Pot Luck

Striking gold... (4.00 / 1)

While doing more research earlier on my Old South Portland obsession, I came across a fully accessible digital copy of a cookbook associated with Neighborhood House.

Here's the cookbook (click on 'view page images', the whole book is online and free) -

The Neighborhood Cook Book/Comp. Under The Auspices Of The Portland Section In 1912, Council Of Jewish Women.
Portland, Or. [Press Of Bushong & Co.] 1914.

This is another of the seven charity cookbooks we selected to represent the more than 3000 that were published in the United States between 1864 and 1922. As we indicated in our introduction, the charity cookbook is a legacy of the Civil War. They are a remarkable resource for the culinary historian.

Out of curiosity I went and checked out what else was on the site, and wow!  76 free, fully digitally archived historic cookbooks!

Including another gem of which type I've been long looking for -

The Great Western Cook Book, or Table Receipts, Adapted to Western Housewifery.
New York: A.S. Barnes & Company, 1857. c1851

An 1850's Western cookbook!

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

---

by: JayinPortland @ Tue Aug 17, 2010 at 02:21:51 AM UTC

Great Western Cookbook... (4.00 / 1)

From page 71 ("Image 77"), instructions on how to clean and cook a calf head (hint - remove brain and cook separately).

Don't think you'll find these kinds of things in today's cookbooks!

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

---

by: JayinPortland @ Tue Aug 17, 2010 at 02:31:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

To boil hominy... (4.00 / 2)

...make sure you have a wooden mallet handy!

;)

I'm lovin' this shit...

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

---

by: JayinPortland @ Tue Aug 17, 2010 at 02:55:55 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

my fave online cookbook (4.00 / 1)

My favorite online cookbook is The Indian Cookery Book, by an Anonymous author. The HTML version has links. The book is undated, but might be not long after the 1840s.

RICE OR CHOWL

Rice is consumed by most European families at breakfast, tiffin, and dinner. It is eaten at breakfast with fried meat, fish, omelet, country captain, or some other curried dish, and, being invariably followed by toast and eggs, jams, fruit, &c., one coonkee, which contains about as much as an ordinary breakfast-cup, or say half a pound, will always be ample for four tolerably hearty consumers. There are two sizes of coonkees, large and small: reference is here made to the small coonkee, well filled. The quantity, however, of raw rice for a party of four should not exceed half a pound.

The rice at dinner is usually preceded by soup, fish, roast, and made dishes.

The best or generally approved qualities of rice for table use are known as the bhaktoolsee, the banafool, the bassmuttee, and cheeneesuckur. In purchasing these, or indeed any other approved quality, care must be taken to avoid new rice and what is called urruah, which latter has been put through some process of boiling, or damped, and then dried. Both are considered unwholesome for general daily consumption, and few Indians will use them.

Note that this diet is not that of a quarryman or stevedore, it is for "most European families"! Oh my aching tummy.

DOOPIAJAS

The literal translation of doopiaja is "two onions," and the term probably is correctly applicable, as it will be noticed, in the recipes for preparing the doopiaja curries, that besides the full quantity of ground onions, it is necessary to put in about an equal quantity of fried onions, thereby doubling the quantity of onions.

Doopiajas are more piquant curries; they are cooked with more ghee and less water. The following condiments, &c., are considered ample for a really good doopiaja of chicken or of any meat:

One chittack and a half or three ounces of ghee, one breakfast-cupful of water, one teaspoonful and a half of salt, four teaspoonfuls of ground onions, one teaspoonful each of ground turmeric and chilies, half a teaspoonful of ground ginger, a quarter of a teaspoonful of ground garlic, twelve onions cut lengthways, each into six or eight slices, and half a teaspoonful of ground coriander-seed if it be liked.

23.--Chicken Doopiaja

Take a full-sized curry chicken and divide it into sixteen or eighteen pieces. Melt the ghee in a warm or heated pot, fry brown the sliced onions and set aside; then fry the ground condiments, stirring the whole; when brown, add the cut-up chicken with the salt, and fry to a rich brown. Chop the fried onions and put into the pot with one cup of water, and allow to simmer over a slow fire for about one hour, when the chicken will be perfectly tender, and the liquid reduced to a thick consistency, and to half its original quantity.
...

31.--Udder Doopiaja

Take two pounds of udder; before cutting it into squares, it should be parboiled, and then made into doopiaja, allowing it to simmer over a slow fire for about two hours.

Waste not, want not. All parts of an animal were used.

KURMA OR QUOREMA CURRY

This, without exception, is one of the richest of Hindoostanee curries, but it is quite unsuited to European taste, if made, according to the original recipe, of which the following is a copy:--

51.--Quorema Curry, Plain

Take two pounds of mutton, one pound of tyre or dhye, two chittacks of garlic, one dam of cardamoms, four chittacks of bruised almonds, four mashas of saffron, the juice of five lemons, one pound of ghee, four chittacks of sliced onions, one dam of cloves, one chittack of pepper, four chittacks of cream, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of ground garlic.

The following is the recipe of the quorema curry usually put on a gentleman's table:--Two chittacks and a half or five ounces of ghee, one cup or eight ounces of good thick tyre, one teaspoonful of ground chilies, four teaspoonfuls of ground onions, one teaspoonful of coriander-seed, six small sticks of ground cinnamon, two or three blades of lemon-grass, one teaspoonful and a half of salt, a half teaspoonful of ground ginger, a quarter of a teaspoonful of ground garlic, eight or ten peppercorns, four or five ground cloves, five or six ground cardamoms, two or three bay-leaves, a quarter of a cup of water, the juice of one lemon, and twelve large onions cut lengthways into fine slices.

Take two pounds of good fat mutton, and cut it up into pieces nearly one inch and a half square. Warm the ghee, fry in it the sliced onions, and set aside; then fry all the ground condiments, including the ground hot spices. When quite brown, throw in the mutton and salt, and allow the whole to brown, after which add the tyre, the hot spices with peppercorns and bay-leaves, the lemon-grass, the water, and the fried onions finely chopped; close the pot, and allow it to simmer over a gentle coal fire for about an hour and a half or two hours, by which time the kurma will be quite ready. The blades of lemon-grass are never dished up.

113.--Soup Royal

Take a shin of beef, the best parts of meat cut off from a calf's head, and the tongue; cut the beef into small particles, but leave the tongue and the meat from the calf's head whole; add pepper and salt, and boil well, clearing the scum as it rises; remove the tongue and the meat of the calf's head when sufficiently tender, but continue to boil the shin of beef until it is well dissolved; then strain it, and cut away all the fat; put it up again with plenty of soup herbs, and more salt and pepper if necessary; boil it well up; squeeze into the soup the juice of half a lemon, and skim it well; strain it once more, and set it aside.

Cut the tongue into slices of an eighth of an inch thick, trim them into the shape of large diamonds, and set aside. Cut up the meat of the calf's head into one-inch squares and strips of an inch and a half long and half an inch wide; add to these a few ready-fried circular flat brain cakes, make also a few egg balls and forcemeat balls, and, after cooking, add them to the rest of the meat, tongue, &c., and set aside.

Take four red carrots, one pound of green peas, half a pound of boiled potatoes, one large turnip, one large Patna onion, a quarter of a pound of roasted and ground split peas or gram dal, some soup herbs, pepper, and salt, the pulp of one orange, and the peels of half an orange and half a lemon. Put these into a stewpan with water sufficient to cover the whole; boil them thoroughly, skimming all the while; when perfectly dissolved, turn them out into a colander and allow all the water to drain away; then turn the contents of the colander into a sieve, and pass the vegetables, &c., through it, rejecting all such as will not pass. Add the whole, or a part of the strained vegetables to the soup, which should not be thicker in consistency than a good thick potato soup.

Next stew one dozen good French prunes in a claret-glassful of port wine, which also strain through a sieve, rejecting stones, &c., and add the strained portion to the soup; then boil the whole, strain it once more, add to it all the forcemeat and egg balls, the brain cakes, tongue, &c., and serve up, adding to it more salt, wine, or sauce, if needed.

N.B.--This soup properly made is without its equal.

134.--Mutton Brains and Love Apples

Take six brains, sixteen to twenty large tomatoes, two chittacks or four ounces of butter, and eight biscuits. Wash the brains well; clean, boil, and halve, or cut each into three pieces; thoroughly butter the dish which will be put on the table; dredge it well with finely-powdered biscuit; lay in the brains; cut the tomatoes, and lay them in the dish between the brains, the cut ends upwards; add a small cupful of good stock, and, after sprinkling a sufficient quantity of pepper and salt as a seasoning, dredge thickly over with the ground biscuit-powder, and bake of a rich brown. Serve up hot.

135.--Kid Roasted Whole

Bespeak from a butcher a whole kid, with its head on.

Prepare a stuffing as per recipe No. 323 or 325, and after cleaning the kid, stuff into it the stuffing; break the joints of the legs, and fold and truss them like a pig; then put it up to roast, basting it the whole time with beef suet melted down, to which add hot water and salt. Serve up in a sitting posture like a pig, and with a lime in the mouth.

Bespeak from a butcher, indeed. Do you know how difficult it is to find suet in the modern U.S.?

226.--Falooree

Take of the finely-sifted flour of the chunna ka dal, which has been previously parched, one seer; six large Patna onions finely sliced and chopped; eight fresh green chilies sliced very fine; a tablespoonful each of finely-chopped soa mattee, saug, and parsley; a dessertspoonful of salt and a teaspoonful of finely-ground green ginger. Put the seer of dal-flour into a large deep pan, and mix into it all the above condiments; then keep adding to it water, very gradually and in small quantities at a time, mixing it briskly the whole while, until it is of a consistency that if poured on a plate from a spoon it will incline to a pyramid, or if dropped into a glass of water will not readily dissolve, but drop to the bottom en masse. In this state the mixture will be ready to fry.

Take half a seer of the best mustard oil; put it into a deep frying-pan with some fine slices of lemon-peel, and fry it or cook it thoroughly; remove three-fourths of the cooked oil from the frying-pan, and into the remainder, while boiling and bubbling, with a tablespoon pour in the preparation in the shape of rocks, and allow to brown, turning them over so that top and bottom may be of the same colour. As the oil is being expended clear the pan of all particles which may accumulate, pour in some more of the ready-cooked oil, and continue to fry until all the mixture is fried. They should be eaten hot.

362.--To Detect Adulteration of Sugar

The adulteration of brown sugar may be detected by dissolving a little in a glass of clear water; if sand or any similar substance be present, it will after a while fall to the bottom of the glass. If white sugar, adulterated with flour, chalk, or other similar substances, be dissolved in clear water, the latter will become opaque or discoloured, and a sediment will be formed at the bottom of the glass.

PERFUMERY, COSMETICS, AND DENTIFRICE

471.--Indian Mode of Preparing Perfumed Oils
472.--Remedy for Scurf in the Head
473.--Imitative Bears' Grease
474.--Hair Grease
475.--Pomatum
476.--Another Recipe
477.--Pomade for Hair that is Falling off
478.--Pomade Divine
479.--Another Recipe
480.--Bandoline for the Hair
481.--Dentifrice
482.--Another Recipe
483.--Another Recipe
484.--Rose Lip-salve
485.--Essence of Roses
486.--Essence of Lemon-peel
487.--Eau de Cologne
488.--Lavender-water

                           475.--Pomatum

Take a pound of white mutton suet, well boiled in a quart of hot water, and washed to free it from salt, &c.; when dried, melt it with half a pound of fresh lard and a quarter of a pound of bees' wax; pour it into an earthen vessel, and stir till it is cold; then beat into it fifteen drops of oil of cloves, or any essential oil whose scent is preferred. If too hard, use less wax.

THINGS WORTH KNOWING

502.--To Make Stale Bread Fresh
503.--How to Select and Keep Coffee
504.--Lettuce Salad
505.--Substitute for Cream in Tea or Coffee
506.--Another Way
507.--To Protect Bed Linen and Curtains from Burning
508.--To Prevent the Smoking of a Lamp
509.--Transparent Paper
510.--To Take Impressions of Leaves
511.--To Take Impressions of Leaves on Silk, &c.

509.--Transparent Paper

Paper can be made as transparent as glass, and capable of being substituted for many purposes, by spreading over it on both sides, with a feather, a very thin layer of resin dissolved in spirits of wine. Fine thin post paper is the best for the purpose.

---

by: count @ Tue Aug 17, 2010 at 09:54:30 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

breastfeeding provisions in the health care reform (4.00 / 2)

bill are turning out to be broader than originally anticipated. Businesses have to provide a private place other than a toilet stall for lactating employees to express breast milk during working hours. This spring media reported the new provision would apply only to businesses with at least 50 employees, but the Department of Labor rule issued in late July says the requirement applies to all businesses. Those with fewer than 50 employees can apply for an exemption, but they would have to prove it would cause great hardship to comply with the law.

Good news for business and working mothers who are still nursing their babies.

---

by: desmoinesdem @ Tue Aug 17, 2010 at 02:37:06 AM UTC

Just watched... (4.00 / 1)

Just watched Out For Justice on AMC.  Haven't seen that in years.  It's always tons of fun to watch Steven Seagal "act"...

Heh.

Nah, but really... the best part of the movie is Gina Gershon.  Of course, this is coming from a guy who'd watch a 3-hour vacuum cleaner infomercial if it featured Gina Gershon, so take that as you will.

;)

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

---

by: JayinPortland @ Wed Aug 18, 2010 at 05:05:25 AM UTC