The CWI Cookbook

Posts Tagged ‘beef’

 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.

 Cold roast beef, minced
Chopped onion
Pepper and salt
Beef stock, bouillon or gravy
Mashed potatoes
Butter

Mince cold roast beef, fat and lean, very fine, add chopped onion, pepper, salt and a little good gravy, fill scollop shells two parts full, and fill them up with potatos mashed smooth with cream, put a bit of butter on the top, and set them in an oven to brown.

From The Virginia Housewife or, Methodical Cook, by Mary Randolph,1824

Comment: This is essentially a cross between roast beef hash and Shepherd’s Pie. It is unclear whether Mrs. Randolph wants these cooked in the actual shells of scallops, presumably preserved after an earlier meal of the bivalves, or if there was a metal baking tin of the same name and general shape on the market. A tart pan, pie pan, or similar vessel would probably serve, as would scallop, oyster or similar shells should you have any lying about.