Historic Cooking: Chicken Saltato con Fungi from 1916

Chicken Saltado con Fungi ingredients.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

Since the Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge project officially ended, and no new challenges will be posted, those of us who have completed some of the challenges in the past decided that we would continue the project on an informal basis. We choose a challenge from the whole list of previous themes, and either complete them (if we never got a chance to do so), or re-do them, on our own time, with no requirement (even such an informal one as we had) to complete the recipe and post about it within a certain time period! I've been reading Edwardian Farm by Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn, and Alex Langlands, so I've been thinking about life in California during the Edwardian period, and the similarities and differences between Edwardian California and Edwardian England. 

Soft Gingerbread from _The Bride's Cook Book_, 1915.

photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

 Since I've had this week off between Christmas and New Year's I've had a bit of time to do some baking.  There is construction going on in the kitchen, so I have to wait until the workers go home in the evening before I can clean up all the dust and grime, and cook anything; I've also been fighting a bad cold for over a week anyway, so I've been spending my time compiling historic Christmas-season recipes from all the files on my computer and the books on my shelves.  I haven't quite gone through them all, but some of the gingerbread recipes have begun to catch my eye.

I made the dough for some gingersnaps, and made 2 batches of gingerbread cake; one divided between small pans, to give as belated Christmas gifts to my family (when I see them), and the other in a loaf pan, for my housemates and I to eat at home. *I also have a plan to make some gluten-free cookies for my cousin and aunt when they come to visit, as well as a Twelfth Night or New Year's Cake, but more on that later*

Slowly catching up ...

photo from www.e-Cobo.com.

AUTUMN DAYS.  BY LOTTIE LINWOOD.

‘Tis Autumn time! the summer flowers

Have faded ‘neath its golden feet;

The birds have left their shady bowers,

And winds chime mournfully and sweet;

The maple boughs, whose folded leaves

Have whispered through the summer days

Like bright-winged birds, around the eaves

Are flitting in the sun’s pale rays;

I hear their rustling low and sweet,
As if an angel floated o’er;

They seem to me like friends I meet,

And love, then part forever more. 

The dreamy lull of limpid streams;

The azure haze that floats above,
Enshroud earth as mysterious dreams,
O’er all our spirits softly move. 

Spirit of dreams! oh, I would bless

Thy soft luxurious charms for aye,

And fold thee in my soul’s caress,

Now and forever till I die!

Oh, chide me not! the low wind rhymes,

Full many a plaintive trembling lay,

And I could listen to her hymns,

Till I had breathed my life away. 
-- from Godey's _Lady's Book_, October 1855. 

Back from the San Francisco International Tea Festival!

Ferry Building Marketplace, San Francisco.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

 Today was the 4th annual San Francisco International Tea Festival, at the Ferry Building in San Francisco, and it was a fun day, although I did wish there was more to the festival than 15 to 20 vendors and 5 lectures.  I did get to taste some really interesting teas, and purchased one of them, a Taiwanese black tea with a really interesting cinnamon-spice aroma and flavor -- and no actual cinnamon or flavoring had been added!  I'll write a follow-up post about my impressions of some of the teas I tasted, later.

Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge #20 -- Eggs a L'Exposition

The Palace of Fine Arts, from
_Splendors of the Panama-Pacific Exposition_.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

The Challenge: #20 -- Foods served at notable events in history 

What kind of food was served at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth? What did Benjamin Franklin eat at the Constitutional Convention? Find a food item that was served at a notable event in history, research the recipe, and recreate the dish.

The Tower of Jewels, from _Splendors of the Panama-
Pacific Exposition_. Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

This year is the 100^th anniversary of one of the most iconic events in California history: the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.  Held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the Pan-Pacific Exposition was California's message to the world that the city of San Francisco, and the entire state, had completely recovered from the catastrophic earthquake and fire in 1906, and that California had not only recovered, but surpassed its previous accomplishments to become a cultural, economic and technological leader of the United States, on a par with New York City, Boston, Chicago, and other eastern cities.  The fair lasted an entire year, and the city was transformed by the beautiful buildings, gardens, walkways, public art, and evening light shows, not to mention the exciting and wonderful international exhibitions in each of the pavilions.  The fairgrounds became the most fashionable place to be, and the fair was absorbed into San Francisco life and California culture to an extent that, when it came time to close the fair and remove all the buildings and gardens, Californians felt like the heart of the city was being destroyed.  Residents protested the removal of the buildings – which had been built of plaster and chicken wire over wooden frames, and never intended to last more than a year – and succeeded in saving the Palace of Fine Arts and the Temple of Art, which were kept in their original locations until several years ago when they needed to be re-created in concrete due to deterioration.  The re-created buildings are still there, part of an art museum complex, and are used for countless photographs and concerts to this day.

The Tower of Jewels at Night, from _Splendors of the Panama-
Pacific Exposition_.  Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

The fair was so popular that souvenirs of all kinds were created, from replica glass "jewels" to imitate those decorating the Tower of Jewels, to illustrated picture books – one of which I have! – to special "Exhibition" cookbooks.  I decided to make one of the recipes in the souvenir cookbook, The Pan-Pacific Cookbook: Savoury Tidbits from the World's Fare, which features international recipes as well as ones apparently created especially for the Exposition. This recipe is on the Pan-Pacific Exposition website. The book is available for free in PDF form on OpenLibrary, and available in paperback re-print for $13 or so on Amazon.

Surprise: Antiques Roadshow!

Souvenirs of the Antiques Roadshow!
 Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

The book that I brought: souvenir illustrations from the
Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915 in San Francisco.
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach.

Back in April I found out that the Antiques Roadshow was going to be at the Santa Clara Convention Center, which is less than 20 minutes from my house.  I missed them when they were in my home town a few years ago, because you have to put your name/e-mail address in a drawing on their website before a certain cut-off date, and then check the website after the deadline to see if you were chosen; I didn't find out about it until the date had already passed.  This time, though, I saw their ad after watching the show, put my e-mail address in, and actually got chosen for tickets!  The tickets are free, and each e-mail address chosen gets 2 tickets; each ticket holder gets to bring 2 items to be appraised.  I offered my second ticket to my friend Rose from the costume guild, and we had an exciting, if tiring day today at the Roadshow!

2nd Annual San Francisco International Tea Festival

Afternoon Tea Across America members meet up!
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

Mr. Fong and Mr. Pratt opening the
2012 Festival.  Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

My friend and I went to the The San Francisco International Tea Festival at the Ferry Building Marketplace last Sunday.  A big highlight for me was meeting up with some of the members of the Afternoon Tea Across America e-mail group on Yahoo (see photo at left)!  We had a good time, and will probably go again next year.  The festival, open to tea lovers outside the professional tea trade, involved 16 tea vendors and various experts who offered samples of their tea and tea products, gave lectures and led tea tastings.  There were about 1,000 attendees, who received a small bag of promotional handouts, a few samples of tea, and an official tasting cup, at the festival entrance.

Mrs. Burnett's dress, part 2.

Harriet Burnett's dress,
ca. 1849
Photo: Elizabeth Urbach

Wow, I hadn't realized how long it's been since I last posted!  I've been keeping busy, though, with historical things.  Researching Harriet Burnett's governor's ball dress (see photo at left) has been really interesting.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find any period description of the dress at the ball in any of the contemporary newspapers, because San Jose didn't have its own newspaper until 1851 and the ball was in 1849.  The nearest local papers were out of Monterey and San Francisco, and relied on the mail bringing news from San Jose in order to publish the Legislative happenings.  Unfortunately, the winter of 1849 was so rainy and stormy that the roads were unusably muddy and no news could get out of or into San Jose!  It took until the end of January 1850 for the rain to let up and the roads dry out enough that the mail could get through to Monterey and San Francisco, so by that time any excitement about the ball had died down, and the papers recorded the inauguration of Governor Burnett, and mentioned, almost as an aside, "there was a ball in San Jose." 

There was no further description or mention of the event itself, although an interview with someone who was there, done many years later, and published in 1941, has the woman recalling that the ball was "the" event for the Bay Area for years afterwards.  I think the only place where I could find a fuller description of the ball, would be in the letters or journal of someone (a woman) who was there, but I don't know of any journals or letters from 1849 in San Jose that have been published, or are available to the public!  I think I'm at a dead end in verifying the provenance of the dress, so I've just made a record for it in the museum database, saying that the dress "is said to have been worn" at the Inauguration Ball.  I'll have to leave it at that for now.  It's been really fun reading all those old newspapers, though.  I found a website, the California Digital Newspaper Collection, that has scanned the papers into digital form and made them readable (you can enlarge the printing from the teeny-tiny original size!). 

Greet May 1st with Morris dancing!

Morris dancers in England.  By Kaihsu Tai,
GNU Free Documentation 1.2

My friend Amy is a Morris dancer and says that it's traditional to greet the sun (i.e. get up before sunrise and dance at dawn) on May 1st, "to make sure the sun will rise for the rest of the year."  So, if you happen to be up before 5 a.m. tomorrow morning, and you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, why not go down to one of the following Morris dancing performances?

Berkeley Morris: from 5:30 to 6:45 a.m. at Inspiration Point in Tilden Park.
Mad Molly: at 5:50 a.m. at the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve.
Goat Hill: at 5:45 a.m. in the Twin Peaks parking lot in San Francisco. E-mail goathillsquire (at) oakashthorn (dot) com for more information about the group.
Seabright Morris & Sword: at 5:30 a.m. at the Lighthouse on West Cliff Dr in Santa Cruz.
Apple Tree Morris: at 5:30 a.m. at the Sebastopol Community Center Youth Annex, 425 Morris St., Santa Rosa.

They say that there will be dancing all day long, so you may still be able to catch a performance even if you can't be there at dawn!  

San Francisco International Tea Festival!

Ferry Building in San Francisco.
Wikimedia Commons.

I just heard about the San Francisco International Tea Festival from a tea friend.  I had no idea that this event even existed, and now I totally want to go!  It will be held at the Ferry Building on Saturday, February 25 and admission is $25 per person.

Is anyone else going to this event?  I've never been to this kind of event before, but it sounds like such an interesting and fun experience. 

Tea tasting in San Francisco, part 2

teas for tasting at Vital TeaLeaf.
The other place where we spent time tasting tea (for free!) was Vital TeaLeaf. We tasted everything from oolongs and green teas, to pu-erh and a lovely French rosebud tisane.

tea on display and for tasting.







My friends ended up getting a lovely green tea that was called "Angel". The tea expert, James, was entertaining and let us taste as many teas as we wanted.

Vital TeaLeaf
1044 Grant Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94113
www.vitalTleaf.com

Tea tasting in San Francisco, part 1.

tea set and tray at Red Blossom Tea Company.
I played hooky with a few friends on Monday, when we took the day off and went to San Francisco for dim sum and shopping and tea tasting in Chinatown. We only really walked up and down one street, but we had a lot of fun and came home full of tea. I don't even remember all the teas I tasted, but I bought a lovely Phoenix oolong that has a floral character reminiscent of orange blossoms. Here are a few photos:


Red Blossom Tea Company: we tasted several teas here, including some nice oolongs and green teas. This is where I bought the Phoenix Oolong.

Here is a close-up of the gaiwan and glass tea pot.



Red Blossom Tea Company
831 Grant Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94108
www.redblossomtea.com

San Francisco's Great Dickens Christmas Fair is getting ready to open!

Cathy Decker. From Englishwomen's Domestic Magazine, ca. 1865.
Despite rumors of the Cow Palace being sold to a developer, and the Dickens Fair having to move, it appears that Dickens will come back to the Cow Palace this year, the same as ever! Traditionally opening the weekend after Thanksgiving, the Dickens Fair runs 6 weekends, to the weekend before Christmas. My friends in the GBACG and I are getting our costumes in gear to attend the Dickens Fair appropriately dressed! What about you? It's not too hard to pull together a reasonably historically accurate mid-Victorian costume, although you do have to do some research so you know what to look for. Too many women just choose a long skirt and white blouse, cover it with bows and lace, and think that they have the right look!

Clothing worn during Dickens’ career openly displayed the wearer’s wealth and social standing, and often their occupation, in a way that is unfamiliar to us today. Because of the difficulty and expense of creating such high-fashion clothing today, it is recommended that women and girls assembling a mid-Victorian costume dress in a manner more appropriate to the middle and lower classes of the day. It is possible to rent suitable costumes, and also to buy complete costumes from specialty dressmakers through mail order or the Internet. The least expensive option is to put together a costume from thrift store finds, if you know what to look for, but be prepared to look through the offerings of more than one store and, especially, you should be willing to make a few alterations with needle and thread, fabric glue, hot glue, or iron-on fabric tape.

General tips: Middle and lower class women and girls imitated elements of upper class fashions, as much as their budget, occupation, and leisure time would allow. Their dresses were made of simpler fabrics like wool and cotton, in solid colors, stripes, checks, or plaids. The colors they wore were mainly muted, rather than bright or true colors, as the brighter tones were created with expensive chemical dyes. Dark colors were stylish and practical, and women coordinated, rather than perfectly matched, their accessories to their dresses. Look for neutral or muted colors in natural fabrics.

The Great Dickens Christmas Fair
The Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild (GBACG)

San Francisco Ballet presents The Nutcracker on PBS this week

For those in California (I don't know if the program will be aired elsewhere):

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/07/PKRT14CT16.DTL&hw=nutcracker&sn=005&sc=235

The Nutcracker
San Francisco Ballet
Wednesday, December 17, at 9 p.m. Pacific Time
Broadcast on PBS (check your local listings)

This production is set in San Francisco in 1915, with references to the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition and the San Francisco area. It has been very highly rated -- including the historical accuracy of the costumes -- by some acquaintences of mine who have seen it. I haven't seen it yet but I'm planning to catch it on television this week!