Food History

Sharyn’s children are all christened. I couldn’t be there, because seventh day Passover and christenings really don’t match, but my thoughts were with them all.

She says that she has a couple of posts to take us through the missing food elements and then that’s it: we will have a complete documentation of a rural Australian christening with stories. Although I admit, I wasn’t expecting the Mayan aspect of today’s post.

“Perhaps this one should be called ‘Recipes from before a Country Christening,’ because when you have a wedding, 21st, christening etc in rural Australia, you have people coming from all over the place, and you are never catering for just the one meal. We already have friends here, from both interstate and overseas, more family and friends are expected today, although precise numbers are unclear. So, not being one hundred per cent certain of how many I’ll be feeding, I decided late last night, while roasting the chicken for the ‘Chicken, Leek, and Tarragon Pie’, to make pumpkin soup, and get the makings out for a casserole.

It then made sense, while I had the oven on, to prepare the bread cases for the ‘Smoked Salmon Tartlets’, and one of my houseguests decided to pitch in with her own favourite recipe, what she calls her ‘Sinking Mud Muffins’, so we’ll have something to offer with coffee & tea today. And after all, doesn’t everyone make muffins at midnight?

But she couldn’t have chosen a better comfort food for me. Chocolate has been used as important parts of people’s social and religious lives, since the Mayans grew it in Mesoamerica (250-900 AD). Modern studies have proven what is in it that makes us feel so good, and as a child, my best friend’s mother used to make the darkest, moistest, absolute best chocolate cake. She knew I was somewhat partial to it, so weekends when I stayed over there would always be a big slab of frosted chocolate cake to have with our morning tea mugs of Milo.

As a teenager I moved to Wodonga for work, and my friend moved to Benalla. Whenever she came home, even unexpected visits, she’d ring me, and I’d head straight out to see her. It took me half an hour to get out there and I’d walk in the door, just as her Mum would be removing a freshly baked chocolate cake from the oven. “I knew you were coming”, she’d grin, “so I made you a cake.” It’s not really any wonder I named one of my daughters after this woman.

So today, while I raise a glass in honour of the Anzac’s, make ‘Frangelico Truffles’ as gifts for my boys god-parents, eat chocolate muffins, and my house fills with more of the people I love, I’m sharing my recipe for the truffles. To my mind, nothing else could quite say thank you, to those people for making the commitment they have chosen to make to my children, like handmade chocolate.

Frangelico Chocolate Truffles

Ganache
8 oz (230 g) dark sweet chocolate
2/3 c. heavy cream
2 Tablespoons Frangelico.
Dipping
16 oz. (450 g) dark sweet chocolate
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Garnish
2 cups chocolate shavings.

When chocolate and cream ganache have cooled to room temperature, stir in sherry before refrigerating. Roll dipped truffle in chocolate shavings. “

Culcairn is heating up, as you can see from this post. By Saturday, there will be enough food in that town to feed double the usual number. Enjoy Sharyn’s latest post!

“Recipes from a Country Christening

My childhood memories of food at parties may well be different from people the same age in other areas. With the migrant camp at Bonegilla http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/national/sites/bonegilla.html introducing a wide variety of people to our region, we had an incredible amount of choice.

Pot-luck dinners run by the CWA might have French style ragouts; sweet and sour sausages & rice (the rice was always cold and gluggy); stroganoff; homemade pizzas on scone dough; homemade spring rolls; kransky; tuna mornay; and my favourite, lasagna. Big, solid layers of meat and tomato sauce, nutmeg flavoured cheese sauce and homemade pasta. Sweets could range from platters of fairy bread and honey joys; bread and butter pudding; to fresh apple strudel. I have fond memories of watching the strudel pastry being made.

Making fresh pasta, and tomato sauce, for a lasagna always takes me back to the aromas of my friends mum’s kitchen, when I was a kid. It takes a bit extra time, but the flavor is always well worth the effort.

Home-Made Pasta Dough

INGREDIENTS

400g plain flour (strong/bread flour is best, but you can get passable results with ordinary plain flour)
4 whole eggs, lightly beaten
salt to taste
METHOD

Place flour onto the work surface, and make a well. Add eggs, salt and gradually work into the flour until a soft and pliable dough forms. Knead the dough until smooth and consistent - 5 minutes should do.
Allow dough to rest for an hour, covered in cling wrap, in the refrigerator. Divide dough into 4 balls. Flatten each ball into a disk and pass through the pasta machine on the widest setting, Fold in half lengthways and repeat. Keep rolling twice on each setting until you reach the narrowest setting.
Cut pasta if it gets too long.

* To roll by hand, divide mixture into manageable balls. Roll each portion evenly onto a well-floured board. A marble rolling pin is best for this job.
Dust rolled pasta with extra semolina and allow to rest for 10 minutes before using, or air dry the pasta until required.

Pasta Sauce

INGREDIENTS

10 large tomatoes
1 heaped tablespoon dried basil, or half a bunch of finely chopped fresh basil leaves
1 teaspoon butter
1 onion, finely diced
1 cup stock (chicken or vegetable)
½ cup red wine

METHOD

In a medium sized stockpot (you can use a deep-sided saucepan) melt the butter, and fry onion til soft. Add roughly chopped tomatoes and stir for several minutes. Add stock, basil and wine. Bring to the boil, and stir while tomato flesh breaks down. Season to taste, and simmer for approx half an hour, or until sauce has reduced. For a smooth sauce, blend for a few minutes with a stick blender.”

More from Sharyn Lilley. I’m so going to make that entree when Passover is over!

“For a while in the 50s my father drove trucks for a living. The highway was tarmac, but most other roads weren’t, and air conditioning was of the ‘roll your window down for cool or up for warmth’ variety. This method was also used to control the dust intake.

Drive through service hadn’t been heard of, but there were a few twenty four hour cafes where they offered sit down meals of steak, eggs and onions; pies, chips and peas; fish, chips and salads; hearty soups and thick bakery bread. In Victoria, trucks were not permitted to drive between midnight Saturday night, and midnight Sunday night.

Today’s first recipe gives a nod to the cafes of old, with steak, onions and homemade bread.

Steak and Caramelized Onion Entree

Slice a whole loaf of wholegrain bread, I prefer it to be about as thick as toast loaf and cut each slice into quarters. Line a baking tray with silicone paper, lightly brush both sides of bread with oil, and toast under a grill. (The cheats version is to buy packets of mini toasts)

Heat a non-stick fry pan, add a tablespoon of oil. Add two thick pieces of rump steak, sear each side, and then add ½ cup red wine and mixed herbs to the pan, simmer until steak cooked to your preference. Set steaks aside, cover loosely with foil.

Slice two large red onions thinly. Fry gently in half a tablespoon of butter until soft, then add one tablespoon of brown sugar, and one tablespoon of red wine vinegar. Cook, stirring, until caramelized, remove from heat.

Spread toasts with seeded mustard. Slice steaks thinly, and cut to fit the toasts. Top each toast with half a teaspoon of onion; garnish with chopped fresh parsley leaves.

Makes roughly 40 toasts.

Smoked Salmon Tartlets

400 grams smoked salmon
1 tub cream cheese
Two spring onions thinly sliced
1 loaf white bread
Sprigs of fresh dill

Using a fluted biscuit cutter, cut rounds from the bread. Lightly grease two mini muffin trays. Line trays with the rounds of bread, and lightly toast in the oven. Set aside to cool.

Slice the spring onions finely, mix well into the cream cheese. Fill the bread cases with cream cheese mixture. Top with small amounts of the smoked salmon, and fresh dill.”

More from Sharyn. She’s writing us a series, in fact, so you can get a real sense of what catering and family and family foodways are in her tiny corner of rural Australia. Don’t forget to visit her at Eneit Press and find out what she’s up to when she’s not cooking!

“A christening might not be what most people associate with the Anzac weekend, but it has both sentimental and practical reasons for being chosen. Practical, because a long weekend allows our interstate guests to be able to get here; sentimental, because amongst the letters and keepsakes I inherited from my grandmother, is a post card, with a beautifully hand embroidered flower, and a robin redbreast in flight. The chain-stitched letters spell out To My Dear Father, and a brief message, scrawled on the back was the first indication my great-grandparents had that their eldest son had survived Gallipoli. It seems fitting that his youngest great-grandsons should be christened on that weekend.

My grandparents were married in 1920, Granddad had returned from the war ill, and wounded, and used his Soldiers Allotment to purchase land at Leneva. When they married they ran a poultry farm there. Which leads me to today’s recipe – one of the main meal dishes I’ll be preparing next weekend.

Chicken, Leek, and Tarragon Pie

Filling:
50g butter
2 tbs plain flour
1 leek, ends trimmed, washed and thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups chicken stock (I use Oxo cubes if I don’t have fresh stock – that’s just a personal favourite)
1/2 cup cream
1 tsp dried tarragon.
Pinch of white pepper
1 large ready cooked chicken, (again, just because it’s homemade doesn’t mean cheats aren’t available) skin and bones removed, meat shredded

Melt butter in a saucepan over low heat until foaming. Add leek and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until the leek softens. Add flour and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until mixture bubbles. Remove from heat. Gradually add stock, whisking until smooth.
Whisk the cream, tarragon and pepper into the flour mixture. Season with salt, and stir in the chicken. Set aside to cool completely.

Thaw out three sheets of frozen short crust pastry. Line a 22cm (base measurement) springform pan with silicone baking paper, and then line with two sheets of the pastry, allowing sides to overhang. Spoon the chicken mixture into the pan. Shape the remaining sheet of pastry to fit the top, and then enclose the filling by folding down the overhang of the base. Cut vent holes in the center, brush lightly with either an egg wash, or milk, and bake on lowest shelf of oven for 35 minutes or until crust crisp and golden. Set aside to cool slightly. Can be served cold or warm, but at this time of year, and with this being for an evening meal, mine will be served warm.

Dad tells me Grandma used to make a similar version topped with potatoes; I might have to try that one day. ”

Sharyn Lilley of Eneit Press is also in memory mode because she’s preparing for a big country christening. When she offered to write it up for me I raced in with my ‘yes please’ before she could change her mind.

“In 1941, my Grandmother’s sister married, and celebrated afterwards at Strahan’s Rendezvous with an afternoon tea comprising:
Assorted Sandwiches
Mixed Savories
Cream Cakes
Trifle & Cream
Jellies & Cream
Fruit Salad & Cream
Dried Fruit
Sweets
Nuts
Tea and Coffee and Soft Drinks

Fairly standard fare for a Country Wedding in those days, although I look at the menu keepsake my Grandmother left to me, along with various other papers she’d collected over the years, and can’t help but wonder what sort of sweets you’d need after all those cream cakes, trifles and jellies!

Anzac weekend 2008, my husband and I will be having our three boys christened, I’m doing the catering, and decided to share the menu with Gillian’s readers. Again, it’ll be pretty standard fare … for a party at my place.

Today’s recipe is for the nibblies table, and is a savoury adaption of palmiers. Palmiers are variously known around the world as: palm leaves, elephant ears, pig’s ears, butterfly crisps and even kanapee (Finnish). The food dictionary at Epicurious has a definition of Palmiers here: http://www.epicurious.com/tools/fooddictionary/entry?id=3771

Honey Ham Palmiers
&
Cheese and Mustard Palmiers

1 packet (6 sheets) frozen puff pastry (just because it’s homemade, doesn’t mean you can’t cheat.)
¼ of a kilo of shaved, smoked ham
Pouring honey (make sure it’s clear and running easily, makes the job much easier.)
Seeded Mustard (I’ll be using tarragon mustard from Milawa Mustards, because that’s a favourite of mine)
2 cups grated tasty cheese.

Separate the frozen sheets of pastry, lay flat on a work surface and spread three of them with a thin layer of ham. Spread the remaining three with a thin layer of mustard. Drizzle the honey over the sheets of ham covered pastry, and sprinkle the cheese over the mustard.

By now the pastry will be fully thawed, so roll up each sheet of pastry in two rolls that meet in the middle. Cut into finger-width slices, lightly squash the double rolls together to get the palmier shape (vaguely heart shaped) and lay flat onto a baking tray lined with silicon baking paper. Bake for 10 minutes at 180 Degrees C, or until golden and crisp.

One of the beauties of this particular recipe is it can be prepared ahead, and put into the freezer, layering with baking paper for ease of separation when needed, and just baked on the day.”

A few weeks ago I thought I had suddenly aged ten years. Maybe twenty. I kept dreaming of flavours of Passover past. This is one of the reasons I gave you those posts about my notebook (they will return, when I have time to get back to them). “I’m getting old and grouchy,” I told myself. “Even dried fruit was different forty years ago.” Maybe it was time to buy that walking stick I joke about?

A friend and I did a market visit a week ago and I found some dried plums. These prunes reminded me exactly of the dried fruit of my childhood. “How is this possible?” I thought. I memorized their details and brought some for my mother to try. I wanted to see if it was all in my imagination, or if there was something to be learned about local food history.

They were sun-dried, with no chemicals. They were angelinas. Fresh angelinas are a very dark purple and crisp and sweet and have a very slight tartness to them. The dried fruit came from a local Canberra orchard (using the Australian definition of ‘local – anything up to two hours drive away’).

My mother tried them. She didn’t speak for a minute. She, too, had been transported back to Passovers past.

It appeared she, too, had bought from a local orchard (except local to Melbourne, not to Canberra) when I was exceedingly young. There was only a little imported kosher for Passover food back then, and very few food choices at all. Everything was supplemented by dried fruit. Mum and Dad knew someone and they grew angelinas and made the most wonderful dried fruit.

And so we repeat the past without even knowing it. This means I’m still middle-aged and can’t justify that cane yet. I can still feel grouchy if I want, but right now I don’t want.

You see, the prunes were only available for a few weeks a year then, and they are now. They’re round at the tail end of summer and the beginning of autumn. This means that, around Passover every year, this particular dried fruit has been available in south-eastern Australia since the first Angelina plum tree was planted by Europeans.

Suddenly I miss the grandmother I never knew. She died before I was three. This is a result of family gathering together, I guess. I’ll get back to my culinary collection next week. It will be quite different to the bits you’ve seen already. When I left home, you see, I discovered similar traditions to my own in terms of enjoying home cooked food, but with quite, quite different recipes. Next week, I promise. And I have other things in store of the rest of this week, not least more about Sharyn’s country christening.

Instead of giving you something from my grandmother’s notebook, today I’d like to do something a little different. As part of a paper I did last year, I compared the recipes she cooked against the recipes in key nineteenth century British cookbooks. My grandmother’s cuisine lacked Sephardi elements and lacked some of the continental cooking, but otherwise there was a significant amount of overlap. I’ve been wondering, since then, who remembers my grandmother’s dishes (or their own versions thereof).

The whole list is far too long for here, but I thought maybe you might like to see a section of it (the As to Cs). Please tell me if it looks familiar, and if you have any family recipes for any of them and you’re happy to share, then please email or post them in the comments.

Almond biscuits
Almond Icing
Almond Pudding
American Shortcake
Ammonia biscuits
Anchovy Eggs
Angel’s food
Apple cake
Apple crumble
Apple Salad
Apple Snow
Apples in Syrup
Apples on sticks
Apricot Sauce
Asparagus Sauce
Austrian apple pie
Bachelors bullions
Baked Eggs & Tomatoes
Banana & nut Salad
Banana Cheese Toast
Banana Cream Pie
Banana Savoury Rolls
Banana Souffle
Berry Sponge
Biscuits
Biscuits
Black Top Pudding
Boiled fruit cake
Bombay Toast
Brandy Butter
Butter biscuits
Butter scotch
Butterscotch Sauce
Caramel Custard
Carmal Sauce (Ice Cream)
Carrot cheesecakes
Carrot pudding
Carrot Soup
Casserole Rabbit
Celery & Marmite
Champagne biscuits
Cheese Souffle
Cheese Straws
Cheese Toast
Cherry ice cream
Cherry rocks
Chocolate Bake
Chocolate Crackles
Chocolate Eclairs & Cream Buns
Chocolate Icing
Chocolate Sauce (ice Cream)
Chocolate Souffle
Chocolate Walnut Sandwich
Chocolate-Walnut roll
Christmas Pudding
Cinnamon Sultana Sponge
Cocoa-nut biscuits
Cocoanut ice
Coffee Sponge
Condensed milk tart
Cornflour cake
Cream cakes
Cream Tea Cake
Cream-de-Menthe Sauce
Crispy biscuits
Crusted Apples
Crystallised cherries
Cumquat preserve
Curried Lobster
Curried Veal

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?

I received some new teaching toys in the mail today. There’s a company in England that specialises in making little packs of reproduction ephemera. I bought these packs because they fit what we’re doing on Thursday night, and they arrived just in time. One of the topics for Thursday’s class is food during the Blitz and my students being able to handle reproduction ration books will help bring that aspect of the past to life.

In fact, ephemera is wonderfully evocative. I did a post a while back on a leaflet advertising Dr Morse’s Indian Root Pills, and meant to write more, but life got in the way (as it does). And I’ve given you another variety of ephemera - think of how nostalgic some folks become when they see the favourite wrappers from their childhood.

I can’t introduce you to my wartime ephemera, because I want some surprises for Thursday’s class and how can it be a surprise if you’ve read it on your teacher’s blog two days before? Instead, I’ll talk about the tea leaflet in the Fifties pack, because it takes me back to my childhood. I wasn’t alive in the fifties, of course, but the habit of cutting coupons from tea and carefully saving them for gifts is definitely something I remember from my childhood. I don’t remember us every cashing those coupons in, but we must have. We were forever cutting them out, anyhow.

The facsimile leaflet I have in front of me is for Black and Green’s Golden Tips tea catalogue from 1954-55. It has a few drawings of jewellery on the back flap, but otherwise is just a list (with headings) of what can be got and for how many labels.

Let me give you some food-related examples:

A tee strainer will set you back 14 labels and a bun tin 21. You could exchange 31 for a good quality tea towel and 47 for three dessert spoons of solid nickel. If your life is incomplete without an aluminium porringer (2 pint size, best quality) then you need to drink 63 labels worth of tea, while you could get tannin poisoning if you drink enough (176 labels worth!) for three aluminium saucepans with lids. At the lowest end of the scale is a kitchen swab, which only needs 6 labels. I want the bun tin. Maybe I should get a half a dozen friends a-drinking while I build my time machine.

There’s a blog devoted to ephemera, if your appetite is whetted. It’s called Ephemera and covers a lot of the stuff of daily life that fades from our sight so quickly. Maybe Marty (whose blog it is) has a leaflet with a picture of that desirable bun tin on it?

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.

I’m becoming a firm believer in everything being linked. That’s the only explanation for a food history excursion including unexpected tips on how to make a shofar. Our hosts today didn’t even know what a shofar was, but Michael knew all about hollowing ram’s horns the easy (though slow) way and gave me a really good explanation why rams’ horns are used more than ewes’. Ewes have a solid portion at the thin end of their horn: they’re harder to hollow out. None of which is relevant to food history unless the breeding of sheep for meat and the breeding of sheep for musical/religious reasons work together, which they might have, somewhere and sometime.

We talked about Aylesbury ducks and their fine history while we were at the farm, but in the end we forgot to see them. We met some young male Belted Galloways, who acted very much like teenage boys. Michael tried and tried to call them, and they kept fairly disdainful gazes upon us, but they saw there was no food in meeting us so they stayed away. The thing is, we will get the ultimate revenge. Young cows should not act intolerably bored – not when they’re in the slaughter paddock. (I felt so mean typing that!)

The sheep were much cooler, and meeting Beyonce the pig is always a delight. She has grown huge and the sheep (Wiltshire, I think) looked tiny and elegant by comparison. They reminded me, in fact, of many of the sheep I had seen in Medieval Book of Hours. So did a roaming whippet.

The hens avoided the peacocks and peahens, and since the peacocks and hens decided to squawk around us enthusiastically we didn’t talk to the hens, just as we didn’t talk to the ducks. I pointed out that I knew how to cook a peacock, which amused my students immeasurably. I left out some key elements when I described the process to them, but it was a genuine error. If they cook according the (very vague) method I described, without the missing steps, they won’t have roast peacock, they’ll have some form of leather.

My enthusiasm for all the plants and Michael’s and Elizabeth’s immense knowledge of what they’re doing often transformed into discussions of how to cook everything from briar rose hips to belladonna’s uses. It was someone else, though, who knew that paddymelon fruit were not edible.

And that was our class excursion. We all bought meat to take home (which resulted in me cooking steak and kidney pie for my dinner), one of my students collected a bunch of feathers to use for calligraphy, and I’m now the proud possessor of a sheep’s skull (alas, merino – I was hoping for one of the heritage types) and a red kangaroo skull. The ‘roo skull is amazingly tiny. They act dangerously clever and sheep act stupid, so maybe the main use of a big brain is to form the base of a dish for the evening meal. And no, I didn’t buy any brains.

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.”

Today is strangely sybaritic. I’m eating the most beautiful chicken pate (apart from my family’s) that I have ever tasted in Australia. The pate guy at the market gave me some. He makes two pork-free pates and one pork-free rillette. And yes, the pate has gone directly to my brain and completely blocked eloquent speech. It’s that good.

It makes me look at a bag of carrots and see many hues, not just orange. Oh, there are multiple colours of carrot in that bag. That’s right. The vegetable guy took one look at me and said there was a bunch waiting for me which had more purple carrots than the other bunch. I can show my students four colours of carrots on Thursday. And I didn’t even have to ask.

Elizabeth and Michael made sure there was just enough lamb of exactly the right sort so dinner tonight is saltbush lamb. My friend and I shared a quarter of a lamb and it was exactly enough. Which reminds me, Michael says Elizabeth needs a good historical recipe for leg of lamb and of course I just happen to have one. This is a giant relief, because everyone has been so kind to me this morning that I feel a bit guilty.

I told the teenager serving coffee the history of the beans she was serving today and suddenly I realised how everyone knows me. It’s good, though, to know that there will be duck pate reserved for me to buy every fortnight just as the cheese lady always goes straight to my favourite Milawa chevre. What’s also good is that I compared all this luxury food with the amount I spent in the supermarket on way inferior stuff and I found that I come out even. I’m healthier, happier and can talk to the producers and be given special treats, and it costs me the same (overall) as supermarket shopping!

Let me assuage my guilt with Alison’s question. Everyone else who has questions says I apparently have already answered them – this means the rest of you miss out and might have to find your own questions. Email me and ask anytime. I was afraid there would be a mad rush: my other blog sometimes gets a mad rush when I open the door to questions, but quite a few role playing gamers and re-enactment folk and writers who use historical backdrops who visit me there.

Alison, I don’t know the exact history of your Easter dish, but I can lay bets that it arose in the joy of leaving Lent behind. Lots of Catholic regions have special dishes to celebrate the end of Lent and they usually include foodstuffs that are forbidden during Lent. One day I might have to do a post on that whole food sequence, from before Lent to after it – it has produced some fascinating foodways.

I now return to gloating over my market goodies.

I didn’t forget you yesterday. I was too emotionally exhausted to write.

It seems strange to say that, because the exhaustion arose from my teaching. Food history is one of those subjects that we tend to associate with our senses and not our emotions. All history, however, is about people. Sometimes the history of people is overwhelming.

Last night we talked about lost histories and how they are recovered, we talked about why a group of women would write down their favourite recipes while starving to death in a concentration camp, we talked about how a lost cuisine was re-established by scholars from Inquisition records and what happened to the people who underwent those investigations. In short, we talked about how food can help us understand the tragedies of history.

We also talked about the way into the records that give us this information and some of the ways they can be interpreted. We discussed the difference between a personal note (using my grandmother’s book) and fully-written recipes. Partly this is because the cuisines of the lost Jews is perfect fodder for this, but partly because either next week or the week after we’ll be exploring the rise of the modern cookbook. I wanted my students to understand that private notations and records weren’t replaced by formal cookbooks, but live alongside them.

My class compared the tragic food notes of the concentration camp women with my grandmother’s private notes with my private notes and we discussed cultural differences and stereotypes, expectations (what we read from recipes and what we’re looking for when we read private notebooks), changes in foodways. All sorts of things.

Big stuff. A lot of material for two hours. My class is normally boisterous but last night they were quiet and thoughtful. I rather suspect they were as emotionally exhausted as me.

I’ll give you an extra day to ask any questions that have occurred to you recently, given my own slowness. I’ll do my best to answer them tomorrow. You can ask questions in the comments section to any post (and if they get caught up as spam, email me through the contact thingie just below the bio) or you can simply email me.