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Well, actually it was called “Spoon-a-Thon,” but since soups of all
kinds were the stars of the day, it was really a “Soup-a-thon.” Or
at least, that’s what I called it!

The event was a fund-raiser for the Montclair
Historical Society (MHS)
, which oversees four
properties, including the Israel Crane House,
where it was held. Several local restaurants
participated by offering tastings of their best
seasonal soups. Other activities took place
throughout the day, as well, including story
telling, House tours, and meeting MHS’ new
resident chickens.

Of course, as part of this Big Event, I was inside the Crane House,
cooking up some tasty soup of my own over the open fire. I made
“A Turnip Soop,” per Hannah Glasse’s instructions in her cookbook
The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy (1747):

A Turnip Soop.
Take a Gallon of Water, and a Bunch
of Turnips, pare them, save three or
four out, put the rest into the Water,
with half an Ounce of whole Pepper,
an Onion stuck with Cloves, a Blade
of Mace, and half a Nutmeg bruised,
a little Bundle of Sweet Herbs, a large
Crust of Bread; let these boil an Hour
pretty fast, then strain it through a Sieve,
squeezing the Turnips through, wash
and cut a Bunch of Salary very small,
set it on in the Liquor on the Fire, cover
it close, and let it stew. In the mean
time cut the Turnips you saved into
Dice, and two or three small Carrots
clear scraped, and cut in little pieces;
put half these Turnips and Carrots into
the Pot with the Salary, and the other
half fry brown with fresh Butter. You
must flour them first, and two or three
Onions peeled, and cut in thin Slices,
and fry’d brown; then put them all into
the Soop, with an Ounce of Vermicella.
Let your Soop boil softly till the Salary
is quite tender, and your Soop good.
Season it with Salt to your Palate.

I made a batch at home for display purposes, and then I worked
on another throughout the course of the day. It takes several
hours to prepare and cook, as it’s not exactly a “simple” soup.
In fact, few historic soups are. Most are comprised of not only
multiple ingredients, but they also require numerous steps…cook
this, strain that, push this through a sieve, fry these, chop those,
and so on. It’s far more complicated than your basic modern-day
routine of “open, pour into a pan, heat, and eat!”

I chose this soup because it calls for assorted root vegetables
that would have been available in the fall. At the same time, it
didn’t require a meat base, as so many others of the 18th and

early 19th centuries do. It provided me with a challenge, too, one
that I was eager to tackle: I needed “an ounce of Vermicella.” Yep,
I had to make some pasta. What fun!

Fortunately, there’s a receipt for Vermicelli in the same edition (1747)
of Glasse’s The Art of Cookery:

To make Vermicella.
Mix Yolks of Eggs and Flower together
into a pretty stiff Paste, so as you can
work it up cleverly, then roll it as thin
as it is possible to roll the Paste. Let
it dry in the Sun; and when it is quite
dry, with a very sharp Knife cut it as
thin as possible, and keep it in a dry
Place, it will run up like little Worms,
as Vermicella does; though the best
way is to run it through a coarse Sieve,
whilst the Paste is soft. If you want some
to be made in haste, dry it by the Fire,
and cut it small. It will dry by the Fire
in a quarter of an Hour. This far exceeds
what comes from abroad being fresher.

I just love that last line, don’t you? Making your own is “fresher” and
“far exceeds” any from some foreign land. It sounds oh, so 2012-ish,
doesn’t it?! But I digress. Back to the soup…

Now, I’ve made my own pasta many times, yes? HA! Yeah, NO! Well,
actually, I have made noodles a few times, but that was years ago.
Of course, I’ve often seen pasta of all kinds being made on various
and sundry TV cooking shows (“Lidia’s [Bastianich] Italy in America”
on PBS springs to mind). In any event, I took Glasse’s receipt and
dove in. I made a small amount first, with a handful or two of flour

and just one egg yolk. The end product was just fine, but, boy, was
it a struggle. The dough was rather dry at first, making it difficult to
work with. I eventually got the consistency I wanted, though, and
I rolled it and cut out the pasta. Then I decided to make another
batch, only this time, I used two egg yolks, instead of just one. Well,
it wasn’t any easier! In the end, all was well and good as before, but
golly, what was the problem? Was I doing something wrong? Or was
that how it’s supposed to be?

Thing is, I remembered that those TV-show cooks used the whole
egg, whereas Glasse’s receipt calls for the yolks ONLY. It was rather
puzzling. So finally, I went online to see just what others had done.
And guess what? No one, not a single person, used ONLY the yolks.
Nope, they all used the ENTIRE egg, the yolk AND the white. It was
an interesting discovery, that’s for sure. Ahh, well, perhaps Glasse’s
receipt is truly unique! Or maybe it’s how “it was done” in the 18th
century? Or perhaps, it’s just another possible method, then and
now. Or something!

Enough of that. Here are the few photos I was able to take during
the recent “Soup-” um, “Soop” er, I mean, “Spoon-a-Thon.”

Oh, and the plated soup shown first is what I made in advance.
And yes, I had a bowl. I’m not a big fan of turnips, but this was
mighty good! HUZZAH!

_______________________________________

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I’ve received a few requests for the receipts (recipes)
we used during the hands-on Baking Workshop portion
of Deb Peterson’s recent Historic Foodways Symposium,
held this past August over at Ft. Lee, NJ. Various dishes
were made, including small and large cakes, boiled and
baked puddings, and a few sweetmeats. Most were
cooked either in the Fort’s bake oven or at its fire pit.
Of course, all made use of goodly amounts of glorious
sugar, which was the Symposium’s main topic. I think
it’s safe to say that all the participants thought each
dish was a delight to prepare, cook, AND eat. HUZZAH!

There were about a dozen receipts that we followed
during our day of baking. I’ll share just a few here,
including one that I later tried in my own kitchen.

___________________________________

First up is a receipt from the 1774 edition of Hannah Glasse’s
The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy:

To make a suet-pudding.

Get a pound of suet shred fine, a pound of flour,
a pound of currants picked clean, half a pound
of raisins stoned, two tea-spoonfuls of beaten
ginger, and a spoonful of tincture or saffron;
mix all together with salt water very thick;
then either boil or bake it.

_______________
_______________

Next, from The Frugal Housewife (1772), by Susannah Carter:

Dutch Cakes
Take five pounds of flour, two ounces
of carraway seeds, half a pound of sugar,
and something more than a pint of milk, and
put into it three quarters of a pound of butter;
then make a hole in the middle of the flour,
and put in a full pint of good ale-yeast;*
then pour in the butter and milk, and make
these into a paste, letting it stand a quarter
of an hour before the fire to rise; then mould
it, and roll it into cakes pretty thin; prick them
all over pretty much, or they will blister; bake
them a quarter of an hour.

* We used 1 and 1/2 packets of dry active yeast, but we
were also given instructions for making our own “ale-yeast”

_______________
_______________

A receipt from Mr. Borella’s The Court and Country Confectioner;
or, the House-Keeper’s Guide
(1772):

Nut Bomboons.
Take a pound of Spanish nuts [cacao], and
boil them in an iron pan; when they are
well boiled rub off their skin with a napkin,
if some stick too hard, pare it off with a knife;
take a tin grater and grate your nuts very
fine on a sheet of paper; then you take
a pound of powdered sugar, to a pound
of nuts, put it in a pan over a slow fire,
when your sugar is all melted in stirring
it perpetually with a wooden spoon, pour
your nuts in and work them well till all is
well mixed, and pour it upon a tin plate;
you have a wooden rolling-pin to spread it,
which you must be very quick in doing, for
it cools very fast; and when it is cold you
cut it in what form you please; you must
take care the sugar should not be too much
melted, for it is very apt to soften when
the nuts are joined to it.

_______________
_______________

From the second edition of The Complete English Cook (1771),
by Ann Peckham:

To make a Wine Pudding.

Heat a pint of sherry, with cinnamon and
lemon-peel; grate four ounces of biscuits,
six eggs beaten with a little orange flower
water, and a little salt and sugar, a little
marrow and currants; bake it a quarter of an hour,
and when you serve it up, strew sugar over it.

_______________
_______________

And lastly (for now, at least), a receipt from Richard Bradley’s
book, The Country Housewife and Lady’s Director…Part II (1732).
I made it recently for the Culinary Historians of New York’s (CHNY)
first meeting of the 2012-2013 season. The dish was fun to do,
even if I did have to use my mo-dern stove instead of a bake
oven! It was quite tasty, as well, and it quickly disappeared
during the evening’s program.

To Make a Tart of the Ananas, or Pine-Apple.
From Barbadoes.

Take Pine-Apple, and twist off its Crown: then
pare it free from the Knots, and cut it in Slices
about half an Inch thick; then stew it with a little
Canary Wine, or Madera Wine, and some Sugar,

till it is thoroughly hot, and it will distribute its
Flavour to the Wine much better than any thing
we can add to it. When it is as one would have
it, take it from the Fire; and when it is cool, put

it in to a sweet Paste, with its Liquor, and bake
it gently, a little while, and when it comes from
the Oven, pour Cream over it, (if you have it)
and serve either hot or cold.

________________________________________

NOTE: To the best of my knowledge, the receipts above match
those found in the original historic cookbooks. I was able to verify
several, as I either have the books or I found them online; others,
however, have not been vetted. If there are any errors, I apologize,
and I hope readers will let me know if any are found. Please and thanks!

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This past weekend I trekked up to Ft. Lee to attend another
Historic Foodways Symposium sponsored by Deb Peterson.
As usual, it was an absolutely fantastic two days of lectures
and hands-on cooking. The focus of the program was “Sugar,
Spice, Isinglass & Cakes, Great & Small.”

On Saturday, attendees heard information-packed lectures
from Deb, Mercy Ingraham, Clarissa Dillon, and Cate Crown.
Then Sunday was the day for cooking out at the site’s bake
oven and fire pit. Using receipts (recipes) from various historic
cookbooks, we worked on numerous dishes that were either
baked in the oven or boiled over the fire. Everyone was able
to try their hand at any dish and to move around to see what
was being done for each. And so, under Cate’s watchful eyes,
participants worked on small Pound Cakes, Dutch Cakes, and
apple and “Ananas, or Pine-Apple” tarts. Puddings were King
at Clarissa’s station, including Suet, Wine, and Chocolate. She
supervised the making of “A French flummery,” as well. Spices
were ground to make “Kitchen Pepper” at Mercy’s table. And
Deb instructed folks on making batches of two sugary treats,
“Spanish Nut” (cacao beans) and lemon ‘n orange “Bomboons.”

Of course, when all was said and done and baked and boiled,
the consuming began. And believe me, it took no time for each
and every dish to disappear! In fact, as you’ll see below, I have
far more photos of the preparations then the finished cakes and
puddings. Ahh, well, maybe next time!
(Which, by the way, we all hope there IS a next time, at some
point, in one form or another. Pleeeeeeeease, Dearest Deb!)

Nevertheless, I think it’s safe to say, on behalf of all those who
participated, that an educational, awesome, and simply glorious
time was had by all. HUZZAH!

_________________________

The oven is fired up:

Cate Crown, Baker Extraordinaire:

Simply awesome!

Three bakers, sharing baking tips…or perhaps a bit of gossip?!
(Paul Gasparo, Cate, and Neal sorry-I-didn’t-get-his-surname):

Deb Peterson, Official Symposium Wizard:

Mixing up the tart crust:

Patting it down in pie pans:

Apples for one of three tarts:

Done and ready for baking:

Slicing up ananas or pine-apples for the other two tarts:

Cooking ‘em down (the apples were not cooked):

Filling the other tart shells:

FIRE!

WOW!

Love this! HUZZAH!

John Muller, Director Extraordinaire of Historic Fort Lee:

The suet pudding, mixed and ready to go:

Clarissa Dillon shares the finer points of puddings, boiled:

Again, the Suet Pud:

Which was placed on the pudding cloth:

And wrapped:

Then tied:

Ready to go:

And into the pot:

Look! The oven is ready. HUZZAH! How do we know?

Because the interior bricks are now white, whereas they
started out covered in black soot:

Deb discusses the making of “Bomboons”:

TA-DA! It’s a sugar loaf!

And yes, the proper term is loaf, NOT cone:

Breaking up and pounding out the sugar:

Roasting the “Spanish Nuts” (aka cacao beans):

The beans, down to the nib stage, and then pounded:

Cooking a mixture of pounded nibs and sugar:

Rolling it out on a buttered plate. Better do so quickly,
though, before it all hardens!:

Chocolate Bomboons:

Mercy’s spices:

Nutmegs and mace:

Rolling out the dough for the little cakes (which are essentially
what we now call cookies):

The oven is at the desired temperature (about 450 degrees).
Time to clear out all the coals and ashes:

Once cleared, the floor is swabbed with a damp cloth, and
the door is put in place to hold in the heat until all dishes
can go in together:

The Pound Cake batter had to be beaten for 1 1/2 hours.
Thankfully, no one person wore out an arm as everyone
took a turn:

Currants were added to the batter, which was then scooped
into little tins:

Citron was minced for the Chocolate Pudding:

Into the mixture it goes:

And the entire batter is poured into the pudding cloth:

And another pud for the pot:

Finally, all the dishes to be baked in the brick oven were
prepared, and they started to go in:

Paul slides a tart deep into the oven:

TA-DA! The baked Apple Tart:

Baked Wine Pudding:

A yummy threesome consisting of a Pound Cake, the Wine Pud,
and a Pine-Apple Tart:

The boiled Chocolate Pudding:

And lastly, the marvelous boiled Suet Pudding:

______________________________

NOTE: If anyone would like the receipts we used, just let me know.

Read Full Post »

“Drink, friendly to Nature and accommodated to General
Use” was the topic last year of Deb Peterson’s annual
Historic Foodways Symposium. As usual, a hearth cooking
workshop was held afterwards, wherein dishes related
to the event’s subject were prepared. Participants toiled
happily at the two hearths in the kitchens of Pennsbury
Manor
, creating dishes that used a variety of “spirituous
liquors.” For my part, I teamed up with two fellow historic
food enthusiasts*, and together we made a trout dish
and a drink known as a posset
.

Now, for the posset, ideally we needed an authentic
posset pot. Or at the very least, a fairly reasonable,
period-correct, reproduction. Fortunately for us, we
had such a vessel, for one of our instructors, Nancy
Webster, had brought hers. Interestingly, she’d found
it on e-Bay. Apparently, a few years ago the cosmetics
company Avon had the pots made, and then they were
“awarded” to the Company’s top sellers. Who knew?!
Of course, I have to wonder what folks thought after
receiving one. Perhaps, “What the heck is THIS?!” and
“Just WHAT do I do with it?!” LOL In any event, one
such high-sales “gift” was eventually auctioned off,
it was purchased, and now it was to hold our posset.

So, to make this long story at least a tiny bit shorter,
since last spring, I’ve been yearning, and patiently
looking and waiting, for another Avon posset pot
to come up for bid on e-Bay. Then, lo and behold, it
recently did! I just happened to look one day, and
there it was; I bid, and I won! HUZZAH!

And so, without further ado, here’s my newly-acquired
reproduction posset pot:

Here’s the receipt we used during Deb’s 2011 Historic
Foodways Symposium at Pennsbury Manor (PA). It’s
taken from Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook (1685,
5th edition):

To make a Posset simple.
Boil your milk in a clean scowred skillet,
and when it boils take it off, and warm
in the pot, bowl, or bason some sack,
claret, beer, ale, or juyce of orange;
pour it into the drink, but let not your
milk be too hot, for it will make the curd
hard, then sugar it.

I’m SO excited! I can hardly wait to use it. HUZZAH!!

____________________

*NOTE: I must give a hale ‘n hearty HUZZAH! to the members
of my hearth cooking team: Bill Martell of The Griffith Morgan
House, NJ; and Jacob Fish, of Long Island, NY.

Read Full Post »

I’ve known for a long time, since
the beginning of this year, in fact,
that I’d be cooking at the hearth
of The Israel Crane House on
Saturday, May 5. And, although
nothing is set in stone until just
before each specific day that I’m
there, the “menu” of what I’ll be cooking is typically planned
somewhat in advance. Of course, more goes into my cooking
than merely showing up and wielding a spatula and an iron
pot or two. There’s considering what to cook, finding and
selecting receipts, doing auxiliary research, purchasing
supplies, and so on. Naturally, this past Saturday was
no different.

That is, until the Monday prior, when I received a call from
the folks at the Queens County Farm Museum. They asked
if I could do some hearth cooking
in the Adriance Farmhouse Sunday,
May 6, during that site’s annual
“Spring Celebration.” Yes, it was
rather late notice, for sure, but
I SO enjoyed cooking with the
teachers’ group back in March,
and the day was open, and well, long story short, I agreed
to do it. HUZZAH!

Needless to say, things changed pretty quickly with regard
to my “menu” at the Crane House. After figuring out with
my contact at the Queens Farm what I’d cook on Sunday
(more on that later), I decided to ditch what I’d initially
planned for Crane’s. And so, my main dish was one that
I also did on Sunday: curd fritters. My reasons for taking
this route were, to make it easier for myself, and to gain
some practice in fritter making and frying (even though
I’ve made them MANY times before). We also had some
recently-churned butter with crackers on Saturday, along
with the last of my stash of salt pork. And since a good-sized
crowd of visitors was on hand, it all disappeared in no time.
HUZZAH!

Now, I didn’t have too many opportunities to take photos,
but here are a few:

Salt pork and a few of the curd fritter ingredients:

The curd fritter batter is mixed and ready to go:

Saffron, soaked in a bit of water, goes in last:

Fry ‘em up:

Delicious curd fritters…get ‘em before they disappear!:

I’ll give the receipt I used in the next post.

The fire has died out and a glorious day of hearth cooking
(my last until next fall, by the way), has come to an end:

____________________

NEXT: On to the Queens County Farm Museum!

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My “Big Week” of hearth cooking (March 20 to April 1, when I had
one event after another) finally came to a close at the same spot
where it all began: the Israel Crane House. That Sunday was billed
as “Family Day,” since all of the properties owned by The Montclair
Historical Society (MHS) were now officially open for the new season.
And so I decided, in honor of this auspicious occasion, to cook an
old, and a new, favorite dish: a “Potatoe [sic] Pudding”; and more
“Salmon in Cases.” I also used up a bit of bread (for toast), along
with the fresh batch of butter that’d been churned earlier in the
week (all courtesy of Homeschool Day, doncha know!). Oh, and
a few remaining bites of my Seed Cake. Of course, as usual,
I brought in all this food, but left empty-handed. HUZZAH!

Okay, here we go…

Everything’s set out and ready:

the potato pudding’s prepped and ready to bake:

The receipt for my “Potatoe [sic] Pudding” came from the Leffert’s
manuscript cookbook. This little volume is part of the collection
of Lefferts Family Papers located at the Brooklyn Historical Society

(BHS) of Brooklyn, NY. Most likely, it was written at some point
in the 1830s. I’ve visited BHS several times to study this small
historical document, and it’s quite fascinating (more on it later).
In addition, when I did hearth cooking at the Lefferts historic
house (in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park) several years ago, I made
numerous dishes found therein. So it was great fun to make this
baked pudding again!

Here’s the receipt, taken from the “Puddings and Custards” section
of the manuscript:

33. Potatoe Puding.
Boil the potatoes very dry skin them and
rub them through a sieve to 1 lb. of potato
add 1 pt cream 7 eggs 6 oz. of butter
lemon juice sugar and nutmeg to your
taste, bake it with or without paste.*

TA-DA! It’s nearly done.

Visitors to the House that afternoon ate up my “Potatoe Pud”
so quickly, that I wasn’t able to get a photo of the finished
dish. dagnabit.

Now, regular readers will recall my recent experiments in cooking
“Salmon in Cases” in reflector ovens. Well, it was so much fun,
I wanted to do it again. In fact, by this time I’d also decided that
we’d make them during our hearth cooking class on April 15, so
I figured a little more practice couldn’t hurt! In any event, I made
them, again following Hannah Glasse’s receipt from her cookbook
The Art of Cookery, made [sic] Plain and Easy (1747).

Cut your Salmon into little Pieces…

…butter the Inside of the Paper well…

…season it with Pepper, Salt and Nutmeg…

…fold the Paper so as nothing can come out, then lay them on
a Tin Plate to be baked…a Tin Oven before the Fire does best.

What fun! HUZZAH!

_______________

*NOTE: Most all the receipts in the Lefferts book are written in pen.
However, here the word “paste” is written in pencil. That one word
was probably added later. Also, on the page where this receipt appears,
it is written as
“28. Potato Pudding.”

Read Full Post »

On the Friday of my “Big Week” of hearth cooking events,
I was off to the Queens County Farm Museum for a Teachers’
Professional Development Workshop. As part of their program,
I was stationed in the Adriance Farmhouse, where I was ready,
waiting, and oh-so eager (!) to share the joys of 18th century
open-fire cooking.

The premise I created for the day was that I was knee-deep in
preparations for a mid-day meal when the roughly 60 teachers,
divided into two separate groups, arrived. The day’s meal was
to consist of roast chicken, boiled parsnips, a carrot pudding,
and toasted bread with freshly churned butter. And, luckily
for me, all these wonderful helpers showed up just in time
to assist. HUZZAH!

Now, we didn’t have enough time to do every dish, start to finish.
And thus, some of the work had either been completed previously
or was well on its way. For instance, the carrots for the pudding
had already been cooked, mashed, and strained “thro a sive,”
the Naples Biskets had not only been baked, but a few had
also been grated, and I had pre-churned the butter that was
to be slathered on our toast. I’d even baked a Carrot Pudding
in advance, so folks could see what it looked like. However,
there were certainly plenty of other chores for my assistants
to do: paring and cutting parsnips; grating all the remaining
Biskets; slicing bread for toast; and combining the ingredients
for our Carrot Pud, including the pureed carrots, the grated
Biskets, the cream, the eggs, sugar, and the Orange flower
water. Oh, and more butter was churned for our toast. And
can’t forget Mr. Chicken! He was already roastin’ on the spit
of the reflector oven when the teachers arrived.

Of course, while all these various and assorted activities
were taking place, I was having a simply marvelous time
talking non-stop to the two groups and explaining all the
hows, whys, whens, what- and where-fores of each task.
It was definitely great fun! I was reminded of many similar
joy-filled days back when I worked at Conner Prairie. I know
the teachers enjoyed it, too. I was even told later that our
cooking segment was deemed “a tremendous success.” In
fact, one teacher commented she was so well transported
back in time by the experience, that she was nigh convinced
I truly WAS from the 18th century. HUZZAH!

Unfortunately, I was so, SO busy, that I wasn’t able to get
any pictures. dagnabit. In fact, sadly, I got only one, and it
was taken towards the very end:

Now, as many of my readers probably know, carrot puddings are
one of my favorite dishes. My usual receipt of choice can be found
in E. Kidder’s Receipts of Pastry and Cookery (1740), the manuscript
cookbook of Edward Kidder, a professional baker. The teachers and
I followed his receipt:

A Carrot Pudding.
Boyl 2 large carrots, when cold
pound them, in a mortar, strain
them thro a sive, mix them nth
two grated biskets, ½ a pound
of butter, sack and Orange flower
water, Sugar and a little Salt, a pint
of cream mixt with 7 yolks of eggs
and two whites, beat these together
and put them in a dish covered and
garnished. “Good”*

And, in case anyone is wondering what they look like, here’s
a photo of one I made awhile back for another event:

*handwritten notation
Also, I’d like to give a hale ‘n hearty HUZZAH shout-out to Chris
(sorry, I didn’t get her last name…tsk), one of the educators
at the Queens Farm, for all her help that day. She knew just
where to find exactly the bowl or poker or whatever that
I needed. I couldn’t have done it without her! HUZZAH!

______________________________

NEXT: My “Big Week” finally ends

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For two days this past December,
The Israel Crane House was again
included in the group of properties
that comprised the Essex County
(NJ) Historic Holiday House Tour.

Of course, just like last year, I was
busy at the hearth in the kitchen,
chatting with all the visitors, while
cooking a dish or two. A lovely array of historically-appropriate
winter-season foods graced the kitchen table, as well. As usual,
I had a grand time talking to folks as they sampled the various
dishes. HUZZAH!

And so, just what was included in this spread of historic foods?
Of course, I began planning the “menu” weeks in advance. I
didn’t want to repeat last year’s offerings entirely, but at the
same time, I didn’t want to start from scratch, either. So I kept
many of last year’s dishes, particularly those that were popular
(mincemeat pie, gingerbread cakes, pounded cheese, etc.), and
added a few new. Most were prepared/cooked during the week
preceding the Tour; only two were made on-site while visitors
came and went. A few others, such as a smoked ham, chestnut
“innards,” and candied orange peels, were store-bought. Oh,
and yes, all of it was meant to be eaten. HUZZAH!

_______________

Okay. Like last year, I made two types of small cakes (aka our
modern cookies): Apees and Gingerbread Cakes. The latter
were the “repeats” and the former the new.

First up, the Apees:

By the way, those little black specks are caraway seeds:

The receipt (recipe) came from Eliza Leslie’s book Seventy-Five
Receipts, for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats
(1828):

Ready for the oven:

Looking mighty good:

A plateful of Apees:

____________________

NEXT: Eliza Leslie’s Apees receipt

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I know, I know. Believe me, I KNOW! Nearly two weeks ago,
on New Year’s Day, I wrote:

I promise to get back to writing
here more often!

Yeah, sure, you bet! dagnabit. Guess I should’ve just stuck
with “Happy New Year” and been done with it! Alas, I didn’t.
It’s pretty amazing, though: take some time off from writing,
and suddenly a couple of days becomes several weeks. Like
I said, dagnabit!

So…enough of that. Time to get moving! Okay, think I’ll start
with my historic cooking activities back in December. Naturally,

I was incredibly busy at the hearth of the Israel Crane House.
Two main events were the month’s first Sunday (Dec. 4) and
then the annual two-day Essex County (NJ) Holiday Historical
Houses Tour (Dec. 10 & 11).

First up, that Sunday. Now, if I could remember what I did….
Har! Har! Just kidding. I brewed hot spiced cider, cooked up
apples ‘n sausages, and baked a cornbread. Oh, and I hung
cut squash near the apples (from weeks earlier) on the mantel
to dry AND merrily showed off the pumpkin I’d dried at home.
Visitors were constantly coming and going the entire time, and
I had a blast chatting with them all. HUZZAH!

____________________

Spiced cider set to brew:

Cornbread’s prepped and ready:

It’s a-bakin’ on the hearth:

YUM!

Interestingly, even though my cornbread was quite tasty, and
it disappeared in no time, it also crumbled far too easily. So as
I served pieces to more and more visitors, I wracked my brain,
trying to figure out what’d gone wrong. Why was it so crumbly?
Then suddenly, it hit me! With all the hustle ‘n bustle, mixing up
the batter, talking to this ‘n that person and then another, I’d
completely forgotten to add the egg! Which means there was
nothing to bind it all together. dagnabit. Yep, even I make one
or two goofball mistakes now and then. HUZZAH! Oh, wait, no,
that’s not the word, um…what? Oh, never mind. Onward!

Apples ‘n sausage sizzling while the cornbread bakes:

The above food combination was highly popular during the 18th
and early 19th centuries, and receipts (recipes) for it abound
in cookbooks of those times:

Mmmm, the perfect food for a cold afternoon:

Preserving food for winter, such as hanging squash to dry, was
extremely important in past centuries:

And…TA-DA! My dried pumpkin:

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Here are the receipts (recipes) for the pumpkin pudding and
the apple tarts that I made recently at the Israel Crane House.
Both are from Amelia Simmons’ book American Cookery (1796).
As I mentioned previously, the fillings for each were cooked
down ahead of time. I used a basic pie crust, as well, rather
than the specific “pastes” that are given.

____________________

Pompkin.
No. I. One quart stewed and strained,
3 pints milk, six beaten eggs, sugar,
mace, nutmeg and ginger, laid into
paste No. 7, or 3, cross and chequer
it, and bake in dishes three quarters
of an hour.

Now, I only had about a pint of cooked pumpkin, so I cut this
receipt in half. In doing so, however, I think perhaps I erred
in the amounts of the other ingredients. I used three eggs
but I think two would’ve been enough. It IS a pudding, and
a custard-y one at that, but I thought the final result was
rather egg-y. And although I strained most of the cooked
pumpkin, I also left some of it chunky, hoping to make sure
the taste of it would be prominent. It might’ve been better,
however, to strain it all. Yet, at the same time, it was quite
good, as evidenced by those who had more than one piece!

____________________

Apple Tarts.
Stew and strain the apples, add cinnamon,
rose-water, wine and sugar to your taste,
lay in paste, No. 3. squeeze thereon orange
juice—bake gently.

I was very pleased at how these turned out. The apples were
tasty, so full of flavor, and the crust cooked just beautifully, very
light and flaky. And in this instance, retaining the chunky-ness
of the apples proved beneficial. They were so good, in fact,
that I even made a few more later at home!

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