The Old Foodie: February 2008

Friday, February 29, 2008

Bachelor Cooking.

February 29 ...

I don’t need to tell you that today is Leap Year Day – a once in four years opportunity for a girl to do the marriage proposing. Society is much more relaxed about such things nowadays however, and most girls would not wait four years to take the initiative – and I doubt that many confirmed bachelors today are having sick days and locking themselves safely indoors, in fear of the office harridan giving them a lustful look. There are no firm food traditions for the day, which is a little sad, but I cannot let this once in four years opportunity go by without finding some food connection.

Most modern girls thinking of making a man permanent in their lives would consider the question “Can he cook?” before popping the question. Not so long ago the only men who cooked were professional chefs – it was very rare for an mere man to take up kitchen implements and those who did were viewed with some suspicion. Nevertheless, occasionally it must have been an absolute necessity, and there was such a thing as a Bachelor’s Oven to assist. This was a sort of enclosed, portable mini-oven - ‘ a most useful utensil in the kitchen for baking small puddings or potatoes’. There are a lot of recipes for Bachelor’s Puddings in old cookbooks, so presumably these were considered essential in the life of a single man, and the thing for which he needed specific instruction.

Today I give you a couple of recipes for Bachelor’s Pudding – and a third recipe, which is cooked in a Bachelor’s oven, so is allowed into the theme today, and which I could not resist because of the suggested final decoration.

Bachelor’s Pudding. (1)
Half a pound of bread, 1 ½ cups of flour, 1 cup of currants, ½ cup of butter or dripping, mix with 1 ½ cups of milk, 1 teaspoonful of carbonate of soda, some lemon juice, a little ground ginger, and one wineglassful of brandy. Boil for two hours. [This meant, boil in a pudding bowl or cloth]

[An African Colonial Cookery Book. 1890]

Bachelor’s Pudding. (2)
Break, or grate, ripe bread into new milk, and permit it to get soft before adding a good portion of boiled rice, some eggs, butter, and other condiments the taste may dictate, and sweeten with molasses.
[An American Agricultural Journal, 1844]

Delicious Fruit Pudding.
Mix two and a half pounds of red currants and raspberries with one and a quarter pound of raw sugar, then fill a pudding-dish with sliced bread (without crust), and layers of the fruit alternately, leaving a thick layer of the fruit at the top. Bake it in the bachelor's oven for nearly an hour before it is served, and serve it in the same dish, which may be improved in appearance by a knitted cover tied over the edges.
[The English cookery book, receipts collected by a committee of ladies, 1859]

Still vaguely attached to today’s theme, we have had in the past a Busy Bachelor’s Marble Cake, Old Maid Pie, and a sixteenth century recipe for ‘A Tart to provoke courage in a man or a woman’ (‘courage’, in this case, being an old word for lust.)

Have Fun.

Monday’s Story …

Nutmeg Dreaming.

Quotation for the Day …

An American Monkey after getting drunk on Brandy would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men. Charles Darwin.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

On Foie Gras.

February 28 ...

On this day in 1784, a patent was granted to Jean-Joseph Clausse, chef to the Governor of Alsace, for his paté de foie gras, and Strasbourg has been the centre of the foie gras industry ever since.

I am not going to weigh in here on the ethics of foie gras production: I have read all of the arguments for and against, and I simply do not know if the geese and ducks find the force-feeding by gavage unpleasant or not. If they do not find it unpleasant, I do not know if it is true that this is because they don’t have a gag reflex like most other animals. I believe that the legal definition for foie gras in France requires that the birds be fed this way, but that it is not necessarily required elsewhere. I do not know if the difference in the end-product is identifiably different in taste or texture between gavaged birds and birds fed in other ways. I do suspect that the life of these geese and ducks is no more unpleasant than life in a factory-farm (“chook battery” we call them here in Australia) for chickens. I do admit to having eaten it and found it absolutely delicious.

That the history of foie gras production is ancient is not in doubt. The Ancient Egyptians forcibly fattened birds for the table, and the Romans are said to have enjoyed the livers of birds fattened on figs. For centuries before it became the symbol par excellence of unethical eating, it was the symbol of absolute luxury, and who better to give us an example of the thoroughly gilded culinary lily than Alexis Soyer - the man who “ortolanned a truffle” and invented “the hundred guinea dish” as easily as he fed the poor in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century. The following recipe is from his book The Gastronomic Regenerator: A Simplified and Entirely New System of Cookery (1847) – but if this is “simplifed” cookery, I don’t know what complicated is.

Filets de Poulet a la Strasbourgienne.
Roast two large fowls in vegetables, and when cold take out the fillets, and with a thin knife divide each fillet in halves, to form two out of one, then pound two ounces of
foie gras de Strasbourg (a small tureen of which can be purchased at any respectable Italian warehouse in London) in a mortar, and rub it through a hair sieve, put a spoonful of chopped onions in a stewpan with half a pat of butter, stir them a few minutes over the fire, then add half a pint, of white sauce, reduce till rather thick, add the foie gras, and when ready to boil take it off" the fire and stir in the yolks of two eggs very quickly, leave it to get cold, then spread it over the fillets the eighth of an inch in thickness, have three eggs in a basin well-beaten, take each fillet on a fork, dip them into the eggs, throw them in a dish of bread-crumbs, take them out, pat them gently with a knife and repeat the operation, have four pounds of hot lard in a
stewpan, in which fry them a light brown colour, dress in crown on a small border of mashed potatoes, and serve with fried water-cresses in the centre quite dry, with a little gravy separate.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Bachelor Cooking.

Quotation for the Day …

You pay its weight in gold for it, then in most cases you put it to some paltry use. You smear it with foie gras, you bury it in poultry overloaded with fat, you chop it up and drown it in brown sauce, you mix it with vegetables covered in mayonnaise.....To hell with thin slices, strips, trimmings, and peelings of truffles! Is it not possible to like them for themselves?. Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954)

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Whetting the Appetite.

February 27 ...

There is not much that is new under the sun, after all, is there? And I don’t mean in terms of technological ideas. The vague (or not so vague) unease or fear about Pleasure and an ‘unnatural appletite’ for eating has been around for a long time. A Mr. John Norris who wrote A Practical Treatise Concerning Humility in 1707 may have been a worthy Christian gentleman, but he had a killjoy attitude to food, if the following paragraph is any indication:

“Pleasure is the thing proposed, and because there can be none without some Appetite, new ways are invented and contrived to make an Artificial one, when that which is Natural is either wanting or satisfied. They must have whets before they Eat, and lest that should not do, they muft have the most studied and exquisite sauces when they eat, and if by the help of both thefe they fhould happen to eat too much, then they must have proper stomach Liquors to carry it off, and to create a new Appetite. So that Mens Lives seem to be a continued Circulation of Eating and preparing to Eat; and the great intention of Cookery is to make Men Eat who have no mind to Eat, and to Eat on after the natural and reasonable ends of Eating are serv'd.”

I don’t see what is wrong with Life being a continued Circulation of Eating and Preparing to Eat, do you? Sounds like a summary of my own life.

Some words do fall by the wayside as time progresses however. We don’t use the word ‘whets’ much anymore to describe things we use to whet our appetite before a meal. The word comes from the word “whetting”, to mean “an act of sharpening” (on a whetstone), and of course originally referred to the sharpening of a blade. When it was first used in respect of sharpening the appetite, it meant a drink, but somewhere along the way it became attached to little food items, and further along the way it got displaced by hors d’oeuvre, appetiser, savouries, amuse-bouche, etc.

In medieval times, cooks-who-would-be-artists and sculptors made huge constructions resembling figures of saints, castles, mythical animals, etc out of “food”. Sometimes they even had moving parts, made noises and did such things as produce fountains of wine. These were called “subtelties” and were the original “entrements” (“between the courses”) which functioned as entertainment and as statements of power or propaganda to impress or awe the guests at a feast. They knew how to have fun with food in the Middle Ages.

“Whets” or little appetisers are an opportunity for the smaller-scale modern cook to have artistic fun with food, and a little English book called, most appropriately Artistic Savouries (undated but probably late 1930’s) has some hilarious ideas. If you feel like deveopling your bread-carving expertise you can make appetisers in the form of little tea-cups (how could I resist Mock Tea Cups). The book also has such delights as appetisers in the style of Window boxes, Washing Tubs, Mock Ears of Corn, Cigarettes, Mock Radishes, flowers, pipes and all sorts of other lovely mini-sculptures suitable for those who want to play with their food before they serve and eat it.

Tasses à Thé Fausse.
(Mock Cups of Tea)
Plain light pastry.
A little white of egg and beetroot colouring.
Shrimps.
½ oz. Shippam's anchovy paste.
1 tablespoonful white sauce without salt.
1 small teaspoonful of cream.
½ teaspoonful caramel.
Cut some shapes of stale bread to represent tiny tea-cups and cover with pastry. Pinch one side to form a handle, make a slit in the opposite side and fold over, having brushed the overlap with white of egg, press well into the little shape and prick all over with a small fork. Bake in a quick oven and having carefully removed the bread, brush edges and handles with white of egg, to which has been added colouring. Having made the saucers by covering little rounds of bread with pastry, brush the edges of these with the colouring. Now place a little anchovy in the centre of each saucer and set a cup on each. Three parts fill the cups with shrimps and having mixed the anchovy sauce, caramel and cream, pour a little over each cup of shrimps.
Serve cold garnished with mustard and cress, or parsley.

Radises Fausse
(Mock Radishes)
Plain pastry.
¼ Ib. minced ham.
1 oz. oiled butter.
1 oz. white bread-crumbs.
1 egg.
Beetroot colouring.
Mint or watercress.
Mix together the ham, butter, crumbs and enough egg to make a smooth paste, then roll into shapes to represent small radishes, cover with pastry and bake. Add beetroot colouring to a small portion white of egg and brush over each little shape, replace in the oven to dry and if not the desired shade repeat the process. Make a small opening in the larger end of each and insert a tiny branch of watercress or mint.
Serve hot or cold.

Tomorrow’s Story …

On Foie Gras.

Quotation for the Day …

The true gourmet, like the true artist, is one of the unhappiest creatures existent. His trouble comes from so seldom finding what he constantly seeks: perfection. Ludwig Bemelmans.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Succulent Esculents.

February 26 ...

Yesterday’s wonderful source – the Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum (1715) was so happy to be discovered that it has donated several stories. I wasn’t sure why one seemingly ordinary definition – “Esculents: Plants for Food; as Chokes, Carrets, Turneps etc.” - caught my eye initially, but it had something to do with the idea of esculents sounding succulent, and that phrase sounding catchy. I had no doubt that the words had a similar origin, but it turns out that I was wrong. Both are from the Latin: succulent (from succulentus) meaning “full of juice”, but esculent comes from esca (food), and means “suitable for food”.

I have sadly neglected the carrot up to now. It has been a much esteemed vegetable for many centuries, and at its best should certainly be a succulent form of esculent. It originated in what is now Afghanistan, was prized by the Ancient Romans, and was well known in Europe and England by the Middle Ages. By 1533 the English diplomat Thomas Elyot noted in his book The Castel of Helthe, that “Parsnepes and carettes ... do nourishe with better iuyce [juice] than the other rootes”. According to the Doctrine of Humours (the prevailing medical doctrine of the day) this meant that as a “moist” vegetable they would be very suitable for those of dry “complexion” or temperament, or those suffering from diseases characterised by dry humours. Aside from its caloric and medicinal value, the carrot was also prized for its inherent sweetness, as sugar was still far too expensive for profligate use in medieval times. The sweetness came in handy again four hundred years later during both World Wars when sugar was rationed in the U.K, and carrots (which were home grown and therefore in good supply) were made into jam and put into puddings, pies, and cakes.

Early carrot varieties were white, yellow, red, purple, or black. The orange colour that we now know, which was probably the one familiar to Thomas Elyot, came about as a result of intensive horticulture on the part of the Dutch. We have orange carrots today thanks to a deliberate decision to breed a national vegetable in the patriotic colour of the House of Orange during the fifteenth century.

Perhaps we can best pay homage to the humble carrot by skipping through the centuries, sampling as we go.

Here is how to cook carrots Ancient Roman style, from the Vehling translation of the cookbook of Apicius. Authenticity would demand white or purple carrots, as these were the only ones the Romans knew. These colours are being revived again as “heirloom carrots” if you can find an artisan grower, but in the meantime I am sure you will get the idea with “modern” orange varieties.

Carrotæ et Pastinacæ
The carrots [are] boiled [and] sliced, stewed with cumin and a little oil and are served. At the same time [here is your opportunity] make a cumin sauce [from the carrot juice] for those who have the colic.

If sixteenth century German carrots are more your fancy, and you like some meat with your vegetables, try this recipe from Ein New Kochbuch (1581), by Marx Rumpolt.

Yellow Roots
[could be carrots, parsnips or turnips]
Take yellow roots that are large/ hollow them out/ and take cooked veal that is fine roasted/ chop it with beef fat/ and with bacon/ put many eggyolks thereunder/ and little black raisins/ yellow it/ and fill the yellow roots therewith/ block the opening so that the filling does not climb out/ cook it with a beefbroth/ or brown it in hot butter and when you have browned them / so cook them in beef broth. Make it yellow though/ that it is not brown/ chop green welltasting herbs thereunder/ with whole pepper and whole nutmeg blossom. You may season the filling with garlic or onions/ so it is good and welltasting.

Finally, a sweet pudding from the eighteenth century, from a book with one of my favourite titles: Adam’s luxury, and Eve’s cookery; or, the kitchen-garden display’d (1744). It is actually a pie (or tart), and clearly demonstrates the shared heritage of Pumpkin Pie.

To Make Carrot Puddings.
Scrape your Carrots clean, and grate them; to half a pound of Carrots put a Pound of grated Bread, a Nutmeg, a little Cinnamon, Salt, half a Pound of Sugar, half a Pint of Sack [sherry], eight Eggs, a Pound of melted Butter, as much Cream as will mix it together; stir it and beat it up well, then sheet a Dish with Puff Paste and send it to the Oven.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Whetting the Appetite.

Quotation for the Day …

I never worry about diets. The only carrots that interest me are the number you get in a diamond. Mae West.

Monday, February 25, 2008

The Upper Crust.

February 25 ...

Some weeks I am acutely aware of the lack of servants in my household. You know the sort of weeks I mean. The lack really hits home when I come across detailed job descriptions for the ‘divers servants’ that one might have had scampering around one’s household in previous times.

I wont start with the lack of a lady’s maid or chamber maid in my household, this being a food-oriented blog and all, but I will say that it is completely without kitchen staff of any description. Not only no cook, undercook, or baker, but no jack-boy (to keep the roasting spit turning evenly), no panterer (hence the disorderly, even if plenteous pantry), and not one single scullery maid. My dinner guests have no footman to help them alight from their vehicles or divest them of their brollies when they arrive, nor do they receive the services of the ewerer (who, in a better serviced household, would supply them with hand-washing water at tableside). The sad litany of absent servants includes a steward, several ushers and a skilled carver of every manner of bird and beast. To mention only a few.

Because of this dearth of good help, I myself am forced to function both as cook and sewer (not a needlewoman but “an attendant at a meal who superintended the arrangement of the table, the seating of the guests, and the tasting and serving of the dishes”), despite being the wrong gender entirely. It is not all bad however, as technically I do have a butler - in the old-fashioned sense of the word as “one who has charge of the wine-cellar and dispenses the wine cellar”. The Old Foodie Spouse fulfils this role admirably and with enthusiasm, although is resistant at times to my attempts to include regular rubbish removal as part of his job description.

Imagine my frustration when I discovered recently another servant missing from my household (will it never end?) – one of whose existence I was entirely ignorant until a recent quest on another issue took me into the depths of the Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum, published by ‘John Kersey, Philobibl.’ in 1715. I do not have an anaetta. That is, I lack a servant whose specific role it is to gather up the Scraps after Dinner. Mr. Kersey’s book is of words that were already obsolete, or at least rare, by his time, so I suppose that at least three centuries of households have struggled along since then without such help, so I should not complain.

Scraps do have to be gathered up however, and no household scraps have received more attention than bread. It is not suprising - given that bread is the staff of life nutritionally and symbolically - that wasting it has been considered shocking – almost an immoral act – throughout most of history. (Wonder Bread and the like does not count).

The anaetta is a bit of a mystery – I can find no other reference to the job, so please, if you have any information on the whereabouts or whatabouts, do tell. I am sure however that the scrap-gatherer stayed close to the bread-chipper (another defunct occupation). This person had a special “chypynnge knife” which he used to chip off the very hard crust from the bread – a result of the fiercely hot wood-fired bakers’ ovens of the time. The bottom crust was particularly dense and hard from direct contact with the oven floor, so naturally the upper crust was most desirable - so desirable in fact that it was offered first to the most worthy. A carving manual published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1513 (Boke of Keruinge) specifically indicated that the person charged with the highly important job of cutting the bread “pare ye lofe rounde about; then cut the ouer-cruste to your souerayne (sovereign) …”

Long after the disappearance of the bread-chipper and scrap-gatherer, bread was not to be wasted and crumbs were still to be gathered up. The great Victorian pastime of charitable cookery for the poor provided a great way to use up these “rich mans superfluities”, and a little book called The English cookery book, receipts collected by a committee of ladies (1859) gave some useful ideas.

Crumb Pudding.
Serve all the crumbs left upon the cloth during the week, add to these any waste pieces of bread. Put them in a basin with two ounces of treacle mixed up with them. Soak them in enough water to make them swell. Then tie them in a cloth in the usual way, and boil half an hour. Hundreds of poor children would be glad of such a pudding.

A Sopped Toast.
A very good meal may be thus easily made: Cut a very thick upper crust of bread, and put it in the pot where salt beef is boiling and nearly ready; it will attract some of the fat, and, swelled out, will be no unpalatable dish to those who rarely taste meat.

Today, it is hard to imagine even the most frugal housewife saving the table-cloth crumbs, and in medieval times the upper crust of bread would, as we have seen, not be given to the poor. It is often assumed that the tradition described by Wynkyn de Worde of the upper crust being the right of the king or sovereign led to the use of “upper crust” to describe the servant-owning class, but in fact the phrase did not come into use in that way until the nineteenth century – and probably referred to the upper crust of a pie. But that’s another story.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Succulent Esculents.

Quotation for the Day …

Deliberation, n. The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. Ambrose Bierce

Saturday, February 23, 2008

More Retro Cakes.

If you have enjoyed the week's Retro Cakes, you will love the offerings at the new treats I have discovered over at Kitchen Retro. Lidian gives us delights such as Calcutta Curry Cake (1966)and Lady Goldenglow Cake (1933). Do add them to your baking collection.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Cake Day No.5

February 22

‘Sauerkraut Cake’ sounds like some sort of sick joke, but it is very real indeed. It came about in the 1960’s as a result of the USDA Surplus Committee’s request (specifically to school lunchroom managers) for ideas to use up a large quantity of stockpiled canned sauerkraut. You have to admit - to think of cake in the same context as fermented cabbage would take a particular type of mind. The honor apparently went to Mrs. Geraldine Timms, supervisor of the lunchroom at Waller High School in Chicago. There is not much variation between the versions in the newspapers of the time. Here is one of them:

Sauerkraut Cake.
2 ¼ cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsweetened cocoa
⅔ cup butter
1 ½ cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup water
2/3 cup rinsed, drained, and chopped sauerkraut.
Grease and flour two 8 inch round cake pans.
On wax paper sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cocoa.
In a large mixing bowl cream butter and sugar. Thoroughly beat in eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients in 4 additions, alternately with water, until smooth each time; begin and end with dry ingredients. Stir in sauerkraut. Turn into prepared pans.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree F (180 C) oven until cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean – 30 minutes. Place on wire rack to cool completelty. Fill and frost with Mocha Whipped Cream. Store in refrigerator.

I guess that recipe just goes to prove that everything is better with chocolate!

By the 1970’s, a cake with beetroot sounded quite tame. There were many variations on this theme - many with chocolate, but this one brave enough to not include the brown wonder food, but amazingly brave enough to include cottage cheese.

Beet Cake.
1 cup oil
½ cup margarine
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 ½ cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup drained crushed pineapple
1 cup diced harvard beets, undrained
¼ cup cottage cheese
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup coconut
2 teaspoons vanilla
Melt together oil and margarine. Beat eggs and sugar, add oil. Mix and beat well. Add flour, cinnamon, soda, baking powder and salt which has been sifted together. Fold in pineapple, beets, cottage cheese, walnuts, coconut and vanilla. Bake in a greased and floured 9 x 13 inch pan at 350 degrees F (180 C) until cake tests done, about 45 to 50 minutes. Frost with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting.
1 package (3 ounces) cream cheese, softened.
¼ cup margarine
2 cups powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts.
Combine all ingredients, blend well.

P.S. Tomato soup cake is HERE.

P.P.S There are many more recipes, cakes and otherwise, in the Recipe Archive.

Monday’s Story ...

A Slave for Leftovers.

Quotation for the Day ...

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup. H.L. Mencken

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Cake Day No.4

February 21 ...

Next week we might meander back in time a few centuries, but during cake week we are staying in close to chronological home.

Two cakes purely for fun today – one very quick, the other strictly for professionals or gifted amateurs with delusions of sculpting skill.

The first one s as wacky as its name – at least method-wise. It appeared in the 1950’s, and the Oklahoma newspaper that gave the following recipe credited the Canadians with its invention. It could certainly be an idea for anyone who is afraid to ‘bake’ but no afraid to mix and pour.

Wacky Cake
1 ½ cups flour
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
5 tablespoons melted shortening
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 cup lukewarm water.
Sift dry ingredients together in a buttered cake pan and make three depressions in the sifted material. In one hole, put the melted shortening; in a second, the vanilla, in the third, the vinegar. Pour the lukewarm water over, and stir all well. Bake 30 mins at 350 degrees F [180 degrees C]
[The Daily Oklahoman, October 1954]

The second one is a rogue migrant for the week on two counts. It hails from England, not America (or Canada), and it is older than our other cakes this week, as it comes from the end of the nineteenth century.

Cake in Imitation of a Haunch of Lamb (a la Soyer)
A dish of this character is of no extraordinary value, even as an eccentricity. Put the yolks of thirty-six eggs in a basin with 3lb. of caster sugar, stand the basin in another one containing hot water, and whisk the eggs till rather thick and warm, then take the basin out of the water, and continue whisking them till cold. Beat the whites of the thirty-six eggs and mix them with the yolks, then sift in gradually 3lb. of the best white flour and the finely-chopped peel of two lemons, stirring it lightly at the same time with a wooden spoon. When quite smooth, turn the batter into a very long mould and bake it. When cooked, take it out of the oven and leave till cold. If not convenient to use so large a mould, the Cake can be baked in two separate portions, and afterwards joined together with icing. When cold, trim the Cake with a sharp knife into the shape of a haunch of lamb. Make a hollow in the interior of the Cake, but fill it up again with the pieces, to keep it in shape. Colour some icing to a light gold with a small quantity of melted chocolate and cochineal, and coat the Cake over with it, and leave it till dry. Make sufficient strawberry or vanilla ice to fill the interior of the Cake. Form the knuckle-bone of the lamb with office-paste; moisten the interior with brandy and preserved strawberry-juice, then fill it with the ice. Put the haunch on to a dish, fix a paper frill round the knuckle-bone, and glaze it over with a mixture of apricot marmalade and currant jelly. Melt a small quantity of red-currant jelly with some red wine, pour it round the haunch, to imitate gravy, and serve.
[Garrett, Theodore. The Encyclopaedia of Practical Cookery. London, 1895]

Tomorrow’s Story ...

Cake Day No. 5

Quotation for the Day …

Baking is just like driving a car; you can read every manual you can get your hands on, but until you get in and do it, you won't really learn how. Marion Cunningham.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Cake Day No.3

February 20

Today we have sweet on sweet – if cake is not enough, and candy is not enough –have both!

The Gumdrop Cake seems to have burst onto the culinary scene in America and Canada in the 1940’s, and was promoted as a novel alternative to traditional Christmas Cake. This version is from the Lilly Wallace New American Cook Book of 1946.

Gumdrop Cake.
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 ¼ cups flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup milk
¾ cup raisins
1 pound gumdrops, black ones removed, chopped finely.
Cream butter, while adding sugar and beaten eggs. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together over chopped candy and raisins. Dredge well. Add vanilla to milk and add flour mixture and milk, to first mixture alternately. Bake in a large greased loaf tin in a slow oven (275 to 300 degrees F) [140-150 degrees C] 1 ½ hours.

Several other versions of the recipe suggest that scissors be used to cut up the gumdrops, which sounds like a fine idea. Removing the black gumdrops sounds like a silly idea. Using unsnipped jelly-babies sounds …. vaguely cannibalistic. Using your imagination … will, I am sure, make you can come up with some fun variations on this theme.

From the same source as the above recipe, for the peppermint fans:

Peppermint Stick Candy Layer Cake.
2 ⅔ cup flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup shortening
1 ½ cups sugar
1 ¼ cups milk
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg whites
½ cup finely ground peppermint stick candy
½ cup coarsely ground peppermint stick candy
Sift flour and measure. Sift again with baking powder and salt. Cream shortening. Continue creaming, gradually adding ⁴/₅cup sugar and 3 tablespoons milk. Add egg yolk and vanilla to remaining milk. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with milk to creamed mixture. Beat egg whites stiff but not dry. Beat in remaining sugar. Fold into cake batter. Pour into 2 9-inch layer pans with wax paper in bottom. Sprinkle with the finely ground peppermint candy. Bake in a moderately hot oven (375 degrees F)[190 degrees C]. Ice with seven minute icing coloured pink. Sprinkle coarsely ground peppermint candy over the top.

Seven Minute Frosting.
2 ¼ cups sugar
1 ½ tablespoons white corn syrup
7 ½ tablespoons water
3 egg whites
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
Combine all ingredients, except vanilla, in top of double boiler and mix well. Cook over boiling water 3 minutes. Remove from fire but leave over hot water and beat with a rotary beater 7 minutess, or until of consistency to spread. Add vanilla and blend well.

Tomorrow’s Story ...

Cake Day No.4

Quotation for the Day ...

It is the destiny of mint to be crushed. Waverley Root.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Cake Day No. 2

February 19

Today we have two variations on a theme of multi-coloured cakes.

From yesterday’s source: Cakes, Cookies, and Confections, a little gem from the California Home Economics Association in 1920, a tri-color cake requiring some artful arranging of the batter in the pan – or a more simple marbling technique if you are not up to too much construction work.

Mosaic Cake.
1 c. sugar, ½ c. fat, 1 ¾ c. flour, 2 eggs, ¾ c.milk, 1 ½ tsp. baking powder.
1 tbsp. molasses, 1 tbsp. melted, unsweetened chocolate, ¼ tsp. cinnamon, ¼ tsp. nutmeg, ¼ tsp. allspice, ½ tsp. salt.
Pink coloring and rose flavoring, vanilla
Mix first six ingredients together according to cake method number one.* Separate into three parts. To one add spices, molasses, and melted chocolate. To the second add pink coloring and rose flavouring. To the third add ½ tsp. vanilla.
Into a round cake pan put an outer ring of the white, then a ring of pink, and the innermost ring of the black. On top of that put three more rings, reversing the order and so on till all the batter is used. This makes Mosaic Cake.
For a marbled effect drop into a loaf cake pan alternately a spoonful of each mixture, drawing the spoon through each color two or three times to make the colors lie in patterns.
Bake in a moderate oven about ¾ hour.

[* cream fat and sugar, add yolks well beaten, mix and sift dry ingredients and add alternately with the liquid, fold in beaten whites.]

The next recipe appeared in a California newspaper in 1957. I chose it for three reasons. Firstly, the name. This is no ordinary Marble Cake, this is a Busy Bachelor’s Marble Cake, so it is quite special. Secondly, it includes as an ingredient called ‘black walnut flavoring’ - which I don’t believe I have ever come across before - although but no doubt it is very familiar to those of you in California. Thirdly, the marbling effect is not produced by the two-colours of cake-batter method, but by a cocoa-streaking method, which sounds like it would result in a much finer marble veining effect. If only I could get some black walnut flavour, I could try it.

Busy Bachelor’s Marble Cake.
2 cups sifted flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
½ tblsp. shortening
½ cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
¼ tsp. black walnut flavoring
2 unbeaten eggs
¾ cuos nut meats (walnuts) finely chopped.
¼ cup cocoa
¼ cup cold milk plus one tblsp.
Have shortening at room temperature. Line bottom of 10x5x3 [inch] loaf pan with paper. Preheat oven for 350 degrees [Fahrenheit, or 180 Celcius]. Sift flour once before measuring. Stir shortening to soften, then stir in flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
Add the ½ cup milk and beat 2 minutes. Add vanill and black walnut flavoring. Add unbeaten eggs and beat one minute. Add the chopped nut meats.
Mix the cocoa with the cold milk.
Gently stir cocoa, cold milk mixture into batter. This mixing method produces a marble cake with streaks of light milk to dark bitter sweet.
Bake one hour or until cake is done.

Tomorrow’s Story ...

Cake Day No.3

Quotation for the Day ...

How come when you mix water and flour together you get glue ... and then you add eggs and sugar and you get cake? Where does the glue go? Rita Rudner.

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Week o’Cakes: Day 1.

February 18

I have declared this a Week of Cakes, because I know that most of you, really, truly , prefer recipes for cake over recipes for the likes of medieval Boar’s Head, Victorian Soup for the Poor and Pie of Lamb Stones. Each day I will give you two recipes, with very little in the way of commentary, as (a) it is hardly necessary – a cake is a cake, and there is very little more that has to be said about them, and (b) I am time-pressured at present, so perhaps I can save some (where, actually, does one save Time to?)

If you try one of these Retro Cakes, do please let us all know how they turn out.

When I started making my selections, it became obvious very quickly that America became the new Land of Cakes (sorry, Scotland) in the first half of the twentieth century. The women’s pages of newspapers almost every week seemed to report some exciting new cake that was taking luncheon parties by storm. Some of them will make an appearance here this week.

Firstly, a simple little gem from Cakes, Cookies, and Confections, a little gem from the California Home Economics Association in 1920.

Hot Lemonade Cake.
1 ½ c. sugar
6 eggs
rind of 1 lemon
¼ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp.bitter almond flavoring
½ c. almonds or walnuts, ground fine.
¼ tsp cinnamon
1 ½ c. sifted bread crumbs.
Beat yolks, add sugar gradually: bread crumbs, baking powder, grated lemon rind and flavoring. Fold the whites in last. Bake in a square pan in a slow oven one hour. When cake is removed from pan, pour over it one cup of very strong boiling lemonade*.

*Presumably in the 1920’s home-made lemonade was intended, not the commercial lemon-less fizzy stuff that goes by that name today. So as not to spoil your cake, here is a very useful recipe.

Lemon Syrup, for making lemonade on desert or mountain, or wherever you are, “fifty miles from a lemon”.
Three cups lemon juice, strained; juice of six oranges. Put into saucepan on stove; when boiling add two cups sugar, let it boil about five minutes, taking off any scum which may arise; pour while hot into screw-top bottles. It can be made entirely of lemon juice if desired. Put some in a glass of water and add sugar to suit the taste, as it is not very sweet. One can make a variety by adding a little strawberry or loganberry preserve juice when using the lemonade, or it can be put in while the syrup is cooling.

From an Ohio newspaper in 1928 comes this interesting and very adaptable idea.

Blackberry [Jam] Cake.
Cream two-thirds of a cupful of butter, add one and one half cupfuls of sugar, the yolks of four eggs and two thirds of a cupful of buttermilk to which a teaspoonful of soda has been added. Add two and one half cupfuls of flour, a teaspoonful each of cinnamon, cloves and allspice, beat well, add one cupful of blackberry jelly or jam, then fold in the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs and bake in layers.

I rather think it might be good with marmalade.

Tomorrow’s Story ...

Cake Day No. 2

Quotation for the Day ...

We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons. Alfred E. Newman.

Friday, February 15, 2008

All in a Stew.

February 15

“I would like to find a stew that will give me heartburn immediately, instead of at three o clock in the morning.” These are the words of John Barrymore, the actor (Drew’s grandad), whose birthday it was on this day in 1882.

I don’t know what John Barrymore’s medical problems were, or who cooked for him, but there should be nothing stressful to the gastro-intestinal system about a stew. The word ‘stew’ does have a slightly less than classy ring to it however – compared with the same dish cooked in the oven, which we call a casserole. A casserole you can give to guests, a stew you give to family on a weeknight. A stew/casserole for guests is even more impressive if you call it a fricasée or a daube or a pot-au-feu or some other snobby Frenchified name. A stew by any other name tastes quite different, does it not?

A stew should be savoury, but the word has an unsavoury connotation because it is also an old word for a brothel – presumably because the hot, steamy bathhouses of old were where all that sort of action took place. Perhaps this is why a ‘stew’ seems an unglamorous dish?

The connection of the idea of “stew” with the Irish is longstanding. I don’t know when the quintessential stew became “Irish”, but it predates the potato famine of the 1840’s, as the following recipe(s) from Eliza Melroe’s An economical, and new method of cookery; describing upwards of eighty cheap, wholesome, and nourishing dishes (1798) show.

1^st Irish Stew.

Take fat mutton chops, any quantity, for example, two pounds, potatoes, from four to six pounds, washed and scraped: onions or leeks, a proportionate quantity; pepper and salt, a sufficiency; stew the above with a small quantity of water, for an hour and a half in a vessel close covered.

NOTE.- It makes a very cheap, wholesome, nourishing dish, which, I hope, every family will be acquainted with, and this intimation rendered unnecessary. – On the same principle, legs of beef, ox-cheek, or the fat, sinewy parts of meat may be cooked, but lean meat will not be too tastey, or nutritious, for reasons already given in the course of this work. – Rice may be used instead of potatoes.

2^nd. Take of gravy beef, one pound, Scotch barley, one pound, potatoes, two pounds, onions, one pound, pepper and salt, a sufficient quantity, bacon, three ounces. – the produce will be four quarts of soup, and will dine and sup three working men.

3^rd. A sheep’s head; barley, one pound and a half, potatoes, three pounds, onions, half a pound: pepper and salt, a sufficient quantity; with cabbages, turnips, and carrots, and eleven pints of water; it will produce six quarts of soup; sufficient to dine and sup four men.

Eliza goes on to give several more variations, with the final reminder (the italics are hers):

If any fat appears on the top of any of the above stews, it should not be skimmed off, but should be united with the broth by means of flour, oatmeal, or potatoe starch, when probably more water will be necessary, which will of course increase the quantity, leaving it equally as strong tasted, for reasons already given in many other parts of this work.

Monday’s Story …

The Week o’Cakes, Day 1.

Quotation for the Day …

Talk of joy: there may be things better than beef stew and baked potatoes and home-made bread -- there may be. David Grayson. Adventures in Contentment, 1907

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Raisins of all sorts.

February 14

An article in the Scientific American on this day in 1852 set me off on a few thinking tangents.

Skins of Raisins.
We see it stated in some papers, that Dr Devees, of Boston, has said that raisin skins are indigestible, and that nothing but the stomach of an ostrich can master them. He mentions the deaths of three children, caused by skins of raisins not digesting in their stomachs. Well, Dr. Devees, what about their digestibility when cooked? Raisins are fruit, which from time immemorial, have been used as a nourishing and healthy food by all Orientals.

I was glad to see the silly Dr Deeves taken to task so promptly. I would have asked him if there was the same risk with currants and sultanas, just to see how he responded. They are all dried grapes, after all. ‘Raisins’ were once specifically called “raisins of the sun”, to indicate that it was the dried variety of grape that was meant. "Raisins of Corinth" were from a small variety of grape, and ‘Corinth’ eventually became corrupted to ‘Currants’, sultanas are from Sultana grapes, and muscatels from the Muscat grape. It is quite OK to substitute freely. A Raisin cake will be fine if you use sultanas or currants. I promise.

Today’s recipes are below.

Today’s sermon is below the recipes. Just letting you know so you can skip it if you wish.

The recipes are (1) a fifteenth century version of little mincemeat pies – with veal, pork, eggs, spices and dried fruits (including of course raisins), baked in pastry ‘coffins’, (2) and a nineteenth century sweet, fruity ‘baba’, because I have been neglecting one of my favourite sources lately – the incredibly comprehensive Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery.

Chawettys.
Take buttys of Vele, and mynce hem smal, or Porke, and put on a potte; take Wyne, and caste ther-to pouder of Gyngere, Pepir, and Safroun, and Salt, and a lytel verous [verjus], and do hem in a cofyn with yolks of Eyroun [eggs], and kutte Datys and Roysonys of Coraunce, Clowys, Maces, and then ceuere thin cofyn, and lat it bake tyl it be y-now [enough].

Baba with Raisins.
Mix half an ounce of German yeast and four ounces of sifted flour with warm water to a soft dough, and put it near the fire to rise. Rub twelve ounces of butter into twelve ounces of flour, work it into a smooth paste with eight well-beaten eggs, one ounce of pounded sugar, and a little salt. When the paste is ready and the sponge sufficiently risen, blend them well together and mix in two ounces of finely-minced candied citron-peel, two ounces of well-dried currants, and three ounces of stoned raisins. Butter a mould fill it about half full, and allow it to rise until it is nearly at the top, when it may be baked at once in a moderate oven. Time to bake, one hour and a half.

We live in an era when it seems that fewer and fewer of us cook less and less. There are many reasons quoted – but two of the commonly given reasons do not strike very true, really, when you think about it.

One is that we have “no time”. But legally we have a mere five eight hour days in which to earn our living. And we have labour-saving gadgets to take the work out of kitchen chores such as chopping and kneading and. And we buy our raisins pre-stoned. And in any case the “time” of rising of yeast dough is not our time - we can watch a lot of U-Tubes while the Baba dough does its silent thing.

The other “reason” (excuse, I call it) is that we have lost our skills (because our mothers didn’t cook, and maybe even our grandmothers, and it is always the mummy’s fault anyway). If this is true, it is also true that now have cookbooks with easy-to-follow, accurate instructions - none of this “take some wine and cast some spices thereto”, and “cook it till it be enough”. AND our ovens have temperature regulators. AND they have timers. AND we no longer believe that raisins kill little children. Progress seems to have offered a few pretty reasonable trade-offs to me.

We should quit whingeing and have more home-made fresh buttery Babas in our lives. Sweet yeast dough is pretty forgiving stuff.

Tomorrow’s Story …

All in a stew.

Quotation for the Day …

The past is always a rebuke to the present. Robert Penn Warren

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Time for parents.

February 13

Were we living in Ancient Rome, today we would be preparing for Parentalia, the religious festival in honour of the dead – specifically the deceased from one’s own family. The festival lasted nine days, and during this time, families would make offerings of food - grain, bread, wine, salt etc – as well as flowers (especially violets and roses) at the tombs of their ancestors.

We have no such national festival today, at least in our modern Western culture. We do sometimes honour our ancestors however, (at least, our female ones) in quite a different way. If we are lucky, we have tatty old handwritten notebooks containing their family-famous recipes – and if we are very lucky indeed, their names live on in the recipe titles. Perhaps you are the proud guardian of of Aunt Gertrude’s famous Braised Okra with Rhubarb recipe, or Cousin Aggie’s Deep Fried Banana Muffins?

I would like to think that we might all consider cooking one of these family recipes, in our own private Parentalia week. If you do not have a scruffy, stained, hand-me-down cookbook, then do not let your descendants feel the loss – start one yourself immediately. In the meanwhile, feel free to adopt the following more generic “family” recipes, taken from various sources.

We have previously enjoyed “Mum’s Delight” from The Calendar of Puddings, by the Country Women’s Association of South Australia (undated but late 1950’s?), and from the same source I give you:

Auntie’s Pudding.
Rub one tablespoon butter into 1 cup S.R. flour and ½ cup sugar. Make into a soft dough with one beaten egg and ½ cup milk. Bake in a moderate oven, in greased piedish, about 40 minutes. This is nice with apples, jam, or treacle underneath.

The amazing Eliza Acton gives us, in her Modern Cookery for Private Families. 1845, the following:

The Good Daughter’s Mincemeat Pudding.
Author’s Receipt.
Lay into a rather deep tart-dish some thin slices of French roll, very slightly spread with butter and covered with a thick layer of mincemeat; place a second tier lightly on these, covered in the same way with the mincemeat; then pour gently in a custard made with three well-whisked eggs, three-quarters of a pint of new milk or thick cream, the slightest pinch of salt, and two ounces of sugar. Let the pudding stand to soak for an hour, then bake it gently until it is quite firm in the centre: this will be in from three-quarters of an hour to a full hour.

And finally, from Cassells’ Dictionary of Cookery (1870’s), here is:

Grandmama’s Pickle.
Take a sound white cabbage and a young cauliflower. Divide the latter into small sprigs, and cut the cabbage into thin shreds, in the same way as cabbage is cut for pickling. Spread them out on separate dishes, and cover them with salt. Let them remain forty-eight hours, then set the pieces of cauliflower on a sieve, and let them drain before the fire. Squeeze the salt from the cabbage with the hands, and put the cabbage and cauliflower in layers in pickle-bottles or jars. Boil as much vinegar as will amply cover them, allowing an inch of whole ginger, broken into pieces, half an ounce of mustard seed, and half an ounce of pepper, to every quart of vinegar. Let these ingredients boil together for two or three minutes, and when cold, pour them into the bottles. A tablespoonful of turmeric may be mixed with a little cold vinegar and added to the rest while boiling. Put the spices at the top of the pickles, and cover the jars closely. Fresh vinegar must be added when necessary.

Have fun.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Raisins of all sorts.

Quotation for the Day …

My family dumplings are sleek and seductive, yet stout and masculine. They taste of meat, yet of flour. They are wet, yet they are dry. They have weight, but they are light. Airy, yet substantial. Earth, air, fire, water; velvet and elastic! Meat, wheat and magic! They are our family glory! Robert Tristram Coffin (1892-1955)

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

RECIPE ARCHIVE.

I have decided to move the entire recipe archive from the Companion blog to its rightful place here. The reason for their location on the "other" site is historic (and related to my gross ignorance of blog-things when I started my little experiment). It might take me a little time to change all the links to this archive from various posts. The recipe archive up to October 2007 will stay on the Companion blog.

Recipes from posts to the end of OCTOBER 2007 have been added to the archive so far. It is the world's most boring job, so I have let it lapse. I will try to keep it up to date from now on.

Recipes are listed according type and date. There are now over 700 recipes here!!!

NEW recipes will be added to the bottom of each list, so if you haven't stopped by for a while, that's the place to look. Yes - in some ways an alphabetical list would be easier - but the old recipe names do not lend themselves to alphabetising that would make a great deal of sense today, and besides, it would be very time consuming.

A list of freely available Online Historic Cookbooks is also available to download as a pdf, from the link in the sidebar, if you are interested. If you would rather have the list in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, email me at theoldfoodieATfastmailDOTfm and I will send it to you.

RECIPES BY TYPE