The Old Foodie

Here are a couple of recipes to get you thinking: 1. From: “The Closet Of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digby Kt. Opened”, 1677 To make Cock-Ale Take eight gallons of Ale, take a Cock and boil him well; then take four pounds of Raisins of the Sun well stoned, two or three Nutmegs, three or four flakes of Mace, half a pound of Dates; beat these all in a Mortar, and put to them two quarts of the best Sack: and when the Ale hath done working, put these in, and stop it close six or seven days, and then bottle it, and a month after you may drink it. 2. From:” Pharmacopoeia extemporanea : or, a body of prescripts. In which forms of select remedies, accommodated to most intentions of cure, are propos'd ..”. Thomas Fuller; 1710 Pectoral Ale. Take roots of China 4 ounces; Sarfa, Comfrey, Liquorice, each 2 ounces; Orris, Elecampane, each 1 ounce; Shavings of Ivory, Hartshorn, Sanders yellow and red, each half an ounce; Herbs Harts-tongue, Wall-Rue, Ground-Ivy, Scabious, each 4 handfuls; Anniseed 2 ounces; Raisins half a pound: Prepare all for 4 gallons. It may be made Cock-Ale, by adding a Cock parboil'd, bruis'd and cut into pieces. It sweetens the Acrimony of the blood and humours, incites clammy phlegm, facilitates expectoration, invigorates the lungs, supplies soft nourishment, and is very profitable even in a consumption itself, if not too far gone. Cock-ale was a bit of a cure-all, a bit of the hair of the dog - which is often what Samuel Pepys used it for. One bit of folklore says that this drink was given to fighting cocks to make them more aggressive - I dont know how much truth there is in that. Another theory is that this is the origin of the word "cocktail" - but that must be the most disputed word in bartending history. I'm not sure at what time this stopped being a drink-remedy, but I'll look up some more old books and see what I can find. Janet

The very old version of this idea is "Cock Ale" - I have some old recipes at home and can post them if anyone is interested - it might inspire some further ideas. Basically it consisted of soaking an old rooster in alcohol for some time (and throwing away the rooster) - and it was supposed to have restorative powers. Samuel Pepys drank it. It is good to see an old custom revived! I'll watch your progress with interest! Janet.

I'd be interested to hear the comments of the professionals here, but with something like puff pastry the proportions of butter to flour are the thing, so halving or quartering the amounts shouldn't matter. I have been making puff pastry for many years, (I'm an Enthusiastic Amateur, not a professional) and I think the key is in keeping everything very cool, and resting the dough properly between rollings. It is important with that first rolling that there is not too big a difference between the dough and the butter as far as temperature and therefore softness goes. Keep practicing! It is very satisfying when you get it right - and good home-made puff pastry beats frozen commercial stuff by a very long way. Janet

I've been following this thread with interest, although I've never made a strawberry cake so I dont have a recipe to offer, but I did just buy some dried strawberries which smell and taste fantastic. They should be good in a cake, shouldn't they? The wateriness of fresh strawbs would not be an issue. Any ideas as to how I might use these in a cake, other than just tossing them into the batter as if they were raisins?

The word "meat" often means just "food" - not specifically animal flesh - in early English manuscripts and books. Presumably in other European countries too?

This is worthy of a thread in its own right. Here are a few ideas off the top of my head: Add to salad dressings/marinades where an orange citrus flavour would work. Add to your dried fruit / alcohol mix for fruit cakes (would be a whole lot better than commercial dried mixed peel). Cook with duck, on your own take on the classic duck a l'orange. Add to a bottle of vodka/brandy and make a version of tangicello? Put in the blender with some sugar and whizz it up and use the "orange sugar" to make orange cakes (theres a thread on orange muffins on eGullet). Now, I have some dried mango in my pantry, so perhaps I should try one of the above with that. Thinks ...... what would mango cake be like .....?

I dont think we have any certainty at all about how ancient Roman (or other ancient) dishes actually tasted, or how greasy or otherwise they were. There are no quantities and very sketchy methods outlined in the extant recipes, so how can we tell? Sure, the combinations of ingredients may seem strange to us, but that is as much cultural as historical (I dont "get" peanut butter and jelly .....). All of the recipes that we are talking about require interpreting before "modernising", and interpreting is clever guesswork. As for the over-spicing myth that food was prepared that way to disguise the taste of rotting meat - that myth refuses to die. If I may add a couple more sweeping generalisations to the discussion - spices were too expensive to be used in that way in Roman and Medieval times, and in any case the wealthy (who could afford the spices) were able to have their meat killed and eaten fresh. Food was spiced because the human animal loves tasty food. Another thing is that where measurements are given, the value of the measurement has changed over time, so that an ounce or a pint (for example) were not the same weight or volume as they are today.

The Petits Propos Culinarires volume for November 2005, published by <a href="http://www.kal69.dial.pipex.com/shop/system/index.html">Prospect Books</a> is the new translattion by Charles Perry of A Baghdad Cookery Book (a.ka. The Book of Dishes, or Kitab al-Tabikh). It may be possible to back-order a copy. It is usually easy enough to get copies of the Vehling translation of Apicius ("Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome" via the online used book services. Dont forget that the infamous Trimalchio banquet story is a satire, not a description of a real event! Janet

Know of some "ie" words that are used to label people and that are flattering? Aussie, lassie, goalie, Mountie, smartie, sweetie are a few. ← I'm relieved that you include "Aussie" and now feel secure enough to put in my "two bob's worth". This thread is reminding me of the old joke "I dont care what you call me, as long as it's not too late for dinner".

For those of you who love ginger, and want something different, there is a very old English recipe for "Grasmere Gingerbread" which is a very firm almost shortbready texture. Here is the recipe I have been making for a long time. 8 oz wholemeal flour 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar 2 teaspoons of ground ginger 6 oz butter 6 oz brown sugar 1 level tablespoon of Golden Syrup. Mix the flour, soda, cream tartar, ginger, rub in the butter, add the brown sugar and syrup. Press it into an 8 inch tin, bake at about 325 degrees for 45 minutes or so. cool in the tin for 15 minutes. Cut into wedges. I guess the bicarb and cream of tartar could be replaced with baking powder. Grasmere is in the Lake District, where Wordsworth wrote about the golden daffodils. He and his sister Dorothy lived there for years, and they were obviously very fond of the local gingerbread, as Dorothy mentions it quite often in her diary. - Mentioned in case you feel poetic about your gingerbread efforts! Fantastic. Then there is Yorkshire Parkin - which has oatmeal and treacle with ginger. Fantastic.

No intended sneering on my part - and I get your very good point about customers eventually making the connection with the smell/feel of the fruit - but I do think it is sad that so much of someone's time, energy, expertise etc has gone into developing this idea when it would be better all round if that time and money went into educating the consumers. I bought some avocados a while ago at the farmers market, and one farmer was very enthusiastically explaining to every customer how to tell when the fruit was ripe, and that they should leave the little nub at the stem end on until then (he said they wont continue to ripen if that is removed too soon) . If a customer was buying a number of avocados he was rubbing that little nub off of the ready-to-eat ones for them so that they would know which one was which when they got home. I commented to him how I thought that what he was doing was great customer service, and he said it was no good if people had an unripe avo, didn't like it, or his stall, and never came back. I've bought them from him ever since. And as the stickers dont tell if the fruit has gone too far and is overripe, aren't we all going to Gently squeeze it anyway?

It is Cod Sounds that intrigue me. The sound is the swim bladder that allows a fish to float. They were a real delicacy up until Victorian times. Lots of recipes for them in old cookbooks. Anybody actually eaten those?

Bearnaise is typically served with filet mignon--a cut which has very little marbling and thus is definitely NOT manly. You might as well tart up a chicken breast with lemon glaze and a flowered radish to feed the caveman in your life. ← so were late nineteenth century Canadian gentlemen really girly? ... seducing her life partner with her culinary skills and then throwing him down on the carpet, It's rather ambiguous as to who's doing the actually cooking at home since I would think such a woman would have a staff--but you seem to imply that the wife is urged to develop a chef's knowledge. Just to instruct? What is interesting is that there seems to be an implicit distinction being made between home cooking and cuisine prepared by professionals working in the public sphere, the latter being presented as the benchmark, the more desirable. It's suggestive of the fortune of home cooking in the past century when it's compared to dining out, the way a chef like Ramsay chastises British women for not knowing how to cook and even the reason why Haute Cuisine has more cache than Italian food which is basically home cooking. At the risk of moving off into too many different directions, let's just say there's complexity & contradiction: simple home cooking, none of that fancy stuff, is supposed to be a way for today's Girl to get the Guy. As for the Bearnaise BACK THEN, wouldn't knowledge of French sauces be considered the foundation of a truly elegant, sophisticated cuisine, and therefore a sign of a man's distinction? His success in finding such a cultivated bride? ← ... throwing him down on the carpet when he got home? so THAT'S why the carpet shampoo was so essential. Haven't seen a household hint like that in any English books of the era - must be something about those rough, lusty Colonial women. Most women of the middle classes would have had some sort of household help back then, but it was considered important to know how things were done in the kitchen in order to properly supervise the cook, and avoid being cheated by staff etc. Isabella Beeton never cooked anything herself. I think that professional cooking outside the home was probably the gold standard then - although the Little Woman would have been expected to be able to make her Man proud when he brought the Boss home to dinner. Another interesting thought, at risk of wandering off topic ... Our late nineteenth century gentleman would no more have thought of putting on an apron and cooking half a cow over a fire in the back-yard than he would have worn his wife's underwear to work (?) - so when did this modern "manly" tradition start?

Yep, it's definitely not idiot proof. Hopefully people can tell if something is rotten (but the sticker showed that it was ripe!). ;P ← its all a bit pointless, really, isnt it?

Sound like another way of de-skilling the home provisioner/cook using the time-honoured method of making it all sound too difficult for the stupid home provisioner/cook. Its a bit like the apocryphal story of the person who - when asked about margarine - says they trust cows more than factories. Personally, I trust my nose and fingers more than a pseudo-scientific sticker. And enjoy that aspect of marketing. But - there are those people on another thread who collect fruit stickers who may be in sticker heaven right now.

For advice on this topic, I found a lovely little book from 1894 at <a href="http://www.canadiana.org/eco/index.html">Early Canadiana Online</a> The title says it all: ‘The little helpmate, or, How to keep husbands at home: a dictionary of useful information not generally known; what dishes are good as well as cheap; the cost, and how it is done by professional cooks; together with several valuable household recipes, including the wonderful carpet shampoo which is alone worth many times the price.’ The book focusses on the serious distraction of men's clubs, where the chefs know how to broil chops and steak - compared to wives, who do not. The author is big on Bearnaise Sauce too: Bearnaise Sauce. “… as it is a favorite of club-men, I think their wives ought to know how to make it. Do not be discouraged if you don't succeed the first or second time, but try again. Put four tablespoonsfuls of chopped shallots into a small saucepan and let them stew for fifteen minutes. Then add two teaspoonsfuls of beef extract and six egg yolks, one a time, stirring all the while over a slow fire until it begins to thicken. Remove the saucepan to still cooler part of the range, and add, a little at a time, half a pound of butter, with occasional drops of water. When all the butter is stirred in , strain through a wire strainer, and add a little cayenne pepper, salt, and finely chopped green parsley. Now, I have several questions for you guys: How do you all feel about the manliness of Bearnaise? (non-Canadians feel free to respond) Should you point out this invaluable reference to the Ladies (Wives) in your lives, especially the ones who are discouraged by Bearnaise? And the most important question: What has a formula for carpet shampoo got to do with it all?

There is another one at http://www.gourmetbritain.com/encyclopaedia.php

My Mum says a cup of tea cures everything. And - would her dementia permit it - she would specify that it would have to be the style of tea that has personal and cultural resonance, from a pot that could (would, and did) patinate. Lovely piece. Thankyou.

I think I might try that myself. In our household we dont call it "granola" - here is the funny story. Years ago I was just finishing a big batch, and my grown-up daughter had just called in, so naturally was appropriating a bag-full for herself, and we were talking about the ingredients. I said - jokingly - that as it was full of phyto-oestrogens (and I am of a certain age), that it should be especially for me. She decided (jokingly) that I should therefore make my (our?) fortune by hooking into that bandwagon , and making it commercially, in which case it would need a catchy name. A male friend had just called in and heard this, and suddenly piped up and said "You could call it Women's Nuts". I am sure that the name would have guaranteed its failure, but in our household we have never been able to call it anything else since.

that looks wonderful! thank you! edited to ask... when you say you add more stuff after cooking, is that just to complete the "cerealness" of the granola? i'm looking for something that clumps up to give my daughter as "cookies" ← Yes, that's right, as I have it as breakfast cereal I add those things. If you want it clumpy, leave them out. It might be a better texture for "cookies" if you add some dried fruit to the dry mix - maybe chopped up dried apples or apricots?

I have made this granola recipe for years, we like it nutty, but you could leave them out. The quantities are very flexible, you need enough "wet" stuff to make the dry mixture stick together without being soggy. I'll give it to you as it is: 6 cups rolled oats 2 cups barley or oat bran 2 cups soy flour 2 cups wholemeal flour 1 cup sesame seeds 1 cup coconut (1 cup finely chopped nuts) Mix these in a big bowl Mix 1/2-3/4 cup honey and 1/2 - 3/4 cup canola oil and 1 to 1 1/2 cups fruit juice (I like apricot, but apple is good) Pour the oil mixture onto the dry and rub/mix it all through until it is in clumps. Bake in a slow oven until toasted. Then I add more nuts (especially macadamias), pumpkin or sunflower seeds, and extra "crunchy" bran (like the All-Bran type), and of course whatever dried fruit I fancy at the time. [typo edited out]

Good find! A couple of other good ones are at <a href ="http://www.practicallyedible.com/">Practically Edible</a> and <a href = "http://food.oregonstate.edu/glossary/a.html">Oregon State</a>

I included a recipe for "Maple Sweeties" from 1857 in my blog posting for Canada Day - if all else fails (and assuming you can get plenty of syrup) you could make your own. I would think you would need to cook the commercial syrup down a bit first to thicken it up. The blog article is at http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/07/e...canada-day.html

← Hmmm. Not so sure about wanting to be a Saint. Unless saints get unlimited chocolate and champagne in Heaven, in which case, I'll agree. Seriously, this food history is fun, isn't it? I'm always happy to find historic recipes of a particular kind for any of you - I'm not sure what sort of resources you all have. I have access to EEBO and the Thomson-Gale database of 18th C books as well as a goodly collection of pdfs, online links, facsimiles, and dirty old books. This recipe is one of the best "leftovers" dishes I know. Basically an early fondue, it's perfect for using up little bits of cheese that are lying around the house. You toss in some bacon, maybe a little sauteed spinach, whatever you've got & presto yummy cheesy goodness on toast. Here is just one possible variation: Digby's Savory Melted Cheese 1/2 lb Cheshire cheese sliced/crumbled into smaller bits for easy melting 7 tbsp. Butter 1 lb fresh asparagus - break off the woody bits at the bottom 1/4 c. chopped onion 1 pinch white pepper 1/2 loaf of crusty French bread -place half of the butter in your fondue pot, add the chopped onion followed a minute or two later by the asparagus. -sauté' the asparagus and onion for two more minutes (asparagus should not be too soggy) - pull out asparagus (not onion) & set aside* or eat now. -add the rest of the butter and the cheese, and stir constantly over a low heat, melting the cheese, until you reach a smooth consistency. -sprinkle on a pinch of white pepper. -meanwhile chop bread into either fondue sized chunks or into 1x1x4"ish strips (assuming 4" as the height of your bread) for hand dipping. -Dip the bread (with a fondue fork or by hand like nachos) into the cheese sauce & enjoy. Serves four. (Thin with more butter if you prefer a less thick cheese goo.) *dip in finished cheese goo - very tasty! ← Eden - that variation sounds fantastic. Anything with spruegrass and extra butter sounds good to me. I'm always mildly surprised that modern chefs dont take more inspiration from the past. One of my many, many projects has a title something like "The almost certainly true history of Welsh Rarebit". So many projects, so little time.... I'm sure you all live the same story. Janet

For the dark chocolate cake I have used just about anything - currants sultanas raisins figs prunes dates cherries apricots - it doesn't matter. The marinating in the booze should be a few weeks but the longer the better. One year I made a big jar up, went to put it at the back of a cupboard, and found an unused jar from the previous year, so I used it and it was fabulous. The cake can be eaten immediately, although it keeps very well. The white chocolate experiment last year did not get chance to age! It should keep just as well I would think. You might like this one too - it is very different - it was my sister-in-law's contribution to our family Christmas Cookbook that we made a couple of years ago. I give it to you exactly as she gave it to me. “This is my Sri-Lankan friend Elaine's Christmas Cake recipe. This recipe originated with the Dutch people who settled in Ceylon in the sixteenth century, and their descendants have added the famous spices of the island - cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. This is a beautifully rich, moist cake, which will keep for several months.” Ingredients; 1/4lb butter 1/2lb sugar 6 eggs 3 egg whites 1/4lb semolina 2 oz candied peel 2 oz glace cherries 2 oz raisins 2 oz currants 8 oz sultanas 2 oz crystallised pawpaw almond essence ( a few drops) 1 oz vanilla essence 1 oz rosewater 2 tablespoons brandy 2 tablespoons honey 4 oz strawberry jam 4 oz pineapple jam 1/4lb slivered almonds 1/4lb raw cashew nuts 4 oz preserved ginger 1/2 teaspoon each of ground cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves Preparation; Chop all the fruit, except the currants and the sultanas, which can be left whole. Put fruit into a bowl with the honey, brandy, and the three essences. Cover and leave for 24 hours. Line a 10 inch x 11 inch cake tin with several thickness of paper and grease the top layer well. Slice the cashew nuts, or put them through the meat mincer. Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg yolks and beat until light. Gradually fold in the semolina, then the strawberry and pineapple jams. Next add the fruit mixture and the sliced cashews and almonds, then add the spices. Finally, beat the egg whites and fold these in. Cooking; Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and put into a 300 degree (automatic) oven. After 1 hour, lower the temperature to 250 degree, and bake for another hour. Cover the top with alfoil if it starts to get too brown. Remove from oven and leave the cake to cool in the tin. When quite cold, turn the cake out of the tin. I haven't made this one myself, but I've eaten my SIL's version and it is terrific. Janet