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:

HUZZAH!

Yorkshire Pudding under Roast Meat,
the Gipsies’ way—(No. 529).
This pudding is an especially excellent
accompaniment to Sir-loin of Beef,—Loin
of Veal,—or any fat and juicy joint. Six
table-spoonsful of flour, three eggs,
a tea-spoonful of salt, and a pint
of milk—so as to make a middling
stiff batter, a little stiffer than you
would for pancakes; beat it up well,
and take care it is not lumpy; put
a dish under the meat, and let the
drippings drop into it till it is quite
hot and well greased; then pour in
the batter;—when the upper surface
is brown and set, turn it that both
sides may be brown alike; if you
wish it to cut firm, and the pudding
an inch thick, it will take two hours
at a good fire.
N.B. The true Yorkshire Pudding is about
half an inch thick when done; but it is
the fashion in London to make them
full twice that thickness.

TA-DA! Here it is:

This time, I followed the receipt as written (no halving of ingredients
or anything), as all the amounts were quite manageable. What was
interesting, however, is that this specifies “six table-spoonsful of flour,”
yet it also instructs the cook to make a “middling stiff batter,” and,
in fact, to make it:

a little stiffer than you
would for pancakes;

Really?! But with only six tablespoons of flour, that’s mighty difficult.
In fact, I’d say it’s nigh impossible! I used my reproduction pewter
“table spoon” to measure out the flour, and each spoonful was fairly
heaping. The resulting batter, however, was far from stiff, “middling”
or otherwise. I considered adding more flour, but I didn’t want to
deviate too much from the receipt. Besides, surely it was tested by
an assortment of 19th century cooks, yes? So maybe it was just my
mo-dern sensibilities of what constitutes “stiff”? Or…who knows?!
In any event, I just had to go with it and trust that it’d turn out
perfectly fine. And, lo and behold, it did! (see photo above)

Of course, as before, the cooking was done in my modern oven. No
telling how different things would’ve been if I’d been able to cook
either of my puddings as they would’ve been done centuries ago
(i.e. under roasting meat on a spit before a fire).

And then there are those three little words in the receipt’s title,
declaring this pudding is done per “the Gipsie’s way.” What does
that mean, exactly? What is the difference between how Gypsies
prepare it and how “regular” people do? How does that fit into
the equation? I have no idea, but I welcome any you may have!

However, it did seem a little egg-y. And a bit dense. It reminded
me of one of the quotes given with the Oxford English Dictionary’s
definition of Yorkshire Pudding:

1836
[Hooton] Bilberry Thurland 1. vii. 140
At the bottom of all…lay
about half an acre of sad
and heavy Yorkshire pudding,
like a leaden pancake.

It was, indeed, rather heavy and “like a leaden pancake”! But then,
the receipt DID say to mix up the batter “stiffer than you would for
pancakes”! So…I guess…”leaden” it is! Despite all that, however, it
tasted fine. It was even good re-heated the following day. Overall,
I deem it a success. Two Yorkshire Pudding receipts, both the same,
yet both different! HUZZAH!

____________________

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!