Rice was a staple in many households and rice pudding was a popular dish. With many variations, it could be a breakfast dish or a dessert. There was no instant rice back in the 1800s, so rice took longer to prepare and cook.
Since eggs have the property of stiffening when heated, they are often used for thickening liquids, especially milk. Milk thickened with eggs is called custard. All milk-and-egg mixtures should be cooked below the boiling temperature of water. They should never be cooked directly over the fire, but over hot water or in a double boiler. INFORMATION FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS ABOUT CUSTARDSIf a custard is properly cooked, the egg is in a soft-cooked condition. It exists in a jelly-like mass throughout…
Beef tongues used to be a popular dish, but I’ve never seen recipes for them in modern cookbooks. My mother said she ate tongue when she was a child, back in the 1940s, but she never cooked them when I was growing up. I’ve seen tongue for sale in grocery store meat departments, but haven’t had any desire to learn to cook it. Tongues are sold as beef or ox tongues, but they’re both the same. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s…
The selection of carrots is a simple matter because they keep well and are not likely to be found in a spoiled condition in the market. When small, summer carrots are purchased, they should be fresh and have their tops on. Winter carrots should be as nearly uniform in size as possible and should not be extremely large. Those which are too large in circumference are likely to have a hollow in the center. Carrots of any kind should be without…
Electrical refrigeration wasn’t available in homes in the U. S. until around the 1920s. Before then, people had to preserve cheese by other means. A large round or block of cheese was often purchased to store and use throughout the winter. Cheese was too expensive to allow to mold or dry out. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS CARE OF CHEESEThe very strong odor and flavor that characterize cheese make it necessary to prevent it from coming in contact with other…
In the 1800s, stoves were heated with wood, so cooking in the oven was a challenge. Cooks had to learn what type wood would provide the heat they needed and how long it would burn. Cookbooks provided guidelines, but cooking skills were gained through experience. Oven thermometers had not been invented yet, so recipes for baking had no exact temperatures or cooking times. Temperatures were sometimes referred to as slow, moderate, or quick/hot. One way to test your oven’s heat was…
Cream soups are a great way to use fresh vegetables and incorporate milk and cream into a meal. no matter what the season. Even though these recipes are from 1800s cookbooks, you should be able to recreate them today. The cream of lettuce and cream of lima bean soups sound interesting to me. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS: CREAM OF LETTUCETake two heads of nice, fresh lettuce, wash and drain and chop fine with half a small white onion. Put…
Homemade stuffing was a great way to use up stale bread and other ingredients and provided a nice dish to accompany poultry. The recipes below will give you some good ideas for stuffings, and you can make changes to suit your taste. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS It is necessary to know the difference between fowls and birds. A fowl always leads its young ones to the meat and a bird carries the meat to its young. So our common…