A New Year’s Eve Collation, 1892.

Julius C. Hartmann provided a very fine collation at his Restaurant and Café in the Washington Building (No. 1 Broadway, New York) on New Year’s Eve in 1892. It seems that the following menu was his gift to some lucky (presumably very regular) patrons:

MENU

Pickled Oysters

-

Clear chicken broth en tasse

-

Kennebec salmon decoré, sauce ravigote à la Chas. Hellstern

-

Anchovies                   Caviar

Pàté de foie-gras  en gelée

-

Celery              Olives              Chow              Gherkins

-

Chicken           Lobster            Shrimp

Herring and Russian salads

-

Boned turkey in aspic en Bellevue

Boned capon in aspic en Bellevue

-

PIÈCE MONTÉ

Battle between an army of 500 quails and a chicken hawk

-

Stuffed wild boar’s head sur socle à la St. Hubert

-

Variety of cold joints

-

Roast turkey with celery mayonnaise

-

Fruit                Cakes

-

CHEESE: Port du Salut         Roquefort        Gruyère           Cheddar

-

CHAMPAGNE BOWL

As the recipe for the day I would love to have given you a recipe for the “battle between an army of 500 quails and a chicken hawk,” but alas, no such instructions were to be found.

Celery mayonnaise was a popular dish in the U.S.A in the 1890’s. The Williamsburg Journal Tribune of September 9, 1892 had this to say on the subject:

The use of celery on the table, coming as it does in the fall, after the long heat of summer, can not be too highly recommended, not only because of the delicious flavor of this vegetable, but because also of its admitted value as a nerve tonic. A well-made ice-cold celery mayonnaise is one of the most delicious salads we have when served either with game or with a dinner of poultry. It is a great mistake to allow celery to become wilted. After it has once wilted it never regains its pristine crispness and freshness. Celery should be put into a dark and cold place as soon as it is brought into the house. Absence of light is especially necessary to keep it crisp and firm. N.Y. Tribune.

It would seem that any dish which may help with “the nerves” might be particularly useful at this hectic time of year!

The following recipe for celery mayonnaise is particularly interesting as it suggests the flavour match with ducks which have fed on wild celery.

Celery Mayonnaise.

Pare off the green leaves of two bunches of celery, cut in short pieces, wash well, drain in a cloth, put in a salad bowl, and add a well-seasoned mayonnaise dressing. Mingle well, and serve with roast canvas-back duck. As wild celery is the food that gives such succulence to the flesh of canvas-back ducks killed in November and December on the Potomac and Susquehanna rivers, cultivated celery is the proper accompaniment of this dish.

Goshen Independent January 28, 1882

The Lumbermen's Bill of Fare.

The New York Times of November 4, 1882 carried an article which had appeared in the Bangor Whig (Maine) of a few days previously:

An interesting souvenir comes from the lumber woods of the North in the form of a communication written very legibly on a fine sheet of birch bark and incased in an envelope composed of the same material. The letter is dated Mattamiscontis, No. 2, Range 7, about 15 miles from any settlement, in a lumber camp where Mr John McGregor has a crew of men engaged in cutting wood for his factory. The writer gives some idea of how men live in a logging camp: “Our camp is built of rough logs of poplar laid up on the sides about 4 feet and running up to a pitch in the centre of about 10 feet. The roof is covered with cedar split 4 feet long and laid the same as shingles, making a very good covering though not very tight. The floor is made of poles laid on the ground. We have two stoves, on a large heater, three feet long, and the other a cooking stove. For sleeping apartments we have a berth made the length of the camp, which is 19½ feet, and accommodates 14 men. In front of this and on a range with the stoves is the ‘deacon seat’ of the same length as the camp. Our living consists of pork and beans, bread and cookies, gingerbread and old-fashioned doughnuts, dried apples, beef, codfish, mackerel, tea and molasses. For breakfast we have pork and beans hot from the oven, with gingerbread cookies and tea. For dinner, which is eaten in the woods, we have beans, doughnuts. And bread, with tea, and occasionally beef. For supper we have codfish or mackerel and potatoes, with fried pork. We get any amount of fresh perch and pickerel close by the camp, in Mattamiscontis Lake. Fish forms a prominent item in our diet.

I don’t need to search the 1.3 million words in the blog archive to know that I have not written about pickerel previously, so naturally it must be the min-topic of the day.

The pickerel is a fresh-water fish from the pike family (Esocidae,) and there are two sub-species of American pickerel. A commonly-quoted saying from 1524 says that - "Turkeys, Carp, Hops, Pickerel, and Beer, came into England all in one year," but it is almost certainly erroneous for hops and carp, so may well be for pickerel too.

I doubt that the lumberman’s pickerel was dressed with a fine sauce, but in a more elegant venue than a lumber camp, the following recipe would be delicious.

Génoise.

Put two ounces of butter in a small saucepan, set it on the fire, and when melted, mix in it a tablepoonful of flour; stir for one minute, add one-fourth of carrot, sliced, stir now and then, and when nearly fried, add also a pint of broth, half a pint of claret wine, a small onion, and a clove of garlic, chopped; two cloves, a bay-leaf, two stalks of parsley, one of thyme, salt, and pepper; boil gently about one hour and forty minutes, and strain. If it boils away, add a little broth. Put it back on the fire with about half an ounce of butter, boil gently for about ten minutes, and it is ready for use.

This sauce is excellent with any kind of boiled fish, but especially with trout, pike, and pickerel.

Hand-book of practical cookery, for ladies and professional cooks (1867) by Pierre Blot

Beverages of the Season.

I have neglected Christmas beverages so far this year, but New Year is imminent, and surely the same refreshments will be suitable.

Recipes for Christmas drinks inevitably favour those of you in the cold parts of the Northern Hemisphere, but never fear, my friends Down Under, there are some ideas here for you too.

First – an unashamedly Hot, Sweet and Non-Alcoholic drink – based on cranberry sauce, of all things:

Skiers’ Special

¾ cup brown sugar, firmly packed

4 cups water

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

½ ½ teaspoon cinnamon

¾ teaspoon ground cloves

2 (1 lb.) cans jellied cranberry sauce

1 quart pineapple juice

2 tablespoons butter.

Put the brown sugar in a large saucepan with 1 cup water, salt, and spices. Bring to boil. Meanwhile put cranberry sauce in a bowl, crush with a fork. Add 3 cups water and beat with a rotary beater until smooth. Pour cranberry liquid and pineapple juice into hot spiced sirup and heat to just boiling. Pour into mug, add a dot of butter to each and a long stick of cinnamon for a stirrer. Makes about 2 ½ quarts.

Kalispell Daily Inter Lake [Montana] December 21, 1954

And from the same newspaper, a sweet, milky beverage which can also be served cold, in which case, I suppose, it could be called Sweltering Night Punch.

Snowy Night Punch

1¼ teaspoons allspice

4 tablespoons honey

½ teaspoon salt

5 cups evaporated milk

2½ cups water

2½ teaspoons vanilla

Put allspice, honey, salt, milk and water into a saucepan. Heat to just below boiling. Take from heat, stir in vanilla and serve with a sprinkle of nutmeg on top of each serving. Makes about 2 quarts. Good cold too.

And here is a nice idea from an Australian newspaper , which has a decidedly tropical feel so will be especially suitable for Christmas in the Summer:

Passionfruit Cup.

One small bottle cider (1 pint,) 1 lemon, 1 dozen passionfruit, 1 large bottle soda water, a little mixed fresh fruit cut into blocks, to garnish if liked.

Remove the juice from passion fruit and lemon, and add to the cider. Chill. Add chilled soda water just before serving, add sugar to sweeten, and fresh fruit to garnish.

If liked, instead of cider make a syrup of 1 cup water and half cup sugar boiled together for 3 minutes and allow to cool.

Gippsland Times (Victoria)  January 2, 1941 .

The following recipe is interesting – but I suspect its colour is its best feature.

Festive Punch

2 cups sugar

2 cups water

10 cloves

1 tablespoon ginger

1 tablespoon cinnamon

½ cup lemon juice

2 cups orange juice

¼ tablespoon peppermint

Green colouring

Green cherries.

Boil sugar and water for five minutes. Add cloves, cinnamon,  and ginger; cover and let stand until cold. Add fruit juices, strain, colour green and add peppermint. Let stand for one hour in refrigerator. Serve (one part punch to two parts ginger ale) with ice. Garnish with green cherries. Serves 12.

The Farmer and Settler (NSW) 17 December 1954

Egg Nog is Here.

‘Tis the Season to Eat Leftovers.

I love the week between Christmas and New Year: the fun goes on, but the pressure is off – and there is a fridge full of leftovers so the grocery shopping and the “what shall we have to eat” problems are at least partially solved.

At Christmases Past on this blog we have had advice on how to use leftover plumpudding, and leftover turkey (here and here.)  If you have some other bird leftover - or none of the previous turkey recipes tempt you, – and especially if you have leftover vegetables too, the following recipe might help:

Cold Roast Fowls Fried, with warmed Vegetables.

Beat the yolks of two eggs, with butter, mace, nutmeg, &c. Cut the Fowls into joints, and dip them in this, and roll the egged pieces in crumbs and fried parsley. Fry the cut pieces nicely in butter, or clarified dripping, and pour over the dish any white or green vegetable, chopped, and made hot. Parmesan Cheese, grated, may be used to give a piquant flavour.

The family save-all, a system of secondary cookery, (1861) by Robert Kemp Philp

And here are a few more ideas for that cold roast fowl:

Capilotade Italian.

Cut up a cold roast fowl; then take a good slice of butter, and some shred mushrooms and potherbs; fry these till they are about to turn brown, with a tea-spoonful of flour: then add to them a large glass of white wine. Let the whole simmer together for a quarter of an hour; next put in the pieces of fowl, and heat them up for a few minutes. Garnish your dish with fried slices of bread; and just before you serve, pour into the saucepan two table-spoonfuls of oil, taking care that it does not boil, and stir it up well with the sauce.

The cook's own book: being a complete culinary encyclopedia... With numerous original receipts and a complete system of confectionery (1832) by N.K.M. Lee.

Poultry.—Mayonaise De Volaille—Second Receipt.

Take pieces of cold roast fowl. Arrange round them hard eggs cut in quarters, strips of anchovy, chopped capers, gherkins, and herbs. Put hearts of lettuces in the middle. These articles should be tastefully arranged.

Put the yolks of two eggs into an earthenware pan. with a little lemon juice, pepper, and salt. Mix well, and add, by a very little at a time, two spoonfuls of oil, stirring while doing so.  When the mixture is made, add a little lemon juice, and pour the sauce over the cold fowl.

This mayonaise may be made in the same manner with different sorts of fish, such as trout, carp, and turbot, or any fresh-water fish.

The sauce may be made with oil, salt, peppercorns, a little vinegar, and be heated over the fire without boiling.

The Treasury of French Cookery: A Collection of the Best French Recipes (1866)

by Harriett Toogood

Another Hen Pie.

Take the skin off a large cold roast fowl, and cut the breast, and all the nice pieces of it, into thin handsome slices. Break the bones, and put them on with the stuns, an onion, two eschalots, and the paring of a lemon, in about a chopin of water. Raise the walls of your pie, and make it in proportion to your fowl. Then fold a cloth, and put it neatly into the pie; put on your cover, ornament it handsomely, and glaze it over with a beat egg. When your crust is well fired, and of a fine light gold colour, cut the cover neatly round the inside edges of your pie, and take it off. Then take out the cloth, and when your stock is strong, and reduced to a mutchkin, strain and thicken, k with a very little butter and flour. Then put it on the fire, and stir it close till it comes a boil. Then take it off, scum it well, and season it with a little mace, white pepper and salt; cast the yolks of two eggs, and mix it with a little of your boiling sauce, and a gill of cream; return it back to the sauce-pan, and mix all together; put in your fowl, keep it shaking for some time over the fire, but do not let it boil, for fear of crudling [sic] the eggs. When the sauce is of the thickness of cream take it off, and put it into the crust, cover it up, and fend it hot to table. The crust may be made of puff'd paste, but if you do it so, put it into a pan with a loose bottom, so as to turn out.

The Practice of Cookery, Pastry, Pickling, Preserving, &c (1791)

by Mrs Frazer

Soldiers’ Christmas Menu, 1915

My gift to you this Merry Christmas Day is the Christmas dinner menu enjoyed by “a body of Australian soldiers in France” in 1915.

COO-EE

17th (Australian) Ammunition Sub-Park.

Somewhere in France.

CHRISTMAS DINNER.

Patron: Major Hamilton

Committee: Lieut. Harvey, Sergeant-Major Campbell, Staff-Seageant Bird, Staff Sergeant Jackson, Corpl. Chapman, Driver J.B. Kelly, and Driver M. Williams.

Catering under the direction of Staff-Sergeant Jackson, Electric Light by C. Worshop.

MENU.

HORS D’OEUVRES.

-          A Little Beer.-

SOUP.

Chicken Broth.

-          Beer. –

ENTRÉE.

Giblet Pie

-          Some Beer –

JOINT.

Roast Sirloin.              Boiled Ham.

-          Still more Beer. -

POULTRY.

Roast Turkey and Sausage – Roast Goose –

Roast Duck and Apple Sauce – Roast Chicken and Ham.

-          Still Beer -

Vegetables.

Brussels Sprouts.         Boiled and Baked Potatoes.

Mashed Turnips.

SWEETS.

Christmas Puddings.

-          Again Beer -

Crackers and Cheese.              Smokes and Beer.

TOAST – GOD SAVE THE KING.

Beer finis – by the Committee if necessary

Sick Parade 11 am, 26th December, 1915

Giblet Pie.

Ingredients—The turkey giblets, ½  lb. beef, ¼ lb. pastry. Method—Boil the heart, liver, gizzard, the feet, and neck of the bird, adding ½ lb. of stewing beef, and a small portion of lean ham. Place in a pie-dish and fill up with well -seasoned stock. Prepare the pastry and cover the pie. Bake in a hot oven for an hour. N.B.—Be sure a hole is made in the crust to allow the steam to escape and so carry off any gases.

Kapunda Herald (South Australia) 26 November, 1915.

Stuffing, Dressing or Forcemeat?

What do you call the ‘stuff’ that you stuff inside your Christmas bird? It seems obvious to me to call it ‘stuffing,’ but I understand that elsewhere this is considered a slightly vulgar term. ‘Dressing’ however, has other culinary meanings, and ‘forcemeat’ is rather old-fashioned. Whatever you call it, I have several ideas for some slightly different mixtures to use to stuff inside your bird, gleaned from Australian newspapers of the 1920’s and 1930’s.

Bombay Stuffing.

Mix together ¼ cup of toasted breadcrumbs, 1 cup of seeded raisins, 1 large apple grated, ¾ cup of finely-chopped celery, 1 small onion, 1 ½ cups cornflakes, 1 cup of finely-chopped sweet pickles, ¼ cup melted bacon fat or butter. Mix together, season to taste with salt, pepper, and paprika. If the mixture is dry add a little boiling water.

This is an excellent stuffing for a fowl; if needed for a turkey, double the mixture.

The Charleville Times (Qld. ) 22 December, 1939

Rice and Ham Stuffing.

This unusual stuffing is very good. Put some pieces of cooked ham through a food chopper, measure a cupful and put it into a basin; add a cup of cold boiled rice, six cooked chopped mushrooms, one tablespoon of chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste, four tablespoons of melted butter, and sufficient cream or stock to moisten.

The Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld) December 5, 1929

Walnut Stuffing for Ducks.

1 cup breadcrumbs, ¼ cup walnuts chopped fine, ½ cup top milk or cream, tiny bit cayenne, 3 tablespoons fat, ¼ teaspoon onion juice or chopped onion, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon paprika. Add the seasonings to the crumbs, melt the fat, add the nuts, and then the milk. If more moisture is needed, use extra milk.

The Advertiser December 20, 1927

The Christmas Cheese.

I am delighted to offer you, on the cusp of Christmas, a delightful conjunction of two of my favourite topics – cheese and gingerbread.

I begin with the concept of “Christmas Cheese”, which I came across in an entry on “Pepper-cake”, aka gingerbread, in A Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect: Explanatory, Derivative, and Critical by J.R. Smith (England, 1868)

Pepper-cake. A kind of gingerbread baked in large and thick cakes or flat loaves.

At Christmas, and on the occasion of the birth of a child also, one of these cakes in provided and a cheese; the latter is set on a large platter or dish and the pepper-cake upon it. The cutting of the Christmas cheese is done by the master of the house on Christmas Eve, and it is a ceremony not to be lightly omitted. All comers to the house are invited to partake of the pepper-cake and cheese, the form of invitation seldom varying much:- “Noo, ye mun taste our cheese.” Wine or spirits are usually offered too; and the etiquette is to offer the “good wishes of the season,” or the congratulations and kind words for the occasion, as the cheese and its concomitants are taken.

It does not appear that any specific style of cheese was nominated as the “Christmas cheese,” but there are relatively few references to the concept in the literature.  It seems likely that a new wheel of cheese was used, as it was considered unlucky to cut the cheese before Christmas Eve.

I was delighted to find this story, as it gives me an opportunity to use a recipe I have been hoarding for some time:

Cheese Gingerbread.

1 c molasses

1/3 c cheese cut in small pieces

½ c water2 c barley flour

½ tsp salt

1 tsp soda

½ tsp ginger

Heat molasses and cheese in double boiler. When cheese is melted remove from fire. Add other ingredients. Bake 15 minutes in muffin tins.

Two hundred and seventy-five war-time recipes (Bedford, Mass. 1918)

Fruity Recipes for Christmas from the ‘30s and ‘40s.

A Christmas lunch or dinner of cold seafood followed by a serious overdose of fresh mangoes suits the climate here in the sub-tropics much better than roast bird and boiled pudding, but it is virtually impossible for many of us to completely throw aside our national heritage.  The following recipes, gleaned from Australian newspapers of the 1930’s and 1940’s have a rather fruity spin on the traditional dishes, and are perhaps a compromise of sorts. I hope you like them.

An Uncommon Christmas Cake.

Take 1 cup butter, 1 cup fruit juice (any kind), 1 ½ cups candied cherries, 1 ½ cups chopped figs, 1 ½ cups candied pineapple, 1 cup raisins, 1 ½ cups brown sugar, 2 cups chopped nuts, ½ cup shredded mixed peel, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 2 teaspoons each allspice and powdered cinnamon, teaspoon ground cloves, 5 eggs, 3 cups flour. Mix butter, sugar and egg yolks and beat for 2 minutes, sift 2 cups flour, spices, salt, baking powder, and add alternately with the fruit juice to the first mixture. Then add fruits and nuts previously mixed with the other cup of flour, fold in the stiffly-beaten whites of the eggs, put into well-greased paper-lined tin and bake in a very slow oven for 3 to 4 hours.

Sunday Times (Perth, WA)  December 2, 1934

And another cake featuring candied pineapple:

Pineapple Christmas Cake.

Ingredients: 1 cup of butter, 1 cup of pineapple juice, 1 ½ cups candied cherries, 2 cups of chopped raisins, or 1 cup of raisins, 1 cup of chopped figs, 1 ½ cups candied pineapple, 1 ½ cups castor sugar, 1 large cup chopped nuts (if available), ½ cup shredded mixed peel, a pinch of salt, grated nutmeg, teaspoon of spice and 3 cups flour, 5 eggs.

Method: Cream butter and sugar well. Add beaten egg yolks and beat until very light, then add dry ingredients, which have all been sifted together three times alternately with the fruit juice, then add fruits, etc., and lastly fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Place in a well-papered and greased tin and bake in a fairly slow oven three to four hours.

This makes quite a large cake, has a beautiful  flavor, and keeps excellently. If candied pineapple is not available, preserved will do, but candied is best.

The Land (Sydney, NSW) November 30, 1945

Spicy Orange Mincemeat.

Take 1 lb. stoned raisins, ½ lb each of sultanas, currants, sugar, sweet orange jame (dryish home-made for preference) and shredded chopped suet, ¼ lb. candied peel, 1 lb. tart cooking apples (peeled and cored), ¾ lb. dessert apples (peeled and cored), the grated rind of 1 lemon and its juice, ½ teaspoon mixed spice, ½ saltspoon ground ginger, ¼ grated nutmed. Chop all fruits and suet well together, or put through a mincer, and when thoroughly blended with spices etc, add strained lemon juice and jam; mix well again and store in airtight jars. If desirous of keeping this for any length of time, add 1 gill of brandy or good dry sherry.

Sunday Times (Perth, WA)  December 2, 1934

Fruit Stuffing.

Fruit stuffing for the  Christmas poultry imparts an unusual flavor to the bird.

Mix together l ½ cups breadcrumbs, 1 cup seeded raisins, 1 cup chopped apple, 1 tablespoon minced onion, 2 slices of bacon, minced.

Fill prepared fowl with this stuffing, truss, and sew up. Rub fowl with lemon, then pour over a little melted butter or lard. Place breast down in dish containing melted fat. Bake in a steady oven, basting frequently. Serve hot or cold.

Advocate (Burnie, Tasmania) 13 December 1947

A Wartime “No Meat Christmas” in 1917.

The U.S. wartime meat conservation program caused some changes to be made in hotel Christmas dinners in 1917. The New York Times of December 16 of that year reported on the challenge presented to executive chefs:

NO MEAT CHRISTMAS IN THE BIG HOTELS.

New Problem for the Chefs This Year – How They Are Arranging Menus

for the Holiday’s Dinners.

With several months of training in the “Hooverization” of food, the chefs of the big New York hotels have been asked to prepare Christmas menus in keeping with the Government’s conservation plan. In view of the fact that Christmas this year fall on Tuesday, a meatless day, the ingenuity of the chefs has been taxed. But they have shown themselves sympathetic. Particularly do the French chefs, many of whom have served in the French Army, although they are now naturalized Americans, realize that conservation is a necessary war measure.

Oscar Tschirky, manager of the Waldorf-Astoria, said that his hotel would go a step further by making the New Year’s Eve dinner meatless and wheatless, in spite of the fact that it would not normally be a day formally set for such observations. The Waldorf has never place on its menus a notice of the meatless and wheatless days, as the other hotels have. The manager explained his theory that if the public’s attention was not called to the absence of these products, they were more likely not to be missed.

Eduard Panchard, chef at the Hotel McAlpin, Café Savarin, and the Fifth Avenue Restaurant told of his new corn dishes. He added that, in order to supply a variation from the fish and fowl, he was substituting turkey meal. His Christmas dinner menu follows:

Oysters

Pumpkin Cream Soup

Celery Olives

Turtle Meat Creole

Guinea Hen with Brussels Sprouts

Sweet Potatoes with Pineapple

Salad in Season

Plum Pudding, with Frothy Vanilla and Rum Sauce

Fruit, Nuts, and Raisins

Nut Bread       Coffee

“Meatless,” as this menu shows, did not mean vegetarian. Far from it. As the presence of guinea-hen also shows, the term did not mean the absence of all non-fish flesh food. Turkey and Guinea hen featured on several of the menus produced for the day by other high-profile hotel chefs. One of those chefs was quoted as saying:

“Our Christmas plan does not mean that the well-to-do-guest should not or will not receive what he is accustomed to. The consumption, for example, of terrapin, duck, lobster, saves the articles of food needed for our soldiers and the armies of our allies. Such things are of no use whatsoever to them. It is evidently an aid to the country for those who spend freely to use what may be called “de luxe” foodstuffs like game, fowl, and seafood.”

Initially when I read the article, I wondered why a special dispensation from the “meatless Tuesday” was not given for Christmas Day. Surely the injunction could have been transposed to another day that week? But perhaps the opportunity for the wealthy to be extra-patriotic was  too important to miss?

For today’s recipe I will stay out of the meat/no meat debate and give you a recipe for the dessert sauce on the above menu.

Frothy Vanilla and Rum Sauce.

Chop up half a pound of beef marrow, melt it in a bain-marie, then strain through a napkin into a bowl and whip it until it begins to froth, then add four ounces of fresh butter broken in small parts, four ounces of vanilla sugar and lastly, half a gill of rum; serve.

The Epicurean (1894) by Charles Ranhofer.

Superfine Mince-pies and Intoxicating Cookies.

As the season gathers momentum, and there does not seem to be enough minutes remaining for last-minute shopping and cooking, I give you a couple of random recipes which you might find interesting.

Firstly, because they don’t make mincemeat like this anymore:

Superfine Christmas Mince-pies.

After a large bullock's tongue has lain twenty-four hours in salt, take it up, wash it clean, and give it a boil three quarters of an hour: let it stand till it is cold, then cut it down, and mince it: take three pounds of beef suet, three pounds of stoned raisins, the same of cleaned currants, a dozen of pared apples, and mince them separately; take also half a pound of orange-peel, and one pound of almonds cut small, an ounce of cinnamon, and half an ounce of cloves beat; two nutmegs grated, the grate of two large lemons, the juice of three, and a bottle of white wine: mix the whole well together, and press it down into a can, the mouth of which must be tied up with paper, to keep out the air. When you have occasion to use it, line some patty cans with puff-paste, and fill them with the meat, nicking the upper crust with a knife. If the meat is intended to be kept long, leave out the apples and suet, as they are apt to spoil, and put them in fresh when there is occasion to use the meat.

The Practice of Cookery, Pastry, and Confectionary by Mrs Frazer (1820)

And secondly, because they sound like fun – even if they are just common or garden chocolate truffles -  I give you:

Intoxicating Cookies.

3 cups vanilla wafer crumbs

 1 cup sifted powdered sugar

3 ½ tablespoons cocoa

1 cup chopped nuts

3 tablespoons Karo

3 tablespoons each rum and sherry

Method:

1.      Sift sugar and cocoa together and add nuts, crumbs, and Karo

2.      Add liquid and mix well

3.      Shape into balls and dust with powdered sugar.

4.      Store in tin container at least 48 hours.

These cookies may be kept almost endlessly, if stored in covered container. Wonderful with a cup of tea.

Yuletide Favorites, a booklet published by the United Fuel Gas Company [1950’s?]

And finally, for those of you who do not have kitchen scales, but do have a teacup:

Teacup Plum Pudding.

Ingredients: One teacup each of raisins, currants, sugar, flour, suet, and breadcrumbs. A pinch of sal, and 2 eggs (well beaten), a little milk to make the pudding of the right consistency.

Method: Stone the raisins, wash and dry the currants, chop the suet quite fin, mix all the dry ingredients well together, and boil with the eggs and milk. Flavor with lemon, nutmeg, or brandy to taste. Boil for three hours. Serve with wine sauce, if liked.

Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW), December 14, 1934