Upland Rice for Home Production©

Rice might not come to mind when discussing American food crops, however, it has been grown here since the late 1600s.  There are two types of rice – one is an aquatic “lowland rice” and the other is “upland rice”.  The primary reason for growing in water is weed control – rice grows in water while weeds do not.  Upland rice will grow with decent rainfall much as do cotton or corn.

Rice has been grown primarily in South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and western Tennessee but they are not the only states with a rice culture.  Today rice is grown commercially primarily in Arkansas (the U.S.’s top producer), California, Missouri, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas but has been successfully grown in Florida and as far north as Vermont and Maryland.  Cooler climates will need to start the rice in seed trays and transplant the plugs when plants are at about three weeks growth.

The origin of rice growth in America dates from 17^th century South Carolina.  “The cultivation of rice spread rapidly from the beginning into most of the Southern States, and even so far north as Missouri, Tennessee, and Illinois.”

Upland rice culture in Mobile was reported in the American Farmer in January 1824.  The author stated he saw no real difference in the bearded rice and the smooth and grew both.  He noted the bearded had a larger head and larger grain and he felt it was far more productive.

Upland rice was submitted by a farmer in Grand Bay, Alabama which met with praise from the proprietor of the Empire Parish Mill in New Orleans in 1871.  “The rice sent by you to our mill will compare favorably, as to the grade and yield, with the best ever raised in Louisiana and will command the highest price in our market”.

“All qualities and descriptions of land have been sown in rice, from the stiffest of clays to the lightest sands, with apparently equally profitable results…”.

South Carolina planters said in 1851 that they planted the upland rice and cared for it just as they had corn but thought the rice produced more food for their families.  Crab grass could choke out the rice until it grows large enough in a few weeks to make do on its own.  The same writer noted that the rice was as easily transplanted as onions.

Upland rice culture was rapidly increasing in all the flat country bordering the Gulf and Atlantic in the 1870s with some saying the white was the best for upland areas while the famous gold rice of South Carolina and Georgia was the best for water culture.

Growers reported that following the War Between the States as Louisiana’s sugar production plummeted, the production of rice exploded from 7,000 to nearly 30,000 barrels.  Comments on the successful production of upland rice as good as, “that which is raised in the swamps of Georgia and South Carolina”, were found in numerous publications including “The Southern Farmer”.

“This has been proved beyond a question in Alabama where for many years upland rice has been raised with great success, yielding 50 to 100 bushels of shelled rice (rice with the husk on) to the acre…The big white, little white, and the red-bearded all do well on upland.”

Early on, South Alabama did not have facilities to process rice necessitating shipping to and from New Orleans, however, by 1871 it was said, “the cleaning or hulling can be easily performed with an ordinary pestle and mortar, and at very little expense three or four of these pestles and mortars could be so constructed to be run by the gin power which would clean a large crop with great expedition.”

In warmer climates, sow the seed where it is to grow after soaking in water for between one and five days, changing the water daily.  Plant one ounce of seed per 100 square feet soon after the last expected frost date.  There should be about four seedlings per foot with rows a foot apart.  Plan to use bird netting on T-posts over your crop so it doesn’t become bird food.  As with any open pollinated seed one can save seed from this year’s crop to plant again next year.

Harvest begins in late summer after the seed heads turn brown.  Cut the stalks and hang them up in a dry place to dry.  Thresh it as soon as it is dried.

Remove the rice from the stalk with a flail or by beating the stalks together over a clean sheet or piece of plastic or put the seed heads into a five-gallon bucket and use a drill with a paint stirrer attachment to separate the grains.  (Insert the stirrer through a hole in the bucket lid so the rice doesn’t fly out everywhere).  Scoop up the rice and drop it with a fan blowing to separate and blow away the chaff.  Spread the rice in the sun to dry or it can be dried in a low temperature oven.

An article published in 1924 touches on hulling rice.  “The hulls are removed by passing the grains between revolving millstones, set apart about two-thirds the length of a rice kernel…”.  The idea is to strip off the hull without crushing the rice grains.

For home production the hulls can be removed by pounding with a rubber mallet or using a large old-fashioned mortar and pestle.  There are plans online for making an apparatus to do this and, sites offer hullers for purchase starting at roughly $150 on Amazon.  Some of the expensive grain mills can utilize a de-hulling attachment.  The attachment itself is $275.

The hulls may be used as mulch, soil conditioner, bedding for poultry, insulation, etc.  Rice straw can be used as feed, bedding for animals, mulch, and fertilizer.  From the “Mobile Register”, quoted in “Southern Farm and Home March 1873:  “…if you do not [have a hulling mill nearby] it will still pay you to grow it as a feed crop, for it bears two cuttings in the year below 32° north latitude and makes a hay which sheep, horses, and cattle prefer to the best grass product grown”.

In the following video we first see a demo of the huller being used followed by instructions on how to build it.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxWI5Mvw36Y.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpZxS3QoWTE shows the same machine with a motor attached.

This huller is made from a bench grinder.  One wooden grinding wheel stays stationery while the other is turned by the bench grinder.  There are some in use in third world countries that utilize one such grinding wheel turning against a plain rubber wheel.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fnP-y8_Asg

A manual on growing upland rice: http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ivc/docs/uplandrice.pdf

Seed may be purchased from Nature and Nurture Seeds, AmkhaSeed in Colorado, Experimental Farm Network (as nonprofit in Philadelphia), Sherck Seeds in Indiana, Fedco Seeds, Wild Folk Farm in Maine (they do sell varieties suited to the South as well), Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (they also have a tutorial for growing upland rice), etc.

The Carolina Gold rice seed offered by Baker Creek is a paddy type rice requiring flooding for cultivation.

Blissful Meals and Enjoyable Gardening should readers want to try their hand at rice culture!

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“Dutch” Case-knife Beans: A Taste of History©

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case-knife beans

Photo:  William Woys Weaver, Roughwood Seed Collection

I once had someone who was viewed as an amateur historian tell me that people did not eat dried beans in the 18^th century.  What?  I’ve never forgotten that and today we will debunk that theory.

The earliest description this writer found for a white-seeded bean that matches the description of what was later called the case-knife bean was written by Nicholas Culpepper in 1666.  “…but white is most usual; after which come long and slender flat cods, some crooked, some straight, with a string as it were running down the back thereof, wherein are contained flattish round fruit made to the fashion of a kidney…”.

Amelia Simmons was perhaps the earliest cookery book writer to document white beans for drying (1796) and Simmons listed a “clapboard” bean which some think was the case-knife.  She advised they must be poled and were, “the easiest cultivated and collected, are good for string beans, will shell”.

Philip Miller said in 1775 the Dutch White Beans were much the sweetest for the table.  He thought them “extream [sic] windy Meat” and recommended preparing them in the Dutch fashion of half boiling them then “you husk them and stew them… they are wholesome food”.

John Reid wrote of beans in 1683, “Beans and peas boyled with savory and thym[e]…served up with sweet butter beat amongst them and set a little on a coal or chaffing boyl [sic]”.  – “The Scots Gard’ner”.

A farmer wrote in 1840 that the “prettiest” way to grow dry beans was to raise white pole beans and, “The common case-knife beans are excellent for this purpose”.  Twenty-three years later Fearing Burr told his readers the case-knife was “common to almost every garden” and it remained so into the early 20^th century.  Today the white-seeded variety of case-knife bean isn’t as common, at least by that name, but close versions can be found.

“Some Dutch case-knife beans did come up and grew finely…In good time they were heavily loaded, and they were of rich and splendid flavor, so much so I forbade wife cooking any more, having visions of acres of beans and a big bank account”.  One will pity this poor farmer when he explained that a mere few days before he went to pick his dried beans they had been beset upon by weevils.

“The manner of saving the seeds of these plants, is to let a few rows of them remain ungathered in the height of the season; for if you gather from the plants for some time, and afterwards leave the remaining for seed, their pods will not be near so long and handsome, nor will the seed be so good.  In autumn, when you find they are ripe, you should in a dry season pull up the plants and spread them abroad to dry; after which you may thresh out the seed and preserve it in a dry place for use”.  – Miller, Philip.  “The Gardener’s Dictionary”.  1768.

Buist [1805-1880] proclaimed the Dutch Case-knife to be an excellent pole bean producing a good crop of fine flavor and much earlier for the table than either the Lima or Carolina.  “It can be used either in or without the pod; it is also adapted for winter use”.

Mr. W. F.  Massey submitted information on white beans and their culture in the hot humid South for the Southern Planter and Farmer in 1900 saying they produced more damaged beans than when planted in the North.  He stated the best white beans he’d ever tried growing in the South were the Dutch Case-Knife beans.  “This is a pole bean, but not a rampant climber, and in my boyhood was commonly planted in the corn field and allowed to climb on the stalks in a portion of the field so as to give a supply for shelling in winter.  It is a flat bean, similar in shape to a small lima, but smaller still.  There is no shelled bean of better quality.”

As for the method of growing these beans they could be trellised or staked.  The following would make a nicer presentation than row staking.  “Strike out a dozen (or more) circles on the ground, as large as a cart wheel.  Put a wheel barrow load of manure into it and spade it up with the earth.  Drop the seeds in the circle, on the outer edge of the hill, say six inches apart.  Then insert eight or ten poles just within the circle, at equal distances from each other, and tie the tops of the whole together-forming a cone.  Cover up the seed and wait the result.

Each of these hills will yield you a peck or a half bushel of dry beans next fall—which if you have but a dozen such hills, will give you, perhaps half a dozen bushels.  This will be enough for your purpose.  By this course, but a little land is occupied.  Pole beans will yield very much more abundantly than bush beans, and occupy air, whilst the latter must have the surface of the earth”.  – Holmes, Frances.  “The Southern Farmer and Market Gardener”.  1842.

This bean was often referred to as Old Dutch White or White Dutch and differs from the brown-seeded variety sometimes sold as Caseknife today.  Old cookery books and garden manuals refer to white beans, small white beans, large white beans and great white beans.  All agree the white was preferred.

Dr. William Woys Weaver says the Caseknife Bean is perhaps the oldest documented bean in American gardens.  Like the farmers quoted above he believes the oldest were white seeded like those grown in the gardens of Thomas Jefferson and the closest variety to the original bean is the Pelzer Schwertebuhne (Palatine Caseknife Pole Bean).  He found the beans being grown by the Wendel family of Weilerbach in the Rheinland-Pfalz.  He offers the Palatine June Pole Bean in his Roughwood Seed Collection.

As to cooking dried white beans, let’s look at Louis Eustache Ude’s 1814 receipt.

White Beans a la Maitre d’Hotel.  “if they are dry, they must be soaked for an hour in cold water, before you boil them.  Then boil them in cold water and replenish with cold water also which makes the rind or coat tender.  White beans must be well done before you dress them, which is done as follows:  trim a stew-pan with a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, a little parsley chopped very fine, and some pepper and salt, over which lay the beans, well drained.  Keep moving the stew-pan without using a spoon, for fear of crumbling the beans.  Then squeeze the juice of half a lemon and send up quite hot”.

The Shop at Monticello offers seeds of the Caseknife Pole Bean which have white seed like the original and the flattened, slightly curving shape of the beans matches the description above.  They are grown out on-site.  A packet contains between 20 to 25 seeds and sells for $3.95 plus shipping.  1-800-243-1743.

Johnson’s Home and Garden offers “Old Dutch White Half Runner Bean” seed he says were brought from Germany by original settlers of the Dutch Fork Section of South Carolina.  A Half Pound of untreated seed is $3.95 and a pound is $5.95.  Johnson’s Home & Garden, 130 Power Drive, Pikeville, KY 41501, phone                   606-432-8460.

Roughwood Seed Collection:  https://www.roughwoodtable.org/roughwood-seed-collection offers the Palatine June bean seed.

“THE OLD POT-HERBS IN THE FLOWER GARDEN”©

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cottage garden

I envision a combination of beauty and function with regard to my principal flower garden this year as I intend to tuck herbs here and there into corners and bare spots transforming the existing garden into an old fashioned cottage garden.  The herbs will add to the floral fragrance wafting through the night air while they add beauty and grace through their own leaves and flowers, and, I ask you, who could not love stepping into the flower garden for a few pot-herbs to flavor the evening’s dinner?

While I have seen it quite clearly in my head through the dreary winter months, I am, after all, Thehistoricfoodie, so is there any historical basis for this co-mingling of flowers and herbs?  Yes!  I’m delighted with my plan and that it mirrors the author’s description in the article below just adds to my gardening giddiness!

I already have seed orders in for most of the flowers and herbs discussed below and intend to transplant some existing herbs.  Having found this article shortly after my second seed order went to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, I see I was remiss in not ordering hyssop.

My seed stash already contains lovage and sorrel, which, due to their size will grace the outer edges of the garden and purslane that will go into its own bed as it self-sows so readily.  Lacinto kale will add color and form to the garden and its leaves will certainly find their way into the soup pot.  Nasturtium is the epitome of beauty and function as its leaves and flowers are beautiful garnishes or salad ingredients and the buds can be pickled like capers.

The plants already at home in the garden include heirloom fragrant roses, daffodils, iris, daylilies, Echinacea, rudbeckia, phlox, verbena, blackberry lily, spider lily, rosemary, hollyhock, Sweet William, snapdragons, hyacinths, etc.  I love the following article because it so beautifully described what I have envisioned my garden will look like after I mix the herbs in with the flowers.

“The Old Pot-Herbs in the Flower Garden.  Some of these pot-herbs are beautiful things, deserving a place in any flower garden.  Sage, for instance, a half shrubby plant with handsome gray leaf and whorled spikes of purple flowers, is a good plant both for winter and summer, for the leaves are persistent and the plant well clothed throughout the year.  Hyssop is another such handsome thing, of the same family, with a quantity of purple bloom in the autumn, when it is a great favourite with the butterflies and bumble bees.  This is one of the plants that were used for an edging in gardens in Tudor days, as we read in Parkinson’s ‘Paradisus,’ where Lavender Cotton, Marjoram, Savoury, and Thyme are also named as among the plants used for the same purpose.  Rue, with its neat bluish green foliage, is also a capital plant for the garden where this colour of leafage is desired.  Fennel, with its finely-divided leaves and handsome yellow flower, is a good border flower, though rarely so used, and blooms in the late autumn.  Lavender and rosemary are both so familiar as flower garden plants that we forget that they can also be used as neat edgings if from the time they are young plants they are kept clipped.  Borage has a handsome blue flower, as good as its relation the larger Anchuss [?].  Tansy, best known in the gardens by the handsome Achilles Eupatorium, was an old inmate of the herb garden.  Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis odorata) has beautiful foliage, pale green and Fern-like with a good umbel of white bloom, and is a most desirable plant to group with and among early-blooming flowers.  And we all know what a good garden flower is the common pot Marigold.  From Elgood’s ‘Some English Gardens’.”  – The Garden.  Jan. 7, 1905.

A DINNER OF HERBS©

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culinary herbs, herbs

As spring approaches I prepare to perfect my herb garden planting as many perennial culinary herbs as I can fit into corners of my flower garden or containers placed in empty spots so my thoughts turned to the old fashioned kitchen gardens.  The following is one woman’s ideas on using her herbs to prepare an entire dinner.  In addition to those discussed in the quote, the author also discussed growing and using tansy, marjoram, basil, balm, rosemary, clary, lavender, dill, fennel, angelica, anise, caraway, coriander, chervil, cumin, horehound, lovage, marigold, samphire, borage, rue, and winter savory.

“To prepare a dinner of herbs in its best estate you should have a bed of seasonings such as our grandmothers had in their gardens, rows of sage, of spicy mint, sweet marjoram, summer savory, fragrant thyme, tarragon, chives, and parsley.  To these we may add, if we take herbs in the Scriptural sense, nasturtium, and that toothsome esculent, the onion, as well as lettuce.  If you wish a dinner of herbs and have not the fresh, the dried will serve, but parsley and mint you can get at most times in the markets, or in country gardens, where they often grow wild.

Do you know, my sister housewife, that if you were to have a barrel sawed in half, filled with good soil, some holes made in the side and then placed the prepared half barrel in the sun, you could have an herb garden of your own the year through, even if you live in a city flat?  In the holes at the sides you can plant parsley, and it will grow to cover the barrel, so that you have a bank of green to look upon.  On the top of the half barrel plant your mint, sage, thyme, and tarragon.  Thyme is so pleasing a plant in appearance and fragrance that you may acceptably give it a place among those you have in your window for ornament.

The Belgians make a parsley soup that might begin your dinner, or rather your luncheon.  For the soup, thicken flour and butter together as for drawn butter sauce, and when properly cooked thin to soup consistency with milk.  Flavor with onion juice, salt and pepper.  Just before serving add enough parsley cut in tiny bits to color the soup green.  Serve croutons with this.

For the next course choose an omelette with fine herbs. . .added to it minced thyme, tarragon and chives. . .

Instead of an omelette you may have eggs stuffed with fine herbs and served in cream sauce.  Cut hard-boiled eggs in half the long way and remove the yolks.  Mash and season these, adding the herbs, as finely minced as possible.  Shape again like yolks and return to the whites.  Cover with a hot cream sauce and serve before it cools.  Both of these dishes may be garnished with shredded parsley over the top.

With this serve a dish of potatoes scalloped with onion.  Prepare by placing in alternate layers the two vegetables; season well with salt, pepper, and butter, and then add milk even with the top layer.  This dish is quite hearty and makes a good supper dish of itself.

Of course you will not have a meal of this kind without salad.  For this try a mixture of nasturtium leaves and blossoms, tarragon, chives, mint, thyme and the small leaves of the lettuce, adding any other green leaves to the spicy kind which you find to taste good.  Then dress these with a simple oil and vinegar dressing, omitting sugar, mustard or any such flavoring, for there is spice enough in the leaves themselves.

Pass with these, if you will, sandwiches made with lettuce or nasturtium dressed with mayonnaise.  You may make quite a different thing of them by adding minced chives or tarragon, or thyme, to the mayonnaise. . .

Whether this ‘dinner of herbs’ appeals to the reader or not, I venture to say that no housewife who has ever stuffed a Thanksgiving turkey, a Christmas goose or ducks or chickens with home-grown home-prepared herbs, either fresh or dried, will ever after be willing to buy the paper packages or tin cans of semi-inodorous, prehistoric dust which masquerades equally well as ‘fresh’ sage, summer savory, thyme or something else. . .”.

Blissful meals and Joyful Gardening!©

Source:  Kains, Maurice Grenville.  “Culinary Herbs”.  New York.  1920.

MUSCOVY FOR THE TABLE ©

Tags

Muscovy; Muscovy duck

Those unfamiliar with Muscovys may refer to my previous article.

Our Muscovy drake, Ralph, approximately 1 1/2 years old.

Muscovy flesh was noted to be excellent in flavor.  Dixon wrote that the flavor was excellent if killed just before fully fledged [having wing feathers sufficient enough to enable the bird to fly], but it took longer in achieving growth for the table than the common duck.  “The flesh is at first high flavoured and tender, but an old bird would be rank and the toughest of tough meat.”

Most potential poultry growers eventually get down to brass tacks and ask about the meat harvested from this breed.  Muscovy meat is thinner-skinned, less fat, and deep red, often compared to beef in flavor and tender.  A Muscovy carcass is heavy for its size and the breast is larger than a Pekin.  Muscovy eggs are rich in flavor and excellent for baking.

1920. T. G. Carey, a Muscovy breeder in Australia said of his “aquatic fowl” they have more flesh upon their body than any other poultry. “. . . learn how to relish the juicy Muscovy duck-meat with green peas, and the trial must convince him or her how remunerative this proposition [raising Muscovys] may prove.” –

Robert Schomburg pronounced wild Muscovy flesh, “excellent eating”.  –

1904. W. Summers likewise noted that Muscovy were, “the best table fowl of any of the water-fowl variety”.

Marguerite N. de Freltas replied to a previously published comment in “Pacific Poultry Craft” advising that anyone reporting on fowl should have kept them long enough to know their habits and worthiness before submitting information to magazines and disagreed wholeheartedly with the writer of the previous article.  “. . . we eat the drakes at two years and consider them very fine—they are not ‘hard, dry nor rank’.  On the contrary, the family all decided that the last one we ate was better than the previous one of seven months. . . I can cook one of my birds at two years, and . . . it will be very good to eat”.  Dec. 1914.

Recipes specifying Muscovy are rare, probably because, as Todd Goodholme noted, Muscovy was among the various breeds, “which are very fine for the table” and as such any of the better breeds was suitable for preparation.  After all, chicken recipes do not specify a particular breed.  His recipes were noted suitable for any type of duck.

William Gibson likewise discussed Muscovys, and, under that heading, we find in his index, “To cook [a Muscovy].—See Duck”.

The following recipe from “Good Housekeeping” did specify using a Muscovy.

“The best duck for ordinary occasions when such luxuries as canvas back, red head, and teal are not to be thought of is a young Muscovy drake.  Choose a fat tender one; there is too little meat on a duck for it to be worthwhile to take the trouble to cook a tough stringy one.  Rub it well inside and outside, first with plenty of fine salt and black pepper, then give it a second rubbing with finely pounded sage, marjoram, and savory all equal quantities, pounded together, and sifted free of stalk and stem.  Always add a dash of cayenne inside and out to any meat or game that is being seasoned.  Make a stuffing of bread crumbs (either corn or wheat bread as preferred, that is a matter of taste. . .) about a pint, or more, according to the size of the duck in a bowl with a teaspoonful of powdered sage, marjoram, savory and black pepper, a small onion minced, or grated, which is better, two tablespoons of fresh butter, and enough sweet cream to moisten it into as soft a mass as can be handled. . . Stuff the duck well and sew it up, dredge it with flour and put it in a pan with half a pint of water, and half a pint of red wine, have the oven very hot, so the duck will cook quickly and be a rich brown when only about half done, for ducks are eaten quite half raw!  Baste it well with flour and butter on a larding mop, and pour over it from time to time the liquid in the pan.    When the ducks are taken up if the gravy is not thick enough add a little flour and sage rubbed together and allow it to come to a boil, then add a wine-glass full of walnut or mushroom catsup, a spoonful of sugar or currant jelly, the juice of half a lemon, a good dash of red pepper, and serve very hot.”

STEWED WITH GREEN PEAS.  [Goodholme]  Half roast the duck; skin it, and put it into a stew-pan with a pint of beef gravy [stock], a few leaves of mint and sage cut small, pepper and salt, and half an onion shred as fine as possible.  Simmer a quarter of an hour, and skim clean; then add about a quart of green peas.  Cover tightly and simmer about half an hour longer.  Add a tablespoonful of butter and as much flour, and give it one boil and remove from fire; serve with the peas around it on the dish.

DUCK RAGOUT.  1866.  Half roast a duck, then score the breast in three places at each side, lightly strew mixed spices and cayenne into each cut, and squeeze lemon juice over the spices.  Stew the bird till tender in good brown gravy; take it out and keep it hot; add one or two finely-shred shallots to the gravy, also a glass of red wine, and pour the gravy over the duck.

ROAST MUSCOVY DUCK.  1919.  (Served with apple sauce).  Clean a Muscovy duck, season with salt and pepper, and stuff with a piece of celery and two shallots chopped very fine.  Put the duck in a roasting pan with a sliced onion and carrot, add a little water, and put in a hot oven.  The water will evaporate quickly, and the fat from the duck will be sufficient to roast it.  Baste often.  When done place the duck on a platter, remove the fat from the pan, add one cup of stock and a spoonful of meat extract, boil for five minutes, and pour over the duck.

TO DRESS A DUCK WITH JUICE OF ORANGE.  1723.  Roast the Duck, till it is half enough; then take it up, lay it in a Dish, and cut it up so as to leave all the Joints hanging to one another.  Then take Salt and Pepper pounded, and put between every incision; also, squeeze in some Juice of Orange.  Then lay the Duck in a Dish upon the breast, and press it hard down with a plate; set it over the Stove for a little time; then turn the Breast upwards again, and serve it hot in its own Gravy.

Should your experience with Muscovys resemble ours, you will have quiet but friendly companions and their offspring should furnish your table with fine dining.  As always, Blissful Meals.

See:  – “The Cook’s and Confectioner’s Dictionary. . .”.  London.  1723.  – Hirtzler, Victor.  “The Hotel St. Francis Cook Book”.  Chicago.  1919.  – Philip, Robert Kemp.  “The Dictionary of Daily Wants”.  London.  1866.  – “Good Housekeeping”.  Feb. 1890.  – “Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making”.  1881.  – Goodholme, Todd S.  “Goodholme’s Domestic Cyclopaedia of Practical Information”.  New York.  1889.  – “Ducks and Geese”. Published by Reliable Poultry Journal Publishing Company.  1904.  Schomberg, Robert.  “Report of the Third Expedition into the Interior of Guayana”.  1837.  Queensland Agricultural Journal”.  May 1920.  – Brown, Edward.  “Races of Domestic Poultry”.  1906.

© May not be reproduced without the permission of the author.

Lettuce Through Time©

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braised lettuce, Cooked lettuce, lettuce history, lettuce soup

 

A nice gentleman contacted me recently with a question about 18^th century lettuce and I promised to share some information.  His question was about period recipes for cooking lettuce and whether lettuce then was anything like what we have now.

Long leaved, cos type lettuce is ancient and depicted in wall and tomb paintings as early as 4500 B.C.  Lettuce is found among plants accompanying the Egyptian god, Min [4^th Millennium BCE].

Cabbage-leaved lettuce is traced from 1543.  Columella knew a few different varieties, and documented the Romans eating young tender lettuce and cooking older and tougher lettuce.  They ate lettuce with hot dressing on it much like the wilted lettuce salads popular in the 20^th century.  Lettuce was cultivated to improve its texture and flavor and by the medieval era there were distinct varieties of three types – heading, loose-leaf, and tall or cos.  William Woys Weaver credits the name Romaine, a cos, to it being grown in the papal gardens of Rome, although the name Romaine isn’t commonly found until the latter third of the 19^th century.

“Adam’s Luxury and Eve’s Cookery”, 1744 is a good early source showing varieties during the 18^th century.  Some of those listed are available through heirloom seed companies.  Dr. Weaver, in his heirloom vegetable treatise, tells us some of the early varieties later underwent name changes requiring some gardening knowledge to identify them and locate seed.  For example, Green Capuchin is now Tennisball and Silesia is now White-Seeded Simpson or Early Curled Simpson.

Cos lettuce was common during the 18^th century.  Accounts such as the one from “The New London Family Cook” instructing the gardener to tie up the leaves of cos lettuce, “the same as endive”, to shield the inner leaves from the sun rendering them tender and crisp indicates that without special care some lettuce was tough.  The center leaves would have been preferred for salads while the outer leaves would have benefitted from cooking.

Jamie Oliver’s braised peas and lettuce

Lettuce that formed a loose head was called cabbage lettuce and that which produced tall leafy to very loose-headed plants was cos.  The varieties were divided further by season – that which could withstand a European winter, spring lettuce that headed rapidly, summer lettuce which were usually larger than spring lettuce and which tolerated more heat without bolting as fast.  Cutting lettuces never form a head and are harvested a few leaves at a time as the plants grow.  This is sometimes referred to as cut and come again.  Southern Europe also had a, “perennial lettuce”, which resembled dandelion.

Lettuces varied in depth of color from very pale to very dark green.

In John Randolph’s eminent Gardening Treatise penned in 18^th century Virginia, we see the cutting lettuce, Cabbage lettuce, and cos.  Randolph found the cabbage lettuce the least pleasing of the three.  “This sort of lettuce is the worst of all the kinds in my opinion.  It is the most watery and flashy, does not grow to the size that many of the other sorts will do, and very soon runs to seed”.

Randolph found the cos the, “sweetest and finest”, because it washed the easiest, it remained longer before bolting, and, it was the, “crispest and most delicious of them all”.

Salads, raw and cooked, date to ancient times, however, here we will look only at ways in which lettuce was cooked.  It was put into soup, made into ragout, cooked with green peas, etc.  Elizabeth Lea [1859] had this advice for her readers, “Where there is a large family, it is a good and economical way to cut the fat of ham in small pieces, fry it, and make a gravy with flour, water and pepper to eat with lettuce.  To cook lettuce you must fry a little ham; put a spoonful of vinegar into the gravy; cut the lettuce, put it in the pan; give it a stir, and then dish it”.  Your author remembers the delight of eating this prepared by her aunt Dora, who was a master of the “use what’s in the garden and larder” method of cooking before it became trendy with preppers.

TO MAKE GREEN PEASE SOUP.  “The New Book of Cookery”.  1782.  Take a small knuckle of veal, and a pint and a half of old green pease; put them in a saucepan with five or six quarts of water, a few blades of mace, a small onion stuck with cloves, some sweet herbs, salt, and whole pepper;  cover them close, and boil them;  then strain the liquor through a sieve, and put it in a fresh saucepan, with a pint of young pease, a lettuce, the heart of a cabbage, and three or four heads of celery, cut small;  cover the pan and let them stew an hour.  Pour the soup into your dish, and serve it up with the crust of a French roll.

EGGS WITH LETTUCE.  “The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy.  Glasse.  1786.  Scald some cabbage-lettuce in fair water, squeeze them well, then slice them and toss them up in a saucepan with a piece of butter;  season them with pepper, salt, and a little nutmeg.  Let them stew half an hour, chop them well together; when they are enough, lay them in your dish, fry some eggs nicely in butter and lay on them.  Garnish with Seville orange.

TURKISH MINCE.  “Domestic Economy and Cookery”.  1827.  Mince hard [boiled] eggs, white meat, and suet in equal quantities, season with sweet herbs and spices, mix it with boiled chopped lettuce, bread crums [sic], a little butter and a raw egg or two; dip lettuce, vine, or cabbage-leaves into boiling water, roll up the mince in them, and fry them of a nice light brown, or bake them in a quick oven, buttering them from a buttering pan, which is a better method than laying on bits; when rolled up for frying, fix the leaves with a little egg; meat may be used instead of egg.

LAITUES AU JUS.  “How to Cook Vegetables in one Hundred Different Ways”.  1868.  Blanch the lettuces for about five minutes in boiling water, drain them; place some nice slices of bacon in a stewpan;  lay the lettuces upon them; add sufficient strong gravy [broth];  simmer for a quarter of an hour, and serve with the strained gravy.

LAITUES FARCIES.  “How to Cook Vegetables in one Hundred Different Ways”.  1868.  Remove the outer leaves from some good large white lettuces, blanch these for a few minutes in boiling water;  drain them;  make them hollow by cutting out from the stalk end;  fill them with a very good white forcemeat, and stew them gently in consommé, or braise them.  Serve with the gravy poured over.

LETTUCES—LAITUES AU LARD.  “The Treasury of French Cookery.  1866.  The salad being made, salt and pepper are added in the requisite quantities.  Cut bacon up in small dice.  Melt it in a heater [cook].  Pour it very hot over the lettuces.  A little vinegar is immediately put into the heater, and when warm is poured over the salad.

LETTUCE SOUP.  “The Master Books of Soups”.  1900.  2 pints veal stock, 1 large head of lettuce, 1 oz. butter, 1 oz. flour, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, salt and paprika.

Cook lettuce in 1 pint of the stock and press through a sieve.  Heat butter in a pan and add flour and the other 1 pint of stock.  Cook till smooth and creamy.  Add lettuce pureé, season to taste, re-heat, add lemon juice, and serve.

“Inferior heads, or the lettuce which does not form heads, is very nice if cooked just like spinach and dressed with cream.  Some varieties which have large white veins and mid-ribs may be made to serve a double purpose.  Strip out the thin parts of the leaf for use in the salads and then cook the stems and dress them just like asparagus.  It will make a substitute for asparagus which will go unsuspected with a good many people”.  – Cutler.  1903.

See:  Vilmorin-Andrieux, “The Vegetable Garden”, 1920.  Randolph, John, “A Treatise on Gardening”, mid-18^th c.  Weaver, William Woys.  “Heirloom Vegetable Gardening:  A Master Gardener’s Guide to Planting, Seed Saving, and Cultural History”.  1997.  Weaver.  “100 Vegetables and Where they Came From”.  2000.  Lindquist, K.  “On the Origin of Cultivated Lettuce”.  Landskrona, Sweden.  April 1960.  Eaton, Katherine.  “Ancient Egyptian Temple Ritual:  Performance, Pastterns, and Practice”.  2013.  Cookery books listed above.

Scramble or Fry? Oh My!

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egg recipes

“In all times and in all ages, among all races and in all lands, as far back as written history and tradition can be traced, the egg has ever been regarded as chief among Nature’s most precious gifts to mankind”.  No truer statement has ever been made.  Eggs as food are dateless, and recorded recipes date from those of Apicius, famous epicure of ancient Rome.  Preparation techniques changed little initially, but in 1665 Robert May told readers about sixty-two ways of cooking eggs.

Any bird or reptile which lays eggs may nourish a human whether it be lizard, alligator, fish, turtle, terrapin, turtle, water bird, etc. On the farm we eat duck, goose, and turkey eggs right along with the chicken eggs.

I tailor my usage according to what my hens produce and have not bought eggs in almost four years.  When my hens lay extra eggs I can look for recipes which require a larger number of eggs.  Let’s look at ways great grandma might have prepared her eggs.

The most important advice pertains to determining freshness unless gathered faithfully daily.  I use the floating in water method, keeping sinkers, discarding floaters and any that stand on end more than a slight degree.  Boiled freshly gathered eggs do not peel well.

“Eggs are not fit for any purpose unless they are perfectly fresh.  An easy method of ascertaining the freshness of an egg is to hold it toward the sun or toward a good light.  If fresh, it will be perfectly clear; if it is clear on one side and cloudy on the other, it is stale.  Another good test is to place the eggs in a pan filled with water; those that sink to the bottom are perfectly fresh; if they float at the top or stand on end in the water, they are unfit for use”.  Filippini, Alexander.  “One Hundred Ways of Cooking Eggs”.  1892.

EGGS TO CODDLE.  Mrs. Bliss.  “Practical Cook Book”.  1850.  Break the eggs and slip them separately, so as not to break the yolks, into a stew-pan of boiling water, let the whites just set, then take them up in a skimmer, drain off the water, and serve on slices of buttered toast.

EGGS AND TOMATOES.  Bliss.  Peel six tomatoes and cut them in slices into a stew-pan, add two table-spoonfuls of butter, a little salt and pepper; when they begin to stew, break in six eggs, stir well, and serve.  This is a nice dish for breakfast.

EGGS A LA DEUX.  “Better Food”.  1917.  Cut four hard-cooked eggs in slices, add one cup of tender cooked ham cut in cubes, half a cup of fresh mushrooms broken in pieces, and two cups of white sauce.  Mix lightly, turn into a baking dish, cover with buttered crumbs and let bake until the crumbs are browned.

SCALLOPED EGGS WITH CHEESE.  “Twentieth Century Cook Book”.  1921.  4 hard-cooked eggs, 2 cups White Sauce, ½ cup cheese cut fine, ½ cup buttered crumbs.  Cut eggs in eights lengthwise; put half of them into a greased baking dish, cover with half of sauce, and sprinkle with half of cheese; repeat; cover with crumbs, and bake about fifteen minutes or until crumbs are brown.  [These were also called Eggs Au Gratin.  We had this for Father’s Day breakfast].

ASPARAGUS A LA WESTMINSTER.  Frich.  “The Housewife’s Cook Book”.  1917.  Buttered toast, scrambled eggs, grated cheese, white sauce.  Arrange scrambled eggs on buttered toast, asparagus on top of scrambled eggs, and grated cheese on top of asparagus.  Serve with hot white sauce.

EGG CROQUETTES.  “The Home Cook Book”.  1905.  Boil four eggs till they are perfectly hard.  Then rub through a fine sieve [mash], add three tablespoons of cream, a dash of pepper, a saltspoon of salt, and stir well all together.  Add also a teaspoon of butter.  Stir thoroughly and thicken with pulverized cracker stiff enough to form into balls.  Make up in little balls, roll each ball in cracker dust and drop into deep, hot fat.  When the croquettes are brown, take out with a perforated or wire spoon and drain.  Serve with crisp, hot bacon or cold with a lettuce salad.

PICKLED EGGS.  Home.  1905.  First boil the eggs half an hour.  Drop them in cold water to cool, remove the shells and put the eggs in an earthen or glass jar.  Cover them with hot vinegar.  Or if you wish to give them a spiced flavor, pour over them vinegar in which peppers, allspice, cardamom seeds, and cloves have been boiled. . .Let them stand twenty-four hours before serving.  [Pickled eggs are a tremendous time saver when making salads and add a bit of extra flavor].

BAKED EGGS WITH MASHED POTATOES.  “The Rural Cook Book”.  1907.  The potatoes should be well seasoned, and beaten smooth with hot cream or milk and butter, so they will be very light.  Put in a buttered baking dish, and then . . . make deep little hollows in the potatoes.  Drop an uncooked egg carefully into each of these hollows, dust with salt and pepper, and dot the top with bits of butter; set in the oven until the eggs are cooked and serve at once.

STEWED SPINACH AND EGGS.  Glasse, Hannah.  “The Art of Cookery”.  1788.  Pick and wash your spinach very clean, put it into a saucepan, with a little salt; cover it close, shake the pan often.  When it is just tender, and whilst it is green, throw it into a sieve to drain, lay it into your dish.  In the mean time have a stew-pan of water boiling, break as many eggs into cups as you would poach.  When the water boils put in the eggs, have an egg-slice ready to take them out with, lay them on the spinach, and garnish the dish with orange cut into quarters, with melted butter in a cup.

Nutrition Through the Years©

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plantain, wild greens

Fresh plantain harvested from the author’s yard and flavored with ham

Americans have grown fat and lazy in recent generations, many living off processed food that is high in calories while providing little nutrition.  Obesity and diabetes accompanied by hypertension are at epidemic proportions even in our children.  The fault lies with parents who allow children to live in this manner.  A child that is taught to eat well will usually do so for life.

In times past, children ate what adults ate and were healthier for it.  God and Nature provided nutritious food but somewhere along the way most Americans got lazy.  First they found it easier to shop at markets and roadside stands with a limited selection of fruits and vegetables, proprietors’ goals being to profit from what shoppers were more likely to buy, then in the last couple of generations many have been willing to forego nutrition altogether for the convenience of pre-made meals.

Even families who are conscious of nutrients may have fallen into the abyss of white flour and sugar.  Your author had an awakening this year that prompted the removal of such ingredients from our diet.  Bulk wheat berries and a grain mill have replaced the worthless processed flour and honey is going a long way toward replacing sugar.  Our garden has for some time now provided fresh produce and berries.  The reward for me has been weight loss, lower blood sugar, and manageable hypertension.

Let’s look at eating habits of our forebears and how families sought nutritious food even during eras of inflation.

“I think we keep well by using a great many wild greens that are so plentiful in the spring—why, when I drive along the roadside I have a basket and knife with me because I want those wonderful greens.  I go up town and do my marketing early in the morning, and I take my knife along and my basket, and on my way home I have a mess of greens.  Children are very fond of them, small children—at least I find it so at my table”.

“Children were dispatched to gather wild greens – wild mustard, tongue grass, snake’s tongue, young poke shoots, Shawnee, wild lettuce, ‘mouse’s ear’, speckled dock, lady’s slipper, little dock, elder leaves, wild ‘cresses’ and other ‘sallet greens’ were growing everywhere.

A dandelion salad, which all Germans like, is in itself a most wholesome food.  We could never taste it as made by Germans; however, because they use bacon-fat to dress the leaves with.  Olive oil and lemon juice can take the place of their hot bacon fat and vinegar.

The cresses, dandelion, radishes, scullions, lettuce, horseradish, chives, pusley [purslane], asparagus and various field greens, can be used in their native state in salads to great advantage.

Chopped dandelion leaves and asparagus tips, with green onion tops, dressed with French dressing, as little condiment as possible, using lemon juice and not vinegar for the dressing, is a most healthful salad.  Eaten with a slice of unfermented bread with a handful of nuts, it makes a sufficient and wholesome meal for spring.

There are salads for every month in the year.  A delicate salad for August, made of nasturtium flowers and leaves, flaked nuts, tomato and other delicate combinations which might grace the salad course of a sixteen course dinner and do honor”. – 1909.

Let’s take a look at how these wild greens were being prepared and served.  “The wild greens, such as the dandelion, mustard, and the cowslip are much improved by boiling them with a piece of salt pork striped lean and fat.  A slice of the pork cut very thin should be served with each dish of greens.  Beet greens also may be prepared in this way.  One of the most appetizing meals I can think of is made of hot sliced boiled ham or corned beef—a piece of corned brisket is suitable for this—a dish of greens, new potatoes boiled in their jackets with the greens and ham, and rhubarb pie for dessert”.

Except, perhaps, for rhubarb which likes to grow in cooler temperatures, Southerners have served up such meals since colonization began.  Blissful Meals, y’all. © Text and photos copyrighted by the author.

• The Vegetarian Magazine.
• The American Child.
• The Delineator. May 1922.
• Year Book. Illinois Farmers’ Institute.

Kitchen Style That Reaches Out to Me

This post isn’t going to be long on text and is offered today just because I took a sentimental journey and decided to share images of kitchen styles that make me happy.  I’ve had the pleasure of cooking in some interesting settings and making food my ancestors would have been comfortable with, but at 60, I’m not sure if I’d want to take up cooking for 25 or more people as I once did in primitive settings.  Putting a joint on the spit and making some historical dish for the Mister and myself, however, will bring me immense pleasure when we get around to tweaking our keeping room.  We have pieces a plenty to outfit it once we are ready to transform the interior into the setting we want.  It doesn’t have to be nearly as elaborate as these to please me as I gravitate more toward cottage than castle, but the reader will enjoy this nostalgic trip down memory lane.

Blissful Meals now and perhaps you’ll find a few details in these images that speak to you as they have me.  I’ve tried to avoid copyrighted images, however, it was sometimes hard to follow the chain of postings to know who the original poster was and whether there were any restrictions on using the photo.

PIGEONS AND THE DOVECOT, Part II©

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pigeon, squab

This piece picks up where part I left off with part I.  Now that we’ve established how the dovecot housed the pigeons who raised the squab that goes on our dinner tables, how was it prepared?

[McCall’s Fish and Fowl cookbook, 1974]

“The blue house-pigeon is the variety principally reared for the table in this country, and is produced from our farmyards in great numbers.  When young, and still fed by their parents, they are most preferable for the table, and are called squabs; under six months they are denominated squeakers, and at six months they begin to breed.  Their flesh is accounted savoury, delicate, and stimulating, and the dark-coloured birds are considered to have the highest flavor, whilst the light are esteemed to have the more delicate flesh”.

That delicate flesh was prepared in a myriad of ways, 18^th century cookery books can contain some 20 different receipts for preparing it.  Clermont and others from the early 19^th century used the same receipts:  White Fricassee of Pigeon, Fricassee of Pigeons with Green Peas, Fricasee of Pigeons, country fashion, Pigeons Masqueraded, Pigeons of a fine bright Colour, Pigeons stuffed with Pistachio Nuts, Pigeons au Court Bouillon, Pigeons a la Sainte Menehoult, Pigeons Glazed and served with Stewed Greens, Pigeons Perigord, Pigeons au Cingara, Roasted Pigeons with different Sauces and Ragouts, Pigeons with Basil, Hodgepodge of Pigeons Spanish Style, Pigeons in Cowl Pontiff Sauce, Pigeons with Craw-fish Cullis, (this had notes regarding au Gratin, and Pigeon Parmesan as well), Pigeons a la Bry with Italian Sauce, Pigeons with Cream and Craw-fish as a Fricassee, Pigeons with Craw-fish Butter, Pigeons accompanied with Craw-fish, Pigeons in a delightful Manner, Pigeons Royal Fashion, Pigeons Masked with Ravigotte Sauce, Pigeons with Cream Sauce, Pigeons glazed or with Parmesan Cheese, Pigeons a la Fiane, Pigeons as if Alive with Fricandeaux, Brown Pigeons, Pigeons the Clergyman’s Fashion, Pigeons in a Hurry, Pigeons with a Ragout, Pigeons with Marrow, Pigeons Provence Fashion, Pigeons like Hedge-hogs, Pigeons the Comptroller’s Manner, Pigeons in Cowl with Onions, Pigeons like a Toad, Flatted Pigeons, Pigeons the Princess’s Fashion (because of their preparation), Stewed Pigeon with blood, Pigeons dobed with or without Fennel, Pigeons the Cardinal’s Fashion, Pigeons the German Fashion, Pigeons farced with Shallots, Matlot of Pigeons, Pigeons of a Game Flavour in Moulds or in Paste, Pigeons masked with Cauliflowers, and Pigeons with Truffels.

Photo credit:  Backyard Chickens website.  1. Turkey, 2. Goose, 3. Barbary Duck (Muscovy), 4. Guinea fowl, 5. Mallard, 6. Poussin, (Cornish Rock Game hen/baby cornish X), 7. Quail, 8. Partridge, 9. Pigeon squab, 10. Pheasant, 11. Chicken, 12. Aylesbury duck (pekin)

Pigeon eggs are edible but due to their diminutive size were used more for garnish than substance, often boiled pigeon egg yolks were served in soups.  Descriptions of Chinese meals, whether served in China or the U.S. often included pigeon eggs.

[Source:  Beeton’s Book of Household Management.  #8 is roasted pigeons.]

PIGEONS.  Boil the pigeons by themselves for a quarter of an hour; with a proper quantity of bacon cut square, laid in the middle of the dish.  Stew some spinach, and lay the pigeons on the spinach.  Garnish with parsley dried crisp before the fire.  [1831]

CONSOMME COLONBINE.  Prepare a good tablespoonful of carrot pearls and one of turnip pearls, keeping the latter very white.  Cook them in the ordinary way, and put them in the soup-tureen with one tablespoonful of very green peas, one tablespoonful of a julienne of roast pigeon fillets, and six poached pigeons’ eggs, which latter should be sent to the table in a timbale at the same time as the consommé.  Pour over the other garnish one quart of very clear boiling consommé and serve at once.  This soup can only appear on menus when pigeon’s eggs are in season.  [1912]

SOUP WITH PIGEONS AND POACHED EGGS.  Truss the pigeons as for a pie, and half fill them with forcemeat, having plenty of forced mushrooms pounded in it.  Scald and drain them dry; and put them in a stew-pan with a pint of veal broth.  Stew till done; then make hot two quarts of veal broth, and add to it some carrots, turnips, peeled button onions, and celery heads in lengths of two inches.  Steam the vegetables separately before putting them into the broth.  Season with salt and make it boil; and five minutes before serving add the pigeons, and a liaison of four poached eggs in the tureen.  [1836]

STEWED PIGEON.  6 pigeons, a few slices of bacon, 3 oz. of butter, 2 tablespoonfuls of minced parsley, sufficient stock…to cover the pigeons, thickening of butter and flour, 1 tablespoonful of mushroom ketchup, 1 tablespoonful of port wine. . .Mince the livers and add these to the parsley and butter, and put it into the insides of the birds.  Truss them with the legs inward, and put them into a stewpan, with a few slices of bacon placed under and over them; add the stock, and stew gently for rather more than ½ hour.  Dish the pigeons, strain the gravy, thicken it with butter and flour, add the ketchup and port wine, give one boil, pour over the pigeons and serve. . .Seasonable from April to September.   Sarah J. Hale advised using the same liver mixture to stuff pigeons for roasting [1857]

PIGEON PYE.  Your crust must be good, and force [stuff] your Pigeons with good Force-meat; then lay some at the Bottom of your Crust, and your Pigeons a Top; lay your Giblets between with some hard Eggs; Asparagus Tops, Coxcombs and Sweetbreads; put a piece of Butter on top of your Pigeons, and a little Liquor, [broth] so lid and bake it; put in a little Gravy and Butter when you open it.  [1732]  Note:  When butchering, I have saved rooster combs and cooked them for period recipes, however, I found it more for garnish than for adding anything substantial to the dish.

PIGEONS COMPOTE.  Skewer six young pigeons in the same manner as for boiling, put forcemeat into the craws, lard them down the breast, and fry them brown.  Put them into strong brown gravy, and when they have stewed three quarters of an hour, thicken it with a lump of butter rolled in flour.  Make your forcemeat in this manner.  Grate the crumbs of half a penny loaf, and scrape a quarter of a pound of fat bacon, which will answer the purpose better than suet.  Chop a little parsley and thyme, two shallots, or an onion, some lemon-peel, and a little nutmeg grated; season them with pepper and salt, and mix them up with eggs.  When you serve them up, strain your gravy over them, and lay forcemeat balls around them.  [1785]

PIGEON PIE.  1 ½ lb. of rump-steak, 2 or 3 pigeons, 3 slices of ham, pepper and salt to taste, 2 oz. of butter, 4 eggs, puff crust.  Cut the steak into pieces about 3 inches square, and with it line the bottom of a pie-dish, seasoning it well with pepper and salt.  Clean the pigeons, rub them with pepper and salt inside and out, and put into the body of each rather more than ½ oz. of butter; lay them on the steak, and a piece of ham on each pigeon.  Add the yolks of 4 eggs, and half fill the dish with stock; place a border of puff paste round the edge of the dish, put on the cover, and ornament it in any way that may be preferred.  Clean three of the feet, and place them in a hole made in the crust at the top; this shows what kind of pie it is.  Glaze the crust,–that is to say, brush it over with the yolk of an egg,–and bake it in a well-heated oven for about 1 ¼ hour.  When liked, a seasoning of pounded mace may be added.

Louis Eustache Ude’s version of pigeon pie was very similar, published in 1815.

BRAISED PIGEONS.  Draw [clean] and wash three young pigeons, wipe them well and stuff them with breadcrumbs that have been well seasoned and moistened with warmed butter, and cook them in a brasing pan.  Boil some spinach, chop it well, and season with salt and pepper.  Toast three slices of bread, lay them on a hot dish, spread the spinach over them, put a pigeon on each slice, and serve with a sauceboatful of gravy.

FRICASSEED PIGEONS.  . . . Cut them into pieces, and put them in a saucepan; pour in one pint each of claret and water, and a blade of mace, one onion, a bunch of sweet herbs, a little pepper and salt and one and one-half tablespoonfuls of butter that has been kneaded with a little flour.  Cover the pan, and cook slowly for three-fourths of an hour.  Remove the pieces of pigeons onto a hot dish, and keep them warm.  Strain the gravy, and stir in with it the yolks of three eggs; when thick pour it over the meat, and put some fried oysters on top.  Garnish round with croutons of fried bread, and serve.

PIGEONS IN A HOLE. . . stick their legs in their bellies as you do for boiling, and season them with pepper, salt, and beaten mace.  Put a lump of butter, of the size of a walnut, into the belly of each pigeon, and lay them in a pie dish.  Pour over them a batter made of three eggs, two spoonfuls of flour, and half a pint of good milk.  Bake them in a moderate oven, and send them up in the same dish to table.  [1806]

I leave you now, gentle reader, with visions of pies, fricassees, roasts, and all manner of good dishes, and, as always, Blissful Meals.  ©  All Rights Reserved.