Colcannon Night

As you prepare for Halloween think of an Irish tradition for that evening called Colcannon Night.  On that night "...a gold ring was concealed somewhere in the dish" of potatoes and cabbage... 

Snap-apple Night

Trying to bite into an apple. on a string.  revolving.  with candles.  what could go wrong??  Snap-apple was one of the games played on Halloween in Ireland and Scotland...

Sugar Mills on Sugar Plantations

A wonderful wind mill sugar mill!  Other ways to power the rollers which pressed the sugar cane included slave labor, water wheels and farm animals.  Close-ups of mills from 1665 to 1835... 

National Angel Food Cake Day

While I can’t find out if this is an official day or just put out by a person, company or trade organization, Angel Food does deserve a day of recognition.  And it got October 10^th.  The name appeared in print in the US in the 1870s, and the cake itself was created in the US by the 1830s… egg whites, flour and sugar, but no butter.  ...

Rat and mouse traps in Art 1270-1869

Gerrit Dou painted "The Mousetrap " circa 1650.  (Musee Fabre)  This closeup of the mousetrap also shows the mother peeling carrots.   Different types of traps appeared in sketches and paintings over the decades and a recipe from 1795. 

Food History Symposiums 2013 pt. 3

4 food symposiums and conferences for the fall of 2013. 

Sandwich Carrots

"Sandwich-carrots! - dainty Sandwich-carrots." The 1796 print by satirist James Gillray portrayed John Montagu, 5th Earl of Sandwich (1744–1814) putting money in the pocket of a street vendor. (British Museum online).  Sandwich Carrots did not take their name from the Earl, but from the town.  They were called red carrots but actually were "a very deep orange...and the most esteemed."  [Hale, 1758]  Recipes below are for boiling and for soup.

Lady Baltimore Cake

Described in the novel Lady Baltimore (1906) as "all soft, and it's in layers, and it has nuts,"  the Lady Baltimore Cake has more to do with Philadelphia than Baltimore or even Charleston (before the book was published).   ...

Young cooks in a French kitchen, 1890s

Joseph Bail (French, 1862-1921) painted many views of kitchen helpers and young cooks. 

On this Labor Day, I’ve included some of his paintings depicting children working in a kitchen c.1893 ... a few of the scenes are playful, others poignant. 

Pickled and Stuffed Olives

Stuffing olives with capers or truffle pieces?  Yes, in 1818.  Grocery stores now sell all sorts of stuffed olives.

Cooking and Dining onboard 19th century railroad cars

Pullman "Hotel Cars" in 1882 contained many ingenious devices such as a compact kitchen range/oven and temporary dining tables from "well-polished mahogany planks."

Chiffon Cake - a new sponge cake in 1948

Savoy Cake, Elkridge Huckleberry Pudding, and Victoria Sponge Cake were just some types of sponge cake.... and then, in 1948 ... Betty Crocker's Chiffon Cake. 

Generally, sponge cakes were made with flour, sugar, and eggs - the whites beaten hard for leavening.  No butter, water or baking powder/soda.  The new Chiffon Cake had oil, water and baking powder.

Ice Tea, Sweet Tea history

Iced tea was given out free at a Tea Store in Macon, Ga, in August 1896 (ad below).  Ice or Iced tea in the second half of the 19th century was made with green or black tea, or both - blended.  Although generally brewed, there were early recipes for the tea made in cold water.

Early references to Ice Tea dealt with its immense popularity in Russia in the 1840s; and by 1860 it appeared in American books.  The Russian influence was noted in recipes labeled Russian Tea or Tea a la Russe.  

A northern cookbook contained the first recipe in a cookbook to brew sugar with the hot water – sweet tea – before the usually cited Old Virginia cookbook of 1877.  Another early sweet tea appeared in a medical recipe. ...

Butter shapes - 2

Continuing with Dutch, Flemish and French butter in paintings from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. 

The butter in a mound shape is from Pieter de Hooch's A Woman Preparing Bread, (Dutch c1660) in the Getty Museum.

Fried RED Tomatoes

For those of us who love green fried tomatoes, here is a delicious 1839 recipe for fried red ones with bread crumbs and fried minced onions...

Yorkshire Range video

“The Old Black Lead Range” a seven minute video of Peter Brears cooking on the range is on Youtube  HERE . The Yorkshire Range, popular in English kitchens from the 1850s, was an ‘open range.'

Cook Stove Videos

The two short videos below, show cooking on early cast iron cook stoves, bringing to life these 19th century images.  The first stove has an upper or step-up oven, while the second is a box stove with oven.

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.