Victorian Era and 19th C Recipes Thread

[J. Wilhelm]

I have no objections; it just seemed like this was "the" place.

If I understand you correctly, the historical recipes would go on the new thread?

And indeed, it was the closest place we had for that.

Yes. Like the Victorian Foods Thread and the Victorian Vittles thread, it would form part of a trio of threads stickied in Anatomical and also stickied as links in the yet to be opened Historical section.  Basically this is historical research and a permanent archive.  I can't talk about the Historical section any further. Otherwise I'd have to find you and kill you. 

[Dr. Madd]

Anyone here ever watch JasTownsend and Son on Youtube?

[J. Wilhelm]

Anyone here ever watch JasTownsend and Son on Youtube?

Yep. Wonderful collection of videos. Just google my entries on "Happy 4th. of July on the Off Topic section, and I also got a few on this food thread.  Ive posted the one about baked beans, pot pies, salt pork, and a few others...

[J. Wilhelm]

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:

Thanks to Mr. GCCC, we have already amassed a few historically accurate recipes available in the Victorian Era. On the suggestion of Uncle Bert, this thread is meant to be a companion to the "Victorian Food Brands Still Extant thread and The Victorian Vittle Market Available Today:

http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,35567.0.html

http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,35754.0.html

The exact rules for this historical collection are still to be decided below, and probably will be debated on the fly, as usually research of this type is a collaborative effort and it tends to require more than one "curator."  For the Victorian Foods thread the Empire was divided into geographical regions and there was one curator per region.

Depending on the response we get here we may or may not organise the lists in a similar fashion.  For the moment I will start this thread by merging Mr. GCCC's recipes from the "Food Food Food" thread into this new thread (above this post)

I remain at your service,

Adm. J. Wilhelm
United States Airship Orca

[GCCC]

Elephant (not) on the menu:

http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2005/11/elephant-not-on-menu.html

Excerpted from the article:

"...Gordon Cumming, great white hunter in Central South Africa in the 1840’s, was enthusiastic: 'the feet, thus cooked [in a pit] are excellent, as is also the trunk, which very much resembles buffalo’s tongue.'  Dr David Livingstone in 1867 – even extremely hungry - was not:

'We get some elephants' meat from the people, but high is no name for its condition. It is very bitter, but we used it as a relish to the maëre porridge … not one of us would touch it with the hand if we had aught else, for the gravy in which we dip our porridge is like an aqueous solution of aloes …'

...I offer one for the 'other'* pachyderm - cooked hunter’s style to give the illusion of adventure - as described by the French gastronome Baron Brisse in “366 Menus and 1200 recipes” (1868):

Fillet of boar au chasseur.

Soak the fillet for at least two days in olive oil and salt, drain, and simmer in a stew-pan lined with slices of bacon, carrots, onions, a bouquet of mixed herbs, salt, pepper, and equal quantities of stock and white wine; when sufficiently done, drain the fillet, glaze it, and serve with piquant sauce, to which you have added a little of the liquor in which it was cooked, after passing it through a tammy and reducing."

*("The other white meat", as the ad used to go. -GCCC)

[GCCC]

Tea-time memories:

http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2005/11/tea-time-memories.html

Excerpted from the article:

"...It probably does not seem necessary to give a recipe for tea, but Charles Elmé Francatelli (an Englishman in spite of his name), saw fit to include one in his “Cook’s Guide” (1867), and who am I to argue with the chef to Queen Victoria? Anyway, the medical advice at the end might come in handy if the memories you trigger in your experiment are scary ones.

Lime-Flower Tea.

To half an ounce of lime-flowers pour one pint of boiling water; allow the tea to stand for about ten minutes, pour it into a cup, sweeten with honey, and drink it perfectly hot.
This tea, from its antispasmodic quantities, is a safe remedy in cases of indigestion, and is also beneficial when administered for hysteria."

[GCCC]

The Clerical Gourmet:

http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2005/11/clerical-gourmet.html

Excerpted from the article:

"A RECEIPT FOR SALAD

Two large potatoes passed through kitchen sieve,
Unwonted softness to the salad give;
Of ardent mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment which bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt;
Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And once with vinegar, procured from town,
True flavour needs it, and your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs;
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;
And, lastly, on the flavoured compound toss
A magic teaspoon of anchovy sauce.
Then, though green turtle fail,
though venison's tough,
And ham and turkey are not boiled enough,
Serenely full, the epicure may say,
--'Fate cannot harm me,
-- I have dined to-day.' "

[GCCC]

Politicians don't write cookbooks anymore:

http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2005/11/politicians-dont-write-cookbooks.html

Excerpted from the article:

"Slippery Bob.

Take kangaroo brains, and mix with flour and water, and make into a batter; well season with pepper, salt, &c; then pour a table-spoonful at a time into an iron pot containing emu fat, and take them out when done. 'Bush fare' requiring a good appetite and excellent digestion."

[J. Wilhelm]

{{ Old West Saloon Fare }}

In 1865, a Chicago restauranteur was still able to offer wild boar's steak, boned wild turkey, patties of quail, aged bear's paws in burgundy sauce, ragout de coon, and squirrel pie. While frontiersmen heartily approved of this fare, foreigners often complanied that, in the absence of ice, the meat generally was in an advanced stage of decomposition, its taste disguised with hot sauces and pepper. Customers suffered...Englishmen and Frenchmen bemoaned the lack of fresh food. Coffee, to the foreigners' disgust, was often a brew made of brown bread, acorns, dandelion roots, barley, and snuff...From 1860 on, food in the out-of-the-way places became somewhat standardized. For breakfast a tin cup and plate were filled with coffee, "sowbelly," bread, and syrup. Lunch, and dinner again, consisted of bread and steak, the steaks being generally overcooked and hard as stone...Lamb fries and Rocky Mountain oysters...slightly shirred in the pan, or roasted in the ashes of a campfire until they "popped," were considered a delicacy. Rattlesnake meat was fancied by some and said to taste like the white meat of chicken. Dried, pale beans known as Arizona strawberries were the only vegetable besides corn and squash in certain areas of the Southwest...Some people said that western saloon food was confined to the "Basic Four B's'--sourdough biscuits, beans, beef, and bacon ("overland trout" in cowboyese). Wild onions were sometimes served as a side dish "against scurvy." The chief complaint of travelers was the scarcity of vegetables...Coffee was the universal drink...

"Westerners ate to fill the belly, not for pleasure. Food was Food. One california traveler cheerfully commented: 'We are now ready to replenish the inner man. The bar is convenient for those who wish to imbibe. Breakfast is announced. We seat ourselves at the table. Before us is a reasonable quantity of beans, pork, and flapjacks served up in tin plates. Pea tea, which the landlord calls coffee with a bold emphasis, is handed to us. We help yourselves to such other things as may be in reach. Neither spices, sauces, nor seasonings are necessary to accomodate them to the palate. Our appetites need not nursing. The richest condiments are the poorest provisions.'...

Table manners were atrocious by European standards. Food was wolfed down with a speed that astounded the foreigner. At saloons that were also stagecoach stations, with only a limited time avaialble for a stopover, it was every man for himself. A run was made for the table set out smorgasbord fashion, guests elbowing and trampling each other, devouring everything in sight in record time...Things were no different on the northwest coast: 'They breakfast in the middle of the night, dine when they aught to be breakfasting and take supper when they should be dining; and the "feed" is most distasteful--all noise,dirt, grease, mess, slop, confusion, and disorder; chunks of meat of all kinds and no flavor, placed in plates, and "sot" on the table; and before you have time to look at your meat, a piece of very flat pie, with a doughy crust, and dried fruit inside is placed under your nose, on the same plate with your meat. Men pick their teeth with forks and jackknives, gobble down gallons of water, and "slide." This is the style in Oregon...

"Sudden wealth from gold and silver brought sudden change. It came earliest in California. Bayard Taylor reported in 1850 "it was no unusual thing to see a company of these men, who had never before thought of luxury beyond a good beefsteak and glass of whiskey, drinking their champagne at ten dollars a bottle, and eating their tongue and sardines, or warming in the smoky campfire their tin cannisters of turtle soup and lobster salad."...Teddy Blue, a Montana cowboy during the 1880s when the cattle trade flourished, wrote: 'talking about food, do you know what was the first thing a cowpuncher ordered to eat when he got to town? Oysters and celery. And eggs. Those things were what he didn't get and what he was crazy for.'...It was not only oysters that, with the coming of the railroads, suddenly became avaialble in Sheridan, Wyoming, in Miles City, Montana, or Virginia City, Nevada. Gambling and concert saloons as well as hotel bars offered their well-heeled customers fancy fare printed on equally fancy menus, often in broken French...

"In Wyatt Earp's and Doc Holliday's Tombstone, the Occidental Saloon served a Sunday dinner to tickle "Doc's" fashionable palate:

SOUPS

Chicken Giblet and Consumme, with Egg

FISH

Columbia River Salmon, au Beurre Noir

RELIEVES

Filet a Boeuf, a la Financier
Leg of Lamb, Sauce, Oysters

COLD MEATS

Loin of Beef, Loin of Ham, Loin of Pork, Westphalia Ham, Corned Beef, Imported Lunches

BOILED MEATS

Leg of Mutton, Ribs of Beef, Corned Beef and Cabbage, Russian River Bacon

ENTREES

Pinons a Poulett, aux Champignons
Cream Fricasse of Chicken, Asparagus Points
Lapine Domestique, a la Matire d'Hote
Casserole d'Ritz aux Oeufs, a la Chinoise
Ducks of Mutton, Braze, with Chipoluta Ragout
California Fresh Peach, a la Conde

ROASTS

Loin of Beef, Loin of Mutton, Leg of Pork
Apple Sauce, Suckling Pig, with Jelly, Chicken Stuffed Veal

PASTRY

Peach, Apple, Plum, and Custard Pies
English Plum Pudding, Hard Sauce, Lemon Flavor

~ ~ ~ And we will have it or perish ~ ~ ~
~ This dinner will be served for 50 cents ~

---Saloons of the Old West, Richard Erdoes [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1979 (p. 110-114)
Source: http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpioneer.html#saloons

[J. Wilhelm]

"Casserole d'Ritz aux Oeufs, a la Chinoise," "Filet a Boeuf, a la Financier"    

And what is Chipoluta?  Could this be an early reference to Chipotle sauce?  They had Mexican cooks in mining towns that far back in time? 

[Theophania_Elliott]

You can download (several formats including PDF, epub and kindle) Mrs. Beeton's household management: a guide to cookery in all branches: daily duties, menu making, mistress & servant, home doctor, hostess & guest, sick nursing, marketing, the nursery, trussing & carving, home lawyer here:

https://archive.org/details/mrsbeetonshouse00beetuoft

It's the second* (that I know of) really practical guide to running a household, aimed at the newly-married young woman who is suddenly pitchforked, from being a daughter in her parents' household, to being in charge of her own household, and is discovering that she doesn't know as much as she thought she did, and everything is much more complicated than she thought. It was written by Isabella Beeton in her early twenties, and is the result of (one might assume) painful personal experience.


*The first being The Good Wife's Guide (Le Menagier de Paris) written by an anonymous French author for his 15-year-old bride at the end of the fourteenth century.

[GCCC]

"Casserole d'Ritz aux Oeufs, a la Chinoise," "Filet a Boeuf, a la Financier"    

And what is Chipoluta?  Could this be an early reference to Chipotle sauce?  They had Mexican cooks in mining towns that far back in time? 

Or at least Mexican-inspired cooking; it is very conceivable that such an "exotic" may have voyaged up the cattle trails.

[J. Wilhelm]

And what about Russian River Bacon?    Is that from Fresh River Hogs from the Volga? 

You can download (several formats including PDF, epub and kindle) Mrs. Beeton's household management: a guide to cookery in all branches: daily duties, menu making, mistress & servant, home doctor, hostess & guest, sick nursing, marketing, the nursery, trussing & carving, home lawyer here:

https://archive.org/details/mrsbeetonshouse00beetuoft

*snip*

Sounds interesting I'll have to take a look

[Dr. Madd]

You guys need a copy of The Art of Cookery made simple and easy, by Mrs. Hannah Glasse.

[GCCC]

Another sort of shipboard victuals.

http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2005/12/another-sort-of-shipboard-victuals.html

Excerpted from the article:

"In 1853, the good ship Sir Edward Parry left Plymouth on this day (December 20, -GCCC), bound for South Australia, its passengers hungry for the gold recently discovered in the colony. They were usually pretty hungry on the three month voyage too.

The recommended ration for adults aboard emigrant ships run by 'respectable shipowners' was:

Every day: 8oz. of 'ships’ biscuit', 6 oz. flour, 3 oz. oatmeal, and 3 Quarts of water.
Meat: Saturdays: 8 oz. Beef ; Monday, Wednesday and Friday: 6 oz. pork; Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday: 8 oz preserved meat.
Weekly: Coffee: 2 oz.; Tea 1 ½ oz; Treacle 8 oz.; Raisins 8 oz; Suet 6 oz; Pease 2/3 pint; Rice 12 oz; Butter 4 oz; Cheese 4 oz; Preserved Potatoes 8 oz.
Also each week: mixed pickles one gill; mustard, ½ oz., salt 2 oz. and pepper ½ oz. ...

...The preserved potatoes were almost always hated. One emigrant to New Zealand in 1879 wrote 'We had preserved potatoes today for the first time. None of our Mess could eat them so we threw them overboard'. Many preserving methods were tried, but the usual method for use at sea involved covering them with quicklime, which must certainly have added something to the flavour. A simple drying method would have kept them more palatable, but keeping them dry on board ship would have been impossible...

Preserving Potatoes
The preservation of potatoes by dipping them in boiling water is a valuable and useful discovery. Large quantities may be cured at once, by putting them into a basket as large as the vessel containing the boiling water will admit, and then just dipping them a minute or two, at the utmost. The germ, which is so near the skin, is thus destroyed without injury to the potato. In this way several tons might be cured in a few hours. They should be then dried in a warm oven, and laid up in sacks, secure from the frost, in a dry place."

[GCCC]

A young woman in possession of a good recipe.

http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2005/12/young-woman-in-possession-of-good.html

Excerpted from the article:

"Jane Austen did not save her delicious wit for her novels. She wrote often to her sister, Cassandra, and on this day in 1808 described an evening party at her brother’s house in Southampton, where she was living at the time.

'...But as to our black butter, do not decoy anybody to Southampton by such a lure, for it is all gone. The first pot was opened when Frank and Mary were here, and proved not at all what it ought to be; it was neither solid nor entirely sweet, and on seeing it Eliza remembered that Miss Austen had said she did not think it had been boiled enough...'

The 'black butter' that Jane refers to is not a sauce of butter cooked until it is burnt, but a thick, dark, spiced conserve of apples cooked in cider, with a history going back to mediaeval times. It is still a particular specialty of Jersey – where they add liquorice to make it even blacker. There is a dearth of cookbook recipes for such a homely preserve, even under its plain name of 'apple butter'. Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (1870’s) actually calls it 'American', reflecting its popularity in the former colony, and the ignorance of the editors in respect of its history. Like pumpkin pie, it crossed the Atlantic, and then acted as if it had been born there.

Apple Butter, American.
Fill a preserving pan with apples, peeled, quartered, and cored. Add a slight flavouring of cloves, allspice, and cinnamon. Cover with good cider, and boil slowly, stirring from time to time with a wooden spoon, until the whole becomes a dark brown jam, with only juice sufficient to keep it soft and buttery. Remove it from the fire, and place in well-covered jars, and in a few weeks it will be ready for use. It makes an excellent substitute for butter, and is very wholesome for children."

[Keith_Beef]

"Casserole d'Ritz aux Oeufs, a la Chinoise," "Filet a Boeuf, a la Financier"    

And what is Chipoluta?  Could this be an early reference to Chipotle sauce?  They had Mexican cooks in mining towns that far back in time? 

"Chipoluta" could well be "chipolata", a sort of slim pork sausage with lots of herbs. The whole menu looks like it was scanned and put through OCR… it is so full of near misses.

[GCCC]

"Gruel, Broth, and Bread."
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/10/gruel-broth-and-bread.html

Excerpted from the article:

"Today, October 2nd …

The general conditions of life in the workhouses of the Victorian era were often worse than in the prisons – but then there was hardly intended to be much difference, as a core principle of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was that workhouse conditions be sufficiently severe to act as a deterrent to admission. The punitive approach was in line with the prevailing feeling that the poor were that way because they were indolent and improvident – a convenient moral justification for the desire for minimal spending on social welfare.

Work in the workhouse ranged from the unpleasant to the excruciatingly hard and disgusting. One common job was the crushing of bone to make fertiliser, and there were many reports of inmates fighting over rotting bones to gnaw on – which is not surprising, when you consider the standard daily ration in 'the houses'.

Dietary orders were periodically reviewed, and on this day in 1871, the Board of Guardians of the workhouse in Aberystwyth in Wales submitted some changes for consideration by the Local Government Board. The suggestions were:

Breakfast (the same every day) was 6 oz bread, 1 ½ pint Oatmeal gruel.

On Sunday, dinner was 4 oz cooked meat, 16 oz potato, 2 oz bread, and supper was 6 oz. bread, 1 ½ pints Broth.

On Monday, dinner was 5 oz bread, 1 ¼ pints soup, and supper was 6 oz bread, 2 oz cheese.

With very slight variations (meat again on Thursday), this was the weekly ration for a man. Women, children, the elderly, infirm, and imbeciles got proportionately less...

...(From Mrs. Beeton's)
Useful Soup for Benevolent Purposes.
Ingredients: An ox-cheek, any pieces of trimmings of beef, which may be bought very cheaply (say 4 lbs.), a few bones, any pot-liquor the larder may furnish, ¼ peck of onions, 6 leeks, a large bunch of herbs, ½ lb. of celery (the outside pieces, or green tops, do very well); ½ lb. of carrots, ½ lb. of turnips, ½ lb. of coarse brown sugar, ½ a pint of beer, 4 lbs. of common rice, or pearl barley; ½ lb. of salt, 1 oz. of black pepper, a few raspings, 10 gallons of water.

Mode: Cut up the meat in small pieces, break the bones, put them in a copper, with the 10 gallons of water, and stew for 1/2 an hour. Cut up the vegetables, put them in with the sugar and beer, and boil for 4 hours. Two hours before the soup is wanted, add the rice and raspings, and keep stirring till it is well mixed in the soup, which simmer gently. If the liquor reduces too much, fill up with water.

Note: The above recipe was used in the winter of 1858 by the Editress, who made, each week, in her copper, 8 or 9 gallons of this soup, for distribution amongst about a dozen families of the village near which she lives. The cost, as will be seen, was not great; but she has reason to believe that the soup was very much liked, and gave to the
members of those families, a dish of warm, comforting food, in place of the cold meat and piece of bread which form, with too many cottagers, their usual meal, when, with a little more knowledge of the "cooking" art, they might have, for less expense, a warm dish, every day..."

[GCCC]

"Presidential Punch."
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/10/presidential-punch.html

Excerpted from the article:

"Today, October 4th …

Rutherford Birchard Hayes, the nineteenth president of the United States, was born on this day in 1822. His domestic policy at the most personal level included an alcohol ban at the White House, a decision made perhaps to attract the increasingly vocal temperance voters, or to appease his wife Lucy who was a devout prohibitionist, or perhaps both.

'It seemed to me, that the example of excluding liquors from the White House would be wise and useful, and would be approved by good people generally. I knew it would be particularly gratifying to Mrs. Hayes to have it done.'

The policy was hardly popular, and wry jokes abounded:  'It was a brilliant affair; the water flowed like champagne,' said Secretary Evarts after one official function, and Republican Representative Garfield described another state dinner as going down 'with coffee and cold water.'

There is another tale that is repeated almost every time 'Lemonade Lucy's' name is brought up, although it is by no means certain who was the perpetrator and who the butt of the joke. The story is that in spite of the policy, orange cups filled with frozen alcoholic punch or sorbet came to be served at the White House unbeknownst to the Hayes’ (which would have required a very subversive White House chef indeed). It is said that the punch became a regular feature of official functions, and was known as the 'Life-Saving Station' by the non-teetotal guests.

The alternative slant was given by Rutherford Hayes, after he had left the White House:

'The joke of the Roman punch oranges was not on us but on the drinking people. My orders were to flavor them rather strongly with the same flavour that is found in Jamaica rum, viz … . This took! There was not a drop of spirits in them! This was certainly the case after the facts alluded to reached our ears. It was refreshing to hear "the drinkers" say with a smack of the lips, "would they were hot!" '...

...It seems appropriate to give one of the recipes from The White House Cookbook, first published in 1887 by F.L Gillette, and 'affectionately dedicated' by the author 'To the wives of our presidents. Those noble women who have graced the White House and whose names and memories are dear to all Americans.'

Roman Punch No.2
Make two quarts of lemonade, rich with pure juice lemon fruit; add one tablespoonful of extract of lemon. Work well, and freeze; just before serving, add for each quart of ice half a pint of brandy and half a pint of Jamaica rum. Mix well and serve in high glasses, as this makes what is called a semi or half-ice. It is usually served at dinners as a coup de milieu..."

[GCCC]

"Womens’ Cakes."
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/10/womens-cakes.html

Excerpted from the article:

"Today, October 6th …

Modern girls can go to online dating services to choose a partner - which is probably as much a lottery as the old-fashioned method of choice-by-parent – but modern girls don’t seem to need or want to ‘forsee-by-ritual’ the man of their ultimate destiny. In older times it was quite the thing to participate in divination rituals, probably for that precise reason - that the girls had no choice of who to marry, so forewarned was forearmed – or hopefully, happily reassured. At the very least they provided an opportunity for a girly sleep-over party.

In olden times, if the previous evening’s rituals had gone well, a girl should have woken up today having dreamt of her future husband, for today is St. Faith’s day. According to legend, St.Faith was martyred in the third century by being baked on a gridiron and then beheaded. The fact that she was beautiful and virginal apparently qualified her to intervene on the part of young women, and her death by baking determined that the method of divination would be by cake. Of course, as in most rituals as well as lotteries, getting the numbers right is essential, so with this understanding we come to the details of the routine.

On St. Faith’s Eve, three girls would make a simple cake of flour, salt, sugar, and water, and bake it on a griddle. Each girl would turn it three times during the cooking. When it was cooked, the cake would be cut into three and each girl’s share cut into three times three pieces. Each of the nine pieces for each girl would be passed three times through the wedding ring of a woman married seven years. Presumably if she was happily married it would all have been more auspicious, but this is not part of the official ritual. Each girl then ate her nine pieces while she recited:

O good St Faith, be kind tonight
And bring to me my heart's delight
Let me my future husband view
And be my vision chaste and true.

The ring would be hung from the bed-head, and the girls would go to sleep, perchance to dream of the man of their dreams. And dreams always come true, don’t they?..

..(Okay, the first one's not from the 19th C., but the name is just too delicious. -GCCC)
Pets de putain (Farts of a Whore).
Make your Fritters paste stronger than ordinary, by augmentation of flower and egs, then draw them small or slender, and when they are fryed, serve them warm with sugar and sweet water. [The French Cook, by la Varenne, 1653]

Nun’s Cake.
Beat eight ounces of fresh butter to a cream; add half a pound of fine flour, a small nutmeg grated, eight ounces of powdered sugar, the well-beaten yolks of four eggs, and a table-spoonful of cold water. Mix thoroughly, then stir in the whites of two of the eggs whisked to a solid froth. Work all briskly together for some minutes. Pour the mixture into a buttered mould, and, being careful to leave room for it to rise, bake in a moderate oven for about an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. Sufficient for a quart mould. [Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery, 1870’s]..."

[GCCC]

"In the name of Coleslaw."
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/10/in-name-of-coleslaw.html

I should note that there are some humorous observations throughout, including a 20th C. recipe for Jell-O coleslaw! 
So, if you are in the habit of only reading the included excerpts here, you really do need to go to the website for the full experience.

Excerpted from the article:

"Today, October 26th …

The Thursday 'Household Hints' column of The Perry Chief (an Iowan newspaper) on this day in 1876 included a recipe for 'Coldslaw', or as we are more commonly (and correctly) likely to call it now 'Coleslaw'. The word comes from two Dutch words – kool meaning cabbage and the word for salad, pronounced sla, but it is easy to see how the word was heard as indicating 'cold' (sometime in the mid-eighteenth century) as that was the how the dish was served. It is a mysterious victory for the word police that the original version was restored, but it is not a complete victory. 'Slaw' was not only sometimes spelled 'slaugh', it was occasionally used as if it was the cabbage word, so we can find 'hot slaw' recipes (although I have not seen 'hot slaugh', thank goodness).

This whole wordy saga took place in America, for reasons which remain (to me) obscure. Cabbage is the quintessential English vegetable, as the number of jokes of the boarding-house/overcooked-cabbage variety will attest – but recipes for it served raw in salad simply don’t exist until well into the twentieth century, and probably not to any significant extent until after the second world war...

...Here is the recipe from The Perry Chief of October 26th 1876 that started this discussion.

Coldslaw. – Cut up the cabbage very fine with a sharp knife, and sprinkle over it a teaspoonful of salt. For a large dish, say a quart of cut cabbage, use two eggs, a piece of butter the size of an egg, half a teacup of water and half a teacup of good vinegar. Beat the eggs, whites, and yolks together, very light, add the water ,vinegar, and butter, and put all in a tin on the fire, stirring all the time until it is of a creamy thickess. Pour it hot over the cabbage, stir up well with a fork, and leave to cool..."

[GCCC]

"A Pink Tea for Breast Cancer Month."
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/10/pink-tea-for-breast-cancer-month.html

Excerpted from the article:

"...From: Aunt Babette's cook book. Foreign and domestic receipts for the household. A valuable collection of receipts and hints for the housewife. Many of which are not to be found elsewhere. By 'Aunt Babette' (America, 1889).

PINK TEA.

'Pink Teas,' just now so fashionable, are rather novel if carried out to the letter, and an expensive way of entertaining, too, yet, as the old saying is, one might as well be dead as out of fashion. So all those who wish to be fashionable come and listen, and I will give you a few hints in regard to getting up a 'Pink Tea.' As a matter of course the table linen should be in harmony. If you possess a tablecloth with a drawn-work border, line the border with pink cambric. If not, cut the cambric the width desired and sew it on to any tablecloth and cover it with some cheap lace inserting; it will look very pretty. You may draw pink ribbons through the napkins. Suspend sash ribbons from the chandeliers in dining-room to reach half way down the center of the table, or, better still, to reach the four corners. Your lamps all over the house should have pink shades. They may be of pink paper; the dishes also of a delicate pink shade, which you may borrow for the occasion. Arrange the white cakes on high cake-stands, lined with fancy pink paper, or pink napkins, and put the pink frosted cakes on low cake-stands lined with fancy white paper or napkins. The flowers for decoration must also be of pink. Serve the creams and ices in novel designs made of pink paper, such as baskets, boxes, buckets, freezers, cups and saucers, shells, wheelbarrows, vases, etc. I am not able to tell you all the different designs they have for this purpose. You may procure these and many more beautiful designs at almost any fashionable caterer's. Each guest should have a pink boutonniere, or a white hyacinth, tied with a pink satin ribbon. Have miniature fans placed for each guest, with a card attached containing his or her name. These are to be taken home as souvenirs. Serve the butter in pink individuals, each piece of butter moulded differently and garnished with a wreath of parsley. A handsome center-piece for the table is indispensable, so get a large fruit-stand and trim it prettily with ferns, smilax and flowers, or have an ornament of spun sugar for a center piece. If you live where there are no caterers you may try this: Make a large nest of macaroons, oval in shape. Join the macaroons with sugar boiled until it candies and have this filled with charlotte russe and resting on a rock of spun sugar. You may color the charlotte russe pink and the effect will be beautiful, for the spun sugar will look like crystal. A nice way to serve charlottes at a 'Pink Tea' is to hollow out large 'Acme' tomatoes, skin them carefully, cut off the tops and scoop out the inside, set on ice until wanted, then fill with whipped cream and ornament with candied cherries. (At a 'Yellow Tea' you may substitute oranges for this purpose.)

('Aunt Babette' does give a recipe for Pink Cream Cake, but it uses 'Dr. Price's Fruit Coloring'*, which sounds a little dubious today.)..."






*Is this the same "Dr. Price" who was Vincent Clarence Price, the inventor of "Dr. Price's Baking Powder" and grandfather of actor Vincent Price? Price's (the actor, not the inventor) father was president of the National Candy Company, so it's possible. If so, the Pink Cream Cake recipe would be appropriate to the month. I'll see if I can find it somewhere.

[GCCC]

"A Fish dinner on the Beach."
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/10/fish-dinner-on-beach.html

Excerpted from the article:

"...Today, October 30th …

John Oxley and his men explored the course of the Macquarie River (in New South Wales) in 1818 - at one point believing that it led to a vast inland sea, thus creating a persisting, and sadly untrue myth to intrigue a later series of explorers. On this day they finally reached the continental coastline.

' … We passed for five miles and a half through the country described yesterday, when we arrived on the beach south-west of the Sugarloaf Point. … we went nearly six miles farther on the beach, and halted near a rocky point for the evening. This beach was a peculiarly productive one to us; a great number of fine fish resembling salmon, had been pursued through the surf by larger fish, and were left dry by the retiring tide:  we picked up thirty-six, and a welcome prize they proved to us.'

Hunger has been an occupational hazard of explorers throughout history, and sufficient hunger will make almost anything palatable, so it is no wonder Oxley’s men were delighted with their serendipitous dinner. We don’t know exactly what they ate, but the coastal waters of eastern Australia provide a magnificent variety of fish, so it is reasonable to assume it would have been not just dinner, but delicious dinner - which makes the attitude of early settlers quite strange. For those who chose to settle in Australia in the early days, everything at 'Home' (i.e England) was the Gold Standard, and that included the fish. An awful lot of 'English' salmon found its way to the country (preserved of course) as the fish course for elegant dinners, and there were serious and prolonged attempts to establish an English salmon industry in Tasmania.

Ironically, now that we truly appreciate our fish, such largesse would be an unlikely find on a beach walk on the beautiful northern New South Wales coastline. Such appreciation took some time to develop. Even by 1893, when Philip Muskett published his Art of Living in Australia, he felt moved to say:

'Along with its great ally, the oyster, fish undoubtedly occupies one of the highest places on the food list. Unfortunately, it is not met with in every home as it should be, its high price and scarcity combining to make it conspicuous by its absence. That such a state of things is actually the case in Australia can only be deeply deplored. Let us suppose, for instance, that we were as well supplied with fish as we are entitled to be, considering that we are of a maritime race and that we live near the sea. If such were the case—and I would it were so— how would a sudden reversal to the present state of our fish supply be received? Would it not give rise to protestations, to indignation meetings, to questionings in the House, and to the papers being filled with complaints, till matters were put right again? Yes, indeed, all these things would happen! meanwhile, however, we continue placidly in our fishless state of existence, and the finny tribe, outside in the deep sea, have a good time in consequence.'

The book did include some recipes 'created by Mrs H. Wicken, Lecturer on Cookery to the Technical College, Sydney'. Here is one of them, chosen for no better reason than its 'S' shape, proving that one can make something interesting and elegant with mere local fish.

FISH PUDDING
1/2 lb. Blue Cod*—5d.
1 lb. Potatoes—1d.
1 oz. Butter—1d.
1 Egg
Pepper and Salt—1d.
Total Cost—8d.
Time—Half an Hour
Use cold fish and potatoes, if there are any in the larder; if not, boil a piece of blue smoked cod in some water for five minutes. Flake it up free from skin and bone and put it into a basin; mash up the potatoes and mix them in with the pepper and salt. Bind into a paste with an egg; rub some dripping on a baking sheet, turn the mixture on to it and shape into the letter S, brush over with egg or milk, and bake till brown. Slip it off on to a hot dish, and garnish with parsley.

*Common fish names are always problematic, and it is not possible to be certain that the cook was referring to what we now call Blue Cod or Trout Cod, and which was officially named Maccullochella macquariensis a century after Oxley’s journey. It would not have been Oxley’s fish, in spite of the fact that it was named after the river he explored (which was named for Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of NSW from 1810-1821), as it is a fresh-water fish. In another irony, it is one of the species that is now sufficiently rare that it is fully protected..."

[GCCC]

"Dinner for the Workers."
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2006/10/dinner-for-workers.html

Note that while the story accompanying this entry is post-19th C. (but is pre-WWI, so still within our Steampunk purview), the recipe itself is still within our time frame.

Excerpted from the article:

"Today, October 31st …

The five hundred workmen who had completed the renovated the exterior of Buckingham Palace in only 13 weeks were entertained at dinner by King George V on this day in 1913, at a Holborn restaurant...

...A large number of the public who 'recognized that the dinner was a well-deserved tribute to the craft and discipline of British workmanship', came along to watch the men arriving, and a large number of souvenir sellers had a nicely profitable evening.

A letter of thanks from the King was read out by the Master of the Household.

'I congratulate you upon an achievement both in handicraft and rapidity of execution. You have raised what is acknowledged to be a distinct architectural improvement in London, and a worthy addition to the Empire’s memorial to Queen Victoria.'

The 'comrade who lost his life in the execution of his duties' was given an honourable mention, and the men were finally able to tuck into what was probably for many of them the most spectacular meal they had ever had in their lives, accompanied by 'an abundant supply of good ale'.

Scotch Broth
Boiled Turbot with Hollandaise Sauce
Roast Saddle of Mutton
Roast Beef
Baked Potatoes
Brussels sprouts
Cauliflower
Saxon pudding
Dessert...

...Saxon Pudding.
According to high authority this is one of the best puddings of Germany. Boil a gill of milk, put into a stewpan half a pound of flour. Gradually dilute the flour with the milk, so as to obtain a fine smooth paste. Add four ounces of butter, and salt to taste. Place the saucepan on a moderate fire, stir the preparation till it begins to thicken, then take it off the fire, but still continue working it. When the paste is smooth, place it again on the fire, working it still, and gradually introduce into it the yolks of ten eggs, four ounces of oranged sugar, four ounces of butter, and a little salt. When the preparation is frothy, introduce seven or eight whipped whites of eggs. Pour the preparation into a dome or cylinder mould which has been buttered and glazed with sugar and potato-flour. Set the mould in stewpan with boiling water reaching to half its height. Bake in a slack oven for forty minutes.
[Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery, 1870’s]

[GCCC]

"Pudding Season."
http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2007/09/pudding-season.html

Excerpted from the article:

"Today, October 1st ...

Many almanacs insist that October 1st is the 'official start of the pudding season' in England. I have been completely unable to find anything authoritative on the 'official' part of this phrase, but the time of year was indisputably (in the Northern hemisphere at any rate) when 'puddings' in the original meaning of the word were made in earnest.

The OED has some difficulties with the etymology of the word, no doubt due to its antiquity. It is related to the French word 'boudin' (say that with a terrible French accent and you get near enough to 'pudding'), and originally it did mean 'a stuffed entrail or sausage.' In other words, guts stuffed with meat. Eventually the word also came to apply to the 'stuffing' itself, so that you could, for example, cook a nice little rabbit with a pudding in its belly for dinner. 'Stuffing' of course is a great way to make a little rabbit go a lot further, and over time the starchy and fatty additives of flour and suet got a life of their own, resulting in 'suet puddings'. Suet puddings can be 'savoury' (steak and kidney) or 'sweet' (jam roly-poly) for example. The sweet variety seems to have been more enduring than the savoury, and with even more time and more stretching of the concept, in England 'pudding' came to be synonymous with 'dessert'.

So why this time of year? It is (in the Northern hemisphere) harvest time, and in olden times before they could be over-wintered, all but the breeding stock was killed and the meat preserved. The traditional start was Michaelmas (29 September), so clearly by October 1st the butchering, salting, and sausage (pudding) making was well under-way.

This day is not to be confused with 'Stir-Up Sunday', which is, according to the Christian calendar, the last Sunday before Advent, and so called by the happy association of ideas biblical and culinary. It is the traditional day to stir-up your Christmas puddings...

...Mutton Pudding.
Season with salt, pepper, and a bit of onion ; lay one layer of steaks at the bottom of the dish, and pour a batter of potatoes boiled and pressed through a colander, and mixed with milk and an egg, over them ; then putting the rest of the steaks, and batter, bake it.
Batter with flour, instead of potatoes, eats well, but requires more egg, and is not so good.
[A New System of Domestic Cookery: Formed Upon Principles of Economy, Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell (1824)]..."