Once again, I used a receipt (recipe) which most
likely dates from the 17th century. Namely, one
found in Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery.

I made the filing and the pie crust at home, and then assembled
and cooked it at the Crane House during the Tour. And yes, THIS
time I made my own crust, thank you very much. None of that
grocery store refrigerated dough like last year! No way! Of course,
as in the past, my minced pie was definitely a big hit with visitors.
HUZZAH!

____________________

_______________

Here’s the receipt, from Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery,
transcribed by Karen Hess (1981, 1995). The book is described
as “a Family Manuscript, curiously copied by an unknown Hand
sometime in the seventeenth century, which was in her [Martha's]
keeping from 1749…to 1799, at which time she gave it to…her
granddaughter, on the occasion of her Marriage….”

TO MAKE MINCD PIES
Take to 4 pound of the flesh of a legg
of veale, or neats tongues, 4 pound
of beefe suet, 2 pound of raysons
stoned & shread, 3 pound of currans,
halfe a pound or more of sugar,
3 quarters of an ounce of cloves,
mace, nutmegg, & cinnamon,
beaten, halfe a dosin apples shread,
some rosewater, a quarter of a pinte
o[f] muskadine or sack, some candied
orringe, leamon & citron pill minced.
shread your meat & suet very fine,
& mingle all togethe[r]. for plaine
mincd pies, leave out the fruit & put
in blanchd almond minced small.

BTW this receipt makes alotta filing. So I cut the proportions
by four. That way I’m using one pound of veal, one of suet,
and so forth. Makes for just one nicely-over-stuffed pie!

______________________________

NEXT: the simply marvelous Potato Pumpkin

As with last year, I used Hannah Glasse’s
receipt from her book, The Art of Cookery,
made Plain and Easy (1747). They were fairly easy to do, and
they turned out quite well. However, there was one very slight
difference in this year’s batch: I was forced to use molasses
instead of treacle. dagnabit. As you may recall, in 2010 I was
extremely eager to follow Glasse’s receipt largely because it
called for the use of treacle. Those Cakes were a huge hit, so
I wanted to make them again. Alas, when I went to the grocery
store that usually sells treacle, there was not a can to be found.
Not a one! I even checked back THREE separate times. It was
highly disappointing, to say the least. And so, I had to substitute
molasses for the treacle. dagnabit. It was mighty painful to do so.
Sure, they were fine; everyone who stopped to visit me in the Crane
kitchen loved them; but, still…. And believe me, there IS a difference
in the taste. They seemed just a bit more bland. At least, to me.

Ahh, well…maybe next year. One thing is certain: if I see any cans
of treacle at that store between now and then, I’m buying up several!

____________________

_________________________

NEXT: those “unique” meat dishes

at the Crane House during the Big Tour. I shared the receipt
(recipe) here, as well, and it does indeed state that the end
result is to be “slightly coloured,” but, good golly, there’s no
sour cream! What? Why not? How can that be?!

Well, let me first give you a little background to this story.

You see, back during my glorious days at CP, I didn’t select
the receipts I used. Rather, they were chosen for all cooks
by someone else, most likely many years earlier. Of course,
at the time, I had no idea what the sources were for many
of them. However, seeing as it was a living history museum
(at the time, that is), I always believed that each and every
one came from genuine, authentic, real-live historic cookbooks
that were appropriate (and highly so) for the site’s specific
time period (1836). Turns out, however, I was wrong. In fact,
I’ve since learned that some were far from being “appropriate,”
even far from being historic. And knowing what I know now,
I’m amazed, and disappointed, at what passed as “historic”
back then, especially considering all the emphasis that was
placed on the need for historical accuracy.

So, if the oddball Apees-with-sour-cream receipt wasn’t pulled
from a bona-fide historic cookbook, what was the source? Well,
it came from what I like to call a “pseudo-historic” cookbook,
the kind that shouldn’t even exist, let alone be used at any
type of historical site. Namely, The Conner Prairie Cookbook,
edited by Margaret A. Hoffman (1985 and 1990):

APEES
1 C. butter
1 1/3 C. sugar
2 eggs
2 1/3 C. flour
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 tsp. salt
2/3 C. sour cream

Work the vanilla into the butter
and then add the sugar, a little
at a time, until it is very smooth.
Beat in the eggs. Mix the flour,
cream of tartar and salt and add
alternately with the sour cream.
Drop by spoonsful into baking pans.
Bake about 10 minutes in a moderate
(350 degree) oven. Cookies should
be very pale.

Forget the fact that the first thing the directions say to do is
to “work the vanilla into the butter” when there’s NO vanilla
on the ingredients list. Did you notice all the, um, “unusual”
ingredients? (including the missing vanilla) Golly, the only ones
this has in common with Eliza Leslie’s historic Apee receipt
are the flour, sugar, and butter. I mean, seriously. Two eggs?
Cream of tartar? And then there’s that real oddball that’s
been stuck in my memory all these years: the Big Dollop
of SOUR CREAM?!? What the heck?!? WHY? And where are
the caraway seeds? All of the other truly historic Apee receipts
I found have caraway seeds. Why are there none in this one?
Or, is the sour cream supposed to be a substitute for them?
But why do you need, or would you even want, to exchange
them for something else? And if you do, why trade them
for SOUR CREAM?!?

Now, I’ve tried diligently during the past three (nearly) years
to remain non-bitchy here, but there comes a time… And I’ll
write more in depth later about this topic, but for now, well,
see…dagnabit…this is what I just don’t understand:

When a person, or a group of people, decides to put together
a cookbook containing historic recipes from another time period,
why is it that, instead of selecting actual recipes from cookbooks
that were published during the chosen era, they choose to make
them up out of thin air? Why do that? How is that OK with anyone?
Such a newly-created recipe is certainly NOT historical. It’s basically
a fake! And often, as in this case, there’s little that even vaguely
approximates a genuine historical receipt. Why would anyone put
SOUR CREAM into what’s essentially a cookie? What’s the point?
I JUST DON’T GET IT.

Of course, the biggest problem is that these “pseudo-historic”
books like this, which contain recipes that are “modernized,”
“adapted for modern tastes,” and/or made up entirely, are
assumed to be, and passed off to everyone as being, historically
authentic, when most definitely THEY ARE NOT!! Not to mention
people automatically assume these books are legit because they
were written, published, and distributed by an historic museum
or other such institution. And unfortunately, there are many,
MANY others just like this one floating around. The whole thing
just drives me nuts!

Stayed tuned, dear readers, there’s alot more to come on this.
ALOT more!

____________________

NEXT: Back to the food shared with visitors at the Crane House

Here’s the receipt (recipe) I followed. It’s from the first
edition (1828) of Seventy-Five Receipts, for Pastry, Cakes,
and Sweetmeats, by “A Lady of Philadelphia” (otherwise
known as Eliza Leslie):

APEES.
A pound of flour, sifted.
Half a pound of butter.
A glass of wine, and a tablespoonful
of rose-water, mixed.
Half a pound of powdered white sugar.
A nutmeg, grated.
A tea-spoonful of beaten cinnamon
and mace.
Three table-spoonfuls of carraway seeds.

Sift the flour into a broad pan,
and cut up the butter in it. Add
the carraways, sugar, and spice,
and pour in the liquor by degrees,
mixing it well with a knife. If the
liquor is not sufficient to wet it
thoroughly, add enough of cold
water to make it a stiff dough.
Spread some flour on your paste-
board, take out the dough, and
knead it very well with your hands.
Put it into small pieces, and knead
each separately, then put them
all together, and knead the whole
in one lump. Roll it out in a sheet
about a quarter of an inch thick.
Cut it out in round cakes, with
the edge of a tumbler, or a tin
of that size. Butter an iron pan,
and lay the cakes in it, not too
close together. Bake them a few
minutes in a moderate oven, till
they are very slightly coloured,
but not brown. If too much baked,
they will entirely lose their flavour.
Do not roll them out too thin.

Interestingly, I frequently made Apees decades ago (eeegad!)
when I worked at the then-living history museum Conner Prairie.
They were baked in the cast iron stove and served with afternoon
tea at the Campbell House. Now, at this stage of the game, I really
only remember two things about making them all those years ago:
that they should be nearly all-white when taken out of the oven;
and that they were made with sour cream.

So, then, um, uh…wait a minute…made with what?! Sour cream?!?
Nooooo, that can’t be right! Can it? Surely the…what? Why?!?

Stay tuned….

____________________

NEXT: Got sour cream?!?

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

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:

And now, a few fireworks courtesy of the folks
at Prospect Park here in Brooklyn:

More than two decades ago (1987), the lovely Julie Andrews
did a Christmas special in Austria with several of my favorite
performers: John Denver; Placido Domingo; and The Kings
Singers. Titled “The Sound of Christmas,” it was filmed at
many of the same locations that were used in the making
of one of my all-time favorite movies, “The Sound of Music.”
She even sang atop the same mountain (which was covered
in snow this round)! Ahh, it was great fun to watch, to see
it all, again (the von Trapp house, the convents, the church
where Maria and the Captain were married, the streets
of Salzburg, etc.).

Of course, at the time of the initial airing, I taped the show
(on a VHS cassette, don’t you know!), and then at this time
every year since, I’ve pulled it out and watched it yet again
(and yes, I STILL have a VCR!). I simply love it. (And those
old commercials are a hoot and a half!)

I figured the best way to share some of it with you was
to find (hopefully) a few clips on youtube. I did, but many
were either too short or too long or had someone’s name
written across the screen or whatever. And then I had
to choose. dagnabit. I’d tape my copy, but am not sure
that’d work too well. In any event, here’s one favorite,
featuring Julie’s now-gone marvelous voice. I hope you
enjoy it as much as I do, each and every year! HUZZAH!

Wishing one and all a very Merry Christmas!

______________________________

Unfortunately, I haven’t time to write; even now,
I’m scurrying to finish things. So you’ll have to wait
for all the details. In the meantime, however, here’s
a photo of one of the dishes I’ve been working on
for this weekend at the Crane House: a lovely
Potato Pumpkin. HUZZAH!

____________________

Now, as you may recall, one of the dishes
I made last time was a pumpkin pudding.
When all was said and done, I found that
I had a small amount of leftover cut-up and cooked pumpkin. So
rather than make yet another pudding, I decided to dry it and
use it as a demonstration of preserving food for the winter. But,
wait a minute. In order to dry pumpkin, wouldn’t it normally be

cut up into little pieces, threaded on a string, and then hung
up to dry by a hearth or some other place? Just as is done
with apples or squash?

Why yes, that’s correct! And so unfortunately, I had a slight problem.
You see, the pumpkin in question had already been cooked slightly
AND mashed, as well as cut up. Oh no! There’s certainly no way
to string squishy pumpkin. So, I guess I was out of luck. There’d
be no drying of any pumpkin for me.

Ahhh, not so fast, dear readers! There IS another historic method
of drying pumpkin (or any squash, for that matter). All anyone need
do is follow the instructions Mrs. Lydia Child gives in the Appendix
of her cookbook The American Frugal Housewife (1833; 12th edition).
To wit:

Some people cut pumpkin, string it and
dry it like apples. It is a much better way
to boil and sift the pumpkin, then spread
it out thin in tin plates, and dry hard
in a warm oven. It will keep good all
the year round, and a little piece boiled
up in milk will make a batch of pies.

So that is what I did! Of course, once again, I did this at home,
using my modern equipment. In fact, I used my toaster oven,
as I didn’t want to fire up my stove’s huge oven just for a little
pumpkin drying. I did two batches. Both were done the same
way, except that one was strained through a sieve, and then
the other was put in the sieve merely to allow all the water
to drain out (it was then immediately spread out into the pan).
Time-wise, each took roughly seven to eight hours to dry.

Of course, the REAL trick will be trying it out by making a pie
or two. Supposedly, “a batch” can be made by boiling just
a piece of the dried pumpkin in milk. I’ll have to try it and
let everyone know how well (and if?) it works!

_______________

after hours and hours…

and hours and hours of drying:

the second batch, which remained in one piece: