The American Citron

Candied watermelon rind that is used as an ingredient in some pies.

The American Citron

Take the rine of a large watermelon not too ripe, cut into small pieces, take two pound of loaf sugar, one pint of water, put it all into a kettle, let it boil gently for four hours, then put it into pots for use,

• Watermelon Rind How big is a large 18th century watermelon? I will let you know next summer when we grow some. For now, I used half of a huge grocery store one. 
• Sugar Two Pounds (4 cups)
• Water enough to cover

1. Cut off the rind and cut into little pieces (I made mine about 1 inch squares) 
2. Put in pot, cover with water and add the sugar
3. Boil gently, adding more water as needed, for a couple of hours
4. Let the water boil off gradually, until you are left with a syrup. Use very low heat during this stage, and stir regularly.
5. Let cool slightly and pour off into your container (a glass canning jar works).
6. Clean your pot immediately, you know you won't want to deal with that later...
7. Store in a cool place

Indian Slapjack

So Good! These are creps made with corn, or "Indian" meal. They are my favorite breakfast food so far. Also good for supper and dinner. This recipe makes enough to feed the regiment.

Indian Slapjack.

One quart of milk, 1 pint of indian meal, 4 eggs, 4 spoons flour, little salt, beat together, baked on griddles, or fry in a dry pan, or baked in a pan which has been rub'd with suet, lard or butter. 

• Milk 4 cups
• White (flint) corn meal 2 cups
• Eggs 4 "large" or 3 "super jumbo"
• Flour 1/2 cup
• Salt
• Butter

1. Soak the corn in the milk for a few minutes, add the eggs flour and salt. 
2. Heat up your pan and melt a spoon of butter in it. Pour in your batter, enough to just about fill the pan. Flip. Eat. Repeat. 

Observations:

When first experimenting with these, I tried to cook them all the different ways she suggests. They come out the best when you cook them on the griddle with lots of butter. It gets a little confusing when you don't quite know the difference between a griddle and a pan, or what she means by frying or baking. Am I supposed to put the griddle in the oven? How do you fry something without fat? I am thinking that a pan has sides, where a griddle does not. Frying is on the hearth, where baking is on the oven. 

Minced Pie of Beef

Wonderfully Traditional. This is what you do with your leftover boiled dinner. Great for making in the fall and eating all winter. Amelia's recipe will make about eight pies. Mine will make about 2.

Four Pound boild beef, chopped fine; and salted; six pound of raw apple chopped also, one pound beef suet, one quart of Wine or rich sweet cyder, one ounce mace, and cinnamon, a nutmeg, two pounds raisins, bake in paste No. 3, three fourths of an hour. 

•  Boiled Beef (naval beef or corned beef) 1 Pound
•  Apples (cored and lightly peeled) 1 1/2 pounds
• Lard (Yum!) 1/4 pound
• Fresh Cider (or wine) 1/2 pint or 1/4 cup
• Raisins 1/2 pound
• Mace
• Cinnamon
• Nutmef 
• Paste No. 3

1.  Chop your beef and apples and put them in a large bowl
2. Add the remaining ingredients 
3. Assemble in crust
4. Bake 45 Min at 375 

Please tell me where to get some good Newfoundland naval beef (the kind that comes bone in, brined, in a big plastic bucket). I tried to take some on the airplane but they did not like that. Corned beef is just not the same!

Pompkin Pie No. 1

Delicious! This pumpkin pie is made with a top crust, and it has the consistency of pumpkin quiche.

Pompkin. 

No. 1. One quart stewed and strained, 3 pints cream, 9 beaten eggs, sugar, mace, nutmeg and ginger, laid into paste No. 7 or 3, and with a dough spur, cross and chequer it, and bake in dishes three quarters of an hour. 

To make one pie

• Stewed Pumpkin: 1 pint (2 cups)
• Cream or half and half: 1 pint (2 cups)
• Eggs: 4 beaten
• Sugar: 1/4 pint (1/2 cup)
• Ground Mace
• Ground Nutmeg
• Powdered Ginger 
• Paste No. 3  

1. Peel and cut up your pumpkin, then put the pieces in a pot with just enough water to keep it from scorching. The pumpkin will lend a lot of its own liquid. The longer you cook it, the sweeter it will be. Cook it until the liquid is evaporated. 
2. Take the pumpkin off the heat and mash it up. Add the cream and wait for it to cool. While you are waiting, make the crust.
3. Add the beaten eggs, sugar and spice to taste. 
4. Put the bottom crust and the filling in the pie plate. Carefully add the top crust and pinch up the edges to make a mote-like barrier. Take a good knife and make a few parallel lines in the top crust. It will feel like a water bed. Now make perpendicular marks, but don't let them intersect. 
5. Bake for 45 Min in a hot oven. Let it set up while cooling. 

Paste No. 3

The most used paste (crust) in American Cookery.

No. 3. To any quantity of flour, rub in three fourths of its weight of butter, (whites of eggs to a peck) rub in one third or half, and roll in the rest.

For One Crust (top and bottom)

• Flour One Pound or 4 Cups (at least half white)
• Butter 3/4 pound, or 3 sticks (less is ok if you use water)
• Egg One egg beaten 
• Cold Water To have on hand in case of emergencies 

1.  Rub 2 sticks of butter into your flour. 
2.  Add egg and some water if it needs more liquid. Make 2 balls.
3.  Put one ball on your flat surface and roll it out. Add smudges of butter, fold, and roll again. Repeat until your third stick of butter is used up. If it isn't sticking together add more water, egg, or butter. If it is too sticky add more flour. 
4.  Put it in your pie plate and add the filling. 
5. Repeat step 3 for a top crust. 

Observations

In the first publishing of American Cookery, the instructions say 12 eggs to a peck rather than whites of eggs to a peck. This is one of the rare cases where the first addition makes more sense. A peck is 4 gallons, so I figure that one egg is about right. 

I have on occasion rubbed in all the butter and omitted the smudging bit. It comes out fine, you can't go wrong with that much butter!

When in doubt, use Jiffy mix, or if you don't live in New England, Bisquick.  

A Buttered Apple Pie

One of several apple pie/pudding options that Amelia gives us, this one consists of lightly stewed apples in a crust with a sauce added after cooking. 

Pare, quarter and core tart apples, lay in paste No.3, cover with the same; bake half an hour, when drawn, gently raise the top crust, add sugar butter, cinnamon, mace, wine or rose water q: s: 

You will need

• Apples, enough to fill your dish
• Crust: Paste No. 3 or Jiffy/Bisquick mix (enough for a top and bottom crust)
• Sugar
• Butter
• Cinnamon and/or Mace
• Wine or Rose Water

1. Quarter and core your apples. Pare means peel, so do that too. Do enough to fill your dish(s) heaping.
2. Make Paste No. 3.
3. Put the bottom crust in, then add your apples.  Now work the top crust, knead it a bit, add more egg to it, roll it out thick and lay it on top. You want this crust to be extra tough because you will have to take it off! Make sure that you don't pinch the top and bottom crusts together, fortify the edges separately. 
4. Bake! 350-375 till it is done. Don't cook it too much, you want your apples to have some bite. 
5. Take it out and let it be until you can handle it. Gently raise the top crust and add your ingredients. Any or all: sugar, butter, cinnamon, mace, wine, rose water. I like the butter wine and spice combo. Add lots of liquid and butter, until your apples are swimming. 
6. Put the  crust back on and serve it up warm. Take a picture and post a comment. 

As it is difficult to ascertain with precision the small articles of spicery; every one may relish as they like, and suit their taste. 

The Proposal

I have recently been challenged by a few of my friends to write a blog on the first American cookbook, Julie and Julia style. This is the biggest dare that I have ever agreed to undertake, but I did not need too much prodding, and I think that I will give it a go. How hard can it be, right? It is mostly puddings, custards and cakes. It is only 47 pages, not Julia's 700 or so. I think I can do that. But there will definitely be some challenges that I am already foreseeing. I just don't know if I have what it takes to poke around inside a calf's head a cook and eat its brains.

For those of you who are not familiar with historic American cookery, here is the shpil. Until Amelia Simmons (a self proclaimed American Orphan) published her modest 47 page work in 1796, Americans were either using British cookbooks, or using the oral tradition. The problem for Amelia with the oral tradition is that she was an orphan. She had no mommy to teach her. The problem with using British cookbooks is that the ingredients are not the same, and the culture is not the same. Also, she wanted to impress her friends, she wanted to be one of “the young and the gay, bend and conform readily to the taste of the times, and fancy of the hour.” Get with the times people, its 1796, and its a free country! Amelia wanted to make American cookery more accessible to Americans. Julia Child wanted to make French cookery more accessible to Americans. I want to make Historic American Cookery more accessible to Americans. Why? I'll leave you hanging for now on that one. After all, this is a blog and there will be more entries. For now I will continue to hypothesize my challenges.

The first problem is that I don't have access to many of the necessary 1790s American ingredients and aspects of material culture. I will have trouble cooking Amelia's dishes for the same reasons that she had trouble cooking British ones. I have been trying for weeks to find rose water. Does anyone know where to get pearl ash? My eggs are monstrous compared to Amelia's, as are my chickens. Who will supply me with my turtle to dress? I will have to figure all of this out as I go, and I will need your moral support and connections. Any turtle catchers out there?

My second problem is that to a modern reader, Amelia's work is full of cryptic mysteries. After all, she was writing for orphans, not aliens. There are some things that everyone in the 1790s would have known, which is why she omits key steps in recipes, as well as basic recipes for bread and boiled dinner. I foresee that it will take several attempts to make most of these successfully. For example, the other day I made “A light Cake to bake in small cups” but it turned out to be a dense brick cake with raisins. Well, Amelia, you should have told me to let it rise! I think that the pig will be happy with my trials.

Although I am not an orphan in the real world, I am an orphan of the 1790s. I have no living relative from two hundred and twenty years ago. My only living teachers on the subject are my fellow historic food enthusiasts. Amelia has this advice to offer: "The orphan, tho' left to the care of virtuous guardians, will find it essentially necessary to have an opinion and determination of her own."

So there it is, I have committed, with opinion and determination. Are you out there, virtuous guardians?