Food History

Jane’s and Mik’s dishes look as if they were a great deal of fun. A bit of a mixed bag, though. First, Jane. She sent this to me a couple of weeks ago, but I haven’t been able to get to them till now. Sorry, Jane!

Jane wrote of a Staffordshire Syllabub that it was “Nice enough, but nothing special.” She thinks the problem might lie in Australia’s lacklustre ciders. Since most English local ciders have way more character, this sounds highly likely.

Windsor Syllabub was nicer. She tried it a couple of times, just to see what happened with different ingredients. She tried it first with medium sherry, but sweet sherry was the winner. Her comments on the first batch included “Milk doesn’t look quite right - almost like it might separate. Nice served chilled. It needs plenty of sugar and nutmeg and cloves to get the flavour balance right.” She also said, even of the first try “Tastes good. Not hard to make. Has a nice little kick, but leaves a too-sweet aftertaste.” The aftertaste was more pleasant with the sweet sherry. Her notes on her second version were “Very nice. Very drinkable. Could become habit forming.” She suggests using a bit of cream with the milk, because modern milk is lower in fat than milk then. So Windsor Syllabub makes it to the long list, but Staffordshire doesn’t.

Jane also made an apple pie. The traditional way of eating it (with butter) was too rich for her guests. Cold cream (not the stuff you put on your face) or icecream might be better. The pie itself was “Yum. Apple pie was very very nice.” It goes to the long list with the caveat that we need something to serve alongside it.

Two out of three to the long list. Thank you Jane :).

Mik wrote:

The Mushroom and Egg dish is, as mentioned, an ancestor of devilled eggs. Very intense, but I suspect slightly less vinegar might be more palatable.

The Lemon Puffs are good, but unless we can actually get them to puff, I suggest dropping them.

The heart cake was very good. I tried it out last night; one of the guys mentioned that he didn’t usually like fruit cakes, but he liked this one.

Two out of three for two lots of testing isn’t at all bad. Thank you Mik, too :).

I have another recipe for lemon puffs, if anyone is willing to give them a try. I’m really happy about the heart cake, because we need more dessert possibilities that aren’t made almost solely with cream. I was having visions of only cream desserts and they were bad, bad visions. Imagine, delicious cream dish after delicious cream dish after delicious cream dish. We would all end up very ill.

The last dish to report on today is a pea soup. It’s a bit rich, but passes if we cut down the butter. It has a lovely array of green vegetables and is a perfectly respectable vegetarian soup. Suitable for coeliacs. Not hard to make. Not magic, but solid. Of the tasters, two were happy with it and one said it was “interesting”. I don’t see it as a raving success, but as a fallback if we can’t find a better vegetarian soup. Evne though meat-based broths are typical of the period, I feel that since there were vegetarian soups made we should try to have one as the soup so that everyone can eat it.

Total? Four recipes go to the long list and one recipe is noted as suitable if we can’t find something more magic.