Betsy Challenge 20: Foods Served at Notable Events in History

I finished this challenge on time, I swear! I just didn't get around to documenting it until now. I have been at the Civilian Symposium in Harrisburg (having the time of my life), and before that I was visiting family in Washington DC (and running them ragged with my sightseeing stamina). I am actually sitting in the airport right now, waiting for my flight back to Minnesota as I type this.

I actually made this recipe on February 23rd. The notable event I chose was Lincoln's second inauguration, which occurred on March 4th, 1865 - almost 150 years to the date! Lincoln's first inauguration celebration had been a very small affair. His family went to the Willard Hotel and had a small luncheon, and then retired privately to the White House. His second inauguration, however, was marked with a grand ball and featured a lavish supper table.

One of the things on the supper table was chicken salad, and I thought I'd like to add that to my historical repertoire. Chicken salad was a very common recipe - almost every cookbook I have from the mid-19th century has some sort of recipe for chicken salad - and they are all very similar. In the end, the recipe I chose was from Practical American Cookery and Domestic Economy, from 1860, as it gave the most explicit directions. It also relied on hard-boiled egg yolks in the dressing instead of raw egg yolks, and since I was trying this out on my mother who stipulated no raw eggs, it was handy.

The Challenge: Foods Served at Notable Events in History

The Recipe: Chicken Salad from Practical American Cookery and Domestic Economy

The Date/Year and Region: 1860, United States

How Did You Make It?: Just like it says. No, really! I halved the recipe, and carved the meat off a cold chicken, which I then cut into small pieces.  I mixed it in with celery and set it aside.

To make the dressing, I mashed up the yolks with the seasonings. I mixed it with the oil, bit by bit. The recipe called for sweet oil - I used an olive oil. When they say to add a little bit of oil at a time, they really mean it - I was never able to get a completely smooth texture. Then a little bit of vinegar.

 I tore up some leaf lettuce, added it to the chicken and then tossed it with the dressing. I had read in Godeys from 1861 that chicken salad should be served with rolls, crackers and butter, so we had all of that on hand. For presentation's sake I put it in a pretty ironstone bowl lined with lettuce leaves, and added the rings of egg yolk as garnish. I think it's pretty enough for the White House!

Time To Complete: About 45 minutes, including carving the chicken. I took my time with it and let the dressing sit for a while to let the flavors marry.

Total Cost: About $12, and serves 4 to 6.

How Successful Was It?: It was really good! The seasonings were good, and although the dressing got a little grainy, it wasn't bad. I held back a bit on the mustard - the original recipe calls for A LOT - and I wish I hadn't, because it really could have used that kick, but with the cayenne it had a nice flavor. Mom enjoyed it as well.

How Accurate Is It?: No heirloom ingredients, as usual, but beyond that I followed the recipe to the letter. I even used a wooden spoon when it called for it.

Melissa: Challenge 7: The Best Thing since Sliced Bread

Here I am, the prodigal admin, returning to the blog after skipping a challenge! I apologize for the tardiness of this challenge, but I had to move in to school and start the new semester so the pear dish I was going to make sadly got pushed aside to do, well, school.  But I'm here! Better late than never, right?

To preface this, I am not a salad eater.  I have never been a salad eater.  I am morally opposed to what most people deem "salad", which is basically layers of fat and oil and cheese with some green stuff to make you feel good about yourself.  So I decided for this challenge I would go back to the start of this terrible thing called salad, the 1920's.  I turned to my original cookbook, Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, 1925, for some background.  The book touts that, "there is no more effective nor appetizing way in which to include [fresh fruits and vegetables] in a meal than in the serving of salads.  In addition, salads make a strong appeal to the appetite and at the same time are beneficial so far as the health of the family is concerned."  Yeah, no.  The "salad" I made was definitely not at the top of the healthy totem pole.

What did I make, you ask?

Banana-and-Peanut Salad

with

Fruit-Salad Dressing

Yes. You heard me correctly.  It was insane.

I started off by making the dressing in a double boiler.  It consisted of 1/2 cup pineapple, peach, or pear juice (I chose pineapple), 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1/4 cup sugar, and 2 eggs.  It was briefly whisked together, then put in the double boiler, boiled until it thickened, taken off the flame and whisked a bit, then left to cool before serving.

What do you do when you don't have a double boiler? This!

As that cooled I prepared the "salad".  The recipe calls for cutting the bananas in half lengthwise, rolling them in crushed peanuts, and serving on a lettuce leaf.  If you'd rather have a more appetizing (disgusting) presentation, you could coat the bananas in the dressing before putting the peanuts on.  No thanks!

I ground the peanuts in a vintage nut grinder, as one does, and then put them on a plate.  The peanuts stuck very well to the middle of the banana but fell off of the outside.  Oh well.

See? It's a salad now because it's served on a lettuce leaf!

After the dressing had cooled, I topped my banana with it and tried this weird concoction.  It's... strange.  There are no bad flavors, the combination is just so strange!  I imagined some kind of bananas-and-peanut butter flavor, but the peanuts kind of faded to the background and all I could taste was bland banana and super citrusy dressing.  But I ate salad!

The Challenge: #7: The Best Thing since Sliced Bread

The Recipe: Woman's Institute Library of Cookery (personal collection)

The Date/Year and Region: Pennsylvania, 1925

How Did You Make It: See above :)

Time to Complete: About 30-45 minutes, the dressing took most of the time

Total Cost: I had to buy large bottles of juice for this project, so I would say about $10 outright, but only $3 was used.

How Successful Was It?: Strange... weird... different... unexpected... My father apparently liked it, since he ate two pieces, while my mother and I (more discerning critics) only ate one each.

How Accurate Is It?: Pretty darn! Most of the items I used would have been available in '25, except the bananas might have been smaller.

Betsy - Challenge 6: Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables

This is going to be the least sexy, most convoluted challenge I have done.

I knew I wanted to do a recipe I hadn't done before, with seasonal foods that were maybe a bit unexpected. I am still enamored of the Prairie Farmer, and went back to it for a seasonal produce recipe. I found another recipe in Rae Eighmey's compilation for "corn and beans", so I went back and looked for the original recipe, based on her 1849 date.

I found nothing.

Please note that the Prairie Farmer has been digitized all over the place. Still I ran into dead ends everywhere. I'm not sure what happened, if Eighmey misquoted the date or if I just missed something, but the Prairie Farmer had no references that I could find to this dish. I finally found a mention in the Country Gentleman - a similar periodical that freely admitted to stealing from the Prairie Farmer - for "methods of cooking green corn", that alluded to the Eighmey-cited recipe with corn "mixed with butter beans, seasoned with butter, pepper and salt, makes succotash, a capital dish". So, I gave it a go.

Despite the fact that I'm writing and posting this just before the challenge ends, I actually cooked it before this challenge even began, and served it the day it started. So, this is likely the only time I will be early to finish a challenge.

The Challenge: Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables

The Recipe: Composite from The Prairie Kitchen by Rae Katherine Eighmey and "Methods of Cooking Green Corn" from The Country Gentleman

Date/Year and Region: Eighmey gives the date as 1849, The Country Gentleman was printed in 1854. The Prairie Farmer was located in the Midwest, while the Country Gentleman was printed in Albany, New York. Make of all that what you will.

How Did You Make It: It was really simple. I cut up the salt pork and cut the kernels off the corn cobs to reserve in the fridge. I boiled the cobs with the salt pork until the pork was falling apart. (As a side note, I may have trouble getting all sorts of interesting ingredients, but my grocery store carries salt pork in abundance. The joys of country living.)

I took out the cobs, and put in the corn and the lima beans. I cooked them until tender, then took them off the stove. The recipe was not clear as to whether or not the vegetables should be drained, but reading between the lines, it read as a recipe for a salad rather than a soup. So I drained off the water, then added butter, salt and pepper.

Time to Complete: Half an hour or so? I was doing other things while the cobs boiled.

Total Cost: The corn was $2 from a roadside stand, the salt pork was $1.50, the beans were given to me for free and the butter, salt and pepper were negligible. So, about $3.50, and with four cobs of corn and about 4 cups of lima beans, there was plenty of food - enough as a side dish for a table of six, for sure.

How Successful Was It? It was...corn and beans and salt pork with butter. Tasty and fresh, not necessarily innovative, but simple and inexpensive and good. And really, really easy.

How Accurate Is It?: As always, I have no idea if the types of corn and beans I used were around in the period but I highly suspect not. I also clearly had some tenuous recipes to work with, but the reference in the Country Gentleman to succotash is pretty clear so I felt confident that, while I maybe hadn't started from a clearly-documented recipe (IMPORTANT: CHECK ORIGINAL SOURCES), I had ended up with one through my research.


And here's a picture of the dish on our period picnic table...which had, in fact, been rained on. Don't worry, the corn and beans were covered and survived and were still quite delicious.