RECIPES FOR CAPTAINS OF SHIPS© By: Victoria Brady

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Cooking on ships

Keeping supplies from which to feed the crew on a late eighteenth or early nineteenth century sailing vessel was an art which was part culinary and part science though those doing it wouldn’t have viewed their efforts as either. Janet MacDonald’s in depth look at “Feeding Nelson’s Navy” shows how the food was procured by the Victualling Board or captains in port, stored, loaded onto the ship, preserved, cooked, and served for the officers and messes onboard ship. While common sense might dictate, with her research we can document the sort of supplies kept on the ships. By looking at receipts for ships captains in Hannah Glasse’s “The Art of Cookery, Plain and Simple” (1774) and possessing a general knowledge of 18th century food preparation we can envision what made dishes the men ate.

The first receipt in Glasse’s chapter, “Recipes for Captains of Ships”, is “To Make Catchup to Keep Twenty Years”. With today’s inferior packaging this claim may seem dubious at best, however, I have no trouble believing it kept until it was used up. It was made with strong stale beer, anchovies, shallots, mace, cloves, whole pepper, ginger, and mushrooms. It was cooked until it reduced by half, strained, and bottled. This would have seasoned any number of dishes.

Her fish sauce was similar, but instead of mushrooms contained horse-radish, white wine, lemon, anchovy liquor, red wine, and similar spices.

Meat drippings were an integral part of cooking at home or on the sea, but particularly so on ships where access to fats and oils was often limited. Glasse gave explicit instructions to the sea cooks on keeping the drippings fresh. The beef dripping was boiled in water, cooled, then the hard fat taken off and the “gravy”, or gelatinous material adhering to the underside of it, was scraped off. This was to be repeated seven times more before adding bay leaves, cloves, salt, and pepper to it. It was sieved and allowed to grow cold in the pot. She advised turning the pot upside down onto a flat surface to keep out the ever-present rats.

There were receipts for pickling and powdering mushrooms which are found in most any cookbook from the era. (Plagiarism was common amongst early cookery writers.) Her “To Keep Mushrooms Without Pickle” is rather interesting. She instructed cooking the mushrooms with salt, draining them and drying them on tin plates in a cool oven. When perfectly dry they were put into a stone jar, tied down tight and kept in a dry place. “They eat deliciously, and look as well as truffles”.

For change she discussed drying artichoke bottoms and reconstituting them in water for adding to sauces or to flour and fry them. The latter was to be served with melted butter. Her “fricasey” of artichoke-bottoms directed the cook to lay them in boiling water until tender, and put to them half a pint of milk, a quarter of a pound of butter rolled in flour, stir it “all one way” till quite thick then add a spoonful of mushroom pickle. The artichokes were put into a dish and the sauce poured over. Documents show that ships carried cows, or more often, a sheep or goat aboard for fresh milk.

Crew members were known to catch fish which was a welcome meal. Glasse told the cook how to fry the fish in beef dripping and serve with a sauce. Her method of baking fish was quick allowing the cook to concentrate on other parts of a meal. “Butter the pan, lay in the fish, throw a little salt over it and flour; put a very little water in the dish, an onion and a bundle of sweet-herbs, stick some little bits of butter or fine dripping on the fish. Let it be baked of a fine light brown; when enough, lay it on a dish before the fire, and skim off all the fat in the pan; strain the liquor, and mix it up either with the fish-sauce or strong soop [sic], or the catchup.

For soup, the cook was to refer to a previous chapter aimed at home cooks.

Puddings were salt beef or pork, mutton (butchered onboard), apples or prunes rolled in pastry, put into a pudding bag, and boiled in like manner.

Currants and raisins were among the stores kept on the ship and these were utilized to make a suet pudding. There are two receipts for Oatmeal puddings with raisins and/or currants.

The liver of an animal killed onboard was made into a pudding with the liver cut fine and mixed with suet, crumbs of bread or biscuit (hard cracker), sweet herbs, nutmeg, pepper, salt, anchovy and butter, then put into a crust and boiled.

Rice pudding was made by: 1. boiling rice in a cloth, taking it up and adding nutmeg, butter, and sweetener and boiling it again. It was served with a sauce made of butter, sugar and a little white wine. 2. Baking it in a buttered pan with similar ingredients.

There were methods for making both soup and pudding from dried peas found in rations.

Harrico of French beans is brilliant in its use of ships stores. A pint of the “seeds of French beans, which are ready dried for sowing”, were boiled for two hours, drained, reserving the liquid, and added to onions fried brown in butter, pepper and salt, and made to the thickness desired. “When of the proper thickness you like it, take it off the fire, and stir in a large spoonful of vinegar and the yolks of two eggs beat. The eggs may be left out, if disliked.”

Ships often housed poultry for the eggs and for cooking. They were readily available in most ports. At whatever point the cook felt proper to butcher some of the fowl the evening meal could have been made into a pie. Glasse says to fill the paste with bacon or cold boiled ham, sliced, and season it with pepper and salt and add a little water. A pastry lid was put on and the pie baked for some two hours. Seasoned gravy was poured in just prior to serving it.

Janet MacDonald found no mention of potatoes among the foods available from the Victualling Board until the 19th century, however, either they sometimes purchased them from locals where they stopped or Hannah Glasse wasn’t aware they weren’t available onboard ships. Her Cheshire pork pie for sea was a crust filled with layers of salt pork and sliced potatoes seasoned with pepper.

Her Sea Venison was freshly killed mutton boiled in the sheep’s blood and hung to dry before roasting. She did note this process depended upon the weather and how long the meat could be kept without spoiling.

She concluded the chapter with a receipt for dumplings the size of a turkey’s egg made of bread crumbs, beef-suet, nutmeg, sugar, and two spoonsful of sack (wine). They were boiled and served with a sauce of butter and sack with a little sugar strewn over.

She referred the reader to her chapter on soups and broths. The officers’ cook might have been able to read her book and shared ideas with the mess cooks, but more likely an officer might have purchased or borrowed a copy from which he instructed the cook.

The most useful receipt may have been for making Portable soup and Pocket soup which was cooked down to “glue” and when ready to prepare it reconstituted with water to make gravy and sauces as well as broth and soup.

Good day, gentle readers, I hope you find this brief advice useful in stocking your home larder should you have an interest in any degree of self-sufficiency. I leave you with wishes for Blissful Meals.©

“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.

BRADY’S FAITHFUL REPRODUCTIONS

Those of you interested in general 18th century history, including reproduction items we make and offer for sale from time to time, may want to check out our new blog: https://bradysfaithfulreproductions.com/ or search bradysfaithfulreproductions (without the apostrophe).

Thank you for your continuing interest.

• Victoria Brady, thehistoricfoodie

WORK BAGS AND THEIR USES©

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knitting bag, sewing bag, workbag

Gentle readers, today’s post departs from gardening and cooking as sometimes happens.  I hope that some of you find it useful.

To research an 18th or 19th century lady’s collection of sewing implements it helps to know what the collection was called during that time. While one can research individual tools, the container that held them, always ready for easy availability, was most often called a work bag. References are found from articles and books published as early as the 1700’s.

It was important that every woman knew how to sew and embroidery. More well-to-do women and girls might have worked on more delicate garments and smaller fancy items such as handkerchiefs, doll clothes, or delicate underpinnings, but they were still expected to perfect their sewing skills. Most girls learned embroidery stitches by making samplers.

Work-bags ranged from strictly utilitarian to being knitted or made of satin and decorated with tassels, embroidery, and other embellishments and were often made to give as gifts to a friend or loved one. They were often made to sell at church bazaars.

Women commonly carried work-bags with them as they visited friends, sometimes working on their needlework as they carried on their conversations. Young girls often had their own workbags.

“. . . and brought, for each of the little girls, a present of a sattin [sic] work-bag ornamented with gold. There was in each bag a needle-book, and a piece of muslin, on which was drawn a pretty design”.

In addition to sewing tools a work bag was also used to carry everyday items as one might use a tote bag today. It might have contained items such as keys, a piece of jewelry, letters or notes, money, toothpick cases, books, sewing, knitting, or embroidery projects, gloves, handkerchief, etc. or it may, on occasion, have been used to gather nuts or flowers. A housewife (a sewn sewing kit of sorts used for holding pins, needles, buttons, etc.) was often part of the contents of a workbag. In 1841 an article was published about the early use of potatoes in which a woman of 45 years said the first potato they ever saw was kept in her mother’s work-bag to await the season for planting.

Reading material and calling cards were often kept in work-bags. “I did intend reading something to the children,” said their mother, as she drew a paper from her work-bag”. The work bags also held scissors, a bodkin, and needles.

Sewing is done by choice today but in times past clothes were made and mended and the tools to do the job were in constant use. A woman valued them because replacing them was a hardship. A poem [published 1831] entitled “Careless Matilda” addresses a young lady who haphazardly leaves her sewing tools scattered about, never knowing where anything is.

“Again, Matilda, is your work astray,
Your thimble gone! Your scissors, where are they?
Your needles, pins, your thread, and tapes all lost—
Your Housewife here, and there your work bag tost [tossed]”.

The following quote demonstrates the importance of carefully storing away a work-bag for the next time it was needed. “. . . then Lucy’s mother kissed her, and said to her, put your work into your work-bag, and put your work-bag into its place, and then come back to me.”

My workbag is made of toile after a pattern published in Godey’s Lady’s Book. It is a good size with pockets sewn around for keeping various items together. It has a drawstring closure. It has held everything documented above at one time or another. Researching workbags reminded me how much I need to reorganize mine and be as faithful about keeping my sewing implements together in it as my predecessors were. At my age one would hope to be better organized than I generally am.

Good King Henry: Perennial Green. ©

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Good King Henry

Good King Henry, aka Fathen, wild spinach, English Mercury (in America sometimes corrupted to Markery), goosefoot, or Allgood is not native, but was grown in the U.S. at least by the early 1840’s, perhaps longer.  It is perennial and can be propagated by self-sowing and by root division should you wish to share with your neighbor.  Plant it in a prepared bed where it can grow unmolested and refrain from harvesting until the third year after which it will feed you for years to come.

Photo:  Stefan Lefnaer, Wikimedia.

“We would particularly recommend to our readers, as a first-class vegetable for early spring use, the Good King Henry (Chenopodium Bonus Henricus), or English Mercury.  This is, in many parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland, a rather common roadside weed, with a thick fleshy root, like that of a Dock, and grows to a considerable height.  The lower leaves resemble those of Spinach, and are of a broadly triangular shape, often more than 3 inches long, stalked, sinuate, or slightly toothed, rather than thick and fleshy, and of a dark green colour.  This upper ones are smaller and nearly sessile.  It is extensively grown by the Lincolnshire farmers, almost every garden having its bed, which if placed in a warm corner and well manured, yields an abundant supply of delicious vegetables for a fortnight or three weeks before the Asparagus comes in, and for some weeks afterwards.  From a south border we generally commence cutting the Mercury early in April, and continue cutting until the end of June.  Some of our friends say they like it better than Asparagus; but we cannot go that length, though we like it very much.  When properly grown, the young shoots should be almost as thick as the little finger, and, in gathering, it should be cut under the ground something the same as Asparagus.  In preparing it for use, if the outer skin or bark has become tough, strip it off from the bottom upwards, and then wash and tie it in bunches like Asparagus.  It is best boiled in plenty of water, with a handful of salt added.  When tender, strain and serve simply, or upon a toast.  Some have melted butter with it, others eat it simply with the gravy of the meat.  Now, in cultivation, the Mercury will grow anywhere; but, to have it in the best form, superior cultivation is necessary.  To this end you cannot have the ground too deep nor too rich.  Hence we should say trench the ground2 feet deep, mixing in abundance of rich manure, and plant as early in the spring as possible.  As the plant is a perennial, it is necessary to get an abundant yield of shoots, and to get them as strong as possible—and hence, in time, each plant may be a foot or more in diameter.  In planting, we generally put the rows 18 inches apart, and the plants 1 foot apart in the row; and, after we begin to cut, we drench the ground frequently with manure water, or sprinkle the ground with guano in showery weather.  Of course the plants must not be cut too severely until they are thoroughly established—say in the third year—and then you can scarcely injure them.”  – “The Garden Illustrated Weekly Journal”.  London.  April 19, 1873.

In flavor it is comparable to spinach or asparagus.  The shoots may be peeled and prepared as asparagus cooked as greens (alone or mixed with other plants), or put into soup and stew.  Perhaps one of the following appeals to your taste.  Some suggested adding the seed to soup and stew in the manner of quinoa.

GOOD KING HENRY (Boiled leaves).  1916.  Have the leaves well washed, put into a stewpan with the smallest possible amount of boiling water, and let boil for fifteen minutes; then add a little salt, and boil five minutes longer.  Strain off the water and chop the leaves finely.  Have ready hot in a stewpan about one ounce each of butter and flour, with a little pepper and salt, add the leaves, mix well, and heat thoroughly for another five minutes.  Serve hot with garnish of fried sippets (toasts).

GOOD KING HENRY (Boiled Shoots and Stalks).  1916.  Prepare and cook as asparagus, and serve with any sauce suitable to asparagus.  Keep any cold, cooked stalks for salad.   ©

GROUND NUT, aka hopniss, Indian potato, potato bean, openauk, vine potato.©

Tags

apios Americana, groundnut

Ground nut is a North American native and produces a tuber similar to a potato.  It is edible as are the beans, shoots, and flowers the plant produces.  In 1585 Thomas Harriot said of it, “Openauk, a kind of root of round form, some of the bigness of walnuts, some far greater, which are found in moist & marish [sic] grounds growing many together one by another in ropes, or as though they were fastened with a string. Being boiled or sodden they are very good meat…”.

One can hardly read a natural history, book of Indian lore, or an account of pioneers or mountain men without finding a reference to hopniss (the Lenape word for the plant) or Indian potato.  Accounts as early as 1626 call it Indian potato and by 1787 it was Apios Americana.  Lewis and Clark described it in their journals.  The name varied with tribe but each used it as food and as a medicinal.

Modern day permaculturists praise the plant, but it is nothing new to history.  The noted botanist, Peter Kalm, recorded the plant he called hopniss in his journal in March 1749, written from Raccoon Creek New Jersey.  “Hopniss or Hapniss was the Indian name of a wild plant which they ate at that time.  The Swedes call it by that name, and it grows in the meadows, in good soil.  The roots resemble potatoes, and are boiled by the Indians who eat them instead of bread.  Some of the Swedes, at that time, likewise ate this root for want of bread.  Some of the English still eat them instead of potatoes, but likewise take the peas that lie in the pods of this plant and prepare them like common peas.”

Further, Parkman in “Pioneers of France” stated that Charles de Biencourt and his followers at Port Royal [Acadia, New France, now Canada], in 1613, were scattered about the woods and shores digging ground-nuts.  Jacob Cornutus published a history of the plants of Canada in Paris in 1635 in which is found the ground-nut.   Jane Loudon included the plant in her “The Ladies’ Flower-garden of Ornamental Perennials” and in discussing the edibility of the tubers noted that the plant had been introduced in England before 1640 and was cultivated in Germany (1843) where the tubers were sold in markets.  Whittier spoke of “Where the ground-nut trails its vine” in his “The Bare-footed Boy”.

Henry David Thoreau wrote about these tubers in his journal.  October 12, 1852. I dug some ground nuts with my hands in the railroad sand bank, just at the bottom of the high embankment on the edge of the meadow. These were nearly as large as hen’s eggs. I had them roasted and boiled at supper time. The skins came off readily, like a potato’s. Roasted they had an agreeable taste, very much like a common potato, though they were somewhat fibrous in texture. With my eyes shut I should not have known but I was eating a somewhat soggy potato. Boiled they were unexpectedly quite dry, and though in this instance a little strong, had a more nutty flavor. With a little salt a hungry man could make a very palatable meal on them.

On March 17, 1849 an article on apios tuberosa was published in “The Gardener’s Chronicle” which discussed its introduction to Ireland during the potato famine.  “The apios has a curious underground vegetation; its roots are the size of a quill pen, cylindrical, running horizontally under the soil, but close to its surface, and are often two meters long, and sometimes much longer than that.  Here and there the roots swell insensibly; the swellings gradually become spindle-shaped, grow larger, become filled with starch, and form true tubers.  The swellings are sometimes close together, so as to form a sort of chaplet.”  The woodcut that accompanied the article was a fine likeness.

As to flavor the tubers were compared to a chestnut or potato with a bit of artichoke, “which is by no means unpleasant”.  It is almost certainly the Jerusalem artichoke being discussed as other 1840’s sources specify such.

A research team at Southern Louisiana State University invested twelve years in improving the size of the tubers and the number of tubers produced per plant under the direction of Professor Bill Blackmon.  Unfortunately the research was abandoned after Professor Blackmon left the university so we aren’t likely to see them perfected to the point that they are cost efficient to grow commercially.  The tubers going into our garden were ordered from Sow True Seed and were cultivated from that improved LSU stock.  At least two universities have done studies on the nutrition-packed tubers and found they contain significant isofavones, chemicals linked to a decreased incidence of prostate and breast cancers.

Plants are drought tolerant and perennial.  It is slow to establish itself and tubers should not be harvested its first year.  In fact some growers recommend waiting until the third year to harvest tubers.  Tubers grow on a stringy root and resemble beads on a necklace.  The tubers may be some distance from where the plant grows so it is best to start at the plant and follow the string wherever it goes.  Descriptions of growth habit vary from a vine that grows to six foot long to twenty feet.  It is a nitrogen fixing plant meaning it pulls nitrogen from the soil to the surface where it can nourish nearby plants.

The vine is thin, covered with fine hair and rather tough for its size.  Leaves are pinnately compound with three to nine two-inch leaflets (3, 5, 7, or 9) with no teeth.  The flowers are a lavender/brown color and fragrant.  Tubers vary in size from dime size up to grapefruit size, though the larger tubers usually average about the size of an egg.  Second or third year tubers are the largest.  Those can be harvested and the smaller ones replanted.  Tubers can be dug any time of year, but the tubers are sweetest in the fall.  Seeds grow in a pod and can be harvested before they dry enough that the pod shatters sending seed everywhere.

Seeds do not always germinate well, however, and the plants are usually started from tubers planting them individually or in strings.  Suckers can come up some distance away from the host plant.  Vines can be pruned to keep them from spreading too much.

“Most of the research involving cultural practices has been directed towards developing techniques to screen large numbers of plants. Direct-seeding has presented problems. Seeds may take 10 to 30 days to germinate. Seedlings are small and early seedling growth is not vigorous. Seedling death, presumably from insects or diseases, has plagued this technique for starting apios. The most satisfactory method has been to start plants in peat pellets. After germination, when the shoots begin elongation, the plants are pinched back to the first leaves. This prevents the plants in a flat from twining on each other, allows for better root development prior to planting, and permits plants from slower germinating seed to reach sufficient size to transplant. However, pinching back carries a potential risk of spreading disease among the seedlings. Weak seedlings can be discarded at this stage. 

Tubers are planted intact. The buds that give rise to the shoots and rhizomes occur at the distal end of the tubers. The potential of dividing tubers into sections prior to planting needs evaluation. Generally the larger the tuber, the more rapid the early growth.  Seeds may be harvested from the time the pods first begin to dry. If left on the vine too long some pods will shatter.  Tubers are harvested after frost. Since most of the plants are different (originating from seeds), the tubers are harvested with a shovel to insure that genotypes can be evaluated individually. Fortunately, tubers can remain in the soil for extended periods without rotting even under water-logged conditions, thus allowing an extended harvest period.

Although apios in its native habitat is found growing on water-logged and acidic soils (Reed and Blackmon 1985), observations under field conditions indicate that apios grows best on well-drained soils. A pH less than 5 or as high as 8 may also be detrimental to growth. Adequate moisture is important, but excess moisture encourages longer rhizomes.”  Perdue crop proceedings 1990. 

Eat them boiled, roasted, or slice and fry them after boiling.  Tubers can substitute for potatoes in any dish though the flavor has been described as nuttier than potato and they can be cooked peeled or unpeeled.  The tubers can be dried, ground, and used like flour to add to bread or to thicken soup or stew.  The flowers are edible raw or cooked and the seeds can be shelled and cooked.  The seedpods can be cooked like green beans if harvested before they become tough and fibrous.  The tubers have a much higher percentage of protein than potatoes.

I’ve planted these along with Jerusalem artichokes and I’m watching to see if they come up.  As long as the chickens or squirrels don’t dig up the tubers I should be fine in which case I should have tubers I can harvest in two to three years.  Blissful Meals, friends, and happy gardening.©

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

Tags

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.

CLASSIC HERBS and HERB BLENDS©

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herbs, pot-herbs, sweet-herbs

Up to the early/mid twentieth century, certain culinary herbs were commonly used together in soup, sauces, stuffing, etc. and these blends had various names depending on who you asked about them.  Some are perennial, meaning they come back each spring, and others may have spread through the seed they produced the previous year so that once established the cook need never worry about what to use to season her soup.

“As so many herbs are perennial, coming up year after year and often spreading rapidly from the root or from self-sown seed, as do the lemon balm, bergamot, lovage, thyme, sage, fennel, the various mints, the true tarragon, lavender, and many others it is well to prepare as large a space as possible in planning the original herb-bed”.

These can vary with location and climate, but let’s take a quick look at which herbs are perennial or that readily self-sow (I’m zone 8a):

Self-sow:  garden angelica, borage, basil, calendula, chamomile, chervil, cilantro/coriander, parsley, dill, chives, edible docks, sorrel, fennel, lemon balm, horseradish, oregano, and purslane.

Perennial:  bergamot, caraway, catnip, chicory, chives, fennel, ginger, horseradish, lavender, lemon balm, lemon grass, lovage, marjoram, mint, oregano, Roman chamomile, sorrel, tarragon, winter savory.

Evergreen Perennial:  bay, hyssop, lavender, rosemary, sage, and thyme.  These are not worth the effort to dry as they can be picked fresh any time of year.

The beauty of herbs for seasoning is not that any one should be dominant, but how some of them blend so beautifully, coming together in perfect harmony.  These should be the basis of any herb garden and the blends may be made after you dry your summer bounty.  The following range in date from 1840s through 1920s.

SOUP-BUNCH.  This is a bunch of young onions or leeks, carrots, and various herbs to be found in the market in most large places such as green sage, thyme, marjoram etc.; celery-tops are sometimes included.d  The onions and carrots and other vegetables can be cut in pieces for the soup, but the herbs are best folded in thin muslin and taken out after 10 minutes of simmering in the soup.

SOUP BOQUET.  A boquet [sic] of herbs for flavoring soups and sauces is much used by foreign cooks, and is made of a few sprigs of parsley, thyme, celery leaves, 1 or 2 leaves of sage and a bay leaf.  This may be folded in a small square of tarlatan or other thin cloth, and wound with a thread.  This can be put in the soup for a little time, and all removed without trouble when the soup is served.  [Cheesecloth works nicely to hold your herbs as does an old-fashioned tea ball.]

VIRGINIA FLAVORING.  Take thyme, mint, sweet marjoram, and rosemary gathered in full perfection; pick from the stalks, put them in a large jar, pour on strong vinegar, and let stand 24 hours; then take out the herbs, throw in fresh bunches, and do this 3 times; then strain the liquor, put it in bottles, cork and seal tight.  Do not let the herbs stay in more than 24 hours at one time, else a bitter, unsavory taste may be imparted.  What is wanted, is just the delicate first flavor which comes from stepping the herbs in the liquid.  It makes a delicious flavor for soups and sauces.

HERBS, A BUNCH OF SWEET.  Is made up of parsley, sweet marjoram, winter savory, orange and lemon thyme; the greatest proportion of parsley.

HERBS, SWEET.  These in cookery are parsley, chibbol, [several spellings, a small onion or leeks] rocambole, [a garlic or shallot] winter savory, thyme, bay-leaf, basil, mint, borage, rosemary, cress, marigold, marjoram, &c.  The relishing herbs or Ravigotte are tarragon, garden-cress, chervil, burnet, civet, [civette is the correct spelling, another name for chives] and green mustard.

BOUQUET GARNI.  It was quite formerly known as a FAGGOT.   Parsley, thyme, and bay-leaf.  In its most simple form it consists of a sprig of thyme, marjoram, and a bay-leaf wrapped together in parsley, and tied into a little roll.  To these may be added a small quantity of one or more of the following:  chervil, chives, celery leaf, basil, tarragon.

FINES HERBS.  Chop fine 6 shallots, place them with 1 ounce butter over the fire, cook 3 minutes; then add ½ cupful fine-chopped mushrooms, cook slowly 10 minutes; remove from fire; dip 2 sprigs of parsley in boiling water, instantly remove, chop fine, add 1 tablespoonful of it to the above preparation; season with ½ teaspoonful salt, and the same of grated nutmeg.  If not used all at once, put it in a small glass jar, cover with buttered paper, and keep in a cool place.

“Fines herbes are used for gratins, barigoules, [formerly this referred to artichokes stuffed with mushrooms] papillotes, [a method of cooking in a folded packet of parchment paper or foil] also for Sharp and Italian Sauce”.

HERBS DE PROVENCE.  Recipes vary from one cook to another but the most common ingredients are basil, bay leaf, marjoram, rosemary, summer savory and thyme with lavender being also quite common.

POT HERBS.  “Pot herbs include all those varieties of herbs which may be grown in the kitchen garden—parsley, chervil, chives, thyme, sage, savory, basil, sweet marjoram, tarragon and rosemary. . .There are other herbs which might be included in this list of pot herbs; they are not so well known but have good qualities; among these are dill, fennel, mustard, caraway and borage”.

As always, Blissful Meals and Happy Gardening. © Blog articles may not be reproduced without permission of the author.

A DINNER OF HERBS©

Tags

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.