Birthday Cutlets.

Today in 1812 was the birthday of the English writer famous for his nonsense verse, especially his limericks. In 1870 Lear contributed several recipes to the Nonsense Gazette, and in a previous post I gave you his version of Amblongus Pie. Today in honour of his birthday, I give you his recipe for cutlets. Do try the recipe, and let us all know what you think of them via the comments section, please.


To Make Crumbobblious Cutlets
Procure some strips of beef, and having cut them into the smallest possible slices, proceed to cut them still smaller, eight or perhaps nine times.
When the whole is thus minced, brush it up hastily with a new clothes-brush, and stir round rapidly and capriciously with a salt-spoon or a soup ladle.
Place the whole in a saucepan, and remove it to a sunny place,- say the roof of the house if free from sparrows or other birds,- and leave it there for about a week.
At the end of that time add a little lavender, some oil of almonds, and a few herring-bones; and cover the whole with 4 gallons of clarified crumbobblious sauce, when it will be ready for use.
Cut it into the shape of ordinary cutlets, and serve it up in a clean tablecloth or dinner-napkin.

Quotation for the Day.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon.

The Owl and the Pussy Cat, Edward Lear.

Just for Fun.

Today, purely for fun, I give you this satirical bill of fare, found in a nineteenth century journal, found in turn via the wonderful Google Books resource. I give it as it is spelled and numbered.

A BURLESQUE BILL OF FARE.

From MS.Ashmole (Oxford), No. 826, fol.179

A BILL OF FARE SENT TO BANKES Y^e VINTNER IN CHEAPE SIDE IN MAY, 1637

Imps. 4 ffancies, 2 boyld and 2 rosted.
2. A large dish of carrett doucets.
3. 4 dysshes of andyrons.
4. 6 pelican chickins.
5. Six birds of paradice.
6. Two phœnxes, a cock and a hen.
7. Four pair of elephants pettitoes.
8. A green dragon springcock.
9. A rhinocerus boyld in alligant.
10. A calves head boyled wth a pudding in y^e belly.
11. A sowced owle.
12. A dish of Irish hartshorne, boyled to a jelly.
13. 4 golden horseshooes disolv’d through a woodcocks bill.
14. Sixe tame lyons in greene sawce.
15. A lyons chyne.
16. A haunch of a beare larded.
17. A whole horse sowced after y^e Russian fashion.
18. 12 sucking puppies of a Capadocian bitch.
19. 6 dozen of ostriges rosted.
20. A leg of an eagle carbonadoed.
21. The pluck of a grampus stewed.
22. An apes tayle in sippitts.
23. Two she beares served up whole.
24. Foure black swans, 2 in a dish.
25. 2 dozen of white blackbirds, 6 in a dish
26. A large dish of cuckow twinckles.
27. Two cocatrices and 3 baboones boyled.
28. Two dryed salamanders.
29. A dish of modicumes boyld in barbary viniger.
29. The jole of a whale butterd in barbary viniger.
30. A grosse of canary birds rosted.
31. A shole of red herrings w^th bells about their necks.
32. Two porpoises pickled.
33. Two porcupines parboyld.
34. Two dozen of Welshambassodars.
35. A dish of bonitoes, currflying fishes with sorrel sopps.

SECOND COURSE

1. A West Indian Cheese.
2. A hundred of cacus nutts.
3. A dish of pyne apples.
4. 6 pompions quodled.
5. A dish of puffes
6. A tame panther, swimming inwhite broth.
7. A crocadill baked in a pye, looking out of y^e lid and laughing at y^e company.

I have no idea about the authenticity of this manuscript, but assume that the learned gentlemen who contributed to the Retrospective Review in 1853 would vouch for it. It is now on my list of Interesting Things to Investigate.

There is an apocryphal story around this time of a man called Bankes (or Banks) who owned a dancing horse shoed with silver and who may have been a vintner. Perhaps it is he? A large part of the satirical fun is lost if you dont know the story behind the satirical story. If you do know it, please do tell us all in the comments, or email me if you would prefer.

Monday's Story ...

TV Cook, Number One.

Quotation for the Day …

It's important to watch what you eat. Otherwise, how are you going to get it into your mouth ? Matt Diamond.

Suffragette Food.

Today, May 23^rd …

The state of South Australia was the first in the world to give women the right to vote. One of the pioneers of the feminist movement in the country was Louisa Lawson, the mother of the famous bush poet Henry Lawson, and a poet and publisher in her own right. On this day in 1889 she addressed the founding meeting of the Dawn Club in Sydney, which she had started – a women’s club which encouraged debate and discussion on a variety of issues relating to women’s rights. The first meeting was at Forresters Hall, but subsequent meetings were held at a variety of tea rooms around the city. Many of the tea rooms were owned by a Chinese immigrant called Quong Tart – a man who understood discrimination all too well, but who ultimately became ‘as well known as the Governor himself’ for his business and philanthropic activities in Sydney.

Louisa Lawson’s sisters around the globe were fighting the same fight, and a major fund-raiser for many groups was the production and sale of cookbooks – an idea that would have made many militant feminists half a century later shudder in horror. Thankfully, the movement has moved on, and it is perfectly possible to be a feminist who cooks today. Not that Louisa would have had a choice (and feminism is about choice after all). Her life was not luxurious – at times it was very hard, and she undoubtably knew how to cook. I do not know if she contributed to any cookbooks, but she would surely have admired her sister-publishers who did. In her honour I give you three recipes from The Suffrage Cookbook, published in America in 1915.

Pie for a Suffragist's Doubting Husband.
1 qt. milk human kindness
8 reasons:
War
White Slavery
Child Labor
8,000,000 Working Women
Bad Roads
Poisonous Water
Impure Food
Mix the crust with tact and velvet gloves, using no sarcasm, especially with the upper crust. Upper crusts must be handled with extreme care for they quickly sour if manipulated roughly.

Suffrage Angel Cake (a la Kennedy)
11 eggs
1 full cup Swansdown Flour (after sifting)
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 heaping teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 pinch of salt
Beat the eggs until light - not stiff; sift sugar 7 times, add to eggs, beating as little as possible. Sift flour 9 times, using only the cupful, discarding the extra flour; then put in the flour the cream of tartar; add this to the eggs and sugar; now the vanilla. Put in angel cake pan with feet. Put in oven with very little heat. Great care must be used in baking this cake to insure success. Light the oven when you commence preparing material. After the first 10 minutes in oven, increase heat and continue to do so every five minutes until the last 4 or 5 minutes, when strong heat must be used. At thirty minutes remove cake and invert pan allowing to stand thus until cold.

Suffrage Salad Dressing
Yolks of 2 eggs
3 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of tarragon vinegar
1 pinch of salt
Beat well ; cook in double boiler. When cold and ready to serve, fold in ½ pint of whipped cream.

I particularly like the first recipe.

Tomorrow's Story ...

The Gentlemen's Club.

This Day Last Year …

We featured Seville oranges.

Quotation for the Day …

There are plenty of women capable of choosing good husbands (or, if not good when chosen, of making them good); yet these same women may be ignorant on the subject of making good pie.
[From Recipes Tried and True. Compiled by the Ladies' Aid Society of the First Presbyterian Church, Marion, Ohio; 1894