade sauce, No. 19; to this add a glass of port wine, half that quantity of Harvey [sauce], a teaspoonful of anchovy, and two good tablespoonfuls of red currant jelly; boil together for five minutes, and pour into a clean small stewpan for use.

Poivrade Sauce.
Cut up into very small square pieces an ounce of lean ham or bacon, the same quantities of carrot, celery, and onion, a bay-leaf and thyme, twenty peppercorns, and a bit of mace.
Fry these ingredients in a small stewpan, with a piece of butter the size of a walnut, until the whole becomes well browned; add a wineglass of vinegar and half that quantity of mushroom catsup, and a teaspoonful of anchovy; and when this has boiled down to half its original quantity, then add about half a pint of brown sauce, a few spoonfuls of good stock, and a wineglassful of sherry.
Let the sauce boil gently by the side of the fire, to throw up the grease, &c, which having been removed, strain through a sieve or strainer into a small stewpan for use.
Note. It frequently happens in small households that ready-made brown sauce is not to be had; in such cases, and in order to save time and expense, a little thickening can be easily made by using for that purpose equal proportions of butter and flour kneaded together, and stirred quickly over a slow fire for three minutes, and moistened with good stock, or any kind of broth.

Tomorrow’s Story ….

Snake.

This Day, Last Year …

It was Queen Victoria's Birthday.

Quotation for the Day …

Speaking of food, English cuisine has received a lot of unfair criticism over the years, but the truth is that it can be a very pleasant surprise to the connoisseur of severely overcooked livestock organs served in lukewarm puddles of congealed grease. England manufactures most of the world's airline food, as well as all the food you ever ate in your junior-high-school cafeteria. Dave Barry.

Suffragette Food.

Today, May 23^rd …

The state of South Australia was the first in the world to give women the right to vote. One of the pioneers of the feminist movement in the country was Louisa Lawson, the mother of the famous bush poet Henry Lawson, and a poet and publisher in her own right. On this day in 1889 she addressed the founding meeting of the Dawn Club in Sydney, which she had started – a women’s club which encouraged debate and discussion on a variety of issues relating to women’s rights. The first meeting was at Forresters Hall, but subsequent meetings were held at a variety of tea rooms around the city. Many of the tea rooms were owned by a Chinese immigrant called Quong Tart – a man who understood discrimination all too well, but who ultimately became ‘as well known as the Governor himself’ for his business and philanthropic activities in Sydney.

Louisa Lawson’s sisters around the globe were fighting the same fight, and a major fund-raiser for many groups was the production and sale of cookbooks – an idea that would have made many militant feminists half a century later shudder in horror. Thankfully, the movement has moved on, and it is perfectly possible to be a feminist who cooks today. Not that Louisa would have had a choice (and feminism is about choice after all). Her life was not luxurious – at times it was very hard, and she undoubtably knew how to cook. I do not know if she contributed to any cookbooks, but she would surely have admired her sister-publishers who did. In her honour I give you three recipes from The Suffrage Cookbook, published in America in 1915.

Pie for a Suffragist's Doubting Husband.
1 qt. milk human kindness
8 reasons:
War
White Slavery
Child Labor
8,000,000 Working Women
Bad Roads
Poisonous Water
Impure Food
Mix the crust with tact and velvet gloves, using no sarcasm, especially with the upper crust. Upper crusts must be handled with extreme care for they quickly sour if manipulated roughly.

Suffrage Angel Cake (a la Kennedy)
11 eggs
1 full cup Swansdown Flour (after sifting)
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 heaping teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 pinch of salt
Beat the eggs until light - not stiff; sift sugar 7 times, add to eggs, beating as little as possible. Sift flour 9 times, using only the cupful, discarding the extra flour; then put in the flour the cream of tartar; add this to the eggs and sugar; now the vanilla. Put in angel cake pan with feet. Put in oven with very little heat. Great care must be used in baking this cake to insure success. Light the oven when you commence preparing material. After the first 10 minutes in oven, increase heat and continue to do so every five minutes until the last 4 or 5 minutes, when strong heat must be used. At thirty minutes remove cake and invert pan allowing to stand thus until cold.

Suffrage Salad Dressing
Yolks of 2 eggs
3 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of tarragon vinegar
1 pinch of salt
Beat well ; cook in double boiler. When cold and ready to serve, fold in ½ pint of whipped cream.

I particularly like the first recipe.

Tomorrow's Story ...

The Gentlemen's Club.

This Day Last Year …

We featured Seville oranges.

Quotation for the Day …

There are plenty of women capable of choosing good husbands (or, if not good when chosen, of making them good); yet these same women may be ignorant on the subject of making good pie.
[From Recipes Tried and True. Compiled by the Ladies' Aid Society of the First Presbyterian Church, Marion, Ohio; 1894

A Receipt for Caveach.

Today, May 22^nd …

Major Thomas Mitchell, a distinguished military man of Scottish birth was appointed Surveyor-General of NSW in March 1827. His exploratory expeditions made a huge contribution to the mapping of inland Australia, but he was said to be a difficult, haughty man.

No doubt Major Mitchell’s wife, Mary was long-suffering on both counts. I wonder, when she found out that she was to be sent out to the colonies, did she relish the adventure, or dread the life ahead of her? Mary kept a manuscript book of recipes inscribed with this date in 1827. Did she bring it with her? Was it a gift from anxious female friends and relatives?

The waters of New South Wales had fish in abundance, and it is to be hoped that she made much use of the recipe for ‘caveach’ in the book. The OED says that to caveach is ‘to pickle mackerel or other fish according to a West Indian method.’ ‘Caveach’ sounds suspiciously like ‘ceviche’, does it not?. Surely both words have the same origin? But ceviche is said to have originated in South America (several countries claim the invention), not the West Indies. There is a persisting rumour that there is an Arab influence to the concept, so perhaps the Spanish are the common intermediaries.

A ceviche is ‘raw’ fish, in the sense that it is not cooked by heat, it is fish ‘cooked’ by the action of an acid, which in the case of South and Central America is in the form of citrus juice. Mary’s ‘caveach’ on the other hand calls for the fish to be first fried before it is pickled in vinegar. Minor variations of her recipe appear in English cookbooks from the early eighteenth century.

It seems that the name and the concept were both adapted by English cooks, as the following recipe (the earliest I have been able to find) suggests.

To Pickle Mackarel, call’d Caveach.
Cut your Mackarel into round Pieces, and divide one into five or six Pieces: To six large Mackarel you may take an ounce of beaten Pepper, three large Nutmegs, a little Mace, and a handful of Salt; mix your Salt and beaten Spice together, and make two or three holes in each Piece, and thrust the seasoning into those holes with your finger; rub the Pieces all over with the Seasoning; fry them brown in Oil, and let them stand ‘till they are cold; then put them into Vinegar, and cover them with Oil. They will keep, well cover’d , a great while, and are delicious.
[Collection of above 300 receipts … Mary Kettilby; 1714]

I would love to hear about any early references to ceviche in Spanish or Portuguese cookbooks!

Tomorrow's Story ...

Suffragette Food.

This Day Last Year ...

We had a story about Van Gogh

Quotation for the Day ...

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Chinese Proverb.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and get rid of him for a whole weekend. Australian version.

P.S Thanks to those of you who noted that the comments button for yesterday's Wonder Bread post had disappeared. It has been fixed, so please comment-away.

Wonder(ful) Bread?

Today, May 21^st …

Several American newspapers carried advertisements for a new product on this day in 1921.

W O N D E R

So now the mystery we will end,
And to every home a message send,
A message that brings joy to you,
To mother, father and grandma, too,
To Mary, Betty, Jack and Joe
For all the family will learn to know,
The meaning of this wonder word
That everyone has read and heard.
A new delight with every bite,
Both morning, noon and every night,
For Mary knows, you know her well,
And many a truth she's had to tell,
And now the best she ever knew,
She gives in this new loaf to you,
For as the bakery leads, they're still ahead,
And now it's
Delicious WONDER BREAD

P.S. Place your order for WONDER BREAD, the new wrapped loaf, with your grocer Monday. He will have it beginning Tuesday, May 24th

Poetry it isn’t.

The Staff of Life it isn't.

Is it unethical, to despise something you have never actually tasted? I confess to never having eaten Wonder Bread on any of my several short trips to the USA, but nevertheless I feel I know it from its clones around the world.

Wonder Bread contains wheat flour, water, and:

High fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, salt, molasses, yeast, mono and diglycerides, exthoxylated mono and diglycerides, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide), datem, calcium sulfate, vinegar, yeast nutrient (ammonium sulfate), extracts of malted barley and corn, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate (to retain freshness).

Wonder Bread sounds pretty scary.

By way of contrast, William Ellis in his Country Housewife’s Companion (1750) described how a Cheshire servant made her bread:

A Cheshire Servant Maid's Account of her making leavened Bread.
She told me in November 1746, that in the part of Cheshire where she had lived they eat barley-bread, or bread made with half rye and half wheat-meal, which they there call mobbum bread; but in other parts of Cheshire, towards Manchester, she says, they eat sour cake, that is to say, oatcake-bread. Her way to make barley or mobbum bread was to save a salted piece of leavened dough against next baking, and then crumble it into warm water, with which she mixed her flower, and made it just into a dough over night, and let it lie till next morning, when she kneaded it for good. She said, they make use of no yeast, unless they think the leaven not strong enough to ferment the dough of itself, - but to make leaven the first time, knead a piece of dough with salt, as long as it will take up any, then hang it up, or leave it covered in salt; and to make it better, you may add a little yeast to the dough, or instead thereof some grounds of ale, or an egg. The staler the leaven the closer will be the bread, and the sooner sour, and if the dough is not well kneaded, it will be streaky.

Mobbum Bread sounds pretty good. Unless you would miss those exthoxylated mono and diglycerides of course.

Tomorrow’s Story …

A Receipt for Caveach.

Quotation for the Day …

"...the best poet is the man who delivers our daily bread: the local baker...." Pablo Neruda

Food Blog Awards!

Four (4) people have voted for The Old Foodie in the Bloggers Choice Awards! My family are, to a member, adamant that they didn't do it. Thankyou, whoever you are. What fun. I was going to make myself this Fun Pudding (1870's) to celebrate, but it sounds too underwhelmingly funny. I'll have some red bubbly wine instead. Red bubbles are great fun. With chocolate to follow.

Fun Pudding.
Mix a couple of spoonfuls of arrowroot with half a pint of milk and the same of cream. Put it in a stew pan, with sugar to sweeten. Stir until it boils. Have ready sliced apples enough to fill a large sized dish; they should be sliced thin, and sugar should be strewn between the slices. Put bits of butter over the apples, and bake them gently till soft. Let them go cold, pour the arrowroot (also cold) over them. Garnish with apricot jam, and serve.
[Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery, 1870's]

Gourmet Eggs and Giant Eggs.

Today, May 18th …

Peter Carl Fabergé was born on this day in 1846 in St. Petersburg, and he grew up to be the goldsmith to the Russian Imperial Court of Tsar Alexander III. He is famous for the extraordinary handcrafted bejewelled Easter Eggs he created for the Russian royals, who gave them to each other as gifts.

In 1998, Fabergé was honoured by the famous London hotel, Claridges, during its centenary year. The focus was on the recreation of famous and fabulous dishes from historic events for a special “Taste of History” menu. At least one new dish was especially created for the centenary, and it was inspired by Fabergé’s exquisite jewelled eggs. Egg Fabergé consisted of a lobster mousseline stuffed with a quail's egg and garnished with a mosaic of macaroni and truffle, served on a nest of celeriac. An elegant, stylish dish for an elegant stylish hotel.

In medieval times, the feast was an opportunity to impress – a feast was as much about theatre (and propaganda) as about food, and often these were the same thing. At the end of each course, a ‘subtelty’ would be produced and paraded around the feasting hall. It might be a huge pastry sculpture of a castle complete with drawbridge and moat, or a stag in full flight which spouted red wine when it was ‘shot’, or an image of a saint. Whatever its actual form, it was a message designed to induce shock or awe in the guests. When they left the feast they were in no doubt as to the wealth, power, and superiority of their host.

Sometimes of course theatrical food was just fun. Style is all very well, but some celebrations demand size. Giant eggs seem to have been particularly popular, if the surviving references and recipes are any guide. Here is one from a fifteenth century German manuscript.

A dish made from 30 or 40 eggs

In order to make a dish from 30 eggs or 40 in form of one big egg, you must take two pig's bladders, one of them smaller than the other. Rinse them carefully inside. Then take the eggs, remove the shells, and separate the whites from the yolks. Take the small pig's bladder, mix the yolks and put them into the smaller bladder, until the bladder is full. Tie the bladder up carefully and give it into a pot. Let it boil, until the big yolk becomes solid. Then take away the bladder from the big yolk. Take the bigger bladder and cut a hole in it, big enough to put in the big yolk. Sew up this hole in the bigger bladder with the big yolk within. Then you have to mix up the white of the eggs. Take a funnel, put it into the opening hole of the bigger bladder and pour the white of the eggs on top of the yolk within the bigger bladder, so that the bladder is filled. Tie it up, put it into the pot and let it boil once more. The white of the eggs will boil around the big yolk, and there will be one big egg. You can serve it with a sauce of vinegar.

Monday’s Story …

Wonder(ful) Bread?

This Day, Last Year …

We found out a little about the history of coffee.

Quotation for the Day …

He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart. C.S. Lewis.

Cheesecakes for Supper.

Today, May 17th …

Jane Austen wrote a letter to her sister Cassandra on this day in 1799, from the town of Devizes in Wiltshire.

“Our journey yesterday went off exceedingly well; nothing occurred to alarm or delay us. We found the roads in excellent order, had very good horses all the way, and reached Devizes with ease by four o'clock. I suppose John has told you in what manner we were divided when we left Andover, and no alteration was afterwards made. At Devizes we had comfortable rooms and a good dinner, to which we sat down about five; amongst other things we had asparagus and a lobster, which made me wish for you, and some cheesecakes, on which the children made so delightful a supper as to endear the town of Devizes to them for a long time.”

Cheesecakes for supper sound like a wonderfully indulgent holiday treat for children, but then the nature of cheesecakes is such that they can be varied to suit any occasion. Once upon a long time ago, they were simpler and perhaps more elegant, made from curds and eggs, sweetened to a greater or lesser amount, maybe spiced a little, and perhaps enriched with butter or marrow (the marrow from bones that is, not the vegetable) and baked in a shallow “coffin” to a delicate custard consistency.

There are many recipes for cheesecakes in our earliest surviving cookbooks as they were eminently suitable for the large number of fast days decreed by the Church. A Lenten version was made with almond milk and rice, a crustless version was a ‘pudding pie’, a triangular-shaped one was sometimes called a talemouse, and one with added currants made for an extra-lucky consumer. One thing these early cheesecakes did not contain was cream cheese, as this is a thoroughly modern invention. This and the other modern invention of the refrigerator have allowed the invention of unbaked ‘refrigerator cheesecakes’ which may or may not be an abomination compared to the original thing, but which are certainly less work than the original thing.

Recipes for the original thing frequently begin along the lines of ‘first make your curds’, an instruction which usually assumed you had first milked your cow. Here is the method from The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby, Opened, published in 1669.

To Make Cheesecakes
Take 12 quarts of Milk warm from the Cow, turn it with a good spoonfull of Runnet. Break it well, and put it in a large strainer, in which rowl it up and down, that all the Whey may run out into a little tub; when all that will is run out, wring out more. Then break the curds well; then wring it again, and more whey will come. Thus break and wring till no more come. Then work the Curds exceedingly with your hand in a tray, till they become a short uniform Paste. Then put to it the yolks of eight new laid Eggs, and two whites, and a pound of butter. Work all this long together. In the long working (at the several times) consisteth the making them good. Then season them to your taste with Sugar finely beaten; and put in some Cloves and Mace in subtile powder. Then lay them thick in Coffins of fine Paste and bake them.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Gourmet Eggs and Giant Eggs.

This Day, Last Year …

We were sampling the delights of the siege of Mafeking.

Quotation for the Day …

Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink
That is the finest of suppers, I think
When I'm grown up and can have what I please,
I think I shall always insist upon these.
Christopher Morley
(Founder of Saturday Review, 1924-1941)