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Cooked Celery Recipes, Vinegar, and Essence

Cooked Celery Recipes, Vinegar, and Essence

Celery is valuable for its mineral salts and bulk. The chief use of celery is as a relish when it is eaten raw, but it is also valuable for flavoring soups and making salads, pickles, and various other dishes. When celery is in season and can be purchased at a reasonable price, it should be cooked to give variety to the diet.  INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS BAKED CELERY Cut two bunches of celery, the best stalks only, into inch-lengths,…

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How to Make Delicious Canapes

How to Make Delicious Canapes

A canape is half of a sandwich. Slices of bread are cut into fancy shapes, toasted or quickly fried in hot oil, or they may be spread with butter and browned in a quick oven. One slice only is used for each canape. The mixture is spread on top, the top garnished, and the canape used at once.  INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS Cold canapes are placed always among the appetizers and served before the soup. They are made of…

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How to Make Potted Meat

How to Make Potted Meat

When I was a child, my mother bought small cans of potted meat and spread it on bread to make sandwiches. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I should buy some to try again, or make my own. In the days before electric refrigeration, if meat couldn’t be eaten right away, it had to preserved somehow. One way of preserving meat was by potting it. Essentially, to pot meat, cook it, cut in small pieces, pound…

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Make Homemade Gravy; With Meat or Without

Make Homemade Gravy; With Meat or Without

Gravy is traditionally a sauce made from meat drippings and combined with some type of thickening agent. It was especially used in French cooking and became popular in the U.S. in the 1800s. Gravies other than those made from meat include cream or white gravy, mushroom gravy, onion gravy, giblet gravy, vegetable gravy, and more. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS MAKING GRAVIESNever toss “that carcass” of fowl, or the ham, or mutton-bone, “with next to nothing upon it,” to the…

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Best Practices for Frying Foods

Best Practices for Frying Foods

Before commercialized fats were produced, people used beef suet, pork lard, dripping from cooked meats, and butter to fry food.  FROM AN 1800s COOKBOOK: “Frying, though one of the most common of culinary operations, is one that is least  performed perfectly well.” GENERAL RULES FOR FRYING Since fat, when heated, reaches such a high temperature, the kettle in which it is heated should be made of iron. The Dutch Oven is a very convenient utensil for small things. A Frying-Pan…

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Care of Cook Ware for Wood Burning Stoves

Care of Cook Ware for Wood Burning Stoves

In the 1800s, you had to be careful of your cook ware or it might crack or warp. And if you used copper ware, it might even poison you! INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS NEW OVENS New ovens, before they are baked, should be heated half a day. The lid should be put up as soon as the wood is taken out. It should not be used for baking until it has been heated the second time. If not treated…

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About Sweet Corn / Green Corn

About Sweet Corn / Green Corn

Sweet corn (also called green corn) is harvested when the kernels are soft and sweet, making it ideal for eating. If you grab an ear of field corn and try to take a bite, you’ll probably break your teeth. It’s hard and dry (and only tastes good to cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys and some wild animals). INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS The seeds of the maize plant, or Indian corn, especially the variety known as sweet corn, are eaten as…

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Baked and Fried Bananas, Fritters, Stuffing, and more..

Baked and Fried Bananas, Fritters, Stuffing, and more..

Bananas weren’t known in the United States until Captain Lorenzo Baker introduced them in 1870. They were expensive and only available to those living near port cities on the east coast. It took many years for them to become available and affordable to the average household. RECIPES BELOW ARE FROM MRS. WILSON’S COOK BOOK, 1920 BAKED BANANASThe simplest way to bake bananas is in the skins. It takes just twenty minutes in a moderate oven.* To eat, strip a piece of skin…

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