Friday, March 1, 2024

Original: Embroidered Pocket, 18th Century

Pocket, English, mid-18th century. LACMA.
 

I've been reading a lot of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Good Wives, and selected this month's antique beauty in honor of this passage at the end of chapter 1:

"Much better than a spinning wheel, this homely object [the pocket] symbolizes the obscurity, the versatility, the personal nature of the housekeeping role. A woman sat at her wheel, but she carried her pocket with her from room to room, from house to yard, from yard to street...Whether it contained cellar keys or a paper of pins, a packet of seeds or a baby's bib, a hank of yarn or a Testament, it characterized the social complexity as well as the demanding diversity of women's work."
Also, I really like the embroidery.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

HFF 6.26: Party Time!

Detail from an 1850s painting with a woman's hands gesturing over a table of food.

The Challenge: Party Time! Celebrate completing the challenge year by making a dish suitable for a party.

The Recipe: Lemon peel, to candy from The Cook's Own Book

Take some lemon peels, and clean them well from the pulp, and let them lay two days in salt and water; then scald and drain them dry; then boil them in a thin sirup till they look quite clear. After which take them out and have ready a thick sirup made with fine loaf sugar; put them into it and simmer them till the sugar-candies about the pan and peels. Then lay them separately on a hair sieve to drain strew sifted sugar over them and set them to dry in a slow oven.

[My favorite winter cakes all call for candied peel, so I'm counting it as a party recipe.]

The Date/Year and Region: 1832, Boston
 
How Did You Make It: I peeled four oranges and four small lemons; I don't remember the specific varieties, but the lemons were a thin-peel type, which wasn't ideal. Being somewhat pressed for time, I only soaked them in salt water for 24 hours; although the instructions don't say to keep the peels cool, I soaked them in a basin in the refrigerator, just to be on the safe side. The next day, I brought the salt water and peels to a boil, poured off the brine, and put the peel in a syrup of  (IIRC) 1 cup sugar to 2 cup water and boiled it again. After removing the peels, I made another syrup, in a proportion of 2 cups sugar to 1 cup water (ratio based on the 'sirup, to clarify' instructions in the same book), and boiled the peel for a third time. When it started getting thick and tacky, I fished out individual pieces of peel, rolled them in more sugar, and spread them on parchment paper on a baking sheet to cool/dry.
 
Time to Complete: A very long evening, and a few minutes prep the day before (really 2 days before).
 
Total Cost: About $5 for the fruit.
 
How Successful Was It?: The the orange peel tastes exactly like those orange-wedge jelly candies, down to the texture. It's uncanny, but also as far as I can tell, the way this is supposed to go. I only scorched a few pieces of peel in the process, so I'm calling it a win.

How Accurate Is It? Better than most of my early attempts where I was zesting the peel, and getting really hard, thin pieces as a result. I ended up guessing a bit on the sugar:water proportions in the syrup (and lost my notes from when I made this back in January before the official challenge window), so I'm not certain about the proportions on the thin syrup, other than that I know it was less than the 1 water : 2 sugar in the thick. Rolling the pieces in loose sugar isn't in the instructions, exactly, but I've found it helpful for keeping the peel from sticking to the parchment paper (or whatever you're drying it on).


Yes, I didn't delete the photo on accident. Like I did with my first write-up.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

HFF 6.25: Looking Back

 

Detail from an 1850s painting with a woman's hands gesturing over a table of food.

The Challenge: Looking Back. Revisit a dish you've made before, whether to correct a mistake, try an alternative variation, or just enjoy it again.

The Recipe: Dessert Biscuits from Beeton's Book of Household Management

I selected this receipt because, despite it being one of my first and most often repeated recipes, I've never written it up fully. Unfortunately, I can't find the photos this time around.

DESSERT BISCUITS, which may be flavoured with Ground Ginger, Cinnamon, &c &c INGREDIENTS--1 lb of flour, 1/2 lb of butter, 1/2 lb of sifted sugar, the yolks of 6 eggs, flavouring to taste. Mode--Put the butter into a basin, warm it but do not allow it to oil, then with the hand beat it to a cream. Add the flour by degrees, then the sugar and flavouring, and moisten the whole with the yolks of the eggs, which should previously be well-beaten. When all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated, drop the mixture from a spoon on to a buttered paper, leaving a distance between each cake as they spread as soon as they begin to get warm. Bake in rather a slow oven from 12 to 18 minutes and do not let the biscuits acquire too much colour. In making the above quantity half may be flavoured with ground ginger and the other half with essence of lemon or currants to make a variety. With whatever the preparation is flavoured so are the biscuits called, and an endless variety may be made in this manner. Time--12 to 18 minutes or rather longer in a very slow oven. Average cost 1s 6d. Sufficient to make from 3 to 4 dozen cakes. Seasonable at any time.

The Date/Year and Region: 1861, London
 
How Did You Make It: As given (I needed a lot for an event, and so I did a whole batch). I beat 6 eggs in a separate bowl, creamed 8 oz of butter and 8 oz granulated sugar, then added the pound of flour and the eggs. I divided the dough in half, flavoring half with cinnamon and the rest with a handful of currants. I then baked them about 12 minutes per pan at 350F; I ended up with three pans of the biscuits, making a round six dozen.
 
Time to Complete: In the modern kitchen, about an hour (pre-heating the oven while mixing the fough).
 
Total Cost: Pantry stables, so I don't have the numbers ready to hand.
 
How Successful Was It?: Tasty. As usual, these biscuits are a bit denser than most modern cookies but they go very well with tea. The biscuits keep very well, though they can get a little rubbery after a few days in a damp climate. The receipt is easy to remember and lends itself well to improvising flavors. This receipt also once got me a mock marriage proposal from an Abe Lincoln impersonator. 

How Accurate Is It? Revisiting the receipt again, I can see that I'm making my biscuits a little smaller than they are meant to be (almost half the size), but that's also just the size I like them. While I've made them before on a fire, all mixed by hand, this time I used my stand mixer and electric oven. It's easier, but not materially different in outcome--more important was probably the fact that I was working in a climate-controlled room; having made these biscuits in an unheated replica building during the winter, I will say that it is a lot harder to mix the dough when the butter won't warm up.





 

Saturday, January 27, 2024

HFF 6.24: Beverages

Detail from an 1850s painting with a woman's hands gesturing over a table of food.

The Challenge: Beverages. Make something to drink.

The Recipe: Claret cup from Lady Elinor Fettisplace's Receipt Book

To Make Claret Wine Water
Take a Quarte of strong aquavitae, as much of goode Claret wine, a pound of the beste sugar, beat yr sugar small, then powre the wine and the aquavitae to the sugar and stir the sugar and the wine togather untill yr sugar be dissolved, then ad to it whigt pep, ginger, nuttmegg, large Mace, Red jylloflwers...put some bruised Cloves therein when you put in the other spices.

The Date/Year and Region: 1604 or later, English
 
How Did You Make It: I scaled this down to just a cup each of wine and brandy, using a merlot for the claret since I couldn't find anything closer at the store (claret can refer to any red wine from Bordeaux). Being on a 1/4 scale, I used 4 oz of granulated white sugar. The spices don't have specific quanitites involved, so I guessed: a generous dash of powdered mace, 3 white peppercorns, 3 cloves, a 1/2" piece of ginger, and about four gratings of nutmeg. I bruised the pepper and cloves in a mortar and coarsely chopped the ginger,
 
Time to Complete: About five minutes, though letting the spices steep for 1-2 days improved the flavor.
 
Total Cost: In the $5-$10 range. I don't recall the exact prices and was only using a small fraction of each ingredient.
 
How Successful Was It?: Better with time. On the first day, it mostly tasted like wine with a bit of burn from the brandy and some mixed spice flavor; after sitting two days, the ginger flavor came through better and the sugar cut a bit of the burning. 

I tried mixing this with hot water (like the Irish cordial), and while the beverage was nice warm, a 50-50 mixture with water made it taste thin and faint (though it still burned a bit). I'd be tempted in the future to add warmed wine instead of water for cutting this with (or just using a higher proportion of wine to brandy in the first place).

How Accurate Is It? I could have worked harder to find a bordeaux, but I think brandy was a reasonable approximation for aquavitae (which the editor's notes indicated to a "neat spirit" distilled from wine or beer). While I didn't notice any grittiness, I expect the texture could be improved by find whole mace and crushing rather than grating the nutmeg, but given the spices available to me, I don't expect I'll be able to try that.

Served in a cordial glass because that's fun.


 

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Twelfth Cake

Yes, those are marzipan squirrels and flowers.

Revisiting Elinor Fettisplace's Great Cake for Twelfth Night. In addition to actually baking it as one great cake, this time I made a double-batch of the dough (~1/4 the original scale), and finished it with the recommended sugar-rosewater glaze (actually from the marchpane recipe in the same book). 

This time, I used the exact amount of liquid called for in the modern translation (12 oz each of ale and milk for a double-batch), and that was a mistake. The dough was very tough and I could not work it smooth, however much I kneaded it. Especially once I added in the currants, the dough tended to split and spew dried fruit instead of forming a smooth mass. 

The spice flavor remains nice and not over-bearing, with the cinnamon predominating slightly over the nutmeg and ginger. The sugar glaze added a hint of sweetness and a light rose flavor to some of the cake, but the rest still tasted like unsweetened cinnamon-raisin bread. I would like to keep working on this recipe, but I think from here on out I definitely need to increase the liquids, and likely also the sugar content, in order to get something that will be accepted as 'cake.' For what it's worth, the original instructions call for using 'enough barm to make a light cake', so I think I'm on good historic footing to add more ale.

To make it more festive, I decorated the cake with subtleties; I used commercially-prepared almond paste, but did bake and glaze the figures as called for in Lady Fettisplace's marchpane recipe. I cut out the upper squirrel and the four-lobed flowers with cookie cutters, but used a candy molds to make the 3D squirrel at the center front. This went easier than I had feared, but it was good that I made two of them, since both fell apart a bit during the baking. I also found that even a few minutes at 350F was enough to start browning the paste, especially at the thinner points of the shapes, before the centers were cooked through; next time, I should use a cooling oven or else see if the bread-proofing setting is high enough to dry it out.

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

1908 Linen Travelling Suit

For the 1909 Suffrage event last summer, I decided to make a summer traveling suit. For inspiration, I trawled magazines c.1906-1910, and decided to base mine on this 1908 illustration from Harper's.

"Gray Linen Travelling Suit with bands of old green linen and scarf and tassels of the green." --Harper's Bazaar, June 1908

For the pattern, I opted to draft a single-breasted coat and 9-gored skirt from The "Standard" Work on Cutting Ladies' Tailor-made Garments: A Complete Treatise on the Art and Science of Delineating All Garments for Women Made by Tailors by S. Gordon (1908). While the whole suit is not easily visible in the illustration, the placement of the stripes indicate that we're seeing a 7 or 9 gore skirt, which I interpreted as a 9-gore so that I would have two plain panels rather than striped panels meeting in the center back.

Early steps in the drafting process.
Unfortunately, things got a bit rushed, so I didn't have time to put the stripes on the sleeves, which I do intend to add later. I intentionally omitted the tassels, since I wouldn't be able to perfectly match them to the green linen used on the stripes and buttons. Both the green and grey fabrics are medium-weight linen from fabrics-store.com, with cotton grosgrain for the waistband, and the skirt fully flat-lined in tarlatan. I used cotton coutil for the interlining of the collar, which did give a nice crisp form, but also makes the actual fold of the turn-back a little bulky. The coat lining is light-weight scrap linen from my stash.
It looks a bit better when the dress form isn't stuck on a too-small setting.
That's why the shoulders are falling back at that angle.
All told, this was a really comfortable outfit to wear. It also relatively easy to fit. Despite the book describing it as "front slightly shaped, back moderately shaped at waist", my first mock-up was much too large through the waist. However, the bust, shoulder, and upper chest all fit well from start, so it was a relatively easy revision (taking in the back seams a little near the waist and the front seams a bit more).If I was re-making this ensemble, I'd move the stripes slightly closer together and position them lower on the panels, in order to more closely follow the original. However, I don't mind the placement enough to re-make the whole ensemble (the green bands were applied to the panels before I joined them, which finished the edges neatly, but makes alterations to the trim more difficult). I still intend to add the sleeve trim, but only after I actually finish the hat and make a better stock/chemisette to go with it.

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

2024 Costuming Resolutions

My big goal for this year is not to be rushing projects at the last minute before an event. I either need to finish any new projects well in advance, or else I need to wear things I already have. For this purpose, I am going to plan that any new items are finished a month before the event I want it for, but will consider it a victory if nothing is finished less than a week before it is needed. 

Fortunately, I believe I'm starting the year with a pretty good supply of basics, except that I still need to make/repair my 19th century cotton stockings and finish those chemises. Unfortunately, I have a Twelfth Night event this week for which I really want to make a new Tudor partlet and sleeves.

My other big goal is to finish up items in my WIP pile, especially the ones that are already draped, cut, or under construction:

  • Summer-weight 1850s dress (green plaid)
  • Two 1850s chemises
  • Another pair of 1850s drawers
  • Dotted Swiss undersleeves
  • 1912 wrap cape
  • Wool and linen skirts/dresses for modern wear
  • Maybe the Tudor wool gown

In the same vein, let's see if I can whittle down the drafts folder here (maybe 80 is a more attainable goal?), and finish up the reviews I intended to write for books acquired in 2023.