October Mending

 Happy Halloween! This month has been mostly all finishing summer WIPs and emergency repairs on my CLT outfit, but I did manage to work in some other much-needed wardrobe maintenance.

Nicely darned, if I don't say so myself.

The one I'm most pleased with is the small hole I darned near the cuff of my red stockings. The garment with the most extensive mending is my early 19th century linen chemise (which keeps getting drafted for 1850s use): several of the felled seams frayed out in small areas, requiring re-stitching, and either whip-stitching to secure the narrow raw edges or else binding with linen tape.

Arm gusset with newly-repaired and bound seam.

HFF 6.17: Saucy

Finally getting caught up on the actual challenges...

The Challenge: Saucy: Make a sauce or condiment.

The Recipe: Boiled Parsnip with White Sauce, as featured in Gardening Illustrated

The Date/Year and Region: 1885, London

 

How Did You Make It: Half-scale: 3 good-sized parsnips, half a cup of milk, half a dessert-spoon (~1 tsp) flour, half a small lump (~1/2 tsp) of sugar, a piece of butter half the size of an egg (~4 Tbsp), a dash each of pepper and salt. 

 

I cleaned the parsnips (though I couldn't get all the dirt out of them), and put them to boil in a little salt water. When those were done, I started the sauce by melting the butter, adding the flour, stirring it all well, then adding the milk, and bringing the sauce up to a boil. At that point I added the sugar, salt, and pepper, then cut the parsnips into ~1" pieces and stirred them into the sauce. 

 

Measurement notes: I took a "lump of sugar" in the original instructions as about the size of a sugar cube (4 g) or 1 tsp granulated sugar. A dessert spoon, per my favorite "Domestic Measures" list in A System of Practical Medicine (1842) is supposed to equal 2 drachms, (and thus, two teaspoons, at least when dealing with water).

Time to Complete: About 10 minutes on the sauce; I didn't time the parsnips boiling.

 

Total Cost: Everything on hand and/or out of the garden.

 

How Successful Was It?: Pretty tasty. Could probably just a touch more salt, but I found this a perfectly tasty parsnip dish. I appreciate that it gives me another way to prepare them, and particularly to make something that looks a bit fancier for serving at table. The boiling and the sauce took a little of the bite out of the parsnips. From the amount of sauce, I suspect the parsnips I chose were a little on the small side, and that I used for used the largest ones to get a higher vegetable-to-sauce ratio. However, there were still some tough bits at the center of the widest parts of the parsnips, so that's something to keep in mind. I think it would be easier to do this dish by scraping and slicing the parsnips before boiling, and might give that a try next time.

Despite scrubbing and soaking, I couldn't get all the ingrained dirt out of the parsnips, and counted on the scrapping step to finish the job, which it did. Doing so after boiling was a bit different than scrapping or peeling the parsnips before cooking (much like potato skins: they came away readily but also tended to shred).

How Accurate Is It? No major changes to the recipe as written. I think, from how the sauce turned out, that my measurement translations were successful. 

 

Parsnips in White Sauce (1885)

Drawers

 Not much to look at, but still a very overdue project. And much needed.

Yep, just some drawers.

I cut two pairs of these out ages ago (at least 5 years...). The legs are a custom draft from Liz's drawers pattern, while the slightly-pointed waistband/yoke is traced off an old pair, which originated from the simplicity undergarments pattern by Kay Gnagey.

Blanc-Mange & Assorted Jellies

Somehow, none of the dishes I prepared for Candlelight Tours actually fit the October HFF challenges. None the less, I want to record them for future reference. 

The most popular and accurate was a pair of Gelatine Blanc-Mange molds I made according to the instructions in Miss Leslie's Lady's New Receipt Book (1850).

As given, this receipt calls for 2 quarts milk, the rinds of 3 lemons, half a nutmeg, 1.5 oz gelatin, and 1/4 lb sugar. I slightly increased the gelatin to 2 oz (giving a ratio of "1 packet gelatin per cup liquid" which was recommended to me as a safe margin to make a molded jelly hold its shape), and omitted the cold water. Instead, I followed the instructions as far as boiling the lemon and nutmeg in 1/4 of the milk, but I sprinkled the gelatin over the rest of the (cold) milk, before pouring on the hot milk. I made this twice: first by then boiling the whole mixture, and a second by not heating it further, and got very similar results both times.

Serving suggestion I received:
use leftover colored jelly to decorate the blanc-mange.

This macedoine of fruits, made with raspberries in a clear (white grape juice) gelatin uses modern methods (ie, prepared gelatin and juice instead of boiling up calves' feet and juicing the fruit myself), but the arrangement and presentation are based on recipes in Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861) and Francatelli's The Modern Cook (1846).

Jelly Molded with Fresh Fruit or Macedoine des Fruits (Beeton) aka Macedoine of Fruits (Francatelli) are simply fruits set into the layers of jelly. Francatelli claims any jelly can be used, while Beeton recommends a clear, sweet jelly, but in either case you set a layer of jelly, arrange the fruit as prettily as possible, set in more jelly, and repeat. I found that even using very small layers, the raspberries tend to get loose and float (just from the motion of setting the mould back in the refrigerator). Fortunately, they still look pretty cool out of the neat layers I had originally set them in. To get the transparency, I used white grape juice, with red raspberries for contrast. For the actual process, I added 1 packet (1 oz) unflavored gelatin powder to 1 cup of juice; and since I needed small layers, I actually only made 1-2 cups at a time: heating 1/4-1/3 of the juice in the microwave for 30 seconds to a 1 min, while sprinkling the gelatin over the the cold juice, then stirring in the hot juice until the gelatin was fully dissolved, pouring it into the two molds, and letting the layer cool for an hour or two. 

Macedoine des Fruits

The striped jelly, aka panachee jelly (Francetelli) or jelly of two colors (Beeton) was prepared likewise. I used cran-raspberry juice and apple juice, again in the proportion of 1 cup of juice per packet gelatin, and simple alternated layers of the two. Unfortunately, the color contrast wasn't as great as I hoped, and only in bright sunlight could the orange and red be easily distinguished.

Note to self: higher color contrast next time.

Harvest 2023

Carrots, and parsnips and beetroot, oh my!

Not pictured: the other 2/3 of the remaining root vegetables (mostly carrots, with a few golden beets, parsnips, late onions and radishes), squashes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and many many marigolds. The weather turned abruptly this week, so it's been all-hands-on-deck harvesting and putting up vegetables.

Original: Embroidered Satin Pumps, c.1849

I wanted something c.1859 in honor of Candlelight Tours, but these shoes just spoke to me:

Women's embroidered shoes, American, c.1849. LACMA.

 

Not only are they my favorite colors (green and purple), but these are also the first shoes I've seen from this era with embroidery on silk. Embroidered slippers are one thing, but generally when I see a pair of silk shoes from this era, the upper is a plain white (or sometimes black). These ones have a lovely tone-tone grape motif, as well as purple bows, and a slightly gathered lighter purple ribbon around the upper edge as well.