Monthly Archive for April, 2010

Is There Anything Sadder Than Ruined Dessert?

Published by SJ on April 30, 2010 in Cooking with Mrs. Beeton.
is-there-anything-sadder-than-ruined-dessert

I was looking for an excuse to make a feast, and one presented itself: I was having a house guest! Not just any house guest, but my youngest’s grandfather. I planned my menu and made my shopping list, and acquired the usual metric butt-ton of meat. Then, my children came down with “the consumption” and my guest canceled. Who can blame him, really? I didn’t want to be there either. My coping technique was: cooking the mountain of food I bought!

Since I was making two cold desserts, I decided to make them the night before. I chose Lemon Custard [1446] and Apples in Red Jelly [1399]. I was especially intrigued by the apple dessert. The idea was to bake them and surround them with a lake of tinted, clove-flavored jelly that would set up around the apples. It seemed VERY uber-Victorian somehow and I was excited.

I should have probably consulted a more modern technique for baking the apples. I diligently cored the apples and I put the bottom of the cores back in the apples as a plug to keep the sugar from running out, and filled them with sugar and two cloves. Then I surrounded the apples with a rough mixture that resembled lemonade.

Bottom Plug!

Following the advice in the BOHM on apple baking resulted in surprise applesauce!

Apples asplode!

I could not waste four good Granny Smiths, so I scooped the bulk of it out of the pan and into a sieve. The lemony, clove-y juice that the apples were baked in was supposed to be mixed with gelatin and tinted red. so I moved forward with the operation. It looked like this batch of gelatin was going to set up, unlike previous experiments.  Sadly, the same could not be said of the lemon custard. I let it sit in the fridge overnight in glasses so I could at least see what the flavor was like. It tasted repellent and metallic, which was a a mystery to me. I know everything was super fresh, and there was hardly anything to it–eggs, lemon juice, sugar, a little milk. I poured it out.

The next day I moved on to preparing the giant slab of meat I was planning on stuffing with forcemeats. Our Victorian friends believed that forcemeats evolved from an OE word, “farse,” which referred to spiced, highly seasoned meats. A couple of nineteenth-century texts make reference to Libre Cure Cocorum, a medieval cookbook that provides a recipe:

Conyngus in gravé.

Sethe welle þy conyngus in water clere,
After, in water colde þou wasshe hom sere,
Take mylke of almondes, lay hit anone
With myed bred or amydone;
Fors hit with cloves or gode gyngere;
Boyle hit over þo fyre,
Hew þo conyngus, do hom þer to,
Seson hit with wyn or sugur þo.

[Translation] Coneys [Rabbit] in gravy.

Seethe well your coneys in clear water,
After, in cold water you wash them separately,
Take milk of almonds, mix it anon
With grated bread or amidon [wheat starch];
Season it with cloves or good ginger;
Boil it over the fire,
Hew the coneys, put them thereto,
Season it with wine or sugar then.

*************

But I digress. The point is, forcemeats, if you have never used or made them, are kind of a stuffing. Beeton emphasizes that no one part should overwhelm the other. I can get behind that. She also talks about frying them and sewing them into whatever meat is to be cooked. I’ve not yet acquired a trussing needle, so I did something a little different.

First things first, though: the forcemeat. The recipe called for bread crumbs (I used gluten-free, which worked well), lemon rind, some herbs, bacon, suet, egg yolks for binding, and some stuff I am probably forgetting. Since my scullery maids were off blowing bubbles and dismembering innocent tulips, I had to call on Mechanical Millie: my food processor.

Uniform!

I turned around after mixing everything and turning it into a bowl, and discovered I had left the suet out. Whoops.  I formed the doughy mix into balls which I fried in some leftover bacon grease. I seem to always have some of that stuff around. My Southern grandmother would be proud.

Once the were fried, I let them cool a bit. They look like meatballs, don’t they? Beeton recommended balls, but you could make patties as well, which might fit into a cut of meat better.

Meanwhile, I opened up the lamb shoulder, which I purchased boned.

I filled the shoulder with the forcemeats and awkwardly trussed it with string. It was kind of like a big lamb sandwich. The lamb was to be boiled, which seemed odd to me since it was full of fried food. The recipe did not call for the meat to be submerged, however, just kind of poached or steamed in some stock. The recipe also called for me to toss a bunch of onions and celery in and around the lamb, after setting it on a layer of bacon.

Cozy Bacon Bower

Awkwardly trussed.

Here was what the mess looked like in the pot. Then it was set to simmer for a couple of hours with the lid on. Every so often I checked it to make sure it did not need more broth added. I knew that at the end the resulting liquor was to be strained and reduced for glazing the meat.

When it was done, I could see the advantage of sewing from a visual perspective. The meat had shrunk back some. But it smelled delicious. As with my last lambstravaganza, the meat looked rather grey and unappealing, unlike times when I have roasted lamb in the oven.

Uh...hrm.

The meat sliced easily and made a funny little sandwich. I imagine the juices from the cooking lamb were absorbed by the forcemeat as well. Maybe I could eat this, if I didn’t look at it. Boiling the last one made it fabulously tender.

Served with bread sauce and peeled, boiled asparagus

This lamb was fork tender. Odd, but good. And came with its own stuffing.

OM NOM NOM

And how was the Apples in Red Jelly?

The AppleSAUCE on Red Jelly was delicious. I was suprised how good clove-lemon jelly was. I would make this again. Spring is sproinged and there is more lamb on the horizon.

7 Comments Tags: , .

In Which We Look at Adulteration and Brain Molds

Published by SJ on April 18, 2010 in Cooking with Mrs. Beeton and History.
in-which-we-look-at-adulteration-and-brain-molds

Hello kind and proper ladies and gentlemen. I have been recently subsumed by work, but that situation seems to have a lid on it for the time being. I cannot believe it has been about a month since my last meal, so I will hit the highlights, since it is starting to fade in my memory a bit, unfortunately.

Now that the first quarter of this year is passed and it is properly spring in the Northern hemisphere, I feel like I can reflect on winter. I made an attempt to choose items from Beeton’s seasonal meal lists. Winter was fairly bleak in England for most people, from all accounts. Lots of preserved food was consumed, which could be done at home, or procured at a market.

In fact, Mrs. Beeton, who was, of course, in the business of selling recipes to housewives in serial form, acknowledges the availability of canned goods:

360. ALTHOUGH PICKLES MAY BE PURCHASED at shops at as low a rate as they can usually be made for at home, or perhaps even for less, yet we would advise all housewives, who have sufficient time and convenience, to prepare their own. The only general rules, perhaps, worth stating here,—as in the recipes all necessary details will be explained, are, that the vegetables and fruits used should be sound, and not over ripe, and that the very best vinegar should be employed.

It’s interesting to me that Beeton doesn’t really give a great reason for making them at home. At the introduction of Chapter IX. Sauces, Pickles, Gravies, and Forcemeats she mentions, as she often does, of the importance of choosing quality ingredients.

So, since Beeton is not explicit, it is fun to guess at a couple of reasons behind making one’s own preserved foods. The most obvious and easy to pinpoint would be a way to save food produced by the household, like eggs or fruit. This would matter less if you were a city mouse, and had your servants do regular marketing, unless you were one of those “screaming deal, I could not pass it up” people. I am one of those people. A giant flat of blueberries seems like a great deal until you get home…then what? Jam time!

The second is an issue that Beeton probably would have been aware of in the news, which was the investigation led by Arthur Hill Hassall into the adulteration of food stuffs produced outside the home, and how food production should be regulated, from 1850 on. Isabella did not embody the stereotype of the Victorian housewife, childlike and blindered. Quite the contrary, letters between Isabella and her husband Sam paint her as a shrewd businesswoman, showing that she was the one concerned with and capable of doing figures and ordering related to their publishing house, and that she was the origin of many of their profitable ideas.

Dr. Hassall’s investigations uncovered unsafe drinking water and the contaminants within; alum, lead, strychnine, chalk and more added to food to sell less or inferior-quality food for more money; and vermin and human or animal hair that could sicken people once ingested. The Lancet picked up the gauntlet in 1873 when the Adulteration of Food Act passed, calling for even tighter regulations and definitions of allowable levels of adulteration. No doubt this investigation, legislation, and the shocking abuses it revealed trickled down through the popular media and magazines. Was it safe to eat the store-bought jam? Maybe, maybe not.

The third reason may be similar to why people in wealthy nations produce handicrafts today: domestic pride, hobbyism, and a sense of satisfaction. Beeton knew that many women collecting her serialized Book of Household Management were leaning heavily on one servant, or (gasp) could not afford even one, and were doing a lot of work themselves, and were expected to adhere to that Cult of True Womanhood bullshit. In Barbara Welter’s famous article “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860″ (1966), Welter discusses one of the “virtues,” domesticity:

In the home women were not only the highest adornment of civilization, but they were supposed to keep busy at morally uplifting tasks. Fortunately most of housework, if looked at in true womanly fashion, could be regarded as uplifting.

Changing tack a bit, I will also say winter is also about citrus, loads of it, thanks to the Victorians’ wide reach with trade routes.

I decided to make Orange Cream [1463], which is a creamy gelatin, for dessert. Since my children are gluten-intolerant, and Victorians loved jellies, I decided to finally invest in a mold. The recipe calls for regular oranges, but I found some blood oranges on special and could not resist.

Blood orange

It was fun to make the jelly. I love juicing oranges, though I usually have little nicks on my hands in the winter due to hangnails and dryness.

Blood orange juice

The result was delicious, but I was amused to see that it separated out in the end.

Brane Jelly

The entree was not much to write home about. I was in the mood for fish, which usually means fried or smothered, as far as the Victorians are concerned. I chose smothering in the form of Soles [328] with Brown Mushroom Sauce [474]. I gently simmered the sole in milk until it was cooked, and then covered it in a mushroom gravy.

Yep, that is smothered.

Probably the most successful part of the meal was the Potato Rissoles [1147]. This involved boiling and mashing potatoes, combining them with fried onions and chopped ham…

Mashed potatoes with ham and onion

…forming them into balls…

…breading them, and frying the balls.

They were absolutely delicious with gravy. One thing that cracks me up about Beeton’s is that she was always describing things as “much improved” or “much increased” by adding mushrooms, some kind of sauce, or other flavor booster. In the case of this recipe, the “flavor of these rissoles may be much increased by adding inley-minced[sic] tongue or ham…” It is usually worth taking her advice, though.

I will reproduce the recipe for the rissoles. It was my first experience ever with lard, and if I made these again, I would probably use vegetable oil. I am not punk rock enough for lard. It will sit in my cupboard and menace me, I reckon.

Potato Rissoles [1147]

Ingredients:

Mashed potatoes
salt and pepper to taste
when liked, a very little minced parsley
egg
bread crumbs

Mode.—Boil and mash the potatoes by recipe No. 1145; add a seasoning of pepper and salt, and, when liked, a little minced parsley. Roll the potatoes into small balls, cover them with egg and bread crumbs, and fry in hot lard for about 10 minutes; let them drain before the fire, dish them on a napkin, and serve.

5 Comments Tags: , , , .

Oblique Floral Reference – cause she’s Gorgeous!

Published by Undergardener on April 14, 2010 in History and The Queen.
oblique-floral-reference-cause-shes-gorgeous

I visited Ballarat last weekend and saw for the first time this beautiful statue of Queen Victoria. Ballarat was the site of the 1851 Victorian Gold Rush and the town, if you squint and look up slightly (so as to avoid the cars) looks much as it would have in the late 1880′s.

Her Majesty

The detail on Her Majesty’s dress could be Wattle Blossom – but the leaves aren’t right.  I wonder if anyone knows what plant this is?  I wonder if the plant is symbolic of something?

I’ve looked at images of the Orb that Victoria is holding in her left hand and they all have a cross on top rather than an angel.

The Victoria Memorial in London is surmounted by the angel Victory.  This statue was commissioned in 1900 the year before Victoria’s death so I wonder if this little bronze angel was added later as a reference to a bigger sister in London. Looking closely at this little angel I could see that she / he is holding a trumpet so perhaps it is Gabriel and his horn calling Victoria to the last judgement.

The Orb itself is meant to be a symbol of a world ruled by Christianity. The cross that usually sits on top of the Orb symbolises the office of the Queen as the Defender of the Faith. So Gabriel calling the world to judgement upon the sovereign’s  death might be the story that the artist is telling.

What does the angel on her Orb symbolise?

Ballarat is well worth a visit if you feel the need to immerse yourself in some genuinely gorgeous Victoriana.

3 Comments Tags: , , , .

Grenadine in the 1800s

Published by John Smythe on April 8, 2010 in Cookery and Consumables.
grenadine-in-the-1800s

Bartenders have always seemed arcane to me.  They’re separated from the crowd by a waist-high wall surrounded by mysterious substances in bottles.  Ask them for a drink by a strange name like “Rusty Nail” or “Bay Breeze“, and they start pouring, stirring, and shaking moving so quickly who knows what went in.  And with a flourish, you receive a sweating glass.  Abracadabra, basically.

I’m going to take a look at one of the mysterious ingredients that was present in Victorian cocktails.  I think of grenadine as sweetened food coloring.  Actually, these days that’s what it is.  Most bars in the States use Rose’s Grenadine, which is food coloring and corn syrup.  But in Victorian times, grenadine was fruit flavored syrup, usually made from pomegranate juice.  The name is from the French word for pomegranate, though it can be made from cherry, currant, or raspberry as well.  Regardless, it is always a red sweet-sour syrup.

Pomegranates trees were grown in glass houses in Victorian England.  But the climate wasn’t right for setting fruit out of doors.  Still, there were close-by sources of pomegranates to make grenadine syrup.  Pomegranate trees were planted widely all over the Mediteranean.  Grenada in southern Spain is even named after the pomegranate.  And something like a modern Italian soda made from grenadine syrup was available in France.  “…In the French cafes, the visitor will find a number of light beverages that will not compromise his health, such as the fruit syrups, Orgeat or Grenadine, with seltzer water…”

In modern times, pomegranates are known as a good source of antioxidants which are thought to have various health benefits.  Victorians didn’t know about antioxidants but they also considered pomegranates health food.  Lord Bacon recommended wine made from pomegranates as a remedy for liver problems.  And recipes for pomegranate syrup show up in druggist and pharmacist literature of the 1800s.  This is just a guess, but the use of grenadine in cocktails may possibly be an outgrowth of an older use as an aperitif or digestif.

Here’s the recipe I used to make pomegranate syrup:

  • 16 oz. pomegranate juice
  • 1/2 oz. lemon juice
  • 1/2 oz. vanilla extract
  • 16 oz. syrup
  • sufficient soda foam

I couldn’t figure out what soda foam was, so I skipped it.  I’m hoping it was either a preservative of some kind, and keeping the syrup in the refrigerator will cover for it, or they just meant to serve the syrup with enough soda water to make a nice drink.  Syrup usually means simple syrup, but modern grenadine is insanely sweet.  So I went 3 to 1, water to sugar, instead of the usual 1 to 1.  The result was brown rather than red, started with a strong vanilla burst (I’d go with 1/4 oz. next time), and tasted fruity instead of New Jersey.

grenadine ingredients

grenadine ingredients

How did it work in cocktails?  First I made Italian sodas.  Those are just soda and syrup, so I thought it’d be easier to taste the difference.  The tasters could tell the difference, but generally liked New Jersey better.  They said it tasted a lot sweeter.  I assume that’s because of the corn syrup and because the Roses doesn’t have the sour ingredients like lemon and pomegranate.  The kid picked the bright red one because she liked the color better.

italian soda

italian soda

Next I made Singapore Slings from this recipe:

  • 2 shots gin
  • 1 shot cherry brandy
  • 1 shot lemon juice
  • 1 tsp grenadine

The tasters either couldn’t tell the difference or guessed wrong which was which.  Not surprising really.  Flavor-wise, there’s a lot going on in a Singapore Sling.

singapore sling

singapore sling

I’m a bit disheartened about how this turned out.  I love how classic bars still have weird ingredients that are made in a monastery from a secret combination of herbs.  Some of the inventors might have called themselves alchemists or wizards.  My sample size was two, but apparently people like corn syrup and food dye better than fruit juice and romantic history.

–update 5/5/2010–  I made another batch of grenadine with a lot less vanilla.  The flavor still came through extremely strong.  Apparently if you don’t want it to taste like vanilla, don’t put any in.  Yeah, I perhaps ought to have figured that out.  In other news, I gave most of the first batch to some friends of mine.  According to them, it makes amazing cherry cokes.  Which is strange because it contains no cherries.  The human tongue is a strange and wonderful creature, I guess.

4 Comments Tags: , , .

My Victorian Money Bag Is Finally Done!

Published by Faythe on April 5, 2010 in Arts and Crafts.
my-victorian-money-bag-is-finally-done

So remember that money bag I started a while ago? I finally finished it! It’s supposed to have a simple ring inserted around it, but I didn’t happen to have any that weren’t gold (my mom prefers silver), save for this skull ring I got for Halloween a few years ago. My mom isn’t into the skulls, so I only put it on the bag so everyone could see what it should look like all finished. When I send it to my mom it’ll have a plain silver ring in the same spot, plus a little silver button ornament for the bottom of the bag.

Finished Money Bag. The Skull is the size of a quarter.

For my next project, my package from the completely awesome Undergardener arrived just in time. She had mentioned that she had some laceweight wool she had spun up, but had no use for and offered to send it to me. I, of course jumped at the offer, and when I opened up my package and saw this, I was super excited!

Handspun laceweight wool. Quarter included for scale.

This yarn is the perfect size AND color for making some lace edging. I plan on buying a plain handkerchief, knitting up just the right length of edging I need, and then hand sew the edging onto the hanky. Then, when I send it to my mom I can include some smelling salts so she can daintily use it to revive herself after she dramatically faints onto her couch from the shock of reading about my latest crazy exploits on my blog!

6 Comments Tags: .