Food History

I promised my grandmother’s recipes and, after racking my brains to think what I should talk about tonight, I remembered my promise. It’s a pity I remembered that I had promised recipes, though, because I had just about decided that it was time to talk about the gabelle. Salt is important, after all. Anyhow, there’s world enough and time for a post on French salt taxes and their extraordinary effects on world history. Another day. If I remember.

The baked egg recipe is identical to a recipe that appeared in the 1920s in the US, which just goes to show that US cuisine and Australian aren’t so far away from each other as they sometimes look. The only difference between my grandmother’s recipe and the US version is that my grandmother’s follows the Jewish technique of breaking the egg into a cup first, to check for blood spots or embryos. I find it works best with the perfect rich tomatoes of high summer.

The main course of tomato and egg is so light and healthy that I’ve given a rather decadent dessert to match it.

Baked Eggs & Tomatoes
Allow 1 egg & 1 tomato to each person. Slice about 1 ¼ off the top of the tomato, scoop out the pulp. Break an egg into a cup & pour it into the tomato. Add a little butter, pepper & salt. Bake slowly until egg is set. Warm the pulp, season, and pour around each egg.

Caramel Custard
3 eggs, 1 qt milk, 2 oz lump sugar, vanilla essence. Make a custard with eggs and milk in a shallow dish, cooking it very slowly so that it will not curdle. Put sugar in a pan with a little water and warm until it is a dark coffee colour. Add vanilla. Take the brown skin off the custard when it is cold and arrange in a glass dish and pour the cold caramel sauce over it. Serve with cream.

This is the moment that far too many people have been waiting for. My hardworking group of testers and myself are about to embark on an epic voyage across the alcohol of a generation. We need to test quite a few cocktail recipes.

I don’t know how many we’ll be testing. It really depends on how many volunteers I have. I know we need between six and eight really wonderful drinks for the science fiction convention.

Why so many? It’s because the committee has fallen in love with the whole Prohibition theme and the bar area is being turned into a speakeasy the night after the banquet. This means the more recipes we can test, the better, so I’m asking for a whole new team of volunteers. All regular testers are entirely welcome to return, and anyone who has a desire to try drinks from the 1920s, well, now’s your chance.

There will, of course, be other illicit alcohol at the convention, but these cocktails have to be special. To make sure they are, what I’m asking is that individuals test a range of them. I shall take everyone’s favourites and then they’ll be tested a second time across more tastebuds. After that, they might be renamed. It all depends on how enthusiastic the committee feels after tasting much foul liquor in a very short time.

On Monday I shall email the first set of cocktail recipes. Anyone possessed of a vast desire to report on the value of hard liquor mixed with various other things, let me know just how many recipes you wish to trial and give me an email address. I promise not to be judgemental if you test more than three in a night.

I think we’re going to have fun.

Today’s biscuit recipes are from The American Economical Housekeeper, and Family Receipt Book by Mrs EA Howland. It was published in Cincinnati in 1845. For saleratus you can use baking soda, and everything else is pretty obvious. Is it equally obvious that I’m falling asleep at my desk? I hope not.

“17. Brown Bread Biscuit.
Two quarts of Indian meal, a pint and a half of rye, one cup of flour, two spoonfuls of yeast, and a table-spoonful of molasses. It is well to add a little saleratus to yeast almost always, just as you put it into the article. Let it rise over night.

18. Bread Biscuit.
Three pounds of flour, half a pint of Indian meal sifted, a little butter, two spoonfuls of lively yeast; set it before the fire to rise over night; mix it with warm water.

19. Tea Biscuit.
* Take one pint of sour milk, one tea-spoonful of saleratus, flour enough to knead up, a small piece of lard or butter, a little salt; roll it out, and cut it into small biscuits.

20. Light Biscuit.
Take two pounds of flour, a pint of buttermilk, half a tea-spoonful of saleratus; put into the buttermilk a small piece of butter or lard rubbed into the flour; make it about the consistency of bread before baking.

21. Rice Biscuit.
Two pounds of flour, a tea-cupful of rice, well boiled, two spoonfuls of yeast; mix it with warm water; when risen enough, bake it.

25. Rich Milk Biscuit.
Two pounds of sifted flour, eight ounces butter, two eggs, three gills of milk, a gill and a half of yeast. Cut the butter into the milk and warm it slightly, sift the flour into a pan, and pour the milk and butter into it. Beat the eggs and pour them in, also the yeast; mix all well together with a knife. Flour your moulding-board, put the lump of dough on it, and knead it very hard. Then cut the dough in small pieces, and knead them into round balls; prick and set them in buttered pans to rise till light, probably about an hour, and bake them in a moderate oven.

26. Butter Biscuit.
Eight ounces of butter, two pounds of flour sifted, half a pint of milk or cold water, a salt spoonful of salt. Cut up the butter in the flour and put the salt to it, wet it to a stiff dough with the milk or water, mix it well with a knife. Throw some flour on the moulding-board, take the dough out of the pan, and knead it very well. Roll it out into a large, thick sheet, and beat it very hard on both sides with the rolling-pin. Beat it a long time, cut it out, with a tin or cup, into small, round, thick cakes. Beat each cake on both sides with the rolling-pin, prick them with a fork, put them in buttered pans, and bake them to a light brown in a slow oven.”