The Old Foodie

Time 2020-11-13 11:03:37

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Over the years I have posted quite anumber of menus for late nineteenth century civic and other official dinners. I think it is fair to say that, looked at withmodern eyes and tastes, those formal menus appear drearily predictable andponderous. They were, of course, also written in French, and I have no doubtthat the guests knew exactly the ingredients and style of each dish, even if they had no other skills with theFrench language.The report of the dinner that I have foryou today suggests that these guests may have not, however, have always takenthe process quite as seriously as we tend to believe.The tradition of London s CeylonDinners continued for many decades in the late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies, as a celebration of Britain s imperial motives and achievements inthe country we now call Sri Lanka. An article in the Hindu Organ, of 29th January, 1908 briefly summarisesthe rationale for the tradition:The Ceylon dinner in England brings together all Ceylonese youngmen who are at that time residents in the British Isles as also suchBritishers, retired officials and others, as have the welfare of the Ceyloneseat heart, and sympathise with their aspirations. The function affords anopportunity for the sons of Ceylon scattered over in different parts of GreatBritain and Ireland not only to become acquainted with each other but also to ventilatethe grievances of their country in England before the British public.Hindu Organ, 29th Jan. 1908.The Ceylon dinner for which I am goingto give you the menu details today took place on January 22, 1875, and was dulyreported in the Ceylon Observer(Colombo) a few months later because the British folk doing their colonialservice in the far reaches of Her Majesty s empire were ever keen to know whatwas happening at home. The writer begins:For, there was a Ceylon dinner at the Criterion last night. ThirtyCeylon men sat down to feed, in number two of the establishment at the cornerof Piccadilly Circus, John Anderson, Esquire, in the Chair; and there were thePatriarch of Uva, the Patriarch of Dimbula, other Patriarchs and merchantPrinces, and last, though not least, Mr. John Capper, Prince of Editors. To begin with the beginning, this, whatfollows was the MENU OF THE BILL OF FARE.I have not come across such a freetranslation of a standard menu of the era before, and I do wonder at themotivation for it being provided. What do you think?As for the recipe for the day, I havechosen from Savouries à la Mode (London,1886) by Mrs. De Salis (Harriet Anne.)Ramequins au Fromage.Crumble a small stale roll and cover itwith a breakfastcupful of milk, which must be quite boiling; after it has well soaked, strain and put it in themortar with four ounces of Parmesan and four ounces of Gloucester cheesegrated, four ounces of fresh butter, half a teaspoonful of made mustard, a littlesalt and pepper, and a saltspoonful of sifted sugar. These ingredients must beall well pounded together with the yolks of four eggs, adding the well-whippedwhites of the eggs. Half fill the paper cases or china moulds with this, bakethem in a quick oven about ten to fifteen minutes, and serve hot as possible.Modern recipe writers generally note howmany persons a dish will serve, and they occasionally suggest accompanyingdishes or even complete menus. They don t however, feel the need to advise howmany staff will be needed to serve a suggested menu. In previous times, whenservants were found in almost all homes, except those of the lowest classes, thismust have been most useful advice.The popular book The Complete Family Cook; Being a System of Cookery, Adapted to theTables not only of the Opulent, but of Persons of Moderate Fortune andCondition (fourth edition, 1796) by Menon (writer on cookery) and S. Taylor(writer on cookery) gave suggested menus for meals for different occasions, ofvarying degrees of seriousness, requiring from five to twelve servers.Today I have chosen a supper menu from thebook, for your late 18th century self, on the assumption that you havea moderate fortune and have five servants at your disposal. A Table of Twelve Covers for Supper, servedby Five.FIRST COURSE.A leg of muttonroasted for the middleFour dishes (entrées); vealcutlets àla Lyonnoise, a beef rump en matelote,a duck withturnips, two chickens en giblotte.SECOND COURSE.A sallad for themiddle.Two dishes (platsde rôt);a young turkey, a young duck.A plate withoranges.Plate with a remouladein a sauce [pan? unreadable]THIRD COURSE.Five small dishes,(entremets); cheese-cakes for the middle, eggs with streaked bacon, Spanish chardons,bread fritters, burnt cream.FOURTH COURSE.Iced cheese forthe middle, or a bowl of fruit.Compote of apples à la Portugaise.Compote of peaches.Plate ofsweet-meats.Two plates ofnuts.Plate of grapes.As the recipe for the day, I give you BurntCream, from the same book.BurntCream.two spoonfulls of flour, mixed by little and little with the whites and yolksof four eggs, into a stew-pan, with half a spoonfull of orange-flower water,and a little green lemon peel shred very fine: moisten them with a gill ofmilk, and put in a little salt, and two ounces of sugar; let it simmer half anhour over a flow fire, constantly stirring ; then put a bit of sugar, with halfa glass of water into your dish; set it upon a stove over a good fire, and letit boil till of the colour of cinnamon, and then, pour in the cream: havereadya large knife to spread the sugar which remains on the rim of the dish upon thecream, taking care to do it quickly.An American Southern Food Expert andLecturer by the name of Bessie R. Murphy compiled and edited a wonderful setof books called the Three Meals a DaySeries during World War II. Each volume was dedicated toSomebody SomewhereTo be used byEverybodyEverywhereThe editor explains her mission in theIntroduction:This little series of books is a collection of tested and economicalrecipes for everyday foods that are obtainable everywhere and suitable for anyof the three meals of the day. These recipes are written in plain, everydayterms. They are not all original the authors of many of them are unknown.They form just a little series of everyday books for everybody from everywhere.The World War gave every homemaker an opportunity to realize thedifference between use and abuse of foods. For years we have wasted much of thebountiful supply of food produced by our country. Let us then not go backward,but let us go forward, bending every energy to make lasting the benefit inhealth and economy gained from a diet that not only eliminates extravagance andwaste in buying and serving, but also affords greater variety. The recipes in this series call for flour, sugar, and butter. Toconserve these three foods just as long as our country and the peoples ofEurope need them is the loyal and patriotic duty of not the other fellow but you.The principle concept was to give recipes basedon a single staple item which were suitable for one or more of the three mainmeals of the day. I do love that theme. To date I have found volumes focused onrice, corn meal, peanuts, legumes, salad and potatoes. I have featured severalof these in previous posts (see the links below) but have not so far coveredthe potato which is a strange oversight given that I have not yet met apotato I didn t like. Today I want to rectify that omission.Note that in the following recipes theeditor refers to the white potato as the Irish or English potato (Solanum tuberosum) to distinguish itfrom the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) which, to add confusion to the puzzle, is in some regions referred to as theyam (Family Dioscoreaceae) which it most certainly is not. Sweet potatoes arecovered in the second half of the book, and I will surely make them the subjectof another post in the future.So, how do you fancy your breakfastpotatoes? For my American friends, who persist in callinga scone a biscuit, and a biscuit a cookie (in spite of which I love you anyway)I have chosen: Irish Potato Biscuitcup mashed potatoes 1tablespoon butter cup flour 1tablespoon lard teaspoons baking powder cup milk (scant) the dry ingredients. Add these to the potatoes, mixing well. Work in lightlythe butter and lard. Add gradually enough milk to make a soft dough. Put it on flouredboard, roll lightly to about inch thickness, cut in biscuit shape, place ingreased pan, and bake in hot oven.For my own breakfast, I have chosen Irish Potato Omeletcup potatoes (mashed) 3teaspoons milk eggs teaspoon pepper teaspoon saltBreakthe eggs and separate the yolks and the whites. Beat the yolks and add them tothe potatoes, beating until mixture is light and there are no lumps. Add seasoning.Beat the whites until they are stiff and carefully fold them into the mixture.Put the omelet into a well-greased frying pan and bake it in the oven until itis brown. Turn the omelet out on a hot platter and serve it at once.For dinner, I feel sure that the concept ofcheesy mashed potatoes will not cause any international disagreement:BakedIrish Potato and Cheesecups cooked potatoes 2tablespoons butter tablespoons grated cheese cup milk teaspoon salt the potatoes through a sieve, melt the butter in a saucepan, add the potatoes,and mix well. Then add the milk, half the cheese, and the seasoning. Put into well-greasedbaking dish, sprinkle the rest of the cheese on the top, and bake in hot ovenabout 10 minutes.And for dessert, who can resist a doughnut?IrishPotato Doughnuts1 cups sugar teaspoon each nutmeg and cinnamon tablespoons butter 1 teaspooneggs 1cup mashed potatoescup milk Flourto rollteaspoons baking powder Creamone-half of the sugar with the butter. Add the remaining sugar and the milk tothe well-beaten eggs. Combine the two mixtures. To the cooled potatoes add thedry ingredients sifted together. Mix thoroughly, put on a well-floured board,and roll out and cut. Fry a few doughnuts at a time in deep hot fat.It is supper time, and what better time touse up leftover mashed potato and cold cooked meat? And as a bonus, you don t needto put the deep fryer away after dinner!IrishPotato Surprisescups mashed potatoes 1the mashed potatoes, add the salt, pepper, onion juice, and half the parsley.Mix well. Add the rest of the parsley to the chopped meat and season well.Flatten out a teaspoonful of the potato mixture and place a teaspoonful of themeat mixture in the center. Fold the potatoes around the meat, then shape intoa roll, being sure that the meat is well covered. Roll balls in bread crumbs,then in the well-beaten egg, again in bread crumbs, and fry in hot fat until agolden brown.As a final act of homage to the potato, Igive you the instructions from the book for drying your own potatoes:DriedIrish Potatoesmany parts of the country, owing to weather conditions and improper storage,hundreds of bushels of potatoes spoil by rotting. To prevent this waste the potatoescan be dried. Blanch the potatoes about 3 minutes in boiling water, remove,peel, and slice or cut into cubes. Dry in the sun, in oven of the stove, or ina homemade dryer. When they are dry, run them into a hot oven until heatedthrough. This will prevent bugs and weevils. Put into jars or cans. Soak thepotatoes hour before using them.Previous post from the Three Meals a Dayseries:From Rice for Breakfast, Dinner, Supper. http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2009/10/rice-for-breakfast.htmlhttp://www.theoldfoodie.com/2015/12/rice-at-every-meal-1919.htmlhttp://www.theoldfoodie.com/2016/01/variations-on-theme-of-fried-rice.htmlFrom Salads for Breakfast, Dinner, Supper. http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2015/12/salads-for-breakfast-dinner-supper.htmlLegumes for Breakfast, Dinner,Supper.In 1823 a French liberal economistcalled Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui visited England and Scotland. The narrative ofhis travels was later published under the title Voyage d un jeune Français en Angleterre et en Ecosse, pendant l automnede 1823. The book was discussed at length and quoted from quite extensivelyin The Westminster Review (Vol. 4, 1825,)a quarterly British publication founded by the political radical Jeremy Bentham.The editors of The Westminster Review justified theirinterest in the book thus:The book we are now going to notice isneither the work of a slanderer of our women, our institutions and our manners,like the famous performance of the Knight of the Hulks, alias the ChevalierPillet; nor is it the production of an outrageous Anglomane, furious in defenceof everything English, for no other reason than because he misunderstands ourlanguage, and can misapply some misquoted passages from our poetry: but it isthe genuine effusion of a genuine Frenchman, sufficiently inclined to libéralisme of all kinds, and equallydisposed to regard with indulgence the barbarism of our customs, and withhorror our treatment of his great idol Bonaparte. It is in short a publication,which will be looked upon in the French provinces, and among certain classes inthe French capital itself, as anauthority on the subject of England; and it is on this account, and becausewe know that it expresses the opinion of nine-tenths of the French, on thesubject of English manners, that we shall notice it at so much length here.Naturally, what is of mostinterest to us here on this blog is the French visitor s view of English food: . At last the author isintroduced, "avec le cérémonial inévitable, dans la salle à manger (dining-room). The dinner, without soup,consists of a raw and bloody beef-steak, plentifully powdered with pepper and spices, and covered with slices ofhorse-radish, similar, in appearanceand size, to the chips which come from under the plane of the carpenter. Thebeef-steak is immediately followed by a plate or two of vegetables in naturalibus, that is to say, plainboiled: then a cruet-stand with five or six bottles, containing certain drugs, out of which you choosethe ingredients necessary for giving some taste to the insipid mess. Sometimesa fowl succeeds these dishes of the primitiveages: but the English themselves agree thatchickens with them, are tougher than beef, and therefore they prefer ducks.I was thus enabled to understand, why our deck on quitting Havre was so crowdedwith French fowls. [We appeal to every one who has ever been in France, whetherthe flesh of French fowls does not resemble ivory in all but whiteness.] Thedinner finishes with a heavy tart made of cherries, plums, or apples, accordingto the season taking care always to leave the stones in them. So much for the dinner nowfor the wines and the dessert: The English have rather morevariety in their drinks: the porter, the small beer, and the ale, which is between the two, and better thaneither. The wines in use are port, madeira, and sherry, which they drinkalways without water, though abundantly charged with brandy. From thence,perhaps, arises the bright scarlet complexions, injected with blue, and thecarbuncled noses of almost all the English gastronomes. After the raw beef andpotatoes were removed, we were consoling ourselves, in our absence from France,by talking of its glory and its pleasures, when the waiter appeared with thedessert, consisting of an enormous cucumber, flanked with four raw onionsbedded in watercresses: des gateaux deplomb (plumb-cakes) worthy of their name, and what he called Cheshirecheese. At the sight of these preparations for poisoning us, we all desertedthe table. Let it not be said that the description of a dinner is anunimportant matter: besides, English good cheer being absolutely the same inevery inn, tavern, and hotel, in the three kingdoms, it is right to prepareFrenchmen for the enjoyments they are to expect on the other side of thechannel. One of the most popular English cookery booksat the time of M. Blanqui s visit was ApiciusRedivivus, or the Cook's Oracle, by the eccentric Dr. William Kitchiner, firstpublished in 1817. The 1823 edition (I am not sure about the earlier editions)includes a recipe for Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings which you may ormay not agree are a form of chips, crisps, or even French Fries. Take that, M. Blanqui.Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings.Peel large potatoes, slice them about aquarter of an inch thick, or cut them in shavings round and round, as you wouldpeel a lemon; dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or dripping.Take care that your fat and frying-pan are quite clean; put it on a quick fire;watch it, and as soon as the lard boil, and is still, put in the slices ofpotatoe, and keep moving them until they are crisp; take them up and lay themto drain on a sieve; send them up with a very little salt sprinkled over them.I am the author of:Pie: A Global History. Reaktion Press, 2009Soup: A Global History. Reaktion Press, 2010Menus from History: Menus and recipes from every day in the year (2 volumes.) ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Press, 2009Food History Almanac: Over 1,300 years of world culinary history, culture, and social influence. Rowman and Littlefield, 2014.I have also contributed to the following publications:The Business of Food: Encyclopaedia of the food and drink industry.Human Cuisine, edited by Ken Albala and Gary Allen.The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets: Oxford University Press.historic recipes, historic menus, vintage recipes, cookery books, cook books, food history, culinary history

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