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Home cookery--Ladies' indispensable companion;: Cookery in northeastern cities
Not yet published
Expected 1 Jan 35136 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1853
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August 18, 2009
This is a fascinating work. There are actually two books included in this "Antique American Cookbooks" series. The more interesting to me is "Mrs. J. Chadwick's" (in parentheses, because this may well have been a pseudonym) "Home Cookery"; the other work is "Ladies' Indispensable Companion." The Introduction, written by Shirley Abbott, nicely places these two works in context. She observes that cuisine is a part of a country's cultural heritage. To the point (page 23): "Some of the dishes in these two books have vanished from the modern repertoire along with corsets and black silk bonnets. . . . But some of the recipes are simply classics in disguise." One nice touch is reimagining recipes in the old cookbook to a modern idiom on pages 24-27 (e.g., rice waffles and dyspepsia bread).
Let's take a look at a few of the recipes in "Home Cookery." Tomato soup: carrots, celery, onions, and turnips. Stew them gently in a pot with a tablespoonful of lean ham for an hour. Then, add brown soup, black pepper, and ripe tomatoes. Boil for an hour and a half (seems excessive to me, but what do I know?). Serve with fried bread, cut in cubes. I'm used to precise measurements and times for each step of the process. So, this is a kind of revelation, since that type of precision is lacking.
Maybe another recipe to exemplify? Beef stewed with tomato (Page 119). Four pounds of beef cut in pieces the width of three fingers; in a pot with 8 to 10 middling sized tomatoes, stew very gently; add salt, pepper, cayenne, clove--maybe a bit of onion, tomato catsup, a piece of butter rolled in flour. Add boiling water to it "if the gravy should be too thick."
The second book (published in 1854) features segments on "Family Physician" (in which there is advice on addressing such ills as inflamed eyes--stir whites of two eggs with a lump of alum and then place on closed eyes at night; whooping cough--take oil, garlic, honey, paregoric, tincture of camphor, etc.; toothache--mix alum and salt and apply a small wad to the afflicted tooth. Another part is a "Housekeeper's Guide," which features such items as how to make curry powder (ginger, mustard, pepper, coriander, turmeric, cayenne, cardamums, cummin, and cinnamon--and the recipe specifies the proportion of each). There is a section on etiquette for ladies and gentlemen and yet another on the "lady's tool-box."
This is really an interesting book, because it actually gives us a sense of daily life in the 1850s. Good recipes? Some sound inedible, others make sense. The "Companion" speaks of a very different culture, where women's role was much different than today. Quirky, but intriguing. If you are interested in American culture--and cuisine-- from 150 years ago, this might be a fun book to look at.
Let's take a look at a few of the recipes in "Home Cookery." Tomato soup: carrots, celery, onions, and turnips. Stew them gently in a pot with a tablespoonful of lean ham for an hour. Then, add brown soup, black pepper, and ripe tomatoes. Boil for an hour and a half (seems excessive to me, but what do I know?). Serve with fried bread, cut in cubes. I'm used to precise measurements and times for each step of the process. So, this is a kind of revelation, since that type of precision is lacking.
Maybe another recipe to exemplify? Beef stewed with tomato (Page 119). Four pounds of beef cut in pieces the width of three fingers; in a pot with 8 to 10 middling sized tomatoes, stew very gently; add salt, pepper, cayenne, clove--maybe a bit of onion, tomato catsup, a piece of butter rolled in flour. Add boiling water to it "if the gravy should be too thick."
The second book (published in 1854) features segments on "Family Physician" (in which there is advice on addressing such ills as inflamed eyes--stir whites of two eggs with a lump of alum and then place on closed eyes at night; whooping cough--take oil, garlic, honey, paregoric, tincture of camphor, etc.; toothache--mix alum and salt and apply a small wad to the afflicted tooth. Another part is a "Housekeeper's Guide," which features such items as how to make curry powder (ginger, mustard, pepper, coriander, turmeric, cayenne, cardamums, cummin, and cinnamon--and the recipe specifies the proportion of each). There is a section on etiquette for ladies and gentlemen and yet another on the "lady's tool-box."
This is really an interesting book, because it actually gives us a sense of daily life in the 1850s. Good recipes? Some sound inedible, others make sense. The "Companion" speaks of a very different culture, where women's role was much different than today. Quirky, but intriguing. If you are interested in American culture--and cuisine-- from 150 years ago, this might be a fun book to look at.
Displaying 1 of 1 review