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Rochester Cuisine 1891

Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:24 pm
by Matt
A cookbook from 1891
http://www.archive.org/stream/flowercit ... 2/mode/2up

It's amazing how rudimentary recipes were back then --- and how many of them depended on flour... well, it was the Flour City.

See anything familiar to Rochester?

Anyone want to try any of these?

Re: Rochester Cuisine 1891

Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 10:35 pm
by Kelly
Grape catsup? (p.82)

This is quite a find! I have a small collection of old cookbooks and recipes from my grandparents' and great-grandparents' era so a lot of this looks loosely familiar. My grandma used to make her own "catsup", but grape catsup is a new one! Wow!

I would make any of the dishes that don't involve tongue or kidneys. I've got a stash of beef suet in my freezer for the birds, and I'm glad to know I can use it to throw together some suet pudding and other goodies in case I have unexpected guests drop by! :yum:

Re: Rochester Cuisine 1891

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:19 am
by Matt
Pudding was quite popular back then, wasn't it?

Re: Rochester Cuisine 1891

Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2012 8:36 am
by Kelly
Matt wrote:Pudding was quite popular back then, wasn't it?
Sure. Little Debbie hadn't come along yet. ;)

But actually - many of those "puddings" are what we might call "cake" - moist, dense, and often sticky - cooked by steaming in something like this pudding mold within a basin of water:
Image
And if the cook went by English tradition she/he would put small trinkets in the batter and it was the good fortune of the finders to keep them and enjoy the good luck they symbolized throughout the coming year. Trinkets might have included something like this tiny doll (also coins, tiny wishbones, anchors, rings, thimbles and all manner of other choking hazards!):
Image

Read more about this kind of pudding here:
http://www.englishteastore.com/history- ... dding.html
http://tinglefactor.typepad.com/theting ... -doll.html

I have my grandmother's pudding mold that looks just like the one pictured above and her "snowball pudding" recipe. I've always wanted to try making it........maybe I will.