There seems to be no end to the variations on the theme of Charlotte Russe. The beauty of today’s recipe find is that it comes from a pharmaceutical publication, which is strongly suggestive of its being a health food, which in turn is strongly encouraging of us consuming more of it. Isn’t it?

Soda Fountains were originally situated in dispensaries, and ‘formulae’ (I almost said ‘recipes’) for sodas and sundaes commonly appeared in publications for pharmacists. The Bulletin of Pharmacy (Detroit, 1912) included in the section called The Soda Fountain, several of the winning formulae from a competition it had just run.

The first prize (of $5) was awarded for a formula for Turkish-Italian Sundae, which sounds very nice (a mound of chocolate ice-cream to represent Italy, and one of peach to represent Turkey, with various additions and decorations), but several others were awarded ‘lesser prizes’, including our feature for the day - the Charlotte Russe Nutae. In this interpretation, it is the creamy filling for the sundae that is referred to as the ‘charlotte russe.’

Beware! this literally makes an industrial quantity!

Charlotte Russe Nutae.
Sweet cream, 20 per cent, 1 quart; powdered sugar, 6 ounces; extract of vanilla, 2 fluid drachms, ice cream powder, 2 teaspoonfuls; chopped nuts (very fine), 6 ounces. Mix by whipping the cream until almost stiff with the sugar, ice cream powder and extract; then add the chopped nuts until the mixture will stand. Having previously made ready one dozen ice-cream saucers, take 24 lady-fingers, slice them into halves and place four of the halves around on each saucer and fill the center with charlotte russe. Then take a small quantity of whipped cream, colored a light red or pink, and decorate the dish, topping off with a maraschino cherry. Sell this for 15 cents. It makes a nice profit.


I am unable to resist giving you another recipe from this Bulletin, on account of its delightful name. This recipe was not offered in the competition, but quoted from another publication called The Liquid Dispenser (which would be a great name for a bar, methinks.)

Mutt and Jeff.
Slice one banana and lay it flat on a split-banana sundae dish. Set one disher chocolate cream at one end, and the same amount of vanilla ice cream at the opposite end. Cut another banana in two unequal lengths, and place it upright in the cream. One fresh marshmallow is placed on top of each banana. Serve with a small slice of orange between the upright banans and decorate the ice cream with a few whole cherries.
If desired, a loaf of sugar saturated with brandy or alcohol can be placed on each marshmallow and then lighted when about to serve.
This novelty must not sell for less than 25 cents.

A little more on the phenomenon of soda fountains tomorrow, perhaps?

Quotation for the Day.

Always serve too much hot fudge sauce on hot fudge sundaes. It makes people overjoyed, and puts them in your debt.
Judith Olney

It is a bit difficult to avoid a French flavour to today’s post, it being Bastille Day (or La Fête Nationale, or simply Le Quatorze Juillet, if you prefer.) I am quite intrigued by what various authorities and cookbook writers consider makes a dish French-style (à la française). When I started looking, it quickly became apparent that the question is not answerable in a short blog post, it requires the work of at least a dozen PhD students working round the clock for a number of years. The range of ingredients and combinations of ingredients is so great that I can only say there is no possibility of consensus. It appears that a dish is à la française if the cook names it so.

My 1961 English edition of the Larousse Gastronomique seemed a good place to start. On garnitures à la française, it gives this description:

Small nests made from Duchesse potatoes, dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, fried and hollowed out, filled with diced mixed vegetables; bunches of asparagus tips; braised lettuces; flowerets of cauliflower, coated with Hollandaise sauce … [used] for large cuts of meat.
As for sauce à la française , the Larousse quotes Careme (1784-1833), in his Art de la Cuisine Française aud XIXe siècle, noting that this sauce is for fish.

Put into a saucepan some Béchamel sauce based on fish stock. When it is almost boiling, add a little garlic, a little grated nutmeg and mushroom essence. When it has boiled for a moment, and just before serving, add crayfish butter to give it a pinkish colour.Note: Shelled crayfish tails and small peeled mushrooms may be added to this sauce. I served this sauce for the first time in the house of Prince Paul de Wurtemburg.
Richard Dolby’s The Cook’s Dictionary and Housekeeper’s Directory (1832) includes the following:

Croquignoles à la française:

Break up half a pound of bitter macaroons, so small as to be able to sift them; and having laid half a pound of sifted flour on your slab, and made a hole in the middle, put in the macaroons, with six ounces of powdered sugar, three yolks of eggs, three ounces of fresh butter, and a grain of salt; make these ingredients into a paste, and form the croquignoles of the shape and size of olives; dores them lightly, and bake them in a gentle oven. These must be of a lighter colour than other croquignoles.
Instead of macaroons you may use any other ingredients you please.

In Dainty Dishes from Foreign Lands (1909), the author starts her chapter on Some Delicious French Dishes with the caveat

I do not think that the French have so many distinctive dishes as other nations, but have, rather, a certain style of cooking all things. The recipes which I give, herewith, convey something of the French spirit.
She goes on to single out truffles and mushrooms as being “considered, quite rightly , to distinguish French cookery, but too often they are bedevilled out of all resemblance to their original succulent selves by people who imagine they must be cooked elaborately.” She then provides a few recipes which are simple, and ‘genuinely French.’

Mushrooms with Chicken Livers.Mushrooms with chicken livers is a dish literally fit for a King; to make it take a dozen (or as many as you want) of chicken livers, and fry them with one or two strips of very thin, very sweet bacon; when the livers are just turning brown, add at least a dozen mushrooms, peeled, and wiped very dry. Simmer five minutes, or until the mushrooms are soft, and serve on hot toast. Into the grease left in the pan drop a tablespoon of flour, and let it brown, stirring constantly. Make this into a gravy by pouring into the pan, very quickly, a cup of cold milk; let it boil up once and pour over the toast, livers, bacon and mushrooms.
And finally, from 365 Foreign Dishes: a foreign dish for every day in the year (1908), a recipe for apple dumplings. I am at a loss to know what the author considered quintessentially French about this dish.

French Baked Apple Dumplings.Peel and core apples; sprinkle well with sugar. Then mix some cold boiled rice with 1 egg, a pinch of salt, sugar and cinnamon, flour enough to make a dough. Cover the apples with this dough; put in a well-buttered baking dish with 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, and bake to a delicate brown. Serve with whipped cream.
Quotation for the Day.

“Even the coeur flottant merveilleux aux fraises, presented with a great flourish, made little impression, for it was no more than what may happen to the simple, honest dish of strawberries and cream once it falls into the hands of a Frenchman.”
Dr. Watson in 'Sherlock Holmes and the Hapsburg Tiara' by Alan Vanneman (2004)

Sometimes a cook or producer or marketing guru will stage a dinner in which most or all dishes feature a specific ingredient. We have had several examples in this blog. Some ingredients are obviously more adaptable than others, and maize is quite clearly one of the stars in that regard. The organisers of the menu I give you today however were intent on promoting only one product of maize – the flour. The following story was written some time ago specifically for a bakery industry magazine for which I write regularly. I have tweaked the article slightly for this post, as I thought regular readers might enjoy the menu.

By the mid-ninteenth century America was well and truly aware of the value of maize as a crop, and marketing of products derived from it had already begun. The usefulness of cornstarch (cornflour) for thickening gravy and sauces, and for making light cookies and cakes had been promoted for some time, and in 1864 with the American Civil War dragging on, the manufacturers of one brand of cornflour managed to promote the use of their product as a patriotic duty.

A great exhibition was held in Philadelphia in the first week of June in 1864 in aid of the Sanitary Commission. The Commission had been formed at the beginning of the war in 1861 to improve conditions in Union Army camps and provide medical and hospital care – for which of course it constantly needed funds. The fair’s ‘great, indeed sole aim … is to do good to the sick and wounded of our gallant army; and though the feeling which will prompt all who contribute is that of gratitude to our soldiers, the occasion may be used, incidentally, to bring before the public eye, the varied manufactures of our country … ’

The manufacturer of one brand of cornstarch called Maizena, had a restaurant concession at the fair, and all the items on their bill of fare were made with this product. The menu does not specify whether or not other starches were used in addition to the cornflour, but if they did not, then this would make a fine gluten-free dessert menu for today.

DURYEA’S MAIZENABILL OF FARE
MAIZENA ICE CREAMS

Maizena … Vanilla 15c Maizena … Pineapple 15c
Maizena … Chocolate 15c Maizena … Strawberry 15c
Maizena … Orange 15c Maizena … Lemon 15c

MAIZENA PUDDINGS

Maizena … Cup Lemon Pudding 20c Maizena … Prince Albert Pudding 25c
Maizena … “ Orange Pudding 20c Maizena … Plum 15c

MAIZENA SPONGES AND CUSTARDS.

Maizena … Strawberry Sponge 20c Maizena … Baked Custard 20c
Maizena … Lemon 20c Maizena … Boiled  20c
Maizena … Orange 20c Maizena … Floating Island 25c
Maizena … Charlotte Russe 25c Maizena … Charlotte Fruit 20c

MAIZENA BLANC-MANGE AND JELLIES

Maizena …Blanc-Mange and Syrup 20c Maizena … Wine Jelly 20c
Maizena … “ Plain 15c Maizena … Orange Jelly 20c

MAIZENA FONDANTS

Maizena … Chocolate 10c Maizena … Strawberry 10c
Maizena … Lemon 10c Maizena … Orange 10c

MAIZENA PASTRY AND CAKES

Maizena … Sponge Cake 5c Maizena … Meringues 25c
Maizena … Sultana “ 5c Maizena … Cream Tarts 25c
Maizena … Pound “ 5c Maizena … Wine Cake 15c
Maizena … Croquettes 5c Maizena … Chocolate Meringues 25
Maizena … Cream Puffs 10c Maizena … Tipsey Cake 15c
Maizena … Spanish Puffs 10c Maizena … Meringue Tarts 25c
Maizena … Omelette Comfits 15c Maizena … Pies 15c

By the end of the century the potential value of the crop as an export item was being exploited at every opportunity. During the lead-up to the great Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, there was a huge public relations campaign to encourage the participation of overseas exhibitors. The aim of the exhibition was to celebrate the discovery of the New World by Columbus, and what better way than by promoting one of his most useful finds – maize? American representatives in Europe gave a ‘Maize Banquet’ in Copenhagen in which almost every dish, sweet or savoury contained maize in one form or another. The banquet raised a great deal of interest and was widely reported in the American newspapers. The aim of course was not simply to raise awareness of the exposition but also to specifically seek foreign markets for maize products (keeping the industry firmly on American soil)

Maizena Ice-Cream.
Take 2 oz of Maizena, mix it smoothly with a little cold milk; place 2 quarts of milk on the fire, when boiling, add the above; beat briskly, remove it from the fire, add 1 lb fine sugar, 4 eggs, stir well together, flavor to taste; when cold it may be frozen the same as other ices.
Recipes for the use of Duryeas’ Maizena, 1864

There is a recipe for Maizena cake in a previous blog post here.

Quotation for the Day.

Gardens, scholars say, are the first sign of commitment to a community. When people plant corn they are saying, let's stay here. And by their connection to the land, they are connected to one another.
Anne Raver.

Last week I was confused over ‘corach’ sauce. Thanks to pointer from a regular reader and commenter (see the post here), I am now a little clearer. The name is sometimes spelled ‘carach’ and sometimes ‘carachi’ – knowing alternative spellings helps when researching old recipes, and sometimes the only way to start off is by trying various phonetic variations of the word! One theory is that name is related to the city of Karachi (Pakistan), and suggests that it was believed that the sauce originated there. An alternative theory is that the sauce takes its name from Carache in Venezuela.

One early recipe is from that marvellous book, The Cook & Housewife's Manual (1826) by Mistress Margaret Dods (the pseudonym of Christian Isobel Johnstone). The recipe is uber-simple:

Carach-Sauce
Mix pounded garlic, Cayenne, soy, and walnut-pickle in good vinegar.

For those of you who prefer more exact measurements, a slightly earlier book - Five Thousand Receipts in all the Useful and Domestic Arts, (1825) by Colin MacKenzie has a more detailed version:

Carach sauce.
Take three cloves of garlic, each cut in half, half an ounce of Cayenne pepper, and a spoonful or two of Indian soy and walnut pickle; mix it in a pint of vinegar, with as much cochineal as will colour it.

A more elaborate version is in one of my favourite Victorian sources - Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (c1870’s):

Carachi.
Pound a head of garlic, and put it into a jar with three table-spoonfuls each of walnut pickle, mushroom ketchup, and soy, and two tea-spoonfuls of cayenne pepper, two tea-spoonfuls of essence of anchovies, and one of pounded mace. Pour onto these one pint of fresh vinegar; let them remain in the liquid two or three days, then strain, and bottle it for use.

Note: After partly solving the ‘corach’ mystery (with a little help from my friends), I am now left with the concept of ‘Indian’ soy. Please do continue to share your insights, and to watch this space.

Quotation for the Day.

On England and the English: As a rule they will refuse even to sample a foreign dish, they regard such things as garlic and olive oil with disgust, life is unliveable to them unless they have tea and puddings.
George Orwell.

Bear with me, Dear Readers, for I must have one more dalliance with ‘Russian’ food - Russian food as it was perceived by the English-speaking world that is. One of the favourite ‘Russian’ dishes at this time was ‘Salade à la Russe', but I discussed it (and Strawberries Romanoff) and gave a recipe in a post some time ago, so please re-visit if you are interested. The remaining ubiquitous ‘Russian’ dish is of course borscht – or beetroot soup by its translated and variously spelled name. The interesting thing is that this soup is certainly not exclusively Russian, and was not originally made with beets.

The Poles and the Ukrainians also claim this soup, and its name comes from a plant similar to the parsnip, belonging to the carrot family. One traveller in Russia in 1808 said ‘They have a kind of soup, however, which is made of groats and vegetables, of which they are very fond: this soup is rather sour, and is called borsch, from the name of the carrot which is boiled in it.’

This soup is a peasant dish, and like all soups and all peasant dishes is as infinitely variable as circumstances and ingredients allow. There are fermented versions and hot and cold versions for the varying seasons, but the dollop of sour cream may well be a modern abomination. I await advice from those of you familiar with ‘authentic’ Russian food.


Borsht.
Take some red beetroots, wash thoroughly and peel, and then boil in a moderate quantity of water from two to three hours over a slow fire, by which time a strong red liquor should have been obtained. Strain off the liquor, adding lemon juice, sugar, and salt to taste, and when it has cooled a little, stir in sufficient yolks of eggs to slightly thicken it. May be used either cold or hot. In the latter case a little home-made beef stock may be added to the beet soup.
If after straining off the soup the remaining beetroot is not too much boiled away, it may be chopped fine with a little onion, vinegar and dripping, flavored with pepper and salt, and used as a vegetable.
International Jewish Cook Book. Florence Greenbaum. 1919.


Quotation for the Day.

“I believe that I once considerably scandalised her by declaring that a clear soup was a more important factor in life than a clear conscience.”
‘Saki’ (H.H.Munro) (1870-1916), The Blind Spot

I knew it was only a matter of time. It has turned out to be a matter of barely a week , actually, before I can no longer ignore the rising tide of complaints about the absence of a daily quotation. Sorry folks, but life has been hectic, and a corner or two had to be cut. The reality is that sometimes I spend longer looking for the right quotation than I do writing the actual post. I no longer always check whether or not I have used a quotation before – and with over a thousand posts, I do not intend to revert to the practice. ‘A good quotation is worth repeating’ shall be my new mantra. I am pretty sure however, that I have not previously used today’s choice.

Now, onto the real subject of the day. Russian Sauce. Pursuing the intriguing mention of ‘Sauce à la Russe’ in William Kitchiner’s Cook’s Oracle has turned up a few interesting points.

The context in which Kitchiner mentioned Sauce à la Russe suggested that he was referring to a commercial preparation. Other cookery books of the time mention it too. Mistress Margaret Dods (aka Christian Isobel Johnstone) in The Cook and Housewife’s Manual (1826) also refers to ‘a large spoonful of the essence sold at the shops under the name of Sauce à la Russe’ in a sauce for wild fowl.

There certainly was such a thing – an advertisement in The Times of January 17, 1804 reads:

SAUCE A-LA RUSSE, for Game, Steaks, Chops, Cutlets, Stews, Hashes, made dishes, cold Meats, or any Dish that requires a fine flavour. The universal reputation T. AVELING has gained by his SAUCE A-LA RUSSE, has induced many Shopkeepers to prepare a spurious composition which they vend under the same name; articles entirely different; the genuine Sauce a la Russe being prepared after an original receipt, and entirely consists of foreign produce. To be had only of T.Aveling, No. 76, Picadilly, Corner of Dover-street; where likewise may be had, all kinds of rich Sauces, Pickles, Hams, Tongues, Dutch Beef, and every article in the Oil Trade, of the best quality at the lowest prices.
An advertisement in June 1814 indicates that Mr Aveling was deceased, and his successor in the ‘ITALIAN and FISH SAUCE WAREHOUSE’ in Picadilly was a Mr John Hill. The final line in Mr Hill’s advertisement for the sauce read:

N.B Please to observe the label on each Bottle has my Signature, all others are spurious.
I love these old ads. How good is name ‘The Italian and Fish Sauce Warehouse’ for a food vendor ?

Outside of commercial sauces, what did ‘real’ chefs consider to be quintessentially Russian when inventing or naming their dishes? One common ingredient in ‘Russian’ sauces (as interpreted by the British and the rest of Europe), was horseradish. Assuming that it is often the sauce that characterises the dish, here is a version from the same source as the recipe for Partridges à la Russe (the earliest ‘à la Russe’ recipe I have found so far):

Sauce for Boiled Beef à la Russe.
Scrape a large stick of horseradish, tie it up in a cloth, and boil it with the beef; when boiled a little, put it into some melted butter; boil it some time, and send it up in the butter. Some persons like to have it sent up in vinegar.
The Lady’s assistant for Regulating her Table, (1787), by Charlotte Mason

Quotation for the Day.

Sauces are greatly admired by the British. … we like our sauces to come to the table in the bottle so that in between examining the other guests we can read the labels and memorize the list of ingredients.
Derek Cooper, The Bad Food Guide (1967)

Yesterdays musings on Charlotte Russe made me wonder about the larger picture of dishes styled ‘à la Russe.’ Did ‘Russian’ food become fashionable at some point in the rest of the world? Food fashions come and go, and have always done so amongst those who can afford to pick and choose. And what did the rest of the world consider to be specifically ‘Russian’ features or ingredients?

The first recipe I have found so far is for partridges, and it appeared in The Lady’s assistant for Regulating her Table, (1787), by Charlotte Mason. I really don’t know what is ‘Russian’ about this dish.

Partridges à la Russe.
Take some young partridges; when they are picked and drawn, cut them into quarters, and put them into some white wine; then set on a stew-pan, with slices of bacon, over a brisk fire; throw in the partridges, turn them two or three times; then pour in a glass of brandy, and set them over a slow fire; when they have stewed some time, put in a few mushrooms cut in slices, and some good gravy; let them simmer briskly, and take up the fat as it rises: when they are done, put in a piece of butter rolled in flour, and squeeze in the juice of a lemon.

One common theme which did develop in savoury dishes ‘à la Russe’ was some sort of pickle, or at least some vinegar. This idea appeared in an early recipe for a dish styled‘à la Russe’which can be found in A New System of Domestic Cookery, by Maria Rundell (1808).


Sturgeons à la Russe
When the sturgeon is cleaned, lay it for several hours in salt and water; take it out an hour before it is wanted, rub it well with vinegar, and pour a little over it. Then put it into a fish-kettle, cover with boiling water, an ounce of bay-salt, two large onions, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Stew it until the bones will separate easily; then take it up, remove the skin, flour it, and place it to brown before the fire, basting it well with butter; serve it up with a rich sauce, and a garnish of pickles.

The inimitable William Kitchiner, in his Cook’s Oracle (1817) includes a Recipe for Sauce to Wild Fowls for which he proudly asserts ‘the following sauce for wild fowl has been preferred to about fifty other; and, at one time, was not to be got without a fee of one guinea. It includes one tablespoon of ‘Sauce à la Russe (the older the better)’. In a footnote referring to this sauce, he says ‘by à la Russe' we suppose cavice, or corach, or soy, is meant.’ I can see the pickle in ‘cavice’ (which is supposedly ceviche). I am confused about ‘corach’ which the OED knows as an alternative spelling of ‘currach’ or ‘coracle’ – a small wicker boat used in ancient times in Scotland and Ireland – hardly the usage here. ‘Corach’ does appear in John Simpson’s A Complete System of Cookery (1813) in a recipe for Shrimp Sauce, along with a little lemon pickle, but so far I have not been able to clarify what exactly it is. As for sauce à la Russe referring to soy, I can only say that Dr Kitchiner got his culinary wires confused somewhere.

There is much more to be discovered on this ‘Russian’ theme – so please watch this space!

A week or two ago I mentioned Charlotte Russe, the classic banquet and dinner-party dessert of the nineteenth century. The ‘russe’ part of the name means that whoever did the formal naming (and we may never find out who that was) wanted it associated with Russia. The ‘charlotte’ is more problematic.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, the Oxford English Dictionary says a charlotte is ‘A dish made of apple marmalade covered with crumbs of toasted bread; also, a similar dish made with fruit other than apple. Hence, charlotte russe, a dish composed of custard enclosed in a kind of sponge-cake’ (a ‘marmalade’ in this context meaning a thick fruit puree, not a breakfast preserve.) The OED gives the first use of the word in 1797 – the first use of the generic word ‘charlotte’, that is, not specifically ‘charlotte russe’. The first reference specifically for charlotte russe that is supplied by the OED is from Barnham’s The Ingoldsby Legends (1847)

A huge variety of sweet dishes go by the name of ‘charlotte’. A charlotte may be hot or chilled or frozen, something like an apple bread pudding, or more like a trifle made with Savoiardi biscuits (‘ladyfingers’), and sometimes it is closer to an ice-cream. It is usually (always?) custardy. Nineteenth century chefs produced a huge range of posh charlottes – a very brief search turned up charlottes muscovite, royale, à la Siberienne, à la Sicilienne, à la Chateaubriand, à l’Arlequine, Carmen, à la Chantilly, Montreuil, Plombière, and Renaissance.

Even under the title Charlotte Russe, there were variations. The great Escoffier noted that ‘the flavour or product which determines the character of the Charlotte should always be referred to on the menu, thus: Charlotte Russe à l’Orange, or Charlotte Russe aux Fraises etc.’ The same brief search session found recipes for Charlottes Russes with Apricots, Burnt Almonds, and au Praline too.

There are several theories as to the naming of Charlotte Russe, and I give you the favourite trio:
- It was invented by the famous French chef Carême (1784-1833), in honour of the Russian Tsar Alexander I (1777-1825).
- It was named for Princess Charlotte of Prussia (1798-1860), wife of Tsar Nicholas 1 and mother of Tsar Alexander II.
- It was named in honour of Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), wife of King George III (which might be an attempt to explain charlotte, but it hardly explains russe)

The OED rather half-heartedly suggests that ‘charlotte’ is related to the female name. Another far more intriguing idea is hidden within its own pages however. Is it not far more likely to be a corrupton of the ancient charlyt or charlet, which the OED itself describes as ‘A kind of custard containing milk, eggs, brayed pork, and seasoning, boiled to a curd’? After all, it is no more fanciful than the development of the idea of modern blancmange from the medieval blanc manger made from chicken and rice and almonds, is it?

Here, from A Noble boke off cookry ffor a prynce houssolde or eny other estately houssolde, a manuscript written in the year 1500, is a recipe for charlet.

Charlet forced [stuffed].
To mak charlet forced tak cowe mylk and yolks of eggs draw throughe a stren and bet it to gedur then tak freshe pork smalle hewene and cast all to gedure in a pan and colour it with saffrone and let it boile till it be on a crud then take it up and lay it on a clothe upon a bord and presse out the whey then tak the mylk of almondes or cow creme and sett it on the fyere put ther to sugur and colour it depe with saffrone then leshe out the crud and couche it in dishes and pour out the ceripe and cast on sugur and canelle [cinnamon]and serve it.

Today's post was originally intended for a few weeks ago, as a follow-up to a story about bacon in World War II. It has been waiting in my stash of 'spare' stories ( a stash now completely depleted, I have to say) and has come in handy this morning as I have been having too much fun this weekend to get around to writing!

On June 4, 1918 the British Food Ministry announced to a no doubt happy public that wartime rationing of bacon was to be eased until the 29th of the month.

‘Although bacon … is comparatively plentiful just now, its food value should be taken full advantage of and every effort made to prevent waste. The following hints as to how to make the most of the bacon ration are issued by the Ministry of Food.

1. Do not wash the pan immediately after frying bacon, or the fat which coats the pan will be wasted. The greasy pan can be used for frying cooked haricots, or sliced cold potatoes. A little fat bacon served with fried haricots or potatoes makes a good breakfast and saves bread.
2. The rind of bacon should be removed before cooking, and should be fried to melt the fat from it. The rind should afterwards be added to vegetable stock or soup to give flavour. Bones from bacon should be added to the stock pot or soup pan.
3. When bacon has been boiled it should be left to cool in the water in which it was cooked. In this way less fat is lost, and any juice which might otherwise be lost, catches the stock.
4. The liquor in which ham or bacon has been boiled should be allowed to become cold. The fat should then be skimmed off and clarified. From 2 oz. to 4 oz. of clear white fat can in this way be recovered from 1 lb. of fat bacon.
5. As vegetables contain very little fat, a little bacon added to a vegetable stew makes a nourishing and appetising dish. This is a particularly economical way of cooking a small quantity of bacon as the fat which comes from the bacon enriches the stew and is not wasted on the sides of the pan.

Recipe for the Day.

A feature on Economical Cookery from The Manchester Guardian of July 12, 1915 indicated that one way of achieving this goal was by making dishes that were ‘verging on vegetarian cookery and yet containing just such an amount of flesh food as will satisfy those who do not care to follow a non-flesh diet.’ Bacon is an optional flesh food in the following dish.

Baked Vegetable Marrow.
Vegetable marrow baked makes a dish which can be enjoyed by all. Take a moderate-sized marrow and boil it till half cooked (about ten minutes) without removing the peel or cutting it open. Drain it and remove the peel, then cut it open and remove the pulp and seeds and cut it into neat, rather small, pieces. Put these into a shallow pie dish, which should be lightly greased with butter, melt two ounces of butter and pour over the marrow, season it well, and cover over. Bake for about twenty minutes in a moderate oven. When cooked, cover the marrow with strips of bacon or a layer of cooked meat minced and seasoned. A very small quantity of meat is sufficient – a quarter of a pound is enough, and it may quite well be left out of this recipe altogether, tomatoes being substituted for the meat.

Medieval punishments such as we considered yesterday were frequently made to fit the crime in a marvellously creative way that would not be possible in our modern criminal justice system. As was pointed out yesterday, the most important foodstuff at that time was bread, and as a consequence, bread-crimes were taken very seriously.

In medieval times, only the grandest houses had their own ovens. Most ordinary housewives took their own dough to the local baker, where for a small fee it would be cooked in the residual heat of the oven, after the baker had baked his own bread. Those bakers who did get caught cheating their customers were punished in a variety of ways. In England they were initially fined. After three offenses they could be sent to the pillory, or to gaol, or even lose their occupation. The pillory or ‘stretch neck’ was a very public humiliation. The accused was locked with head (sometimes shaved) and hands fixed in holes made between two horizontal boards set up in the market place where he or she could be pelted by disgruntled customers with anything noxious that came to hand.

The prize for the most creative deceit (and most appropriate punishment) must go to bakers at a public bakehouse in 1327. There were secret cavities built under the moulding boards from which an assistant would reach up and pinch off a chunk of the dough from a customer’s loaf, and over the course of the day built up a nice supply for themselves. The offending bakers in this instance were placed in the pillory with slabs of the dough around their necks. In other instances, bakers were forced to sell the underweight loaves at a loss (which was a gain for the previoius ‘victims.’)

In other parts of the bread-eating world the punishments varied. In Vienna, bakers caught selling underweight bread were put in the baeckerschupfen – a sort of cage which was then plunged into the river several times. In Turkey, a bad baker was stretched out on his own kneading table and the bastinado (foot-beating with a stick) was administered. Perhaps the most public and painful punishment was in ancient Egypt, were an offending baker could be nailed by the ear to the door of his shop, where no doubt his customers gave him even more abuse.

Cookery manuscripts and cookery books of early times contained recipes suitable for the wealthy, and did not include bread-making instructions. It would not have been considered necessary. Every large household had its own bakehouse. The bakers and bakehouse were quite separate (in several ways) from the kitchens and cooks, and bakers did not need written instructions for the various types of bread for the various ranks of persons within the household. Instead of a medieval ‘recipe’ for bread, I therefore give you, from the same source as yesterday, a nice recipe for stewed chicken. This sounds quite delicious, and quite Middle Eastern (although the source is unequivocally English)  – the chicken is stuffed with herbs, and braised in wine, and flavoured with saffron, ginger, sugar, and cinnamon, with the final sauce containing dates and currants.

A stewed capon.
To stew a capon tak parsly saige ysope rosmary and brek them between your handes and stop the capon ther with and colour it with saffron and couch it in an erthen pot and lay splentes under nethe and about the sides of the pot and straw erbes about the capon and put ther to a quart of wyn and non other licour then couer the pot close that no brothe passe out then set it on a charcole fyere and stew it softly and when it is enoughe set it on a wispe of strawe that it touche not the ground for brekinge then tak out the capon with a prik and luk yf it be enoughe or els stewe it better and mak a ceripe of good wyne mynced dates and canelle anld draw it with the same wyne put ther to raissins of corands sugur saffron and salt and guinger and wyn then lay the capon in a dysshe and put the fat of the sew to the ceripe and poure it on the capon and serue it.
A Noble boke off cookry ffor a prynce houssolde or eny other estately houssolde (1500)

On this day in 1552, in Cheapside, (the old market area of London) a man was pilloried for cheating the customers who bought his strawberries. He had filled out the pots with too much fern for the amount of berries.

“The furst of July ther was a man and a woman on the pelere [pillory] in Chepe-syd [Cheapside]; the man sold potts of straberries, the whyche the pott was not alff fulle, but fylled with forne [fern]”

Legislation to protect the customer from unscrupulous food merchants is not new, although the nature of the penalties has changed somewhat. The most regulated food, from earliest times, was the Staff of Life – bread. In 1266 in England, King Henry III revived an ancient statute that determined the price of a loaf of bread and a quantity of ale in relation to the price of wheat. This Assize of Bread and Ale remained on the statute books in England until 1863! The aim of the Assize was to fix the size (weight) of a loaf of bread, regardless of the cost of wheat (called ‘corn’ in those days). Loaves were sold at a farthing, a half-penny, or a penny. As the price of corn went up, the size of the loaf purchased for a particular price went down. The limits were set once a year at harvest time, after the Feast of St Michael on September 29, but were occasionally modified during the year if the price of corn varied significantly.

There are of course, unscrupulous members of every profession. Dishonest medieval bakers developed some creative ways of cheating both the public and the official Bread Examiners. An obvious technique was to keep the full-weight loaves on the shelves when the Examiners were due, and hide the low-weight ones out the back. Another method was to hide coins or bits of metal in the dough, which were presumably taken out once the bread was weighed. Even more creatively, in the sixteenth century there is a record of some bakers found to have been soaking stale bread in water and mixing it with the new dough 'to the great abuse and scandall of their Mysterie [their Trade] , and the wrong of his Majesties' subjects.'

I don’t need to give you a recipe for medieval bread – there is no essential difference from modern bread. Basic bread has always been made from grain plus a leavening agent plus water – all other ingredients are optional embellishments. Instead I give you a wonderful custard recipe from half a century before the strawberry offence which kicked off this story – and very nice indeed it would be with some of those berries. It is from A Noble boke off cookry ffor a prynce houssolde or eny other estately houssolde, a manuscript written in the year 1500. Basic custard hasn’t changed much either. This one is a ‘standing’ (thick, sliceable) version, made as it is today with cream and eggs and sugar – but marvellously coloured and flavoured with saffron and decorated with borage flowers.

To mak creme buyle.
To mak creme buile tak cow creme and yolks of eggs drawe and well bet that it be stonding and put
ther to sugur and colour it with saffron and salt it then lesk it in dyshes and plant ther in floures of
borage and serue it.

I have another historic menu for you today. On January 27, 1898 a banquet was held to celebrate the birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm II (27 January 1859-1941). Wilhelm was Queen Victoria’s first grandson, and the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from June 1888 until he abdicated at the end of WW I on November 9, 1918.

The menu was held at the Military Casino, in the town of Metz, which is now in the part of France known as Alsace, but which was part of Germany between 1871-1919. There is no suggestion that this was a night of cards or roulette - because a ‘casino’at this time meant ‘a public room used for social meetings; a club-house; esp. a public music or dancing saloon’, it only later came to specifically refer to a gambling venue.

It was certainly an impressive dinner: the menu is given in both German and English – and for reasons which escape me, was headed with the Latin words suum cuique – ‘to each his own’. The dishes served were typical of a late nineteenth century grand dinner, and it featured a dish that had already been a specialty of the region for centuries – foie gras (see a previous post on the topic here.)

Speisenfolge.
Caviarbrödchen.Oschenschwanzuppe.Skinbutte mitAustersauce und Kartoffeln.Rinderfilet mit Gemüsen.Strassburger Gänseleleberpastete.Truthahn.Eingemachte Früchte.Salat.Charlotte Russe.Nachtisch.Kaffee.
Menu.
Caviar Canapes.Ox-tail Soup.Turbot withOyster Sauce and Potatoes.Fillet of Beef with Vegetables.Strasbourg Foie Gras.Turkey.Preserved Fruit.Salad.Charlotte Russe.Dessert.Coffee.
I am amazed to find that in over thirteen hundred posts, I do not appear to have ever given you an explication or recipe for the obligatory nineteenth century banquet dessert – Charlotte Russe! How can this have happened?

As with so many things, culinary and otherwise, what goes by the name of ‘charlotte’ can include a wide variety of dishes. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the definition as ‘A dish made of apple marmalade covered with crumbs of toasted bread; also, a similar dish made with fruit other than apple. Hence, charlotte russe, a dish composed of custard enclosed in a kind of sponge-cake’, with the first reference as appearing in 1797. The ‘russe’ clearly suggests that it was attributed to Russia – the ‘Charlotte’ is variously attributed – so there is fodder there for another post, Time willing.Here is one interpretation.

Charlotte Russe
½ lb. ratafia biscuits, ½ pint cream, 1 oz. sugar, 1 tablespoon sherry, 1 tablespoon raspberry jam, ½ oz. gelatine, 1 teaspoon vanilla.
Rub the jam through a sieve, dip the ratafias first into it, then into the sherry, and with them line the side of a plain Charlotte mould, the first row should be put in quite dry. Whip the cream to a stiff froth, add to it the sugar, vanilla, and melted gelatine. Fill the mould, when set, turn out and garnish the top with whipped cream.
Cookery. Maud C. Cooke. London, Ontario.1896.

Today's post was to be on 'Appreciating your Garlicke', as it seemed a nice idea to follow on yesterday's Knowing your Onions. I find myself short of time this week however (what else is new?), so to save ruining the almost five-year old tradition of Monday to Friday posts, I give you a menu which was to be included in  Menus from History, but ultimately ejected. The story is two weeks late, as it relates to a royal dinner during Ascot week in 1938, but I am sure you will enjoy dining in right royal style anyway.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the future Queen Mother) were enjoying the horse-racing during Ascot week (see June 15) in June 1938, as has been the tradition of the royal family for over a century. The royal family usually live at Windsor during Ascot week, but the dinner menu for the evening of June 14, 1938 bears the Buckingham Palace insignia.

Consommé Jeanne Garnier.
Filet de Sole du Bon Normand.
Carré d’Agneau Bouquetière.
Caneton Glacé Montmorency.Salade Alice.
Fonds d’Artichauts Colbert.
Coeur Flotant aux Fraises.Bonbonnière de Petits Fours.
Cassolette à l’Indienne.
Instructions or descriptions of all of these dishes are described in Royal Menus by Rene Roussin, who was the Chef de Cuisine to King George VI.

Consommé Jeanne Garnier: a chicken consommé with pigeon added when the consomme is clarified, then champagne is added; then a final garnish with rice and prawns.


Filet de Sole du Bon Normand: the fish is poached, and served on a mushroom pureee

Carré d’Agneau Bouquetière: this consists of the best chops from one side of the lamb left in a small joint, with the ends of the chop bones trimmed short; served with a selection of vegtgables poached then buttered


Caneton Glacé Montmorency: the duck is served with a sauce made from the duck jus and pineapple juice, and is garnished with pineapple.

Salade Alice: this consists of dessert apples, cored and stuffed with apple, redcurrants and blanched slivered almonds and cream


Fonds d’Artichauts Colbert: artichoke hearts are buttered and baked in the oven.


Cassolette à l’Indienne: these are pastry tarts filled with chicken breast meat mixed with curry sauce and served warm.

Recipe for the Day:

The making of a Coeur Flotant aux Fraises relies on the previous preparation of several ‘sub-recipes’ which are fundamental to the pastrycook’s repertoire. The following are taken from Roussin’s book.

Coeur Flotant aux Fraises
(Strawberry Heart)
Take a ‘round’ of sponge-cake made in the form of a heart – i.e. in a heart-shaped tin. Cut the sponge carefully into thin layers. Separate the layers and sprinkle them with kirsch and maraschino until they are well damped but not in danger of disintegrating. Now spread a coating of thick apricot sauce (see page 240) on each piece and sprinkle the surface with currants and chopped blanched almonds. Reassemble the sponge cake in layers and coat the top with crème chantilly well flavoured with vanilla. Sprinkle the cream with chopped Pistachio nuts and more currants. Arrange the cake on a serving dish with a raised centre, surrounded by a circle of custard (crème anglais) set with large ripe, raw strawberries.
A little light strawberry syrup (about 14o) made by poaching ripe strawberries in syrup until soft, passing them through a sieve, and straining off the clear liquor, should be poured over the border of the crème anglaise and raw fruit.

Onions have been human food for millennia, and perhaps familiarity has bred, if not contempt, then disinterest. Food fashions come and go – beetroot and parsnips and celeriac and a host of other vegetables keep on getting rediscovered and are briefly novel and interesting again, but I don’t remember the same honour ever being given to the onion.

The onion has a long history of medicinal use, as a food for the poor, and as a flavouring ingredient – but seems to have only rarely been prepared and celebrated in its own right as culinary treat. Why is this? How could a mid-eighteenth century wife or nurse prepare ‘a cataplasm of roasted onions and bruised mustard seed’ as an ‘excellent external application for the piles’ (or the chilblains), and not be tempted by the aroma to pile the leftover cataplasm on the dinner plate? On the other hand, maybe a haemorrhoid medication could never be appealing for dinner.

Even by the mid-nineteenth century the onion was hardly a culinary delicacy, if we are to judge from the following opinion:

Great use is made of the onion in the United States; but I do not regard it as a very valuable esculent, except for medicinal purposes. It is somewhat stimulant and heating, as well as diuretic. Dr. Paris says it certainly contains a considerable portion of nourishment; but his manner of expressing his opinion appears to me, to imply doubts of the truth of his own statements. He relates, moreover, from Sir John Sinclair, that a Scotch Highlander, with a few raw onions in his pocket, and a crust of bread or some oatcake, can travel to an almost incredible extent, for two or three days in succession, without any other food. This is not very strange, however. Who could not travel, with crusts of good bread in his pocket, if in sufficient quantity? There is no better food in the world for a person who is to travel violently a few days, than this; but I have yet to learn that the raw onions would add much to the amount of real sustenance. They might serve as a condiment.Since, however, the onion is much in fashion, it may be well to say that the best method of cooking it is either by boiling or roasting; and the worst by frying. The fried onion, either alone, or with apples, potatoes, or meat, is exceedingly indigestible and unwholesome; and to any but a perverted taste, highly offensive and disgusting. As a medicine, it is sometimes properly used raw.[The young house-keeper: or, thoughts on food and cookery (Boston, 1839) by W.A. Alcott.]

I admit it. My taste is perverted. I love fried onions.

I do wonder what future readers will think of our current theories of food and disease (“How ridiculous! Back then, they actually thought BUTTER was BAD!”)

As for the ‘exceedingly indigestible and unwholesome’ combination of onions and apples, we have previously come across the very thrifty idea of onion-apple pies – for rough farm-workers of course.

What about this repeated connection of the Scots with onions? It is mentioned again in that very Scottish cookery book by ‘Mistress Margaret Dods’ (aka Christian Isobel Johnstone) - Cook and Housewife’s Manual (1826). The book does actually contain a recipe for roasted onions – to be eaten, not applied.


To Stew And Roast Onions
Scald and peel a dozen middle sized, or two or three Spanish onions. If old and acrid, parboil them, and stew very slowly for nearly an hour in good veal or broth, with white pepper and salt; thicken the sauce with a little white roux or butter kneaded in flour, and dishing the onions in a small hash-dish, pour it over them. A little mushroom catsup may be added or they may be browned. Onions are roasted before the fire in their skins, and served with cold butter and salt. They are in Scotland served with roasted goose or pork, and eaten alone or with roasted potatoes or red or pickled herrings. In the latter case we would recommend mustard as well as butter. Obs. Stewed and roasted onions used to be a favourite supper dish in Scotland, and were reckoned medicinal .The onions were stewed (after parboiling) in a butter sauce to which cream was put, i.e. the Sauce blanche of France.

Quotation for the Day

The onion being eaten, yea though it be boyled, causeth head-ache, hurteth the eyes, and maketh a man dimme sighted, dulleth the senses, ingendreth windinesse, and provoketh overmuch sleepe, especially being eaten raw.
John Gerard (1545-1611)

I love peanuts (or any other nut for that matter), but am much more appreciative of its overall value, having read the words of one of its great champions -George Washington Carver (1864-1943), who we met in a previous story.

From How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption (Seventh Edition, January 194, here are some of his words, and a couple of very interesting recipes.

Of all the money crops grown by Macon County farmers, perhaps there are none more promising than the peanut in its several varieties and their almost limitless possibilities.Of the many good things in their favor, the following stand out as most prominent:
1. Like all other members of the pod-bearing family, they enrich the soil.
2. They are easily and cheaply grown.3. For man the nuts possess a wider range of food values than any other legume.4. The nutritive value of the hay as a stock food compares favorably with that of the cowpea.5. They are easy to plant, easy to grow, and easy to harvest.6. The great food-and-forage value of the peanut will increase in proportion to the rapidity with which we make it a real study. This will increase consumption, and, therefore, must increase production.7. In Macon County, two crops per year of the Spanish variety can be raised.8. The peanut exerts a dietetic or a medicinal effect upon the human system that is very desirable.9. I doubt if there is another foodstuff that can be so universally eaten, in some form, by every individual.10. Pork fattened from peanuts and hardened off with a little corn just before killing, is almost if not quite equal to the famous red-gravy hams, or the world renowned Beechnut breakfast bacon.11. The nuts yield a high percentage of oil of superior quality.12. The clean cake, after the oil has been removed, is very high in muscle-building properties (protein), and the ease with which the meal blends in with flour, meal, etc., makes it of especial value to bakers, confectioners, candy-makers, and ice cream factories.13. Peanut oil is one of the best known vegetable oils.14. A pound of peanuts contain a little more of the body-building nutrients than a pound of sirloin steak, while of the heat and energy producing nutrients it has more than twice as much.
Carver gives recipes for soups, breads, cakes, cookies, ice-cream,and candy - plus a few others that definitely enlarged my peanut-cooking repertoire.

NO. 37, LIVER WITH PEANUTS

Boil the liver from two fowls or a turkey; when tender mash them fine; boil one pint of blanched peanuts until soft; mash them to a smooth paste; mix and rub through a puree-strainer; season to taste with salt, pepper, and lemon juice; moisten with melted butter; spread the paste on bread like sandwiches, or add enough hot chicken stock to make a puree; heat again and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

NO. 44, PEANUT OMELET

Cream a slice of bread in half a cup of rich milk; beat the whites and yolks of two eggs separately; add the yolks to the bread crumbs and milk; to half a cup of finely ground peanuts add a dash of pepper and salt; mix thoroughly; fold in the whites, and cook as usual in a buttered pan.


Quotation for the Day.

I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.
Orson Welles.

In my forthcoming book Soup: A Global History, I reserve a chapter for 'Medicinal Soups'. One of the soups I feature in this chapter is Snail Broth – an example of the cure being worse than the disease in many cases, perhaps (such as respiratory complaints or jaundice.) The author of Domestic economy, and cookery, for rich and poor, (1827), who provides the recipe, offers some suggestions for overcoming the ‘mawkish taste’ and general repugnance.

Snail Broth.Wash them extremely well, and throw them into very hot water; take them out of the shell, and pass them through several waters; working them well with the hand; slice them, pound the shells, and put all into a saucepan, with as much water as will cover; boil, skim, and let them simmer for several hours; add a little salt, sugar, and a very small quantity of mace, to correct the mawkish taste: a tea-cupful may be taken four times a day, with or without conserve of roses. Should the patient have any repugnance to it in this form, let it be put into some weak veal broth; this is far preferable to slater [woodlouse] wine.
One way of administering unpleasant medicine is to hide it in something strongly flavoured, and desirable in its own right - such as gingerbread. A writer of a letter to the Editor of the Medical Times and Gazette in 1859 wrote:

Sir, - In your last week’s number, page 69, you give an extract of a process, suggested by M. Bassi, for the purpose of rendering cod-liver oil palatable.We beg to inform your readers that we have already effected this, and in a manner essentially the same as M. Bassi proposes. In your paper of 12th February last,, you reported upon our preparation as follows:- “We have examined a specimen of gingerbread made by Messrs. Newbery, each cake containing a teaspoonful of cod-liver oil. The gingerbread is extremely light and pleasant, the flavour of the oil being completely covered.”Should your readers desire to try M.Bassi’s preparation they will find in ours a representative, without the trouble of adopting the elaborate process suggested by the French Medical man.Our cod-liver oil cakes have been largely inquired for by Medical Practitioners, and their sale testifies to their great utility.
I am, &C., F. Newbery and Son, by A.W.B. Newberry45, St. Paul’s Churchyard, October 12, 1859
Of course, the spicy taste of gingerbread can be used to hide other unpleasant ingredients too. As regular readers will know, I particularly enjoy finding recipes in non-traditional sources, and today I have another opportunity. From the Druggist’s Hand-book of practical receipts (1853) , I give you a gingerbread recipe quite suitable for hiding a purgative medication, should you so wish.

Gingerbread: A confection often used in which to administer purgatives to children. If required to be purgative, sufficient jalap* must be added to allow each cake 7 grains.Ormskirk: Flour, 4 lbs., sugar, 2 lb., treacle, 2 lb., butter, 22 oz., candied lemon, 8 oz., and 1 nutmeg. Mix the flour and powdered spices with the butter, add the treacle and sugar, and divide into cakes.
* Jalap: the tuberous roots of Ipomoea purga, known to be cathartic.

Postscripts:

The Through the Ages with Gingerbread archive is here.

Quotation for the Day.

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
Richard Sherman, songwriter, Robert Sherman, songwriter, and Clarence Brown. from Mary Poppins (1964).

Well, we have had a couple of interesting breads this week, so how about an interesting-sounding spread to go on them? A new American product launched in Philadelphia in 1882 caught my eye in this regard.

The problem is, I don’t know if ‘Olive Butter’ is being made anymore, and if it is, the manufacturers would certainly have had to make some changes to its labelling. The ‘butter’ turns out to be not a bit ‘buttery’ (in the sense of being spreadable) at all – it was a cooking oil. It also turns out not to have had any olives in it either – although it was, however, olive greenish in colour. Olive Butter was actually made from cottonseed oil – a product now ubiquitous in many commercial bakery items, especially biscuits (by which I mean ‘cookies) because it adds crunch.

At the beginning of the small recipe booklet that was released along with the product were a number of testimonials from ‘The Press.’ The one that I have chosen, from the Public Ledger, (Philadelphia),of October 1882 says much, and I don’t mean just about the product itself.

“The new olive butter is excellent for frying purposes. There's something ina name, but, probably, nothing of the "olive" in the butter, except its color; but, besides being assured by chemists that this is a perfectly pure vegetable oil, allhousekeepers who have tried it will agree that it is extremely economical and makes a very delicate frying material. Here was formerly the situation in the kitchen over the frying-pan: You could take lard, which was not cheap and "used up" very fast; you had butter, which, besides being expensive, required a skilful cook to keep it from burning; or you could use salad oil, which, though costing alarmingly to begin with, required so little to do the work that the cooking school would tell you it was like the widow's cruse - it did not seem to lose perceptibly; after frying fifty oysters the bottlewas nearly as full as before. But very few American housekeepers could be brought, by its first expensiveness, to try using sweet oil, which is the frying material of all South Europe. We leave out of the list "clarified fat," or dripping, because there is seldom enough of this to do the entire cooking with, even with a conscientious person in the kitchen who understands how to save and use it all, as should always be insisted on. The two best known vegetable oils that this country produces are cotton-seed oil and peanut oil, both of which are understood to have been for years exported to Europe, coming back to us in wicker-covered flasks as Italian olive oil. Real olive oil from California is too small a product, as yet, to count much in the home market. The manufacturers of the new Olive Butter - which is not butter at all, but a clear, greenish oil - have agreed to give us a home product, warranted pure, without the ocean voyage; though, to conciliate our ridiculous American prejudices, do not label it cotton-seed or peanut oil, the former of which it probably is. Anybody who tries it will agree that it cooks as well as salad oil; and as all vegetable oils heat at a lower temperature than the solid animal fats, it does not burn away or waste as rapidly as lard. It comes in convenient cans, with a mouth-piece, like the kerosene oil cans.
And another testimonial manages to appeal to jingoism, invokes authorised opinion, and suggests a challenge, all in two sentences:

Frenchmen have for a long time re-sold the oil to us both as pure olive oil and as a packing for sardines. An Atlanta authority defies any one to tell the difference between a steak fried in lard and one fried in cotton-seed oil.Evening Telegraph, August 1882

How well did the product compete with the genuine article (which I take to be genuine olive oil)? Here is an unequivocally French dish as interpreted by the manufacturers, from the promotional recipe book mentioned above. How good would it be with cottonseed oil instead of the traditional real olive oil do you think?

Lyonnaise Potatoes.
Pare two large potatoes and cut them into dice. Put two tablespoonfuls of Olive Butter into a frying pan, in which fry two sliced onions; put in the potatoes, and toss them now and again until they have a nice yellow colour; add a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Shake the pan until all are well mixed; dish and serve very hot.


Quotation for the Day.

Except the vine, there is no plant which bears a fruit of as great importance as the olive.
Pliny (AD 23-79)

In one of those beautiful serendipitous research finds, just as I finished my search for a non-cakey, genuinely bread-y banana bread for yesterday’s post, I came across the following article in a 1938 edition of Popular Mechanics magazine (which also happens to fit beautifully also into my recent ‘recipes from non-traditional sources’ theme too!):

"Bread baked from apple flour is a tasty innovation in Seattle. Each one and one-half pound loaf contains the equivalent of a large apple. The milling of apples into flour was made possible by a vacuum dehydration process which reduces the moisture content to about one percent; the flour is then added to other dry ingredients used in the bread mix, including a proportion of wheat flour. Due to the presence of apple pectin, apple bread does not dry out like ordinary wheat breads and so can be used to the last slice. A ton of apple flour calls for fifteen tons of apples."
Someone in Seattle please tell me that this bread is still being made there, so I can book my flight immediately. What a gorgeous idea, isn’t it?

Most of us don’t have access to apple flour, and the production sounds beyond the scope of even the most enthusiastic home baker, so we must be content with apple bread made from pulp. At least the recipe for today is yeast-leavened, and has no added sugar, so would not be cake-y. I am definitely going to try this very soon.

Apple Bread.
Weigh seven pounds of fresh juicy apples, peel, core, and boil them to a pulp, being careful to use an enamelled saucepan, or a stone jar placed inside an ordinary saucepan of boiling water, otherwise the fruit becomes discoloured; mix the pulp with fourteen pounds of the best flour, put in the same quantity of yeast you would use in common bread, and as much water as will make it into a fine smooth dough; put it into a pan, and stand it in a warm place to rise; let it remain for twelve hours at least; form it into rather long-shaped loaves, and bake it in a lively oven. This bread is very much eaten in the south of Europe.
How to Cook Apples: shown in a hundred different ways of dressing that fruit … Georgiana Hill, , (London, 1865)

Quotation for the Day

Why do we need so many kinds of apples? Because there are so many folks. A person has a right to gratify his legitimate taste. If he wants twenty or forty kinds of apples for his personal use…he should be accorded the privilege. There is merit in variety itself. It provides more contact with life, and leads away from uniformity and monotony.
Liberty Hyde Bailey

I have this vague sense of being sucked in by someone’s clever marketing-by-renaming trick when I make or eat banana 'bread'. I have the same feeling about muffins, which in their common modern form (not the traditional yeast-raised ‘English’ muffin) are just an excuse to eat cake for breakfast. I hasten to add that this fleeting feeling does not interfere with my enjoyment of the said ‘breads’ however.

Without getting involved in a convoluted argument about what constitutes ‘bread’, I would be interested to know your opinions. Is it only bread if it is leavened with yeast - which would make Irish soda bread not real bread? Or does it depend on the amount of sugar – and if so, how much (a teaspoon to start the yeast bubbling OK?). Or the fat (lots of butter in a lot of muffins)? The absence of fruit, nuts, spices …… ? Must it be baked, or are Chinese steamed buns also ‘bread’?. You get my definition drift?

There is probably no debate about bread being a starch-based food – but which starch? There is no debate about wheat being the best source of gluten, or the fact that gluten is what gives ‘bread’ its structure and texture, which makes wheat bread the ‘best’ bread from that point of view - it is the Gold Standard, so to speak. Nevetheless, many folk around the world are happy with, and even prefer, bread made from other grains and seeds such as rye, barley, oats, corn etc.

Bananas are starchy too, so it is not surprising that bananas can be used to make non-cakey banana bread. The trick, it appears, is not to use the mashed fruit, but to use banana flour – and Boy! Would I like to get my hands on some. I tried to find a complete recipe for banana bread using banana flour, but only managed to find general advice about using it to substitute for an amount (about a quarter?) of the wheat flour.

Banana flour is made by drying and grinding the green fruit – not an easy operation for the home cook. It was advocated as a healthy food in several books of invalid cookery in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as Mrs Rorer’s Diet for the Sick (1914). The well-known Mrs. Rorer says “banana flour is made from under-ripe bananas, thoroughly dried and ground. It is exceedingly good for diabetic, rheumatic, and gouty patients. It may be made into mush, or gems, or small cakes.”

Another ‘healthy’ (in this case vegetarian) cookery book, Reform Cookery: Up-to-date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century (1909) by Jean Oliver Mill gives a recipe for Banana Flour Scones, which is the closest I could get to a banana bread recipe today – and they sound absolutely delicious.


Banana Flour Scones
1 lb. banana flour, 2 oz. butter or “Nutter”, 2 oz. sugar, 1 teaspoonful baking powderd, milk. Mix flour – the banana flour sold by the lb. is best – sugar, and baking powder. Rub in butter, make into a light dough with milk. Cut into small scones, and bake in a good oven about 15 minutes.
These scones are exceedingly good, and quite different from those made with ordinary flour. They may be varied by adding a few Sultanas or a beaten egg.

P. S In case you want a reminder about ‘scones’ – go here, and here


Quotation for the Day

Yeah, I like cars and basketball. But you know what I like more? Bananas.
Frankie Muniz

World War II finally ended with the Armistice of 14 August 1945 (or with the formal surrender of Japan on 2nd September 1945), but rationing in Britain did not finally end until midnight on Saturday 26th September 1953. The total period of rationing in Britain was 13 years, 8 months, 2 weeks and 6 days - only slightly less than the 13 years, 10 months, 19 days, 17 hours, 32½ minutes of the “noble experiment” of Prohibition in the USA.

In many ways the post-war period was more dismal, food-wise, than it had been during the conflict, and it was indeed a lamentable situation when the ‘already meagre’ bacon ration was halved in mid-October 1947 – two years after the war’s end. The lament was sung poignantly in an article in The Times of that week that is also a hymn to the English bacon-based breakfast.

Lament for Bacon.In a sombre world we miss more acutely those little flashes of happiness which can lighten the gloom, and so the halving from next Sunday of the already meagre bacon ration is a hard blow. Bacon is sweet at all times, but even as fruit is said to be golden in the morning, so is bacon for breakfast. It is then that it announces its coming by a subtle and pervasive odour. Then the householder stepping grumpily from the bathroom, with no enthusiasm at all for the day’s task, suddenly detects that fragrant herald and makes a scramble of his dressing. “Here’s to thee, bacon, “ he exclaims, dropping the capital letter and adapting his Calverley to his own ends, and rushes down to find it still hissing and sizzling on his plate. He may like it frizzled almost to dryness, so that it can be eaten not indelicately with the fingers, or he may prefer a more unctuous treatment, with rich juice that must be mopped up with bread lest a drop of the precious liquid be wasted. This is a matter of taste, but in either instance it makes the most heartening of starts to a new day. In the most famous of its alliances it is usually named second, but it is a mere accident of everyday talk, as in the case of Oxford and Cambridge. It implies no inferiority, and it is noteworthy that Mr. Wooster, no mean breakfaster, referred indifferently in his elliptical speech to the “e and bacon” and “the eggs and b.”But indeed this comradeship with the egg is but one aspect of bacon’s character. It is the best mixer in the world and may be said, in a too well-worn phrase, to have a genius for friendship. The roast chicken looks lonely and miserable without those entrancing little rolls, of which the carver is tempted to appropriate an additional one to himself, as a reward for his labours. It is surely the bacon which gives to angels on horseback their celestial title. There is a certain greyness about liver or even kidneys when they lack their rosy companion. And then there is
Leicester beans and bacon, food of Kings!
Why the seventeenth century poet, Mr. William King attributed this divine dish to Leicester we do not know, but if that city originated a blessing which has since spread over the civilized world it would be ungrateful to grudge it the honour. With all its seductive charms bacon is so essentially innocent and virtuous that there is not sense of greed in loving it. Vegetarians have been known to make a tacit exception in its favour even as teetotallers do sometimes, by a curious process of mental gymnastics, in favour of port wine. Our allowance was paltry before and now it will be almost wholly illusory. It will be futile to try to spin it out. Far better to save our bacon for one breakfast of frenzied happiness in the fortnight, then smart in the fires of abstinence til the brief moment of repletion comes “slow, how slowly” round again.
For those unwilling to eat the whole, entire, complete bacon ration in one meal of ‘frenzied happiness”, the Ministry of Food gave some suggestions for eking it out in one of their post-war Food Facts leaflets.

Pan Hash.- economical on your bacon ration, and a tasty way to use up cooked vegetables. Try the alternative flavourings too.
Ingredients (enough for 4): ½ lb cooked mashed potatoes, ½ lb, mixed cooked vegetables, chopped, 2 oz. chopped bacon, fried, salt and pepper.
Method: Mix all ingredients together, and fry the mixture in the fat from the cooked bacon on both sides till well-browned – about 15 minutes.
Note: if not cooked vegetables are available, 1 lb. mashed potatoes can be used.
Alternative flavourings to use instead of the bacon” (1) 2 oz. grated cheese (2) 2 oz. chopped cooked meat (3) 2 oz. flaked cooked fish.

Variety Fritters.Try these on Monday, when you may have a little fat to spare from the Sunday’s meat.
Ingredients (enough for 4)
4 oz. self-raising flour or 4 oz. plain flour and 2 level teaspoons baking powder, 1 level teaspoon salt, ¼ level teaspoon pepper, ¼ pint milk (approx.), 2 oz. chopped bacon, fat for frying.
Method: Mix flour, baking powder if used, salt and pepper, well together. Mix to a stiff batter with the milk. Beat well. Add the chopped bacon. Fry tablespoons of the mixture in hot fat until golden brown on both sides. Serve at once. This quantity makes about 8 fritters.


Quotation for the Day

Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.
Doug Larson