The Other Uses of Coffee.

Sometime ago, I wrote a short article called ‘The Other Uses of Coffee’ for my regular gig with a bakery trade magazine. The curse and blessing of a limited word allowance meant that some of the weirder uses of coffee had to be left out, but I have no intention of wasting the delightful information I gleaned in my research. Today I give you an interesting idea from the nineteenth century Australian cookbook guru, ‘Mrs. Rawson’ (Wilhemina Frances, or ‘Mina’ to her friends.)

Mrs. Rawson’s Dry Coffee Preservative.
(To Preserve Game When Carried Any Distance, Or Kept Some Time.)
When the ducks, water hens, turkeys etc are shot, let them be cleaned as soon as possible. The task need not be an unpleasant one at all, if each gentleman is provided with a piece of stout wire, and each does all that falls to his own gun. Cut the opening at one side, the left is the most handy, first picking away just a few feathers. That done, introduce the wire which should be bent like a wide hook at the top, and draw out all the loose contents of the body. All that should come without trouble, and in one pull, the wire being held firmly. Now sprinkle a liberal quantity of dry coffee into the inside, pick a handful of grass, roll it up, and push it in as stuffing. I cannot tell you what qualities the coffee possesses, but that it is far before pepper, used in this way. I have also used it successfully on butcher’s meat.

I am not too convinced that pulling out the innards of a duck with a loop of wire can be done ‘without trouble’ – and a lot of splattery mess, but then I have never tried the manoeuvre. I wonder if the coffee does have some preservative ability – or just disguises the smell of putrefaction. Anyone know of any other examples of its use in this way?

Mrs Rawson was big on baking too, but I am going to take a leap into the mid-twentieth century for the recipe for the day – to my favourite source of the wartime Ministry of Food leaflets. From issue number 29, a recipe that fits nicely into the Coffee Recipe Archive.

Coffee Potato Scones.
Sift 6 oz plain flour, 2 level teaspoonfuls baking powder, and ½ teaspoonful salt into a basin. Mix thoroughly with 4 oz mashed potato. Rub in 2 oz fat with the tips of the fingers. Blend to a soft dough with ½ teacupful strong, milky, sweetened coffee. Roll out to ½ inch thickness on a floured board and cut into little rounds. Glaze the tops with a little milk. Bake on greased baking sheets in a hot oven for 15 minutes.

Quotation for the Day …

Coffee: we can get it anywhere, and get as loaded as we like on it, until such teeth-chattering, eye-bulging, nonsense-gibbering time as we may be classified unable to operate heavy machinery.
Joan Frank

A Poetic Tea.

November 2 …

English is such a rich language that it always seems a shame when we force a word to do double duty for two different concepts. I am thinking of the word “tea” at present. It means, of course, a beverage essential to life, made from the leaves of Camellia sinensis. It also means a meal, and therein lies another confusion – when we are invited to “tea”, is that High Tea or Low Tea?

I make a plea for the re-cycling of another good old English word for the meal, to enable “tea” to be reserved solely for the life-giving beverage. I suggest the word “voide”. According to the OED this means “A collation consisting of wine accompanied by spices, comfits, or the like, partaken of before retiring to rest or the departure of guests; a repast of this nature following upon a feast or fuller meal; a parting dish.” This meal does sound more in the nature of a supper, but we don’t need a new word for supper - and in any case, High Tea often does duty as Supper. Certainly, the word is based on some old French word (a gift of those invading Normans in 1066, no doubt) – and invokes the idea of a gap or space, such as that left by the aforesaid departing guests.

It is quite a poetically appropriate word to replace “tea” when you discover that Afternoon Tea was invented for just this purpose – to fill the increasing gap between lunch and dinner in the early nineteenth century. I though it was very serendipitous synchronicity when I then discovered a little book published in 1860 called Breakfast, Dinner and Tea, viewed Classically, Poetically, and Practically. I was even more delighted to find that this was an American book, as until then I was labouring under the clear misunderstanding that “tea” was a purely English phenomenon. We are not so different after all

The author explains the American concept:

“In our Northern States, it is a very general custom both in town and country, to invite company to tea; - this meal being preferred to dinner as involving less effort, fatigue, and formality. The table is on these occasions more or less bountifully spread, according to the means and tastes of the hosts; conversation flows unrestrained by formality; a general cheerfulness seems to emanate from the steaming cups of tea, and the company generally separate at an early hour, with increased kindliness and neighborly feeling. In the rural districts, this meal partakes of the nature of a supper, both on ordinary and extraordinary occasions. When these latter occur, the greatest profusion abounds ; plenty with them is the soul of hospitality, and it is desired that every guest shall taste of every dish.”

Naturally, the book contains some recipes, and true to the practical-poetic nature of the meal, a number of them are named for their makers. “Kate” must have been a fine home cook, she gives us two recipes.

Kate's Sponge Cake.
Take six eggs, with their weight in sugar, and the weight of four of them in flour. Beat the whites to a froth ; stir the yelks with the sugar, and then putting them together, stir the whole ten minutes, gradually adding the flour.
Flavor with vanilla, lemon, or nutmeg. Bake it in a quick oven, and do not move it while baking.

Kate's Cookies.
Two cups of sugar, half a cup of butter, and one and a half cup of sweet milk, one teaspoonful of cream of tartar, half a teaspoonful of soda and two eggs. If you prefer to use sour milk omit the cream of tartar. Mix in sufficient flour to stiffen. Bake in a quick oven.

Monday’s Story …

More Food Word Fun.

Quotation for the Day …

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast.
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each.
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Cowper.

To the Officers of the Mouth.

October 29 ...

It may be true that you can judge a book by its cover, but what of the days before colour printing and graphic designers and the whole colourfull digital age? One clearly chose by the front page. Words instead of pictures. So they better be good words. And preferably a catchy title.

Below is one of my favourites, from a book published in 1682.

A Perfect School of
INSTRUCTIONS
For the
Officers of the Mouth:
SHEWING
The Whole ART
OF
A Master of the Household A Master Confectioner
A Master Carver A Master Cook
A Master Butler A Master Pastryman

Being a Work of singular Use for Ladies and
Gentlewomen, and all Persons whatsoever
that are desirous to be acquainted with the
most excellent ARTS of Carving, Cookery,
Pastry, Preserving, and Laying a Cloth for
Grand Entertainments. The like never before
Extant in any Language.

Adorned with Pictures curiously Ingraven
displaying the whole Arts.
-
By Giles Rose, one of the Master Cooks in
His Majesties Kitchen.

How could you resist a title like this? There are those of you who are vocal in your hatred of the word “foodie” – I know, because I have read your rants. Unfortunately, none of you have come up with a suitably catchy alternative. Could we co-opt “Officers of the Mouth”? OOMs for short? Giles was referring to the staff who made it all happen in the kitchens and at the dining tables of the well-off, but as few of us have servants these days the title is languishing, begging to be recycled and appreciated once more.

If, like me, you throw a towel over your shoulder while you are cooking, you may say that this is because you like to keep a wiping-cloth handy at all times. You may not have realised it, but you have also been demonstrating your rank at the top of the meal-producing hierarchy – as Steward, or Maistre de Hostel.

Giles explains it thus:

The hour of Meals being come, and all things are now in readiness, le Maistre de Hostel takes a clean Napkin, folded at length, but narrow, and throws it over his Shoulder, remembring that this is the ordinary Mark, and particular sign and demonstration of his Office: and to let men see how credible his Charge is, he must not be shamefaced, nor so much as blush, no not before any noble Personage, for his Place is rather an Honour than a Service, for he may do his Office with his Sword by his side, his Cloak upon his Shoulders, and his Hat on his Head; but his Napkin must be always upon his Shoulder, just in the posture I told you of before.

We will examine the job descriptions of the Master Carver and the other Officers in due course, but for now I leave you with the recipe for the day, also taken from Giles’ book. It is an especially delicious-sounding one that I am sure you will be unable to resist. Let me know how it turns out.

A Tart of the Brain of a Capon.
Mince the Brain of a Capon Raw, with as much Marrow, or Beef Suet, as the Flesh contains to, sheet your Patty-pan with fine Paste, and add to your Meat, Champignons, Truffles, Cockscombs, Sweet-breads of Veal, and season all this with a packet or bundle, Salt, Pepper, Nutmeg, and a little Lard beaten or melted, cover it with the same Paste, and indore* it, let it bake an hour and a half, then put into it, when it is baked, Pistaches, the juice of Lemons, and a good gravy in serving it away.

* indore = to make golden, for example by using an egg wash, or saffron - or occasionally real gold.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Primitive Cookery.

Quotation for the Day …

"What science demands more study than Cookery? You have not only, as in other arts, to satisfy the general eye, but also the individual taste of the persons who employ you; you have to attend to economy, which every one demands; to suit the taste of different persons at the same table; to surmount the difficulty of procuring things which are necessary to your work; to undergo the want of unanimity among the servants of the house; and the mortification of seeing unlimited confidence sometimes reposed in persons who are unqualified to give orders in the kitchen, without assuming consequence, and giving themselves airs which are almost out of reason, and which frequently discourage the Cook." Louis Eustache Ude.

Puckering up with Persimmons.

October 26^th

When the word “persimmon” is mentioned, is the word “puckery” ever far behind? It seems not, and Henry Thoreau certainly put them together in his journal article of this day in 1856.

“The persimmon (Diospyros Virginiana) quite common. Saw some trees quite full of fruit. There was a little left on the trees when I left, November 24th, but I should think it was in its prime about the end of the first week of November, i.e., what would readily shake off. Before, it was commonly puckery. In any case it furs the mouth just like the choke-cherry. It is not good for much. They would be more edible if it were not for the numerous large seeds, and when you have rejected them there is little but skin left. Yet I was surprised that the fruit was not more generally gathered.”

We pucker-up for unripe persimmons because of their highly astringent nature – an astringent being a chemical that actually dries and shrinks body tissue. It seems we may be biologically programmed to react unfavourably to bitter and astringent foods as in nature they often indicate poisons, so a taste for such foods must be acquired. Certainly we are able to do this to some extent: the followers of Ayurvedic principles consider bitter to be one of the six basic tastes; many Asian people enjoy bitter melon; many Engish people enjoy their tea with industrial-strength tannins. I don’t know anyone who relishes unripe bananas, but you may be lurking out there.

Some foods are said to be psycho-active (all chocolate and some mushrooms?), but here we have a food that has a direct physical effect that is completely unrelated to its nutritional value. The great astringency of an unripe persimmon will stimulate the muscles of the face to form a “corrugation of the skin of the face, brow, lips” – or, less prosaically, to “drawe a man’s mouth awrie, with much torment”.

Are there any other foods that have such a sudden and direct physical effect? The only ones I can think of, after much brain-wracking, are chilli peppers on most occasions when they are eaten, and ice-cream when it causes “ice-cream headache”. Both the chilli pepper and the ice-cream experience are examples of a neurological glitch caused by the misinterpretation of a sensory stimulus in the mouth (chemical or temperature). In the case of the chilli peppers, the significance of the capsaicin (the “hot” chemical) is misinterpreted by the brain, which invokes the body’s heat loss mechanisms (flushing, sweating). In an incident of “brain-freeze” the constriction of the blood vessels in the palate due to the cold ice-cream triggers a neurological response called referred pain that is thankfully usually very brief. Can you think of any other examples?

To avoid serious persimmon-pucker, there seems to be only two choices: eat them very ripe, or try this trick from a United States Department of Agriculture Farmer’s Bulletin of 1915:

“Since heat makes the astringency of the persimmon more apparent, it is always well to add one-half teaspoonful of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) to each cupful of persimmon pulp in all recipes where the fruit is subjected to heat. Although it has been proved by experiment that the soda may be omitted if the fruit is entirely free from astringency, it is better to use it until one is sure of the quality of the persimmon pulp.”

In a previous post we had recipes for Persimmon Bread and Persimmon Beer. Here are a couple of recipes from the Farmers’ Bulletin that might be a bit more practical for most of us today.

PERSIMMON-PEANUT GRIDDLECAKES.
1 cup of persimmon pulp.
1 teaspoonful of baking powder.
1 tablespoonful of peanut butter.
1/2 teaspoonful of soda.
1 egg. Milk to make a thin batter.
1 cup of flour.
Bake and serve as above. [i.e on a hot griddle; serve with butter or sirop]

PERSIMMON-PEANUT MUFFINS (A GOOD RECIPE FOR CAMPERS).
1/2 cup of persimmon pulp.
1 teaspoonful of baking powder.
1 tablespoonful of peanut butter.

1 egg
1/2 teaspoonful of soda.
1 cup of flour.
Press or cut in pats 1/2 inch thick and bake in a quick oven.

Monday’s Story …

To the Officers of the Mouth.

Quotation for the Day …

… its [the persimmon’s] bitter power of astringency is surprising, and seems capable of suspending for a time all the faculties of the lips, and binds up the risible muscles of the sufferer to the same extent that it excites those of a spectator. Charles Augustus Murray (in the 1830’s)

Macadamia and Orange Biscotti.

Warning! This is not a food HISTORY post!

I’ve had a couple of requests for my Macadamia and Orange Biscotti since mentioning them in response to a comment to yesterday’s blog story.
Here it is, followed by some of the variations (it works perfectly well using gluten-free flour too.)

MACADAMIA AND ORANGE BISCOTTI.
60 gm soft butter
220 gm caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon finely grated orange rind
3 eggs
350 gm plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarb soda
½ teaspoon salt
150 gm (more or less) of coarsely chopped roasted macadamias; I work on the principle of cramming as many in as possible.
a couple of extra tablespoons of sugar for topping.

Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and rind until just combined.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beat until just combined.
Stir in the flour, baking powder and soda; when they are nearly mixed in, add the nuts.
The mixture is very sticky at this point, and it is easier to manage if you put in the fridge for a while (overnight works fine too, if you want to make it ahead).
Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, cut into two lumps, and knead each one very lightly until it is not so sticky. Pat these out into two logs – about 2.5 cm (an inch) thick, and long-ish or wide-ish depending on your fancy. Flatten them lightly so that they have an even, flat top.
Brush the tops with water (I just run my hand under the tap then over the top of the dough); sprinkle with the extra sugar (as thick or thin as you like).
Put them in a moderate oven for 35-40 minutes (ovens are so variable I hesitate to give you an exact time) – they should be golden and slightly firm but not hard. Transfer them to a cooling rack (I use two flat spatulas to lift them).
When they are cool enough to handle, slice them however thick or thin you want. I use a serrated bread knife, but an electric knife works well.
Put them in a moderately-slow oven until they are dry; turn them over at some point – they don’t need to be brittle, they will continue to crisp up a bit after you take them out of the oven and put them on a wire cooling rack.
Eat.

This is an infinitely variable recipe. You can substitute some of the flour with ground almonds (about ⅓ - ½ a cup) for a slightly different texture. You can of course use any nuts (or choc chips) and other flavourings. Maple sugar and macadamia is divine, if you can get an affordable source of maple sugar. I am thinking perhaps Palm Sugar and Pine Nuts next?

My favourite is Chocolate Hazelnut: just substitute ½ cup of the flour with good quality cocoa, and use roasted hazelnuts instead of macadamias. In this case – even better if you substitute a couple of teaspoons of instant coffee (mix with a few drops of water) for the vanilla.

Let me know if you try it.

Monsieur Buffet.

Today, October 18 …

Monsieur Pierre-Aphonse Buffet did not exist. Or if he did, he lived and disappeared with no obvious trace in the late seventeenth or first half of the eighteenth century. Even if he did exist, he certainly did not give his name to the word “buffet” in any of its incarnations.

“Buffet” means three things, according to the OED. It means a blow or punch (did you play ‘Blind Man’s Buff’ as a child?), a three-legged stool (on which Miss Muffet probably sat - rather than a tuffet - eating her curds and whey, which were probably cruds and whey), and of course a sideboard or cabinet (and ultimately the food served from it).

The OED does not even venture a guess as to the origin of the word, and I therefore hold it partly responsible for the perpetuity of the myth of Pierre-Alphonse. It is a colourful myth, reminiscent of the one about the English Earl of Sandwich giving his name to sandwiches. It says that the usage came about because he was a Parisian gambler-gourmet who ensured that food was laid out on his sideboard so that he and his guests did not need to leave the gaming table in order to eat.

There are faint suspicions that the word is French in origin – and the custom of using a sideboard or cupboard to make an ostentatious display of one’s gold and silver knick-knacks probably did start in France, maybe in the sixteenth century. It became an obvious location for the placement of elegant filled dishes of fine food when one entertained, and eventually, by the early nineteenth century, the word came to apply to the meal served from it.

Once upon a time, buffet parties were elegant and refined. Now we have the ‘all you can eat’ kind, which have inspired the invention of elastic-waisted ‘buffet-pants' and may have played their own small part in the obesity epidemic.

From ostentation to elegance to gross in a mere few centuries. Mrs. Beeton lived in the time when a buffet was on the cusp between ostentation and elegance. She thought they were very appropriate for suppers.

“Where small rooms and large parties necessitate having a standing supper, many things enumerated in the following bill of fare may be placed on the buffet. Dishes for these suppers should be selected which may be eaten standing without any trouble. The following list may, perhaps, assist our readers in the arrangement of a buffet for a standing supper.

Beef, ham, and tongue sandwiches, lobster and oyster patties, sausage rolls, meat rolls, lobster salad, dishes of fowls, the latter - all cut up; dishes of sliced ham, sliced tongue, sliced beef, and galantine of veal; various jellies, blancmanges, and creams; custards in glasses, compotes of fruit, tartlets of jam, and several dishes of small fancy pastry; dishes of fresh fruit, bonbons, sweetmeats, two or three sponge cakes, a few plates of biscuits, and the buffet ornamented with vases of fresh or artificial flowers. The above dishes are quite sufficient for a standing supper; where more are desired, a supper must then be laid and arranged in the usual manner.”

Her suggestion of sausage rolls seems a little out of place to me; sausage rolls may be delicious, but they are hardly elegant. Here is her recipe for them.

MEAT OR SAUSAGE ROLLS
1 lb. of puff-paste No. 1206, sausage-meat No. 837, the yolk of 1 egg.
Make 1 lb. of puff-paste by recipe No. 1206; roll it out to the thickness of about ½ inch, or rather less, and divide it into 8, 10,or 12 squares, according to the size the rolls are intended to be. Place some sausage-meat on one-half of each square, wet the edges of the paste, and fold it over the meat; slightly press the edges together, and trim them neatly with a knife. Brush the rolls over with the yolk of an egg, and bake them in a well-heated oven for about ½ hour, or longer should they be very large. The remains of cold chicken and ham, minced and seasoned, as also cold veal or beef, make very good rolls.

1206. PUFF PASTE.
To every lb. of flour allow 8 oz. of butter, 4 oz.of lard, not quite ½ pint of water.
This paste may be made by the directions in the preceding recipe, only using less butter and substituting lard for a portion of it. Mix the flour to a smooth paste with not quite ½ pint of water; then roll it out 3 times, the first time covering the paste with butter, the second with lard, and the third with butter. Keep the rolling-pin and paste slightly dredged with flour, to prevent them from sticking, and it will be ready for use.

TO MAKE SAUSAGES.
(Author's Oxford Recipe)
837. 1 lb. of pork, fat and lean, without skin or gristle; 1 lb. of lean veal, 1 lb. of beef suet, 1/2 lb. of bread crumbs, the rind of 1/2 lemon, 1 small nutmeg, 6 sage-leaves, 1 teaspoonful of pepper, 2 teaspoonfuls of salt, 1/2 teaspoonful of savory, 1/2 teaspoonful of marjoram.

Chop the pork, veal, and suet finely together, add the bread crumbs, lemon-peel (which should be well minced), and a small nutmeg grated. Wash and chop the sage-leaves very finely; add these with the remaining ingredients to the sausage-meat, and when thoroughly mixed, either put the meat into skins, or, when wanted for table, form it into little cakes, which should be floured and fried.

Tomorrow’s Story …

A Nut by Any Other Name

Quotation for the Day ...

I went to this restaurant last night that was set up like a big buffet in the shape of an Ouija board. You'd think about what kind of food you want, and the table would move across the floor to it. Steven Wright

The virtues of coffee.

Today, October 16 ...

The first coffee house in London opened in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, in 1652. Like many newly introduced foods, it was first promoted as a health food. If you are suffering from the Spleen, Hypocondriack Winds, or the like, go and have a cup of coffee - this advertising broadsheet, produced sometime in the first year or two of the coffee house opening, says it will be good for you.

THE VERTUE OF THE COFFEE DRINK

The Grain or Berry called Coffee, groweth upon little Trees, only in the Deserts of Arabia. It is brought from thence, and drunk generally throughout all the Grand Seigniors Dominions. It is a simple innocent thing, composed into a Drink, by being dryed in an Oven and ground to Powder, and boiled up with Spring water, and about half a pint of it to be drunk, fasting an hour before, and not Eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured; the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any Blisters, by reason of that Heat.
The Turks drink at meals and other times, is usually Water, and there Dyet consists much of Fruit & the Crudites whereof are very much corrected by this Drink. The quality of this Drink is cold and Dry; and though it be a Dryer; yet it neither heats, nor inflames more than hot Posset.
It so closeth the Orifice of the Stomack, and fortifies the heat within...it's very good to help digestion; and therefore of great use to be drunk about 3 or 4 a Clock in the afternoon, as well as in the morning.
It quickens the Spirits and makes the Heart Lightsome. It is good against sore eys, and the better if you hold your Head o'er it, and take in the Steem that way. It suppresseth Fumes exceedingly, and therefore good against the Head-ach, and will very much stop the Defluxion of Rhuems, that distil from the Head upon the Stomack, and so prevent and help Consumption and the Cough of the Lungs.
It is excellent to prevent and cure the Dropsy, Gout and Scurvy.
It is known by experience to be better than any other Drying Drink for People in years, or Children that have any running humors up on them, as the Kings Evil.
It is very good to prevent Mis-carryings in Child-bearing Women.
It is a most excellent Remedy against the Spleen, Hypocondriack Winds, or the like.
It will prevent Drowsiness, and make one fit for business, if one have occasion to Watch; and therefore you are not to Drink of it after Supper, unless you intend to be watchful, for it will hinder sleep for 3 or 4 hours.
It is believed that in Turkey, where this is generally drunk, that they are not troubled with the Stone, Gout, Dropsie, or Scurvy, and that their Skins are exceeding clear and white.
It is neither Laxative nor Restringent.

It was a long time before coffee was used as cooking ingredient rather than a mere beverage, but you can browse the offering in the Coffee Archive if you are interested. Coffee was drunk with conversation in the seventeenth century, not cake. If you were to have cake in the seventeenth century, then the cake of preference was Seed Cake. We would classify it as a sweet bread (it was almost two hundred years before baking sodas were invented), and here is an example from the classic Hannah Woolley’s Accomplished Lady’s Delight, published in 1675.

To make a Caraway-Cake.
Take three pound and a half of the finest Flower, and dry it in an Oven*, one pound and a half of Sweet Butter, and mix it with the Flower, till it be crumbled very small, that none of it be seen; then take three quarters of a pint of New Ale-Yeast, and half a pint of Sack, and half a pint of New Milk, with six spoonfuls of Rose-Water, and four Yolks, and two Whites of Eggs; then let it lye before the Fire half an hour, or more, and when you go to make it up, put in three quarters of Caraway-Comfits, and a pound and a half of Biskets. Put it into the Oven, and let it stand and hour and a half.

*this was because it was often difficult to ensure flour was completely dry – no airtight plastic storage containers back then

Tomorrow’s Story …

Directions to Servants.

Quotation for the Day …

These consumers are always ordering mutant beverages with names like "mocha-almond-honey-vinaigrette-lattespressacino,"' beverages that must be made one at a time via a lengthy and complex process involving approximately one coffee bean, three quarts of dairy products and what appears to be a small nuclear reactor. Dave Barry.

Ace-High Dishes.

Today October 4^th …

Amelia Earhart is one of the world’s most famous missing persons. The female flying ace disappeared on an attempted round the world flight in July 1937, and theories abound as to the cause of her disappearance. Amelia was a staunch supporter of women’s rights, but did not feel this was a barrier to at times making her own clothes, or endorsing a line of fashionable womens’ clothing (bra-burning feminists came much later). According to a magazine article dated this day in 1936 she could also cook. The article was called “Ace-High Dishes”: here is an extract.

“At home when she has time she can set before you tempting dishes cooked by her own competent hands. …. She makes especially good fudge. Or get yourself invited to one of the Sunday night suppers she prepares. Then you will realise that honors in the kitchen as well as in the air, might be bestowed on Amelia Earhart, the comely daughter of the Middle West, who was destined to become America’s heroine of the year.

“Speaking of desserts,” Amelia’s husband interpolates, “I might say that my own infantile preference for chocolate cornstarch is responsible for the frequent appearance of that, to me, delectable dish. There’s probably been more chocolate cornstarch on our table than on any other table in the world. We like rice, too, served with cream and sugar. And baked bananas stand high in our favour, sometimes as dessert and sometimes as an accompaniment.”

The article did not give recipes for her fudge or the chocolate cornstarch, but it did give this recipe:

Sour-Cream Waffles.
If you like crisp waffles that will hold their crispness, here is a recipe which should prove satisfactory.
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 eggs, separated
2 cups sour, heavy cream
Mix and sift dry ingredients. Combine well-beaten egg yolks and cream; add to the flour mixture, beating until smooth. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Bake in hot waffle iron. Approximate yield: 5 waffles.

Tomorrow’s Story …

The Language of Ham.

Quotation for the Day …

Older women are like aging strudels—the crust may not be so lovely, but the filling has come at last into its own. Robert Farrar Capon.

Extra! Extra! Chocolate Tea Cake!

Some days, because you might have been very good, you deserve a second story for the day.

I have had a lovely evening browsing the beautifully battered old cookbook given to me by Barbara at winosandfoodies when she and I had lunch on Saturday. There is no publication date in the book, but an inscription made by a previous owner is dated 1939.

It is The Woman’s Book, and the chapter entitled Guide to Cookery shows that there was no doubt in the author’s mind that the cook and recipe writer are female. The author is quite clear on another point too – if the recipe turns out badly, the fault is the cook’s, not the recipe writer’s.

“The cook, whether professional or amateur, owes something to the author of the recipes she uses, and that debt is not discharged if the recipes are carelessly read and carelessly followed. Nearly every one has heard the remark “I am sure I don’t know why the dish is like this – the recipe must be wrong.” The recipe cannot reply – can only defend itself by success; and so, in the interests of fair play, it ought to receive just treatment. Accuracy in the weighing and measuring of ingredients must be insisted upon. Cooking may be an art, but it is also a science, and to ensure success we must be exact. There must be no guesswork. An ounce more or less may bring ruin on your labours.”

I do, however, have some issue with the recipe writer in this book – there is a certain lack of clarity in some of the instructions, so perhaps it is not always the cook’s fault if things don’t turn out as expected.

This recipe does sound delicious, with a wonderful combination of flavours – if only we could be sure when and how to add them.

Chocolate Tea Cake.
4 oz Butter.
3 oz Castor Sugar.
3 oz Grated Chocolate.
1 oz Ground Almonds.
Grated rind of half a Lemon
4 oz Pastry Flour
3 small eggs
1 dessertspoonful Orange Flower Water
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
A Pinch of Ground Cinnamon.
A Pinch of Nutmeg.
Sieve the sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, and nutmeg into a basin. Add the butter, and beat together with a wooden spoon until of a soft creamy consistency. Then add the eggs and flour by degrees, beating and mixing well between the addition of each egg. Flavour to taste, and add the baking powder at the last. Pour into a tin that has been greased and dusted out with flour and sugar mixed, and bake the cake in a moderate oven about one hour, until well risen and until it feels dry when tested with a skewer.
Note:- When cold, this cake may be iced with chocolate glacé icing, and then decorated with crystallised violets and leaves cut out of angelica or any other suitable decoration that will form a nice contrast to the brown icing.

My issue with the recipe writer: Sieving of cocoa would make sense, but this recipe calls for sieving of the grated chocolate, which sounds odd indeed. There are no specific instructions for the inclusion of the ground almonds, lemon rind, orange flower water – these are presumably added at the point where the recipe says “flavour to taste” – which belies the warnings about exact measurements. Would it not make more sense to add the ground almonds with the flour?

I’ll make it if you come to visit, Barbara!

Conversation Cake.

Today, September 17^th ….

Today I have for you another little bit of Retro Cake trivia (are you reading this, Patron Saint of Retro Cakes?) from an almost Retro Recipe source – the radio. In spite of the obvious advantages of a highly visual medium such as TV in providing cookery infotainment, radio recipe programs just refuse to die.

There is, in the USA, a long running food/cookery/household hint program called Ask Heloise Radio Show. The current Heloise is the daughter of the originator, who started off with a newspaper column in the Honolulu Advertiser in1959. On September 17^th 1959 Heloise the First gave a recipe for Tomato Soup Conversation Cake, which used as its title suggests, one can of tomato soup – and which no doubt (as Heloise I pointed out) has the potential for being a conversation starter, should you need one for your little tea-party.

The recipe was not a new idea in 1959 - without the ‘conversation’ in the title the idea has been around since the 1920’s. It seems to have first appeared in a Campbell’s recipe booklet – and if anyone can provide the original recipe I will happily post it. Variations on the theme have been in and out of fashion in the decades since then: most have spices, some have dried fruit and/or nuts, and it can be made in the style of a Chiffon-cake type if that is your preference. I have come across a recipe with only three ingredients – 1 package of spice-cake mix, 1 can (10 ½ oz) of condensed tomato soup, and ¼ cup water – which is more of a set of assembling instructions than a recipe I think.

The version I give you today is from a newspaper article of 1935. The columnist begins by saying:

“For some reason editors throughout the country report a deluge of requests for ‘tomato soup cake.’ It sounds weird to the uninitiated, but try some and understand that such popularity must be deserved!”

Tomato Soup Cake.
Cream 1 cup butter and one cup sugar until smooth, then add one beaten egg and mix thoroughly. Dissolve one teaspoon soda in one can tomato soup, and alternate with 1 ¾ cups flour which has been sifted with two tea-spoons cloves, one teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon nutmeg, 1/8 teaspoon salt. Mix thoroughly and stir in one cup sliced pasteurized dates and one cup chopped walnut meats. Place in greased and floured shallow loaf pan and bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Cool and ‘frost’ with a cream cheese frosting.

It might be one way to give your children more vegetables, and your adults some extra lycopenes (the cancer-protective ingredient that makes tomatoes red), should you need some cake-justification. Either way, please relax and enjoy, for tomorrow is a very serious story.

Tomorrow’s Story …

No honey for the children.

Quotation for the Day …

Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie. Jim Davis (he who produces “Garfield”).

The Baron Brisse.

Today, August 13th …

As promised, this week we will be inspired by the mid-nineteenth century menu and recipe book of the Baron Léon Brisse. Not much is known about him. He was a (presumably) aristocratic Frenchman who appeared to have to earn a living. He began his working life in the department of Water and Forestry under Louise Phillipe, but left in 1850 to pursue his interests in gastronomy and writing (it seems that he left his employ in the wake of a scandal of sorts).

The baron was perhaps the first food journalist. He wrote regularly for La Liberte, and in 1868 published Les Trois Cent Soixant Six Menus du Baron Brisse (The 366 Menus of Baron Brisse). The book included 1200 recipes, many of which are quite outlandish – a fact for which he was criticised at the time. How was he to know? He did not actually cook himself, he was a collector of recipes.

In his preface, the baron makes one highly unusual comment. Cookbook authors almost always advocate frugality in the kitchen (or at least denounce flagrant waste). The baron says:

“I have not attempted to give recipes for using up scraps, as this art is only useful when you run short of provisions; it is quite a mistake to imagine that warming up cooked meat is economical, as all good transformations must be expensive.”

His suggested menu for August 13 is:

Potage Crécy
(Crécy Soup)
Matelote de carpe et d’anguille
(Stewed carp and eel)
Poupiettes de veau.
(Stuffed fillets of veal)
Pintade rôtie.
(Roast guinea-fowl)
Haricots verts au beurre noir.
(Green beans with black butter)
Biscuit de savoy.
(Savoy cake)

I do hope that I have solved your problem of what to cook for dinner tonight. The Baron has also enabled me to fulfil my promise to you a few days ago of giving you a recipe for a Savoy cake.

Savoy, or sponge cake.
Break fifteen eggs, keep the yolks separate from the whites, stir a pound of powdered sugar into the yolks, and flavour with either grated lemon peel or vanilla, beat until frothy; whip the whites to a thick cream, add to the yolks, and stir in a pound of flour; pour into a buttered mould, or into small cases, sprinkle with powdered sugar, and bake; when done, glaze the cake with whipped whites of egg, flavoured with lemon juice and sugar, and serve when cold.

Tomorrow’s Story …

The Baron Brisse Menu 2.

Quotation for the Day ….

Chef: Any cook who swears in French. Henry Beard and Roy McKie

Wasting Food is an Offence.

Today, August 7th …

With the War under way, the employees of the British Ministry of Food must have been working overtime by August 1940. Some lessons learned in the First War were put to good use, as this newspaper article from this day in 1940 shows:

WASTING FOOD AN OFFENCE.

An Order under which it will be an offence punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, to waste food was made yesterday, and will come into force next Monday. Mr. Boothby, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, said that it closely resemble a similar one made in the last War. Cases brought under that Order included the following:-

A woman who fed 14 dogs on bread and milk, fined ₤5.
Another woman who gave meat to a St. Bernard dog, fined ₤10.
A workman who left a loaf of bread in a cottage from which he moved, fined ₤20.
A furnaceman who, dissatisfied with his dinner, threw the potatoes in the fire, fined ₤10.
A woman who burned stale bread on her lawn, fined ₤5.
A farmer who fed seven stone of rock cakes to his pigs, fined ₤10.
Another farmer who fed his stock on bread, imprisoned for three months.

Under the present Order the penalties will be: On summary conviction, imprisonment not exceeding three months, or a fine not exceeding ₤100, or both. .... Mr Boothby said that the Order was not intended as a scourge, but only as a general direction to the public not to waste food. “It is not going to be harshly interpreted,” he said “I can guarantee that.”

The farmer feeding rock cakes to the pigs caught my eye - that is a lot of rock cakes (a stone is 14 lb). Was Mrs Farmer a terrible cook? More likely a local baker supplied them. Did the baker get fined too?

I always thought the name ‘Rock Cakes’ sounded unappetising and not salesworthy. Rock Cakes are something between a scone and a muffin – quick cakes which don’t keep well. Perhaps some of the older housewives of WW II pulled out this recipe from their clippings – it is taken from a newspaper milk advertisement of 1919.

Libby’s Orange Rock Cakes.
Mix together 8 oz of flour and 4 oz of sugar. Grate in the rind of one small orange and add a pinch of carbonate of soda. Stir in gradually the juice of an orange, a cupful of Libby’s Milk, and one well-beaten egg. Half fill small buttered tins and bake 15 minutes in a moderate oven.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Fry.

Quotation for the Day ….

My mother didn't really cook. But she did make key lime pie, until the day the top of the evaporated milk container accidentally ended up in the pie and she decided cooking took too much concentration. William Norwich.

Napoleon or Neapolitan?

Today, July 16^th

Today is the feast day of the patron saint of Naples, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and a great excuse to indulge – or over-indulge if you wish, as tradition has it that no-one will fall ill as a result of celebrating her day. Anything from Naples will be very appropriate - pizza is the most obvious, or anything alla napoletana, or à la napolitaine, or Neopolitan ice-cream (layers of chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla).

If you want some extra historical boost to your celebrations, you could have Naples Biscuits, which are an old version of sponge fingers, ladyfingers (which in Australia refers to a type of banana), trifle sponges, Savoy biscuits, or boudoir biscuits. I have no idea why they are called Naples Biscuits - presumably because the recipe was thought to originate there - but since the mid-seventeenth century they have appeared frequently in English cookbooks by that name. Neither do I have any idea why they are called boudoir biscuits, although it may have something to do with their shape, and both names may have some vague connection with ‘the evil of Naples’, which was syphilis, when it wasn’t called the French pox or the English disease. As that may be too much information for you on the innocuous little biscuit that is the basis of every jolly English trifle, I will probably be wasting my time giving you a recipe for them today.

If sweet treats are your preferred poison, and you are swayed by the assurance that you wont get sick on this day from eating more than your share, you could have a ‘Napoleon’ instead. I mean of course one of those delicious iced puff pastry ‘mille-feuille’ (which means ‘thousand leaves’) cakes filled with pastry cream and jam. I know, I know, don’t bombard me with emails, Napoleon came from Corsica, not Naples. In spite of some highly creative myths about his role in its origins, the pastry has nothing to do with Napoleon (who was long since dead before the pastry was invented), and everything to do with bad translation. Most historians are confident that the name is a corruption of ‘à la Napolitaine’, which means ‘in the style of Naples’.

Strangely, that good old Victorian standby, Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery, gets the name right with its version of the recipe.

Neapolitan Sweetmeats (a Dish for a Juvenile Party)
Roll out some good puff paste to the thickness of a quarter of an inch. Stamp it out in rounds, diamonds, or any shapes that may be preferred, remembering only to have an equal number of each shape. Place these on a floured baking sheet, and bake in a quick oven. When cold, spread a thick layer of different coloured jams upon half of them, press the other halves on the top, and garnish with a little piping of pink and white icing.

Tomorrow’s Story …

A Brambling we will go.

Quotation for the Day …

'Tis not the eating, nor 'tis not the drinking that is to be blamed, but the excess. John Selden 1584-1654

The Many Uses of Malt.

Today, July 6th

The Horlick brothers' new product - a malted milk drink- was finally released on this day in 1886. The English brothers migrated to America and created a product that would ultimately find its biggest market in India, which proves that the Internet is not solely responsible for globalisation. The product was the result of the brothers’ efforts to find a way to make milk easier to digest, or so the traditional story goes. Horlicks is value-added milk, essentially. Calorie added, calcium added, and flavour added.

What is this thing called Malt? It is ‘barley or other grain prepared for brewing, distilling, or vinegar-making, esp. by steeping, germinating, and kiln-drying.’ These malted cereals are then use to manufacture a whole range of things which enhance our lives: about 96% of all of the malt produced in the world goes to make beer; about 3% to produce malt whisky, and an infinitesimal (but significant) amount to make Maltesers™. The rest goes into such things as malted milk drinks (which are value-added milkshakes, essentially), Chocolate Malted Milk Cake (if you are very lucky), and (especially if you are English) - Malt Loaf.

A large part of the marketing of ‘malted’ products focussed on the supposed health benefits of malt (taking it for medicinal reasons is many a beer-drinker’s excuse, methinks). There are medicinal preparations containing malt which also contain other supplements, which explains the warning in the following recipe. It is from The Times, in 1977. Take heed of the warning, unless you don’t mind your fruit loaf tasting fishy.

Malt Bread.
You can buy malt extract from a chemist – make sure you get malt extract and not the malt and cod-liver oil mixture.
Makes 1 large loaf.
12 oz self raising flour.
½ level teaspoon salt
2 oz castor sugar
4 oz sultanas
2 rounded tablespoons malt extract
1 rounded tablespoon black treacle
½ pint milk
Sift the flour and salt into a mixing basin. Add the sugar and sultanas. Measure the malt extract, treacle and milk into a saucepan and warm over low heat stirring to blend them together. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix very thoroughly.
Pour the mixture into a well buttered 2 lb loaf tin and bake in the centre of a moderate oven (350 deg F or gas 4) for 1 ¼ hours. Loosen sides and turn out. While the loaf is warm from the oven, brush with a hot glaze made by boiling together for one minute one tablespoon each of castor sugar, milk and water – this gives the malt bread a shiny top. Allow to cool.

If you have a favourite Malt recipe, I'd love to hear it.

Monday’s Story …

Tripe, Glasgow Style.

Quotation for the Day …

The powder is mixed with water and tastes exactly like powder mixed with water. Art Buchwald -On liquid diets.

A pot of the best tea.

Today, June 27^th

The first known reference to tea by an Englishman appeared in a letter dated this day in 1615. An East India agent, R.L. Wickham in Japan wrote to his colleague Mr Eaton in Macao requesting “I pray you to buy for me a pot of the best chaw.” His “chaw” was an attempt at the Chinese ch’a - which persists in the very English reference to a cup of tea as a ‘cuppa char’, and in the currently-fashionable-again spiced‘chai’.

The Chinese had been drinking tea for many hundreds of years by then of course. The idea filtered into Japan in the early ninth century, but it remained a Far Eastern secret until the mid-sixteenth century. The first European to taste tea and write about it was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, Father Jasper de Cruz in 1560. The exotic medicinal drink took another hundred years before – in today’s parlance – it began to achieve significant market penetration. It was not offered for sale to the public in England until 1657, when it was advertised as being “wholesome, preserving perfect health until extreme old age, good for clearing the sight,” and able to cure "gripping of the guts, cold, dropsies, scurveys" as well as making the body “active and lusty.” Samuel Pepys had his first taste of the “China drink” in 1660, but by 1667 he was able to write of his wife making it at home – again, for medicinal reasons, her apothecary advising her it was good for her “cold and defluxions.”

Tea is, in my humble opinion, still wonderfully therapeutic on its own, but sometimes it is necessary to take a little sugar to make the medicine go down. This is, I am confident, the reason why so many Tea Cake recipes were invented – this seems to have happened somewhere in the first half of the nineteenth century. The phrase covers a wide variety of treats today, but originally a tea-cake was “a light kind of flat cake to be eaten at tea”. Sometimes these were in the nature of a sweet yeast bun, sometimes more like a scone or a small cake, using baking powder as leavening agent. I give you one of each type, from the Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillipronie (1909).

Sultana Tea-cakes (Mrs Emslie, 1897)
Baked in ribbed quenelle moulds.
¼ lb. butter, ¼ lb. sugar ¼ lb. flour, 2 oz sultanas, 2 eggs, a little candied peel, and baking powder [she does not specify the amount].
Mix the same as for a cake; bake in small ribbed quenelle moulds. When they are done, cover them with icing of sugar and water, and put them on a wire sieve to dry.

Watford Cakes.
1 lb. flour, 3 oz. white sugar, 3 oz. butter, 1 oz. German yeast, ¾ lb. sultanas, a little mixed candied peel and spices, 2 eggs.
Mix with warm milk; will take about 2 hours to rise. Bake.

Tomorrow’s Story …

A Recipe for Mum.

Quotation for the Day …

The British have an umbilical cord which has never been cut and through which tea flows constantly. It is curious to watch them in times of sudden horror, tragedy or disaster. The pulse stops apparently, and nothing can be done, and no move made, until "a nice cup of tea" is quickly made. There is no question that it brings solace and does steady the mind. What a pity all countries are not so tea-conscious. World-peace conferences would run more smoothly if "a nice cup of tea", or indeed, a samovar were available at the proper time. Marlene Dietrich

Calf’s Head and Pig’s Face.

Today, June 15^th …

“We had for Dinner boiled Calfs Head and Pigs face, a Piece of rost Beef and a Gooseberry Pudding’.

The English Parson James Woodforde recorded his dinner, as he often did, in his diary on this day in 1792. Most of us would have passed on the animal faces and gone for its rump, if we were time-travelled back to this meal, I suspect. Our modern sensibilities prefer that the parts of the beast that might smile back at us (and require a lot of fiddly preparation) be served up in anonymously in sausages or meat pies (you didn’t think all those snouts and ears and smiles were just sent for dog meat, did you?).

In the good Parson’s day, when a beast was killed, it was eaten nose to tail without qualms. The parson had expressed some distaste for cow’s udder when he was served it at Oxford in 1763, but perhaps that was a reflection on the College cooks as it appeared on his own table regularly over the next three decades.

Often, as on this day, the Calf’s and Pig’s heads were simply boiled, but there were other ways of presenting these delicacies. Hannah Glasse in her Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) gives recipes for many parts of the pig and cow that are spirited away to be turned into a ‘product’ today, and do not reach the butchers’ shops. She gives several recipes for Calf’s Head – boiled, baked and hashed (two versions), and in a very elegant pie. In the pie recipe she also answers the question you were all afraid to ask: “What about the Eyes?”

To make a Calf’s Head Pye.
Cleanse your head very well, and boil it till it is tender, then carefully take off the Flesh as whole as you can, take out the Eyes and slice the Tongue; make a good Puff-paste Crust, cover the Dish, lay in your Meat, throw over it the Tongue, lay the Eyes cut in two, at each Corner; season it with a very little Pepper and Salt, pour in half a pint of the Liquor it was boiled in, lay a thin Top-Crust on, and bake it in an Hour in a quick Oven. In the mean time boil the Bones of the Head in two Quarts of the Liquor, with two or three Blades of Mace, Half a Quarter of an Ounce of whole Pepper, a large Onion, and a Bundle of Sweet Herbs. Let it boil till there is about a Pint, then strain it off, and add two Spoonfuls of Catchup, three of Red Wine, a Piece of Butter, as big as a Walnut, rolled in Flour, Half an Ounce of Truffles and Morels; season with Salt to your Palate; boil it and have Half the Brains boiled with some Sage, beat them, and twelve Leaves of Sage chopped fine; Stir all together, and give it a boil; take the other Part of the Brains, and beat them up with some of the Sage chopped fine, a little Lemon-peel minced fine, and half a small Nutmeg grated. Beat it up with an Egg, and fry it in little Cakes of a fine Light brown, boil six Eggs hard, take only the Yolks; when your Pye comes out of the Oven, take off the Lid, lay the Eggs and Cakes over it, and pour the Sauce all over. Send it to Table hot without the Lid. This is a fine Dish, you may put in as many fine Things as you please, but it wants no more Addition.

Monday’s Story …

Turtle Season.

Quotation for the Day …

There are few articles of cookery more generally liked than relishing pies, if properly made. Mrs Rundell, in A New System of Domestic Cookery (1806)

The Breakfast of Travellers.

Today, June 11^th …

Today is a public holiday in most of Australia. It is the Queen’s official birthday, hence, as a relic of our colonial past and in recognition of Her as Head of the Commonwealth, we get a Monday off work. It is the one day a year I am a minor Royalist, in gratitude for the holiday.

For those of you who must drag yourselves reluctantly to work this Monday morning, pause a moment and think yourself back to 1911, when June 11^th was a Sunday. On this retrospecive Sunday morning imagine yourself aboard the magnificent R.M.S. Lusitania and blissfully unaware of its fate in 1915 at the hands of a German U-Boat. Your imagination can only manage Second Class, but the breakfast choices are still pretty good.

Apples
Oatmeal Porridge and Fresh Milk
Broiled Codfish Steaks Aberdeen Haddock
Boiled Eggs to Order
--
Broiled Cumberland Ham Fried Eggs
Grilled Beef Steak Saute Potatoes
Rice Cakes, Golden Syrup
--
COLD
Corned Beef
--
Watercress
White & Graham Rolls Soda Scones
Vienna Bread
--
Marmalade Jam
--
Tea Coffee Cocoa

Ham and eggs sound a good breakfast choice, but my history choice today is the Soda scones, for there is in soda scones the complete history of grain-based cuisine.

On the sad off-chance that there may be some of you who don’t know what a scone is, it is the little treat defined by the OED as “ … generally, a soft cake of barley- or oatmeal, or wheat-flour, baked in single portions on a griddle or in an oven. Also with defining words, denoting varieties of this cake, as butter, potato, soda, treacle scone; brown scone, one made of whole meal; drop-, dropped scone, one made of a small portion of batter dropped on the griddle or on a tin and baked.”

If you grow grain, what can you do with it to make it more digestible and palatable? You can soften up the whole grains in water, boil them up, and make a sort of porridge called frumenty. You can first grind the grain to a varying degree from very coarse to very fine. You can then get creative with this idea of grain mixed with water. Your mixture can be varied, depending on which grain you use, how ‘wet’ you make it, and what else you add to enrich it. You can cook it on a flat hearthstone or metal griddle over your fire, or inside your oven, if you have one. From this grain and liquid you can end up with:

Pancakes, drop scones, or pikelets (Australia) or hoe-cakes (America) – with a wettish batter, cooked on a griddle.
Griddle (or girdle) scones – with a bit less liquid so you have a dough rather than a batter. Or a damper, if you are in Australia and make one large scone with your dough.
Bread – if you add yeast (or the air adds it for you).
Cakes and soda scones – if you add a rising agent such as baking powder.
Pastry - if you add fat, and handle lightly.

Baking powder leavening agents were developed in the mid-nineteenth century, so by definition, soda scones did not exist before then. A textbook of 1848 called “School chemistry: or, practical rudiments of the science” by Robert Dundas Thomson describes how this works “Soda scones are made by mixing bicarbonate of soda with the flour, and then baking the mass up with buttermilk; the acid of the milk displaces the CO2”

In yet another example of two countries with a common culinary heritage being divided by their common language, what is called a ‘scone’ in England and Australia, is a ‘biscuit’ in the United States. Technically, the word ‘biscuit’ means ‘twice cooked’ – so a crisp, hard thing - so we who use ‘scone’ for this soft cooked dough tend to feel linguistically correct and therefore superior on this point. Imagine my surprise then, when I took up that quintessentially English cookbook author, Isabella Beeton (1861), to give you her soda scone recipe, to find that she calls them Soda Biscuits!

A book of the same era - Cookery and domestic economy, by Somerville (1862) – recognises the difference (or is it the similarity?) and gives these two recipes:

American Biscuits.
Mix half a pound of sugar with one pound of flour, half a tea-spoonful baking powder, and rub in four ounces of butter; make into a dough with warm milk, roll out thin, cut them out, and bake immediately in a quick oven.

Soda Scones.
To every pound of flour give one half tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda, and the same of cream of tartar, make it into a dough with very sour butter-milk; knead quickly; make it up in small round balls, roll out pretty thin, prickle them with a fork, and bake immediately on a hot griddle or in the oven. A little butter rubbed amongst the flour may be added if wanted richer, and a few currants.

Tomorrow’s Story …

Life with Dates.

Quotation for the Day …

In nothing more is the English genius for domesticity more notably declared than in the institution of this festival - almost one may call it - of afternoon tea...The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose. George Gissing.

Election Cake

Today, June 8^th …

A young soldier stationed in North Carolina called Frederick Osborne wrote home to his family in Massachusetts on this day in 1862. He made mention of a local specialty:

“Aunt Jane has been making 'lection cake I suppose, or is the time for it past?”

Young Fred was referring to Election Cake, a cake associated with – as its name suggests – local elections. It is a New England specialty, and came to be particularly associated with Hartford, Connecticut.

The history of Election Cake goes back to colonial times, to the days when the British summoned eligible men from far and wide to the nearest town for military practice, and the whole town prepared for the onslaught of hungry soldier-farmers. In other words, the town’s housewives did a lot of baking of very large cakes which at that time were known as Training Cakes or Muster Cakes.

Even before the Revolution the same cakes served well for elections, when party representatives descended on the same towns for the vote-counting. The military association did not go away completely however. A New York Times article in June 1871 described the recent Artillery Election Day in Boston when officers were elected and commissioned in a ceremony that was a “relic of colonial days”. The newspaper bemoaned the loss of glory of this once great holiday when parades were held, and election cake and luscious ginger-beer could be purchased from stalls set up on the Common.

Election cake was a fruited yeast bread (leavening agents such as baking powder were not developed until the mid-nineteenth century). The first American cookbook, by Amelia Simmons, contained this recipe which you will find most useful if a few score out-of-town visitors descend on you.

Election Cake
Thirty quarts flour, 10 pound butter, 14 pound sugar, 12 pound raisins, 3 doz eggs, one pint wine, one quart brandy, 4 ournces cinnamon, 4 ounces fine colander seed, 3 ounces ground alspice; wet the flour with milk to the consistence of bread oover night, adding one quart yeast; the next morning work the butter and sugar together for half an hour, which will rended the cake much lighter and whiter; when it has rise light work in every other ingredient except the plumbs, which work in when going into the oven.
[American Cookery; Amelia Simmons 1796.]

Monday’s Story …

The Breakfast of Travellers.

Quotation for the Day …

I won't eat anything that has intelligent life, but I'd gladly eat a network executive or a politician. Marty Feldman.

Old Maid Day.

Today, June 4^th …

According to some almanacs, this day is Old Maid’s Day. In spite of the efforts of the feminist movement, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of overwhelming enthusiasm for celebrating this day. Surprisingly, there are several claimants for the honour of inventor of the occasion sometime in the late 1940’s, in America. It may be an adaptation of the Leap Year idea especially resurrected in honour of returning servicemen and in reflection of the hope of the greater number of available women waiting at home.

I blame the name of the day for the lack of enthusiasm for making merry on the day. I blame it even more on the lack of a special food to celebrate it with. It would hardly help the cause to use the dish sometimes called “Old Maid Pie”, and you will understand why when I tell you its other names are “Scrap Pie” or “Saturday Pie”. It doesn’t take much imagination to realise that this is the traditional pie of the weeks leftovers, the cook trying valiantly to hide their provenance under a pastry lid.

Old Maid’s Pie
This, which is in a manner of speaking made entirely of scraps, is yet very good. Take 4oz or 8oz of any sort of cold meat, poultry, or game — a mixture of one of these with a little chopped lean ham or bacon is perhaps best. Have ready some freshly boiled mashed potatoes. Spread a layer of these at the bottom of a pie dish, then put a layer of the meat.
Cover this with a layer of freshly-fried onions, then sprinkle with grated cheese and fried breadcrumbs. Continue these layers until the dish is full. Moisten with a little stock or gravy; strew the top very thickly with fried onions and breadcrumbs, and grate over the whole 1oz of cheese (any scraps of dried cheese will do just as well as fresh for this); place a few bits of butter here and there, and bake in a moderate oven until of a golden-brown hue. Take out and serve at once. Fish may be used in place of meat if liked.
[Cookery For Worried Housewives; Mrs Alfred Praga; 1948]

Tomorrow’s Story …

War and Sprouts.

Quotation for the Day …

Cooking Tip: Wrap turkey leftovers in aluminum foil and throw them out. Nicole Hollander.

A Centennial Mystery Cake.

Today, May 10th …

On this day in 1876 the Centennial Fair opened in Philadelphia. It was the first World Fair in the USA, and as its name suggests, it was held to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And what is an anniversary without a cake?

There are lots of emphatic, but completely un-documented references to a 'Centennial Cake' produced especially for this event, a cake which the same emphatic references say is the ancestor of Shoo-Fly pie. It might seem strange to suggest a cake as an ancestor to a pie, but this is from a country that clearly confuses the two as shown by the existence of the famous Boston Cream Pie, which is unequivocally a cake. I await eagerly but with some trepidation for my American friends to chastise, ridicule, inform, enlighten or otherwise engage with me in the process of enlightenment on this issue.

In the search for the original Centennial Cake, the most likely candidates would surely come from cookbooks of the same era. There was one such, put together by the good ladies of the First Congregational Church in Marysville, Ohio in 1876 also in celebration of the Centennial of the country and called The Centennial Buckeye Cook Book. I may not know a Buckeye when I see one, but I do know that Ohio is across the border from Pennsyvania, which I also happen to know is the location of Philadelphia (my geographical knowledge has grown by leaps and bounds since starting this blog). This book therefore seemed a good place to start, and it does indeed have a Centennial Cake recipe. This is it, from the 1877 edition:

Centennial Cake.
Two cups pulverized sugar, one of butter rubbed to a light cream with the sugar, one of sweet milk, three of flour, half cup corn starch, four eggs, half pound chopped raisins, half a grated nutmeg and two tea-spoons baking-powder.

Which sounds like a fairly unexciting cake for such an special event, does it not?

In view of the cake/pie confusion alluded to above, I make no apologies for including this next recipe, which is unequivocally for a pie, from The Times Cook Book of 1905

Centennial Marlboro Pie.
One cup stewed apples, sifted; one cup cream or rich milk; one cup sugar, one-half teaspoon cinnamon, two eggs beaten stiff; put all together and bake in pie crust, same as for custard pie. When baked pile on top whites of two eggs well beaten, with one tablespoon sugar; return to oven and brown slightly.

It does not, however, sound at all like shoo-fly pie, does it?

I think I need help with this. Those of you “Over There” please consider sending in your own Centennial Cake recipes in, and we will try to make sense of it all. If anyone has the mythical ‘original’ recipe from the Centennial Fair, I will be most pleased.

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Quotation for the Day …

Americans can eat garbage, provided you sprinkle it liberally with ketchup, mustard, chili sauce, Tabasco sauce, cayenne pepper, or any other condiment which destroys the original flavor of the dish. Henry Miller, American writer (1891-1980)