Category Archives: Food

Shopping at Dobyns and Martin

16 Sunday Feb 2014

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A Range of Goods, lately Arrived from Maryland.

In the not-too-distant past of up till last week, I was still under the impression that I would be doing two living history presentations on tea at the end of March, but through a series of maddening-for-a-colleague circumstances, that is not the case. To begin preparing for these programs, I had started secondary and primary source research on tea and tea parties, as you may recall. I also ordered some things from Dobyns and Martin, thinking how nice it would be for people to see and smell and sample historically correct teas.

Friday was a happy day chez Calash, coming home at the end of a long week to three days off and packages! Though I won’t need the teas for work, it does seem to me that they will be quite suitable for other living history presentations, and I can always ‘steal’ some from an officer if I get tired of the black market in shirts.

In addition to tea and lump sugar (which will fit nicely in Bridget’s pocket), I ordered soap. The lavender wash ball seems suitable for officers and the better sorts, while a cake of lye soap will vastly upgrade our dish-, self- and clothes washing in camp. While I’m game to make my own soap, a lack of ingredients and facilities hinders production.

Carrot pudding Trial One. Verdict: Too much nutmeg.

And, finally, the rose water. I’m looking forward to enhanced baking, a good activity in the weather we’ve had lately. While I don’t think the rose water would have saved the way-too-much-nutmeg carrot pudding, it will certainly be welcome in dishes future. I’m motivated to get a boiled pudding right, and in the field, because I know the Enos Hitchcock ate pudding and venison as a chaplain in the war.

Haversack Stashable Lunch Bag

11 Monday Nov 2013

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Found in the clearance aisle at Home Goods.

Mr S destroyed his lunch bag (zipper failure) and since I sew in a pre-zipper era, I declined to hunt up a new zipper and set it into the weird amalgamation that is the modern insulated lunch bag. I can’t even remember how old that lunch bag was, but it might have been six years old. So out we went for cat food (which happens a lot) and a lunch bag.

Just don’t get caught with tinfoil and plastic baggies if you’re eating in breeches.

This one seemed like it would be too small, but it does hold his entire lunch. And then I realized it would fit nicely into a haversack if one needed to pack a cold lunch on a hot day. You just have to be stealthy when opening the thing, at least until the velcro gets linty and quieter. This bag is lined with freezable something that serves as the ice pack, which does save space and should be more efficient and safer on a super-hot summer day (I’m looking at you, Cambridge in July.)

And, as ever, if you wrap your meal in tinfoil and baggies, hide it from the public. The best way to use it at an event would be to pull paper- or linen-wrapped period food from its hidden, chilled (shallow) depths. If you are not in the army, it goes in your market wallet, linen bag, or basket, not your haversack. Now, perhaps those cats can help me silence the velcro.

Animal Apples

08 Sunday Sep 2013

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apple-tree-056fb57ed927bf3668ef04e5b9850e99363b87fe-s6-c30The neighborhood where we live is part of the old rural past of our college town: it’s up the hill from the oldest settlement area, and slopes downhill to a plateau that runs out towards the other river, where the land drops precipitously. The house we live in was built in the 1920s, about the time of the junior high school and the stadium below us. The streets are named for the people who settled and farmed here, and two of the early houses remain, one frame and one stone.

Even into the 1940s, there was a dairy farm in this area, and a milk wagon; paintings from the first quarter of the twentieth century show an orchard named for one of the settlers, and there’s possible physical evidence of an earlier existence: apple trees in the verge around the corner from us.

I don’t know if these are new trees or old, though apple trees can live a long time. Well established and productive, the apples look like Paula Reds, but then again, so do Devonshire Quarrendens. (Paulas are a 1968 apple introduction, based on McIntosh apples.) What I do know is that they’re early season and good for eating, though we don’t like to pick too many: it feels like stealing, though no one ever seems to picks them. Mr S finally heard why: they’re Animal Apples.

1-squirrel-apple

A man and his son were on bikes at the corner under the tree; the man told his son the apples were not for eating: “Those aren’t for people. Those are animal apples.”

Those apples are delicious, and if it didn’t feel like stealing, I’d go up there with a basket. So many go to waste, and I suppose it’s because people have this “animal apple” idea.

There’s good foraging in the city, if you look, blackberries and raspberries in scrub ground, the apple trees, and the lettuce I let go to seed that flourished in the cracks of the walk down the side of our house. The idea that apples on a city tree aren’t for people  is sad. I ate mulberries off the tree in our yard in Chicago, where we grew rhubarb in the yard that fronted a busy street.

I don’t know what I find most disturbing about Animal Apples: the possibility that we’re so far removed from food that people can’t tell the difference between eating apples and ornamental apples, or that we’re so far from where our food originates that we fear anything that’s not assembled, processed, or obviously tamed and presented for our consumption.

In a Pickle

01 Thursday Aug 2013

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Yes, for breakfast.

I like pickles. I don’t like being in a pickle, and I have to say that work this week has been as bitter-tasting as any week since February, so it’s a fine thing that the pickles I made last weekend are ready for eating.

The recipe is based on the Hannah Glasse recipe my co-commissariat made for Cambridge, and which I sampled in the NPS staff kitchen. I thought they were delicious, and so proceeded to make my own version, with some variations.

Here’s my version:

  • 3 large cucumbers
  • 1 medium onion
  • white vinegar
  • salt
  • whole peppercorns
  • fresh ginger
  • ground mace

Slice the cucumbers and onion thinly and evenly (I used my old Martha Stewart Everyday mandolin from K-Mart). Layer alternately, sprinkling with salt, in a shallow dish or bowl, and cover, for 24 hours, in the fridge. Drain in a colander, pressing with paper towel to remove excess water.

Place the drained cucumber and onion slices in a bowl and cover with white vinegar for at least four hours, or while you go to work and are unable to leave early as you had planned. Pour the vinegar into a saucepan and boil with a little salt.

Peel and slice the ginger into sticks, and add to the cucumbers and onion. Sprinkle all with mace to taste, and add whole peppercorns as desired. Pour the boiled vinegar over all, decant into clean, boiled jars and seal.

I tasted these first over the weekend, and they were strong and spicy! The ginger made them a little hotter and sweeter than the ones I had in Cambridge. They seem a little mellower now (I had some with breakfast this morning) and I think they will be OK at OSV this weekend…if I take them. Glass jars seem crazy to pack for camping.

Flummery, and other flimsy excuses

22 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by in Food, Living History, Making Things

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Flummery, in Oest India bowls.

We did not go to Salem. If you were there, you already know this. Mr S was only willing to go up on Saturday, but I wanted to go on Sunday. After looking at the schedule, we couldn’t figure out why the Young Mr would ever want to go. A bored teenager is a terrible thing to be around. So what did we do instead?

We cleaned, for one thing. We laid in provisions, which disappear at an alarming rate each week. We went to the weird antique place and found a brass kettle and a copper skillet. We went to the lumberyard, twice, and bought lumber, once. We did several loads of laundry. (By now, I know you are incredibly jealous of this glamorous lifestyle; I assure you, it gets better.) I cleaned the bathrooms and replaced the shower curtain.

Served!

What incredible banality! But this is what the kid wants: weekends where we are home, cooking and cleaning and being normal. At a certain point, if I cannot figure out what he’ll do at an event and assure him that he will be busy, he does not want to go. (Not that I blame him, for I like to be busy as well.) So a weekend of normal, when we have drilling next week and OSV the next, is probably worth having, for family peace.

Of course, I’d rather be busy in another century, so I cleaned the tub early and moved on to more engaging tasks, flummery, for one.

The guys weren’t sure about this at first, but it is fabulous. It would make an excellent “blood” pudding for a vicious pirate banquet. The recipe is ridiculously easy.

Blackberry Flummery
4 Cups Blackberries
2/3 cup sugar (up to ¾ cup if you prefer sweeter)
½ cup hot water
Juice from ½ lemon, strained of seeds
½ cup cold water or milk
2 T corn starch (AKA corn flour if you’re not in the US; the fine white stuff)

Excellent with cream.

Wash the blackberries and put into a large saucepan with sugar and hot water over medium high heat. Bring to a soft boil and cook until the fruit is soft and falling apart.
Remove from heat, and push through a fine sieve with a spoon. Discard seeds and cores.

In a small bowl, whisk cornstarch into milk or water.

Return fruit to pan and place over heat, bringing to a soft boil again. Stir in cornstarch mixture until completely blended and fruit begins to thicken.

Slowly stir in lemon juice, taking care to keep fruit from thinning or thickening too much.
When blended, remove from heat.

Pour into 3 to 8 individual ceramic or glass serving dishes; portions will depend on audience.
Chill for at least two hours. Serve with whipped cream or yogurt.

Almost gone!

I made three servings, because I thought that was right, but I think six would have been better, based on intensity rather than richness. Not to worry: we ate it all.

Cooking this up is easy, but the blackberry mixture does have a tendency to get everywhere and make you and your kitchen look like your hobby is home butchery. Don’t wear white, and keep your sponge handy.