Playing catch-up with the Historical Food Fortnightly: Challenge #17 -- Tea caudle.

Chinese teapot.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

 The Challenge: #17 -- Revolutionary Food. The theme is revolution, and it’s all about ch-ch-ch-changes. Food can be inspired by revolution, can showcase a revolutionary technique, or come from a revolutionary time. Give us your best documented interpretation of revolution.

Of course, being a tea drinker and tea blogger, I am interested in the history of tea, and I'm very aware of the part tea played in English and American history.  Although tea was advertised as early as 1658, it was officially introduced to England in 1662, as part of the dowry of the new Queen of England, Catherine of Braganza, who married King Charles II.  A Portuguese princess, Catherine also brought to England trading rights at all of Portugal's trading posts around the world, including the ones where tea could be purchased.  Tea became extremely popular at court almost immediately, and spread to the aristocracy within the first few years.  Within twenty years, the upper middle classes were also familiar with it, and drinking it enough to provoke articles and dire warnings against it in newspapers and the increasingly popular domestic manuals and recipe books, aimed at the aristocracy and the upper-middle classes, as well as their servants.  By 1750 tea was being called "unwholesome" or even "of a poisonous nature", and said to cause "distempers, tremors, palseys, vapours, fits" and other nerve damage, when "drank to excess;" people were encouraged to put "cream, &c." in their tea to counteract the "corroding" nature of the lime and alum used to make loaf sugar (when people sweetened their tea), or to use lavender oil, nettle flowers, or quicksilver-water, in making their tea, to "prevent the rise of vapours"!  But how was the tea made?  

There is some suggestion in the earliest books, that people were drinking tea, or perhaps ordering it ready-made, along with the other fashionably new drinks, coffee and chocolate, in tea and coffee houses, more often than making it at home, since the recipe books from those first 20 years don't contain any recipes for making tea.  The diarist Samuel Pepys wrote in 1660 that he sent for a cup of "tee, a China drink" one day when at home, but it's not clear where he got the tea, whether it was made in his own kitchen, or brought from a tea house.  These tea and coffee houses became wildly popular, rivaling taverns in their customer numbers, but more fashionable than taverns because they sold the exotic, expensive, imports, so they were patronized by the aristocracy and upper middle classes, as well as anyone else who could afford the price of a cup of tea or coffee, including women, in many cases. 

A failed Florentine of Marrow -- Historical Food Fortnightly challenge #14

ingredients for a Florentine of Marrow.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

The Challenge: #14 -- Fear Factor.

What foods have you always wanted to attempt, but were afraid to attempt to make - or afraid to eat? Choose a dish that is either tricky to create or nerve-wracking to eat, and get adventurous! It’s historical Fear Factor!

I could have re-done Calf's Foot Jelly from earlier in the year, but I had trouble finding fresh calves' feet.  I could have done Beef Tongue, but a few other people chose the same thing, and while I will probably try it myself later, I preferred to work with a different ingredient, to give the challenge postings more variety.  I also thought about doing stuffed beef heart, or kidneys, but had trouble finding fresh ones, even at the local Filipino grocery store.  Then I saw beef marrow bones at my regular grocery store, and that sealed the deal.  I've heard of marrow bones being a popular dish even into modern times, but never having had them before, I didn't know what the commotion was about.  I was a bit turned off by the thought of eating blood, but the bones didn't look very bloody when I bought them, and I was intrigued.  Instead of making a modern recipe like Osso Bucco, I looked through my historic recipes and saw that marrow could be substituted for suet and butter in boiled puddings, as well as used as the filling for fritters, tarts, and other sweet dishes, mixed with spices, dried fruit and candied citrus peel. 

The history of eating bone marrow goes back to prehistoric times.  Archaeologists are always finding bones and bone fragments in the kitchen refuse heaps that are dug up, and it seems that until the Medieval era, the bones were simply roasted or boiled for broth, and then broken to extract the marrow, which was then eaten as a dish by itself.  Removing the marrow and using it as an ingredient in other recipes became very common by the 16^th century, with recipes for rissoles, pies, puddings, and tarts containing marrow in the filling, with sugar, spices, and dried fruit.  The 17^th and 18^th centuries seem to have been the heyday of marrow's popularity, with multiple recipes for marrow puddings, both boiled and baked, marrow tarts, pasties, fritters, and other sweet dishes.  By the 19^th century, marrow seemed to be most popular as a dish of beef-bones, roasted or broiled, replaced by suet and butter in puddings and other desserts, although many Victorian cookbooks still include a recipe for marrow pudding. 

Recipe books, along with other publications, record the rapid increase in knowledge and innovation characteristic of the Enlightenment, with new dishes, and new names for old dishes, abundant.  The Florentine is one such dish; a variation on a regular custard tart, Florentines are baked puddings, in a puff pastry crust, or simply in a buttered dish with an edging of puff pastry, with a filling of eggs and cream or milk, with any combination of sugar, marrow, butter, suet, fruit, sweetmeats, spices or other flavorings, and bread crumbs.  Generally sweet, Florentines could also be savory, with vegetables, herbs, marrow or suet, and gobbets of meat as the filling.  I chose to re-create a recipe from 1674 because I had all the ingredients already; the book, English and French Cook, is on Google Books.