TDG: Tasting History

[alacarte]

We all have our favorite cookbooks -- sometimes new, sometimes old, and sometimes very old.

I've been collecting vintage cookbooks -- and cooking from them -- for a few years now. More on that is in The Daily Gullet, click here to jump to the article.

Do you collect vintage cookbooks, pamphlets, or recipes? Do you have any historic recipes to share that you can't find in modern cookbooks? In my opinion, recipes handed down from great-grandma (or grandpa) count too.

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[fifi]

This is one of my favorite topics. Loved the article.

The best prize of all is a recipe torn from the pages of a local newspaper pasted inside the front cover...

My dad's Scotch Raisin Bread is one of those recipes.

We also have a recipe for Pickled Shrimp that came from my dad's oldest sister. She was old enough to be his mother as he was the youngest son in a family of nine. My sister got it from her before she died and wrote it down. We don't know how old the recipe is but we still wonder where she found capers back then (the 30s maybe) or even where the idea came from. I mean, isn't escabeche one of those new exciting trends? It is a fabulous recipe and a family tradition that I will share by posting it in RecipeGullet when I get a chance.

[hwilson41]

This is one of my favorite topics. Loved the article.

The best prize of all is a recipe torn from the pages of a local newspaper pasted inside the front cover...

My dad's Scotch Raisin Bread is one of those recipes.

We also have a recipe for Pickled Shrimp that came from my dad's oldest sister.... We don't know how old the recipe is but we still wonder where she found capers back then (the 30s maybe) or even where the idea came from. I mean, isn't escabeche one of those new exciting trends? It is a fabulous recipe and a family tradition that I will share by posting it in RecipeGullet when I get a chance.

Fifi, I really like this thread. I'm hoping it will attract more attention as folks discover it. Many 'modern' cooks don't realize what they're missing in the good old recipes. Looking forward to the recipe for pickled shrimp, and thanks so much for sharing.

THW

[fifi]

RecipeGullet doesn't seem to be working as it froze when I hit the submit button. I will try again later if it didn't make it in there.

[kendrabail]

As a native West Virginian, the passing down of family recipes goes hand in hand with drinking moonshine and pickin' bluegrass. I am actually teaching a cooking class on my grandma's recipes which include her famous chicken and dumplings, skillet cornbread (made with Mabry Mill grits--the only grit and it's not a sweet cornbread) and West Virginia Funeral Cake. Good, simple food. The class sold out almost immediately, so I think people are still interested in "old" style recipes.

Some other great ones are fried apple pies, cornbread and milk and country ham with red eye gravy. You gotta love it!

She still sends me clips of recipes from the Mercer County newspaper along with collections of recipes from her church. Lots of strange food combinations in casseroles (almost always involving a can of cream of mushroom soup!) and jello salads made with everything from pretzels to cottage cheese.

[Adam Balic]

Interesting article. I really enjoy collecting old cookbooks. To date I mostly have re-prints or facsimile additions of 17-19th C British cookbooks, but I also have found a few originals in junk shops etc.

Of these I have;

Meg Dods (1829) - Meg Dods is a character from Walter Scot's St. Ronan's well and used as a pseudonym by his publishers wife (although Scot may ahve ghost writtern some of it). Excellent book, very funny and much better then Beeton.

Mrs McIver Cookery book (1763) - She ran a cooking school in Edinburgh, interesting recipes, including how to make goose in the French style (Confit recipe actually, plus instructions for force feeding) and how to make a domestic duck taste like a wild duck (=beat it to death with a stick)

Mrs Marshalls Cookery Book of Other recipes (1897?) - Ran a famous cooking school in London, very fussy French style food.

A coverless late 19th C cookbook from Australia - interesting recipes for steamed date pudding and mincemeat for mince pies that still contains meat.

Cooking from these can be interesting as they rarely mention amounts and I suspect that some ingredients are left out as they are assumed (salt for instance), but it is very interesting to attempt it. Mostly if I am cooking from pre-18th C English recipes I just tell the guests that it is North African or Middle-Eastern. Which isn't such a bit fib.

[Toasted]

I'm also a collecter of vintage cookbooks. The most recent one I picked up

is "Dr. Chase's recipes or information for Everyone" copyright 1900. This

book has everything in it from recipes, to medical advice-including tests

to use to make sure someone is really dead!, to shoe making. It is a huge, old,

smelly book that I found underneath a bunch of newspapers at a yard sale on

my way to ME. this summer. Here are a couple of interesting hints from the

book: To keep milk sweet- A spoonful of grated horseradish in the pan will

keep it for several days.

-To aid digestion salt must always be eaten with nuts.

A recipe for Beef Tea- Cut a pound of fleshy beef in thin slices: simmer

with a quart of water twenty minutes, after it has once boiled, and been

skimmed. Season, if approved.

[SarahD]

Oh yeah ... In support of a Classical Roman themed party a number of years ago I got a copy of Dover's edition of Apicius (talk about your lost recipes). With all the vague instructions some of the experiments were disasters. However, the ham with wine, figs, honey, and bay leaves was a spectacular success and hijacked by my mother for her holiday parties ever since.

[Nancy Berry]

I love old cookbooks, too, and have collected a number of them. I particularly like old community cookbooks -- from synagogues, churches, schools, volunteer fire depts., etc.

Lately I've been searching the web for cookbook-related websites and I've found a couple that I think may interest you.

Michigan State University's library has scanned and digitized a number of historic cookbooks and has made them available online at the website called Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project. This is a truly wonderful and amazing website!

Duke University has done the same with advertising cookbooks at the site called Emergence of Advertising in America: Advertising Cookbooks. Their website is equally amazing!

[alacarte]

Nancy -- wow. Thank you for those links, I've never seen them before. Both of those actually allow you to search by food or topic (i.e. apple pie, chocolate), and include scanned images of the pages.

This is especially wonderful because so many old cookbooks are literally falling apart at the seams, and this preserves not only the recipes but the pictures and layout too.

As you can tell, I'm really excited about these sites!

As long as I'm posting....I mentioned hardtack in my piece, but neglected to reference Barbara Haber's excellent book From Hardtack to Home Fries. It's anecdotes rather than recipes, but I recommend it if you've got an empty space on your bookshelf.

[Carolyn Tillie]

As long as I'm posting....I mentioned hardtack in my piece, but neglected to reference Barbara Haber's excellent book From Hardtack to Home Fries. It's anecdotes rather than recipes, but I recommend it if you've got an empty space on your bookshelf.

I, too, am a collector of old and reprint cookbooks -- many I'll post from home when I can look at my bookshelf.

On Barbara Haber's book, I have to say that much what is discussed is interesting, but I found her account and covering of them rather wanting. They seemed like partial articles and every chapter could warrant a book on their own. The whole book just seemed too thin for my tastes.

It surprised me because she has such an amazing resume -- from her website, Barbara Haber.net:

About Barbara Haber

Seen on Today, Martha Stewart Living and other TV programs and interviewed in such publications as Newsweek, The New York Times, and Bon Appetite, author and speaker Barbara Haber has delighted thousands around the world with her fascinating stories about the special and often surprising ways that cooking and food have defined people's lives. For her many contributions to the world of food, Haber has been honored by the James Beard Foundation, which elected her to its "Who's Who in American Food and Beverages" and Les Dames D'Escoffier which conferred on her the society's prestigious M.F.K Fisher award.

Publications, Editorships and Board Memberships

Haber is the author of From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals, published in April, 2002 by Simon and Schuster's Free Press, and in Penguin paperback in June, 2003. (A chapter, "Growing Up with Gourmet" was included in Best Food Writing 2002, edited by Holly Hughes and the book was a 2003 IACP Literary Award finalist.) She has also written widely on food-related subjects for such popular and professional publications as the Los Angeles Times and Harvard Magazine, and co-authored the chapter on Culinary History in the Cambridge World History of Food. Haber is currently a senior advisory editor for Oxford University Press's Encyclopedia of the History of American Food and Beverages, and serves on the advisory boards of the University of California Food and Culture series and its journal Gastronomica. She was also elected to the governing board of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) after serving on the board of the IACP Foundation from 1998-2002. Her earlier publications include the respected study, Women in America: A Guide to Books, and American Women in the Twentieth Century, a distinguished series from Macmillan, for which Haber was General Editor.

Food-Related Public Relations Consultancies

Haber has been a consulting speaker and writer for public relation agencies serving such organizations as Kraft Foods, the Olive Oil Council, the Walnut Marketing Board, and the Chocolate Manufactures of America. In the U.S., Canada and Europe, she has helped these agencies develop effective awareness and promotional programs that include putting food products and services into historical perspective.

Contributions to Culinary History at Harvard University

As Curator of Books at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advance Study, Barbara Haber developed one of the country's most important collections of cookbooks and books on food history - over 16,000 volumes - to accompany the papers of such food notables as M.F.K Fisher, Julia Child and Elizabeth David. She also sponsored programs for local chefs and restaurateurs, the Boston Culinary Historians, and the Radcliffe Culinary Friends, supporters of the Schlesinger Library culinary collection for whom Haber staged semi-annual celebrity lectures on a variety of food topics. Her contributions to the scholarly study of food at Harvard include a landmark exhibition at the University's Widener Library of food-related materials from the Harvard and Radcliffe libraries and museums. She has also contributed to food-writing courses conducted at Radcliffe and more recently at Boston University by Gourmet executive editor, John Willoughby.

I'm a member of the Radcliffe Culinary Historical group and love getting their newsletter, but sorely wished Ms. Haber had written a lot more on all her topics!

[Mayhaw Man]

I just finished up a column concerning a woman in New Orleans who is having an interpreter/musician come in and do a reading of Beowulf (in both old and Modern English). As a part of the event she will be serving a meal with recipes from Anglo Saxon Times (roughly). These recipes are being sourced from The British Museum Cookbook and she seems to have done a pretty good job of doing modern interpretations of them.

She will be serving:

Rabbit Stew with Herbs

Creamed Herring

Small Bird and Baco Stew with Walnuts (dark meat chicken for small bird)

Roasted Turnips and Carrots

Herb Salad

Barley Pudding with Red Currant Sauce

Some kind of roughly fermented barley beverage flavored with a native berry

I thought the shole thing sounded kind of interesting and it was fun talking to her about it. She is not a chef, but a literary buff and is apparently having a great time researching this project.

I will attach the article when it runs in the Picayune on Sunday.

[alacarte]

I'd love to see the article, looking forward to it.

Small Bird and Baco Stew with Walnuts (dark meat chicken for small bird)

What is Baco? I'm assuming it's NOT faux bacon bits.

[hannnah]

Putting on my work hat for a second... *splorp* *ahem*

The Library of Congress American Memory Collection has a fair amount of online material related to cooking and recipes, including Jefferson's instructions on how to make pasta, a letter to George Washington with a recipe for beaver's tail, and, of course, plenty of wartime recipes (my favorite is the Braised Stuffed Heart from the 1944 "Share the Meat" campaign.) Outside American Memory, we have gems like the first published American cookbook, which is on permanent display in the American Treasures exhibit. Everyone is encouraged to browse online, or, if you're in the DC area, come take a look.

[Mayhaw Man]

I'd love to see the article, looking forward to it.

Small Bird and Baco Stew with Walnuts (dark meat chicken for small bird)

What is Baco? I'm assuming it's NOT faux bacon bits.

Just a typo, although that would be pretty funny.

Bacon, dammit, I meant Bacon

[Franky2Times]

Alacarte, what a great topic. Thanks for the article. I grew up in Quebec and my family was from the Jura region in France so I inherited their old cook books and personal recipes. I always loved collecting "antique" french recipes and it just went downwards from there: I just kept every recipe from bad French magazine that my mother read in the sixties and seventies (yes, the French too had their Family Circle and Woman's Day). I then dicovered traveling and went numerous times to Mexico, sometimes just to study cooking. There is no recipe book tradition over there, so you have to learn from the old people. I am still an avid researcher on Mexican food and I've acted as a consultant chef for a few mexican places. Is there anybody out there with old family recipes from Mexico?

[italianregionalcooking]

Love this topic. The last vintage cookbook I picked up was published by

Royal in the 20s and is titled "Any one can Bake." It documents tons of recipes with step-by-step black and white photos of everything from griddle cakes to macaroons. I found it on the donated books shelf of my public library!

I also collect vintage Italian cookbooks and found the first edition of some italian cooking magazines were actually political propaganda type publications.

[fifi]

RecipeGullet seems to be repaired and the pickled shrimp recipe is similarly repaired. This topic is increasingly interesting.

Pickled Shrimp

[Pan]

Fascinating stuff!

Are there any known ancient Indian, Chinese, Arab, Jewish, Greek, Mayan, Incan, etc. recipes that hadn't been cooked for hundreds or thousands of years and have been revived?

[Adam Balic]

Fascinating stuff!

Are there any known ancient Indian, Chinese, Arab, Jewish, Greek, Mayan, Incan, etc. recipes that hadn't been cooked for hundreds or thousands of years and have been revived?

Charles Perry et al. Have recently published a transaltion of several Medieval Arabic cookbooks. I have adapted several of these recipes, so I shall post some of these soon.

[Pan]

Wonderful! I look forward to that!

[jackal10]

I must defend potted meats. They were (and are) delicious. They were a key way of tenderising and preserving before refrigeration, sealing the cooked (and shredded or pounded) meat under fat.

Think of confits, or rilletes, or potted shrimp, or meat sandwich pastes.

I have an original copy John Farley's London Art of Cookery (about 1783) and there is an excellent Elizabeth David pamphlet.

Potted roast beef is a favourite, and a great way of using up the trimmings and leftovers. Spread on hot toast...

Very easy with modern food processers; just whizz up the the beef, including some of the best crispy outside fat with an equal quantity of warm melted butter, and some seasoning - salt, lots of pepper, a little nutmeg and a dash of cayenne maybe. Put the paste into ramekins, and cover with more melted (ideally clarified) butter, and leave to get cold and set in a refrigerator. Use as pate, serving in the ramekin slightly warm (but not melted) and first removing half the lid of solidified butter so people can dig into the luciousness beneath...

Edited February 6, 2004 by jackal10 (log)

[Fat Guy]

I must defend potted meats.

I think you've finally found your signature line, Jack.

[Adam Balic]

I must defend potted meats. They were (and are) delicious. They were a key way of tenderising and preserving before refrigeration, sealing the cooked (and shredded or pounded) meat under fat.

Think of confits, or rilletes, or potted shrimp, or meat sandwich pastes.

I have an original copy John Farley's London Art of Cookery (about 1783) and there is an excellent Elizabeth David pamphlet.

Potted roast beef is a favourite, and a great way of using up the trimmings and leftovers. Spread on hot toast...

Very easy with modern food processers; just whizz up the the beef, including some of the best crispy outside fat with an equal quantity of warm melted butter, and some seasoning - salt, lots of pepper, a little nutmeg and a dash of cayenne maybe. Put the paste into ramekins, and cover with more melted (ideally clarified) butter, and leave to get cold and set in a refrigerator. Use as pate, serving in the ramekin slightly warm (but not melted) and first removing half the lid of solidified butter so people can dig into the luciousness beneath...

Yeh, I love potted meat recipes. I have numerous Scottish (18th C.) versions. Much potted fish (herring, salmon, crab, oysters etc) and also meat (beef, especially shin, venison), and much game and poultry.

As mentioned this was mostly a means of storage, as were pies etc. What is unfortunate is that they have fallen out of favour, I suspect that this is due to the rubbish-war time, potted meatoid, stuff that people still associate with the word "potted".

In the case of the potted seafood, some of the recipes are what now people are describing as 'confit'. Take seafood, season, pour over melted abd clarified butter, cook very slowly until done etc.

Change the word to "Terrine" (they both basically mean the same thing) and it is a completely different reaction that you get.

"Potted", "Terrine", "Confit" and "Pie" = MMMmmmmm.....

[Pan]

When you talk about potted meat, I assume Pot Roast is such a recipe. My mother cooked a very good pot roast fairly often when I was a kid. The ingredients I remember were stew beef, potatoes, carrots, celery, tomato sauce, red wine of some kind (I think Burgundy was normally used), plenty of peppercorns, some salt, and bay leaves (I'm doubtless leaving out something here). There is nothing wrong with pot roast when it's done well.