Food History

Tonight is a break from Muskett because I need to report back on a whole bunch of recipe tests. So much has been tested. Cornpone that was dull, cornbread that was delightful. Small cakes that defied foodies: they tried and tried and tried to guess the ingredients and were entirely puzzled when they were wrong, time after time. A velvet cake that was so very good it necessitated three phone calls in a week, specifically to tell me so.

Basically, my team and I have 3 ½ weeks to go and are 10% through the actual cooking. Over ¼ of the recipes are out for testing, though and some of the tests bring back such good results that the total that needs testing diminishes. So it’ a bit overwhelming but not totally impossible.

One thing I keep meaning to discuss. Here is a good place.

When a recipe from, say, the nineteenth century says ‘white vinegar’ they normally mean white wine vinegar. One tester uses white balsamic vinegar and another used the cheap acetic acid vinegar – neither of these would work.

The rule of thumb with historical recipes is that you can’t rely on the thing you use being the exact thing someone 100 years ago would have used. The big change in Australia is that we use a lot of balsamic vinegar every day. Twenty years ago we used a lot of red wine vinygar and had a thing for flavoured vinegars. A bit before that, cider vinegar was very much in vogue. All of these are on sale, but it’s a bit important to know what as on sale or home made at the time of the recipes one is reading.

I used vinegar as an example, but it’ not the only one. I’ve had testers use polenta because it was the only cornflour they could find easily (proper cornmeal is available at the Chinese shop in Phillip, if Canberra’s want to know, and at one of the Indian shops in Glenhunty Rd, Carnegie in Melbourne. I don’t know about other cities – sorry.) Some testers have asked about soda and some have asked about whether white flour is suitable.

The testers who have asked first have done better, because I could advise them.

Regardless, it demonstrates a really important rule for historical cooking. Ingredients change over time and place. What Mrs Fisher of the Old South knew is not what Mrs South in Fisher knows. None of us can cook from historical cookbooks without some understanding of the place and time.

I used to give as an example the friend who read something 15th century English and it had corn in it. They had no idea that ’seething corn’ could mean seething barley or wheat. They thought corn was maize, always and forever. It’s still a good example. I use it to remind myself that every single foray I make into an old cookbook is a foray into a particularly delectable foreign country.