Long titles for historic cookbooks

Early cookbooks had lengthy and informative titles so the potential buyer could readily see what the book contained. My favorite part of Simmons’ introduction is about the difference between “old people” and young - in 1798.

AMERICAN COOKERY,

OR THE ART OF DRESSING

VIANDS, FISH, POULTRY, AND VEGETABLES, AND THE

BEST MODES OF MAKING

PASTES, PUFFS, PIES, TARTS, PUDDINGS,

CUSTARDS AND PRESERVES,

AND ALL KINDS OF

CAKES,

FROM THE IMPERIAL

PLUMB TO PLAIN CAKE.

ADAPTED TO THE COUNTRY,

AND ALL GRADES OF LIFE.

BY AMELIA SIMMONS,

AN AMERICAN ORPHAN.

“AS this treatise is calculated for the improvement of the rising generation of Females in America, the Lady of fashion and fortune will not be displeased… The world, and the fashion thereof, is so variable, that old people cannot accomodate themselves to the various changes and fashions which daily occur; they will adhere to the fashion to their day and will not surrender their attachments to the good old way--while the young and the gay, bend and conform readily to the taste of the times, and fancy of the hour.”

©2009 Patricia Bixler Reber
hearthcook.com

Food for Thought exhibit - NJ

Altho over, the webpage for the exhibit "Food for Thought" at Museum of Early Trades & Crafts in Madison, NJ. has pictures of various cooking items. To find out what the item is, put the cursor over the label space and the name will appear.

300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles by Linda Campbell Franklin

300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles is a must for any museum or cook. The almost 900 pages are filled with detailed information, period illustrations, modern photographs of items, and excerpts from historic books, magazines, trade journals, patents, and more.
The most recent edition is from 2003, but the information is still pertinent and essential in identifying kitchen items use... even what it may be called. Although prices are given, most of us do not use it as a price guide.

Reproduction Alerts are scattered throughout the entries which are very helpful to those looking to buy antique items. The detailed descriptions, which include marks and other identifying features are also helpful.

The book is divided into Preparing; Measuring; Holding & Handling; Cooking; Preserving; Furniture; Electric Gadgets and Appliances; and Researching [Patents, Bibliography, Visual Glossary of parts & handles, and a German-English Glossary] and Index.

©2009 Patricia Bixler Reber
hearthcook.com

Smithsonian Free Museums Day

Sept 26 Smithsonian Free Museum Day
Each year hundreds of museums around the country participate in the free admission program hosted by the Smithsonian Magazine. Check out the website to see which participating museum you choose to visit. Print out the Museum Day admission card and present it to the museum for a free admission.

Google Books

Google Books. With thousands of cookbooks and many more related books, Google has become the largest collection of freely accessible e-texts, on any subject, on the web from the 18th century to the present.

Authors range from three editions of Hannah Glasse, Eliza Leslie's four cookbooks and many of her other works, to twelve of Sarah Tyson Rorer's cookbooks, including one published by Burpee's: "How to Cook Vegetables," 1891. Gardening books by the famed Richard Bradley (four titles) and Phillip Miller's "Gardener's Directory" and "Gardener's Kalendar" as well as American authors such as Thomas Green with the 1828 and 1842 editions of his "New American Gardener" are varied and numerous.

The most efficient way to search is to go to Advanced book search. Type in keywords, author, or title. Since some books, generally the recently published, show limited previews, check the full view.

To further narrow the results, select dates (ie. 1700-1830). The powerful search engine finds subjects among the works, and each book can be searched individually.

The pages appear as they are printed in the book. To be able to copy and paste a section, click on "Plain text" - found in the top right of the page. 'PDF' if clicked, will upload the entire work. You can easily read each page of the book, copy or 'save as' photograph.

©2009 Patricia Bixler Reber
hearthcook.com

All things culinary around the world in 1849 - CA

All Things Culinary Around the World in 1849 and Their Convergence Upon California. Lodi, CA,
held in Oct, was the fourth IACP Food History Symposium.

Chicken on a String

To roast a Pigeon
Take some parsley shred fine, a piece of butter as big as a walnut, a little pepper and salt; tie the neck end tight; tie a string round the legs and rump, and fasten the other end to the top of the chimney-piece. Baste them with butter, and when they are enough lay them in the dish, and they will swim with gravy. You may put them on a little spit, and then tie both ends close.
Glasse, Hannah. Art of Cookery. Alexandria: 1805

To roast Pigeons.
Take a little pepper and salt, a small piece of butter, and some parsley cut small; mix these together, put them into the bellies of your pigeons, tying the neck ends tight; take another string, fasten one end of it to their legs and rumps, and the other to the mantle-piece. Keep them constantly turning round, and baste them with butter. When they are done, take them up, lay them in a dish, and they will swim with gravy.
Carter, Susannah. The Frugal Housewife. NY: 1804

An earlier edition of Glasse [1747] suggests to "… tie the Neck-end close, so that nothing can run out, put a Skewer through the Legs, and have a little iron on purpose, with six Hooks to it, on each hook hang a Pigeon, fasten one End of a string to the Chimney, and the other End to the Iron…"

Making the recipe
To roast a chicken, or other meat on an all-cotton string or vine by the fire. Wash and dry a whole chicken thoroughly. Roll an ounce of butter in parsley, salt and pepper. Put it in the chicken cavity and stitch up the chicken with twine or sharpened twig. Wrap the string around the wings, legs and body of the chicken. Leave excess string at ends so when the breast end is cooked, flip the chicken so the other end is nearer the fire.

©2009 Patricia Bixler Reber
hearthcook.com

2009 Oxford Symposium - Food and Language

The 2009 Oxford Symposium on Food & Language took place at St Catz, Great Britain. http://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk/

Peach Cobler

A peach pot-pie, or cobler, as it is often termed, should be made of clingstone peaches, that are very ripe, and then pared and sliced from the stones. Rub the bottom and sides of a porridge-pot, or small oven with butter, and then with dry flour. Roll out some pieces of plain or standing paste about half an inch thick, line the sides of the pot or oven with the pieces of paste, letting them nearly touch in the bottom. Put in the prepared peaches, sprinkle on a large handful of brown sugar, pour in plenty of water to cook the peaches without burning them, though there should be but very little liquor or syrup when the pie is done. Put a paste over the top, and bake it with moderate heat, raising the lid occasionally, to see how it is baking. When the crust is brown, and the peaches very soft, invert the crust on a large dish, put the peaches evenly on, and grate loaf sugar thickly over it. Eat it warm or cold. Although it is not a fashionable pie for company, it is very excellent for family use, with cold sweet milk.
The Kentucky Housewife by Lettice Bryan, 1839

Some early references to Cobblers

Bryan also had a recipe for Apple Pot Pie. Leslies's Directions for Cookery, 1839 contains an Apple Pot Pie which is similar.

A civil war soldier recounted that 4 men bought a bushel of peaches, found a huge oven, "made a crisp crust, with which the pot was lined. In this was put all the peaches, overlaid with another crust of dough and properly baked…a fragrant, really delicious peach-cobler was ready to be devoured...[they were] unfit for duty the remainder of the day." Tunnard. A Southern Record, 1866.

Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms quotes a reference from 1859 as "Cobbler...a sort of pie, baked in a pot lined with dough of great thickness, upon which fruit is placed." It was not mentioned in his first edition of 1848. In 1832:"Cobbler. Name given to bread toasted on one side only." is quoted from The Cook's Own Book by Mrs. Lee.
"Peach Cobbler and apple dumpling were the two dishes that made old slaves smile for joy and the young fairly dance." Louis Hughes, Thirty Years a Slave.

Making the recipe

Roll out half of pie crust dough and line the sides of a pot or dutch oven. Add the fruit mixture, but leave room for the top crust. Pat or roll out the rest of the dough thicker, and place over the filling, crimping to the dough on the sides. Slice the top to release the steam. Put on the lid of the pot.

The pot pie described by Bryan could be done in a dutch oven or over a fire in a pot. Chicken pot pies using a pie crust are delicious when "baked" in a stew pot over a fire. However make sure not to line the bottom, only the sides and top with the pie crust

A warning about joining the top to the side dough. One time I had a student with long fingernails doing it, and she created slits in the dough while crimping. Although the dough along the sides of the pot was dry, the top crust became soggy.

©2009 Patricia Bixler Reber
hearthcook.com