Recent Posts
In the Swan's Shadow
Return To Blog Listing
Focusing mainly on topics of interest to American Civil War living historians, reenactors, or history buffs in general, this also has a habit of wandering onto seemingly random topics such as my jewelry business and anything else that crosses my mind
Recent Posts Tagged With 'cookery'
Pompion Pye - ca. 1720
Pay attention, kids - this isn't your Granny's pumpkin pie. This has a tentative date of 1720, but this sounds a bit older to me. At any rate you're looking at post-Columbian exchange era. Comments in brackets are my own. "Tak...
Syllabub - 1686
Syllabub is a drink that is seen very little on modern tables. Generally speaking, syllabub is a cross between a drink and a dessert, though in centuries past it was more on the "drink" end of the spectrum than today's renditions of it, which u...
Pompion Sause - 1671
The food in question here is pumpkins, the archaic spelling being pompions. I remember having this dish while staying with my host family in France (which no, was NOT that long ago!). "The Housewives' manner is to slice them when ripe an...
Period Receipts: Some Ways of Preserving and Preparing Tomatoes, Part Three
From The Southern Gardener and Receipt-Book: by Mrs. Mary L. Edgeworth. Third edition, 1860. p. 227: Tomato Pie The tomatoes are skinned and sliced, and after being mixed with sugar, are spiced and prepared in the same man...
Period Receipts: Tomato Catchup, 1851
This didn't show the way I'd planned on it. Just click on the photo to go to the recipes in their entirety on Google books. *grumble* ...
New project!
Well, all right. Old project. But I'm taking it in a slightly different direction.I've been asked a couple of times a very interesting question, and I haven't had the real time necessary to pursue it any further. How much *actual* nutrition - i.e....
Words of Wisdom
Reading through cookery books can give you all sorts of tips that to a degree, can still be used today. At the moment I'm reading The American Frugal Housewife again, and keeping in mind the ongoing project of interpreting a 19th century kitchen, I'...
Quickie: The process of making bread in the medieval period
Pictures from the collections of Durham University. From The Assize of Bread: London, 1671.(Click on the images to get the full size. It's Middle English and not hard to translate...just sound it out. It's not instructions on bread making per se;...
On Bread; Commentary and Treatises from Period Books , part 3
Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell. The Good Housekeeper: Or, The Way To Live Well And To Be Well While We Live: Containing Directions For Choosing And Preparing Food, In Regard To Health, Economy And Taste. Boston: Weeks, Jordan, 1839. pp. 19-23.Y...
On Bread; Commentary and Treatises from Period Books , part 2
Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell. The Good Housekeeper: Or, The Way To Live Well And To Be Well While We Live: Containing Directions For Choosing And Preparing Food, In Regard To Health, Economy And Taste. Boston: Weeks, Jord...
Well, we're getting there...
Well, Saturday saw another day in the kitchen at West Overton, and we got more baking done. We're still having trouble with properly firing the oven, therefore our time available to bake is also varying. As much as I've read about being able to fir...
We did it!
Well, Sunday Karen and I decided to try firing up the oven, to see how she would behave. After a bit of a false start, we finally got it popping along and the oven was heating nicely. The key seems to be *very* dry, rather small fuel in large quan...
Work day in the kitchen!
Saturday was my first opportunity to work on the summer kitchen at West Overton. The kitchen hadn't been touched since the last day of the Christmas programming, so things were pretty much exactly where we'd left them. The day was mostly spent cleani...
So what's in the markets? March edition
All together now!Excerpted from: The Practical Housekeeper; A Cyclopædia Of Domestic Economy... Comprising Five Thousand Practical Receipts And Maxims. Illustrated With Five Hundred Wood Engravings. Edited by Mrs. Ellet.This ...
Period Receipts: Yeast and the lack thereof
CONFEDERATE RECEIPT BOOK. A COMPILATION OF OVER ONE HUNDRED RECEIPTS, ADAPTED TO THE TIMES.WEST & JOHNSTON, RICHMOND. 1863. G. W. GARY, Printer, 21 Pearl Street. Text scanned (OCR) by Allen VaughnImages scanned by Allen VaughnText encoded by ...
Bread Reciepts: From the cookbook of Mrs. Emily Wharton Sinkler
In searching for more bread receipts I found these in a book called An Antebellum Plantation Household, Including the South Carolina Low Country Receipts and Remedies of Emily Wharton Sinkler. This was published by her descendant Anne Sinkler Whaley...
Bread: My new obsession.
Well, we're tentatively go with the baking. Now it's time to put those lists together like we mean it this time, figure out what we need "right now" as opposed to "later on" and "someday", which is not to be confused with "when I or the museum hits ...
So What's in the Markets? February edition
Excerpted from: The Practical Housekeeper; A Cyclopædia Of Domestic Economy... Comprising Five Thousand Practical Receipts And Maxims. Illustrated With Five Hundred Wood Engravings. Edited by Mrs. Ellet.This was printed in Ne...
So What's in the Markets? January edition
Yes yes...I know I skipped a couple of months. I'll fill them in, promise. In the meantime...Excerpted from: The Practical Housekeeper; A Cyclopædia Of Domestic Economy... Comprising Five Thousand Practical Receipts And Maxims. ...
Period Receipts: A Few Period Christmas Recipes
I heard it said a few years ago that there were very few, if any, recipes during the Civil War period that were specifically for Christmas. Rather, families chose their richest and tastiest recipes and made them during the Christmas season, and soon...
I think I may have started something...
So sitting at a meeting at West Overton, we started to discuss things like what to do for "flavor" during the Christmas programming. The fire in the summer kitchen's fireplace went over very well, as could be expected really. I mean, a warm spot to...
So What's in the Markets? October edition
Excerpted from: The Practical Housekeeper; A Cyclopædia Of Domestic Economy... Comprising Five Thousand Practical Receipts And Maxims. Illustrated With Five Hundred Wood Engravings. Edited by Mrs. Ellet.This was printed in Ne...
Period Receipts: Some Ways of Preserving Grapes
I know I'm leaning on this book a lot, and it's not just because I happen to have it - heck you should see how many cookery books I have at this point - it's because this book has struck me as incredibly comprehensive in just about all aspects of hou...
I love you a bushel and a scruple?
Not quite how that phrase goes, I know. For the truly dorky out there, or for the winning of future trivia questions, here's several forms of weight and measurement that one will run across in doing American Civil War research. Or at least I have a...
Period Receipts: Some Ways of Preserving Plums
Admittedly, this is because I've just finished helping my grandmother pick her prune plums and I was looking for period ways to preserve them. So I figure if I'm looking for ways to do it, others probably are too.Problem is, there's few recipes that...
So what's in the markets? September edition
As promised, here's the September edition of what's in the markets (or coming into season) in the mid-1800s.Excerpted from: The Practical Housekeeper; A Cyclopædia Of Domestic Economy... Comprising Five Thousand Practical Receipts And ...
Period Receipts: Some Ways of Preserving and Preparing Tomatoes, Part Two
Again, these recipes are from Mrs. Haskell's The Housekeeper's Encyclopedia of Useful Information for the Housekeeper in All Branches of Cooking and Domestic Economy. Print date is 1861. I told you before, I adore this book and its treasure trove of...
Period Receipts: Some Ways of Preserving and Preparing Tomatoes, Part One
If it hasn't hit already, tomato season is fast approaching us. With that in mind I've been shopping around for good recipes to use to process every bit of the tomato harvest as humanly possible. The slight hitch that I've found, however...is that ...
So what's in the markets? August edition
Excerpted from: The Practical Housekeeper; A Cyclopædia Of Domestic Economy... Comprising Five Thousand Practical Receipts And Maxims. Illustrated With Five Hundred Wood Engravings. Edited by Mrs. Ellet.This was printed in Ne...
Period Receipts: Some Ways of Preserving and Preparing Cherries
Again, these recipes are from Mrs. Haskell's The Housekeeper's Encyclopedia of Useful Information for the Housekeeper in All Branches of Cooking and Domestic Economy. Print date is 1861.Brandy Cheries, No. 1 - The white cherries make the finest looki...
