Eggs, 18th C Style.

Today, April 11th ...

Still on our egg theme, and with minimal commentary due to TOF being TNM (The Nurse-Maid) to TOC (The Old Curmudgeon) who has a broken right shoulder due to his efforts to get fit by riding his bicycle at great speed, weather not permitting (i.e drizzly rain).

So - here we are already in the eighteenth century, with a selection of egg recipes quite unlike those in modern textbooks.

First, from a French cookbook:

Eggs after the German Mode.
Break some Eggs into a dish, as it were au Miroir, and put a little Peas-soop therein: mix two or three Yolks with a little Milk, and strain them through a Sieve: Then take away the Broth in which the Eggs were dress’d, put the Yolks upon them with some scraped Cheese, and give them a good Colour.
[The court and country cook ; Massialot; 1702]

Eggs after the Burgundian Way.
Take a piece of red Beet, that has not an earthy or unsavoury tast, and pound it well with a slice of Lemmon, a few Macaroons, Sugar, and beaten Cinnamon: Then taking four or five Eggs, without the Sperm, mix all together very well, and strain them thro’ the Hair-sieve, with a little Milk and Salt. Afterwards they may be dress’d in the same manner as Eggs with Milk, and brought to a fine colour.
[The court and country cook ; Massialot; 1702]

And now from an English book, a recipe with an interesting name:

A Pallateen* of Eggs.
Beat twelve Eggs, and take out the Crumb of a Penny Loaf, add to it a Jill of Rhenish Wine, and mix it well with the Eggs; boil six Artichokes, take the Bottoms and cut small, and mix with the Eggs; season them with Mace, Nutmeg, and Salt, and mix them all well together: Grease a round Bason that will just hold them, and pour them into it, lay three thin Slices of Butter over all, and set it an Hour in a slow Oven; then take half a Hundred fresh Oysters and wash them clean in Water, lay them on a clean Board, and season them with Black-pepper and Salt, and drudge some Flour over them; then take a Quarter of a Pound of Butter in a clean Frying-Pan over a clear Stove or brisk Fire, let the butter be brown when you put in the Oysters, and turn them; then add to them half a Jill of Water, a Spoonful of Catchup, and thicken it with Flour and Butter; then turn the Eggs out of the Bason on the middle of the Dish, pour over it the Ragoo: Garnish with Barberry-berries and Parsely, and send it up.
[Professed Cookery …; Ann Cook; 1760’s]

*Pallateen references the Palatine Hill in Rome, therefore suggests things Imperial and Grand. Makes a change from “Royal” I guess.

And finally, from Hannah Glasse’s well known cookbook, a recipe that seems anything but “Plain and Easy”

A Ragoo of Eggs.
Boil twelve Eggs hard, take off the Shells, and with a little Knife very carefully cut the White a cross long-ways, so that the White may be in two halves, and the Yolk whole. Be very careful neither to break the Whites, nor Yolks, take a quarter of a Pint of Pickle Mushrooms chopped very fine, half an Ounce of Truffles and Morells, boiled in three or four Spoonfuls of Water, save the Water and chop the Truffles and Morells very small, boil a little Parsley, chop it fine, mix them together with the Truffle Water you saved, grate a little Nutmeg in, a little beaten Mace, pu it into a Sauce-pan with three Spoonfuls of Water, a Gill of Red Wine, one Spoonful of Ketchup, a Piece of Butter, as big as a large Wallnut, rolled in Flour, stir all together and let it boil. In the meantime get ready your Eggs, lay the Yolks and Whites in Order in your Dish, the hollow Parts of the Whites uppermost, that they may be filled, take some Crumbs of Bread, and fry them brown and crisp, as you do for Larks, with which fill up the Whites of the Eggs as high as they will lye, then pour in your Sauce all over, and garnish with fry’d Crumbs of Bread. This is a very genteel pretty Dish, if it be well done.
[Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy ..; Hannah Glasse; 1747]

18th C Egg recipes from previous stories:

To broil Eggs.(1747)

Last year, on This Day ..

We had a story about sauerkraut