Forgotten Foods, Part IV.

Today I want to continue the theme of the ‘top ten forgotten foods of Britain’, which I picked up yesterday with the story on Rook Pie. Six more to go after today, folks - but these will have to wait until another day.

To remind you of where we are at, here is the list, with links.

1.‘Eadles’ Bath Chaps
2. Mrs Grieve’s Fish Custard
3. Mrs Langland’s Faggots
4. Grey Squirrel Casserole
5. Rook Pie 
6. Rabbit with Prunes
7. Fife Brooth
8. Roman Pie
9. 16th C Pancakes
10. A Grand Sallet 

I don’t know who Mrs Grieve is, or why her fish custard was deemed the best in 2006, but I have a wonderful recipe for you from the Home Hints column of Berrow's Worcester Journal (Worcester, England), on May 18, 1889. This is surely a dish worthy of being un-forgotten? I can see individual servings in small ramekins for a light first course, or a luncheon dish, or maybe even for breakfast?

Fish Custard.
Three small whitings or haddock or a larger fish filleted, two eggs, one and a half tea-cups milk, pepper and salt, put the fish nicely prepared in a pudding dish; beat up the eggs well; pour the milk among them, add salt and pepper to taste; pour this over the fish, and put it in the oven till the custard gets firm; one dessertspoonful of flour mixed smooth with the milk does pretty well instead of one of the eggs.

Quotation for the Day.

So long as you have food in your mouth, you have solved all questions for the time being.
Franz Kafka

Rook Pie.

In a post several years ago I gave the list of the top ten forgotten British foods, as decided by a competition run in 2006 by the Guild of Fine Food Retailers. Top of the list were ‘Bath Chaps’ (Pigs’ Cheeks), so naturally I included a recipe for this delicacy in the post. At the time, I intended to work my way through the list, and find a recipe for every dish. I was one ahead - Robert May's Grand Sallet had already appeared here, so there were eight to go. Here I am, however, three years later, having made no additions to date. Today I want to redress the balance a little by sharing some Rook Pie with you – but first, to refresh your memory, here is the list:

1.‘Eadles’ Bath Chaps

2. Mrs Grieve’s Fish Custard

3. Mrs Langland’s Faggots

4. Grey Squirrel Casserole

5. Rook Pie

6. Rabbit with Prunes

7. Fife Brooth

8. Roman Pie

9. 16th C Pancakes

10. A GrandSallet (from Robert Mays’ cookbook of the 17th C)

Rook pie seems like an unlikely addition to this list, because a dish has to be popular or noteworthy at some point in time in order to be noteworthy when it is forgotten, doesn’t it? As far as I can make out, rook pie was a dish of necessity, eaten by the industrious poor who had to bag their birds first - the idle rich filling their crusts with pigeon or venison. The only time that rook pie perhaps took on a more important role was during wartime, when other meat was scarce, and even then there was some prejudice to be overcome on account of the confusion of rooks with crows. Unlike rooks, crows eat carrion, and there is a widespread taboo amongst humans including carrion-eaters in their own diets.

The temporary interest in rook pie (which some correspondents insisted was ‘as good if not better than pigeon pie’) during wartime rationing led to a flurry of letters on the topic to newspapers. The following letter from a correspondent to The Times in April 1940 was in response to a request for the recipe.

ROOK PIE.

May I answer Mrs. Jessop-Hulton? “My mother used to make rook pie in the following manner, and it was very good:- Use only the breast and legs of the bird, as the other parts are very bitter and unsuitable for eating. Fill the piedish with layers of breast and legs with hard-boiled eggs and a little fat bacon. Well season with pepper and salt. Cover with a good crust of pastry, and cook well in a moderate oven.

Miss H. Brown, 27, Peppard Road, Caversham, Reading.

Quotation for the Day.

Hunting is now to most of us a game, whose relish seems based upon some mystic remembrance, in the blood, of ancient days when to hunter as well as hunted it was a matter of life and death.

Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage (1935)

To Sweeten Tainted Meat, Part 2.

Some time ago I wrote a little about the problem of dealing with tainted meat in the days before refrigeration. Many methods of dealing with this problem were suggested in cookery books of the past, because meat was far too valuable a food to be thrown away just because it smelled a bit (or a lot) ‘off’ (think ‘well-hung’.)Bear in mind however, that the bacteria that cause putrefaction in meat are not generally harmful to humans – the meat becomes offensive, but you are far more likely to come to harm from cooked dishes kept warm for too long – the dish then acting as a culture medium for the very different type of bacteria that contaminate such  food.

Please also bear in mind that I am in no way suggesting that you actually try the methods of sweetening tainted meat, selected from a variety of old cookery books, which I give you today! They are for your historical interest only.

To Sweeten Meat, Fish, etc. that is tainted. When meat, fish, &c. from intense heat, or long keeping, are likely to pass into a state of corruption, a simple and pure mode of keeping them sound and healthful is by putting a few pieces of charcoal, each the size of an egg, into the pot or saucepan

wherein the meat or fish is to be boiled. Among others, an experiment of this kind was tried upon

a turbot, which appeared too far gone to be eatable; the cook, as advised, put four pieces of charcoal

under the strainer in the fish-kettle ; after boiling the proper time, the turbot came to the table perfectly sweet and clean.

The general receipt book: containing an extensive collection of valuable receipts, connected with domestic economy, (1853) by James W. Laughton.

Tainted meat cured by putting in pearlash and water some time; then in vinegar, and afterward salted.

The Western miscellany, Volume 1, (1848) by Benjamin Franklin Ells

To Sweeten Tainted Meat. Cover the meat with sweet milk, and let it stand an hour or two, and, unless the meat is very bad, it will make it perfectly sweet. Soaking in saleratus water is also good.

The Appledore Cookbook, by Maria Parloa (1881)

The Recipe for the Day is from Miss Parloa’s The Appledore Cookbook.

Stewed Beef.

Take a piece of beef that is rather tough, or pieces of tough beefsteak; rub into it a handful of salt, some pepper and flour; lay in a kettle that you can cover tight, and that has a flat bottom. Cut up an onion, a potato, a small turnip, a carrot and a parsnip; lay these on the top of the meat and then sprinkle in half a teaspoonful of cinnamon, half of mace, one fourth of clove, and add cold water enough to cover it. Let it come to a boil, skim off all the scum, then cover tight and simmer five hours.

After it has been boiling four hours, mix half a cup of flour with cold water and add to it. You can then taste it and add more seasoning if necessary. The spice may be omitted if you choose. Serve the meat in a little of the gravy, and send the remainder of the gravy to the table in the gravy tureen. Serve plain boiled potatoes, boiled rice, and pickled beets.

Quotation for the Day.

To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a "home" might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation.  Emily Post

A Baker’s Dozen.

Did you ever wonder why and where the ‘Baker’s Dozen’ idea originated?   The written phrase was first recorded in 1599, but we know that for a long time – centuries, in fact – bakers routinely gave one or two extra loaves or buns for the price of a dozen.  Customers love to get something for nothing and tend to see the practice as a generous gesture on the part of the baker, so from that angle it is a smart marketing idea. It did not start out that way however. Originally the motive was to avoid the possibility of an unpleasant punishment if the baker inadvertently sold underweight bread.

In olden times, bread was truly the staff of life. It was the staple, essential food on which most people lived, and even for the wealthy it was the basis of every meal. The corresponding everyday beverage in these days was ale. Ale was a weakly alcoholic drink brewed for immediate consumption in every moderately large household, and it was the regular drink even of children, because the brewing process made it much safer than water, which was frequently contaminated.  The absolute importance of these two products to the life of every ordinary citizen meant that even from very early times their production was subject to regulation.

In 1266 in England, King Henry III revived an ancient statute that determined the price of a loaf of bread and a quantity of ale in relation to the price of wheat. This Assize of Bread and Ale remained on the statute books in England until 1863! The aim of the Assize was to fix the size (weight) of a loaf of bread, regardless of the cost of wheat (called ‘corn’ in those days). Loaves were sold at a farthing, a half-penny, or a penny. As the price of corn went up, the size of the loaf purchased for a particular price went down. The limits were set once a year at harvest time, after the Feast of St Michael on September 29, but were occasionally modified during the year if the price of corn varied significantly. 

As all professional bakers are aware, even with the most honest of intentions, there are so many variables in the process that it is difficult to produce a loaf of consistent weight. In order to avoid being accused of selling underweight loaves, bakers would add an extra loaf (when selling a quantity of bread to a middleman) or an extra piece of bread to a small purchaser. This extra was called the inbread or vantage loaf, and it is the origin of the ‘Bakers Dozen’.

There are of course, unscrupulous members of every profession. Dishonest medieval bakers developed some creative ways of cheating both the public and the official Bread Examiners. An obvious technique was to keep the full-weight loaves on the shelves when the Examiners were due, and hide the low-weight ones out the back. Another method was to hide coins or bits of metal in the dough, which were presumably taken out once the bread was weighed. Even more creatively, in the sixteenth century there is a record of some bakers found to have been soaking stale bread in water and mixing it with the new dough 'to the great abuse and scandall of their Mysterie [their Trade] , and the wrong of his Majesties' subjects.'  

Up until relatively modern times, most ordinary households did not have ovens, and it was usual for housewives to take their own dough to the baker, where for a small fee it would be cooked in the residual heat of the oven after the baker had cooked his own bread for the day. The prize for the most creative deceit must go to bakers at a public bakehouse in 1327. There were secret cavities built under the moulding boards from which an assistant would reach up and pinch off a chunk of the dough from a customer’s loaf, and over the course of the day built up a nice supply for themselves.

Those bakers who did get caught cheating their customers were punished in a variety of ways. In England they could be fined (usually for the first three times), lose their occupation, be put in the pillory, or sent to gaol. The pillory or ‘stretch neck’ was a very public humiliation. The accused was locked with head (sometimes shaved) and hands fixed in holes made between two horizontal boards set up in the market place where he or she could be pelted by disgruntled customers with anything noxious that came to hand. There was a strong feeling in medieval times that the punishment should be seen to fit the crime, and in the fraud of 1327 the offending bakers were placed in the pillory with slabs of the dough around their necks. In other instances, bakers were forced to sell the underweight loaves at a loss (which was a gain for the customer.)

In other parts of the bread-eating world the punishments varied. In Vienna, bakers caught selling underweight bread were put in the baeckerschupfen – a sort of cage which was then plunged into the river several times. In Turkey, a bad baker was stretched out on his own kneading table and the bastinado (foot-beating with a stick) was administered. Perhaps the most public and painful punishment was in ancient Egypt, were an offending baker could be nailed by the ear to the door of his shop, where no doubt his customers gave him even more abuse.

We may feel that we live in an over-regulated society, but think on these punishments next time you are frustrated by the rules, and be glad you did not live and bake in ‘the good old days’!

Milk Bread.

Take one quart of milk, heat one-third of it, and scald with it half a pint of flour; if the milk is skimmed, use a small piece of butter; when the batter is cool, add the rest of the milk, one cup of hop yeast, half a tablespoon of salt, and flour enough to make it quite stiff; knead the dough until it is fine and smooth, and raise it overnight. This quantity makes three small loaves.

The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-day Cookery, (1877) by Juliet Corson.

Quotation for the Day.

It would be nice if the Food and Drug Administration stopped issuing warnings about toxic substances and just gave me the names of one or two things still safe to eat.

Robert Fuoss.

How to Smoor an Old Rabbit.

Even the kitchen adepts amongst you would probably tremble if you were on Master Chef and were asked to ‘smoor’ a rabbit or chicken. You could do it easily though, all of you. ‘To smoor’ is a Scots and Northern England verb meaning ‘to smother’, and several references indicate that it was a useful technique used against one’s enemies – but be reassured, the Master Chef judges do not intend you ‘first sacrifice your rabbit’ by suffocation. It came to have quite a different usage in the kitchen (although the Oxford English Dictionary does not recognise it), where it means to cook slowly in a closed pot. Here is one version of smoored rabbit, from John Murrell’s A New Booke of Cookerie (London, 1615)

To smoore an old Coney, Ducke, or Mallard, on the French fashion. Parboyle any of these, and halfe roast it, launch them downe the breast with your Knife, and sticke them with two or three Cloves. Then put them into a Pipkin with halfe a pound of sweet Butter, a little white Wine Vergis [verjuice], a piece of whole Mace, a little beaten Ginger, and Pepper. Then mince two Onyons very small, with a piece of an Apple, so let them boyle leisurely, close covered, the space of two howers, turning them now and then. Serue them in upon Sippets. 

Quotation for the Day. 
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage.
Woody Allen

Observations on Dessert.

I know that for many of you, dessert is the highlight of the meal. I know several people who always check out the dessert menu first, to see how much room they need to leave. Heck, I even know one person whose idea of a restaurant meal is one small first course (entrée or appetiser, depending on which variety of the English language you speak) and two desserts. To those of you who fit this description, I dedicate the following – an extract from the introduction, and a recipe from Foreign desserts for English tables, by the author of 'Everbody's pudding book

INTRODUCTION.

THE Dessert has been, not inaptly, described as being a "charming field of battle given up to a troop of joyous foragers." We are supposed to have struggled manfully through the previous phases of the repast, and having defeated and driven away the baser edibles, victory and its fruits reward us for our zeal. And since "all the world's a stage," then surely is dinner the most interesting and principal performance that takes place upon it - a daily drama in which the finishing is, or ought to be, the crowning of the work; for whether the play has commenced with a prelude of potage or an overture of oysters, all the services which succeed until the appearance of the last are but preliminaries which, when united, simply form the preface, or, more properly speaking, the prologue of the most important, the last, the culminating course of all - The Dessert. From the beginning of the banquet the interest has been gradually and skilfully worked up; the plot has steadily thickened, until the scene is shifted to the dessert, and we are afforded either a delightful denouement or, as it sometimes turns out, a deplorable catastrophe. Oh, Amphitryons all! have it your care that the piece ends not terribly, but triumphantly! It should be the epic or heroic of an entertainment. Do not compromise the character of an otherwise decent dinner by providing but an indifferent dessert. Think of the magnificent means at your disposal, the trophies of fruit, the treasures of wine, the gem-like jellies, the dainty sweets, and the glorious flowers you may call into requisition! Make the most of so elegant an observance as a dessert, and celebrate it well. Profusion is not needful; taste is everything; then endeavour to evince a certain style in serving what you have, and though you have but little at command, try and testify to your friends in what dear honour they are held, not by the substantiality of the refreshments you spread before them, but by the refinement, the lightness, the delicacy of the "friandises" which you can make to embellish your table, and appear to be invested with the grace of votive offerings spread before your guests. Dinner may be said to sustain the body and dessert the mind. It is no longer a question of deriving material sustenance from what is before us; it is understood that the mere animal instinct of hunger has already been appeased, finer senses than gustativeness have now to be gratified, we are to be propitiated principally by effect—the current of ideas has to be directed, imagination awakened, the heart made cheerful, and the olfactory and the visual organs agreeably excited. To do all this the dessert should be made to resemble as much as possible an al fresco entertainment, not only the viands and embellishments, but each individual convive contributing to the furtherance of this end; and it fortunately happens that by the time the last "entremets" has been removed from the table, and the last drop of choice Medoc has been drained from our glasses, we have acquired the most desirably-pronounced festive qualifications: constraint has quite disappeared, we own ourselves entirely at ease, the embarrassing feeling of isolation each experienced at the opening of the banquet has given place to pleasurable sensations of responsive amity, and from a fully-satisfied appetite has resulted the tenderest sympathy for our fellow convives; conversation no longer languishes, but is animated and general, eyes brighten, cheeks glow, wines circulate, mirth predominates, and we are irresistibly captivated and enchanted by the display of only those things which are susceptible of inspiring agreeable ideas, by promoting our mental rather than our material enjoyment. Of course this picture does not apply to those ungenerous churls whose ideas of the duties of dessert-giving are so narrow that they are content to carry out their conviviality through the medium merely of Marsala and hard biscuits, or simply sherry and seed-cake, or only "home-made ginger" and dried figs. Of these mean-spirited people I do not speak, but only allude to those whose hospitality has been ripened and perfected by length of practice, and who have learnt to take a kindly interest both in the variety of the comestibles with which they regale their guests, and in the equally important auxiliary - the embellishment of their tables.

Pommes A La Portugaise

Pare seven or nine small apples, halve them, scoop out the cores, and fill the hollows thus made with some quince marmalade, put the halved apples together again, lay them in a baking-dish, strew them well over with pounded loaf-sugar, and pour into the dish half a pint of claret. Place them in an exceedingly slow oven, and let them stay until they are thoroughly tender. Arrange them in a dessert-dish, and when cold strew more sugar plentifully upon them. Apricot or peach marmalade may be employed instead of the quince. Pears thus treated are excellent.

Quotation for the Day.

I prefer to regard a dessert as I would imagine the perfect woman: subtle, a little bittersweet, not blowsy and extrovert; delicately made up, not highly rouged; holding back, not exposing everything and, of course, with a flavor that lasts.
Graham Kerr

A Surfeit of Mangoes.

Today I am off to Far North Queensland for a brief holiday, and my food-mind leaps to .... mangoes! It is early in the season, it is true, but a few have already made their appearance here in Brisbane’s fruit shops, so surely they will be bigger, and better, and sweeter, and cheaper, in the North?

I have written on the mango previously – several times in fact (the links are below), and it might be said that I have done enough on the topic, but I do have a little more for you today. I believe it is true that “The number of mangoes that a practiced person may eat with impunity is astonishing” (Sketches of India, 1850), but occasionally, even with the best appetite in the world, a glut of the fruit will get the better of one. Here is a plaintive cry from the Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld on January 8^th, 1929.

MANGOES.

There is an orchard round our house,

An orchard green and fair,

And half-a-score of mango trees

Grow strong and sturdy there.

Each one is hung with luscious fruit,

And I just sit and sigh

As like the loaves and little fish,

I watch them multiply.

The missus is the soul of thrift,

Also a cook of taste,

And so to use the harvest up,

She straight away makes haste. .

We've mango cooked and mango raw,

Mango rich and mango poor,

Mango cutlets, mango steak,

Oh!  how my – er - head does ache.

Mango pie, and mango mash,

Mango pudding, mango hash.

Mango wine, and mango beer.

But not like Mac's, it doesn't cheer.

Mango boiled, and mango rough,

Mango trifle, mango puff.

Mango chutney, mango cream,

Mango jelly, mango dream.

Mango stew, and mango kiss,

Mango that, and mango this.

Mango curry, mango jam

Mangoes, mangoes - damn.

Most of the mango recipes I have given you so far have been from the savoury end of the spectrum. Here are a couple of sweet treats to make with your sweet mango surplus.

Mango Jam.

Select mangoes that are ripe, but nice and firm. Remove skin and cut fruit into small dice. To four heaped-up cups of cut-up fruit allow two cups water and juice of one big lemon. Boil gently for half-hour, add four cups sugar, and boil quickly for 20 minutes to half-hour. Take a little  out in a saucer to test if firm enough. Twenty minutes is long enough if jam is kept boiling. Remove from fire while boiling. Allow to cool a little, and bottle.

Mrs. H. P. Finch, Palm woods, North Coast Line.

The Queenslander, February 14, 1929

From The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld), February 3^rd, 1938:

MANGOES are so plentiful that they are being given away in some districts/while in others they may be bought at almost nominal prices. Combined with pineapple they make a delicious jam, and with the usual spices they produce a hot and very appetising sauce. The weekly prize for the best House hold Secret goes this week to Mrs. S. Clarkson, Hemmant, for recipes for these two preserves, which will make a good addition to the store cupboard.

Pineapple And Mango Jam

Prepare enough ripe mangoes to make six heaped cupfuls, add two cups of sliced or chopped pineapple, 8 cups of sugar. The fruit is juicy enough without any wafer added. Butter preserving pan well, including the sides, cook the fruit, and sugar for an hour, stirring constantly, and bottle when clear.

Mango Sauce.

Peel some ripe mangoes, squeeze and press the pulp through a colander until the juice measures up to six large cups. Put two cups of brown sugar and 11 cups of vinegar on to boil for 20 minutes in a large saucepan. Skim, then add the fruit juice and bring to the boil. Next add half to three quarters of a pound of dates, mashed fine with a little of the hot liquid, also a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon each of cayenne pepper, cinnamon, and allspice, a little white pepper, and a few small chillies. Stir frequently, and let boil for about two hours, then bottle and seal.

And finally, from the Northern Territory Times and Gazette (Darwin, NT) October 15, 1921:

Mango Jelly.

Peel the mango as it begins to turn yellow, before it softens; slice the pulp from the seed; pour enough water in the pan to cover the fruit, and boil until quite tender; strain through muslin cloth; to this juice add an equal quantity of sugar and boil till it jellies. Lime juice may be added if more acidity is desired in the jelly than is present in the mango

A Mango a Day (soon)

Mangoless Mangoes: ‘To Mango Cucumbers.’

Cowcumbers, to Pickle in the likeness ofMangoes (1705).

Mangoes inChristmas mincemeat

MangoIce-Cream

Bengal RecipeFor Making Mango Chetney, from Mrs. Beeton (1861)

Dried MangoPickle

Quotation for the Day.

Each tree
  Laden with fairest fruit, that hung to th' eye
    Tempting, stirr'd in me sudden appetite
      To pluck and eat.

John Milton, Paradise Lost

Breakfast in India, 1887

The diaries of nineteenth century colonial wives give a fascinating glimpse into the era, the lifestyle, the attitudes – and, of course, the food. I loved the following explanation of breakfast  - the meal in which we  tolerate the least variation from our personal routine. Note that the ‘Civilian Wife’s’ status as a mere appendage to her husband is reinforced by her name. She is “Mrs Robert”.

Dec. 9. - Yesterday Lord de Grey passed through on his way to the Doon, where he is to have some shooting. The Collector asked us to breakfast to meet him, and we sat down at eleven o'clock to an excellent Scotch breakfast - a great contrast, let me tell you, to the orthodox Indian one. The latter, as seen in ninety-nine houses in a hundred, is merely a mistimed dinner, differing in hardly any respect from dinner except in not beginning with soup. You sit down to a blank table covered only with flowers, and the servants hand round course after course - fish, curry, cutlets, aspic, game, winding up by placing finger-bowls and dessert n the table ! It is a custom we have never reconciled ourselves to, and in our own house we insist on having an English breakfast-table but long and weary have been the struggles, with every fresh servant before he will give up his attempt to show us what is proper.

Diary of a Civilian Wife in India, 1887-1882, Mrs Robert Moss King.

The Recipe for the Day comes from a cookbook contemporary to Mrs Robert’s adventure. The slightly pompous, paternalistic tone of Culinary Jottings: a treatise in thirty chapters on reformed cookery for Anglo-Indian rites, (1885) by A.R. Kenney-Herbert is mildly amusing, but it is hard not to wince at the repeated appearance of ‘Ramasamay’ – the generic servant to the superior white man. 

Here is Kenney-Herbert on the subject of trying to get good fried fish in India, where the Ramasamays just keep on sabotaging the process.

The art of frying fish consists in being prodigal in the use of the medium which you employed to cook with. The fish should be absolutely immersed in a bath of boiling fat or oil, which should be carefully tested so that you may be convinced of its temperature. "If your fat be not sufficiently heated," says the authority I have already quoted, "the fish you want to fry will turn out a flabby and greasy mess, instead of a crisp, appetising dish." For nearly all fish-frying, the frying basket is an invaluable utensil, used, of course, in conjunction with the deep-sided friture-pan.

Fish, fried in the English fashion, is generally egged and bread-crumbed. The Italians, who are perhaps the best 'frysters' in the world, either flour their fish, or dip it in batter. Both methods are, to my mind, vastly superior to the bread-crumbing process. If, however, you must use crumbs, see that they are stale, and well sifted; not the pithy lumps, both great and small, too often set before you, because Ramasamy will not look ahead, and rarely, if ever keeps a bottled supply of stale, well rasped bread in hand.

To obtain a satisfactory result, proceed as follows : -

Having crumbled some stale bread as small as you can in a napkin, pass the crumbs through a stiff wire sieve; then place the plate containing them into the oven to dry thoroughly. To apply them properly, beat up two eggs with a dessert-spoonful of salad oil, and the same of water. This mixture should be brushed over the fish like varnish, and the fish should then be turned over in a napkin, containing the dry crumbs.

Quotation for the Day.

Breakfast is a notoriously difficult meal to serve with a flourish.

Clement Freud.

White-Pot.

‘White Pot’ is - or was - a well-known dish associated with Devon, England in times past. I give you a couple of descriptions, so that you can get some sense of it:

From the Oxford English Dictionary:A dish made (chiefly in Devonshire) of milk or cream boiled with various ingredients, as eggs, flour, raisins, sugar, spices, etc.; a kind of custard or milk-pudding.

From A glossary and etymological dictionary, by William Toone, 1834: “A composition made with milk, eggs, bread, sugar, and spice, and baked in a pie: a dish peculiar to the county of Devon.

This style of pudding is not exclusive to Devon of course. Bread custards are eaten all over Britain, and are probably popular enough to qualify as a natural treasure. Why did the Devon variety have its own specific and enduring name and fame? I don’t know the answer, but perhaps the famously rich cream of Devon gave the local variety an especially rich reputation.

I came across a couple of other references to white-pot the other day which put this simple pudding into a slightly different light. The sixteenth century translation of one of the works of the Flemish physician Rembert Dodoens suggests that they may have been made from buckwheat: “The meale of Bockewheate is vsed ... to make pappe, whitpottes and... cakes of light digestion.”

The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary made a mistake however when they used a quotation from Thomas Hardy’s The Trumpet Major to support their description of the pudding. The wedding dinner of Loveday and Matilda was to include “Seventy rings of black-pot, a dozen of white-pot, and twenty-five knots of tender ... chitterlings”. The context clearly shows that the ‘white-pot’ in this case refers to ‘white pudding’, or, in other words, ‘white’ sausages made with pork fat and oats or bread.

Naturally, I decided to give you a recipe for white puddings today, but my final choice is not at all what I intended.  Here is a real treat for you:

White Pudding in Skins.

After washing half a pound of rice in warm water, boil it in milk till tender. Put it into a sieve to drain, and beat half a pound of Jordan almonds very fine, with rose-water. Wash and dry a pound of currants, cut a pound of hog’s lard small, beat up six eggs, half a pound of sugar, a nutmeg grated, a stick of cinnamon, some mace, and a little salt. Mix them well together, fill the skins, and boil them.

The new London family cook: or, Town and country housekeeper's guide, by Duncan MacDonald, 1808.

So, how is that for a delicious surprise for your next dinner party or dessert menu? Sweet puddings in the guise of sausages! Guaranteed to bring a smile to anyone’s face, I would think. They would certainly be a fine finale to your White Dinner.

Quotation for the Day.

Cornwall squab-pie, and Devon white pot brings;

And Leicester beans and bacon, food of kings!

Dr King’s Art of Cookery.

Take a Quantity of Birds’Nests ...

One of the other ‘oddities’ that featured on the mid-nineteenth century Parisian ‘Chinese’ menu I gave you the other day was ‘swallows'-nests, cooked in the Nankin method.’ I am not sure what ‘the Nankin method’ entailed, but the basic dish was presumably the famous and intriguing ‘Bird’s Nest Soup.’ A well-known and variously attributed quotation is that ‘it was a brave man that first ate an oyster.’ It must have been a much braver, or hungrier, man to first tackle a birds’ nest.

The birds in question are several species of swift (Aerodramus  sp.).  The male builds the nest precariously high up on the wall of a limestone cave – although nowadays humans provide purpose-built concrete nesting houses in many areas, to encourage supply and facilitate harvesting. The construction material for the cup-shaped nest is a special form of saliva to which is attributed medicinal properties nothing short of miraculous.

The medicinal reputation, and the (originally) extremely hazardous harvesting method has resulted in the birds’ nests being amongst the most expensive foods consumed by humans. One kilogram  of the highest quality nests may be worth over $10,000 USD! 

Like so many exotic Eastern dishes, Bird’s Nest Soup became briefly fashionable in Europe in the nineteenth century, its name Frenchified to the far-more glamorous-sounding Potage aux Nids d’ Hirondelles. Our recipe for the day comes from Things Chinese: Or, Notes Connected with China, by James Dyer Ball (1904.)

Birds’ Nest Soup.

 … is even more of a luxury in China than turtle soup is in England … it forms the first dish at all grand dinners. Here is a receipt for preparing Potage aux Nids d’ Hirondelles, translated from the Chinese :

‘Take clean white birds’ nest shreds, or birds’ nests, and soak thoroughly. Pick out all feathers. Boil in soup or water till tender, and of the colour of jadestone. Place pigeons' eggs below, and add some ham shreds on top. Boil again slowly with little fluid. If required sweet, then boil in clear water till tender, add sugar-candy, and then eat. This is a most clear and pure article, and thick (or oily) substances should not be added. It should be boiled for a long time; for, if not boiled till tender, it will cause diarrhoea.’

Quotation for the Day.

Plant a radish, get a radish, never any doubt.  That's why I love vegetables, you know what they're about! 

Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt

Slugs from the Sea.

The mid-nineteent century Parisian ‘Chinese’ menu I gave you the other day included a dish called oluthuries à la mandarine. This was a dish of Holothuria sp. – better known on the dinner plate as sea cucumber, sea-slug, bêche de mer, or trepang. This creature, so repulsive to many of us in the West,

lives on the sea-floor, and has a habit of disgorging its own intestines when annoyed – a habit which did not endear it to potential diners outside of Asia. One of its common names bears witness to this distaste: bêche de mer  comes from the Portuguese bicho de mar, or ‘vermin of the sea.’

In Asia, trepang is an enormously important food, and has been so since ancient times. A large part of its success is due to the fact that the flesh lends itself very well to preservation by drying. The following instructions, from The Animal Food Resources of Different Nations (1885), by Peter Lund Smith, explain what the cook then does with the dried product:

The mode of cooking trepang is as follows: - Soak it in cold water for an hour, then clean it and scrape it carefully. Boil it for eight hours in water with a little salt added, wash, scrape and clean it anew ; and soak it in cold water for two hours. Then cover it with meat gravy, season and cook it for half-an-hour more, and serve it hot.

Quotation for the Day.

The woman just ahead of you at the supermarket checkout has all the delectable groceries you didn't even know they carried. 

Mignon McLaughlin

A Grand “Chinese” Dinner in Paris, 1858.

It is a while since I have given you a menu - and it is only a part-description I offer you today - but it picks yesterday’s theme up nicely. The following extract from Hints for the Table: or, the economy of good living (London, 1866) is a marvellous example of the concept of a ‘Chinese’ dinner as interpreted by mid-nineteenth century Europeans. If I can find a more complete bill of fare for this dinner, I will post it at a later date.

“A grand Chinese dinner is an aldermanic affair. The notes of invitation are much larger than ours, and are written upon beautiful red paper. The company are received by hosts of attendants bearing lanterns; and being welcomed by startling music, they are first served with tea, without milk or sugar. There is no table-cloth; instead of napkins, three-cornered pieces of paper are used, and for knife and fork are substituted two little round chop-sticks; whilst porcelain spoons are used for soup. There are many hundred dishes served, the roasts being carved by cooks in uniform and tasteful costume. The whole repast occupies full six hours.

On October 26th, 1858, Prince Napoleon gave at Paris a grand dinner, at which several dishes were Chinese: some of the wine drunk was from Siam (having been sent by one of the Kings of that country to the Prince), and one of the guests was a Chinese mandarin. Among the dishes were swallows'-nests, cooked in the Nankin method ; fins of a shark fried ; oluthuries* à la mandarine; the interior of a sturgeon à l 'octogenaire, aux rondelles de bamboux; oluthuries in salad, with pheasant jelly; rice des immortels; fowl, with Japanese currie; spinach, with balichao**, such as was much esteemed at Rome under Augustus; rice in Chinese fashion, ordinary India currie, &c.

The Chinese are much more skilful in contrivances for supplying the luxuries of the table than is generally imagined. Dempster's scheme for preserving fish in ice (adopted in Scotland in 1800), has been practised in China for centuries. Wheels driven by crews keep in life and freshness, by a stream of water, thousands of fish brought by boats into the Canton market daily. The French have been particularly successful in preserving provisions by exclusion of air; but the Chinese had preceded them for centuries in their simple and effectual methods of keeping eggs, fish, and vegetables. Sugar is of early origin, and, perhaps, more is used in China than all the rest of the world put together; and Chinese sugar-candy does not yield to our highest refined sugar.”

*olothuries = Holothuria sp. = sea cucumber, sea-slug, beche de mer, trepang

** balichao = the pungent-smelling, salty, fermented shimp paste used in many Asian dishes, compared here with the ancient Roman condiment garum.

To Europeans, many of these dishes would have seemed outlandish indeed – and we will get to a greater exploration of a couple of them in the next couple of posts. One ingredient which was not too unfamiliar, at least to the British, was the bamboux (bamboo) – the tender shoots, that is, not the thick woody trunks. Pickled bamboo shoots were a taste acquired by the British as a result of their colonial expansion. They became very popular in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the form of ‘West Indian Pickle’. The imported article of course was expensive, but English cooks soon came up with a local copy, using elder shoots.

Elder Shoots in Imitation of Bamboo.

TAKE the largest and oldest shoots of elder which put out in the middle of May; the middle stalks are most tender and biggest, the small ones are not worth pickling; peel off the outward peel or skin, and lay them in a strong brine of salt and water for one night; then dry them in a cloth, piece by piece. In the mean time make your pickle of half white wine and half beer vinegar; to each quart of pickle you must put an ounce of white or red pepper, an ounce of ginger sliced, a little mace, and a few corns of Jamaica pepper; when the spice has boiled in the pickle pour it hot on the shoots, stop them close immediately, and set the jar two hours before the fire, turning it often. It is as good a way of greening pickles, as frequent boiling. You may boil the pickle two or three times, and pour it on boiling hot, just as you pease. If you make the pickle of the sugar vinegar, there must be one half spring water.

The English Art of Cookery (1788), by Richard Briggs.

[P.S you can find another opinion of bamboo shoots, and a recipe, here.]

Quotation for the Day.

And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven’t yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food?

Bill Bryson