Tag: Vegetarian (page 1 of 3)

June 5, 2023 / 0 Comments

Neapolitan Stuffed Figs

four stuffed but uncooked figs on a wooden board

Working through the backlog of things I have cooked but not posted, I came across the photos of this recipe for medieval, Italian stuffed figs. At the time I was staying with a friend in one of the Sydney lockdowns and there wasn’t much to get excited about except for the figs ripening on our neighbour’s tree. Inspired by the bounty across the fence, I went a bit fig mad with a recipe for medieval fig potage and then, when I got my hands on some fresh figs, these stuffed figs.

The recipe comes from a manuscript (MS Buhler 19) held in the Morgan Library in New York and published by Terence Scully under the name The Neapolitan Recipe Collection. The cookbook was written by an unknown author, about the second half of the 15th century near Naples but with a strong Catalan influence.

a page from the manuscript showing a larger heading above the text of the recipe. It is illustrated with a line drawing of what might be leafy stems in a vase.

The first page of MS Buhler 19 with a recipe “Per fare bona Piperata”, from the Morgan Library and Museum.

f. 63v Fritelle de Fiche Piene
Piglia amandole he pignoli, he pista molto bene – dico, che ogni cosa sia biancha – he pista insieme due bone fiche he un poco de uva passa; poi taglia un poco de petrosillo ben trito, he habi bone specie he miscola insieme; he se questa materia fusse troppo dura, pone insieme un poco de aqua rosada; poi piglia fiche belle he grosse he falli un buco dove sta el fiore suo he impele de questa materia; poi falle frigere in bono olio, adasio dico. – The Neapolitan Recipe Collection, pg 80

Stuffed Fig Fritters. Get almonds and pinenuts and grind them up thoroughly -I say everything must be white – and grind in two good figs and a few raisins; cut up a little well chopped parsley and mix in good spices; if this mixture is too thick, add in a little rosewater; then get fine big figs, make a hole in them where their flower is, fill them with the mixture and fry them in good oil -slowly, I say. – The Neapolitan Recipe Collection, pg 202

My taste tester and I agreed that the fried figs were good, and the filling was good, but that we weren’t particularly impressed by the combination of the two. Maybe with a bit more finessing, this could be a lovely addition to a medieval meal.

four cooked stuffed figs lined up on a wooden board

Neapolitan Stuffed Figs

1/4 cup pinenuts
1/4 cup ground almonds
2 dried figs, chopped
a small handful of raisins
a small handful of parsley, finely chopped
1/4 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves
Rosewater (optional)
4 or 5 fresh figs
Vegetable oil, for frying

1. In a mortar and pestle grind the pinenuts then add the ground almonds (or grind your own fresh), dried figs, and raisins. When it is turning into a paste, add the parsley and spices and a little rosewater, if necessary, to moisten it.
2. Take the fresh figs and cut holes in the base of the figs. Finely chop the bases and add them to the paste. Stuff the paste into the holes in the figs with your fingers.
3. Heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan and, when it is hot, fry the figs. Turn them so that they cook on each side and until golden and softened. Serve warm.

October 23, 2022 / 2 Comments

To Make a Sack Cream

brown wooden bowl filled with sack cream beside a pile of ornately patterned biscuits

In historical cooking, many recipes include ingredients that are unfamiliar today. Garum, long pepper, and amydon are no longer common in our kitchens, although we do use similar ingredients like fish sauce, pepper, and cornstarch.

One ingredient which often appears in early modern recipes is sack, a kind of fortified wine. Whenever I’ve come across sack in a recipe before I’ve always just substituted it with sherry or whatever fortified wine I’ve had to hand but when I recently found a bottle of Williams and Humbert’s dry sack I knew it was time for a deeper dive.

The term ‘sack’ starts appearing in English sources during the early 16th century but its origin is disputed. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests it comes from the French ‘sec’ for dry, but sack was a sweet and not a dry wine.[1] Sherry expert Julian Jeffs offers a more convincing etymology from the Spanish ‘sacas’ which referred to export wine.[2] This was a category that included sherry as well as fortified wines from the Canary Islands and Malaga.

But what did sack taste like? Jeffs says “It is difficult to say exactly what Elizabethan sack wines were like; they were certainly fortified, and the methods of making arrope had long been known, but they were seldom matured in the wood for more than a year or two. Even the cheapest wines sold today have to show at least two years’ maturation and the vast majority are older, but perhaps the very cheapest sweet olorosos are not so very far removed from sack.”[3]

Willams & Humbert sack, a blended sherry which is aged in oak casks for six years, is a little too fine then to be an exact substitute and a cream sherry might have been a better choice. Still, now I have a bottle of sack, what can I do with it?

To Make Sack Cream Take a quart of thick cream sett it over the fire and when it boyls take it of & put to it a peice of lemon peil & sweten it well with fine suggar, when it is milk warm put it into the bason you intend to serve it up in and put to it half a lemon juce & nine spoonfulls of sack stiring it in by little & little after that sett it by till ye next day & serve it with waffers round ye dish you may mill it with a chocolate mill & serve it in glases if you please

One popular recipe was a sack cream which was one of the many cream recipes developed in the seventeenth-century. Made from whipped or thickened cream flavoured with fruit, alcohol, chocolate, or spices like cinnamon these creams came to play a central role in the evolving banquet course which was a separate course of sweetmeats often served in private rooms or a detached banquetting house.[4] Stephen Schmidt suggests that the explosion in cream dishes at the banquet from the 1650s onwards reflected the shift from Italianate to French cooking in fashionable English households.[5]

handwritten recipe in a manuscript cookbook, 'To Make a Sack Cream'

Page 28 of the Carr Family Cookbook (1741-1753), Szathmary Culinary Archive, Univesity of Iowa Library Special Collections. Public domain.

I’ve made a chocolate cream before, from Jane Dawson’s manuscript cookbook, and it was thickened by boiling the cream and adding an egg yolk before frothing it with a molinillo. This recipe, taken from the mid-eighteenth-century Carr Family Cookbook also boils the cream but instead of adding egg to thicken it acid is added in the form of lemon juice to just slightly curdle it. The trick here is adding the lemon juice very slowly, and then refrigerating the cream overnight. I did not try frothing it with a molinillo, but it would be interesting to know what effect that would have. It makes a rich, sweet dip for serving with biscuits which is good in small quantities.

[1] “Sack, n.3,” in OED Online (Oxford University Press, September 2022), https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/169485.

[2] Julian Jeffs, Sherry (Durrington, UK: Infinite Ideas, 2016).

[3] Jeffs.

[4] Peter Brears, Cooking & Dining in Tudor & Early Stuart England, 1st edition (London: Prospect Books, 2015), 84–90; 519–79.

[5] Stephen Schmidt, “Italian Cooking: What, Exactly, Was the Tudor and Stuart Banquet?,” Manuscript Cookbooks Survey, August 2019, https://www.manuscriptcookbookssurvey.org/category/italian-cooking/.

Sack Cream

1 1/4 cups cream

Sugar, to taste

2 pieces lemon peel

1/3 tbsp lemon juice

2 1/4 tbsp sack or dry sherry

Bring the cream to a boil then take off the heat and add the lemon peel and enough sugar to sweeten to your taste.
Allow the cream to cool to just warm then add the lemon juice and sack bit by bit, stirring well between additions.
Pour into the serving bowl, then refrigerate overnight before serving with plain biscuits (pizzelle or something similar are a good choice). Grate over some nutmeg if desired.

a plate of waffle-like biscuits rolled into tubes sit piled in front of a brown, wooden bowl filled with sack cream

September 24, 2022 / 0 Comments

A 1930s Picnic

picnic table with cake and sandwiches and crackers

Photo by Lucas Garron

Back in California and with another wave of COVID-19, this year’s birthday was a quiet one with a 1930s themed picnic. For food, I leaned pretty heavily on the recipes from my Gatsby Picnic a few years ago but I swapped in a couple of new dishes (and of course a birthday cake) which I wanted to share.

Once again, all the recipes come from the amazing resource that is the database of fully searchable Australian newspapers on Trove.

First up, a new sandwich filling: cream cheese and gherkin from The Argus in 1936.

Use brown bread, spreading one side only with cream cheese mixed with very finely chopped gherkins.

This is as simple as can be to make, and definitely an unusual combination to get your guests in the 30s mood but also not bad.

macaroni salad in a plastic container

Picnic Macaroni Salad from The Townsville Daily Bulletin in 1939

3 cups cooked macaroni, 1 ½ cups diced celery, 1 ½ cups diced cucumber, 3 tablespoons minced onion, 2 tablespoons minced parsley, 3 tablespoons chopped capsicum, 1 teaspoon salt, mayonnaise

Mix the ingredients in the order given, adding just enough mayonnaise to bind. Chill thoroughly before leaving for the picnic. If a wide-mouthed thermos jug is used, be sure that it is well chilled beforehand. Cover the salad with waxed paper and lay crisp lettuce leaves on top before closing the jug tightly. This recipe makes 6 servings.

Note: You don’t need much mayonnaise at all, but I did end up increasing the salt because it was a bit bland. I actually really liked this which was a good thing because it definitely served more than 6.

pie in a pie dish on a checkered tablecloth

Tasty Pie from the Manjimup Mail and Jardee-Pemberton-Northcliffe Press in 1934

Such a very tasty but easy to make pie is made by mixing some diced ham or bacon with two or three well-beaten eggs and a very little milk, seasoning well and pouring on to a deep plate lined with pastry. Put another layer of pastry over the top and bake in a moderate oven until lightly browned. This is particularly easy to carry, and can be cut into conveniently sized sections to eat in the fingers if cutlery is not carried.

Note: This was a hit with my guests and was great served cold with some salad.

Tasty Pie

3 eggs

4 rashers bacon, diced

Salt and pepper (or use something like Adobo seasoning for a bit of extra flavour)

¼ cup milk

2 disks puff pastry

Beat together the eggs, diced bacon, milk and seasoning. Line a pie plate with one of the disks of puff pastry, then pour in the filling. Top with the second disk of puff pastry and bake at 200°C until puffed and browned.

cake covered in pineapple rings with cherries in the center of the rings

Pineapple Wheel Cake from The Richmond River Herald and Northern Districts Advertiser in 1932

This was selected as the prize winning recipe of the week in Brisbane: Melt ½ cup of butter in cake tin, cover with 2 cups brown sugar, spreading it evenly. Place 1 slice of tinned or fresh pineapple (cored) in centre of tine, on top of sugar; cute several other slices of pineapple in half, arranging them in circle round the centre slice, like the spokes of a wheel, rounded edges facing one way. If desired, fill in spaces with walnuts and cherries. Make sponge batter, using 4 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoonful baking powder, or self-raising flour. Pour over the pineapple wheel and bake in a moderate oven for 10 or 15 minutes. Turn out on plate upside down, and when cold spread with whipped cream.

Pineapple Wheel Cake

7 slices cored pineapple (fresh or tinned)

Maraschino/glacé cherries and/or walnuts

½ cup butter

2 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

Heat the oven to 180°C. Place the butter in a 24cm/9 1/2 inch springform round tin sitting on top of a baking tray (because the butter will leak). Put the cake tin into the oven just to melt the butter, then spread the brown sugar evenly over the base of the tin.
Place a drained slice of pineapple in the center of the cake tin, then arrange the other slices in a circle around the central slice. If desired, place cherries and/or walnuts in the gaps between the pineapple.
Make the cake batter by using an electric mixer to beat the eggs until frothy. Add the sugar and continue to beat until thick and fluffy. Sieve in ⅓ of the flour and baking powder then fold in gently. Repeat with the next third of the flour twice more until it is all incorporated. Don’t over mix!
Pour the batter on top of the layer of pineapple, then bake for about 45 minutes or until the cake is fully cooked. Run a sharp knife around the rim, allow to cool for 10-15 minutes then invert onto a cooling rack.

Note: this recipe worked (although it took longer to cook than the original said) and it tasted OK but it was incredibly sweet. This recipe uses 2-4 times as much sugar in the pineapple layer as most modern recipes and honestly this is way too much.

jug of red raspberry tea punch

Raspberry Tea Punch from the Melbourne Herald in 1938

MIX with sugar 1 breakfastcupful of ripe, firm raspberries, and leave for three or four hours for the sugar to dissolve. Crush the fruit and pass through a hair sieve. Add the resultant juice to 2 cups of fairly strong tea, then squeeze in the juice of 1 lemon or half a grapefruit, with 3 tablespoonfuls of strained orange juice. Just before serving add ½ pint of ginger ale. Serve with chopped ice and garnish with a few whole raspberries. As an alternative, a blob of icecream may be substituted in place of the whole fruit and the ice.

Note: This was probably the stand out recipe of the day, and so simple to make. I used ¼ cup of sugar to 1 cup of raspberries and followed the rest of the recipe as written although I added more ginger ale to make it stretch further. I’d recommend doubling the recipe if you have a group.

the author in a park, holding a pineapple cake and smiling

Photo by Lucas Garron

July 24, 2022 / 0 Comments

Making A ‘Flanc’ Of Greengages

One of the lovely things about being in back in California for the summer is fresh summer fruits. I’ve been picking blackberry and roasting plums in red wine and gorging myself on fresh cherries. And recently, I was able to get my hands on some greengages.

Greengages are a type of plum and, as the name suggests, a gorgeous green colour even when ripe. They’re on the smaller side, a sweet, tart mouthful each. Known in France as the Reine Claude, they’re hard to come by in California and even harder to find in Australia but absolutely worth it if you can find some.

greengages for sale in a market stall with prices per kg and per lb

Martinvl, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

I wanted to showcase these gorgeous plums with a historic recipe that wouldn’t cook them down too much. In the end I actually didn’t have that many recipes to choose from, in part because greengages were only introduced to England from France in the early 18th century and also I suppose because you could use greengages in most recipes that just call generically for plums.

Alexis Soyer, the Victorian celebrity chef, has recipes for greengage compote, small tarts, dumplings and the intriguing crusts of fruit in his 1850 edition of The Modern Housewife or, Ménagère:

Crusts of Fruit.—Put a quarter of a pound of butter in a sauté- or frying-pan, sprinkle a little sugar over, cut four or five slices of bread a quarter of an inch thick, three inches long, and one and a half wide, lay in your pan; take one dozen of greengages, open them in two, they must not be too ripe, lay the skin part on your bread, put a pinch of sugar in each, put it in a hot oven for twenty minutes; have ready a salamander or a hot shovel, and hold it over it for a few minutes, dish and serve hot or cold; the oven ought to be hot enough to give a nice yellow color to the bottom, which will eat crisp.

He also has a recipe for “flancs”

Flancs, with any kind of fruit, like a vol-au-vent, are more easily made, and are equally as good a side dish. This may be made of half-puff or short paste, and fill with raw cherries and some pounded sugar over: bake together. Greengages, apricots, or any kind of plums, will require a hotter oven than for flour only in it, the fruit giving moisture to the paste; if baked in a slow oven will be heavy, and consequently indigestible.

This is not the first time Soyer wrote recipes for a flanc, in The Gastronomic Regenerator (1846) he has a recipe for ‘Flanc à la Creme Pralinée’ which is for a tart filled with frangipane and almonds. Included in the chapter for ‘Entremets’, surrounded by pastry recipes and following directly after several recipes for fruit flans, at first this seems like a typo or maybe a variant spelling of flan.

But as Soyer explains in the Modern Housewife “AT this part of the dinner there are those dishes which are called Flancs, by which is understood, those dishes whose contents are not so large as the removes and not so small as the entrées, and the Receipts for which may be taken from either of those departments, with this difference;—instead of meat or poultry being cut up, it should be left whole: for instance, a loin of mutton, instead of being cut up into cutlets, should be served whole, with some sauce under it, and a duck, instead of being divided, should be left whole, with some sauce. It is also a great addition in the appearance of the table, and should always be served in a differently-formed dish to the entrées or removes; and are only required when eighteen or twenty persons dine, and four corner dishes are used.”

Sample menu for a two course meal for August from The London Art of Cookery by John Farley (1811) showing the four corner dishes that Soyer refers to. The ‘flancs’ are probably the tartlet and cheese cakes in the second course, and the chicken and French pie in the first course.

The term seems to be more related to the direct translation of the French flanc meaning side reflecting the layout of a meal served à la Française. Unlike in a modern restaurant meal (served à la Russe) where each course is served one after the other with one dish at a time to each individual diner, a meal served à la Française may still have multiple courses but many dishes are laid out on the table at the same time for each diner to take a serving of the different dishes. The layout, and especially the symmetry, of the different dishes was an important part of the meal and for highlighting the hostess’s skill.

Sample layout of dishes for the first and second courses from The Complete Economical Cook, and Frugal Housewife by Mary Holland (1837).

Sample two course menu from The Complete Economical Cook, and Frugal Housewife by Mary Holland (1837). Notice how the second course combines sweet and savoury dishes, and hot and cold.

In these meals, the centrepieces of each course would be placed that the top and bottom of the table, closest to the host and the hostess. These typically consisted of soup and fish in the first course and roast meats in the second course. These dishes could be removed once eaten and replaced by ‘removes’. Laid out around the main dishes during each course were ‘made-dishes’, also called entrées and entremets, which could be sweet or savory but generally became lighter and sweeter as the meal went on. Soyer’s flancs fit into this category as a kind of side dish, normally served cold alongside the more elaborate entrees and the larger meats.

Sample menus from The Cook’s Guide, and Housekeeper’s and Butler’s Assistant by Charles Francatelli (1863) show how seasonal menus for different numbers of diners were still made up of the same elements: soup, fish and roast meat in sequential removes served wtih entrees and entremets. The second course of the dinner for 6 people includes a Flance of pears and rice although unfortunately no recipe is included.

The problem with this theory is that the term flanc nearly always refers to a kind of sweet tart normally filled with fruit but occasionally even with sweet noodles, and it continues in use until the end of the 19th century when dining à la Française had been nearly completely replaced by dining à la Russe. Frederick Vine’s Practical Pastry published in 1894 has recipes for apples, gooseberries, greengages and apricots baked into tarts. A recipe for ‘flanc of peaches’ is included in both Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery (1896) and Harper’s Cookbook Encyclopedia (1902) while Mrs de Salis offers a completely different style of recipe in The Lady’s Realm (1897).

So, does ‘flanc’ refer to the type of dish and it’s place within the meal, or is it a sweet tart generally with a fruit filling in a raised crust? I’m not sure, and this isn’t the only thing about the recipes that is a bit of a conundrum.

Glistening fruit tart on a blue and white plate with a metal cake server and some sunflowers in the background

The Recipe

The version I made comes from Mrs Beeton’s The Book of Household Management (1861).

FLANC OF APRICOTS, or Compote of Apricots in a Raised Crust.

(Sweet Entremets.)

INGREDIENTS.—3/4 lb. of short crust No. 1212, from 9 to 12 good-sized apricots, 3/4 pint of water, 1/2 lb. of sugar.

Mode.—Make a short crust by recipe No. 1212, and line a mould with it as directed in recipe No. 1391. Boil the sugar and water together for 10 minutes; halve the apricots, take out the stones, and simmer them in the syrup until tender; watch them carefully, and take them up the moment they are done, for fear they break. Arrange them neatly in the flanc or case; boil the syrup until reduced to a jelly, pour it over the fruit, and serve either hot or cold. Greengages, plums of all kinds, peaches, &c., may be done in the same manner, as also currants, raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, &c.; but with the last-named fruits, a little currant-juice added to them will be found an improvement.

Time.—Altogether, 1 hour to bake the flanc, about 10 minutes to simmer the apricots.

Average cost, 1s. 6d.

Sufficient for 1 entremets or side-dish.

Seasonable in July, August, and September.

The basic recipe refers to two other recipes to make the pastry case:

1212. INGREDIENTS.—To every pound of flour allow 2 oz. of sifted sugar, 3 oz. of butter, about 1/2 pint of boiling milk.

Mode.—Crumble the butter into the flour as finely as possible, add the sugar, and work the whole up to a smooth paste with the boiling milk. Roll it out thin, and bake in a moderate oven.

Average cost, 6d. per lb.

FLANC OF APPLES, or APPLES IN A RAISED CRUST.

(Sweet Entremets.)

INGREDIENTS.—3/4 lb. of short crust No. 1211 or 1212, 9 moderate-sized apples, the rind and juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 lb. of white sugar, 3/4 pint of water, a few strips of candied citron.

Mode.—Make a short crust by either of the above recipes; roll it out to the thickness of 1/2 inch, and butter an oval mould; line it with the crust, and press it carefully all round the sides, to obtain the form of the mould, but be particular not to break the paste. Pinch the part that just rises above the mould with the paste-pincers, and fill the case with flour; bake it for about 3/4 hour; then take it out of the oven, remove the flour, put the case back in the oven for another 1/4 hour, and do not allow it to get scorched. It is now ready for the apples, which should be prepared in the following manner: peel, and take out the cores with a small knife, or a cutter for the purpose, without dividing the apples; put them into a small lined saucepan, just capable of holding them, with sugar, water, lemon juice and rind, in the above proportion. Let them simmer very gently until tender; then take out the apples, let them cool, arrange them in the flanc or case, and boil down the syrup until reduced to a thick jelly; pour it over the apples, and garnish them with a few slices of candied citron.

While making the filling is straightforward enough, the pastry is very oily and I had to press it into the tin instead of rolling it out. Then the recipe says to fill the raw pastry case with flour and bake it in order to blind bake it.This isn’t a technique I’ve seen before, but it seems to be common to several of the flanc recipes including the ‘Flanc de Nouilles méringuées’ (Flanc of Meringue-d Noodles) from The Art of French Cookery (1827) which is the earliest recipe I’ve found so far.

Recipe for Flanc de Nouilles méringuées from The Art of French Cookery (1827)

I was very nervous about this and wasn’t sure if I should put a layer of baking paper in the pastry first to make getting rid of the flour easier. In the end I didn’t, and it actually worked really well with the flour absorbing some of the oiliness of the pastry. Yet another example of how historical recipes often work if you just follow them! This made a very crisp pastry that stayed firm even when the quite liquid filling was put into it and was still crispy two days later. It’s definitely a method that I will be using again.

The filling itself is simple to make although I probably left the greengages in the syrup a little too long. You want them to change colour but not for the skin to start falling off them, it’s really only a couple of minutes. I then cooked the syrup down until it was starting to gel, testing it as if for jam. It will thicken a bit more as it cools, so don’t take it too far.

Overall, this makes one of the most delicious fruit tarts I’ve ever tasted with the sweetness of the syrup offset by the tartness of the greengages and balanced by the rich, biscuit-y pastry.

The Redaction

Flanc of Greengages

3/4 cups water

226g sugar

9-12 greengages, halved and pitted

226g plain flour, plus flour to fill the pastry case

57g sugar

85g cold butter, cubed

1.2 cups boiling milk

Boil the sugar and water together in a medium saucepan for 10 mins. Turn down the heat to medium-low and add the greengages. Remove the greengages after 2-3 minutes when fully yellow and the skin is just starting to wrinkle.
Continue boiling syrup until light gel forms (20-30 mins) then allow the syrup to cool.
Heat the oven to 180°C. To make the pastry, place the flour and sugar in a mixing bowl and rub in the butter. Heat the milk and add enough milk to bring the dough together into a smooth paste.
Butter a shallow pie dish and press the dough into the dish to make a case. Fill it with plain flour, then bake for 45 minutes. Use a spoon to carefully remove the flour and discard the flour. Use a pastry brush to remove any remaining flour, then put the case back in the oven and back for 15 minutes at 170°.
When the case is golden brown and crispy, but not burnt at the edges, remove it from the oven. Arrange the greengages in the case and spoon over enough of the syrup to fill in the gaps between the fruit. Serve warm or cold.

For more about the history of dining, see:

Flandrin, Jean Louis. Arranging the Meal: A History of Table Service in France. English-Language ed, University of California Press, 2007.

Gray, Annie. “‘Perfection and Economy’: Continuity and Change in Elite Dining Practices, ca. 1780-1880.” The Importance of British Material Culture to Historical Archaeologies of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Alasdair Mark Brooks, University of Nebraska Press, 2015, pp. 216–42.

September 26, 2021 / 1 Comment

Medieval Fig Potage

image of medieval style bowl with fig potage, topped with dried figs and raisins

One of the hardest parts of recreating historical recipes is making something when you have no idea what its supposed to be like. It’s less of a problem with more modern recipes which give measurements and clearer instructions, but with medieval and earlier recipes you’re often going in blind. That’s how it was with this early 15th century recipe for fig potage:

Fyge to potage.
Take almondes, and blaunche hom, and grinde hom, and hempur hom up with watur and wyn, and let hit sethe, and take fyges, and cut hom on foure, and hole raisynges, and do therein, and pouder of ginger, and honey, and serve hit forthe. (from MS Arundel 334)

Pottage is an old word meaning soup, stew or porridge. So what consistency should this be?

Other versions of this recipe in other manuscripts, like the late 14th century Forme of Cury, didn’t provide much help:

Fygey
Take Almaundes blanched, grynde hem and drawe hem up with water and wyne: quarter fygur hole raisouns. cast þerto powdour gyngur and hony clarified. seeþ it wel & salt it, and serue forth.

Often at this stage I would turn to recreations by other food historians and historical re-enactors but unusually I couldn’t find any of this recipe specifically, so I was going it alone and going to have to figure out all the proportions by guessing.

I knew that the ground almonds were supposed to thicken the liquid, but I wasn’t sure how much. In the end, I got a really nice thin porridge consistency when it was warm, but it thickened a lot more and very quickly as it cooled so I wouldn’t cook it for quite so long next time.

The flavour was really good, and it would make an unusual but very easy addition to a medieval meal, especially if you needed a fasting recipe. The dried fruit adds a lot of sweetness, so don’t add too much honey.

The Redaction

1/2 cup ground almonds (I bought ground almonds, but you can also grind blanched almonds in a mortar and pestle)
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white wine
~10 dried figs, quartered
1/3 cup raisins
1 tsp honey
Pinch of ground ginger

1. Mix almonds with water and white wine in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer, add the dried fruit and cook until it starts to thicken.
2. Stir in the honey and ginger and cook a little longer, until it is the consistency you want.
3. Garnish with some extra diced figs, raisins and/or a sprinkle of ground ginger.

medieval style bowl with fig potage

September 9, 2021 / 0 Comments

Fruit Damper for the Great Rare Books Bake Off

It’s time for the annual Penn State vs. Monash University Great Rare Books Bake Off where readers and cooks can support a side by making a recipe from the universities’ special collections. This year there are twelve recipes to choose from, from Wet Shoo Fly Pie to Lamington Cake. I figured I’d better go with an Australian recipe, as a matter of national pride and all. When I realised I’d never made damper for the blog, the choice of recipe was an easy one!

Damper is an Australian quickbread, traditionally unleavened and cooked in the ashes of the campfire. The earliest references come from the mid-1820s and damper is most commonly associated with people who are traveling or who are living and working in basic conditions in the bush.

“… we have no doubt that it [the harvest] will give the working family a rasher of good bacon, an excellent damper, and a copious draft of new milk…” [1]

The cook making damper, by Alice Peacock, date unknown. Courtesy of Library and Archives Northern Territory. Used under CC BY 4.0.

As settlements developed, people in towns could buy leavened bread from bakeries or could bake their own if they had an oven. Swagmen (itinerant labourers who carried a bedroll called a swag filled with their belongings), drovers (stockmen who moved cattle or sheep over long distances) and other people on the move didn’t have access to ovens or fresh yeast so they made damper instead. A lot of descriptions of making damper show how people made-do with hardly any equipment by mixing the dough on a sheet of bark, a sheepskin or the upturned lid of some luggage.

“At first we had rather a horror of eating damper, imagining it to be somewhat like an uncooked crumpet. Experience, however, showed it to be really very good. Its construction is simple, and is as follows. Plain flour and water is mixed on a sheet of bark, and then kneaded into a disc some two or three inches thick to about one or two feet in diameter, great care to avoid cracks being taken in the kneading. This is placed in a hole scraped to its size in the hot ashes, covered over, and there left till small cracks caused by the steam appear on the surface of its covering.”[2]

Over time, the making of damper has changed a lot. As late as 1929, it was still possible to argue that real damper couldn’t have baking soda added to it but in reality chemical raising agents like bicarbonate of soda, cream or tartar and baking powder made damper lighter and were certainly being used by the 1850s.[4]

“A stiff dough is made of flour, water, and salt, and kneaded into a large flat cake, two or three inches thick, and from twelve to eighteen broad. The wood-ashes are then partially raked from the hot hearth, and the cake being laid on it, is heaped over with the remaining hot ashes, and thus bakes. When cut into it, it exceeds in closeness and hard heaviness the worst bread or pudding I ever tasted, and the outside looks dirty, if it is not so: still, I have heard many persons, conversant with every comfort and luxury, praise the “damper,” so I can only consider my dislike a matter of taste. In “the bush,” where brewer’s yeast cannot be procured, and people are too idle or ignorant to manufacture a substitute for it (which is easily done), this indurated dough is the only kind of bread used and those who eat it constantly must have an ostrich’s digestion to combat its injurious effects.”[3]

It is also rare now to see damper cooked directly in the ashes, where it inevitably becomes dirty and ashy. At home, people use the oven but when camping damper is often cooked in the coals in greased aluminium foil or in a camp oven. Also called a Dutch oven, camp ovens are cast iron pots with a lid that can be used to cook food on an open fire. The fire is allowed to cook down to coals, the dough is placed in the camp oven (preferably on a trivet or some foil) and the lid placed on top. Coals are raked around the oven and a scoop of coals put on the top so that the heat is even around the oven.

watercolour painting of men between a tent and a fire with a camp oven for making damper

This watercolour sketch shows a camp from 1851 with a tent in the background. In the centre, one man kneels to knead the dough for damper, while a camp oven sits beside the fire ready for use. From ‘A collection of drawings in watercolour, ink and pencil: illustrative of the life, character & scenery of Melbourne 1850-1862. First series’, by William Strutt, courtesy of the State Library of NSW.

Damper also has an important history for First Nations people in Australia. New evidence from Madjedbebe, a rock shelter in northern Australia, shows that Indigenous people in Australia have been grinding seeds for about 60,000 years.[5] Grinding stones, microbotanical residues like starches, ethnographic accounts and oral histories all point to the important role that seeds and plant-processing played in First Nations foodways.[6] This is especially true in the arid desert areas of central Australia where seeds became a staple food, probably during the late Holocene.[7]

After collection, winnowing and grinding seeds with water, the seed-paste can be eaten raw or the paste could be cooked in the ashes of the fire to make seed cakes also called bush bread or, sometimes, damper. The technique of cooking seed cakes directly in the fire may have been something that European settlers learned from Indigenous people.

The arrival of settlers, who cut First Nations people off from some of their traditional food resources, and the development of the ration and mission systems which depended heavily on wheat flour meant that by the 1970s most communities no longer regularly collected and ground seeds for food.[8] Instead, damper made from wheat flour and raised with baking powder became common in Aboriginal communities.

You can see the two different damper baking techniques that I described above in two videos. The first shows Gurindji woman Violet Wadrill Nanaku making damper in the ashes of the fire where they puff up kind of like naan bread. The second shows Auntie Junie Pederson and Roy Wilson baking damper in a camp oven on a station in the Kimberley.

Image shows an open book with recipe for fruit damper on the left page and a two-color relief print in blue and red on the right page.

This recipe, taken from the Kimberley Cook Book: “some old recipes and some new ones” in the Monash University Special Collections, is from the same region in north-west Australia. I couldn’t find out much about the book, but the recipes were collected during the 1990s in remote communities. The book was edited by Marianne Yambo and is illustrated with linocuts by artist Jan Palethorpe.

The recipe itself is a pretty basic damper recipe, with no added butter or milk to enrich the dough, but in this case it is flavoured with some spices and plenty of dried fruit. I cooked it in a camp oven inside my oven, a technique often used for homemade sourdough to give more even heat distribution and to get a nice crust, but also a nod to the campfire origins of the recipe. It makes a very dense but flavourful bread that is best eaten slathered with butter while still warm, or toasted the next day if you have any left.

Fruit Damper

2 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

Salt

1/2 cup chopped dried fruit (e.g. cranberries, raisins, currants, apples, apricots)*

1/4 tsp cinnamon (add some other spices if you want, cloves are nice or some nutmeg)

Approx 1 cup water

Preheat oven and camp oven to 200°C.
Put all dry ingredients in a large bowl and stir to combine. Gradually add enough water to bring together into a supple dough. Turn out onto counter and knead for a couple of minutes until smooth.
Make the dough into a smooth ball and flatten slightly. Slash the top of the bread, if desired.
Carefully take the hot camp oven out of the oven, sprinkle a little flour on the bottom and quickly put the bread in the camp oven. Put the lid on and bake for approx. 40 mins or until the crust is slightly golden and the damper sounds hollow when you knock on it.

*use whatever dried fruit you have on hand, but I would say that some apricots are essential

[1] “Hobart Town.,” Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser, January 28, 1825.

[2] C. H. Eden 1872 in Edward E. Morris, Austral English: A Dictionary of Australasian Words, Phrases and Usages (London: Macmillan, 1898).

[3] Louisa Meredith, Notes and Sketches of New South Wales During a Residence in the Colony from 1839 to 1844, ed. Ure Smith (1844; repr., Sydney, NSW: National Trust of Australia, NSW, 1973), 67.

[4] “Making Damper,” Western Mail, February 21, 1929; Barbara Santich, Bold Palates: Australia’s Gastronomic Heritage (South Australia: Wakefield Press, 2012), 220.

[5] Chris Clarkson et al., “Human Occupation of Northern Australia by 65,000 Years Ago,” Nature 547, no. 7663 (July 2017): 306–10, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22968; S. Anna Florin et al., “The First Australian Plant Foods at Madjedbebe, 65,000–53,000 Years Ago,” Nature Communications 11, no. 1 (February 17, 2020): 924, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14723-0.

[6] Wendy Beck, “Aboriginal Preparation of Cycas Seeds in Australia,” Economic Botany 46, no. 2 (1992): 133–47; Richard Fullagar and Judith Field, “Pleistocene Seed-Grinding Implements from the Australian Arid Zone,” Antiquity, 1997; John Mildwaters, “Seed-Grinding Stones: A Review from a Mainly Australian Perspective,” The Artefact: The Journal of the Archaeological and Anthropological Society of Victoria 39 (2016): 30–41, https://doi.org/10.3316/ielapa.242662889512125; John Mildwaters and Chris Clarkson, “The Efficiency of Australian Grindstones for Processing Seed: A Quantitative Experiment Using Reproduction Implements and Controlling for Morphometric Variation and Grinding Techniques,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 17 (February 1, 2018): 7–18, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.10.036; John Mildwaters and Chris Clarkson, “An Experimental Assessment of the Grinding Characteristics of Some Native Seeds Used by Aboriginal Australians,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 30 (April 1, 2020): 102127, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.102127; Josephine Nangala et al., “Ethnobotany of Warrilyu (Eucalyptus Pachyphylla F.Muell. [Myrtaceae]): Aboriginal Seed Food of the Gibson Desert, Western Australia,” Economic Botany 73, no. 3 (September 1, 2019): 416–22, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-019-09471-2.

[7] Scott Cane, “Australian Aboriginal Subsistence in the Western Desert,” Human Ecology 15, no. 4 (1987): 391–434; Mike Smith, The Archaeology of Australia’s Deserts (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 197 especially; David W. Zeanah et al., “Diesel and Damper: Changes in Seed Use and Mobility Patterns Following Contact amongst the Martu of Western Australia,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 39 (September 1, 2015): 51–62, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2015.02.002.

[8] Zeanah et al., “Diesel and Damper.”

June 28, 2021 / 0 Comments

Two Medieval Fruit Purees

In May, in between lockdowns I was able to attend my first medieval event in about four years, and it has inspired me to finally post some of the medieval recipes I’ve been working on. When we camp at events in the fourteenth-century ‘village’ breakfast is always a problem. Evidence for breakfast is patchy during the medieval period.

Woman in medieval clothing stirring a pot over the fire, in a medieval encampment

We know that some people certainly ate in the mornings but with ‘dinner’ the main meal of the day eaten mid-morning it can be difficult to know if references to breaking the fast refer to a separate meal or simply the first time people ate during the day i.e. at dinnertime. The first reference to breakfast in English recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1463, when Sir John Howard recorded “exspensys in breffast” on a trip around Suffolk and Norfolk.[1] By 1478 the draft ordinance for the king’s household allowed for “a large breakfast” for the king, queen and anyone waiting upon them.[2]

Even for hard-core re-enactors, getting up at 5am to start cooking in order to serve the main meal of the day at 9 or 10am is a hard ask on a weekend. At public events, when one of the main goals is to show people medieval cooking techniques, it is also counter-intuitive to finish most of the cooking before the public have arrived on site. As a result, we normally eat our main meal later in the day, and our hungry peasants definitely require something to keep them going until then.

Then there is the issue of what foods to serve. I have searched high and low for breakfast in the late 14th and early 15th centuries but with limited success. The Franklin in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (written c. 1387-1400) loves a “sop in wyn” in the morning – this is bread soaked in wine, possibly sweetened and spiced. The edition of household accounts of Dame Alice de Bryene from 1412-1413 translated by Marian Dale lists breakfast as a separate meal every day[3]. The accounts for breakfast are not separated from the other meals, but daily lists of ingredients suggest it would have been made up of bread, fish (fresh and preserved), meat, and ale/wine.

Across the 14th and 15th centuries, the most commonly mentioned foods for breakfast include salt fish, bread, beer and cheese. Fish and beer might work for some people but it is a hard sell for modern tastebuds, and difficult to make work for the range of modern dietary requirements we have on site.

One of the ways we deal with this is to make 14th century recipes that are more familiar as breakfast to people today, even though they were not necessarily eaten as breakfast in the past. This can include things like tostees dorees (often interpreted as an early version of French toast), pancakes, gruel or porridge.

Pour faire Tostees dorees, prenez du pain blanc dur et le trenchiez par tostees quarrees et les rostir ung pou sur le grail; et avoir moyeulx d’oeufz batuz et les envelopez tres bien dedans iceulx moyeulx; et avoir de bon sain chault et les dorer dedans sur le feu tant qu’elles soient belles et bien dorees et puis les oster de dedans la paelle et mettez es platz, et du succre dessus.[4] – Le Viandier de Taillevant (from a 15^th century version, but the original was written c. 1300)

To make golden toasts, take hard white bread and slice it into squares and toast it a bit on a grill, and have beaten egg yolks and coat the toasts well. And have good fat hot and cook them in it on the fire until they are beautiful and golden, and then take them out of the pan and put them on plates, with sugar on top.

All of these dishes can also be livened up a bit with accompaniments. I’ve been playing around with some different fruit dishes to make breakfasts more interesting and to give some variation. Below you can see medieval crespes (crispy pancakes) with the chardewardon.

pancakes with pear puree on a shallow plate with a spoon

The Recipes

I’ve picked two recipes for stewed fruit to play around with. The nice thing about these is that they are very easy, but also scalable and pretty flexible when it comes to the type of sweetener, thickener and spices.

The first recipe for chardewardon, comes from a mid-fifteenth-century cookbook but appears in a number of versions in different texts. I have made it as a kind of applesauce, but with pears, so it is still quite runny. Some of the other versions mention cooking it in a coffin (pastry crust) to make a kind of pie, or making it like chardequince which is commonly understood to be more like quince paste, so there are lots of different ways you could make this. I made this a little too sweet, so have reduced the amount of sugar and honey here but sweeten it to taste.

Chardewardon – Take Pere Wardonys, an sethe hem in Wyne or in fayre water; þan take an grynd in a morter, an drawe hem þorwe a straynoure wyth-owte ony lycoure, an put hem in a potte with Sugre and clarifiyd hony, an Canel y-now, an lete hem boyle; þan take it fro þe fyre, an let kele, an caste þer-to ȝolkys of Raw eyroun, tylle it be þikke; & caste þer-to pouder Gyngere y-now, an serue it in manere of Fysshe;*. [For Rys; see Douce MS. No. 53, and the end of this recipe. A. also reads fische.] an ȝif if it be in lente, lef þe ȝolkys of Eyroun, & lat þe remenaunt boyle so longe tylle it be þikke, as þow it had be temperyd wyth þe ȝolkys, in þe maner of charde quynce; an so serue hem in maner of Rys.[5]

Take warden pears, and boil them in wine or in fair water; then take and grind them in a mortar, and strain them through a sieve without any liquid, and put them in a pot with sugar and clarified honey and enough cinnamon, and let them boil. Then take it from the fire and let it cool, then add raw egg yolks, till it be thick, and cast thereto powdered ginger, and serve it in the manner of fish [this seems to be a mistake, because the recipe continues with how to make it during lent and instructs you to serve it in the manner of rice]. And if it be in Lent, leave out the egg yolks, and let the remaining boil so long that it it is thick, as though it had been tempered with the egg yolks, in the manner of chardequince, and so serve it in the manner of rice.

chardewardon (spiced pear puree) in a wooden bowl with a spoon.

For the second recipe, I chose a potage of prunes from Harley MS 5401 which is another fifteenth century manuscript with copies of fourteenth century recipes. Even though it is called potage of prunes, the instruction to rub/squeeze them well to wring out the juice makes it clear that we are dealing with plums and not prunes (dried plums) in the modern sense of the word. This came out beautifully, and had a lovely tartness to it in addition to the gorgeous colour. I will definitely be making this again.

Potage of Prunes. Recipe prunes & wesh þam clene & frote þem wele in a cop tyll þe juyse be wele wrong oute; þan do it in a pot & put þerto whyte grece & hony or sugure, & boyle it togyder, & þyk it with þe floure of rise or of wastylls. And when it is sothen dress it up in dyshys, & cast þeron powdyr of galingal, & serof it forth.[6]

Stewed Prunes. Take plums and wash them clean, and rub them well in a cup until the juice is well wrung out; then put it in a pot and put thereto white grease and honey or sugar, and boil it together, and thicken it with rice flour or breadcrumbs. And when it is softened put it into dishes, and cast thereon powdered galangal, and serve in forth.

bowl of stewed plums with a spoon

[1] “Breakfast, n.,” in OED Online (Oxford University Press), accessed June 28, 2021, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/22928.

[2] Alec Reginald Myers, The Household of Edward IV (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959), 204.

[3] Vincent B. Redstone, ed., The Household Book of Dame Alice de Bryene of Acton Hall, Suffolk : September 1412 to September 1413, with Appendices, trans. Marian Dale (Bungay: Paradigm, 1984), http://archive.org/details/householdbookofd0000unse.

[4] Thomas Gloning, “Taillevent, Viandier (Manuscrit du Vatican),” Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, August 20, 2000, https://www.uni-giessen.de/fbz/fb05/germanistik/absprache/sprachverwendung/gloning/tx/vi-vat.htm.

[5] Thomas Austin, Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books : Harleian MS. 279 (Ab 1430), & Harl. MS. 4016 (Ab. 1450), with Extracts from Ashmole MS. 1439, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS. 55 (London: Published for the Early English Text Society by N.T. Trubner & Co, 1888), 12, http://name.umdl.umich.edu/CookBk.

[6] Sam Wallace, “MS Harley 5401,” Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, September 4, 2011, https://www.uni-giessen.de/fbz/fb05/germanistik/absprache/sprachverwendung/gloning/harl5401/MS_Harley_5401_body_annotated.htm.

The Redactions

Chardewardon

1 pear

Enough white wine to simmer

1 tsp honey

1 tsp sugar

1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon, or to taste

1 egg yolk

1/4 tsp ground ginger, or to taste

Peel, core and chop the pear then simmer it in just enough white wine to cover it. When it is very soft, mash it in a mortar then push it through a sieve (or use a food mill). Put back in the saucepan with honey and sugar to taste (I would start with about 1 tsp of each and go from there), and ground cinnamon, bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool (you don’t want to scramble the egg), then whisk in the egg yolk. Return it to the heat and cook gently until it is as thick as applesauce, then stir in the ground ginger.

Stewed Plums

5 plums, ripe but still tart

A large knob of butter

1 tbsp honey (ish) (or sugar)

2 tsp riceflour (ish) (or breadcrumbs)

Ground galangal and/or cinnamon/cloves/ginger

Wash the plums, then cut them in half and remove the stones. Mash the plums as best you can, then put them with their juice into a pot and add the butter and honey. Boil it together until the plums are very soft and falling apart (continue mashing as you go). Take a little bit of the liquid and whisk it into the rice flour, then stir this mixture into the rest of the plums. Bring to the boil and allow to thicken slightly. Season to taste with the spices you are using.

October 15, 2020 / 1 Comment

Virtual Gatsby Summer Afternoon Picnic

Every September the Art Deco Society of California hosts the Gatsby Summer Afternoon but even though I’ve been living in the Bay Area for the last few years I’ve never made it to one of these huge art deco themed picnics. This year, because of COVID-19, there was a Virtual Gatsby Summer Afternoon which meant that we could run a scaled-down version of our own. We had a great time with some of the neighbours, and won best small picnic!

Being back in Australia, I went with an Australian 1930s theme and nearly all the recipes were recommended for picnics in Australian newspapers during the 30s. Some were surprise hits (cream cheese and walnut sandwiches anyone?) but others like the beetroot mould, not so much.

These vintage recipes are a super easy way to get started with historical cooking, and are easy to add into everyday life, but make a really impressive collection when you make a few together. You could also try this recipe for chicken picnic patties that I’ve made before, and read a little about the tradition of picnics in Australia too. If you feel inspired to make some, leave a comment to let me know how it goes! And to get you in the spirit, try listening to this Balboa playlist by John Bell while cooking and/or picnic-ing!

Try some of these recipes and you can have a delightful picnic, just like this stylish 1930s family. Picnic Delights! 1935, The Australian Women’s Weekly (1933 – 1982), 2 November, p. 35. ,[Public Domain] via Trove.

The Recipes

Cheese Paste Sandwiches from the Launceston Examiner, 11 Dec 1935

“Cheese Paste. – ¼ lb. Butter, ½ lb. cheese grated, 3 eggs, 2 tablespoons milk, cayenne pepper. Method: Put butter and milk in saucepan and melt, add cheese, do not stir until cheese is melted. Add eggs well beaten and cayenne. Stir until it thickens, but do not let the mixture boil. Put into jars and cover with oil paper and keep in cool place. Serve hot or cold, spread on biscuits, in sandwiches, or on pastry.”

Notes: Like most of the recipes here, I scaled this down since I was making a lot of different recipes. I used 57g butter, 113.5g grated cheddar cheese, 1.5 eggs, 1 tbsp milk, and a pinch of cayenne. Make this the day before you want to eat the sandwiches, and put it in a little jar or ramekin and allow it to set in the fridge. To make the actual sandwiches, spread the paste on lightly buttered bread and if you want you can cut the crusts off. We had plenty of leftovers, and ate it on toast.

Cucumber Sandwiches from the Yackandandah Times, 3 Oct 1930

“Cucumber Sandwich. – Spread some bread and butter with very thin slices of cucumber and a little thick cream mixed with salad dressing.”

Notes: for the salad dressing recipe see below. These were simple but delicious!

Walnut and Cheese Sandwiches from the Yackandandah Times, 3 Oct 1930

“Walnut and Cheese Sandwich. – Cut some slices of thinly-buttered bread, and spread them with a good layer of cream cheese, followed by a thick layer of nuts chopped into small pieces, add a little salt and press the bread together.”

Notes: I didn’t expect much of these, but was really pleasantly surprised and they were the first thing to disappear.

Cheese Biscuits from the Melbourne Age, 27 Nov 1937

“Take ½ oz. butter, 1 oz. flour, ½ oz. grated cheese, salt, pepper and a dash of cayenne pepper. Rub the butter lightly into the flour, then add the grated cheese and seasonings. Make this into a stiff paste with cold water, then roll out on a floured board. Cut into rounds with a two-inch pastry cutter. Brush the biscuits over with beaten egg, and bake in a moderate oven.”

Notes: I doubled this recipe and actually could easily have made more, these were my favourites on the day. They’re basically really cheesy little crackers. I used 28g butter, 28g grated cheddar, 56g flour, a little salt, pepper and cayenne, and enough cold water to bring the dough together. Bake them until golden at around 180°C.

Mayonnaise of Eggs from The Australian Women’s Weekly, 2 Nov 1935

“Hard-boiled eggs, lettuce, mayonnaise or salad dressing.

Shell eggs; cut in half; shred the lettuce finely and place a little in paper souffle-cases. Arrange an egg on the bed of lettuce. Pack in box. Carry mayonnaise in cardboard screw-top container. When you arrive at destination a little mayonnaise can be poured over the egg.”

Notes: It wouldn’t be a vintage picnic without a slightly disturbing mayonnaise recipe. This one couldn’t be simpler, and looks great in little paper muffin cases if you don’t have souffle cups on hand.

Beetroot Mould from The Australian Women’s Weekly, 2 Nov 1935

“One bunch beetroot, water, a little vinegar, 6 cloves, powdered gelatine, salt and mustard, cayenne.

Prepare beetroot by washing it well and leaving the stalks on. Do not cut it in any way or prick it, otherwise it bleeds. Put the beetroot into a large saucepan of boiling, salted water and boil till tender. Drain in a colander. When cold, remove the skin and cut into thin slices. Take one piece of beetroot before cooking, peel it, and boil it in vinegar and water to which salt, cayenne, mustard and cloves have been added. The object of peeling is to extract the color, making the liquid red. Strain it, and to every cupful of liquid add one dessertspoon of gelatine. Stir till well dissolved. Line a wetted mould with the cooked beetroot. Pour in liquid and leave on ice till set. Turn out in the usual way and serve with cold meat.”

Notes: this was so bad it was basically inedible but if you want to give it a go yourself boil 3 whole beets in salted water until tender, drain and cool before peeling and slicing thinly. Boil a fourth, peeled, beet in 1 ½ cups water, 1 cup vinegar, 6 cloves, 1 tsp mustard powder, ½ tsp cayenne pepper and a little salt. Measure the liquid, and sprinkle on one dessertspoonful of gelatine for every 250ml of liquid, stir to dissolve. Line a wetted ring mould with the sliced beetroot and gently pour the liquid on top. Leave in the fridge to set overnight, then dip the mould briefly in a sinkful of hot water to loosen before turning out onto a plate (just a second or two should do it, don’t leave it too long or you will dissolve the jelly!).

I did use mustard powder instead of mustard, but think that it probably should have been English style mustard or something similar. The cayenne and vinegar flavours are very strong so you could certainly reduce the amount of cayenne. Possibly it would be slightly better if served with a fatty cold meat, but I doubt it would ever be good.

Potato Salad from the Melbourne Age, 27 Nov 1937

“Take 2 cupfuls of cooked potatoes, 1 tablespoonful chopped parsley, 1 teaspoonful chopped onion, ½ teaspoonful salt, a dust of pepper and French dressing. Cook the potatoes in salted water till they are tender, but not squashy. When cool, cut them up, add the parsley, and moisten with the dressing. Season with salt and pepper and toss together lightly. Sprinkle with the onion, and stand in a cool place till they are very cold. This can quite easily be packed in a billy for a picnic.”

Notes: this was delightful, with a light dressing unlike creamy potato salads which are so common now. I made the dressing by combining ½ cup olive oil, ¹⁄₆ cup red wine vinegar, ½ tsp icing sugar and some salt and pepper in a small jar. Use new potatoes if you can get them.

Cucumber Boats from the Hobart Voice, 20 Feb 1937

“Take three cucumbers, 2 or 3 tomatoes, ½ cup chopped celery, 1 teaspoon chopped shallots, lettuce, salad dressing. Chill cucumbers and tomatoes. Peel the cucumbers and cut them into halves, lengthwise, without breaking them. Scald and skin the tomatoes and cut into dice or cubes, drain off the juice. Mix the cucumber pulp, the tomatoes, and the chopped celery, and add a little salt and pepper to flavor. Fill the cucumber halves with this, and pile high. Arrange them on a bed of crisp lettuce leaves. Garnish with curls of celery or some water cress, and serve with a salad dressing.”

Notes: these would be quite a fun thing for kids to help make, and for older kids you can set them to making the celery curls to garnish the plate. I used two small Lebanese cucumbers, and you scoop out the seeds in the center before piling them high with filling.

Epicurean Fruit Salad from the Launceston Examiner, 11 Dec 1935

“Peel, prepare and dice apple, pear, orange, ½ grapefruit, pineapple, ½ stalk white celery, walnuts cut into dice. Mix all these fruits together lightly. Arrange on lettuce leaves, garnish with a cherry. Serve with a cream salad dressing to which has been added 1 tablespoon whipped cream. – Mrs. H. A. Beasley, Upper Melbourne-street, Launceston.”

Notes: this is a kind of sweet/savoury fruit salad and I wasn’t sure how it would go, especially with salad dressing but it was actually very pleasant.

Cream Salad Dressing from the Williamstown Chronicle, 8 Feb 1936

“One tablespoon flour, 1 ½ tablespoons butter, 1 egg, ¾ cup milk, salt, cayenne, 1 teaspoon mustard, 1 ½ tablespoons sugar, ¾ cup vinegar. Mix all dry ingredients. Add beaten egg, milk, and butter. Cook over boiling water till mixture thickens, then add vinegar gradually, stirring constantly. Strain and cool.”

Notes: this was also surprisingly good, with a nice tanginess to it. Cook it in a bain marie, and keep a careful eye on it because the bottom will thicken faster than the rest so you need to keep whisking it to avoid lumps.

Almond Biscuits from the Western Argus, 19 Sep 1933

“You will like these biscuits to take with you on your picnics. Cream together ¼ lb. of butter and ¼ lb. of caster sugar. Stir in two well-whisked eggs and gradually add 6 oz. of self-raising flour, a pinch of salt, and ¼ lb. of ground almonds.

Mix well together until a stiff paste is formed. If too moist add a little more flour. Roll out about ¼ in. thick on a well-floured board, cut into small rounds of fancy shapes, put on flat greased tins, brush over with a little beaten egg and milk, and sprinkle with chopped blanched almonds.

Bake in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Leave the biscuits on the tins for a little while after taking out of the oven, or they are liable to break when removed.”

Notes: I used 113g butter, 113g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 170g self-raising flour, a pinch of salt, 113g ground almonds and some chopped, blanched almonds. These were pretty plain, but good.

Washington Sponge Cake from The Tribune, 5 Nov 1937

“This Washington sponge cake is made with ingredients as follows: 1 ¼ cups sifted cake flour; 1 ¼ teaspoons double-acting baking powder; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup sugar; 1 tablespoon grated orange rind; 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk; ¼ cup orange juice; ¼ cup water; raspberry jam. Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift together three times. Add ½ cup sugar and orange rind to eggs, and beat with rotary egg beater until thick and lemon-colored; add remaining sugar gradually, beating very thoroughly; then add orange juice and water. Add flour gradually, beating with rotary egg beater until smooth. Bake in two ungreased 9 inch layer pans in moderate oven (350 degrees F.) 30 minutes or until done. Invert on rack until cakes are cold. Spread jam between layers. Sift powdered sugar over top.”

Notes: I thought this recipe was from an Australian newspaper, but it turns out it’s actually from a newspaper based in the Philippines. The main change I made was to grease and line the base of the two pans because I didn’t want to risk them sticking. The cake was good, but very sweet. It might help to add a layer of whipped cream on top of the jam between the layers, in order to cut some of the sweetness. Sift over icing sugar to serve.

Pineapple Julep from Good Drinks by Ambrose Heath, first published 1939

“Peel, slice, and cut up a ripe Pineapple into a glass bowl, add the juice of two Oranges, a gill of Raspberry syrup, a gill of Maraschino, a gill of old Gin, a bottle of sparkling Moselle and about a pound of shaven ice. Mix and serve.”

Notes: warning, this is pretty potent stuff! I made a basic simple syrup with some raspberries, then sieved it to remove the seeds. A gill is about 120ml, so I used half a cup of syrup, half a cup of cherry liqueur, half a cup of gin, ½ a pineapple, 2 oranges, and a bottle of prosecco. Mix and add plenty of ice. I also threw in some borage flowers since I had them and they’re so pretty in drinks.

September 17, 2020 / 0 Comments

Recipes from Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery

Like many others, baking is providing a lot of comfort for me and my family as the world has been upended around us. But, now that I’ve run the usual gamut of quarantine baking from banana bread to sourdough, I’ve been taking a deep-dive into some historical cookbooks.

This week, that means taking a closer look at recipes from one of my favourite historical cookbooks: Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery. Even though the book is now named after Martha Washington (1731-1802), Karen Hess’ masterful research shows that like many Early Modern recipe books, the manuscript was passed down through several generations with new recipes being added over time. The majority of the recipes were probably copied in the first half of the seventeenth century, and the source they were copied from must have been even older.

The recipes in the book reflect this span of time, during which English cooking was going through considerable changes. Some recipes, like the one for green pease porrage (green pea porridge or purée) hark back to the medieval period in their ingredients and techniques, while others such as a series of gingerbread recipes show an evolution over time (to find out more about gingerbread’s development from candy to biscuit see these posts).

The Recipes

To Make Green Pease, Porrage

Take of ye youngest pease you can get, what quantety you please, & put ym in a little more faire water than will cover them. Boyle ym till they be tender. yn take new milke & make them of what thickness you please. let ym boyle wel together, yn take a little flower and wet it with milke enough to thicken it, & put it in with some spearmint & marrigoulds shread small. when it is boyled enough, put in a good piece of fresh butter, a little salt, & some pepper, If you please, & soe dish [it] up.

Green Peas Porridge

Cook 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen peas with 1/2 cup water until very soft. Mash the peas, add 1/2 cup milk and bring back to a simmer. Whisk 1/4 cup milk with 3/4 tbsp flour and add to the peas. Stir in finely chopped mint leaves and marigold petals. Add a knob of butter, season with salt and pepper and serve hot.

To Dress a Dish of [Mushrumps]

Take yr firm mushrumps & pill ye scin from them & scrape away all ye red yt grows on ye insyde of them, & pill yr stalks likewise. If you finde them firm, throw them as you doe them into faire water & let them ly 3 or 4 hours, then take them out of ye water & set them on ye fire in a pan. theyr own liquor will stew them. put in an ounion cut in halves and often shake them. As ye water rises, cast it still away till you finde them allmoste dry. Then take out the ounion & put in a little sweet cream yt is thick & shread in some time & parsley, & put in some grated nutmeg, & a little grose pepper, & a little salt, & soe let them boyle, shakeing them well together. & put in A piece of fresh butter, giveing them another shake, & soe dish them up. This is approved, but ye yolks of too Eggs with a [?] cold Creem and thick ym wth it.

To Dress a Dish of Mushrooms

Peel the outer skin off 8 portobello mushrooms, cook in a tiny bit of water in a pan with 1/2 an onion until soft and the pan is nearly dry. Remove the onion, add 1/2 cup of thick cream, some fresh parsley and thyme (or dried), freshly grated nutmeg, salt and pepper.

To Stew Wardens

Boyle them first in faire water, then pare & stew them between 2 dishes with cinnamon, suger, and rosewater; or wth ye same seasoning you may put them in a pie & bake them

Stewed Pears

Simmer 4 firm pears (wardens if you can get them) in water until soft. Remove from liquid keeping 1 1/2 cups liquid. Combine the reserved liquid with 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cinnamon stick and 2 tbsp rosewater, bring to the boil. When the pears have cooled, use a sharp knife to peel them, then add them back to the liquid and boil for 5-10 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

Notes – this was still too sweet for my taste, I would reduce the amount of sugar next time

To Make Cheesecakes

Take 6 quarts of stroakings or new milke & whey it with runnet as for an ordinary cheese, yn put it in a streyner & hang it on a pin or else press it with 2 pound weight. yn break it very small with yr hands or run it thorough a sive, then put to it 7 or 8 eggs well beaten, 3 quarters of a pound of currans, halfe a pound of sugar, a nutmegg grated or some cloves & mace beaten, 2 or 3 spoonfuls of rosewater, a little salt. yn take a quart of cream, & when it boyl thicken it with grated bread & boyle it very well as thick as for a hasty pudding. then take if from ye fire & stir therein halfe a pound of fresh butter, then let it stand till it be allmoste cold, & yn mingle it with your curd very well; yn fill yr coffins of paste & when they are ready to set into ye oven scrape on them some sugar & sprinkle on some rosewater with a feather. If you love good store of currans in them, you may put in a whole pound, & a little sack If you please. & soe bake ym.

To Make Cheesecakes

Mix together 250g fresh cheese (ricotta would do, or you can make your own) with 2 eggs, 170g currants, 110g sugar, some grated cloves, nutmeg and mace, a pinch of salt and 1 tbsp rosewater. Bring 500ml cream to the boil, then stir in 3 handfuls of fresh breadcrumbs and cook until it thickens. Stir 115g butter into the cream and bread mixture and allow to cool before adding to the rest of the filling. Place in a pie case, or make individual small pies, and sprinkle with sugar and rosewater. Bake in a medium oven until the filling is just set.

To Make a Tart of Parsneps & Scyrrets

Seeth yr roots in water & wine, then pill them & beat them in a morter, with raw eggs & grated bread. bedew them often with rose water & wine, then streyne them & put suger to them & some juice of leamons, & put it into ye crust; & when yr tart is baked, cut it up & butter it hot, or you may put some putter into it, when you set it into ye oven, & eat it cold. ye Juice of leamon you may eyether put in or leave out at yr pleasure.

Parnsip Tart

Boil 3 parsnips in 1 cup water and 1/2 cup white wine until they are soft. Peel them and mash or blend them. Add 3 handfuls of breadcrumbs, 1 egg, 1 tbsp rosewater and 1 tbsp white wine, 3 tbsp sugar and the juice of half a lemon. Pour into a par-baked tart case, top with some small pieces of butter and bake in a medium oven.

Notes – skirrets are a white root vegetable, and hard to find now, but you could add them in if you had them. It’s possible to get seed to try growing your own if you have a garden. If you want, you can make a decorative top as well by cutting shapes out of a piece of puff pastry the size of your tart. This is baked separately and then laid on top of the tart.

October 6, 2018 / 0 Comments

Two Vintage Passionfruit Recipes for Using Up a Glut

Passionfruit flummery, recipe from 1939

I spent August at home in Brisbane and our passionfruit vine was loaded down with fruit. There were so many little bulbs of deliciousness that I racked my brain trying to figure out what to do with them all. That means, of course, searching Trove for historical recipes to test.

I’m not sure it’s generally very well known that Australia has a proud baking tradition (although people overseas do comment on the Australian sweet tooth) but many of Australia’s most iconic treats are baked: lamingtons, ANZAC biscuits, gems cones, pumpkin scones, damper, even pavlova.

While many of the baked goods were variations on European traditions, such as gingerbread, sponge cakes or scones, Barbara Santich argues that what makes Australian baking unique was the proliferation of variations.[1] She suggests that sweet recipes took up a much larger proportion of 19th and early 20th century Australian cookbooks compared to contemporary English cookbooks, perhaps two or three times as many.[2]

The warm growing conditions facilitated this experimentation; sugar was cheaply available, especially as the Australian sugar business took off, and fruit was abundant. Two tropical flavours, in particular, came to the forefront: coconut and passionfruit. While passionfruit is now most commonly used as a topping for pavlova, it was also used as a filling or icing for cakes, and made into jams, jellies and butters, puddings, slices, pies, biscuits, creams and flummeries.

Passionfruit flummery, recipe from 1939

The Recipes

The first recipe I decided to make was a 1939 recipe for Passionfruit Custard Slices. The slice, a rectangular slab of baked goodness that’s cut into slices, is a highlight of Australian baking. No country bakery is complete without vanilla slice – a thick layer of vanilla custard sandwiched between crisp, golden pastry. Passionfruit slice is a variation on this, with a passionfruit icing on top of the upper layer of pastry.

What makes this recipe different is that it doesn’t use a real custard for the filling. Instead, you make a white sauce which is then enriched with sugar and egg yolks. I was pretty wary of this, since it didn’t sound like it would be thick enough, or particularly tasty. However, because it’s not very sweet it does a really good job of balancing out the extremely sugary icing.

Passionfruit Custard Slices

INGREDIENTS: 1/2lb. Puff, rough puff or flaky pastry.

FOR CUSTARD: 1 tablespoon butter, 1 heaped tablespoon flour, 2 egg yolks, 1 cup milk, 1 or 2 passionfruit.

FOR ICING: 1/2lb. Icing sugar, 2 passionfruit.

Method: Roll prepared pastry square or oblong in shape, place on baking tray, brush surface with egg white, then cook in hot oven for 15 to 20 minutes, decreasing heat when well risen and lightly brown. Lift on wire cooler, and, when cold, split in two layers. Melt butter in saucepan, add flour and blend smoothly, cook for a minute, then add milk, and stir until mixture boils and thickens. Stir in sugar, egg yolks, and cook without reboiling the custard. Stir until cool, add passionfruit pulp or strained juice, then spread one layer of pastry with custard and cover with other layer. Mix sifted icing sugar with passionfruit pulp or strained juice, forming a smooth icing. Pour over pastry surface and when firmly set, cut into slices.[3]

Passionfruit flummery, recipe from 1939

Another staple of passionfruit desserts is the moulded jelly or pudding. A flummery is basically a jelly made with a substance such as cream or milk to make it opaque. They have a long history, dating back to at least the 17th century when it was made with oats or wheat, but have mostly disappeared now. Flummery still survives in some Australian households as ‘jelly whip’, a cheap, mousse-like dessert in which evaporated milk is whipped into nearly set jelly. This version from 1933 is even cheaper, and is dairy free, because it uses flour rather than a dairy product to make the jelly opaque.

Passionfruit Flummery

Soak 1 tablespoon gelatine in 1 cup cold water for 2 hours, then add 1 1/2 cups sugar. Mix 1 tablespoon plain flour with 1 cup cold water, the juice of 2 oranges and 1 lemon. Put all on fire together and bring to the boil, remove, and when nearly cold add the pulp of 6 passionfruit, and beat till thick and white.[4]

My flummery separated, I think maybe because the jelly wasn’t cold enough when I whipped it. It was still OK, with a layer of plain jelly on the bottom and then a layer of flummery with the texture more like marshmallow fluff or something like that. The main problem was just that the jelly was wayyyyy too sweet.

[1] Barbara Santich, Bold Palates (Kent Town: Wakefield Press, 2012), 193.

[2] Santich, 190.

[3] “PASSIONFRUIT,” The Sun, January 8, 1939.

[4] “Delicious Passionfruit Recipes,” The Northern Star, August 3, 1933.

The Redactions

Passionfruit Custard Slice

225g puff, rough puff or flaky pastry

2 eggs, separated

1 tablespoon butter

1 heaped tablespoon flour

1 cup milk

2 passionfruit

For the icing:

225g icing sugar

2 passionfruit

Heat the oven to 190°C. Roll the pastry into a square or oblong, place on baking tray and brush the surface with the beaten egg white.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, decreasing heat when well risen and lightly brown. Place on a wire rack to cool and, when cold, cut in half to make two layers.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and whisk to blend. Cook for a minute, then add the milk bit by bit, and stir until the mixture boils and thickens.
Stir in the sugar and egg yolks, and cook without boiling the custard. Stir until it is cool then add the pulp of two passionfruit.
Spread the custard on one layer of pastry, and add place the second layer of pastry on top.
To make the icing, mix the sifted icing sugar with the pulp from the remaining two passionfruit to make a smooth icing. Pour over the pastry surface. Refrigerate until it sets then cut into slices.

Passionfruit Flummery

1 tbsp gelatine

2 cups cold water

1 ½ cups sugar

1 tbsp plain flour

2 oranges, juiced

1 lemon, juiced

6 passionfruit

Dissolve the gelatine in 1 cup of the water, then add the sugar.
Mix the flour with the remaining cup of cold water and the orange and lemon juice.
Mix the gelatine and the juice mixture together in a saucepan, and bring to the boil. Remove the mixture and allow to cool. When nearly cold add the passionfruit pulp and beat it until it is thick and white.

Passionfruit flummery, recipe from 1939

References

“Delicious Passionfruit Recipes.” The Northern Star. August 3, 1933.

“PASSIONFRUIT.” The Sun. January 8, 1939.

Santich, Barbara. Bold Palates. Kent Town: Wakefield Press, 2012.