Comment: A reader wrote in the other day asking if we had a recipe for something she remembered called the “Seventh Cavalry Punch.” We searched resources common (Google) and rare (our collection of 19th century cookbooks) and turned up zip, nit, nil, nada, nothing. It is certainly still possible that there was a punch by that name. The “Seventh Cavalry” however did not become famous until the unplesasantness at Little Big Horn. This was in 1876, and most of our books only cover up to the year 1865. Alternately, our correspondent may have heard or be remembering the name incorrectly. In any event, punches named in honor of military forces were not uncommon. This is the closest we can find to what our reader asked for:

Use large bar glass

One tablespoonful of sugar
The juice of a quarter of a lemon
One wineglass of brandy
One windglass of Catawba wine
Flavor with raspberry syrup.

Fill the glass with shaved ice. Shake and mix thoroughly, then ornament with slices of orange, pineapple and berries in season, and dash with Jamaica rum. This delicious beverage should be imbibed through a straw.

From The Bon-Vivant’s Companion, or, How To Mix Drinks by Jerry Thomas, originally published 1863; recipe taken from 1927 reprint edited by Herbert Asbury.

          

Comment: One word in this recipe–which in its cooking elements is quite straightforward–sent us on a lengthy hunt. If you were in the mid 19th century and were assigned to assemble asparagus stalks into bundles of 25, what would you use to hold them together? Dr. K says “…tie them up…with bass, if you can get it, or tape (string cuts them to pieces).” After sifting through musical instruments, male singing voices, and assorted other definitions not useful here, we find this: “Bass \Bass\, n. [A corruption of bast.] 1. (Bot.) The linden or lime tree… also, its bark, which is used for making mats.” Apparently in the days before adhesive tapes, the bark of the linden tree, cut into strips, could serve to tie things together.  The things you learn in this line of work.

Asparagus
Water
Salt

Set a stew-pan with plenty of water in it on the fire; sprinkle a handful of salt in it; let it boil, and skim it; then put in your asparagus, prepared thus: scrape all the stalks till they are perfectly clean; throw them into a pan of cold water as you scrape them; when they are all done, tie them up in little bundles, of about a quarter of a hundred each, with bass, if you can get it, or tape (string cuts them to pieces): cut off the stalks at the bottom that they may be all of a length, leaving only just enough to serve as a handle for the green part; when they are tender at the stalk, which will be in from twenty to thirty minutes, they are done enough. Great care must be taken to watch the exact time of their becoming tender; take them up just at that instant, and they will have their true flavour and colour: a minute or two more boiling destroys both.

While the asparagus is boiling, toast a round of a quartern loaf, about half an inch thick; brown it delicately on both sides; dip it lightly in the liquor the asparagus was boiled in, and lay it in the middle of a dish: melt some butter; then lay the asparagus upon the toast, which must project beyond the asparagus, that the company may see there is a toast. Pour no butter over them, but send some up in a boat, or white sauce.

From The Cook’s Oracle or Housekeeper’s Manual by William Kitchiner M. D., New York, 1839

          

Comment: It’s that time of year (as we post this)  when people start either planting their gardens or at least making the final determinations on what to grow. So we will be offering recipes which might–or in this case might not–encourage people to try things. Even if the article in question is one that you are not normally fond of, we know that fresh is almost always vastly better than store-bought, and there is nothing fresher than something picked right off your balcony or out of your yard. If your living circumstances do not permit such, maybe you can find or start a community gardening project in a vacant lot.

1 cabbage
water
salt

Pick cabbages very clean, and wash them thoroughly; then look them over carefully again; quarter them if they are very large. Put them into a sauce-pan with plenty of boiling water; if any scum rises, take it off; put a large spoonful of salt into the sauce-pan, and boil them till the stalks feel tender. A young cabbage will take about twenty minutes or half an hour; when full grown, near an hour: see that they are well covered with water all the time, and that no smoke or dirt arises from stirring the fire. With careful management, they will look as beautiful when dressed as they did when growing.
Obs.–Some cooks say, that it will much ameliorate the flavour of strong old cabbages to boil them in two waters; i.e., when they are half done, to take them out, and put them directly into another sauce-pan of boiling water, instead of continuing them in the water into which they were first put.

From The Cook’s Oracle and Housekeeper’s Manual, William Kitchiner MD, New Yor, 1832.

[editorial addendum: It also helps a very great deal to cut out the core before commencing to cook cabbage. If it is desired to keep the cabbage whole, or in wedges, cut out as much core as possible while leaving just enough to hold the leaves together. Much of the “strong” flavor of which cabbage-haters complain comes from this inner core material.)

          

Having just (if you’re reading these in the order they were posted) put up a recipe for “Crumpets” it seems obligatory that we now discuss Tea as it was used in the mid 19th century. The delivery system deplored by all true tea lovers, the teabag, of course lay far in the future, and the notion of selling ready-made tea in a bottle would have sparked anything from bafflement to hilarity. Tea could be bought ready-brewed of course but just a cup or pot at a time.

Yet the stuff was still wildly popular, even if less so in the US due to that bit of unpleasantness on the subject in Boston at the start of the Revolution. In England it was a staple, so much so that the weak of character and greedy of purse would sometimes fake the stuff instead of obtaining it from the remaining colonies as they should.  Remember when reading that these were also times when you could walk into any drugstore or apothecary and pick up items like “sulphureted hydrogen”, probably on the next shelf over from Finest Turkish Opium. This is an excerpt from Mrs. Haskell’s long discourse on Tea:

The Hysons are the best green teas brought to this market; when good, the flavor is superior, and the infusion a fine green. Pear gunpowder [tea] stands first, Imperial gunpowder next, then the varieties of Hyson, and, lastly, Hyson skin. These are the best; but of course, there are many sub-varieties not enumerated. Green tea depends more on soil and culture, than stages of picking, and there is a difference in the manner of curing, but there is no copper used in drying either.

The English have endeavored to manufacture teas from other leaves, some of which are poisonous, and use copper to give them the color of green tea; it is easy to detect copper, if any exists, in the tea by the following method: Steep the tea, and put some into water, impregnated with sulphureted hydrogen. If the tea contains copper, it will turn black; if not, no change will be seen, the infusion remaining green as before.

From The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia by Mrs. E. F. Haskell, Philadelphia, 1861

          

Comment: This is a very intriguing little recipe, particularly the last line. A yeast pancake? Hmm. At any rate this will allow you to serve afternoon guests “tea and crumpets” without having to be all snooty about it. As always, we list the ingredients separately at the top for the convenience of readers. In most recipes of this period the list of ingredients makes up the majority of the recipe itself, with only minor instructions on technique and cooking procedures added.

1/2 lb. flour
1 Tbs. fresh (homemade) brewer’s yeast
1/4 ts. (baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
Milk enough to make thin batter

Half a pound of flour, one table-spoon of fresh brewer’s yeast, a salt-spoon of soda, half a teaspoon of salt, and sufficient rich milk to form a fluid paste; let it rise, and bake like pancakes.

From The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia by Mrs. E. F. Haskell, 1861

          

Comment: One of the most confusing elements of dealing with historic recipes is the matter of measurement. “Add a piece of butter the size of an egg” is the classic example. This may be followed by a direction to add as much flour as that egg-sized bit of butter will pick up when rolled in it.  Idiosyncratic others include teacups, coffee cups, wineglasses, and suchlike items likely to be found lying around the average kitchen of the 19th century. Then you have what were once precise units of measurement like the jill or gill (same thing but spelled apparently according to author’s preference)  which have simply become obsolete as terms. See below for definition. Eliza Leslie was something of a pioneer in the standardization of cooking measurements, a process which would go on for nearly half a century after her death in 1858. One could say the process is not even concluded yet if the shift to metric measurements is included, as anyone who has attempted to decipher a recipe from a Canadian or European source can attest.

We recommend to all families that they should keep in the house a pair of scales, (one of the scales deep enough to hold flour, sugar, &c., conveniently) and a set of tin measures; as accuracy in proportioning the ingredients is indispensable to success in cookery. It is best to have the scales permanently fixed to a small beam projecting (for instance) from one of the shelves of the store-room. This will preclude the frequent inconvenience of their getting twisted, unlinked, and otherwise out of order; a common consequence of putting them in and out of their box, and carrying them from place to place. The weights (of which there should be a set from two pounds to a quarter of an ounce) ought carefully to be kept in the box, that none of them may be lost or mislaid.

A set of tin measures (with small spouts or lips) from a gallon down to half a jill, will be found very convenient in every kitchen; through common pitchers, bowls, glasses, &c., may be substituted. It is also well to have a set of wooden measures from a bushel to a quarter of a peck.

Let it be remembered, that of liquid measure:

Two jills are half a pint.

Two pints–one quart

Four quarts–one gallon.

Of dry measure–

Half a gallon is a quarter of a peck

One gallon–half a peck

Two gallons–one peck

Four gallons–half a bushel

Eight gallons–one bushel.

About twenty-five drops of any thin liquid will fill a common sized tea-spoon.

Four table-spoonfuls or half a jill, will fill a common wine glass.

Four wine glasses will fill a half-pint or common tumbler or a large coffee-cup.

A quart black bottle holds in reality about a pint and a half.

Of flour, butter, sugar and most articles used in cakes and pastry, a quart is generally about equal in quantity to a pound avoirdupois, (sixteen ounces.) Avourdupois is the weight designated throughout this book.

Ten eggs generally weigh one pound before they are broken.

A table-spoonful of salt is generally about one ounce.

From Miss Leslie’s Directions for Cookery, by Eliza Leslie, Philadelphia (2nd Edition published 1851; revised and expanded from first edition publised 1837)

          

Comment: This recipe clearly dates to the times when cooking was done before a large fireplace or hearth, with the meat placed on a spit or grill in front of, not over, the fire, so that drippings could fall into a pan set underneath the meat on the floor. The technique of  “dredging”, or sprinkling, the meat with flour when it was nearly done, so that the flour would provide a browned coating, is almost entirely lost in these times of “roasting” in an enclosed oven. The great culinary historian Karen Hess (now, alas, deceased) noted tartly that what we call “roasting” in the case of meats would more correctly be called “baking.” As you might guess, she was a big fan of hearth cookery.

Since tearing out a wall of one’s kitchen to install a cooking hearth is impracticable for most people, the technique is most readily duplicated with a large outdoor grill, fired with either wood or charcoal. If yours does not come equipped with a spit and rotisserie unit, you will have to place the ducks on the grill and rotate by hand as necessary. Basting will be required to keep the fowl from drying out, but the dredging business is entirely up to you.

Ducks
Salt
Pepper
1 minced onion per duck
2-3 minced sage leaves (1-2 tsp. dried sage)
1/8 tsp. mace
1 tbs. port wine
Lard for basting

Gravy:
Duck giblets,  minced
Butter
Flour
Cayenne pepper
Nutmeg, grated
Lemon pickle

After your ducks are cleaned, lay them in milk and water for at least three hours before they are cooked, which will in a great measure draw out the strong taste. Wipe them dry with a cloth, season them sufficiently with salt and pepper, and put into each a minced onion, with two or three minced sage leaves, a very little mace and a spoonful of red wine. Roast them before a brisk fire, basting them occasionally with lard. When nearly done, dredge them lightly with flour, and continue to baste them till done. Serve them up with slices of lemon or some other nice fruit, laid round. Make gravy of the giblets, a little butter, flour, cayenne pepper, nutmeg and lemon pickle; put a few spoonfuls over the ducks, and serve the rest in a boat.

Accompany them with stewed cranberries, cherries or peaches and rice.

From The Kentucky Housewife by Mrs. Lettice Bryan, Cincinnati, 1839

          

Comment: This recipe has a vital “ingredient” not listed above: it requires a hearth with a wood fire and a “bird spit” to cook it as Mrs. Bryan intended. As these have rather gone out of fashion since 1839 in favor of stoves with ovens, the reader who has access to a large outdoor grill has an advantage here. Move the wood or charcoal out from under where the birds are going to be roasting so that the heat comes from the side, and put a pan under the fowl to catch the drippings of both the basting and the cooking-out of their natural fats. If you don’t have an automated rotisserie unit on your grill you will have to rotate the pheasants by hand every few minutes to assure even cooking. The use of paper covers is intended to keep the skin from burning before the interiors are finished cooking, but tends to leave the birds a little pale by modern standards. The paper can be removed for the last few minutes of cooking to let them brown up if you wish.

Pheasants, cleaned & plucked
Lard, melted
Bread crumbs
Juice of 1 orange

Stuffing:
Ham, grated
Bread crumbs
Butter
Yolks of eggs
Pepper

Gravy:

Fresh meat
Water
Brown flour
Butter
1 glass (about 1/4 c.) claret

Draw and clean them immediately after they are killed, and let them lie in salt for two or three hours; then wipe them dry, stuff them with grated ham, mixed with bread crumbs, butter, yolks of eggs and pepper; brush them over with lard, cover them with bread crumbs, wrap them up separately in white paper, and roast them before a brisk fire, basting them occasionally with lard or butter. Make a rich gravy of fresh meat, having it stewed in a litle water, till the gravy is extracted, strain the liquid into a sauce-pan, add brown flour, butter, and a glass of claret. When they are done, take the envelopes carefully off, serve up the birds, squeeze over them the juice of an orange, or some other ripe fruit, garnish with slices of ripe fruit, and send with them stewed cranberries or peaches.

From The Kentucky Housewife by Mrs. Lettice Bryan, Cincinnati, 1839

Comment: This recipe has a vital ingredient” not listed above: it requires a hearth with a wood fire and a “bird spit” to cook it as Mrs. Bryan intended. As these have rather gone out of fashion since 1839 in favor of stoves with ovens, the reader who has access to a large outdoor grill has an advantage here. Move the wood or charcoal out from under where the birds are going to be roasting so that the heat comes from the side, and put a pan under the fowl to catch the drippings of both the basting and the cooking-out of their natural fats. If you don’t have an automated rotisserie unit on your grill you will have to rotate the pheasants by hand every few minutes to assure even cooking. The use of paper covers is intended to keep the skin from burning before the interiors are finished cooking, but tends to leave the birds a little pale by modern standards. The paper can be removed for the last few minutes of cooking to let them brown up if you wish.