The Old Foodie

You could make "Chocolate Paté" 1 pound chocolate 6 tablespoons butter 3/4 cup whipping cream. Melt and blend them over low heat, or in a double saucepan, and pour into jars. Cover when cold. I guess if the mixture is not sweet enough, you could add some sugar to taste and melt it in. It will keep for weeks in the fridge (in theory anyway - usually it gets eaten up very quickly). Can be used as a ganache for cakes, spooned out onto waffles etc, or melted in the microwave to make a chocolate sauce. I make it almost every year for Christmas gifts. You can make it with white chocolate too, and if you are careful and do it while it is cool but still pourable you can even layer it in the jars, which looks very classy.

July 31 was a Friday in 1970, so perhaps we could transfer the commemoration to the nearest Friday? Could your squid friends cope better if they had the weekend to recover, do you think?

Now you are really stepping out of line, Midshipman Jason. No wenches - whatever state of cleanliness - aboard ship. The ship herself is female, prone to fits of jealous rage, and will commit violent acts to get rid of any women aboard. You can have as many dirty wenches with your rum as you like, but only when ashore. Now get back to serious discussion of the Rum Business.

Exceedingly appropriate. No wussy lime juice or water, Huh? ← I don't water down me grog, matey. ← You really should - at least on August 21st, to "celebrate" the day in 1740 that Admiral Vernon "Grog" ordered the rum ration watered down. Or will you still drink yours neat, as a matter of rebellion? They might hang you from the yardarm, or scuttle your uppers or something awful.

Exceedingly appropriate. No wussy lime juice or water, Huh?

July 31st is "Black Tot Day" - commemorating the day in 1970 when, at 6 bells in the forenoon watch, the last rum ration was served to sailors of Her Majesty's Navy. I would be profoundly disappointed all of you who are involved in this forum if you dont commemorate it in some way, with something rummy - a dish, a new drink, breaking out a special bottle .... Post your ideas please!

Hello Linda - if you make them, please let me know how they turn out! My blog address is below my sig, it is http://www.theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/. This is my main (i.e original ) site where I post my regular 400 words each weekday. I have a Companion site at http://companiontotheoldfoodie.blogspot.com/ where I post all sorts of extra bits and pieces. The recipe archive is on the Companion site at http://companiontotheoldfoodie.blogspot.co...pe-archive.html - there is a motley lot of historic recipes there from the 14th century onwards. I will put together a collection of historic fruit cake and Christmas cake recipes and put it on the Companion site soon, and I'll post here when I do. If there is any other historic recipe that you want, I should be able to find it for you, so please do email me or ask me here. I dont get Gastronomica, but I get just about everything else! I'm not sure why I dont get it , as I know it is very good. Now you have mentioned it, I will have to subscribe. Edited to add: I do have a chocolate panforte recipe with macadamias in it - it is great. I think it originally came from Gourmet Traveller mag, so I probably cant post it all here as it would breach copyright, so please email me if you want it. I made two versions last year of it also - one chocolate and one white chocolate. Fantastic for gifts.

I've made chocolatey-boozy Christmas cakes for years, often individual size ones in the large ("Texas") muffin tins. They make great little gifts, especially for people living alone. The recipe is one I have adapted for a couple of decades, and I thought I had it perfect until last year when the cookery muse was with me and I made a pale and elegant (or light and bright) version which was a huge success. I give you both here, although I suppose I should post them on recipe Gullet. First, the original version, which I call: CHOCOLATE ALCOHOL CHRISTMAS CAKES. 1650 gm dried fruit. 1/3 cup honey or golden syrup. 1 cup alcohol of your choice (choc or choc-orange liqueur is good, whisky or brandy or rum) shredded or grated rind of one orange and one lemon 100gm (at least) of good quality chocolate, chopped up. 125 gm of nuts, if you wish. Pecans are good. 2 cups plain flour 1 cup self-raising flour ¼ cup cocoa (good quality Dutch, or Callebaut choc powder is great) 250 gm butter (NO substitutes, good cake needs good butter) 300 gm dark brown (or black) sugar 6 eggs. Mix the fruits, honey,alcohol, and rinds in a big jar, and marinate as long as possible. When you are ready to make the cake, sift together the flours and cocoa. Beat together the butter and sugar until creamy, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Fold the fruit mixture, the chopped chocolate, and the nuts into the creamed mixture, then fold in the dry ingredients in 2 batches. Put in the greased tins, decorate the tops with cherries and nuts if you wish. This makes one 24 cm cake PLUS 6 small cakes made in LARGE muffin tins, or make all small ones. Time to cook: the small cakes about 1 hour at 120 degrees Celsius, the large one 3 ½ to 4 hours. Now the very different version, a la Christmas 2005. LIGHT & BRIGHT CAKE. Make it as above, but instead: Use all red and yellow fruits – dried cranberries (better than glace cherries I think), chopped dried apricot, peach, pear; crystallised ginger; the pale yellow sultanas. Use a fruity liqueur – I used peach Schnapps because that’s what I had - and it was fantastic, but Grand Marnier or Curacao would be good I think. I think I added one teaspoon of vanilla extract too. Use white sugar (vanilla if possible) No cocoa, use an extra ¼ cup plain flour instead. White chocolate of course. Macadamia nuts (slightly roasted first) instead of pecans. Pour more of the alcohol of your choice over the cakes as they are cooling, and as often afterwards as you can, until time for eating. Now I realise a there may be a problem with conversion to Imperial measures or American cups etc. Having made a family cookbook a couple of years ago for Christmas, which had to be useable for Aussie and English family, and one American sister-in-law, I made up some conversion charts. I just tried to post them on my blog, but the tables got all scrambled. While I work on it, if you cant find one on the net, I can email it to you.

There are a few menus (and recipes) from the tail end of the Russian Imperial era on the <a href="http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/">Alexander Palace Site</a> I know they are at the tail end of your time-frame, but I am sure the cuisine hadn't changed much for decades. They might give you some ideas as to what the upper classes ate at that time.

Cauliflower is great in pickles - either the English mustardy-based "picallili" type or the Italian jardiniere style.

I've just completed the recipe archive for my blog - a motley lot of recipes from over the centuries, many from sources that you will be familiar with. If you feel like browsing they are on the Companion site to the "real" blog <a href="http://companiontotheoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/07/recipe-archive.html">HERE</a>

This, yes.. I sem to have managed this - my two children are adults, and enthusiastic about food and cooking. This too, of course. And this too, of course. And the personal recipe collection made into a decent book or folder too. My sister and I did this a few years back for Christmas, but we collected the special recipes from each person in the circle of extended family and friends, included a photo of each person, and did an amateur desktop publishing job which we were very proud of and which was enormously popular.

Maybe you could have an overall theme, to keep things a bit under control? You have a huge range of topics you want to include! Something like sausages. All kids like sausages, dont they? People have been stuffing animal guts with all sorts of stuff for a few millenia. It would lend itself to the food preservation topic - drying, salting, smoking etc., as at the the big end of autumn slaughter of animals that could not be overwintered. You could introduce different ingredients or accompaniments to demonstrate different countries, historic events etc - no ketchup or mashed potato in the Old World until Columbus "discovered" (trying to keep it politically correct here folks) the New World. Just about any animal, vegetable, herb, spice etc could be included in sausages, or a sausage meal and students could then think about how trade routes were opened up, and voyages of discovery embarked upon to find spices. Lots of history there. There are probably other "themes" too, but I must away to the kitchen to get dinner ready! Janet.

I make my own vanilla by mixing split beans and vodka but it takes up to 6 months but it is worth it, ← Fantastic! I'm going to start some straight away. Thanks for the tip - it should be a lot more useful than the brandy, although that is smelling pretty good!

Mine is almost identical - although I wooden-spoon it, not whisk, and if I am serving it hot, I dont add the butter (although now I think about it, I'm not sure why. What does everyone do with the "used" vanilla bean pods? there is so much flavour left in them. I have always washed them, let them dry, and put them in a big jar of sugar - for vanilla sugar for the next batch of custard or cake. The jar has almost as many vanilla pods as spoons of sugar now. I read that another thing to do with them is put them in a bottle of brandy to flavour it, then use it in cooking - so I am doing that now too.

Pastry, no question.

NO! And regardless of what you say, the accidental 3 gallons of Macedonia (fruit salad) that I made last week when everything seemed to be ripe was just a coincidence. ← So, our problem is not due to sickness, it is due to accident? Does that affect our insurance policies?

I like raisins especially in a chickpea salad with good olive oil, garlic, lemon rind, a little cumin, and a little raspberry vinegar. I would have liked them even more in the Olden Dayes, when they used to be called "Raisins of the Sun".

I think we need chefBen to answer the Bush Tucker question, he is something of an expert. Bush Tucker is certainly becoming more popular. Where are you Benjamin Christie? As for the grubs, there are still some aboriginals living semi-tribal lives who eat them - they are very nutritious. I did a post on <a href="http://theoldfoodie.blogspot.com/2006/05/grubs-and-roots.html">my blog</a> recently that discussed them. They pride themselves on eating exotica at their dinners, although now eschew endangered species of course. In 2001 – The “exotic buffet” served with drinks before the dinner proper included: Scorpions on blue tortillas, roasted crickets with sweet baby corn, mealworms with chive crème fraîche, and tempura tarantula in ponzu sauce. The tarantulas, in case you are interested, were chilled to “slow them down”, then sprinkled with cognac, put under the broiler to singe the hairs off, then put in a tempura batter. Apparently a few of the guests suffered some tingling and burning in the mouth due to the hairs being incompletely singed off. [The dinner proper consisted of smoked trout, a choice of beef or sea bass and a coconut-mango gelato] Some dishes at previous Explorer Club dinners: 1954 – fried termite eggs from the Congo, crocodile eggs from the Amazon, dried yak from Tibet, and polar bear, walrus, caribou and seal from the Arctic. 1981 – shark mousse, served on rounds of toast (I don’t know what else at this dinner) 1992 – Waoroni tapir, a terrine of wild mushrooms from Bhutan, Sitatunga Forestière (a tropical antelope in a mushroom-flavoured demi-glace); a mousse made of ballyhoo (apparently a bait fish) from the Tongue of the Ocean (off the Bahamas), roosterfish braised in wine and spices; kelp salad in Asian marinade and a stew of giant clams weighing 12 lbs each If you want to see what else can be done with insects, there are two wonderful (?) menus at http://www.bertc.com/Banquet.html - one of the New York Entomological Society Centennial Banquet in 1992 , and one of a recreation of an explorers club dinner. Edited to add: I think this thread should be in the Adventurous Eating forum, its getting quite scary

My two children are now grown up with their own partners and homes, so I should be able to cook for two now - but while they were growing up we had an "open house" policy for their friends -(that way you know who their friends are) - If you've ever had to be prepared for an unknown number of adolescent friends of your adolescent son descending on you for the weekend, you will know what I mean. Fifteen year old boys can eat an obscene amount of food in an obscenely short amount of time. It was hard work for those years, and some of the weekenders ended up staying on for longer periods, but I have to say it was well and truly worth it. We mostly knew where they were, who they were with, and what they were up to. Food in quantity, available all of the time, I am convinced was a large part of the lure. It never ceased to amaze me how many of those kids came from households where no food preparation was done. One kid was watching me in the kitchen one day, and asked me what I was making. "Soup" I said. His reply? "I didn't know people could make soup". Sad. I've never been able to cook small since. My friends joke about the industrial quantities I make. None of it gets wasted though - the adult "children" still get take-home portions sometimes, as do friends, and I freeze some for busy days.

It is always malt vinegar in the north of England, on thick pea soup or pease pudding too. How about English mint sauce for lamb? vinegar (malt where I come from), bit of sugar, and lots of chopped fresh mint. I dont know how I forgot that one. then there is chili vinegar as a dip for Asian style dishes, and raspberry vinegar in the chick pea salad that I posted somewhere else.

I'll post some details this evening, Aus-time. I agree, it is often better not to know the details; I seem to remember an article about peanut butter (aka peanut paste here) - but it was rat s**t that was involved, with the "acceptable amount" mentioned - acceptable to the Food and Drug police that is. I think if we really knew what was in a lot of our food, we might all starve to death!

Link I searched but couldn't find mention of this here! It's a club in NYC? The scorpions are $35 each, the tarantulas $175. ← Is it the menu details you are interested in, or joining the club? or is it the insect eating that you want some more info on? I have a couple of menus (or at least the details of a couple of menus) from the Explorer's Club annual bash, I can post them later if you are interested (I'm on my office computer now, menu stuff is on the home computer). They pride themselves on the exotica at these dinners, which I think used to take place at the Waldorf. Insects form a large part of the diet in a lot of places in the world, and there have been other insect-eating dinners at other times and places, usually put on by enthusiasts who say we are neglecting a valuable source of protein. There is at least one 19th c book (name escapes me right now) on the subject. I did read once that we all eat about one kilo of insects a year, inadvertently, weevils, ants etc in flour, on veges etc.

Clever one, mizducky! Perhaps that's the explanation that fits with the other suggestions: someone invented, tweaked, or re-named a dish for a special guest (e.g the President of the USA) as a nod to a personal story that has been lost (so far) to obscurity, and it was then picked up by a few authors, but lost again. If someone finds a reference before 1873, the plot will thicken.

Mrs Lincoln describes them as: "Macaroni, or Shoo Fly, Potatoes are cut in quarter-inch slices, then in quarter-inch strips." So, 1 menu mention in 1873 1 mention in a work of fiction 2 cookbook mentions so far, 1877, and 1884. [edited to include the fiction mention]