The CWI Cookbook

Archive for March 31st, 2011

 1 lb. sugar
1/4 c. water
2 lb. fruit
1/2 pint brandy

Make a syrup of a pound of sugar and a half gill of water for every two lbs. of fruit. Heat to boiling, stirring to prevent burning, and pour over the berries while warm–not hot. Let them stand together an hour; put all into a preserving-kettle, and heat slowly; boil five minutes, take out the fruit with a perforated skimmer, and boil the syrup twenty minutes. Add a pint of brandy for every five pounds of fruit; pour over the berries hot, and seal.

Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: While this is closely related to “Brandied Peaches or Pears,” it is not identical or else neither we nor Mrs. Harland would have gone to the bother of making a separate recipe for it. The main difference between the two–cooling the syrup before pouring it over the fruit, where “Peaches and Pears” calls for it to be boiling at this point–is important if you want to prevent the cherries from popping open in their little canning jars. The larger fruits are made of sturdier stuff and can take the heat. The flimsy skins of the smaller berries cannot.

 Fresh milk, skimmed
Cream
Powdered sugar
Nutmeg

Set a china or glass dish of skimmed milk away in a warm place, covered. When it turns, i.e. becomes a smooth, firm but not tough cake, like blanc-mange–serve in the same dish. Cut out carefully with a large spoon, and put in saucers, with cream, powdered sugar and nutmeg to taste. It is better, if set on the ice for an hour before it is brought to table. Do not let it stand until the whey separates from the curd.
Few people know how delicious this healthful and cheap dessert can be made, if eaten before it becomes tart and tough, with a liberal allowance of cream and sugar. There are not many jellies and creams superior to it.

From Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: People who dealt with milk in the days when it came straight from the cow rather than in processed, homogenized, pasteurized and professionally packaged form were not as horrified by milk which had “turned” as we are today. In fact they used its natural life cycle to their advantage, preserving the valuable fats in the form of butter and hard cheeses, and the remaining fluid as what are known as farmer or pot cheeses. This dish is essentially a cottage cheese which has not been broken up into curds.

The term “bonny-clabber” is also used for a drink in which the milk, rather than be set out to curdle a bit, is mixed with beer and used as a drink instead of a dessert. Although the name sounds Scottish it is actually Irish in origin.

 6 lb. lean pork
3 lb. lean beef
2 lb. beef suet
4 oz. salt
6 tbs. black pepper
3 tbs. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. powdered cloves
1 tsp. allspice
One onion, minced fine

Chop or grind the meat, and mix the seasoning well through it. Pack it in beef-skins (or entrails) prepared as you do those of pork. In the city you can have these cleaned by your butcher, or get them ready for use from a pork merchant. Tie both ends tightly, and lay them in brine strong enough to bear up an egg.

Let them be in this for a week; change the brine, and let them remain in this a week longer. Turn them over every day of the fortnight. Then take them out, wipe them, and send them to be smoked, if you have no smoke-house of your own. When well smoked, rub them over with sweet oil or fresh butter, and hang them in a cool, dark place.

Bologna sausage is sometimes eaten raw, but the dread of the fatal trichinae should put an end to this practice, did not common sense teach us that it must be unwholesome, no less than disgusting.

Cut in round thick slices, and toast on a gridiron, or fry in their own fat. If you mean to keep it some time, rub over the skins with pepper to keep away insects.

Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: Our ancestors were not quite such dummies as we sometimes. think. While they were as yet ignorant of such matters as germ theory and the existence of vitamins, parasitology was a well developed science. Trichchinosis was lamentably common, particularly in pigs which served as mobile disposal units in cities for garbage and even less pleasant substances common in the days before municipal sewage services.

This recipe is also one of the rare examples of ethnic cuisine, Italian in this case, in 19th century cookbooks. Most recipes would have been perfectly recognizable to a traveling Englishman, with a few additions from the French, the Dutch, and the occasional German source. The Civil War itself did a great deal to spread ethnic dishes to a wider audience, as people from different areas spent time soldiering, and thereby eating, together.

 1 or more rabbits, whole; liver reserved but head removed before serving
Lemon slices

Truss your rabbits short, lay them in a basin or warm water for ten minutes, then put them into plenty of water, and boil them about half an hour; if large ones, three quarters; if very old, an hour. Mince the liver and lay it round the dish, or make liver sauce and send it up in a boat.
N.B. It will save much trouble to the carver, if the rabbits be cut up in the kitchen into pieces fit to help at table, and the head divided, one half land at each end, and slices of lemon and the liver, chopped very finely, laid on the sides of the dish.
At all events, cut off the head before you send it to table, we hardly remember that the thing ever lived if we don’t see the head, while it may excite ugly ideas to see it cut up in an attitude imitative of life; besides, for the preservation of the head, the poor animal sometimes suffers a slower death.

From The Cook’s Oracle by William Kitchiner, MD, New York, 1829

Comment: This really tells us more (and more than we want to know) about rabbit-raising and -butchering customs of the early 19th century than it does about the cooking procedures for same. To “truss your rabbits short” meant to tie them with legs together or in a folded position, making it easier for them to fit into a pot on the stove. If being trussed for roasting or broiling the legs would be extended so as to go on a spit before the fire.

 1 quart Corn, cracked not ground
2 qts. water
Butter
Pepper
Salt

The large kind, made of cracked, not ground corn, is erroneously termed “samp” by Northern grocers. This is the Indian name for the fine-grained. To avoid confusion, we will call the one large, the other small. Soak the large over night in cold water. Next day put it into a pot with at least two quarts of water to a quart of the hominy, and boil slowly three hours, or until it is soft. Drain in a cullender, heap in a root-dish, and stir in butter, pepper and salt.

Common Sense in the Household by Marion Harland, New York, 1871

Comment: While grits are on something of a popularity roll these days (particularly with garlic and cheese additives, something entirely unknown to 19th century cookbook writers) hominy continues its slow slide into obscurity. The long soaking period advised here serves to both rehydrate the dried corn kernels and to leach away the lye used at the time in the preserving process. Most hominy found in stores today comes in canned form, which eliminates the need for this step.

 1 young fowl
Oysters (enough to fill the cavity of the fowl)
White Sauce (if desired)

Take a young fowl, fill the inside with oysters, put it into a jar, and plunge the jar in a kettle or saucepan of water. Boil it for one hour and a half. There will be a quantity of gravy from the juices of the fowl and oysters in the jar; make it into a white sauce, with the addition of egg, cream, or a little flour and butter; add oysters to it, or serve up plain with the fowl…the dish loses nothing of its delicacy and simplicity.

From Godey’s Lady’s Book magazine, reader- contributed recipe from the issue of January, 1861.

Comment: This is perhaps the only recipe of either past or present time which we have seen call for cooking a bird in what amounts to a double boiler. The technique was used on smaller cuts of beef or poultry to produce the substance known as “meat tea,” often used as a therapeutic agent in cases of illness or injury. It is difficult to see how a bird, even a “young’ and presumably small one, can be cooked through with this procedure in the amount of time given. It would seem just as quick and a great deal safer to simply roast the creature, stuffed as indicated and with sauce made as directed with the pan juices.