Blog - Vintage Recipes and Cookery

Cooking and Pickling Pigs’ Feet

Angela Johnson Comments 9 comments

I have occasionally seen fresh pigs’ feet and pickled pigs’ feet in grocery stores., although I’ve never tried either one. In the 1800s, pigs’ feet were cheap and eaten mostly by poor households. Although they were more popular in the South, they were also eaten nationwide. Boiling and pickling the feet helped preserve them before refrigeration was available. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS FRIED PIGS’ FEET Thoroughly burn all the hairs off with a poker heated to a white heat….

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Preserve Meat Without Refrigeration

Angela Johnson Comments 4 comments

Without electric refrigeration, people had to find various ways to keep meat fresh, especially in summer. Some methods could keep it fresh a few days or perhaps a week, and other methods could preserve it for much longer. These techniques are interesting, but they don’t follow today’s food safety advice. And of course, today we are fortunate to have home refrigerators and freezers. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS TO KEEP MEAT FRESH Where persons live a distance from market and…

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Using Sweet and Bitter Almonds

Angela Johnson Comments 8 comments

Cooks in the 1800s used bitter almonds to flavor dessert recipes, but they were cautious in using them. That’s because bitter almonds contain cyanide and are toxic if eaten raw. Cooking removes their toxicity, though. Sweet almonds are the edible almonds you usually buy in grocery stores, and are safe to eat raw or cooked. Bitter almonds are not sold for consumption in the U.S., although they are still available in many other countries, especially in Europe and parts of…

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Making Homemade Biscuits

Angela Johnson Comments 0 Comment

Bread was an important addition to most meals, and biscuits were especially popular for breakfast. All breads and biscuits had to be made from scratch. In addition, people cooked in wood burning stoves, which had no temperature gauge. You had to learn how to regulate the heat of coals and firewood for whatever you were baking. Cooking times were rarely provided for the same reason. Baking was definitely a skill to be learned through trial and error. INFORMATION BELOW FROM…

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Recipes Using Native Black Walnuts

Angela Johnson Comments 2 comments

Black walnuts are native to the eastern and midwestern U.S. The English walnut wasn’t cultivated in the U.S. until around 1870, in California. Black walnuts have a different taste from Engish walnuts. I especially like black walnut ice cream, and I use them in baked goods or add them to my homemade trail mix. Black walnuts grow with a green outer coating on them. This coating has to be removed before the hard nut inside can be reached. The outer…

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Unusual Fish and Seafood Salads

Angela Johnson Comments 0 Comment

The only seafood salad I’ve eaten has been purchased in the deli department at a grocery store. It’s the type of salad that is made from “fake crab” and has a mayonnaise base. I like it a lot. I don’t know that I’d like all of these fish and seafood salads that came from 1800s cookbooks, but I’d like to try some of them. RECIPES BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS FISH SALADBoil four flounders, or any medium sized fish. When done,…

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Ways to Preserve Vegetables for the Winter

Angela Johnson Comments 2 comments

During most of the 1800s, people ate fresh garden produce seasonally. People didn’t begin home canning until the invention of the Mason jar in 1858 and it took a while for canning to become popular. So they needed to preserve their produce to have during the winter months, and making sure it was as fresh tasting as possible. No one wanted mushy or rotten vegetables because they weren’t stored properly. RECIPES BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS PROPER PLACE FOR PRESERVING ROOTS…

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Beef Soup and Stew Recipes

Angela Johnson Comments 1 comment

Making soup in the 1800s was a long process, requiring it to simmer for hours on the stove. Commercially canned soup only became available in the late 1800s. The largest and most popular company was Campbell’s, which began selling canned soup in 1895. And in 1897, Campbell’s chemist John T. Dorrance developed condensed soup by removing much of the water. This made soup cheaper to ship, store, and buy. and was certainly more convenient. One of the recipes below is…

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