Menus From History

With the Presidential Inauguration being fresh in our minds, we have been thinking a lot about historical menus.  A glance at the Obama menu juxtaposed against the menu served at Lincoln's second Inauguration say as much about the changes in our country as do shifting politics.  Lincoln had four types of beef, three of veal, four poultry dishes not counting the quail and pheasant served as game.  

Menus are a great way to view history.  Which brings us to Menus From History.  Janet Clarkson is a food historian of great breath.  Her blog, The Old Foodie, is a daily dissertation on all things culinary.  Menus From History is a two-volume work published by the very scholalrly Greenwood Press and has a bent toward libraries.  If you love food or culinary history it should find its way to your library.

Menus From History is an exhaustive compilation of menus and recipes for every day of the year.  September 23, 1387  is the Feast for King Richard II.  May 10,1806 is the dinner between Chief Nez Perce and Lewis and Clark.  There are Royal Dinners, Inaugurations, prison dinners, and Titanic dinners.  Bread is broken with the rich, the famous and the ordinary.  Pick a day -- any day and you will be transported.

Today, January 24 is the anniversary of the day the Gourmet Society "went Arctic."   In 1937 at Cavanagh's in New York, the Gourmet Society feasted on Eskimo Fare.   According to the New York Times, the members  "trifled" with Eskimo fare by eating reindeer loin,  noting that "blubber and vintage fish" appeared only in speeches.

The menu:

Lynnhaven Bay Oyster Cocktail

Hearts of Celery  Queen Olives

Bisque of Soft Clams

Broiled Loin of Alaska Reindeer

Current Jelly  Fresh Mushrooms

New String Beans, Julienne

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Green Vegetable Salad

Cavanagh Dressing

Apple Pudding

Hard and Brandy Sauce

Cafe, Demi-Tasse

(Two Wines)

If you have ever run across old menus, you will notice that while you might be given a listing of the food offered up, the menu does not include the recipes.  For every menu Janet Clarkson uncovered, recipes had to be matched up.  Clarkson goes to great lengths to keep the recipes as historically accurate as the menus.  For this menu, she chose an oyster cocktail from a collection of church recipes from 1900.

Oyster Cocktail

One dessertspoonful tomato sauce, one shake of tabasco, a sprinkle of horse radish, about half a dozen oysters, and the same on top.  Serve in small tumblers on a plate with pounded ice around them and with oyster biscuits.

The real problem with these two volumes is their totally addictive nature.  You can't just read one entry.  You just keep reading.   Each entry has history and bibliography.   The Gourmet Society's Candied Sweet Potatoes lead you to February 1, 1928 to the Broadway Association Dinner for the Dodge Brothers Electric Sign.  And the Dodge Brothers take us to the 1919 and the 50th Anniversary of the Heinz Company on December 20th where one finds a recipe for candied sweet potatoes.

If there is a single complaint about this work it is the prohibitive request for twice as much ephemera.  There are plenty of  black and white illustrations, but we are gluttons for more -- more photos, more menu card, more color!  (All of this would push Menus From History to three volumes and triple the price, but ...)  OK, maybe just one more thing...there are hundreds of texts referenced, but there is no full bibliography... so there are four volumes!

This is really a pitiful attempt to even encapsulate this work.  You will never look at a party the same way.   Tomorrow?  Burns Night.

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Testicles

I often write about my predilection to procure every French cookbook there is and often lament the fact that there really are just so many ways on can make boeuf bourguignon! So leave it to some French author to come up with a cookbook that covers a culinary delicacy I have never thought of cooking.

Blandine Vié has written a book that is the best of what a cookbook can be. Testicles: Balls in Cooking and Culture is part cookbook, part cultural history, part lexicon, an all profoundly entertaining. The book was originally published in France in 2005. It has been masterfully translated by Giles MacDonogh. I regret that my knowledge if French does not allow me the pleasure of reading this work in its original as MacDonogh tells us that Vié has a masterful sense of words, puns and is often plainly untranslatable. In fact, Testicles won the Prix Litteraire de la Commanderie des Gastronomes Ambassadeurs de Rungis.

The book is divided into three section. Mythology offering up a history of balls from anatomy to slang. Method, the bulk of the book, features recipes from ancient to modern. Attributes serves as a dictionary or lexicon of testicular. (Here, Giles MacDonogh augmented Vié's heavily French list to include more of an English slant.)

Having read several of the cookbooks alluded to in this book, I can safely say that one often overlooks the unfamiliar, that is to say, I am more likely to read that thousandth recipe for boeuf bourguignon before delving into say, a ragout of cock's stones. One of the easiest balls to come by or to get ones hands on or well, as you can see, one must chose one's words as carefully as one's balls. Let me start again: Lamb's testicles or "fries" are probably the easiest to procure from a butcher. Here is a small plate of lamb fries, but it can be doubled if you are a big ball eater for an entréé.

Balas à la provençal, as an apéritif

4 lamb’s fries [balas in Provençal]
200g fine soft breadcrumbs or dried crumbs
2eggs
1 tbsp crème fraîche
oil for deep-frying
2 lemons
fine sea salt
freshly ground white pepper


Remove the membrane surrounding the testicles and rinse them in cold water in which you have added a dash of vinegar or lemon juice. Drain and dry and cut into slices 5 mm thick. Spread out the breadcrumbs on a flat plate. Beat the eggs as for an omelette in a bowl together with the cream.

Lightly season the slices with salt and pepper, dip them in the egg mixture then turn them in the breadcrumbs, making sure both sides are covered.

Next drop them in the hot oil, which should not be smoking (175°C) and fry them for 2–3 minutes on each side until they are golden. Dry them on paper towls.

To serve, arrange them in a pyramid on a hot plate and surround them with lemon quarters.

Note: double the quantities if you wish to serve the balas as a main course. They can be accompanied by a fresh tomato sauce.

If you love food, language, and culinary history, you will have balls of fun with this book. IT makes a great present as I am sure, few out there have a a testicle cookbook!

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The Hotel St. Francis Cook Book

The Hotel St. Francis Cook Book is one of the classic American cookbooks. Published in 1910, it was compiled by the head chef of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, Victor Hirtzler. In his preface to the volume he wrote:

“In this, my book, I have endeavored to give expression to the art of cookery as developed in recent years in keeping with the importance of the catering business, in particular the hotel business, which, in America, now leads the world.”

Hirtzler was not the kind of guy who skimped on offering at his hotel. Dinner menus often included nearly sixty entrees from hamburger to Bohemian ham, plus nearly twenty kinds of fish, twenty clam or oyster dishes, eleven soups, fourteen cheeses ,and twenty-four relishes. He had over 230 ways to serve eggs.

The Hotel St. Francis Cook Book featured menus for each day of the week and recipes to provide that particular day’s fare. Here is the menu for November 23.

Stuffed tomatoes, Noyer. Cut the tops off two nice tomatoes, scoop them out and season with salt and pepper. Mix fresh bread crumbs and chopped English walnuts in equal parts and fill the tomatoes with same. Put a piece of butter on top and bake in moderate oven for ten minutes.

Baked apples. Wash and core the apples. With a sharp knife cut a circle through the skin, around the apple, above the center, to prevent the apples from bursting. Place on a pan and fill the hole in each with sugar mixed with a little ground cinnamon. Put a small piece of butter on top of each, and a little water in the bottom of the pan. Bake in a moderate oven. Serve with their own juice. Cream separate.

Baked beans, Boston style. Soak three pounds of white beans over night in cold water. Then put same in a one and one-half gallon earthern pot with one-half cup of molasses, one soupspoonful of English mustard mixed with a cup of water, a little salt, and one whole piece of fat, parboiled salt pork. Pour in just enough water to moisten, cover, and put in bake oven for four hours. Or in a not too hot range oven for two and one-half hours. If range is used, be careful that they do not burn. Serve from pot, or in small individual pots, with Boston brown bread separate.

Ecrevisse salad, gourmet. Cover the bottoms of four dinner plates with chicory salad. In the center make a nest of celery cut in thin strips like matches. On top of that one well-washed fresh mushroom head, cut the same way, and to cap all, put the tails of six ecrevisses. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and a sauce of one-third tarragon vinegar and two-thirds olive oil. Cut two truffles like matches, and with some fine chervil, sprinkle all over the salad.

Eggs Henri IV. Breaded poached eggs fried in swimming lard. Place on a piece of toast spread with puree de foie gras, and cover with sauce Perigordine.

Sauce Perigordine. To one cup of brown gravy add one spoonful of chopped truffles reduced in sherry wine. Season with salt and Cayenne pepper.

Broiled squab chicken. Split a squab from the back, salt, pepper, moisten with a little olive oil and broil. Serve on toast, with maitre d'hotel sauce, quartered lemons and watercress.

Dig in!

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