Food History

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) “Pollyanna loses her brain” because she lost all her intelligence and all her commonsense, both at once. Anyhow, this book isn’t about Pollyanna, it’s about Margery Daw. It was called Margery Daw in the Kitchen, and What She Learned There.
and it was by Lucy W. Bostwick. It was from the 1990s (the seventh edition came out in 1887) and cost the vast sum of 50c. The fried apple pie makes me think of a recipe from rural Arkansas - I’ve never had it, but I was recently told by a friend that the small town it came from still makes these pies and that the apple type was brought out from England several hundred years ago, possibly by the Tull family. I’m hoping that one day an Arkansas reader will try the Margery Daw recipe and tell me just how authentically Early Settler it is.

VEAL CROQUETTES.

Two pounds of well cooked veal, chopped very fine, season, with pepper and salt, onion and parsley. Two eggs, one table-spoonful of butter, one tablespoon-ful of flour mixed well together; over this pour boiling water till well thickened. Stir this mixture well through the chopped meat and set it aside to cool. Beat an egg, form the dressed veal into-cones the size of an egg, dip into the.beaten egg ; roll in cracker crumbs and fry in hot lard (in a wire basket,) as you would doughnuts.

CHICKEN CROQUETTES.

Three cups of chopped chicken, one cup of soft bread crumbs, two eggs, pepper and salt to taste, moisten with cream or milk with a little butter. Mix well together and form into pear shaped balls. A little chopped parsley may be added. Roll them in egg, then in cracker, and fry in lard in a wire basket, as doughnuts.

FRIED APPLE PIES.

One cup of sugar, one coffeecup of sweet milk, three table-spoonfuls of melted butter, two heaping teaspoonfuls of baking powder, one egg, a little nutmeg. Add flour enough to roll out. Have ready, dried, sour apples, stewed and seasoned, make into small turnovers, using the apples hot. Fry in hot lard as doughnuts.

PUMPKIN PIE.

One pint of stewed pumpkin, two or more eggs, sweeten with molasses and sugar to taste, one pint of rich milk, or cream, which is better. A little salt, season with cinnamon or nutmeg and ginger also if liked, stir well together and bake with one crust only, in a deep pie dish, and in a quick oven.

DOUGHNUTS.

One pint of warm milk, one teacup of lard, one teacup of yeast, one teaspoonful of salt, flour enough to make a stiff batter, (about 2 P. M.) Before bed time, mix the yolks of four eggs with two and one-half cups of sugar, then the whites beaten to a, stiff froth and one teaspoonful of cinnamon. Mix very soft indeed. Roll out and cut before breakfast, and fry immediately after.

CRULLERS.

One pound of sugar, three-quarters of a pound of butter, eleven eggs, flour to make them stiff enough to roll out. Cut in forms, and fry in hot lard.