Historic Cooking: Fourth of July Pudding from 1916.

Fourth of July Pudding.  Photo: Liz Raven.

The Redone Challenge: Today in History (June 29-July 12, 2014) Make a dish based on or inspired by a momentous occasion that took place on the day you made it. Get creative - you would be surprised by all the interesting things that happened every single day!

The Recipe:

A Fourth of July Luncheon. To be served buffet style or on the porch.  By Cora Farmer Perkins.

FOURTH OF JULY PUDDING: Pick over, wash and hull one quart box of strawberries.  Sprinkle with one cupful of granulated sugar, cover, and let stand two hours.  Mash, squeeze through a double thickness of cheesecloth, and add one cupful of cold water, and lemon juice to taste.  Turn mixture into a brick mold.  Beat one pint of heavy cream until stiff and add one-half cupful of powdered sugar, one-half tablespoonful of vanilla, a few grains of salt, and two thirds of a cupful of rolled dried macaroons.  Pour cream mixture over fruit mixture to overflow mold.  Cover with buttered paper (buttered side up) and adjust cover, when mixture should be forced down sides of mold.  Pack in rock salt and finely crushed ice, using equal parts, and let stand three hours.

            Remove to chilled serving dish, garnish with selected strawberries, and cut in slices for serving.

--from _Woman’s Home Companion_, July 1916. 

The Date/Year and Region: the United States, 1916. 

Rose, White & Blue Parade -- another fun way to spend the 4th of July!

The tea guild and GBACG members before the parade.  Photo: Laura Jimenez.

The South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild and the Greater Bay Area Costumers' Guild got together again to dress up and walk in San Jose's only 4th of July parade, the Rose, White & Blue Parade that travels through the historic Rose Garden neighborhood.  As with last year's parade, there was a lot of standing around and waiting -- even though we arrived at the staging area only 30 minutes before the parade was supposed to start (instead of 1 1/2 hours early as they suggested!).  We did have the opportunity to chat with some of the other parade participants, and had several people come up to us and ask to take pictures of and with us.  We were also approached by campaign workers to ask if we would be photographed holding various politicians' campaign posters, which we politely declined to do ...

the tea guild at GBACG members in the parade.  Photo: Laura Jimenez.

The parade route was lengthened this year, from 1.5 miles to 1.7 miles, and I don't know if we really noticed the difference because, just like last year, we all had sore feet by the end of the parade anyway!  The parade audience was great, though, and it is always fun to chat with them as we walk and wave.  We kept getting asked "How are your feet doing in those heels?" and "One lump or two?" (I was carrying our tea guild's banner).  The streets are so small that people can call out to you and you can hear and call back.  I wish we could have taken advantage of the glasses of cold beverages that were (somewhat jokingly) offered to us along the parade route, though!  On the way to a friend's house in the neighborhood (where we were invited to stop for some ice water and air conditioning) we started talking about next year's parade and how we should plan costumes that call for flat shoes!  So far, we've settled on Victorian and Edwardian bathing costumes (with ballet flats tied on with ribbons) and 1920s/1930s poolside and beach play suits and coverups (with espadrilles and sandals).  We'll see what we end up wearing when next year's parade rolls around!  

July!

"What dreadful hot weather we have!

It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance."
- Jane Austen 

July has arrived, and brought unusually high temperatures with it!  Parts of the garden are doing well -- the pumpkins and zucchini are sprawling all over their space -- but the tomatoes in the clay pots keep wilting if I don't water them every day.  Only one of my heads of lettuce is doing well, but I've already cut from it twice and it looks like it's about to go to seed.  It looks good for the cherry tomatoes and the other tomatoes in the ground, though and it looks like I'll get a good amount of basil, too.  Hopefully this next week of really high temperatures won't kill everything!

The tea guild is getting ready to walk in the Rose, White & Blue Parade through downtown San Jose on the 4th, so that should be fun.  It's the third year we've walked in the parade and we're glad to have been invited back!  We had a lot of fun waving to the crowd and being in the parade.  Here is one of the photos from last year:          

The parade starts at 10 a.m. and runs through the Rose Garden neighborhood in San Jose, so come out and see it!  We can always use some fans in the audience ...

Tips for a "Patriotic Evening Affair"

Image from http.clipart.edigg.com

This information is from the Woman's Home Companion magazine from 1919:

“For a Patriotic Evening Affair”

Open Sandwiches, Allied Style
South Park Sweetbreads or Veal Souffle
Pineapple Mousse
Coffee or Shrub Punch

Back from the parade!

Here we are, waiting ...

No, we didn't just get back today, it's taken me this long to get the photos up!  We had a great time walking in the parade and are planning to do it again next year.  Lots of people asked about the South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild and the Greater Bay Area Costumers' Guild as we walked through town, so hopefully we'll get a few more people to look us up and join in the fun! 

Happy 4th of July!

Clipart from http://clipart.edigg.com

It looks like Independence Day will be a scorcher in much of the U.S.A., so be sure to have plenty of iced tea and lemonade around!  Have a barbecue and avoid heating up the house.  Ice cream and popsicles are good, too.  Here are some recipes that sound good for the 4th of July:

Strawberry Lemon Iced Tea
Blueberry Lemonade
Dried Cherry Scones with clotted cream
Roasted Red Pepper Tapenade Crostini
Cold Strawberry Soup 
Mini Apple Tarts
Strawberry Shortcake
Blueberry Cream Cheese tarts

If you want, you can add a few antique recipes to your menu, according to what the Founding Fathers and Mothers might have enjoyed.  There's even an old recipe for Independence Cake, but it sounds like it makes a huge amount ...

Independence Cake
Twenty pounds of flour, fifteen pounds of sugar, ten pounds of butter, four dozen eggs, one quart of wine, one quart of brandy, one ounce of nutmeg; cinnamon, cloves, mace of each three ounces, two pounds citron, currants and raisins, five pounds each, one quart of yeast, when baked frost with loaf sugar, dress with boxwood and gold leaf.
-- from American Cookery by Amelia Simmons, 1814. Rare Books Exhibit from the Richard L. D. & Marjorie J. Morse Dept. of Special Collections, Kansas State University Libraries.

The main thing is to keep cool and stay safe while you celebrate the great nation that America still is!  Our ideals are worth celebrating!

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