Food History

When I moved out of home I did a lot of overseas travel. When you can cook and you travel, everyone wants you to cook dishes associated with your native country. Some of the recipes in this section of my book of secrets (which now ought to be renamed my book of not many secrets) are because I love them (challah), some because I love making them (macaroons) and some because everyone demanded them (pavlovas). For most recipes, the person who gave me their version is written down – I’m going to include the personal name of the recipe-giver, just in case they happen upon these recipes. If you’re one of these people, it means I remember you fondly, even if we’ve lost touch.

Challah (traditional bread, for Friday nights –from Nancy)

Stir 1 sachet yeast in ¼ cup lukewarm water and let sit 5 minutes.

Mix 4 ½ cups flour, 2 tbs oil, 2 tsp salt, 2 eggs and 1 cup water together. Add the yeast mixture and stir well. Knead until smooth. Let rise one hour.

Thump down. Knead briefly. Break into three pieces. Braid.

Let rise one hour. Beat an egg yolk and brush the top of the load with it. Sprinkle with poppy seed. Bake at 350 degrees F for about one hour.

Coconut Macaroons (from my mother)

3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
2 tsp corn flour
2 cups coconut
vanilla essence
glace cherries to decorate

Beat egg whites until stiff. Add sugar in small quantities, beating well after each addition. Add cornflour. Beat over saucepan of fast boiling water until mixture begins to cook on the bottom of the basic. Fold in coconut and essence.

Place in small heaps on greased trays. Decorate with cherry.
Place in the lower half of a moderately slow over (160 degrees C) for c 25 minutes. Cool.

Pavlova (from my mother)

3 egg whites
12 tbs sugar
1 tsp vinegar
2 tsp cornflour
cream
fruit and other toppings

Beat egg whites until stiff and dry. Add sugar in small quantities, beating well after each addition. When sugar completely added and dissolved, add vinegar and cornflour.

Spread or pipe in desired shape on greased and cornfloured tray. Place in slower half of very slow oven (120 degrees C). Leave in oven with door ajar until cold. Fill with cream (whipped with sugar if you prefer it sweet) then top as desired.

It’s about time I opened my book of secrets. Yes, I have a book of secrets. The reason I haven’t mentioned it much is because, like all the best books of secrets, I had temporarily mislaid it. For at least two years I temporarily mislaid it. How this happened in a two bedroom unit is obviously related to it being a book of secrets and not a normal volume at all.

It chronicles some of the major developments in my own personal foodways and was what got me started in thinking that food is part of our history and is not just comprised of nutrition and taste and texture (or poor nutrition, bad taste and odd texture – so much depend son the cook and the culture and the training of the palate). I started it in 1977 and I began adding family recipes and foodways when I left home in 1979. About 50% of my favourite recipes are in it, and another 45% in my brain. I use cookbooks for the other 5%. This means that this old diary is entirely crucial if anyone were to look at my foodways the way I have examined my father’s mother’s family’s.

It’s also important because I didn’t start my scholarly interest with an historical approach. As I keep saying (because I like saying it), I am an historiographer by training, albeit one with some ethnography and archaeology and paleography and codicology. I care as much about how thoughts come together as what they give back to the reader from how they’re formulated as I care for the thoughts themselves. This means it’s important to me to know where a lot of little changes come from and how their expression changes. I always teach the development of how recipes are written to my students, which says something about how important it is to me.

To be consistent, it’s important that I share where I come from so you know my biases and also my favourite recipes (well, the ones I wasn’t sworn to deep secrecy on). I want to share how I read cookbooks and other texts with culinary information in as well as sharing the actual subjects I work with and my thoughts of the day.

If I spent hours writing long blog posts on the theory, it would send you to sleep. This might be good if any of you suffer insomnia, but it’s a tad dull. Instead, for the next few days (excepting Saturday, because I’m playing with time on Saturday) I shall give you a selection of recipes from certain periods of my life, starting from 1978. You can think it through yourself if you want to and discover how things have changed for me since my teens. If you don’t want to do the thinking, then you can just cook some simply wonderful recipes. Does that sound fair?

Many moons ago I wrote a post (which is somewhere in the archives, hiding from me) about the relationship between food and health in the Middle Ages. I love the thought that – if you follow the right principles – a feast won’t make you nearly as sick as when you don’t. Should I admit that I was foolish enough to try both a well structured meal and a poorly constructed one? Probably not a good idea.

Let me instead give you some principles of food and diet from ML Holbrook’s 1888 work. Or should that be a book by one ML Holbrook MD, author of Hygiene of the Brain and How to Strength the Memory? Whenever I see the word ‘Holbrook’ I think of submarines, because for some reason the very inland Australian Holbrook has a stranded submarine. Maybe someone should do a food history reading, sitting on the sub and reading from Eating for Strength, which is the source of the preface below? And isn’t the perfect state of agriculture in the late nineteenth century reassuring to know?

Quite obviously, though, the burning question is whether we should all take the grape cure?

I’m in a sarcastic mood, and the study of diet has changed in 120 years, but there are some fine sentiments in the preface, and it’s worth reading, with or without submarine.

“Preface

In no period of the world’s history has there ever been so deep an interest in the subject of foods as at the present. At no time since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden has agriculture and horticulture been so perfect, and the human race supplied with so many choice and nourishing articles of diet. And, also, at no time have so many been engaged in laborious researches on the nature of that which we eat and its relations to health and work. It would almost seem as if the time had nearly arrived when mankind would eat to live would feed themselves so as to nourish their bodies most perfectly and render themselves capable of the most labor, and least liable to disease.

The object of this volume is to present the most recent facts of science in a way to make them valuable for actual use in daily life. There is no doubt but man may double his capacity for work and for enjoyment by improving his dietetic habits. Many have already done this, and multitudes more are only waiting for the knowledge which will help them to do it. A thorough understanding of the different divisions of food and their right relation to the needs of the body is necessary, and this has been fully stated. Several new features have been introduced. To meet the requirements of that constantly increasing class who have more and more desire to draw their nourishment from the vegetable kingdom, carefully prepared and elaborate tables have been arranged showing just how much of each particular food one needs to consume in order to provide the body with the required amount of proteids, carbo-hydrates and fats.

These tables have been especially prepared for this work and are full of interest as well as being of practical value. Another interesting feature of the work relates to the cost of the different articles usually consumed, as for instance the cost of proteids, fats and carbo-hydrates in oatmeal, beef, mutton, corn, eggs, butter, cheese, beer, etc., etc. These tables are so arranged as to show at once which are the most economical articles for the table and which the most expensive, and will be of great value to all who would choose their food wisely, and also for those who desire to reduce the cost of living to a minimum and yet nourish themselves perfectly.

The chapter on the use of the apple as a means of preserving health and the one on the grape cure will, the author believes, meet a need long felt, as will also what has been said concerning the importance of the thorough mastication of our food.

The subject of drinks has also been treated fully, and a very large number of recipes for wholesome ones given. What has been said on this subject cannot fail to prove helpful to those who are in doubt on many points.

The directions for feeding young and delicate children have in practice proved most satisfactory.

The time is near when a knowledge of the principles of diet will be considered as important a part of our education as a knowledge of the multiplication table. That this little work may help to hasten this time is the sincere desire of the author.

M. L. H.”

PS Holbrook not only has a stranded submarine, it has a nice bakery.

For some reason today I keep thinking about writers and their food. I know this is because the whole authentic banquet for science-fiction convention thing began as a writers and their food thing. More and more of my speculative fiction writer friends became enthusiastic about the history side of things and it was totally inevitable that we would try for a Medieval feast. When that was a huge success, we had to try a Regency Gothic banquet. When that was also a raging success, we decided on this year’s theme. But it all started with foodie writers of fiction.

Speculative fiction is often described as ‘what if?’ fiction. “What if Celtic skins were green?” (in a book by Peter Dickinson). “What if mirrors were magic?” (All too many books, including one of my own which is slowly advancing in the queue towards publication.) “What if the world came to an end?” “What if teleportation was everyday?” I could line all the questions up and classify books according to their ‘what if’ and the books would probably line up vertically to reach the Moon. That particular ‘What if” hasn’t been done with ideas, as far as I can remember, but it has certainly been done with other things.

There are so many what ifs. I guess it was inevitable that a bunch of writers who enjoyed their food and were curious about the past would say “What if we actually knew what these things tasted like?” And it was equally inevitable that I said “But we do” and proceeded to prove it.

The thing is that we’re not the first group of writers to become fascinated with food. I might have to teach a course on writers and their food, one day. It would be great fun.

Alas, I’m still ill. In the absence of my brain, I’m giving you the preface to a cookbook. I had marked it down as one that deserved some commentary, but I don’t know if I can give you that tonight. (Isn’t it ironic that it’s a gastric virus that has made me so very exhausted?)

The book is The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-Cook and Baker by Parkinson, 1864. The title is much longer than that, to be honest. I love nineteenth century titles that try to edge over into a second page.

This is the preface to the American Edition. One day I need to compare other prefaces from other editions and find out just what the difference is. Not tonight, though. Tonight you get the writer’s comments, unadorned. Since lack of adornment includes such phrases as “Confectionary is the poetry of epicurism” which means my illness is not going to mean you suffer unduly.

“Almost every foreigner who visits this country remarks with astonishment the almost universal neglect of that art upon which, more than any thing else, depends the health and comfort of a people; and by many scientific men have most of the prevalent diseases of this country, especially the dyspepsia, been ascribed to the hurried, crude and unwholesome manner in which our food is prepared; of latter years, more attention has been paid to cooking; but the handmaiden of that parent art, confectionary, is still neglected and unknown, yet it is of little less importance than the graver branch referred to. Confectionary is the poetry of epicurism it throws over the heavy enjoyments of the table the relief of a milder indulgence, and dispenses the delights of a lighter and more harmless gratification of the appetite. The dessert, properly prepared, contributes equally to health and comfort; but “got up” as confectionary too often is, it is not only distasteful to a correct palate, but is deleterious and often actually poisonous.

In introducing to the American public the modes by which the table of hospitality may be enriched and adorned, we have consulted every authority, French or English, within our reach; but the basis of our little work is to be found in Read’s Confectioner, a late London publication.

Having for many years been connected with the oldest, most extensive and successful confectionary establishment in the country, we have been enabled to make from our own experience many important modifications and to introduce many additional receipts, particularly in relation to the various articles of luxury which the bounty of our soil and climate render almost exclusively American.

The volume has thus been increased in size, and we trust improved in value.

Trusting that our efforts to advance the popular knowledge of the art which has for many years engaged our attention, may meet with approbation, we present the result of our labours to a candid and indulgent public.

Chestnut Street,
Philadelphia.”

My mind keeps coming back to The Woman Suffrage Cook Book. I know I’ve given you the election cake from it already, but there’s another bit you might want to see. Let me start from the very beginning.

The very beginning in this case is the title, which is important to understanding why the book was put together. It’s The Woman Suffrage Cook Book, containing thoroughly tested and reliable recipes for cooking, directions for the care or the sick, and practical suggestions, contributed especially for this work. Edited and published by Mrs. Hattie a. Burr, 12 Wayne Street, Boston. In aid of the festival and bazaar, December 13-19, 1886. “Country Store,” April 21-26, 1890. Boston.

Women’s suffrage was more than the vote. It fitted the perceived role of women in society and when the vote was taken away from women in the various States, their roles diminished and their prestige suffered. The very first words acknowledge this, without being accusatory or sounding difficult.

“THIS little volume is sent out with an important mission. It has been carefully prepared, and will prove a practical, reliable authority on cookery, housekeeping, and care of the sick, especially adapted to family use. While many of the receipts are original, it is not claimed that all are so; but each has been thoroughly tested, and is vouched for as reliable by the contributor whose name is appended.

Among the contributors are many who are eminent in their professions as teachers, lecturers, physicians, ministers, and authors,-whose names are household words in the land. A book with so unique and notable a list of contributors, vouched for by such undoubted authority, has never before been given to the public.

Grateful acknowledgments are due to the kind friends,-many of them in distant homes,-who have so willingly contributed of their knowledge and experience for the accomplishment of this undertaking. I believe the great value of these contributions will be fully appreciated, and our messenger will go forth a blessing to housekeepers, and an advocate for the elevation and enfranchisement of woman.

HATTIE A. BURR.
BOSTON, NOVEMBER 25, 1886.”

I have an author interview for you. I carried the book to work today and read it on the way to the bus stop, then I read it on the bus, then I read it some more right until I got to class. Scott Gold has written a wholly entertaining volume devoted to his own experiences of eating meat. Along the way he manages to give useful advice on how to choose a good butcher, how meat ought to fit into a life (and he’s very scathing about quality) and a whole bunch more. It’s a US book, so his focus is on what is available in the US, legislation and animal rights, how hard rattlesnake is to fillet and other crucial morsels.

He throws himself so entirely into the experience of tasting 31 types of meat that the book (as I’ve found) is almost impossible to put down. I knew some of his lessons (quality not quantity; cooking counts; meat handling counts, not everything is equally edible) but that still didn’t prevent my copy of the book becoming rather battered in the 24 hours I’ve owned it.

The book is called The Shameless Carnivore, the author is Scott Gold and it was released today in US time. And no, I haven’t been paid to say nice things – I was given an advance copy of the book so I would know what questions to ask. No, you can’t have my copy of the book. Here, have this interview instead:

1. Could you tell us something about yourself and about your book.

Oh my - so much to say! I’m originally from New Orleans, so the love of food is basically written in my genetic code. I studied philosophy and languages in college as well as creative writing, and was working in the publishing business in New York, hoping to maybe one day write a novel (just like everyone and his cousin). Then, through a perfect-storm of serendipity, I got the opportunity to write a book proposal for a “carnivore’s polemic.” When I started writing about food — and especially meat — the passion flew out of me in a way it had never done with any other subject. So I decided to take my passion for carnivorism to its logical extreme. This meant a two part plan:
1) to examine the subject of meat philosophically, from all angles. It would be entirely too easy to write an anti-vegetarian screed, but that was never my desire or intention. As someone with an unabiding love of meat products, I really wanted to dig deeply into the subject of what it means to be an animal who survives on eating the flesh of other animals, from angles ranging from anthropological to dietary, historical (I’m a culinary history junkie), medical, ethical and spiritual, agricultural, environmental, you name it. And
2) to become the “ultimate carnivore” by trying to eat 31 different animals in month, and then every cut and organ of a cow. Along the way there were other adventures, mostly hilarious but sometimes poignant, that included hunting squirrels in Louisiana, attending the 24th annual Testicle Festival in Montana, and even helping a family farm butcher their cow for that year’s meat. It was all pretty amazing.

2. Did any part of your family food history inspire the book (anecdotes of the “No! Keep that out of your mouth!” type are the obvious, but I was thinking as well of maybe a particular attitude towards food eg an intellectual or emotional response.).

Again, it all goes back to being a native New Orleanian. Back home, food is an integral part of the culture in a way unique from any other American city — people adore food there, but not just the rich, and not just the fancy restaurants and haute cuisine. From a floor captain at a place like Galatoire’s or Commander’s Palace to the guy who collects trash on the side of I-10, everyone in NOLA has a love affair with the local cuisine. Sometimes that means a gorgeous turtle soup au sherry (a classic) — I made it from scratch for the book, and it took two days — or maybe just a muffaletta sandwich, chicken and sausage jamballaya, red beans and rice, or a roast beef po-boy swimming in mayonnaise and gravy. NOLA cuisine, as well as an ingrained atmosphere of fun (and, yes, maybe a little sin) is the ultimate bond of the people. Also, my mother is a wonderful cook in her own right, and used our family dinner table to experiment with different cuisines, everything from spiced lamb patties with couscous to chicken and tasso pasta, and everything in between. With an upbringing like that, winding up as a food writer was almost a foregone conclusion.

Great. I’m making myself hungry. Again.

3. Being Jewish myself, I looked at the description of the book and thought “If only I had the courage to do that, I could try all those Ancient Roman recipes.” How did the Jewish aspect affect what you did? How do you explain it/justify it/deal with it?

This is how I dealt with it: I didn’t. I’ve never kept kosher…being a lifelong, rabid omnivore, any sort of dietary restrictions (other than making sure that you try to keep a relatively diet most of the time) have always seemed crazy to me. In fact, by the time I’d finished the book I’d pretty much broken every dietary law laid down in Leviticus 11, in which the “ye shall not eat” category is filled with things that are spine-meltingly delicious. Oddly, locusts and grasshoppers are perfectly kosher, but I’ve never felt an overwhelming urge to eat them. Pork belly, on the other hand…

4. What is the meat you most want to see put onto modern menus (that isn’t there already)?

A great question. I have to say, unequivocally: goat. It has such a rich tradition in so many other cultures, and yet American goat consumption has been on a sharp, steady decline over the last hundred years or so. And this despite the fact that goat is every bit as delicious as lamb (though with its own unique flavors), not to mention that most foodies have little compunction about eating goat’s milk cheeses like chevre. But suggest to them a goat pate or maybe rack of goat, and suddenly they get all squeamish. This, to me, is utter lunacy. What is it about goat that’s so off-putting? Luckily, there’s a growing number of independent goat farms that now provide outstanding, humanely and organically raised goat meat, and I’m singing its praises every chance I get.

5. What is the meat you least want to see again and wouldn’t even feed your worst enemy?

Bull penis (or “pizzle”), hands down. Just unconscionably disgusting. Most everything else was great, though, especially all the savory variety meats like calf’s brains, kidneys, bone marrow (oooooohhhh), tripe, blood sausage, you name it.

6. Has the experience changed how you approach everyday foods?

It always surprises people to hear this, but I actually eat less meat now than ever before. Me: The Shameless Carnivore! After everything I’ve learned in my research, I’ve made a conscious decision to try to eat only truly splendid meat. Usually, this means that I have to pay significantly more for it, and hence have it in my diet a little less often. But I’d much rather eat vegetarian a few times a week if it means sitting down to a meal of truly succulent, humanely raised, grass-fed beef or lamb at the end of the day. And when you start to really consider your meat, to take it seriously, I’ve found that you actually end up enjoying it that much more.

7. Please, can we have a favourite recipe?

It’s too hard to pick just one, but please see my book for some of my favorites, including Crock-Pot Rabbit, Tibetan Yak Momos, Herb-crusted Rack of Lamb and more!

And now let’s find out what our esteemed writers say about wheat and wheat cookery during wartime. (more…)

Today and tomorrow are two parts of the same post. I was entirely fascinated by this particular book and thought you might be, too, but I wanted to give you a decent excerpt.

Writing during wartime (even at the tail end or just after – in the case of today’s book, obviously the preparation was done during the war) has a different feel to other writing. A country’s consciousness can change or there might be some restricted ingredients.

There have been many studies of this as regards to World War II, but very few relatively of how World War I affected the US. Published in 1918, C Houston and Alberta M Goudiss’ Foods that will Win the War and How to Cook Them is a lovely source for such a study.

The introductory bits are full of laudable intentions and how to translate those into changed eating habits. These days changes to eating habits are often about us and our health, sometimes about our carbon footprint, and very seldom how we can meet the nation’s military needs.

I’ve put it behind a cut, simply because (even cut in half) it’s long. I strongly recommend it as fascinating reading. The advice on breadmaking is particularly interesting. (I wish I knew why my writing was so formal today!)

FOREWORD (more…)

Tonight I crossed nikujaga with Irish stew for dinner. It tasted entirely delicious, but made me feel very guilty about warping history. I think the moral of that story is never to make Irish stew while you’re missing your Japanese friends.

The other thing I ate today was a test recipe for the Prohibition banquet. It was a rice pudding that just doesn’t make the cut. The flavour is almost divine, but the texture was so sad I nearly wept. I wasn’t sure about rice pudding on the menu anyway, so it’s gone. Well, except the last little bit, which is tomorrow’s breakfast.

To assuage my guilt and the recipe failure, I’m giving you recipes from 1838. There’s a surety and certainty about life in 1838 that is missing today. What’s also missing today is the level of adulterated foods for purchase in shops. We have occasional problems (cassava imported into Australia is an issue right now, for instance), but that’s all.

The book is The Virgina Housewife, by Mrs Mary Randolph. It’s from Baltimore.

What she called a drop biscuit, I call a biscuit. Tavern biscuit is also a biscuit in my book. It’s rather nice when Australian and US biscuit recipes overlap for a change. What this means is terminology overlap and that things are suddenly hotting up in the little collection of biscuit and scone recipes.

To make drop biscuit

Beat eight eggs very light, add to them twelve ounces of flour, and one pound of sugar; when perfectly light, drop them on tin sheets, and bake them in a quick oven.

Tavern biscuit

To one pound of flour, add half a pound of sugar, half a pound of butter, some mace and nutmeg powdered, and a glass of brandy or wine; wet it with milk, and when well kneaded, roll it thin, cut it in shapes, and bake it quickly.

To make nice biscuit

Rub a large spoonful of butter into a quart of risen dough, knead it well, and make it into biscuit, either thick or thin: bake them quickly.

Soufle biscuits

Rub four ounces of butter into a quart of flour, make it into paste with milk, knead it well, roll it as thin as paper, and bake it to look white.

Do you remember the book by Felicity Pulman - the first two parts of the Janna Mysteries? Perfect reading for teenage girls, lovers of the Middle Ages, lovers of mystery and anyone else who enjoys a good read? Well, she has kindly given me a copy to give away. Comment on any post by or about her by February 23* and you will be in the running. You want a link back to one of her posts? Maybe I’ll give it to you.

Make sure your comment has a valid email address.

*Launch date of the next book in the series, Willows for Weeping.

I’m in the mood for doh-re-mi. Or should that be dough-re-mi? I want to sing “Let’s start at the very beginning.” It’s a very fine place to start, you see.

Actually, I don’t have a beginning for election cakes. My research wasn’t quite serious enough to provide me with one. What it did, however, was give me the perfect place to start. The beginning place of most people who look into US food history. Yes, I’m talking about Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches by Miss Leslie (not for the first time, either).

Miss Leslie’s book is of undoubted importance, so hers is the first election cake recipe I’ll give you. I used the 1840 edition, for those who care about such things (I can’t be the only one who always notes down edition details, can I?)

Election cake

Make a sponge (as it is called) in the following manner: − Sift into a pan two pounds and a half of flour; and into a deep plate another pound. Take a second pan, and stir a large table - spoonful of the best West India molasses into five jills or two tumblers and a half of strong fresh yeast; adding a Jill of water, warm, but not hot. Then stir gradually into the yeast, &c. the pound of flour that you have sifted separately. Cover it, and let it set by the fire three hours to rise. While it is rising, prepare the other ingredients, by stirring in a deep pan two pounds of fresh butter and two pounds of powdered sugar, till they are quite light and creamy; adding to them a table - spoonful of powdered cinnamon; a tea - spoonful of powdered mace; and two powdered nutmegs. Stir in also half a pint of rich milk. Beat fourteen eggs till very smooth and thick, and stir them gradually into the mixture, alternately with the two pounds and a half of flour which you sifted first. When the sponge is quite light, mix the whole together, and bake it in buttered tin pans in a moderate oven. It should be eaten fresh, as no sweet cake made with yeast is so good after the first day. If it is not probable that the whole will come into use on the day it is baked, mix but half the above quantity.

There is so much talk around about the US elections. They’re going to be with us for most of this year, too. Rather than ignore them, I thought it would be fun to treat them as an adjunct to food history. After all, the US is probably the only country where the results of the elections affect the rest of the world so very much.

I’m not going to tally votes or discuss policies. I would like to, but this isn’t the right blog for that (I heard that sigh of relief from most readers – it was such a big sigh of relief that it crossed continents and oceans). What I’m going to do is sample various historic US cookbooks and find their recipes for election cakes. I might even find out what other politics emerges in those cookbooks, for the minority of you who didn’t heave a sigh of relief. Either way, we’re not talking modern politics.

I’ll be watching the vote count later in the year, because my best friend and I always do an online check of the world’s level of sanity. Here, though, you’ll find recipes and places where foodways intersect politics.

Politics and foodways have natural meeting points. Polling booths in Australia often sport a sausage sizzle, which is usually a fundraiser for a local school or a local community organisation. Parties and individuals fundraise with food and cookbooks and all sorts of exciting foodie things. If any of you have cookbooks sold at election time, please email me, and I’ll mention your book as part of this new series on election food.

Election food. There’s so much of it. Conventions can have food, and caucuses. Party meetings can have food and post election get-togethers. I can’t promise to explore all of these. I can promise the historical cookbooks and other curious stuff as the occasion arises. It’s going to be fun. Even if you hate politics, some of the cakes are scrumptious. Politics can bring happiness. Sometimes.

Previous part
Sample recipes

“There are many soups we have given in which cream is recommended; for instance, artichoke soup, bean soup, cauliflower soup, and celery soup. After partaking of a well-made basin of one of these soups, followed by one or two vegetables and a fruit pie or stewed fruit, there are many persons who would voluntarily remark, “I don’t seem to care for any meat.” On the other hand, were the vegetables served in the old-fashioned style, but without any meat, there are many who would feel that they were
undergoing a species of privation, even if they did not say so - we refer to a dish of plain-boiled potatoes and dry bread, or even the ordinary cabbage served in the usual way. Supposing, however, a nice little new cabbage is sent to table, with plenty of really good white sauce or butter sauce, over which has been sprinkled a little bright green parsley, whilst some crisp fried bread surrounds the dish - the cabbage is converted into a meal; and if we take into account the absence of the meat, we still save enormously.

The advice we would give, especially to young housekeepers, is, “Persuasion is better than force.” If you wish to teach a child to swim, it is far easier to entice him into shallow water on a hot summer’s day than to throw him in against his will in winter time. (more…)

This is a long post, and most of it is from a late nineteenth century cookbook. To add insult to injury, there are no pictures!

I’m giving it to you for all that, though you’ll get half today and half tomorrow, to make it a little more digestible. It’s a plea for quality of life, and the preface and introduction to a vegetarian cookbook. And it’s very, very interesting and contains so much that’s fascinating that I’m going to eschew comments and leave you to enjoy it.

We’ve had recipes from this book before. It’s A.G. Payne’s Vegetarian Cookery. A manual of cheap and wholesome diet, from 1891.

“PREFACE.

The present work, though written upon strictly vegetarian principles, is by no means addressed to vegetarians only. On the contrary, we hope that the following pages of recipes will be read by that enormous class throughout the country who during the last few years have been gradually changing their mode of living by eating far less meat, and taking vegetables and farinaceous food as a substitute. Where there are thousands who are vegetarians from choice, there are tens of thousands who are virtually vegetarians from necessity. Again, there is another large class who from time to time adopt a vegetarian course of diet on the ground of health, and as a means of escaping from the pains attendant on gout, liver complaint, or dyspepsia.

The class we most wish to reach, however, is that one, increasing we fear, whose whole life is one continual struggle not merely to live, but to live decently. (more…)