Butter Shapes

Have you ever wondered what these objects were in the Dutch market paintings?  Butter was sold in various shapes, sizes, weights and 'prints' over the centuries.  The following Dutch and Flemish butter images from the 16th and 17th century show imprinted oval shaped butter. 

Jefferson's Savoy Cakes

President Thomas Jefferson actually wrote this recipe.  And others, some written in French.  This recipe To make biscuit de Savoy includes an interesting step - "take care not to shut the oven till the biscuit begins to swell up, then close the oven."

Garlic Butter

Not for Italian bread...but when cows ate wild garlic in the spring, the flavor remained in the milk, and the cream was churned  into  garlic flavored butter.

Strawberry Cakes - Eliza Leslie

Probably the earliest Strawberry Shortcake recipe is by Eliza Leslie in 1847.  It is a crisp cookie/pie crust cake, made richer if you use the pint (4 sticks) rather than the half pound (2 sticks) of butter - Leslie mentions both.

HUGE fish smoker - 1779

This incredible kiln to smoke red herring is pictured in a French book published in 1779.  The fish were strung through sticks which were then passed up to be hung.  After being dried in the smoke, the fish were taken down, pulled off the sticks and put in barrels. While there are a couple women helping in the first image, all the workers in Figure 2 - even those climbing in their long dresses - are women. Click on the images for larger views.

Barding and Larding

How to bard, how to lard?  Images of larded and barded meat with instructions 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

FOOD: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000, at the National Museum of American History in DC contains Julia Child's home kitchen, a Krispy Kream donut machine, the first frozen margarita 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 images of a Papal Conclave - at least for food historians - are found in The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi, 1570.  Close-ups of the hamper, credenza tub, carafe container and the 'ruota' dumbwaiter door. 

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) did 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.