Posting again after a year ...

Image from http.clipart.edigg.com

I haven't entirely forgotten this blog ... really ....

So many things have changed since I last posted -- on December 31st of 2018!  Most important among the changes is another new place to live.  I moved in about 6 weeks ago, but I'm still unpacking things; I have almost all of my possessions out of my storage unit, however, and I need to get another bookcase or cabinet to hold my antique books and the dishes and silver that I inherited from my grandparents.

I am still working in the library at the school, and I'm also in charge of running the Rancho Day event for 4th grade, and assisting with the Tea Party section of the Colonial Day event for 5th grade, for both of which I wear historical dress, of course!  Rancho Day for 2020 will be at the end of next month, and Colonial Day will be a few weeks later, in early to mid February.  I need to get my costume in order for both events!

I walked in the Rose, White & Blue Parade in San Jose again, with

Photo: Deborah Borlase.

the Greater Bay Area Costumers' Guild, and our theme was Prohibiton: Pro and Con.  I made a ca. 1918 skirt out of blue linen (not quite finished, but it was wearable) and wore it with my vintage embroidered blouse and my "Votes for Women" sash, to illustrate that the people opposing prohibition were also opposing women's voting and other legal rights.  The two issues (prohibition and women's suffrage) were so intertwined that most of the women's organizations campaigned for both issues simultaneously; the amount of control that "Big Alcohol" had over the national, state, and local governments was one of the biggest obstacles, if not the biggest one, to women getting the right to vote, which is a fact that people have largely forgotten and which, even the historians in my costume group wanted to dismiss, as "clouding the issue."

Historic Cooking: Fig Bread Pudding from 1907 and the history of Figgy Pudding.

from AntiqueClipArt.com.

Happy New Year!  "Time flies ..." and all that.  I have settled in to my new place -- a vintage Airstream trailer from 1967 -- but haven't got the oven up and working yet (it runs on propane and involves open flame every time you use it ...) so the only historic cooking I've done so far has been on the stovetop (also propane, involving open flame) and I haven't gotten many photos of the projects.  I am working on a Twelfth Night Cake for the coming week (I'll bake it in my mom's regular electric oven), so hopefully I'll get that written up and posted within the month.  One Historical Food Fortnightly challenge which I made this year, I also did last year but didn't get around to posting about it -- Figgy Pudding.  I decided to use a different recipe for figgy pudding, one that didn't take as long to boil as the one I usually use, so the research for that sent me down the rabbit hole of figgy pudding history.  I ultimately decided that I like the flavor of the Victorian recipe better than this one, but it was still an interesting recipe.

Just after Thanksgiving I made another figgy pudding for my Christmas caroling choir – the Lyric Theatre Victorian Carolers – as I have for the past several years, but this year I wanted to try a different recipe.   In researching other recipes, I followed one of the many "bunny trails" that I remembered from my previous research on the topic of figgy pudding: what is it and how old is it? 

Fig Bread Pudding.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

Figgy pudding seems like such an old-fashioned treat, the kind that dates back to at least the 18th century, but my own investigation into period cookbooks has turned up surprisingly few recipes for it -- under the name "figgy pudding" -- that date before the Victorian era. In The Monthly Magazine: Devonshire and Cornwall Vocabulary from 1810, it defines "figs" as: "Figs, raisins. A "figgy pudding"; a pudding with raisins in it; a plumb pudding." Also, there is a somewhat sniffy (in my opinion) entry in The Oracle—A Weekly Journal of Response, Research, and Reference from December 1882, which states, in answer to the question "In Somersetshire the poor people call raisins figs and a plain pudding they speak of as a figgy pudding. Why is this?" that "It would be hopeless to seek a rational explanation of the error. We can only surmise that in the days when communication was less facile than at present, the rural population having little acquaintance with colonial produce, used figs as a convenient generic term for the dried fruits sold by grocers. ... We do not think the error is peculiar to the poor: it is rather characteristic of the rural population." Well, la di da!

The authors of most "history of figgy pudding" articles on the Internet seem to agree that figgy pudding, plum pudding, and Christmas pudding are all names for the exact same thing, that none of those dishes actually contain figs or plums, and that this somehow made sense to the people of the past because they were weird like that way back then.  However, that kind of explanation for "why people in the past did things a certain way" always makes me suspicious, because it so often turns out to be totally untrue!

Merry Christmas!

AntiqueClipArt.com

An Old Christmas Greeting
Sing hey! Sing hey!
For Christmas Day,
Twine mistletoe and holly,
For friendship glows
In winter snows,
And so let’s all be jolly.
-- old nursery rhyme

May you and yours have the merriest of Christmases and the happiest of New Years!

Happy New Year!

AntiqueClipArt.com

Winter
Bread and milk for breakfast,
And woolen frocks to wear,
And a crumb for robin redbreast
On the cold days of the year.
-- Christina Rossetti

2011 was a hard year for me, as well as several other people I know.  Here's hoping that 2012 will be better for us all!

Having dim sum for Asian New Year?

Dim sum in Hong Kong.  Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Many people in the South Bay are celebrating Asian New Year this week, entertaining friends and family with lots of food and tea.  While the local Filipino and Vietnamese communities are also celebrating, the Asian New Year is primarily associated with the Chinese and Taiwanese communities in the Santa Clara Valley.  The San Jose area has many independent Chinese and Taiwanese food shops and restaurants where locals go, and dim sum is especially popular for the New Year holiday, washed down with lots of tea.  Here are only a few of the favorite local places to buy dim sum to-go; only a few of them offer eat-in amenities:

Happy New Year 2011!

from AntiqueClipArt.com

Ring in the New Year with some tea punch!

Pomegranite tea punch.

Tea can be combined into so many delicious recipes, both healthy and decadent.  This recipe is refreshing during hot weather, and festive for the holidays.  It is a favorite beverage with the members of the South Bay Ladies’ Tea Guild. 


Ladies’ Tea Guild Pomegranite Tea Punch
2 liters lemon-flavored carbonated water, chilled
1 liter brewed apricot or peach black tea, chilled
2 to 3 cups pomegranite juice, chilled
1 tablespoon rose water
ice cubes
culinary rose petals or nasturtium flowers for garnish 

Combine the iced tea, pomegranite juice and rose water in a large container and chill thoroughly.  Just before serving, transfer to a punch bowl and add the ice and lemon-flavored carbonated water.  Float edible flowers, especially organic rose petals or nasturtiums, on top for garnish.  Serve immediately. 

You can vary this recipe with any kind of red juice, if you don't have pomegranite.  Cherry and cranberry juice are very good, but orange juice would probably work just as well.  Rose water can be found in the International Food section of many grocery stores in the United States;  it is often used in Middle Eastern cooking, and will be on the shelf with the Middle Eastern  packaged foods.  If you don't have apricot or peach-flavored black tea to use as a base, you can use a bit of canned or bottled apricot or peach juice, or just leave it out and use plain black tea instead.  Edible flowers are most easily available in the late springtime, so if you can't find any this time of year, leave them out. You can replace them with lemon slices if you like.

This punch is lightly fizzy, floral and fruity, and has a lovely, festive, clear dark red color, plus it has antioxidants and Vitamin C.  If you wanted to make it alcoholic, you could use champagne instead of the carbonated water, and have something similar to a Bellini, which would be delicious.  However you celebrate, stay safe and healthy as you begin your new year!

Happy New Year!

image from OldTimeClipArt.com
"Before the Christmas holiday was popularized, New Year's Day was the celebrated mid-winter festival, and New Year greetings originated in Europe around 1466, hundreds of years earlier than the first Christmas cards." -- from _Christmas Past_ by Barbara Hallman Kissinger.

Winter
Bread and milk for breakfast,
And woolen frocks to wear,
And a crumb for robin redbreast
On the cold days of the year.
-- Christina Rossetti

The Frost Spirit
He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! You may trace his footsteps now
On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's withered brow.
He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth,
And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth.
-- John Greenleaf Whittier

New Year's Eve dinner recipes, turnips, winter-squash, and plum pudding.

image from Grandma's Graphics.

If anyone wants recipes for the smoked tongue or cold-slaw[sic] that were mentioned in the menu from Godey's, please let me know and I'll research them. They were nowhere to be found in my antique recipe books! Here are the other vegetable side dishes:

"Turnips should be pared; put into boiling water, with a little salt; boiled till tender; then squeeze them thoroughly from the water, mash them smooth, add a piece of butter and a little pepper and salt."

"Squash is a rich vegetable, particularly the yellow winter squash. This requires more boiling than the summer kind. Pare it, cut it in pieces, take out the seeds and boil it in a very little water till it is quite soft. Then press out all the water, mash it and add a little butter, pepper and salt."

And plum pudding is not just for Christmas!

"Plum Pudding.-- Chop half a pound of suet very fine; stone half a pound of raisins; half a pound of currants nicely washed and picked; four ounces of bread crumbs; four ounces of flour; four eggs well beaten; a little grated nutmeg; mace and cinnamon pounded very fine; a spoonful of salt; four ounces of sugar; one ounce candied lemon; same of citron.

Beat the eggs and the spices well together: mix the milk with them by degrees, then the rest of the ingredients; dip a fine, close linen cloth into boiling water, and place it in a hair sieve; flour it a little, then pour in the batter and tie it up, allowing a little room to swell; put it into a pot containing six quarts of boiling water; keep a tea-kettle of boiling water and fill up your pot as it wastes; be sure to keep it boiling at least six hours -- seven would not injure it. This pudding should be mixed an hour or two before it is put on to boil; it makes it taste richer."

New Year's dinner ca. January 1860, plus roast goose and apple sauce

from Antiqueclipart.com

"NEW YEAR’S DINNER.—A roast goose with apple-sauce, a boiled turkey with oyster-sauce, smoked tongue, turnips, cold-slaw [sic], winter-squash; plum pudding."

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, during the 19th century, seemed to be the favored days for social gatherings, as opposed to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which were generally kept for private family and religious gatherings. Having a New Year's dinner party sounds like a good idea, though! My family usually doesn't do anything special, but it would be really fun to have people over and serve the menu above, from Godey's Lady's Book. Here are a few antique recipes -- from Sarah Josepha Hale, ca. 1841 -- that can help if you decide to serve your friends a real Victorian holiday dinner:

"To Roast a Goose.-- Geese seem to bear the same relation to poultry that pork does to the flesh of other domestic quadrupeds; that is, the flesh of the goose is not suitable for, or agreeable to, the very delicate in constitution. One reason doubtless is, that it is the fashion to bring it to table very rare done; a detestable mode! Take a young goose, pick, singe, and clean well. Make the stuffing with two ounces of onions, (about four common sized,) and one ounce of green sage chopped very fine; then add a large coffee cup of stale bread crumbs and the same of mashed potatoes; a little pepper and salt, a bit of butter as big as a walnut, the yolk of an egg or two; mix these well together, and stuff the goose; do not fill it entirely -- the stuffing requires room to swell. Spit it; tie the spit at both ends, to prevent its swinging round, and to keep the stuffing from coming out. The fire must be brisk. Baste it with salt and water at first -- then with its own dripping. It will take two hours or more to roast it thoroughly."

"Apple Sauce.-- In the country it is thought almost as indispensable to provide the stock of apple sauce for winter use as the pork; and there is no doubt of the healthiness as well as the pleasantness of fruit taken in this way as food. To eat with meat, it is best made of sour apples, not too mellow, but pleasant flavored. Boil down new sweet cider till it is nearly as thick, when cold, as molasses; strain it through a sieve; wash the kettle, (it must be brass, or iron tinned;) put in the syrup, and as soon as it boils, put in the apples, which must have been previously pared, quartered, and cored. Stew over a slow fire of coals till very tender."