Busy month for repair work. I fixed the seams in both pairs of linen hose; put new ties on my plaid petticoat, Victorian nightcap, and plain coif; replaced the waistband on my white linen apron and reattached that of the green; put darts in my green kirtle to fix the neckline gap; and finally finished the buttonholes on my new(er) drawers.
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| Nearly emptied the workbasket. For now. |
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| Tea Cakes. |
TEA CAKE. Two cups of sugar, 1 cup of butter, 1 cup of milk, half a teaspoonful of pearlash, flour enough to make it stiff enough to roll out; add carraway seed or spice.I actually made a full batch this time, and even got to use the specified leavener, and I had some pearlash on hand. Huzzah for home-brew supply shops.
Two ingredients do not have specified quantities: flour and spice. I ended up using 3 cups of flour, then working in another 1-1.5 cups flour as I was preparing to roll it out. I found this still a still a bit too sticky to do so, but being pressed for time, I chose to roll it into balls rather than rolling out
and cutting. Next time I try this recipe, I think I would start with 4.5 or 5 cups flour, plus some for rolling. I'd also be tempted to chill the dough overnight before rolling it out--the sticky consistency of the dough reminded me of how my modern cutout cookie dough looks before it is allowed to rest.
For the spice I estimated about 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1/4 tsp cloves. I found this adequately flavorful; my guests' initial feedback was positive, though there was one vote that it could have a bit more spice. Next time I might increase each by 1/4 tsp and see how that goes.
One batch made two very full pans of cakes; in less of a hurry, I'd probably divide it into 3 pans since they do spread out a bit. I baked them at 350F for about 10-12 minutes per pan; this saw the edges starting to darken noticeably while the centers were barely done, but I think that had more to do with the shape of the cakes than not.
Overall, this was a fairly easy and straightforward recipe, and I think it fits well into the tea cake/dessert biscuit niche.
Last Friday, I had the pleasure of serving as sous chef/research assistant for the Fort's second annual "Dine We Must" gala dinner. The main courses were catered, but our intrepid group of volunteers once again put on a full line-up of period desserts prepared in the historic kitchen.
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| Ready for Service: boiled puddings, baked puddings, cakes & every good thing. |
This year's bill of fare included boiled lemon pudding with a stiff sauce, spotted dick with brown sugar sauce, chocolate pudding, baked cherry pudding with cherry sauce, charlotte aux pommes, and cream cakes.
This year we had a team of five: Quin (cook), me (assistant), E. (bake oven/summer kitchen), M. (kitchen maid), and A. (scullery maid). Over eight hours we prepared six different dessert recipes and three sauces, using a wood-burning stove, clay bake oven, and open fires; by 8pm we'd plated 10 dishes and served three-dozen diners.
My main accomplishment for the evening was finding source citations for all the ingredients. Serving the public has a very stringent set of ingredient restrictions (and this is the only event were we do more than small samples) so finding an array of dishes with different flavor profiles that use the different available cooking surfaces, meet the health department requirements, and aren't a repeat of the previous year is quite the puzzle. This year, I was also able to document all of the ingredients to our location and mid-1850s time period (including chocolate, lemon juice, and cherries). Head-cook Quin not only did the bulk of the menu-planning, but also successfully made choux paste on a wood-burning stove.
From Maria Rundell's A New System of Domestic Cookery (1844):
Italian Salad.--E. R.--Pick the white portion of a cold fowl from the bones in small flakes, pile it in the centre of a dish, and pour a salad mixture over, enriched with cream; make a wall around with salad of any kind, laying the whites of the eggs cut into rings on the top in a chain.
The "salad of any kind" gives a lot of leeway there. Just on the same page, Mrs. Rundell mentions purslane, lettuces, mustard, cress, chives, "any kind of young herb in season," endive, celery, cabbage, as well as various other vegetables which can be included in salads (even if they don't meet the "salading" definition, which I tend to read as the leafy green portion). Over in The Domestic Oracle (1860), salads include various combinations of spinach, parsley, sorrel, lettuce, pennyroyal, mint tops, balm, endive, colewort, cabbage, tarragon, and nettle-tops. Soyer's A Shilling Cookery for the People (1855) includes salads based on lettuce, cabbage, endive, terragon, chervil, marsh mallow root, mustard, cress, chives, and observes that "beetroot, onions potatoes, celery, cucumbers, lentils, haricots, succory or barbe-de-capucin, winter cress, burnet, tansey, marigold, peas, French beans, radish, cauliflower... may be used judiciously in salad if properly seasoned." He also mentions using nasturtiums flowers as a garnish for salads, a practice which also appears in The Family Hand-book (1838). The Domestic Gardener's Manual (1830) also mentions as salad ingredients corn salad aka lamb lettuce; flowers and young leaves of nasturtium aka Indian cress; young artichoke bottoms; blanched celery; green onions; and mustard. It particularly discusses planting mustard and cress to be used in salads together. The Kitchen Garden (1855) mentions, in addition to the above, dandelion and rocket (arugula) being used in some French salads, though I've only otherwise seen those in English gardening books rather than cookery ones. Garden rocket is known in these books as a "salad herb", and was used by the English in salads during the early modern period, but appears to be out of favor by the 19th century-- which is unfortunate, as I have a great deal of it in my garden just now.
Anyway, taking all of that together, I decided to use my period "Tom Thumb" lettuce, supplemented with spinach, the first endive of the season, and the water cress that's just coming up in my container garden. It's tiny, but in need of thinning.
I started the evening before by by pre-cooking two chicken breasts (since I didn't have any convenient left-overs and was making Paprika Chicken anyway), picking my vegetables, and washing the leaves. In the morning, I boiled two eggs, sliced them, and removed the yolk for making the "salad mixture" or dressing.
Salad Mixture.--E. R.--Salad mixture is like punch, the greater the number of ingredients the better; it is rather difficult, however, to give the proportions, so much depending upon the strength of the vinegar and the preference given to oil. Boil two eggs hard, and beat the yolks very smoothly with the back of a spoon, with two small teaspoonfuls of salt and the same of made mustard; add two tablespoonfuls of sweet oil or two of cream, three of vinegar, a dessert-spoonful of essence of anchovies, one of mushroom ketchup, and one of walnut ditto; to this may be added a salt spoonful of cayenne pepper, while some persons think a teaspoonful of sugar an improvement.
The instruction go on to explain how a raw egg yolk should be added if no oil is used (and the next entry describes using mashed potato in place of either). I decided to simply use the oil, and made up the dressing as indicated: 2 boiled egg yolks mashed with 2 tsp salt and mustard, to which I then stirred in 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 Tbsp cream, 3 Tbsp white wine vinegar, and 1/2 tsp cayenne. I omitted the anchovies (which I don't like) and the ketchups (which I did not have). As the Italian salad instructions specify cream, I added that to the recipe, but since I didn't want to mess around with raw egg or mashed potato, I chose to treat it as an addition rather than a substitution. I think "the greater number of ingredients the better" remark provides a reasonable basis for adding the cream.
Anyway, from there I built the salad as directed: piling the chicken in the center of the platter, making a "wall" of drained and mixed salad greens around it, pouring the dressing over the chicken, and garnishing with the egg whites. I tried to cut the eggs to get rings for the garnish, but instead ended up with a combination of solid circles and broken rings; I then went to plan B, and simply minced all the egg whites before adding it as a garnish.
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| Italian Salad. |
Reactions were generally favorable. I found the dressing way too salty on its own, but once it was spread over the meat and vegetables, it became quite palatable. I also need to remember a larger platter; although the proportions worked when served, on the platter the lettuce ended up mounded so tall that it concealed the chicken entirely. All in all, this receipt had a lot in common with other mid-19th century salads I've made, so it was quite tasty, but with the benefit of using the vegetables in season at this exact moment (unlike, say, Beeton's, which calls for cucumber, beets, etc., that I won't be harvesting until late summer).
I'm looking forward to experimenting more with this and other historic salad recipes over summer, as different plants mature in my garden. I have a steady line-up of events from different centuries over most of July, and into August/September, as well as a succession of lettuce, spinach, arugula, water cress, salad burnet, purslane, nasturtium, borage, and upland cress (not to mention the mint and other herbs).
While considering salad receipts for Sunday, I can across a handy marketing chart in The Cook's Oracle (1823) showing not only the expected dates when different vegetables would be in season, but also their earliest "forced" dates (when the item would be rare and commanding the highest price due to the extra effort needed to grow it out of season) and when each is at its cheapest price in London. Given an on-going frustration with my local food history research (specifically that non-staple "garden" produce is recorded only in general terms) and the climate similarities, I'm finding it a helpful supplement for deciding when to use which ingredients.
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| Marketing Guide for London, from The Cook's Oracle (5th ed, 1823) pages 412-413. |
Intriguingly, I can document the use of garden frames quite early in pre-Territorial Washington, so depending on the context, some of those "forced" dates could possible for local events. Looking over the chart, here in early June I might be choosing from the last Jerusalem artichokes [admittedly not a plant I've documented here], early French [green] or kidney beans, Windsor (fava) beans, red beets, carrots, cauliflower, maybe forced cucumbers, endive (which is just coming to useful size in my garden), lettuce (also in the garden), cabbage, parsley (doing very well in containers), potatoes, radishes, red & white turnips, small salad (micro-greens?), the last of the sea kale, spring spinach (abundant in my garden), turnips, and turnip greens for salad.
Found this intriguing piece in the Smithsonian (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum to be specific). I wish their collection had more detailed descriptions: as at a first glance I took this for an embroidered silk apron, but the medium is listed as "cotton block print on plain weave." I'm now wondering whether it was printed in its final conformation, or if we're seeing motifs cut out and appliqued into position.
| Apron, Swiss, early 19th century. From Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. |
