Historic Cooking: Thanksgiving Pudding from 1925.

Image from http.clipart.edigg.com

Hello again; here we are near the end of a year that has been absolutely abnormal!  Things have changed even more for me; I was laid off from my job at the school in mid-August, due to increased costs related to the Covid-19 pandemic, and have been unemployed since then.  As I have found whenever I need to look for a job, I am overqualified for all of the minimum-wage or entry-level jobs that people are hiring for (and there are fewer of those jobs available because of all the businesses that have closed), and under-qualified for everything else!  I may need to use this time to go to grad school and get either a Master's or a teaching credential, or both, but I have no idea how I will pay for it while unemployed! I have no illusions of anything improving under the new presidency, since my situation remained the same under all the previous ones. 

One good thing that has come out of this excess of spare time, is that I have immersed myself in historical research, as well as attending as many history-related webinars and online lectures as I can, and it has resulted in some new things (none of which will earn me any kind of income, but oh well).  I have continued with the YouTube channel that I started in July and August, and it has been really interesting, although I still hate editing the videos!  I have made some interesting connections with other historians in the U.S., and it has inspired me to keep going with my own research and costume and cooking projects.  I have a whole list of historic recipes that I would like to make into videos for the YouTube channel, and I am currently translating my beginning hand-sewing class -- which I taught to elementary school students a few years ago -- into a series of videos, too.  But the weather has grown cool, and all I want to do right now is bake, and drink tea!

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!

Historical Food Fortnightly: Challenge #7 -- The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread -- Raspberry Jell from 1945.

Calves' feet boiling for jelly.  Photo: Elizabeth Urbach. 

Having tried (and failed) to make jelly the old-fashioned way from calves' feet, it was a very quick and easy job to make jelly with packaged gelatine.  The calves' feet need to be cleaned, covered in water and boiled gently for 4 hours, until the meat and cartilage fall off the bones and are dissolved into the broth.  Then the bones and meat chunks and any undissolved cartilage need to be picked out of the broth and the broth needs to cool and settle overnight.  Then the fat that rises to the top of the broth needs to be cleaned off the top, and the sediment that sinks to the bottom needs to be scraped off as well.  The resulting jelly is a transluscent, meaty brown color that needs to be melted again and strained through a jelly bag or a few layers of cheesecloth or wet muslin to remove more sediment.  Then the jelly needs to cool and settle again, and if it's not yet clear and flavor-less, it needs to be melted and run through a jelly bag again.  Once it's clear, only then can you add the flavorings and pour it into a mold and let it set into its finished shape!  That takes at least a day, just to prepare the unflavored gelatine! 

Some warm-weather recipes from Godey's, 1854.

California beach, ca. 1905.  Wikimedia Commons.

 Despite the weather forecasts of rain and showers in the next few days, it's only been sunny and humid around here, warming up the house quickly and not cooling down until late in the afternoon.  Those of us in older houses with no air conditioning try to get by with doing as much as possible in the morning and evening when it's a bit cooler, but sometimes you have picnics or barbecues to go to, where you're expected to bring some of the food.  Who wants to heat up the house even more by cooking something?  Luckily, there are tons of ideas in Victorian cookbooks and women's magazines for dealing with warm weather; even if you have to bring a dessert somewhere, you're not limited to fruit salad or ice cream if you use a recipe like one of those below:

              "STONE CREAM.—Put in the dish you mean to send to table three spoonfuls of the lemon-juice with a little of the peel grated, to apricot jam; boil together a pint of cream, half an ounce of isinglass, and some sugar; when nearly cold, pour it on the sweetmeat.  A few macaroons at the bottom of the dish is an improvement.  To be made a few hours before using. 

Orange Jelly from 1852

Image from MorgueFile.com

Happy New Year!  I hope 2013 has been good to you so far.  In my research (see my last post from December 28th) I've been re-reading a lot of Gold Rush-era American newspapers and magazines (Google Books is my friend!) including Godey's Lady's Book. Because of letters to the editor from "California correspondents", we know that Californians were reading the Lady's Book during the Gold Rush, and probably followed the recipes printed in each issue.  Oranges will be coming into season in Northern California this month, so here is a ca. 1852 recipe from Godey's for a good midwinter dessert: Orange Jelly.

Celebrate the Queen's Jubilee with a special afternoon tea

Cherries Jubilee, Wikimedia Commons.

 Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria are the longest-reigning monarchs in the history of the U.K. -- amazing that they beat out all the men!  There are a lot of events and festivities scheduled for this weekend in the U.K., the Commonwealth nations, and in households where Brits, Canadians, and their friends live, including the Sunday Lunch (tomorrow).  Red, white and blue bunting, ribbons, and flags are used to decorate homes, businesses, and even cakes this year!  Many people are decorating regular cakes with the Union flag in fondant, or red and blue sprinkles, but why not adapt a recipe or two invented for Queen Victoria's Jubilee back in 1897 and bring some history into it?

Another Regency recipe: Shrewsbury Cakes.

Homemade Shrewsbury Cakes.  Elizabeth Urbach.

San Jose's South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild recently enjoyed afternoon tea at their Regency Tea and costume workshop, with a menu that featured recipes from Jane Austen's lifetime.  Afternoon tea as a codified meal wasn't known in her day, but tea was a very popular beverage just the same.  It was served in the morning with breakfast, after an early dinner at 5 (as part of evening entertainment), or with a late supper (after a ball or late night party).  Antique cookbooks mention many recipes as "good to eat with tea" so these were featured for the tea guild's menu.  While some flavors are an acquired taste today, here is one item that tastes as good to our palates as it did to Jane Austen's: Shrewsbury Cakes.

“To make Shrewsberry Cakes.—Take two pounds of fine flour, put to it a pound and a quarter of butter (rub them very well) a pound and a quarter of fine sugar sifted, grate in a nutmeg, beat in three whites of eggs and two yolks, with a little rose-water, and so knead your paste with it, let it lay an hour, then make it up into cakes, prick them and lay them on papers, wet them with a feather dipt in rose-water, and grate over them a little fine sugar; bake them in a slow oven, either on tins or paper.”
-- from Project Gutenberg's English Housewifery Exemplified, by Elizabeth Moxon (1764)

Aztec Chocolate Bread Pudding.

Aztec chocolate bread pudding.
O.k., I'm a confirmed fan of bread pudding. Sweet or savory, filled with currants and lemon zest, butterscotch chips, or cheddar and onions, bread pudding is a simple comfort food to make, if it's not too hot to bake. Plus, it's just so darn frugal, especially for someone like me, who can't eat up a whole loaf of bread before it dries out or goes stale. I don't know if someone else has come up with this recipe already, but I threw together a bread pudding today (baking it in the toaster oven avoided heating up the house!) with a small loaf/sandwich roll of French bread that was thoroughly dried out, plus some chocolate. It uses Dagoba Aztec Xocolatl hot cocoa mix, thus the name, but if you don't have that, you could use your favorite intense chocolate cocoa mix, and add a dash of cinnamon and a dash of chili powder instead.

Aztec Chocolate Bread Pudding

1 small loaf or large sandwich roll of French or Italian bread, stale or dried out (but not moldy)
1 pint milk, plus extra
3 whole eggs
1/2 cup Dagoba Aztec Xocolatl cocoa mix
1/2 to 1 cup Ghirardelli dark chocolate (60% cocoa) chips
butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cut the bread into 1-inch cubes and measure out 3 cups of bread. Place in a medium bowl and pour 1 pint of milk over the bread. There should be more milk than the bread can soak up easily, so add more milk as needed; let the bread sit in the milk for 10 minutes or so to get soggy. When all the bread is saturated with the milk (there should be a little extra milk left in the bowl), smash the bread in the milk until each cube is broken up and the mixture makes a wet, chunky paste. Beat the eggs well in a separate bowl and stir into the bread and milk. Add the cocoa mix and chocolate chips and combine well. Butter an 8-inch square baking dish (or a 12-hole muffin tin) and pour the pudding mixture in, filling the container (or each muffin cup) to the top. [NOTE: If using the muffin tin, you may not have enough pudding mixture to fill every muffin cup. Don't worry.] Place on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes (15 to 20 minutes for the muffin tin) or until puffed, the top springs back when gently pressed, a knife blade inserted in the center comes out wet but clean, and the edges start to pull away from the pan. Cool in the pan before serving, (or turning the mini puddings out onto plates). Serve warm or cold, with whipped cream or ice cream. Serves 6 to 8.