Cosmopolitan America Cook Book

Again we have a picture from The Prudence Penny Regional Cookbook [1954]. Just look at all the ethnicities represented in this picture! We've got Russian, um... Russian...? East European? Polish? Irish? I notice there isn't anyone who requires facial shading...

Ideas, anyone?

Butter

Butter is important. And delicious. As you may have noticed from reading this blog, it showed up fairly frequently in historical recipes, before the Butter Police came to town.

There are lots of instructions on how to make butter on the internet, but only rarely do they tell how to properly wash the butter. Slackers! Butter takes a few weeks to spoil, but buttermilk only takes days. This is why after pouring off the buttermilk, you must rid the butter of all traces of it lest your butter be Spoiled Milk flavor.

To make butter, you must find some heavy cream, whipping cream, or heavy whipping cream. The differences between these creams is not worth knowing. Whip the cream as if you were making whipped cream (but without sugar and vanilla, please!) and just keep going until you have chunks of butter floating in buttermilk. You can use a KitchenAid with a whisk attachment, shake it in a jar, or buy a butter churn. Or, you can put it in your wagon and drive it cross-country all day. Whichever suits your fancy.



Butter is fat. Water does not mix with fat. Ergo, you must pour in cold water and squish the butter around. The buttermilk will leach from the butter and into the water, which you must then pour off and dispose of. Keep doing that until the water is clear, like this:

Yum. Buttery. When you pour off the last of the water, you can either leave it unsalted for cooking (which in my opinion would be a waste, considering all that work you just did!) or put in about 1 t. salt for every lb. of butter.

Oh yes, and here is a handy tip: When measuring butter when it is not conveniently in stick form, use displacement instead of trying to pack ice-cold butter into a measuring cup. For instance, if you need 1/2 C. butter, fill a liquid measuring cup with 1/2 C. cold water and add globs of butter until it reaches 1 C. Pour off the water and you are ready to go! Easy squeezy!

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A Rice... Pudding?

It must ever remain a check upon the poor solitary orphan, that while those females who have parents, or brothers, or riches, to defend their indiscretions, that the orphan must depend solely upon character. How immensely important, therefore, that every action, every word, every thought, be regulated by the strictest purity, and that every movement meet the approbation of the good and wise. -American Cookery, or The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables, and the Best Modes of Making Pastes, Puffs, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and Preserves, and All Kinds of CAKES from the IMPERIAL PLUMB TO PLAIN CAKE. Adapted to the Country, and All Grades of Life, by Amelia Simmons, an American Orphan [1798].

This cookbook was mainly written for poor sad lonely orphan girls who have to work in the kitchens of rich people, with only the quality of their cooking to attest to their worth. *sniff* Do not mind me. I have allergies. I... I am allergic to feeling sad.

So, what sort of recipes can a friendless orphan girl hope to prove herself and keep her from the life of a lady of negotiable affection?



Oh, golly.

A Rice Pudding.

One quarter of a pound rice, a stick of cinnamon, to a quart of milk
(stirred often to keep from burning) and boil quick, cool and add half
a nutmeg, 4 spoons rose-water, 8 eggs; butter or puff paste a dish and
pour the above composition into it, and bake one and half hour.




If you are thinking that the first picture looks burned, you are right. The oven was at 325, and I snatched this out a half hour early because I smelled the scorching. Weirdly, the outside burned skin peeled right off like the skin of a ripe peach.

If you are thinking that the second picture looks like scrambled eggs, you are right. This recipe is mainly eggs. Lots of eggs. Really, LOTS of eggs, with a little milk to thin them out and some bits of rice for texture.

You may not have noticed that this recipe does not include sugar. So basically what we are looking at here is bone-dry rose-flavored scrambled eggs with rice in them. Yum? I was not impressed with this recipe. After I dumped brown sugar, some milk, and drizzled some heavy cream on, it was not half-bad. The rosewater was really nice, and I may add it to rice puddings in the future. Really, you've got to try rosewater some time. It is growing on me.

Under a bridge, 1798:

A flock of orphan girls huddles together, shivering. They pick at the soup they fashioned from found table scraps. A newcomer timidly creeps forward, proffering a bowl of Amelia Simmon's rice pudding to add to the pot, thus buying her a dry place for the night. After she was thrown out of the house, the pudding that brought about her disgrace was cast after her. It is not much, but it is all she has. The other girls halt her; they snatch the bowl and drop-kick it into the canal before she can protest. The newcomer stands shocked, her mouth agape, still cupping the air as if she held the shame of her cookery. One of the girls steps forward, and the newcomer cowers back.

"American Cookery, yes?" The girl folds a gentle, if ragged arm around the newcomer's shoulder. Hot tears flicker down the newcomer's smudged cheeks, revealing lines of skin flushed and scorched from long hours in front of cooking fires. "It was the same with all of us. For some of us, it was dressed calves head. For some of us, roasted goslings stuffed with their own chopped innards. For me, it was the Foot Pie. It isn't fair. But that is the life of an orphan."

The other girls come forward and comfort the drippy girl. They will take care of her now. For she is one of them.

Creole Coloring Book

Click to embiggen

Wow, that is some epic line drawing! It's got cross-hatching and everything! This is part of the same book that this meal came from. I will admit that I am severely tempted to print this off and have at it with crayons. Especially the fluffy dress lady.

More importantly, this picture is cool because it has time travel! One of these people is Victorian, the other is Georgian, and neither of them is a particularly good example of either. Perhaps it is a time travelers convention? Or just for funsies?

Fruit, Escaloped meat, Dropped eggs, Raised muffins

Ah, my lovelies! As you may know, husband is out of town and I felt disinclined to cook. However, three of my nieces were in town for me to inflict dinner on. Well, breakfast in this case.



They ate pretty good breakfasts in Ye Oldeny Tymes, yes? Miss Parloa is the author of the cookbook from which this meal comes, entitled Miss Parloa's New Cook Book [1890's at best guess]. This meal is supposed to have corn cakes with it as well, as there is no such thing in the 1800's as too much bread. Unfortunately that recipe takes overnight, and I did not plan ahead. Maybe some other time.




Escaloped Meat
Chop the meat rather coarse. Season with salt and pepper. For one pint
of meat use half a cupful of gravy and a heaping cupful of bread
crumbs. Put a layer of the meat in an escalop dish, then gravy, then a
thin layer of crumbs; and continue this until the dish is full. The
last layer should be a thick one of crumbs. Cook in a hot oven from
fifteen to twenty minutes. All kinds of cold meat can be escaloped,
but beef is so dry that it is not so good as mutton, veal, etc,




Dropped Eggs
Have one quart of boiling water and one table-spoonful of salt in a
frying-pan. Break the eggs, one by one, into a saucer, and slide
carefully into the salted water. Cook until the white is firm, and
lift out with a griddle-cake turner and place on toasted bread. Serve
immediately.



Raised Muffins.

One pint of warm milk, half a cake [I used abt. 1.5 t.] of compressed yeast, or half a
cupful of liquid yeast [sourdough starter]; one quart of flour, one table-spoonful of
butter. Beat two eggs well, and add them and the salt, butter and
yeast to the milk. Stir gradually into the flour. Beat until the
batter is light and smooth. Let it rise four hours in a warm place.
Fill buttered muffin pans two-thirds to the top with the batter, and
let them stand until the batter has risen to the brim. Bake half an
hour.


Verdict:

Fruit: Watermelon. Mmmmmm. Nice change of color from brown and white.

Escaloped meat: Really good! I plan on making it again. I used discount $.59/lb pork chops for the meat and used the drippings for gravy. I didn't actually measure the bread crumbs and gravy. I think it was about 2 cups of meat and a cup of gravy, then Italian bread crumbs on the top until it looked good. This was everyone's favorite. My mom had second helpings, and the kids finished it off piece by piece after they finished their ice cream. They deserved a reward for putting up with their aunt's abnormal hobbies. ;)

Dropped eggs: The picture above was an egg made by my mother. This is mine.



I maintain it is the direction's fault. I did not look up modern directions for poached eggs beforehand, and apparently the water is supposed to be at a gentle bare simmer, not a full rolling boil. This will tear the egg white to shreds, as you see. I fished out the shreds with a slotted spoon and said, "The heck with it. It will taste the same anyway."

Those who liked eggs liked this. I prefer my eggs with crispy edges from frying in butter, but I don't think you can justly compare these. They are just different. This is a smooth, silky egg that is also tasty.

For those who do not like eggs, I can see how this would be an application that would be near the bottom of their list of egg dishes to try. One niece is such a person.



This is her caught in the moment of being nice and polite, but filled with inner turmoil at the thought of having to either gag the egg down or hurt my feelings. Upon being told that time travel dinners are free game not to like because sometimes people in Ye Oldeny Tymes were nuts, she gamely tried a bite just to say she'd done it. What a good sport!

She is still not a fan. ;)

Raised muffins: They were okay. A little heavy, but that may have been my fault. I didn't let them rise for 4 hours, just half an hour. I bet they'd be really good with sourdough starter. They were an excellent conveyance for peach nutmeg freezer jam. One of the nieces helped me, and she did a great job. They were really easy and quick to make, as the dough is thin enough not to require kneading. I think this one is worth trying if you are in need of yeast rolls but do not want to mess up many dishes or spend a lot of time on them.

And a good time was had by all. They knew it was so, for Jana's blog said so.

Bachelors and postmen love Spry.

Husband is out of town for a while, and consequently I am unmotivated to make full meals. Or food. Food that isn't sandwiches and ice cream. As an apology, here are two Spry pictures!