Food History

On the 2nd day of Christmas recipes I bring you lots of plum pudding from Ideas for refreshment rooms (more…)

I promised you recipes from quite a different source. From teaching women how to be traditional, we have traditional women who demand their rights.

They proved they can cook by giving us volume after volume of fabulous recipes. They proved their politics in the title and the subtext of the books. The US was much later than Australia in getting the vote to women at the Federal level. This is rather odd, because US women were politicised early and actually had a significant amount of power at the time the US broke away from Britain.

Then it changed. From being ahead of the world, the US took a step back. (more…)

Are you entirely fed up with posts about fried food? I hope not, because I really want to do two more. I have lots more recipes, for one thing. For the other thing, there’s information in those recipes and it needs extracting.

Yes, you guessed it - I’m in educational mode. Almost direly educational, at that.

This post is all about a particular cookbook that was targetted at young women who had to learn their housewifely skills. The sort you get as an engagement present by well-meaning cousins who hardly know you. The next is the other end of the spectrum. You’ll understand why I feel so learning-inclined when you see the second post. (I feel like saying “Trust me, I’m a doctor” but, really, “Trust me, I vote” is more appropriate.)

The educational book is rather straightforward. It’s really just a cookbook, but it’s marketed quite narrowly. It reminds me of the Pollyanna book where she gets married and becomes sad and serious and housewifely and boring. I used to call that one (privately, where Pollyanna lovers could not be offended) (more…)

So, what are the new ingedients that people fried with, and why am I so excited? (it’s my second post today and I’m excited - that says a lot)

In older cookbooks the raising agent is yeast or other substances (I’ll introduce you to the other substances one day, I promise - they’re fascinating). Today I’m introducing you to that extraordinary new stuff, baking powder.

It really is surprisingly recent and it has definitely changed the taste of our food and how we cook. I ought to do a special post about it one day. Too much food history and only 24 hours in a day: that’s my problem.

Baking powder had really good advertising. Tonight’s recipes come from The New Dr. Price Cook Book for use with Dr. Price’s phosphate baking powder, Chicago, Royal Baking Powder Co. 1921, and gives you a bit of the newness, the advertorialness and just how recently it came into our lives. Actually, Dr Price’s book is a bit deceptive, as you’ll see by the second book from tonight. Baking powder was in common use by World War I. This gives you the real Educational Stuff - never trust one source! (more…)

Yesterday I read a cookbook that, although the right date for my Prohibition banquet, was entirely the wrong food. It was home cooking and a lot of the recipes looked really scrummy, so I thought you might like an extract for the first of the fried food posts today. The book is The Perry Home Cook Book, by the Ladies of Perry, Kansas, and Vicinity 1920. One day I might have to get hold of a modern community cookbook from Perry, just to compare Perry food over time. Today is not that day, however: today is the day for joyous fried food. (more…)

I wrote you a wonderful post, all about guests and the twelve days of Christmas, but the computer was hungry and gobbled it and it’s too hot for me to do it all again. I think I shall let you dream of exciting guests and fab recipes, instead of me writing about them. While you’re dreaming, let me give you yet more fried food, this time from Miss Leslie, from the 1840 edition of her Directions for Cookery, in its various branches. (more…)

I liked yesterday’s long title so much that today I have another for you. Plus a recipe from a Confederate recipe book, since I have made a Louisianan dish for my party tonight (black-eyed beans with onion and tabasco and dressing - yum). Maybe I’ll give you two posts tomorrow, though, since the title is so long today and the recipes so short.

Soon you can stop worrying about all this fried food (just in case you were concerned about your health or you’re running out of oil or lard) because we’re over half way through Chanukah, so the end may not be in sight but there’s definitely light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t promise an end to mixed metaphors, however. (more…)

I feel all kinds of eighteenth century today. This doesn’t explain why the fried foods I’m giving you right now are from the seventeenth. Basically, we’ve had thunderstorms and sickeningly humid weather and I’m beyond explanations. I’m cooking a nineteenth century fried cheese dish for my guests tomorrow. That seventeenth and that nineteenth century average out at eighteenth, maybe.

I do love the title of John Murray’s book. In fact, I’ve suggested to a friend of mine that he couldn’t do better than emulating this title for his next novel. Russell Kirkpatrick writes mega-fantasy and apparently his next novel is dark and violent, but I still think that a title that takes the whole page is the way to go.

A NEW BOOKE of Cookerie. Wherein is set forth (more…)

I promised you a second post, and here it is. It’s a bit more than a simple cookbook, but it’s from the US and around the same date as the vegetarian cookbook.

There are a thousand stories hidden in this volume. The Lady Managers of the World’s Columbian Exposition sound so much a particular part of that place and time. Expositions and the late nineteenth century, women who organise for the betterment of humanity, and a whole lot more. One day I need to find out more about this book and the Lady Managers who put it together. Though I do wonder if an “Alternate Lady Manager” is a lady only sometimes and what she is the rest of the time?

Favorite dishes. (more…)

For a different type of fried food, let’s look at Cassell’s Vegetarian Cookery. A manual of cheap and wholesome diet. It was written by A.G. Payne and was published in 1891. It’s very much a book of the Commonwealth, rather than the US. There are some major differences in ingredients (oil instead of animal fat for frying, for instance – the simple response to this is “But it’s a vegetarian cookbook”. The thing is, though, that I’ve seen US vegetarian recipes from the same period that still use animal fat) and Payne is very full of explanations that tell us exactly how innovations affect recipes (the general techniques for sweet fritters says it all).

I’m so fascinated by the US/UK differences that I think I might do another post today, just so that you can see US and UK nineteenth century recipes back to back, and draw your own conclusions.

Piroski Sernikis (more…)

I ought to get some sleep because it’s midnight and I’m teaching early and have a meeting straight afterwards, but I was just revising the little collection of recipes I made for Chanukah. The estimable Hannah Woolley, who published The Gentlewoman’s Companion: or, A Guide to the Female Sex in 1675 has a recipe called “Mullets Fried.” I’ve always wondered what happened to the mullets of the ’70s. Now I know.

“Scale, draw, and scotch them, after washing wipe them dry, and stowre them, fry them in Clarified Butter; being fried, put to them some Claret-wine sliced Ginger, grated Nutmeg, and Anchovee, Salt, and sweet Butter beaten up thick, but first rub the dish with a Clove of Garlick: Chuse the least Mullets to fry.”

I bet I don’t use that heading in eight days time.

It’s first night Chanukah tonight and I’ve been give Chanukah presents by a niece and a friend and I feel all seasonal and warm and friendly. Some of the warmth may be due to the fact that it’s still summer in Australia, of course, but I’ve lit candles and sung my little song and eaten fried food and now I need to give presents to all of you. (more…)

I’ve decided I really love being a (small) part of Project Blog. What’s not to love? I get to share recipes with deserving people, and fellow-bloggers say really nice things about me in an effort to induce you to win my recipes (go there and see!).

I feel I ought to say ‘mwa-ha-ha’ instead of ‘welcome,’ though, to all Project Blog folks who are dropping in to suss out winning historical facts. I’ve been in contemplative mood these last few days so you all have to read back a bit. Unless your useful fact is that I’ve fooled the world and don’t actually have a sense of humour? Or that Aussies don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. We could roast a turkey in honour of this Saturday’s Federal election, I guess, except that not a soul is going to want to roast a turkey with the outside temperature being thirty-five degrees. (trust me, you don’t want that in Fahrenheit.)

So, what food history am I giving to you today? (more…)

I’m a terribly lucky person. I have a virus that just doesn’t want to go away.

The trouble is that I have a busy three days and managing the aches and grump on top of work means that today and tomorrow you’ll get two more easy posts from me. Easy posts mean good recipes, so there’s nothing bad in that. Tonight’s recipe is from my grandmother, tomorrow I’ll find you something less Australian and less modern.

It’s not long until Christmas, so the recipe tonight is a Christmas Pudding made by a Jewish family (more…)

Tonight my mind is in the 1960s. last night my mind was in the 1960s, too. I was at a birthday party, and the theme was ‘Swinging Sixties.’ Party themes mean party food.

We had sort-of sixties food amidst much talk of Dr Who (and a half sized blow-up TARDIS) – I let Calliope know about the Dr Whoness and she’s current dreaming of her own blow-up TARDIS. If anyone knows where to find one, please visit her blog and let her know.

What food fits the modern Canberran idea of the sixties? (more…)