Historical Food Fortnightly: Challenge #10 -- Let Them Eat Cake! with Rice Cakes With Butter

Mrs. Hale's Rice Cakes With Butter, from 1841.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

The Challenge: #10 -- Let Them Eat Cake! October 5 - October 18

"The 16th is the anniversary of the beheading of Marie Antoinette (zut alors!). In honor of Madame Deficit, prepare your best cake from a historic recipe. And then eat it, bien sur."

This challenge came along at a good time, because my brother and I each attended a wedding in the past fortnight, and therefore wedding cake played a small part in our thoughts recently.  My friend, the bride at one wedding, is allergic to wheat, so she had a completely wheat-free wedding brunch menu and had locally-made gourmet ice cream instead of wedding cake.  My brother's friend, the groom at the other wedding, is from the U.K. and he and his bride had two receptions, according to my brother: one with tea and cakes directly after the wedding ceremony and church service, and a dinner later in the evening.  My brother couldn't tell me what kind of cakes there were, only that they were fairy cakes (cupcakes) and brownies.  But a tea-and-cake wedding reception – how fun!  I'm pretty much up for tea and cakes any time, wedding or not.

My friend is a "foodie" and is always looking for good recipes, especially so now that she has been diagnosed with a wheat allergy.  I made her some wheat- and gluten-free Italian cookies for part of her wedding gift, and when I started researching recipes for this challenge, this rice flour cake recipe caught my eye.  Bonus: it doesn't contain any "wierd" ingredients that some modern gluten-free baking recipes have!  Everything apart from the rice flour comes from a normal pantry, and even the rice flour is relatively easy to find in areas with large Asian communities.

Invalid Cookery, from 1841.

Lemon balm.  Photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

Aargh.  Still fighting off this cold, or virus, or whatever it is.  Treating colds with chicken soup is a proven, old-time remedy, but Victorian cookbooks and household manuals are filled with other recipes and hints.  Some involve ingredients that are known to be harmful, or illegal (like opium!), but others are still in use today, albeit under other names.  Indian meal gruel is really polenta or grits.  Tapioca and rice pudding are still familiar, but we like them sweeter and with more flavoring than is called for by Victorian recipes.  Beef tea is basically broth.  Herbal teas are made by the same method today.

These recipes are from The Good Housekeeper, by Sarah Josepha Hale, 1841.

TO MAKE GRUEL.--Sift the Indian meal through a fine sieve; wet two spoonfuls of this meal with cold water, and beat it till there are no lumps; then stir it into a pint of boiling water, and let it boil half an hour, stirring it all the time.

History for dinner: To Fricassee a Chicken.

Instead of a picture of Chicken
Fricassee, here is a picture of
one of the ingredients, lemon.
Image: www.public-domain-
photos.com

I read a lot of old cookbooks and occasionally a historic recipe sounds great just as it is, and once in a while, there will be one that sounds easy enough that I actually make it (I avoid beating egg whites until they're stiff, for example).  Here is one that is easier in this historic form than it is in it's modern form: Chicken Fricassee.  What is that? It's basically chicken stewed or braised with herbs and vegetables in liquid (water, wine, or broth) and butter, so that it makes its own gravy, which is thickened with dairy and egg at the end.  You can serve it with rice or noodles, or by itself.

To Fricassee a Chicken.--Wash and cut the chicken into joints; scald and take off the skin, put the pieces in a stewpan, with an onion cut small, a bunch of parsley, a little thyme and lemon-peel, salt and pepper--add a pint of water, a bit of butter as large as an egg.  Stew it an hour; a little before serving, add the yolks of two eggs beaten up, with a tea-cup of sweet cream, stirring it in gradually; take care that this gravy does not boil.
-- from Early American Cookery: "The Good Housekeeper" by Sarah Josepha Hale (1841).

Making strawberry ice cream the Victorian way: without a freezer!

image from BryBackManor.com

I got 3 pints of strawberries at the farmer's market last week, and they've been sitting in the fridge since I brought the home!  A bunch of great strawberries that will go bad if I don't do something with them *right now* is a great motivator to get into the kitchen!  But the house is too hot to make jam, and berries this ripe shouldn't be cooked (much) anyway, I think.  Ice cream sounds good, but I don't have an ice cream maker.  There is a popular recipe for making ice cream without a machine, but it involves cooking an egg custard, and taking the mixture out of the freezer to stir it around every 30 minutes for 2 to 3 hours.  I think I have a better idea (although it will make more of a semifreddo instead of a soft ice cream texture)!

"Strawberry Ice Cream.--Mix one pound of strawberry juice, strained and sweetened, with one pint of whipped cream; if to be frozen in a mould, add a little isinglass, melted and strained.  If to be eaten in glasses, isinglass is not necessary."  From The Good Housekeeper, by Lydia Maria Child, 1841.

Now, I am not going to do this exactly as Mrs. Child directs (I can't leave well enough alone).  I'm not using isinglass (a kind of gelatin) for one thing.  I'm also not using strained strawberry juice; I'm going to mash the strawberries with the sugar, and fold them into the whipped cream.  Then I'm going to line a baking dish with plastic wrap, pour the mixture in, and just freeze it.  I also inherited some fancy Jello-molds from my grandma so I may line some of them with plastic and make little molded ice creams for fun!  

Cheap dishes for tax season.

This is from Sarah Josepha Hale's book, The Good Housekeeper, from 1841.

Plain Boiled Rice.

Wash in four or five waters a pint of good rice; tie it in a pudding cloth, allowing plenty of room to swell; put it on in a pot of cold water, and let it boil slowly for two hours. It may be eaten with butter and sugar, or molasses.

Bread Pudding.

Pieces of dry bread, crust, &c., if kept clean, and used before they are sour, make good puddings; no prudent housekeeper will allow them to be wasted. Soak the crusts in milk till they are soft; then add eggs, sweetening, and spice to your taste. Bake or boil.

A Very Economical Dinner.

One pound of sausages cut in pieces, with four pounds of potatoes, and a few onions, if they are liked, with about a table-spoonful of flour mixed in with a pint of water and added to the dish, will make a sufficient dinner for five or six persons. The potatoes must be cut in slices, and stewed with the sausages till tender. Or you may use a pound and a half of meat (mutton is best) instead of the sausages. Season with pepper, salt and sage or thyme.