Barding and Larding

How to bard, how to lard?  Images of larded and barded meat appeared in Miss Corson's Practical American Cookery in 1886...

Incorporators for Salad Dressing

Odd bottle #2.  Once the dressing for the salad was made, it was put in a bottle or poured down the side of the 'salad dish', to be mixed only when ready to eat, according to William Kitchiner.  He specified “an Ingredient Bottle, - These are sold at the Glass Shops, under the name of Incorporators,— we recommend the sauce to be mixed in these, and the Company can then take it, or leave it, as they like.”  [The Cook's Oracle by William Kitchiner.  London: 1822]

Codd Bottles

Marbles inside soda bottles??  This ingeneous replacement for the cork used the soda water's own pressure to keep the marble secured against a rubber ring just under the lip.  To release the seal, a special opener (see below) or finger pushed the marble ball away from the ring.

Here's Milk, ho!

Selling milk from 12 gallon cans, from the 1808 book The Cries of New-York with a description.  Also pictures from 1795 and 1805 Great Britain.

Spring Puddings and Rhubarb

Rhubarb, with its strikingly red stalks and large green leaves, became popular in Victorian England and by 1822 was the main ingredient in Spring Puddings.  The "pie-plant" was forced by the warmth of the waste water from the boilers of the factories... in Yorkshire...

Shad fishing

The weather is warming and the Shad are running.  Actually they are swimming up the rivers to spawn.  The following 14 images [click to enlarge] from the 16th and 19th centuries show the various ways to catch the shad from wiers, spears, nets on sticks and large nets. 

Smithsonian food exhibit

The new exhibit, FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000, at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington DC contains Julia Child's home kitchen, Krispy Kream donut machine, a backyard grill, the first frozen margareta machine and more... 

Fools

For April Fools Day... a variety of Fools.
While most of the Fool recipes were for Gooseberry, other cooked and mashed fruits included Strawberry, Raspberry, Apple, Orange, Cherry or Rhubarb.  14 recipes from 1675 to 1908...

Food History Symposiums and Conferences 2013 pt.2

15 events in the USA and Europe

Irish Potato Pudding

When a Sweet Potato Pie is a sweet, Potato Pie.  Using Irish or white potatoes.  One of the recipes, by Mary Randolph, states 1 pound of potato to 3 sticks of butter!

Feeding the Papal Conclave

The most striking image of a Papal Conclave - at least for food historians - is found in Bartolomeo Scappi's huge cookbook, The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi, 1570.  Close ups of the hampers, credenza tub, carafe container and thr ruota dumbwaiter.  Click to enlarge the images.

Liotard and a breakfast conversation

Jean-Etienne Liotards pictures, including an interesting one of a boy cutting a piece off a butter cone, highlight an interesting 1803 breakfast description.

Pictures on Pinterest

Last month I started making some Pinterest boards.   Most of the pictures so far are from my old postings, so I am using it as an pictorial index of the contents of my blog.  ...

Chocolate by Liotard

Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-1789) painted the famous watercolor "The Chocolate Girl" (La Belle Chocolatiere) c1744 which has been copied many times over the years.  He also did some other interesting chocolate paintings with closeups of the details...

Valentine Hearts

A recipe for Chocolate Hearts is from the Baker's Chocolate booklet, 1913.

The Art of Refining Sugar

7 great images showing the equipment being made and used to refine sugar from a french book, 1764.