Banana Cream (1916)

 

The Myrtle Reed Cookbook [1916]

BANANA CREAM

Peel five bananas and rub through a sieve with five tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar and a tablespoonful of lemon-juice. Add half a package of gelatine which has been soaked and dissolved in a little milk, and when cool, but not set, fold in a cupful of cream whipped solid. Mould, chill, and serve with whipped cream

—————

I used a blender instead of a sieve, and about half a cup of milk total (cold to bloom the gelatin, hot to melt it).  

Verdict: pretty good!  I really thought the banana was going to go all brown and ick, but it stayed a nice, pleasing banana color. I used half a tablespoon of kosher gelatin, but it came out veeeeery soft and mousse-ish. Ideal for chilling and serving in individual dishes, but if I were to mold it again, I would bump it up to a full tablespoon. The banana and powdered sugar and unsweetened whipped cream was just the right amount of sweetness. 

I found a good source of discount red-band bananas, so expect many banana recipes to come!  

Bonus recipe:

COCOA

Directions are given on the package the cocoa comes in. If not, buy another kind.

Update: Donut the cat was a big fan. Yes I know cream isn’t actually good for cats, we shoo’d her off. 

Roast Beef Pie (1917)

 A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband (1917)

A GUEST TO A DINNER OF LEFT-OVERS

"AHA, I've found you out!" Bettina heard a laughing voice shout as she hurried up the steps.

"Why, Jack, when did you come to town?"

"This afternoon. Went to Bob's office the very first thing, and he insisted on bringing me home with him to dinner. I told him it might 'put you out,' but he spent the time it took to come home assuring me that you were always waiting for company—kept a light ever burning in the window for them and all that. He said that I'd see,—that you'd be on the doorstep waiting for us!"

"And after all that—you weren't here!" said Bob reproachfully.

"I'm just as sorry as I can be not to live up to Bob's picture of me," said Bettina. "I generally am waiting for Bob,—almost on the doorstep if not quite. But this afternoon I've been to a shower for Alice,—do you remember Alice, Jack?"

"Very well. The gay dark-eyed one. You don't mean to say that she's found a man who's lively enough to suit her?"

"Well, she seems to be suited, all right. But I must fly into an apron if you boys are to get any dinner within a half-hour. Jack, you'll have to pardon me if after all of Bob's eloquence I give you a meal of left-overs——"

"Don't apologize to a bachelor, Bettina. He probably won't know left-overs from the real thing," said Bob.

"Bachelors are said to be the most critical of all," she answered. "But I'll do my little best to please."

That night Bettina served:

[223]

Roast Beef Pie
Bread                                                                      Butter
Sliced Tomatoes with Salad Dressing
Marble Cake                              Coffee

BETTINA'S RECIPES

(All measurements are level)

Roast Beef Pie  (Three portions) 

2 C-chopped cold roast beef 

1 C-gravy 

1 C-cold diced potatoes (cooked)

2 T-chopped onion

1 C-flour

2 t-baking powder

2 t-lard

¹/₈ t-salt

6 T-milk

Mix the beef, gravy, potato and onion. Place in a shallow buttered baking dish. Make a biscuit dough by cutting the lard into the flour, which has been sifted with the baking powder, and salt, and gradually adding the milk. Pat the dough into shape and arrange carefully on top of the meat. Make holes in the top to allow the steam to escape. Bake in a moderate oven twenty minutes.

———-

Yesterday, I threw some stew beef, onions, carrots, and potatoes in the slow cooker with some water and powdered gravy mix. Bettina informed me that this should be a pot pie, so that is what I did!  

I made the biscuit top as Bettina instructed 

Verdict:  All enjoyed!  I heated up the leftover stew first, so the chill wouldn’t make the underside of the topping all soggy and slimy. In full disclosure, I did have to sub butter for the lard, as that is what I had. Bettina would understand. My husband and two kids marveled at my skills, and it did actually take under half an hour to make and bake!  The crust was lovely and biscuity, and dressed up the leftover stew a lot. 

Bride’s Cake (1917)

 A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband, 1917

This amusingly titled book is written in the form of a novel about a newly married woman named Bettina, who has recipes for every occasion!  

Bride's Cake (Thirty pieces)

1½ C-sugar

½ C-butter

2½ C-flour

¹/₈ t-salt

²/₃ C-milk

3 t-baking powder

¼ t-cream of tartar

½ t-almond extract

1 t-vanilla

4 egg-whites

Cream the butter, add the sugar and continue creaming the mixture. Mix and sift three times the flour, salt, baking powder and cream of tartar. Add these dry ingredients alternately with the milk to the first mixture. Add the almond and vanilla extracts. Beat two minutes. Cut and fold in the egg-whites which have been stiffly beaten. Pour the cake batter into a large, round loaf cake pan, having a hole in the center. Bake forty-five minutes in a moderate oven. When the cake is removed from the oven, allow it to stand in a warm place for five minutes, then with a spatula and a sharp knife, carefully loosen the cake from the sides, and turn out onto a cake cooler. When cool, cover with White Mountain Cream Icing.

Suggestions for Serving the Bride's Cake

The Bride's Cake may be baked in this form and placed in the center of the table for the central decoration. A tall, slender vase, filled with the flowers used in decorating, may be placed in the hole in the cake. Place the cake upon a pasteboard box four inches high and one inch wider than the cake.[120] This gives space to decorate around the cake. The cake and box may be placed on a reflector, which gives a very pretty effect. If cake boxes containing wedding cakes are distributed among the guests as favors, use the one in the round pan for central decoration and bake others in square pan. Square pieces may then be cut, wrapped in waxed paper, and placed in the boxes.

When Alice cut the bride's cake, the thimble fell to Ruth, which occasioned much merriment, while the dime was discovered by Harry in his own piece. The ring went to Mary, who emphatically denied that the omen spoke truly. But[268] when Mary also caught Alice's bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley, the young people refused to listen to her protests.

"Dear Alice," said Bettina, as she helped the bride into her traveling suit, "may your whole life be as beautiful as your wedding!"

——

Verdict:  I was looking for a way to use up egg whites after my daughter made ice cream, and this used just the right amount!  It’s lovely. Not super light and fluffy, a nice old-fashioned dense cake with a crispy sugary shell. I wouldn’t be ashamed to serve it for a wedding. Based on my Bundt pan though, it serves more like 15 portions rather than 30. Thanks, Bettina!  

Nottingham Pudding [1831]

 The Cook Not Mad; or Rational Cookery by Mary McKelvey

Yorkshire pudding + baked apples?  How could I resist? 

No 100. Batter Pudding. Six ounces of flour, salt, three eggs, beat up well with milk thick as cream either to boil or bake. 

No 101. Nottingham Pudding. Pare six good apples, take out the cores with the point of a small knife, leave your apples otherwise whole, fill up where you take out the core with sugar, place them in a dish and pour over them batter prepared as batter pudding, bake one hour. 

Redaction: 

Nottingham Pudding

4-6 baking apples (Granny Smith is easiest to find, others will do fine, but don't use Red Delicious! 

Brown sugar 

1/2 C. butter, melted

2 C. All purpose flour

2 C. milk 

4 eggs 

1 1/2 t. salt 

Core 4-6 apples, making sure not to cut all the way through the bottom, so that the yummy stuff doesn't leak out.  Fill with sugar. Coat a 9x13 pan with half of the melted butter, then place apples in the pan. Put flour, remaining butter, flour, milk, eggs, and salt in a blender, blend for 30 seconds, and pour over the apples. Cook at 400 F. for 35-40 minutes.

Verdict: It sounded delicious, and it was delicious!  Kids and husband yummed it up and requested to see it again. 

1940 Murder Mystery Party

I found a murder mystery game at the thrift store!  And that means an opportunity to inflict period food on friends and loved ones. "Last Train from Paris" takes place in 1940, on the last train... uh... leaving... Paris.  Fortunately for me, my grandma was a home ec major in 1940, and I have all her books.  Oh yes.

This is the face that will feed you ham and peanut butter sandwiches with 0 guilt or regret

I'm going to kick myself now, because once the party started rolling, I was having too much fun to remember to take pictures of all the food!

 "There are so many responsibilities on a person's mind when they're keeping house, isn't there?"

*Cucumber water (I felt a palate cleanser was the humane thing to do)
*Sandwiches
     -Ham and peanut butter
     -Cottage cheese and watercress
     -Beet and egg
     -Chipped beef and cream cheese
     -Vegetable bean
*Stuffed cabbage head
*Cheese carrots
*Watercress
*Deviled eggs (no recipe)
*Peach Macaroon Mold
*Sharlotka with Never-Fail Caramel Icing (I just really like this cake, recipe is not period that I know of.)
*Husband cake with cream cheese frosting filling

Ham and Peanut Butter [[500 Tasty Sandwiches, 1941, Culinary Arts Institute)]
1/2 cup Smithfield ham paste
1/3 cup peanut butter

Blend ingredients or spread separately on buttered bread.  Serves 4 to 6.


Cottage Cheese and Watercress  [500 Tasty Sandwiches, 1941, Culinary Arts Institute)]
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup chopped watercress

Beet and Egg  [500 Tasty Sandwiches, 1941, Culinary Arts Institute)]
Combine 1/2 cup chopped cooked beets and 4 chopped hard-cooked eggs with mayonnaise or salad dressing.

Chipped Beef and Cream Cheese  [500 Tasty Sandwiches, 1941, Culinary Arts Institute)]
1/3 cup chipped beef, chopped
3 oz. cream cheese

Vegetable Bean  [500 Tasty Sandwiches, 1941, Culinary Arts Institute)]
1 (16 oz.) can pork and beans
1 can condensed vegetable soup
6 tablespoons mayonnaise

Mash pork and beans.  Add vegetable soup and mayonnaise.  Mix thoroughly.  Makes 2 3/4 cups.

I'm the most sad about not getting a good picture of this!  It was like a beautiful cabbage sputnik.

Stuffed Cabbage Head  [500 Tasty Snacks, 1940, Culinary Arts Institute]
1 head cabbage
Sour cream dressing
16 gherkins
16 cocktail frankfurters

Wash cabbage and remove outside leaves.  Cut a slice from top and remove center leaving a shell.  Shred cabbage from center, mix thoroughly with cream dressing, and chill.  WHen ready to serve fill center with shredded cabbage.  Spear gherkins and sausages on hors d'oeuvres picks and stick pics on outside of cabbage head, alternating gherkins and frankfurters.  Serve with butter crackers or salted wafers.
Use cooked shrimp marinated in French dressing instead of frankfurters.
Fill centger with chicken, shrimp, or crab-meat salad, saving center cabbage to be served creamed or fried.  Garnish with stuffed or ripe olives on picks.

Cheese Carrots  [500 Tasty Snacks, 1940, Culinary Arts Institute]
3 ounces cream cheese [full fat!]
1/3 cup grated carrots
1/4 teaspoon salt
Dash cayenne
4 drops Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon chopped chives or onion
Parsley sprigs

Mix cream cheese and carrot, season with salt, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce, and chives.  Roll into miniature carrot shapes.  Chill until firm.  Stick a tiny sprig of parsley into each "carrot" to resemble tops.  Makes 8 "carrots."

Watercress
A large glass bowl of well washed and dried watercress to be picked up and eaten with the fingers should be on every hors d-oeuvre table.

Peach Macaroon Mold/Apricot Macaroon Pudding   [Lunching and Dining at Home, by Jeanne Owen.  1942]
Use 1 can of apricots--2 1/2 size.  Drain juice and set aside.  Mash apricots and mix 3/4 cup of macaroon crumbs with the fruit.
Soften 2 tablespoons of gelatin in 1/2 cup of cold water.  Then heat the juice from the fruit and add to the softened gelatin.  When well dissolved and blended, cool a little and add the fruit.  Allow to set a little, then fold in 1 cup of cream which has been whipped.
Pour in a mold and place in refrigerator to set.
Just before using, turn out of the mold, dipping the mold carefully in hot water and removing quickly.

Sharlotka with Never-Fail Caramel Icing  [High Altitude Recipes: Presented by the Millers of Pikes Peak All Purpose Flour, 1948, Colorado Milling & Elevator Company]
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Put all ingredients into sauce pan and cook until forms soft ball, then beat till of spreading consistency.

Husband Cake  [High Altitude Recipes: Presented by the Millers of Pikes Peak All Purpose Flour, 1948, Colorado Milling & Elevator Company]
3/4 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup tomato soup
3/4 cup water
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
3 cups sifted PIKES PEAK ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup seeded raisins
1 cup nuts
1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream the shortening and sugar well.  Combine the soup, soda, and water. Add to the creamed mixture alternately with the dry ingredients.  Add raisins and nuts and bake in layers or loaf pan as desired about 45 minutes in moderate oven (350 F.).  Frost with your favorite icing.


Verdict:

Ham and peanut butter: So horrific.  It tastes of salty tears and a cat's breath.  It was easily the least popular thing on the table.  One person liked it, though.  I don't think a single other person finished their tiny tea sandwich.  The weird thing for me was that the combo of canned ham and peanut butter confused my mouth so much, I was able to get it down before my brain caught up.

Cottage cheese and watercress: Second most popular.  Because it tasted of nothing.  Watercress on its own is kind of spicy.  Watercress mixed with cottage cheese tastes of... cottage cheese.  A mystery.
Beet and egg:  It's a pretty color! I thought it was okay.  I like egg salad and beets.  Also not terribly popular.  

Chipped beef and cream cheese:  A surprise hit!  Everyone liked these.  One person claimed it was her new favorite sandwich.

Vegetable bean:  It looked like diarrhea, and tasted of... uh... mushed up pork and beans and condensed vegetable soup.  Second least popular.

Stuffed cabbage head:  So beautiful.  So strange.  Like an alien spacecraft that has landed on a buffet table by accident.  So many regrets that I did not capture its full glory.  Magnificent.

Cheese carrots:  Another surprise hit.  These were really good.  The next day, I used the leftover mix as a sandwich filling, and it was delightful.  This would make a good bagel schmear, too.  Yum.  We made the carrot shape by using two spoons to form rough quenelles.

Watercress: Look, it's watercress.  Yup.  There it is.

Peach Macaroon Mold:  Harmless.  I substituted apricots with peaches, because that is what I had.  It was fine.  Not much personality.

Sharlotka with Never-Fail Caramel Icing:  This caramel icing is amazing. It kind of melted into the cake overnight because the cake had so much moisture, but still good.

Husband cake with cream cheese frosting filling:  Yes, it has tomato soup!  My expectations were low.  But it was really nice.  It doesn't taste like tomato, it tastes like spice cake.  Which makes me wonder about the purpose of the tomato soup in the first place.  Extra leavening from when you mix the acidic tomato soup with baking soda?  It gave the cake a nice color, I suppose.

Catharticum Imperiale Mold; or, Cranky Dude Gelatin

The Elixirs of Nostradamus: Nostradamus' original recipes for elixirs, scented water, beauty potions and sweetmeats.  Edited by Knut Boeser.  [1552]

This recipe may look strikingly familiar, because it is just a gelatinized version of this recipe.  As written, it is a medicinal syrup for "noble lords who have authority over others but who are unable to control or master their anger, for by taking only one ounce of it, their rancour will be dissipated."  I liked the flavors together very much, but felt that what it really wanted to be was gelatin.

It's so wobbly!  Especially if you've used gelatin extracted from beef hides.

Cranky Dude Gelatin
Rhubarb
Cinnamon stick
Sugar
Rosewater
Unflavored gelatin

Chop rhubarb, add to pot with cinnamon stick, and simmer in water until it falls apart.  Strain, and add sugar, rosewater, and possibly more water until it tastes delicious.  Follow directions on whatever kind of gelatin you are using to thicken.

Verdict: Yum!  Two guinea pigs said it was the best gelatin they'd ever had.  Almost everyone liked it, except for two 7-year-olds who were unimpressed.  A good number of people had seconds.  My kids had seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, and I frankly lost count.  0% of the men who consumed this gelatin expressed a desire to beat serfs or kick dogs, so I declare this to be a medical success.

Pilchard Pie

'The Cook and Housekeeper's Dictionary' by Mary Eaton [1822]
Though domestic occupations do not stand so high in the general esteem as they formerly did, there are none of greater importance in social life, and none when neglected that produce a larger portion of human misery. There was a time when ladies knew nothing beyond their own family concerns; but in the present day there are many who know nothing about them. If a young person has been sent to a fashionable boarding-school, it is ten to one, when she returns home, whether she can mend her own stockings, or boil a piece of meat, or do any thing more than preside over the flippant ceremonies of the tea-table.

In honor of the "Poldark" binge I have been on, I present:

Pilchard Pie!  YAYYYY.  If you have watched "Poldark," you will know that they seem to live on pilchards and pies. And look!  This has pilchards AND pie!  I have no doubt Ross would be all over this.

PILCHARD PIE. Soak two or three salted pilchards for some hours, the day before they are to be dressed. Clean and skin the white part of some large leeks, scald them in milk and water, and put them in layers into a dish, with the pilchards. Cover the whole with a good plain crust. When the pie is taken out of the oven, lift up the side crust with a knife, and empty out all the liquor: then pour in half a pint of scalded cream.

But where can one find salted pilchards?

That's because you are the worst, Elizabeth. You are good for nothing but to preside over the flippant ceremonies of the tea-table.   Pilchards are basically the same thing as sardines.  And as the last tin of salted pilchards was packed in Cornwall in 2005, we're going to hope that canned, salty sardines are near enough to rehydrated salt-preserved canned pilchards.  Anchovies would probably also be a good analogue.  This recipe looks like it may only have a top crust, but I wanted to try a raised pie.  To make a raised pie, we need to make a hot water crust.  It's the first time I've done one, and it was not hard.  I didn't make it very attractive, but it was totally functional.  

Pastry (courtesy of food.com)

1 lb. plain flour

1 teaspoon salt

3 ounces butter

4 ounces lard or 4 ounces white vegetable fat

4 ounces milk, and

4 ounces water, mixed in equal proportions

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl, making a well in the centre. Place the water, butter and lard into a saucepan, when the butter and lard has melted bring it all to the boil. Take off the heat. Pour the mixture into the centre of the flour. Working very quickly, mix with a wooden spoon. Then knead with hands to produce a smooth and elastic dough. Allow to rest in a warm place for 15 to 20 minutes. (This pastry must be used whilst still warm, otherwise it will become brittle and hard to mould.) Proceed with your recipe.

Cook those leeks in milk and water!

Drain those leeks, and layer with sardines! 

Bake for 2 hours at 350 F., and use a funnel (I have this cute little one!  Look how wee!) to fill with cream.  Mmmmm.  Cream.  

Verdict: 
My first victim was a friend of my husband's to whom I offered pie.  I am a bad person.

That pretty much covers it.  My dad, who loves sardines with all his heart, loved it.  My mom, who loathes sardines with all her heart, refused to try it.  Everyone else took one or two bites and was done.  My three year old, who loves pies, kept taking bites and then looking hurt and sad, but kept eating.  She looked confused, like she couldn't understand why pie would keep betraying her.  It basically tastes like how a dock smells.  General consensus: not the worst ever.  But please don't ever make it again.

Thanks to Foods of England