Blog - Vintage Recipes and Cookery

Homemade Curry Powder and Recipes

Angela Johnson Comments 2 comments

Curry powder recipes and dishes were popular in 1800s cookbooks. Prepared curry powder could be purchased, but making it yourself was considered superior. However, ingredients were often hard to find at the grocer’s or too expensive. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS CURRIES UNDER VARIOUS NAMES Curries can be made from anything. The ingredients indispensable to all curries is a very pungent powder called turmeric, which has a peculiar flavor of its own. In India there is always something acid in…

Read More Read More

Delicious Ways to Cook Asparagus

Angela Johnson Comments 6 comments

“All persons that have a garden should have an asparagus-bed; it is valuable as being one of the first vegetables in the spring. Asparagus from hot houses and the South begins to come into the market in March and April. It is then costly, but in May and June is abundant and quite cheap. About the last of June it grows poor, and no matter how low the price, it will be an expensive article to buy as it has…

Read More Read More

How to Cook Tripe (Cow Stomach)

Angela Johnson Comments 2 comments

Tripe is an edible offal (entrails and internal organs). Some grazing animals like cows, buffalo and sheep have multiple stomach chambers to properly digest their food. These stomach linings are called tripe. Most tripe sold in United States grocery stores is from cows. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS TO PREPARE TRIPE Empty the contents of the stomach of a fat beef. Scrape and wash the tripe thoroughly. Put it in cold water and salt and soak for ten days. Don’t…

Read More Read More

Delicious Onion Recipes

Angela Johnson Comments 1 comment

I often use onions in tuna, egg, and chicken salad, to flavor soups and meats, and I especially like fried potatoes and onions. But I’ve never made stuffed onions, onion soup, sauces, or any of the other recipes listed below. They all sound delicious. If you ever get a chance to buy Vidalia onions, grown in the state of Georgia, be sure to give them a try. They are a sweet tasting onion. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS: ONIONS FOR…

Read More Read More

Lemon Recipes – Pickle, Puffs, Cream, Custards, and more

Angela Johnson Comments 1 comment

In the 19th century (1800s), lemons were being planted commercially in Florida and California. Lemons have to be picked by hand and can’t be picked when wet. They are picked when the peel is green, but as they’re cured, the peel turns yellow, becomes thinner, and the pulp gets juicier. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS GRATING LEMONS The object of using grated rind of lemon is to obtain the fragrance and flavor, which differ very greatly from any extracts, however…

Read More Read More

Ways to Cook Old-Fashioned Oats

Angela Johnson Comments 3 comments

In these recipes from 1800s cookbooks, I was surprised to read oats had to cook from two to four hours! The recipes caution against cooking oats too quickly. They also don’t say to soak the oats overnight, which I found surprising. Groats take the longest to cook. Rolled Oats are groats that have been steamed and flattened. There are also steel-cut oats, ground oats (old-fashioned, quick-cooking oats, and instant oats), each one being processed more. This article on the Food Revolution…

Read More Read More

Good Flour Makes Good Biscuits

Angela Johnson Comments 6 comments

When I was young, my mother only made biscuits that came in a can. I’ve since eaten real homemade biscuits, and I can sure tell a difference. There were no canned biscuits or boxed mixes in the 1800s, though. Biscuits, breads, and other bakery items were made from scratch. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS BISCUITS The word biscuit means twice baked, from the old way of cooking the cakes which is now no longer in use. Plain biscuits are said…

Read More Read More

Refreshing Beverages for Luncheon

Angela Johnson Comments 4 comments

With so many varieties of drinks available in stores and restaurants, I forget that people in the past had to make all their own drinks, both for family and guests. The drink recipes below sound delicious. INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS LUNCHEON BEVERAGES Inasmuch as coffee usually appears both at breakfast and dinner, it is well to bar it absolutely from the luncheon table. Too much coffee drinking is injurious, as the makers of imitation coffees assure us daily through…

Read More Read More