Treasures New & Old; "What We Don't Eat Nowadays"
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The dinner conversation turned to food in general.
“I’ve been wondering what people commonly ate a couple of generations ago that we don’t eat any more,” one hungry person said.
“Rutabagas!” another one said jokingly. Well, did most people ever eat many?
One person said, “When I was growing up, sometimes we would have plain rice with milk and sugar and cinnamon, for dinner.” In 2016 “dinner” is now called “lunch.”
The family was not poor and the mother was a good cook who liked to cook, but some meals were very simple.
In much earlier days in this country, country people ate rabbit, squirrel, pigeons, and, it is said, frog legs. Were these ever peddled in cities?
Regionally, paw-paws, ground cherries, buffalo berries, pig’s pettitoes, crayfish, wild boar, and raccoon sound unfamiliar in Blaine County, Montana, yet in some places they may still be available and enjoyed.
As to beverages, is Postum drunk anywhere any more? Is Ovaltine? What about malted milk?
All these were well known, well advertised, and easily obtainable nearly everywhere for many years.
Whey is a nutritious drink and a by-product of cheese-making. Was it ever easily available, or generally liked? Is it ever seen on restaurant menus or sold in health-food stores?
The dinnertime conversational search for discontinued foods went on.
Someone remembered real mincemeat pies. A great loss to the world of desserts is real mincemeat pie.
Long, long ago mincemeat pie was a main course. Later it was sweetened and became a dessert.
Real mincemeat contains lean beef, beef suet, citron, candied citrus peel, “moist sugar,” raisins, currants, lemon juice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and maybe some brandy. The Victorians liked this recipe.
During the conversation someone brought out a cook book titled The Frugal Colonial Housewife, by Susannah Carter.
The cover blurb says, “The only cookbook published in America between 1742 and 1796.”
That makes the newest recipe 220 years old.
The most interesting recipe among hundreds is the one for white portable soup.
It’s complicated, involving a lot of veal and two dozen fowl, several washing and cleaning processes, long cooking, close watching, patient drying, and then you will have what sounds like dry, hard lumps of concentrated flavor and nutrition.
“Keep them in as dry a place as you can, and in a little time they will be so dry, that you may carry them in your pocket, without the least inconvenience.”
Is white portable soup an early form of bouillon? It sounds expensive, yet for travel, sea voyages, war rations, and the like, it might be worth all the investment.
One interesting thing one learns from this exceedingly interesting cook book is how the meaning of many words has changed.
To make rice custard, for example, “[Mix the ingredients] together, stirring them all the while they boil. When enough, take it off [the fire]…”
In 1796, “enough” meant “done,” not volume or quantity.
A dish hardly anyone eats any more is sillabub, or syllabub.
Yes, the name is related to silly.
Sillabub is made by mixing wine or cider with milk to form a soft curd; it can also be sweetened cream, flavored with wine, and beaten into a stiff froth. Some recipes specify milk still warm from the cow.
Sometimes even now, one may be served trifle, but perhaps not with Naples biskits, sack, and ratafia.
What are Naples biskits? Webster doesn’t know.
Sack is dry white wine, popular in England a few centuries ago. Ratafia is a small, sweet cookie made of almond paste.
Many desserts were stunningly extravagant.
Probably no one makes this cake any more: “Six pounds of fresh butter; three pounds of sugar; three pounds of blanched almonds; four pounds of eggs, beaten; four pounds of flour; seven pounds of currants; then bake four hours in a quick oven.”
The dinner party at which this inquiry began ended with the participants enlightened and fascinated and with a new slant on history.
In 2116, what will our descendants be eating that we don’t eat and not eating that we eat now?
