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."

More New Year's dinner recipes from 1860, boiled turkey and oyster sauce.

Also from Mrs. Hale, ca. 1841:
"To boil a Turkey.-- Clean it as to roast, make a stuffing of bread, green parsley, one lemon peel, a few oysters or an onion -- season it with salt, pepper, a little nutmeg, and mix one egg and a small bit of butter; put this into the crop, fasten up the skin, put the turkey on in cold water enough to cover it, let it boil slowly, and take off all the scum; when this is done, it should only simmer closely covered until it is done. It will take about two hours for a small turkey, longer if large. A little salt may be put in the water, and the turkey dredged with flour before it is boiled. The neck and liver are boiled, chopped and put in the gravy."

"Oyster Sauce.-- Beard and scald the oysters, strain the liquor, and thicken it with a little flour and butter, squeeze in a little lemon juice, and add three-tablespoonfuls of cream. Heat it well, but do not let it boil."

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."

Another poem.

image from Grandma's Graphics.
My Gift.
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am;
If I were a shepherd,
I would give Him a lamb.
If I were a wise man,
I would do my part.
But what can I give Him?
I will give my heart.
-- Christina Rossetti

Merry Christmas!

image from Antiqueclipart.com.

An Old Christmas Greeting. [ an old nursery rhyme]

Sing hey! Sing hey!
For Christmas Day,
Twine mistletoe and holly,
For friendship glows
In winter snows,
And so let's all be jolly.

Christmas Hearth Rhyme. [an old nursery rhyme]
Sing we all merrily,
Christmas is here,
The day we love best
Of all days in the year.

Bring forth the holly,
The box and the bay,
Deck out our cottage
For glad Christmas day.

Sing we all merrily,
Draw near the fire,
Sister and brother,
Grandson and sire.

Gluten-free scone recipe!

My aunt and cousin are allergic to wheat, among other things, and they're not really enjoying their new (they were just diagnosed) wheat-free diet. They're going to be visiting us for Christmas, and I know they would be thrilled to be able to have scones with their tea! Here is a recipe posted to the Afternoon Tea Across America list (on Yahoo! groups) that I will probably try to make for them,if I can get to the health food store and gather the ingredients:

Mocha Teff Scones [gluten free recipe]
2 1/2 cups of teff flour
1/2 cup of coffee
1 tbsp. of arrowroot
1 tbsp. of baking powder
1 tbsp. of vanilla
1/3 cup of canola oil
1/3 cup of maple syrup
3/4 cup of dried fruit such as unsulphured apricots
(cut up into small pieces)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Shape the dough into round patties, about 1/2" thick. Bake for 20 minutes. Makes 1 dozen scones. *Variation: use jam, instead of using dried fruit. Gently press your thumb into the center of the scone before baking them. Fill each with 1/2 tsp. of jam.
-- adapted from recipe posted to SoFlaVegans list.

I think my relatives can have all of the ingredients! They also can't have dairy or cane sugar, so I'll have to find something other than clotted cream and jam for them to put on the scones, but it's a start!

How the Christmas Wreaths look in California, ca. 1861

image from Antiqueclipart.com

"Notes and Queries: How the Christmas Wreaths look in California.— ‘We are in the midst of the holidays,’ writes one of the best California correspondents, ‘the groceries, the markets, the streets are green with the boughs of evergreens; redwood and cedar, pines and myrtles give forth their fragrance. The churches are redolent of an odor that I never whiffed in the Atlantic states – it issues from a shrub which looks very much like your bayberry or candleberry. The peculiar aroma at first is that of the bayberry, but close behind it comes a faint smell of cinnamon – making together a most delicious perfume. With this shrub the pillars of the churches, the gas-pipes and burners, the galleries and pulpits are hung, while roses, geraniums and fuchsias [sic], all grown in the open air, fill up the spaces between the branches, and give a Juny appearance to the room." from Godey's Lady's Book, January 1861, page 90.