
Monday, December 21, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Christmas Plum Pudding
The 'Christmas' Plum Pudding during the Victorian Era became distinguished from the centuries old plum puddings. It contained rich ingredients, and many were served flaming. A few cookbook authors, such as the British chef Soyer, had a seperate Christmas section. Most cookbooks gave several plum pudding recipes, Beeton [Beeton. Book of Household Management . 1861] detailed seven. Some American authors named one of the regular plum puddings "English". The White House Cook Book of 1887 [Gillette, F. L. White House Cook Book. 1887] listed English Plum Pudding (The Genuine), Christmas Plum-Pudding (By Measure), Baked Plum-Pudding, and Plum-Pudding, without eggs; and the Buckeye Cookbook [Wilcox, Estele Woods. Buckeye Cookery. 1877] contained: Christmas Plum Pudding, Eggless, Half Batch, Iced, Plum Pudding, and English Plum Pudding. They were either boiled in cloth or steamed in a tin or other mold and not to be confused with the baked fruit cakes which were also included in various cookbooks.
Many Christmas Plum Puddings were differentiated from the other plum puddings in that they were decorated with holly sprigs, covered with brandy, and set on fire. According to the venerable Victorian cookbook author Isabella Beeton: ... "The day it is to be eaten, plunge it into boiling water, and keep it boiling for at least 2 hours; then turn it out of the mould, and serve with brandy-sauce. On Christmas-day a sprig of holly is usually placed in the middle of the pudding, and about a wineglassful of brandy poured round it, which, at the moment of serving, is lighted, and the pudding thus brought to table encircled in flame."
In Dickens' A Christmas Carol 1843, "In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered -- flushed, but smiling proudly - with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half or half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top."
©2009 Patricia Bixler Reber
hearthcook.com
hearthcook.com
Labels:
Christmas,
Culinary History,
Food History,
Plum Pudding
Monday, December 7, 2009
Egg Nogg Party
Christmas in the South - Egg Nog PartyHarper's Weekly, Dec. 31, 1870.
Jennie June's American Cookery Book by Jane Croly. 1870 Christmas Egg Nog
Presbyterian Cook Book 1873 Egg Nogg (3)
Dishes and Beverages of the Old South By Williams, Martha McCulloch. 1913 White Egg Nogg, Egg Nogg
The Neighborhood Cook Book 1914 Egg Nog (2)
Pierce Egan. Life of London: or Days and Nights of Jerry Hawthorne and His Elegant Friend Corinthina Tom. 1820 Tom and Jerry (the drink)
Recollections of a Southern Matron By Caroline Howard Gilman. 1838 ...egg-nogg circulated freely, and at least a dozen large clothes-baskets of gingerbread...
Rambles about the Country by Elizabeth Fries Ellet 1840. Christmas Eve is usually celebrated by a large bowl of Egg Nog
The Cook and Housewife's Manual. by Christian Johnstone. 1847 Auld Man's Milk...nearly the egg-nogg of America.
Southern Literary Messenger 1849. Christmas Tree, the bowl of egg-nogg and the kindly superstition of old Santa ...
The American Poultry Yard: Comprising the Origin, History, and Description ... By Daniel Jay Browne 1850 ...preserved eggs ...Christmas ... ladies of their egg nog
©2009 Patricia Bixler Reber
hearthcook.com
hearthcook.com
To Market, To Market ... baskets for chickens
A huge variety of baskets have been used over the centuries to take produce to market, as seen in this Market Scene from 1550 by Aertsen. Click on picture to see larger view with details of the baskets.Goods could be transported in baskets on the back [At the Market Stall, 17th cen.], in an ap
ron [Wheatley, Cries of London, 1796], or in baskets on the back of animals [Wheatley, 1796].
ron [Wheatley, Cries of London, 1796], or in baskets on the back of animals [Wheatley, 1796].
Specialty baskets were made to hold certain items such as poultry or eels. A search of World Gallery of Art for 'Market' shows several examples [bottom right corners] of baskets for chickens or birds from the 16th and 17th centuries.
Later examples are an enclosed basket from 1786 [Wheatley's Return from Market] and a chicken in an open basket from the first half of the 1800s.

Saturday, December 5, 2009
Meats... for the use of the table
An Historic Foodways Symposium, hosted by Deborah Peterson's Pantry, was held at Pennsbury Manor, Morrisville, PA on February 27. http://www.deborahspantry.com/
Friday, December 4, 2009
U Penn Culinary collection exhibit
Who's Coming to Dinner? Cooking for Different Audiences was held at Van-Pelt Dietrich Library Center University of Pennsylvania.
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