Blanketed Carrots.

Carrots are one of our oldest vegetable foods, and probably also one of our most versatile. They are not merely an easy choice for the orange vegetable on the plate, to be endured because our mothers tell us they will enable us to see in the dark. They can be used in a huge range of dishes, both sweet and savoury – and we have had recipes in the past which have included them in puddings and marmalade, for example.

The origin of the modern domesticated carrot is not certain, but it is thought to have taken place in what is now known as Afghanistan, well over a thousand years ago – perhaps several thousands of years. One of the few things that is certain about its history, is that it was not developed from the so-called wild carrot, which is a different species altogether. It seems that the early carrots were purple, or yellow, and these colours are so old they are new and trendy again. It is said that the modern orange colour was a triumph of Dutch horticulturalists in the seventeenth century, and the story has implications of great portent due to the co-incidence of the struggles of the royal House of Orange against the Spanish. I have no idea if this is truth or fakelore, but it is a nice story.

An article in the Washington Post of July 22, 1935 gave an interesting recipe for carrots under the heading ‘This Novel Recipe Solves the Problem of Leftovers.’ It could just as easily have been described as a solution to the problem of a carrot surplus, I suppose. The recipe title seems to have been inserted at rather an odd place in the text – I assume it is a mistake. I am also not confident that the words ‘paste’ and ‘smeared’ would have helped the writer stimulate any enthusiasm for her indisputably laudable project, but here is the article, for you to decide:

 Paste of Meat, Vegetables, Smeared on Carrots is Tasty.

If you cant think of a pleasing way to use up leftover meats and vegetables this hot weather, try this: Grind the leftovers, both meat and vegetables, together, using first the coarse blade and then the fine one. Cook as many carrots whole as you have ground mixture to cover. Wrap the cooked carrots in a blanket of the ground mixture, which has been seasoned to taste with salt and pepper. A little dry mustard, a few grains of paprika or a few drops of onion juice may be added to the ground mixture if the flavors of the leftovers are such that they demand this extra seasoning. Now dip the blanketed carrots in slightly beaten egg (1 egg to 1 tablespoon of cold water) and then roll in sifted bread crumbs. Fry to a golden brown in deep hot fat (1 minute at 390 degrees F.) Drain on absorbent brown paper, and serve at once. 

Blanketed Carrots. 

Blanketed carrots as they are called for lack of any other name, make a pleasing addition to a vegetable platter. To add to their attractiveness, roll them in finely chopped parsley as soon as they are removed from the brown paper. 

Quotation for the Day. 
Some guy invented Vitamin A out of a carrot. I'll bet he can't invent a good meal out of one.
Will Rogers (1879-1935)

Taking Your Share.

I am occasionally asked about the most popular topics on this blog. I am not sure, but I suspect it is the posts about World War II. Perhaps they resonate with so many of us because we have grown up with family stories and memories of the events of the time.

During WW II, the Ministry of Food kept the public informed of ever-changing ration regulations and the supply of various key foodstuffs via radio bulletins and ‘Food Facts’ advice in the newspapers,
There was always a strong call to duty the Ministry’s literature, as you would expect, but it is interesting that many of the requests have a sort of timeless relevance even outside of wartime.

Food Facts leaflet number 59, from September 1941 does not contain any recipes, which is unusual, but its message is unequivocal.

*****************************************************************

Let’s face the facts squarely – especially FOOD facts.
Ask yourself these 5 questions.

Do you ever get more than your ration? Or accept more if offered? If so you are taking food which the country is counting on. Don’t believe that a little doesn’t matter, or that the “extra” will be wasted if you don’t take it. Many littles make a lot, and faults in distribution cannot be found and corrected if they are covered up by cheating the ration.

Do you ever shop-crawl? That is, go from shop to shop trying to buy a little here and there of some food which is scarce? This means that you are depriving people who have not as much leisure as yourself of their fair share.

Do you ever pay more than the control prices, or pay unfairly high prices for food that are not price controlled? Again, you deprive people not so well off as yourself.

Further, you encourage shopkeepers to buy at fancy prices from speculators; black markets and food gangsters are the result.

Do you ever waste food of any description? A bread crust, an outside cabbage leaf, little bits of left-overs, seem small in themselves. Multiplied by the entire population – 45,000,000 – they amount to many thousands of tons of wasted food.
Waste of food involves waste of the nation’s resources in money and in shipping space, for much of the waste has to be made good by importation. Worse, it may involve waste of seaman’s lives.

Do you neglect to produce all the food you can or to preserve foods whilst they are plentiful? This is another form of waste, and it too plays Hitler’s game.

Food is part of the fight – food must be conserved in a beleaguered city.

***************************************************************

The recipe for the day is from Food Facts leaflet number 27, from February 1941. There were many, many recipes such as this over the war years – home-grown root vegetables presented in as many ways as possible.

Potato Carrot Pancake.
Well-seasoned mashed potato combined with cooked carrot makes wholesome and savoury-tasting pancake. Whip the mashed potato to a loose creamy consistency. Season well with pepper and salt and add some diced cooked carrot. Pan-fried slowly in a very little fat it develops a deliciously crisp crust, but it can be baked to a good brown in the oven if preferred.

Quotation for the Day.

Pray for peace and  grace and spiritual food. For wisdom and guidance, for all these are good. But don’t forget the potatoes.
John Tyler Petee

Unusual Recipes, Day 2.

Today I give you more recipes considered unusual by the publication concerned - in this case, another Australian newspaper - the Cairns Post. On February 11, 1938 the newspaper presented an entire column of 'Unusual Recipes,' and here they are:

Apple Ginger Cake.
Take 3/4 cup of treacle,1/2 cup of hot water, 1 1/2 cupful of thinly sliced apple, 1/2 cup of shortening, 2 1/2 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cloves, ginger, 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls soda, 1/4 teaspoonful of salt.
Cook apples in the treacle until tender. Melt the shortening in the hot water. Sift all dry ingredients and gradually add hot water mixture. Stir all the time to keep smooth paste. Stir in treacle and apples. Pour into shallow tin and bake 20 minutes in hot oven. When cool, spread a layer of whipped cream over top of same.

Prune Fritters.
Cut one cup cooked prunes int small pieces after removing stones. Sift together one cup of self-raising flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt and one tablespoon sugar. Place in a basin and add the grated rind of 1/2 lemon and one teaspoon lemon juice. Beat one egg well and add 1/2 cup of milk and one tablespoon melted butter. Stir into the dry inredients  until batter is smooth. Add prunes and blend. Drop from a teaspoon into deep hot fat. Fry gently until richly browned. Drain on soft paper. Sere with hard sauce or whipped cream.

Mince Puffs.
Mince 1/2 lb beef steak and one onion. Now beat one egg well, add 1/2 cup powder. Beat well until smooth and free from lumps. Then add the mixed steak and onion and a little finely-chopped parsley. Have ready a saucepan of boiling fat. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture in and fry a golden brown. Drain on white paper and serve with chip potatoes.

Quotation for the Day.
That ould moth-eaten Prouerbe‥ One mans meate, is another mans poyson.
[1604 Plato's Cap B4]milk, with salt and pepper to taste, sift in one small cup of flour and one teaspoon baking

Unusual Cake Day.

(Posts for the next few days will be minimalist while I patiently endure the restoration of my files to my new computer, from wherever it is they are stored in cyberspace.)

I am interested in what one era or group considers 'unusual', and for the next couple of days I want to share a few 'unusual' recipes with you. Today's recipe was certainly considered unusual by the Tasmanian newspaper which published it in 1937, if we are to judge by the header. I dont know what, exactly, was considered out-of-the-ordinary about the cake - perhaps the inclusion of cold water in the mix? The name is certainly intriguing and appealing.

An Unusual Cake.
Angelskin Cake
cream together a quarter of a lb. of butter and 3/4 cp of sugar, then add half a cup of cold water gradually, mixing thoroughly. Sift in half a lb. of self raising flour, and lastly add to the mixture two well-beaten eggs and any preferred flavoring. Bake in a moderate oven, and when cold, ice all over and decorate with cherries.
The Advocate (Tasmania), 1937

And, as a bonus, another 'unusual' cake recipe from the same newspaper source, in the edition of January 1941.

An Unusual Picnic Cake.
In a well-greased tin spread 1 cup of brown sugar, and dot with pieces of butter. Cover with 4 or 5 medium-size apples, peeled and thinly sliced; over this sprinkle 1 tablespoon of water and then cover all with this mixture: 2 egg-yolks, 1 1/4 cup bran, 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon essence, pinch salt, 2 egg-whites. Whisk egg-yolks and beat in half of the water, then sugar and essence. Mix the flour, bran, baking powder, salt, and half of egg mixture. Then add remaining water, followed by remainder of dry ingredients, lastly folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Bake 30 minutes in moderate oven. When baked, turn upside down on plate, spread with white or chocolate butter icing, and sprinkle with colored jelly crystals.

Quotation for the Day.
A cake is a very good test of an oven: if it browns too much on one side and not on the other, it's not your fault - you need to have your oven checked.
Delia Smith.

Malt Makes it Better.

I had some delicious Malt Loaf the other day, and it took me right back to my childhood. Malt loaves were a common treat in the North of England in the 1950's - perhaps they still are - I am sure one of you will update me.My recent experience was of a dark fruit loaf of the almost-cake variety, whereas the one I remember was unapologetically a type of bread. No matter, it is the malty taste which is the appeal. 

Malting is the process by which grain - most commonly barley - is soaked and allowed to germinate - but before germination progresses too far, it is  stopped by drying in hot air. The process, in a nutshell, encourages the enzymatic converstion of the starches in the grain to sugars - hence it becomes sweeter. Most conveniently, it also converts the protein in the grain to forms which can more easily be used by yeasts. 

Malted grain has been used in brewing and distilling and vinegar-making for thousands of years, and more recently in confectionary, milk beverage, and breakfast cereal manufacture.  Without malt, there would be a serious loss of beverages. Without malt, there would be a serious loss of beverages. There would be no malt whisky, malt beer, or malted milkshakes. I also recently discovered that there is such a thing as 'malt tea', which is 'a liquid infusion of the mash in brewing', which sounds like alcoholic tea to me, and therefore something I must track down with great urgency.  And without malt, there would - Heaven Forbid! - be no malt vinegar for your chips (NOT  your French fries) or to make genuine, authentic Mint Sauce for your roast lamb. 

The dominant sugar in malted grain is the disaccharide, maltose, and it is what makes 'malt extract' ('a sweet sticky substance obtained from wort') so delicious. It is considered very nutritious - or used to be - and was given as a chaser to the disgusting cod-liver oil which the government provided to the children of post-war Britain as a supplement. There is, I must tell you from experience, not sufficient malt extract in the world to take away the everlasting taste of cod-liver oil in the mouth. Malt  extract is essential for making malt loaf of any variety, so hie off to the store and buy some. In my local supermarket it is now inexplicably placed in the 'dessert isle' with the maple syrup and so on, rather than the sugar section where it used to be alongside the Golden Syrup and Black Treacle.  I give you a recipe for a large-family quantity of malt loaf, made without yeast, and hope you manage to keep your spoons and fingers out of the malt extract tin long enough for you to have some left over for baking.

Aerated Malt Bread.
This is an excellent bread, which acts as both a tonic and a laxative. Weig 8 lbs. od granulated wheat meal, 8 oz. of cream of tartar, and 2 oz. of carbonate of soda. Sift all these ingredients three times through the sieve, make a large bay in the centre of the meal, and  add 8 oz. of malto-peptone extract, 1 3/4 oz. of salt, and nearly half a gallon of fresh buttermilk. Dissolve the salt and malt extract in the milk, then make int a nice-sized dough. Weigh off at 1 3/4 lb, mould in oval, and place in dusted oval tines, then turn them out onto a large flat tin, and bake in a sound oven. They are sold at fourpence each.
The Modern Practical Bread Baker (1903), by Robert Wells.

Roman Pie.

(I am working from my iPad for the next few days due to a laptop deficiency, soI apologise for the unlinked urls ... it is too slow trying to force Blogger and iPad to co-operate)

It is time for another instalment in our series on the list of the top ten forgotten British foods, as decided by a competition run in 2006 by the Guild of Fine Food Retailers. The list, with links to the blog posts to date is:

1.‘Eadles’ Bath Chaps http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2008/09/pigs-face-by-any-other-name.html
2. Mrs Grieve’s Fish Custard http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2011/09/forgotten-foods-part-iv.html
3. Mrs Langland’s Faggots http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2011/09/faggots-anyone.html
4. Grey Squirrel Casserole
5. Rook Pie http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2011/09/rook-pie.html
6. Rabbit with Prunes
7. Fife Brooth
8. Roman Pie ADD
9. 16th C Pancakes
10. A Grand Sallet http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2010/10/ironmongers-feast.html

Today it is the turn of number 8, ‘Roman Pie.’ I am puzzled about the inclusion of this dish in the list of forgotten foods. It seems to have had a very brief spell in the culinary limelight in the late nineteenth century – so brief and inconsequential that the Oxford English Dictionary does not know it, nor does it appear in Mrs Beeton’s comprehensive work, The Book of Household Management (1861) or amongst the nine thousand recipes in Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (1870’s). There is a small (very small) scattering of recipes in the British newspapers for a few decades after the late 1880’s, but by 1924, the Manchester Guardian of November 24 describes it as ‘a new dish for the breakfast table.’ The recipe given is:

Roman Pie.
Well oil a plain tin mould. Sprinkle well with vermicelli broken small, then line it with very thin paste. Have ready some boiled macaroni, cut in pieces half an inch long. Take a sprinkling of grated cheese, cut the meat up into small dice, mix all together, and season with pepper and salt. Add sufficient gravy to moisten the whole. If the meat is white meat the sauce must also be white and made with milk. Then put it all into the lined mould, cover with thin paste, and bake it in a moderate oven half an hour. Turn out with a rich brown sauce round it in the dish.

All recipes for Roman pie are variations on this theme – the pastry crust and the inclusion of macaroni being the constant features. There are some suggestions that rabbit is the traditional meat in the pie, but just about any cold meat appears, and I have seen one recipe for a ‘Roman pie with Fish’. It is presumably the macaroni that gives it this dish its name, although one source refers to it as ‘an Italian lunch dish.’

Oddly, the earliest recipe I have found to date is in fact American. It appears in the Godey’s Lady’s Book (1870)

Roman Pie.
Boil a rabbit; cut all the meat as thin as possible. Boil two ounces of macaroni very tender, two ounces of Parmesan or common cheese, grated, a little onion, chopped fine, pepper and salt to taste, not quite half a pint of cream. Line a mould, sprinkled with vermicelli, with a good paste. Bake an hour and serve it either with or without brown sauce. Cold chicken or cold game may be used for this pie instead of a rabbit.

Does this add up to a dish worthy of mention on the list? I don’t think so. Or am I missing something?

Quotation for the Day.
The English are very confused about food. For example, when you order potato chips there, they bring you a plate of French fries. I'm not sure what they'd bring you if you ordered French fries; probably a raw eel.
David Grimes
Roman Pie.

Observations on Marmalade.

(from my iPad, with apologies for the formatting; normal service will be resumed as soon as possible)

Marmalade is a wonderful topic. We have considered it before on this blog, in a number of posts, but new insights just keep popping up. As we have discussed previously, marmalade was originally made from quinces, but before too long the word applied was applied to a thickish, dryish conserve made from any fruit.

Cheese is also a wonderful, inexhaustibly topic. Again, in previous posts we have learned that ‘cheese’ can also be used to describe dishes pressed into a mould, as is cheese.

What this means is that fruit ‘marmalade’ and fruit ‘cheese’ can be essentially identical – as in the recipes we have had previously for Marmalade of Damsons and Damson Cheese.

I was delighted recently when I came across the following recipe, which puts a lovely spin on both of the broader concepts of marmalade and cheese.
Cheese Marmalade.

Take any marmalade, and boil a few teaspoonfuls of it with a pint of cream, adding a little preserved lemon-peel, dried and chopped fine. When slightly warmed, cover it with some rennet, and pound a little white sugar over it.
Cassell's household guide (1869)

A good find so often begets a good question, does it not? Riddle me this one. What is the purpose of the rennet on top of the warm cream? Are we to assume the rest of the cheese-making process? The pounding of a little sugar on the top sounds like a garnish, rather than an ingredient, suggesting that this is the finished dish. Any ideas?

http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2005/11/marmalade-madams-and-maladies.html
marmalade of damsons
http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/10/solace-of-ripe-plums.html
damson cheese
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2008/09/georgian-dinner.html

Quotation for the Day.

Marmalade in the morning has the same effect on taste buds that a cold shower has on the body.
Jeanine Larmoth

Twenty Uses Of The Lemon.

Some little time ago I did a week’s worth of posts on the ‘Invaluable Lemon.’ The subject is without doubt, inexhaustible. Today I give you a lovely list of household and beauty and cooking hints using the lemon, from the Twentieth Century Cook Book (1914), by the Twentieth Century Club of Berkeley.

TWENTY USES OF THE LEMON.

Few people realize the value of lemons, which cannot be overestimated. In cases of fever, sore throat or torpid liver the medicinal qualities are unexcelled.

1. Two or three slices of lemon in a cup of hot, strong tea will cure a nervous headache.
2. A teaspoon of lemon juice in a cup of black coffee will relieve a bilious headache.
3. The juice of half a lemon in a cup of hot water on awakening in the morning is an excellent liver corrective and successful substitute for calomel and other alterative drugs.
4. A dash of lemon juice in plain water makes a cleansing tooth wash, not only removing the tartar, but sweetening the breath.
5. A lotion of lemon juice and rose water will remove tan and whiten the skin.
6. Lemon juice with olive oil is far superior to vinegar for salad dressing equal parts used for blending.
7. Lemon juice and loaf sugar is good for hoarseness.
8. Outward applications of the juice allays irritation caused by insect bites.
9. A refreshing drink is made by adding a freshly beaten egg to lemonade, and
10. The same mixture when frozen makes a delicious ice.
11. If when boiling sago or rice a teaspoon of lemon juice is added the kernels will be whiter and a delicate flavor is added.
12. An old fashioned remedy for croup is lemon juice, honey and alum.
13. We all know the value of lemon juice and salt for removing rust stains from white goods.
14. After the juice is extracted the rind dipped in salt cleanses brass beautifully and conveniently.
15. It also removes unsightly stains from the hands.
16. For flavoring cookery lemon juice is unexcelled.
17. After the pulp is removed the skins make dainty receptacles for serving salads, ices, etc.
18. Tough meat can be made tender by adding a teaspoon of lemon juice to the water in which it is boiled.
19. Slices of lemon garnish fish of all description.
20. Tea is greatly improved by the addition of a slice of lemon, either iced for summer's use or as Russian tea on a cold winter day.

In buying lemons select those having a thin, dry rind. They are cheaper and are much jucier than the fresh, plump ones.
Mrs. J. J. O'C.

The recipe for the day is from the book – a rather unusual ‘jam’ or conserve, which of course includes a lemon.

Grape Conserve.
Four pounds Malaga grapes, 1 pound raisins (seeded), 4 cups sugar, 1 lemon, 3 oranges, 1 cup English walnuts. First take the seeds out of the grapes. Use only the juice and pulp of the oranges. Use the juice and grated rind of the lemon. Cook all except sugar and nuts for ½ hour. Then add sugar. Cook
until thick. Then add the chopped nuts. Pour into jelly glasses.
E. C.

Poem for the Day.

Good-morrow, dear lady,
Wherever you are,
I come to greet you
From near and from far.

If you carefully study
The rules in this book,
You will surely make
A most famous cook.

To you each has given
The best in her store,
Cakes, puddings, and pies
You will find them galore.

And when preparing
Your food for the day,
Do not neglect this
Caution I pray:

Add a cupful of love,
And a spoonful of spice,
And lo! you have
A spread for a king in a trice.
Twentieth Century Cook Book (1914)

Quotation for the Day.

Most families enjoy new dishes, and even though the head of the house may make fun of a new dish, or of one that is not common on your table, he usually eats it (if it is goo
Twentieth Century Cook Book (1914)

A Junketing We Will Go.

It seems that no-one makes junket anymore. The milk-based dessert has gone the way of dodo-steaks and passenger-pigeon pie. Perhaps it is because the essential ingredient of a piece of calf’s stomach is not easy to come by these days? Even the modern supermarket version of neatly packaged, pastel coloured and artificially flavoured junket tablets are almost as impossible to find.

Modern junket – the sort made with flavoured tablets – is a little like the modern supermarket version of neatly packaged, pastel coloured and artificially flavoured blancmange. It is a lightly set, somewhat custardy dessert, supposedly easy to digest and therefore useful for the very young, the very elderly, and the slightly unwell.

Junket has two big differences from other pudding mixes: the milk must be slightly warm when it is made up, or it won’t set, and once the set pudding is broken up with the spoon, it quickly turns into a watery mess with lumps. The watery mess is whey, and the lumps are curds. Yes, folks, the original junket  was ‘curds and whey.’ The magic curd-inducing ingredient is rennet, a digestive enzyme found in the mammalian stomach (in practice, usually that of the calf.)

In medieval times junket was a dish for the well-to-do, made with cream, sweetened with very expensive sugar, and flavoured with spices. By modern times it had become a cheap milk pudding. Throughout all this time – and still – curdling milk or cream with rennet or something similar was the first step in making cheese.

We had a seventeenth century recipe for ‘angeletts’ – a type of cream cheese made with ‘runnet’ several years ago, so today I want to remember with fondness - flavoured junket tablets. The recipes coe from A Dozen New Ways to Use Milk (a promotional booklet for a proprietary brand of flavoured junket tablets), circa 1920’s.

Junket Milk Shake.

A delicious milk drink can be made either by dissolving in cold milk and serving immediately, or by making junket in any flavour with skimmed milk, adding Junket to one-half the required amount of lukewarm milk in regular directions. Let it set until firm, then chill.

Beat with an egg-beater until smooth, and mix with equal quantity of cold skimmed milk.

Junket Custard.

Beat two eggs with 2 teaspoons sugar and gradually blend in a cup of hot milk. Add a pinch of salt. Cook in a double boiler until well thickened, then remove at once from the fire and cool to lukewarm. Warm slightly 1 ½ cups milk, add to the cooled custard and mix thoroughly. Add 2 packages of Vanilla Junket to custard mixture, stirring quickly for only one minute. Pour at once into dessert glasses. Let set until firm in a warm room

Place in ice-box to chill. This Junket custard is also delicious poured over stewed dried fruit cooked without sugar.

Quotation for the Day.

I'll make you feed on berries and on roots,

And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat,

And cabin in a cave, and bring you up

To be a warrior, and command a camp.

William Shakespeare; 'Titus Andronicus' Act IV Scene II

Good Friday 1941.

Today I want to give you another story from Nella Last, the housewife-diarist who so eloquently described the daily trials of the ordinary Briton in World War II.

Good Friday [1941].

…..I rested and read until lunch.  It was easily prepared, for I made the vegetable soup yesterday, and opened a wee tin of pilchards, heated them and served them on hot toast.   They were only 5 ½ d., and yet were a better meal than two cod cutlets costing at least 2s. I feel it would be better value if, instead of bulky, flabby cod and other white fish from America, the Government brought in only dried and tinned fish.  So much can be made up from a 1s. tin of salmon or tuna, and so little from the same value of white wet fish.  Besides there’s the “keeping” value too.

I packed up tea, greengage jam in a little brown pot, brown bread and butter, a little cheese and a piece of cake each, and we set off after lunch.  I have been longing and yet dreading to cut this particular cake for some time now.  I made it last June, when butter was more plentiful.  It was one of two: and one was for Christmas, and one to be shared between Cliff and my husband for their birthdays on 11 and 13 December.  I cut only one, made it do over Christmas and thought I’d cut the other at New Year.  With my ‘squirrel’s love’ of a little in reserve, I made do and kept putting off until it got to Easter! It’s a ‘perfect cake in perfect condition’, as my husband said.  I wrapped it in grease-proof paper – four separate wrappings – then tied it and put it in an air-tight tin.  I expect it’s the last good cake we will ever have –at least for years – and I do so love baking cakes and watching people enjoy them (I myself prefer bread and butter on the whole).

Greengage Jam.

Rub ripe gages through a hair sieve, and put them into a preserving pan; then, to a pound of pulp add a pound of sifted sugar; after which boil to a proper thickness, skim it clean, and put it into small pots.

The Art of Cookery Made Easy and Refined (1898), by John Mollard.

Previous Nella Stories are here, here, and here.

A previous Good Friday post on Hot Cross Buns, with a recipe from 1870, is here.

And another recipe using greengages is here.

Quotation for the Day.

Large, naked, raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who live in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter.

An Easter Pickle.

Today, the day before Good Friday, is, according to the Christian calendar, Maundy Thursday – otherwise known as Holy Thursday or Green Thursday. Previous posts on Maundy Thursday (here and here) explain the day and the traditions, but it is worth quickly summarising the theories about the name before we move on to the recipe for the day.

The most commonly accepted theory is that the name derives from the first word of the Latin Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos ("A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you.") The phase is sung during the traditional ceremony in which a bishop or priest or royal personage (or his/her agent) represents Christ’s washing of the feet of the apostles, and performs the same service to a token number of the poor.

Alternatively, the name derives from the French mendier (and the English maund) which means to beg (think of the word ‘mendicant’ for beggar.) In this context, the word references the Maundy or Maundsor baskets or purses which held the alms given to those selected poor folk by the English king or queen on this day.

Enough on words. I came across an interesting recipe in The Times of May 23, 1938 which purports to be taken from manuscript of stillroom recipes. I can only assume the connection is that the pickle would liven up the meagre fare on the last couple of days of Lent.

Maundy Pickle.

Chop together very finely one pound of peeled apples, one pound of peeled cucumbers, half a pound of onions. When well mixed spread on a dish and sprinkle with half a  pound of salt. Let it remain for 24 hours, stirring it now and then with a wooden spoon. Then put it into a colander and press it down with a weight to extract all the water. After this has been carefully done tip it into a jar and cover it with vinegar. Add half an ounce of black ground pepper, a small spoon of cayenne, and four ounces of salt. When carefully mixed, bottle. It can be eaten after a fortnight.

Quotation for the Day.

The very thought of them, like the smell, is offensive....But whatever other uses are made of the cucumber, I entreat the reader not to use it in the form of pickles. These, of almost all the forms of vegetable substances, seem to me worst adapted to the human stomach; and I cannot but hope will be shunned by every reader. 

The Young House-keeper, by William Andrus Alcott (1846)

Easter Fun.

It isn’t all about chocolate eggs and bunnies at Easter, you know. There are other treats for children of all ages which you can make if you want them to eat more veggies, or if you don’t mind them playing with their food, or if you are just a kill-joy who thinks chocolate is bad for them.

From the British wartime Ministry of Food’s ‘Food Facts No.247 of March 25, 1945, we have:

Birds’ Nests.

Make pastry tartlet cases in the usual way, and when cold fill with tiny soya marzipan eggs, some plain and some rolled in cocoa. Little cress baskets filled with small marzipan eggs and chicks, and tied with ribbon, also make attractive nests.

Soya Marzipan Paste.

Ingredients: 2 oz margarine, 2 tablespoons water, 1-2 teaspoons almond essence, 4 oz soya, 4 oz sugar.

Method: Melt margarine in water. Draw saucepan off heat, stir in almond essence, sugar, and soya. Turn out, knead well, and shape into little eggs and chicks.

And from The Washington Post of March 27, 1937.

Potato Ducks.

4 baked potatoes

4 small carrots

1 tablespoon butter

Milk, salt, and pepper.

Scrape carrots, cut in half lengthwise, wash and boil in small amount of water until tender. Remove from cooking vessel and brush with butter. Cut hot freshly baked potatoes in half lengthwise, carefully remove potatoes from skins. Add butter, salt and pepper, and mash potatoes until all lumps are removed. Add milk and beat until potatoes are light and fluffy. Reserve eight tablespoons of mashed potatoes and fill skins with remainder, allowing them to form small fluffy mounds.

In each mound places slantwise a carrot half to form a duck’s bill. Place a teaspoon of the reserved mashed potato at the point where the carrot has entered the mound. This makes the duck’s head. Celery seed may be used for the eyes, but this is not necessary. These ducks may be prepared the day before they are used, stored in the refrigerator, and then heated in the oven about 10 minutes before serving time. A blue or green platter makes an excellent lake on which to serve the ducks.

Quotation for the Day.

The best part of Easter is eating your children’s candy while they are sleeping, and then trying to convince them in the morning that the Easter rabbit came with one ear.
Anna Quindlen