The Old Foodie

Your boss has a cranky wife and poor business skills, you have a supportive spouse and excellent professional skills. You win.

We have very tough no-smoking laws here, and bar and restaurant owners made the same protests - but bars and restaurants are as full as ever, and the food is much more enjoyable for everyone (aside from the health benefits, and the evidence on the dangers of passive smoking is hard to ignore). I think non-smokers often left bars and restaurants early (I know I did) - now they dont need to. It all balances out in the end.

There are a lot of late 19th century recipes "to imitate" beverages in <a href = "http://pds.harvard.edu:8080/pdx/servlet/pds?op=f&id=2574051&n=1&s=4">Six Hundred Receipts</a>. Warning! Some of the receipts are for human and animal remedies! Also the page images might be a bit slow to load, depending on your connection. You can choose to "view text" but the OCR is not great. The drinks are under the headings Brandy, Cider, Cordials, Wines, Whiskey. There might be some good ideas there, but I haven't looked in any depth. Janet

Dear v. gautam I am fascinated. The world needs a definitive book on Curry Powder. Why dont you write it? Janet.

I am forced to seriously disagree with this.

I dont think I'd qualify as a "knowledgeable drinker" but I have made a coffee-orange liqueur for Christmas presents in the past. I orange, pricked all over with a fine skewer or needle 40-50 coffee beans and the same number of teaspoons of sugar 2 vanilla pods Place in a large jar and pour over enough vodka to cover, screw on the lid and leave for a month or so. You need to gently shake or stir it a few times at first to dissolve the sugar. When it is ready, strain it off and re-bottle (or drink). I guess you could reduce the sugar if this is too sweet. And I guess it would work fine with gin or brandy. There is a "Mock Kahlua" recipe that pops up from time to time, which uses instant coffee and vanilla essence and sugar - which sounds pretty awful to me!

This is fascinating. Congo peas must be the same as the "Carlin Peas" I vaguely remember as a child in Yorkshire. They were traditionally eaten on "Carlin Sunday" - the Sunday before Palm Sunday. I have no idea why that connection! They were eaten out of paper, like fish and chips, with vinegar. ← No they are not. Oddly enough I have been doing some investigation of these peas. The Carlin peas (and parching peas) are Pisum sativum, in almost all cases now are from the "Maple" pea type, which in seems to be mentioned as a type of Rouncival pea in some texts. This type of pea was replaced in the most part with improved garden peas and marrow fat peas. Now they are mostly grown as animal food and fodder, hence the confusion in names. There are a very common part of a mix for pigeons, and often go under the name of "pigeon pea". They are not true "pigeon peas" (Cajanus cajan), which will not grow in the UK in commercial quantities. ← Even more fascinating! A pigeon pea by any other name is not the same ..... Adam: Has your research turned up any reason why the Carlin pea is associated with the Sunday before Palm Sunday?

This is fascinating. Congo peas must be the same as the "Carlin Peas" I vaguely remember as a child in Yorkshire. They were traditionally eaten on "Carlin Sunday" - the Sunday before Palm Sunday. I have no idea why that connection! They were eaten out of paper, like fish and chips, with vinegar.

Hello Pat, and everyone. There are also a few gems at <a href= "http://www.harvestfields.ca/CookBooks/index.htm">HARVESTFIELDS.</a>

Thanks for this link! I am going to have some fun with this. Janet

In the North of England where I come from originally, "pickled pork and pease pudding" is delicious. I was delighted to find that it made its way to America, as it appears in "Directions for Cookery in all its Branches" by Miss Leslie (1840) PICKLED PORK AND PEASE PUDDING Soak the pork all night in cold water, and wash and scrape it clean. Put it on early in the day, as it will take a long time to boil, and must boil slowly. Skim it frequently. Boil in a separate pot greens or cabbage to eat with it; also parsnips and potatoes. Pease pudding is a frequent accompaniment to pickled pork, and is very generally liked. To make a small pudding, you must have ready a quart of dried split pease, which have been soaked all night in cold water. Tie them in a cloth, (leaving room for them to swell,) and boil them slowly till they are tender. Drain them, and rub them through a cullender or a sieve into a deep dish; season them with pepper and salt, and mix with them an ounce of butter, and two beaten eggs. Beat all well together till thoroughly mixed. Dip a clean cloth in hot water, sprinkle it with flour, and put the pudding into it. Tie it up very tightly, leaving a small space between the mixture and the tying, (as the pudding will still swell a little,) and boil it an hour longer. Send it to table and eat it with the pork. You may make a pease pudding in a plain and less delicate way, by simply seasoning the pease with pepper and salt, (having first soaked them well,) tying them in a cloth, and putting them to boil in the same pot with the pork, taking care to make the string very tight, so that the water may not get in. When all is done, and you turn out the pudding, cut it into thick slices and lay it round the pork. Pickled pork is frequently accompanied by dried beans and hominy The "plain and less delicate" way is the way I cook it - it seems a silly idea to boil a big lump of pork in one pot and a big lump of peas pud in another, and then you dont get the pork flavour through the peas.

Sounds fabulous! Would you part with the recipe?

There is a wonderful syrupy caramelised garlic Thai-style sauce with chilli and lime and ginger that is great for serving with fish. I dont have my recipe on hand at present, but there are quite a few versions of it in Thai cookbooks.

There is some sort of starch plus peas or beans in just about every peasant cuisine - and that's why the recipes are not in cookbooks, the dishes are originally poor-folk food. Think of the English "pease pudding" (thick pea-soup, basically) and a hunk of bread. Migrants, pilgrims, slaves - all brought their preferences with them to their new countries and then had to adapt their "recipes" to whatever was available. The explanation for the particular combination in Louisiana will lie in its history.

Here's another idea - from an eighteenth century cookbook - a no-cook savoury sauce. A rather vague set of instructions, as they often were back then. From" Penelope Bradshaw “The family jewel, and compleat housewife’s companion: or, the whole art of cookery made plain and easy... “ London, 1754 To make Sauce for Fish or Flesh. Take a Quart of Verjuice, and put it into a Jug; then take Jamaica Pepper whole, some shred Ginger, some Mace, a few Cloves, some Lemon-peel, Horse-radish root sliced, some sweet Herbs, six Shalots peeled, and eight Anchovies, two or three Spoonfuls of shred Capers; put all these into a Linen Bag, and put the Bag into your Verjuice; stop the Jug close, and keep it for Use; a Spoonful cold or mixed in Sauce for Fish or Flesh.

Hi Linda. The chocolate alcohol cakes taste pretty good straight away - I think it is something about the chocolate that gives the rich deep taste from the beginning. They do keep well though, so you can make them ahead if you like. I have frozen the individual ones and they keep virtually for ever that way. The white chocolate version with the red and yellow fruit was definitely better "fresh" - I have no idea why that is, but I may have overcooked it slightly. It was a new invention last year, so I dont have multiple experiences to go by. Janet

Mix it with yoghurt and dollop it on roasted beetroot, or in potato salad, or in coleslaw dressing.

It's not an immediate process, but takes time. I bought a cookbook through an online auction that reeked of cigarette smoke. After doing research online, I combined some of the methods I found. I took a small plastic garbage bag (the thick durable plastic not the thin recyclable kind), poured in a large amount of kitty litter and also a bunch (8 to 10 pages) of crumpled up newspapers. I put the book on top of the newspapers and tied the bag shut. Once a month I'd check the book to smell it and see if it was any better. This book was a large for-the-coffee table-type book and took about 9 months (I dumped the old kitty litter and put in some new after 4 months) for the smell to go away. At least now I don't get a contact high from just touching the cookbook. ← Thanks Toliver, I will definitely try this method. The book is currently undergoing the baking soda treatment suggested by judiu, but the kitty litter method sounds like a good way to tackle all pages at once. It is a thick heavy book.

Would length of time that you beat the mixture make any difference?

Do you have a product called "Febreeze"? It's a spray on deodorizer we have here in the States. It might work, if the paper's in good enough shape, but have you considered dusting the entire book with baking soda and setting it out in the sun for a while? Baking soda is a pretty good deodorizer itself; just be sure to shake it off the pages outside the house, or vacuum it up with a Dustbuster. HTH! ← Thanks Judiu - we do have "Febreeze" here, although I dont have any in the house at present. I would never have thought of trying it! I'll try the baking soda today - it is perfect Spring weather here at present, so outside will be beautiful. It is a big heavy book (the paper itself is in good shape, although the cover is a bit battered), so I might need to pages in batches. I'll let you know how it goes.

Do you cook them from frozen, or thaw them first?

Six more for me: New-old ones Cassells’ Dictionary of Cookery, the 1910 edition. I have the 1870’s edition and have to say that it is a much prettier book than this “new” one, which also stinks of tobacco smoke. Anyone got any ideas how to de-smell it? Practical Cookery, Cookery under Rationing. 1946 Good Housekeeping’s Book of Menus, Recipes, and Household Discoveries, 1925. Great Cooks and their Recipes by Anne Willan, a gift from my New Zealand blogging friend Barbara from <a href="http://winosandfoodies.typepad.com/my_weblog/ ">Winos and Foodies</a> when she was here on a visit. New-new ones Truffles, Ultimate Luxury, Everyday Pleasure by Rosario Safina and Judith Sutton. Got a bargain there, just over AUD$7 for a brand new copy (sale item plus my sister’s discount as she runs the store). All I need now is some truffles …. Real Food, by Nina Planck.

Somehow an image sprang to my head -- that Edward Gorey Christmas card of Victorian folks on ice skates, dumping fruitcakes into a hole in the ice... with thoughts that there is undoubtedly a fruitcake from the '20s sitting in someone's pantry! ← I just had to look for a fruit cake recipe from the lovely ladies I mentioned in my earlier post - Mrs C.F.Leyel and Miss Olga Hartley, in their "The Gentle Art of Cookery". Fruit cake there, certainly, but fruit cake is fruit cake whenever and wherever you look. I got waylaid by this recipe instead, which would not at all be out of place on the dessert table today. I think I'll try it this weekend. A Hazel Nut Cake. A quarter of a pound of finely ground hazel nuts, three and a half ounces of sugar, three eggs, two tablespoonfuls of dry breadcrumbs, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of baking powder. Beat the yolks of eggs and sugar for twenty minutes [i guess we could make that a lot shorter today with electric power rather than arm power], add the nuts, the breadcrumbs, the baking powder and the whites of the eggs, whipped to a stiff snow. Fill a buttered cake tin with the mixture and bake for half an hour (or more) in a slow oven. When cold the cake can be iced over with coffee icing. What do you think? Edited to add what I really intended: the ladies' comments on cake "One of the minor mysteries of food is the dignity conceded to the British cake with which we celebrate the most important joyful and poetical occasions of life. At weddings and christenings, birthdays, Christmas festivities and Easter holidays, the Cake, "black as the devil, heavy as sin, sweet as young love", covered with almond paste, and encrusted with devices of white sugar, is part of the fun. By its solid virtues it has acquired a romantic place as the centre of the hospitable rites of a romantic people". So there you have it, the Brits are a romantic people.

I absolutely agree with the comments about Arabella Boxer's book - it is full of wonderful anecdotes about life in the grand houses of England between the wars. The other gem is "The Gentle Art of Cookery" by Mrs C. F Leyela and Miss Olga Hartley (authors' marital status doesn't make the cover these days!). It was first published in 1925. There is a chapter on Sandwiches: "There is as much art in making sandwiches as in preparing a French menu, and many hostesses who offer their friends indifferently cooked but pretentious lunches could, with far less trouble, gain an epicurean reputation if they were content with the simplicity of wine and sandwiches." The ladies suggest "a glass of champagne, or some of the excellent white French wines which at present are cheaper than beer" as the correct accompaniment to sandwiches (and they give over 30 recipes for them). English "supper dishes" ( I second the idea of kedgeree) and sandwiches (with the ladies' "Green Butter") would be an easy meal.

A little stack of chocolate cookies?