Is Recession Preparing a New Breed of Survivalist? [Survival Today

Yahoo ran an interesting article this morning indicating a rise in the number of survivalist communities cropping up around the country. I have been wondering myself how much of the recent energy crisis is causing people to do things like stockpile food and water, grow their own vegetables, etc. Could it be that there are many people out there stockpiling and their increased buying has caused food prices to increase? It’s an interesting theory, but I believe increased food prices have more to do with rising fuel prices as cost-to-market costs have increased and grocers are simply passing those increases along to the consumer. A recent stroll through the camping section of Wal-Mart did give me pause - what kinds of things are prudent to have on hand in the event of a worldwide shortage of food and/or fuel? Survivalist in Training

I’ve been interested in survival stories since I was a kid, which is funny considering I grew up in a city. Maybe that’s why the idea of living off the land appealed to me. My grandfather and I frequently took camping trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway and around the Smoky Mountains. Looking back, some of the best times we had were when we stayed at campgrounds without electricity hookups, because it forced us to use what we had to get by. My grandfather was well-prepared with a camp stove and lanterns (which ran off propane), and when the sun went to bed we usually did along with it. We played cards for entertainment, and in the absence of televisions, games, etc. we shared many great conversations. Survivalist in the Neighborhood

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpioneer.html

Westward ho! Wagon train cookery

* Provisions...what they took and how they stored it
* How much did it cost?
* Pioneer cookbooks: historic documents & modernized
* Coffee & the pioneers

“In 1840 there were only 150 Americans in Oregon. Then “Oregon Fever,” the lure of a new frontier, began the move westward for New Englanders, Southerners, and even settlers in the Missour and Missisppi valleys. During the next 20 years, tens of thousands of settlers came over the Oregon trail to the Pacific Northwest. They settled in the fertile valleys to begin a frontier experience, adapting their recipes to the ingredients of the region. After clearing land and building homes, the pioneers planted corps and fruit orchards...The trek to Oregon over the Oregon Trail is considered to be the largest and longest migration by land in the history of mankind...Most immigrants brough little more than the clothes on their backs with them on the difficult journey. Those who brough cattle and other farm animals lost most of their stock, including animals needed to pull their wagons. In spite of having to travel light, some immigrants succeeded in bringing cows, pigs, chickens, seeds, and tree-root stocks to start their farms...Although game and wild plants could be relied upon to provide some nourishment along the way, the covered wagons were loaded with enough food to last the journey. Food for the trip had to be compact, lightweight, and nonperishable. Each family brought along such staples as flour, sugar, cornmeal, coffee, dried beans, rice, bacon, and salt port. Some also brought dried fruit. Mealtime on the Oregon Trail was goverened by the sun...Breakfast had to be completed by 4 a.m. so that the wagon train could be on its way by daybreak. Beans, cornmeal mush, Johnnycakes or pancakes, and coffee were the usual breakfast. Fresh milk was available from the dairy cows that some families brought along, and pioneers took advantage go the rough rides of the wagon to churn their butter. “Nooning” at midday meant stopping for rest and a meal. Little time could be spent preparing the noonday meal, since the wagon train could only travel by daylight. Usually a piece of meat was fried over the camp fire. Longer-cooking stews were left for the evening meal. The women made bread dough while riding in the wagons and timed the rising so that it would be ready to bake when evening camp was made...”
-—Taste of the States: A Food History of America, Hilde Gabriel Lee [Howell Press:Charlottesville VA] 1992 (p. 241-2)

PROVISIONS
Randolph B. Marcy’s A Handbook for Overland Expeditions was considered by many as THE manual for westward migration. Originally published in 1859, it contained practical advice on everything from route selection and wagon packing to emergency medicine (rattlesnake bites) and dealing with Native Americans. Marcy [1812-1887] was a captain of the U.S. Army. Prior to the Civil War he served in the West, forging new trails and escorting wagon trains. That made him an expert in stores and provisions. In his own words:

“Supplies for a march should be put up in the most secure, compact, and portable shape. Bacon should be packed in strong sacks of a hundred pounds to each; or, in very hot climates, put in boxes and surrounded with bran, which in a great measure prevents the fat from melting away. If pork be used, in order to avoid transporting about forty per cent. Of useless weight, it should be taken out of the barrels and packed like bacon; then so placed in the bottom of the wagons as to keep it cool. The pork, if well cured, will keep several months in this way, but bacon is preferable.

“Flour should be packed in stout double canvas sacks well sewed, a hundred pounds in each sack. Butter may be preservd by boiling it thoroughly, and skimming off the scum as it rises to the top until it is quite clear like oil. It is then placed in tin canisters and soldered up. This mode of preserving butter has been adopted in the hot climate of southern Texas, and it is found to keep sweet for a great length of time, and its flavor is but little impaired by the process. Sugar may be well secured in India-rubber or gutta-percha sacks, or so placed in the wagon as not to risk getting wet.

“Dessicated or dried vegetables are almost equal to the fresh, and ar put up in such a compact an portable form as easily to be transported over the plains. They have been extensively used in the Crimean war, and by our own army in Utah, and have been very generally approved. They are prepared by cutting the fresh vegetables into thin slices and subjecting them to a very powerful press, which removes the juice and leaves a solid cake, which, after having been thoroughly dried in an oven, becomes almost hard as a rock. A small piece of this, about half the size of a man’s hand, when boiled, swells up so as to fill a vegetable dish, and is sufficient for four men. It is believed that the antiscorbutic properties of vegetables are not impaired by dessication, and they will keep for years if not exposed to dampness. Canned vegetables are very good for campaigning, but are not so portable as when put up in the other form. The dessicated vegetables used in our army have been prepared by Chollet and Co., 46 Rue Richer, Paris.

“There is an agency for them in New York. I regard these compressed vegetables as the best preparation for prairie traveling that has yet been discovered. A single ration weights, before boiling, only an ounce, and a cubic yard contains 16,000 rations. In making up their outfit for the plains, men are very prone to overload their teams with a great variety of useless articles. It is a good rule to carry nothing more than is absolutely necessary for use upon the journey. One can not expect, with the limited allowance of transportation that emigrants usually have, to indulge in luxuries upon such expeditions, and articles for use in California can be purchased there at less cost than that of overland transport.

“The allowance of provisions for men in marching should be much greater than when they take no exercise. The army ration I have always found insufficient for soldiers who perform hard service, yet it is ample for them when in quarters. The following table shows the amount of subsistence consumed per day by each man of Dr. Rae’s party, in his spring journey to the Arctic regions of North America in 1854:

“Pemmican.....1.25 lbs
Biscuit.....0.25 lbs
Edward’s preserved potatoes....0.10 lbs
Flour.....0.33 lbs
Tea.....0.03 lb
Sugar.....0.14 lb
Grease or alcohol, for cooking.....0.25 lb

“This allowance of a little over two pounds of the most nutritious food was found barely sufficient to subsist the men in that cold climate. The pemmican, which constitutes almost the entire diet of the Fur Company’s men in the Northwest, is prepared as follows: The buffalo meat is cut into thin flakes, and hung up to dry in the sun or before a slow fire; it is then pounded between two stone and reduced to a powder; this powder is placed in a bag of the animal’s hide, with the hair on the outside; melted grease is then poured into it, and the bag sewn up. It can be eaten raw, and many prefer it so. Mixed with a little four and boiled, it is a very wholesome and exceedingly nutritious food, and will keep fresh for a long time.

“I would advise all persons who travel for any considerable time through a country where they can procure no vegetables to carry with them some antiscorbutics, and if they can not transport dessicated or canned vegetables, citric acid answers a good purpose, and is very portable. When mixed with sugar and water, with a few drops of the essence of lemon, it is difficult to distinguish it from lemonade. Wild onions are excellent as antiscorbutics; also wild grapes and greens. An infusion of hemlock leaves is also said to be an antidote to scurvy.

“The most portable and simple preparation of subsistence that I know of, and which is used extensively by the Mexicans and Indians, is called “cold flour.” It is made by parching corn, and pounding it in a mortar to the consistency of coarse meal; a little sugar and cinnamon added makes it quite palatable. When the traveler becomes hungry or thirsty, a little of the flour is mixed with water and drunk. It is an excellent article for a traveler who desires to go the greatest length of time upon the smallest amoung ot transportation. It is said that half a bushel is sufficient to subsists a man thirty days

“Persons undergoing severe labor, and driven to great extremities for food, will derive sustenance from various sources that would never occur to them under ordinary circumstances. In passing over the Rocky Mountains during the winter of 1857-8, our supplies of provisions were enterely consumed in eighteen days before reaching the first settlements in New Mexico, and we were obliged to resort to a variety of expedients to supply the deficiency. Our poor mules were fast failing and dropping down from exhaustion in the deep snows, and our only dependence for the means of sustaining life was upon these starved animals as they became unserviceable and could go no farther. We had no salt, sugar, coffee, or tobacco, which, at a time when men are performing the severest labor that the human system is capable of enduring, was a great privation...A decoction of the dried wild or horsemint, which we found abundant under the snow, was quite palatable, and answered instead of coffee. It dries up in that climate, but does not lose its flavor. We suggered greatly for the want of salt; but, by burining the outside of our mule steaks, and sprinkling a little gunpowder on them, it did not require a very extensive stretch of the imagination to fancy the presence of both salt and pepper. We tried the meat of horse, colt, and mules, all of which were in a starved condition, and of course not very tender, juicy, or nutritious. We consumed the enoumous amount of five to six pounds of this meat per man daily, but continued to grow weak and thin, until, at the expiration of twelve days, we were able to perform but little labor, and were continually craving for fat meat.

“The allowance of provisions for each grown person, to make the journey from the Missouri River to California, should suffice for 110 days. The following is deemed requisite, viz.: 150 lbs of flour or its equivalent in hard bread; 25 lbs. Of bacon or pork, and enough fresh beef to be driven on the hoof to make up the meat component of the ration; 15 lbs. of coffee, and 25 lbs. of sugar; also a quantity or saleratus or yeast powders for making bread, and salt and pepper.

“These are the chief articles of subsistence necessary for the trip, and they should be used with economy, reserving a good portion for the western half of the journey. Heretofore many of the California emigrants have improvidently exhausted their stocks of provisions before reaching their journey’s and, and have, in many cases, been obliged to pay the most exorbinant prices in makign up the deficiency. It is true that if persons choose to pass through Salt Lake City, and the Mormons happen to be in an amicable mood, supplies may sometimes be procured from them; but those who have visited them well know how little reliance is to be placed upon their hospitality or spirit of accomodation.

“I once traveled with a party of New Yorkers en route for California. They were perfectly ignorant of every thing relating to this kind of campaigning, and have overloaded their wagons with almost every thing except the very articles most important and necessary; the consequence was, that they exhausted their teams, and were obliged to throw aways the greater part of their loading. They soon learned that Champagne, East India sweetmeats, olives, etc., etc., were not the most useful articles for a prairie tour.”
-—A Hand-Book for Overland Expeditions, Randolph B. Marcy, Captain U.S. Army, [Harper & Brothers:New York] 1859 (p. 30-37)
[NOTE: This book has been republished as The Prairie Traveler: A Handbook for Overland Expeditions [Corner House:Williamstown MA] 1968. Your librarian will be happy to help you obtain a copy.]

RECOMMENDED READING:

* Bacon, Beans, and Galantines, Joseph R. Conlin
-—foods & dining in western mining towns
* Feasting and Fasting with Lewis & Clark: A Food and Social History of the early 1800s/Leandra Zim Holland
-—provisions & selected prices for America’s most famous trek
* Wagon Wheel Kitchens: Food on the Oregon Trail, Jacqueline Williams
-—provisions, cooking methods, and diary excerpts. Excellent bibliography.

HOW MUCH DID THIS COST?

* Provisions for the Oregon Trail
* Charles Baker’s provision list
* Trail provisions & Oregon prices, c. 1852

* San Antonio,Texas: 1853
Pork, 11 cents/lb
Bacon, 12 1/2-15 cents/lb
Salt beef, 8 1/2-9 cents/lb
Fresh beef, 4 1/2-5 cents/lb
Flour, 4 /14 cents (superfine)-5 cents (extra fine)/lb
Hard bread, 9-10 cents/lb
Beans, 10 1/2cents/quart
Rice, 8-10 cents/lb
Coffee, 12 1/2 (Rio) to 18 (Java) cents/lb
Sugar, 7 1/2-8 cents for “Louisiana brown”/lb
Vinegar, 6 1/4 cents/quart”
-—The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, October 1947 (p. 170)

* Madison, Wisconsin: 1861
Grains
During the last week bushels of little wheat has come in and prices have ranged a cent or two lower They are now quoted at 63@65 cents. In our next we expect to be able to quote higher prices, as the foreign demand is disclosing an urgentness that must have a stimumlating effect on the American grain markets.
Wheat, 63-65 cents (per cwt, 100 pounds)
Rye, 40-45 cents
Oats, 16-20 cents
Barley, 40-45 cents
Indian corn, shelled, 30-35 cents
Indian corn in cobb, 20-25 cents
Flour and meal (per cwt, 100 pounds)
Wheat flour, 2.25-2.50
Rye flour, 2.25
Corn meal, 1.50-2.00
Bran & shorts, 60 cents
Family markets
Eggs, 16-18 cents/dozen
Buter, 16-18 cents/lb
Green apples, 2.00-3.25/barrel
Potatoes, 18-23 cents/bush(el)
Lard, 12 cents/lb
Common salt, 2.20/bbl (bushel barrel)
Hams, 12-14 cents/lb
Cheese, 12-14 cents/lb
Codfish, 5-6 cents/lb
Whitefish, 3.20/half barrel
Table salt, 20-25 cents/sack
Brown sugar, 7-9 cents/lb
White sugar, 10-14 cents/lb
Coffee, 15-20 cents/lb
Tea, 50-75 cents/lb
Molasses, 40-50 cents/gallon
Vinegar (cider), 25 cents/gallon
Dried apples, 9 cents/lb
Dried peaches, 20 cents/lb
Cranberries, 12 cents/quart
Hubbard squash, 1.00/cwt
Raisins, 12-20 cents/lb
Honey, 25 cents/lb
Lemons, 2-3 cents/each
Sweet potatoes, 2.00/bushel
Squashes, 2-3 cents/each
Lake Mich(igan) trout, 8 cents/lb
Currants, 12 cents/lb
Meat (per cwt, 100 pounds)
Lambs, 2-2.35/cwt
Beef, 2.50-3.00/cwt (live weight)
Hobs, 5.50-6.00/cwt
Veal calves, six weeks old, 3.00/cwt
-—SOURCE: Weekly Wisconsin Patriot, February 9, 1861 (p. 7)

How much would these provisions cost today?
Very doable, but not as easy at is seems. This assignment is one of those tasks that appears simple: compare prices then & now. In reality, the task before you is more complicated. For starters, 19th century America (all 100 yars) witnessed the beginnings of a new monetary system, fledgling prosperity, rampant inflation, the Civil War, the Industrial revolution and massive wealth accumulation. Also, prices are determined by supply and demand. Plentiful New England eggs fetched far different prices from their rare commodity counterparts along the Oregon Trail. Prices, in this context, can take two meanings:

* If you were outfitting a 19th century American westward wagon, how much money would that be in *today’s* dollars?”
Use this inflation calculator to find out.
* If you had to outfit a classic wagon-train with provisions today, how much would it cost today?
This requires you find today’s retail prices for everything on the list. Keep in mind some items (coffee, wool) are actually cheaper today than back in the 19th century. Some items (wagons) might be really hard to find. Some items (butter, pillows) were generally made at home and/or bartered back then. If you want a Conestoga wagon today, you will either have to make it yourself or commission a craftsman. Of course, it is possible you could find one on EBay.
Current food prices
Excellent excuse for a little primary supermarket research or use national average data.
Current clothing/household goods prices
Mall trip or shop online.
Livestock
US Dept. of Agriculture (& meat industry assoiations) report this data. Prices are not reported by animal, but by age & weight of animal. In addition to finding out price per 100 weight, you’ll need to get the average weight of a marketable/grown animal. General encyclopedias may be useful here. Get out your calculators!

PERIOD RECIPES

* Great Western Cook Book, Anna Maria Collins [1851]
* Emigrant Housekeeper’s Guide to the Backwoods of Canada, Catherine Parr Trail [1857]
* Pioneer birthday cake (Texas, 1851)

MODERNIZED RECIPES

* Utah bound!—food, recipes & cooking methods of westward-bound wagon trains circa 1847
* Sourdough bread, favorite of the California 49ers
* Old West Baking Book, Lon Walters
-—modernized recipes with history notes

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/recipes/sourdough.html

Sourdough Starter

Picture, if you will, a swaying wagon train following a cattle drive fording the Red River in the mid-1800s as it passes north from Texas into Oklahoma, on its way to the trailhead and stockyards in Kansas City. As the pioneers set up camp, the “cookie” arranges the vittles and brings out the sourdough starter, which is much like this one, to prepare the bread. At around the same time in history, a gnarled and bearded ‘49er pioneer outfitted in his new fangled Levi jeans prepares for a day panning for gold in northern California by taking a piece of starter from his wooden pail and making up a sourdough loaf. Such is the stuff of culinary legend, but sourdough is rooted in this very real heritage.

San Francisco is often thought of as the sourdough capital of the United States, probably because sourdough bread has remained popular there ever since Gold Rush days. Making the initial starter is a three-day process, so plan ahead if you want to make sourdough for the first time. You may need to visit a natural foods store to find the organic stone ground unbleached white flour

* 1-1/2 cups lukewarm milk
* 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
* 1 teaspoon honey
* 2 cups unbleached white flour
* 1/4 cup spring water

1. To prepare the starter, place the milk in a mixing bowl.

2. Sprinkle the yeast over the milk.

3. Whisk in the honey and 1-1/2 cups of the flour.

4. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature (72 to 76 degrees F.) for 72 hours (3 days).

5. After 72 hours, stir in the 1/4 cup water and whisk in the remaining 1/2 cup flour.

6. Cover again with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 2 hours; the mixture should be bubbly and have a sour, tangy aroma and taste.

7. Remove the amount of starter the recipe calls for and set aside.

8. Transfer the remaining starter to a sterile’ glass jar and replenish it by mixing in 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup flour. Cover tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

Recipe from:

Flavored Breads
Recipes From Mark Miller’s Coyote Cafe
by Mark Miller and Andrew MacLauchlan
176 pages, full-color $19.9
paper, ISBN: 0-89815-862-1 $29.95,
cloth, ISBN: 0-89815-889-3
Publication Date: January 1, 1997

Reprinted by permission

Western Cookbooks

Flavored Breads

Recipes:
Skillet Pinon Corn Bread
Sourdough Starter
Southwestern Sourdough
Zuni Pepita

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0597/pinon.html

Skillet Pinon Corn Bread
Skillet Pinon Corn Bread

Yield: 12 to 14 servings

Serving this corn bread in a skillet or rustic cornbread pan is a comforting, homey touch plus the thick cast iron keeps the bread warm at the table. In pioneer days, corn bread was often made in Dutch ovens (also called bake ovens). The large cast iron cooking vessels were imported from Europe and used for cooking foods over campfires or on the hearth next to the main fireplace. As the name suggests, the Dutch oven originated in Holland in the 1600s, but it was later patented and produced in large quantities by Abraham Darby at Colebrookdale in England, one of the first major centers of the Industrial Revolution. In this recipe, the flavors of the sage and pinons, or pine nuts, give the bread a richness and earthiness that evoke the open range and hillsides of the Southwest.

* 1/4 cup butter, melted
* 2 tablespoons canola oil or vegetable oil
* 1/4 cup warm water
* 1/2 cup buttermilk
* 2 eggs

Dry Ingredients

* 1-1/4 cups cornmeal
* 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup pinon nuts, toasted
* 1/2 cup fresh corn kernels, roasted
* 15 fresh sage leaves, chopped
* 1 small onion, diced

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Whisk together the butter, oil, water, buttermilk, and eggs in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

3. Combine the dry ingredients and sift into a separate mixing bowl.

4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until completely incorporated.

5. Stir in the pine nuts, corn kernels, sage, and onion until incorporated.

6. Coat a 10-inch ovenproofcast iron skillet with softened butter (about 2 tablespoons) and heat in the oven for 5 minutes.

7. Remove the hot skillet and pour the batter into it.

8. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until a paring knife or toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center.

9. Remove the skillet from the oven and let cool slightly.

10. Serve out of the skillet.

Recipe from:
Flavored Breads
Recipes From Mark Miller’s Coyote Cafe
by Mark Miller and Andrew MacLauchlan
176 pages, full-color, 1997
paper, ISBN: 0-89815-862-1
cloth, ISBN: 0-89815-889-3
Reprinted by permission

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0597/zunipep.html

Zuni Pepita
Zuni Pepita

Without Native Americans, there would be no pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving—they were the ones who introduced the pilgrims to pumpkins and other squash. There are hundreds of types of squash that are indigenous to North, Central, and South America. Naturally, these plants and their seeds figure prominently in the diets of native groups throughout the continent, including the agrarian Zuni of Arizona. Native Americans commonly ground the pumpkin seeds (pepitas) into flour, which is what we do in this recipe. Combined with whole-wheat flour and blue cornmeal, the ground seeds make rich, hearty, and satisfying loaves.

The bread is a wonderful partner for fall or winter soups and stews, especially those containing pumpkin or squash. Buy pumpkin seed oil and fresh pumpkin seeds at gourmet markets or natural foods stores. Before buying the seeds taste one or two to make sure they are not rancid-they should be bright green and taste sweet and fresh. Buy only as many as you need, as their natural oils can become stale quickly; roast any you have left over, which is the preserving technique used by generations of Native Americans.

* 1-3/4 cups lukewarm water
* 1 egg, beaten
* 1/4 cup pumpkin seed oil or corn oil
* 1-1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
* 1-1/2 cups shelled pumpkin seeds, toasted

Dry Ingredients

* 2-1/2 cups bread flour
* 1 cup whole-wheat flour
* 1 cup blue cornmeal
* 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 2 egg whites, beaten
* 1/2 cup shelled untoasted pumpkin seeds

1. Combine the water, egg, and oil in the bowl of a heavy-duty electric mixer or in a large mixing bowl.

2. Sprinkle the yeast over the mixture, stir in, and let sit for 2 minutes.

3. Grind the toasted pumpkin seeds in a coffee grinder or spice mill until finely ground.

4. Add the ground pumpkin seeds and dry ingredients to the yeast mixture.

5. Mix with the dough hook (or knead by hand for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the dough appears silky and resilient.

6. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl a cover with plastic wrap.

7. Let rise in a warm place for 1-1/2 hours, or until approximately doubled in volume.

8. Punch the dough down, re-cover with plastic wrap, and let rise again in a warm place for 30 minutes.

9. Place a baking stone on the middle rack of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F.

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0597/swsour.html

Southwestern Sourdough
Southwestern Sourdough Bread

Yield: 1 large loaf or 2 small loaves

Some believe that the City by the Bay’s fog, humidity, and moderate warmth create the ideal microclimate for the unique wild yeasts that give San Francisco sourdoughs their special flavor We think it’s quite possible to make sourdough that’s just as good, just about any where. This flavored bread evokes the southwestern range and makes great toast.

* 1-1/2 cups Sourdough Starter
* 1 cup lukewarm water
* 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast

Dry Ingredients

* 3-1/2 cups bread flour
* 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
* 2 teaspoons ground cumin
* 2 teaspoons salt

1. Place the starter and lukewarm water in the bowl of a heavy-duty electric mixer or in a large mixing bowl.

2. Sprinkle the yeast over the mixture, stir in, and let sit for 2 minutes.

3. Add the dry ingredients.

4. Mix with the dough hook (or knead by hand) for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the dough is silky and elastic.

5. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

6. Let rise in a warm place for 4 hours, or until approximately doubled in volume.

7. Punch the dough down, and turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface.

8. Sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal.

9. Gently pull and stretch the dough into a round loaf or 2 small loaves in the shape of your choice.

10. Place the loaf on the prepared baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place for 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

11. Place a baking stone on the middle rack in the oven and preheat to 425 degrees F.

12. Uncover the loaf and, using a spray bottle, spritz with water, then lightly dust with bread flour.

13. Make 2 or 3 diagonal slashes in the top of the loaf with a serrated knife to allow the dough to expand in the hot oven.

14. Using the spray bottle, spritz the oven walls with water. Work quickly so the oven does not lose heat.

15. Slide the loaf onto the hot stone.

16. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the crust is dark brown.

17. Transfer the loaf to a rack to cool.

http://civilwarinteractive.com/cooking/?page_id=387

Land of the Lost Ketchups: Civil War Ketchups

Walk into a fast food restaurant today (purely for research purposes of course, unless your lunch was severely delayed and you are in danger of swooning) and you will find a pretty standardized rack of condiments.

Salt, pepper, probably mayonnaise, check. Items like tartar, soy or horseradish sauce depending on the particular variety of industrial byproduct sold in the store. And then, almost as certain to be there as the salt, you find the little packets or pump tube labeled “ketchup.”

Ah, but transport that restaurant back in time a century and a half or so, and the list would have been quite different. Not only was the French fry not on the menu, it not having been invented yet, but a request for ketchup would have resulted in the question of “what sort?” And asking for “tomato ketchup, please” would have gotten you marked down as something of an oddball if not an outright troublemaker. For most people, a ketchup was a sauce made out of mushrooms.

Not that those two were the only varieties, as we shall soon see. Walnut ketchup, lemon ketchup, ketchups based on oysters, cockles and mussels, a vast array of fruits–even something called “pudding catchup” was available. Once you switch the spelling from “ketchup” to “catchup” it is no great leap to “catsup” and this leads to atrocities like “double catsup” or even (we shudder to admit) “dogsup.”

(Cats, to dogs, you see….? Alas, any joke which has to be explained clearly has failed to work as a joke, but if you think 19th century cooking is different from that of today you should look into what passed for humor back then. Oy veh! But we digress.)

Once your serving wench–we are far back in time, remember, please don’t throw things– brings you your tomato catsup your confusion is enhanced rather than reduced. What, you wonder but are polite enough not to exclaim, is this brown sludge you see before you? Where is the bright redness that any respectable product of a Heinz or Hunt factory would have? And then there are consistency issues: isn’t ketchup supposed to be perfectly smooth? This brown stuff is…lumpy to say the least. Eww.

Don’t believe us? You can walk into a museum in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and check out a bottle of commercially produced catsup. This might not seem remarkable or you might even think we are suggesting a trip to the museum food court, but this bottle was made sometime around the year 1856.

We know this because it was part of the cargo of the sidewheel steam ship Arabia, which sank in that year carrying a large cargo of merchandise for stores up the Missouri river. Only rediscovered in the late 1980s, the ship’s cargo and portions of the Arabia itself were recovered and the museum built to house them is considered one of the finest–if not the only–resource for typical life in “the West” on the verge of the Civil War. We suspect the museum management will take a dim view if you ask to open the ketchup bottle and examine the contents, but it can’t hurt to ask.

Let us proceed to the recipe and see how this stuff came to be.

TOMATO CATSUP (from The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia by Mrs. E. F. Haskell, 1861)

1 gallon tomatoes
3 tbs. salt
3 tbs. ground black pepper
3 tbs. (dry) mustard, or ground mustard seed
1 tsp. ground allspice
4 peppers, type unspecified but “sweet”, not hot
1 onion (optional)
1 quart horseradish “juice” (roots grated and liquid pressed out)

Select tomatoes not overripe, skin and strain the tomatoes; to every gallon add three table-spoons of salt, three of ground black pepper, three of mustard, and one teaspoon of ground allspice; mix the spices in a part of the tomato, and strain them through a sieve; put in a small bag four large pods of sweet peppers and, if relished, one onion, and boil them with the catsup while it is being reduced; add the expressed juice of one quart of horseradish, and reduce it until it is of the proper consistency to pour from the bottles without difficulty; let the catsup remain in the bottles, with a piece of cotton cloth tied loosely on the neck, for three months to ripen, when cork and seal tightly.

“Pepper pods” are simply whole peppers, not divisions thereof. Slicing them into strips will both free up flavoring elements and reduce the space the pepper bag takes up in the boiling pot. Depending on the type of pepper used–which is not easy since even producers of “heirloom” vegetables today often trace their varieties back only as far as the late 19th or even early 20th century–you may wish to remove the core and seeds before boiling.

This is of course far from the only version of the condiment even if we confine ourselves strictly to tomatoes here. Mrs. M. H. (Mary Hooker) Cornelius gives us one which is very similar to Mrs. Haskell’s above, then the following, which she notes “retain[s] the color and flavor of the Fruit.”

ANOTHER CATSUP

1 gallon tomatoes
1/4 oz. mace
1/4 oz. nutmeg
1/4 oz. cloves
1/4-1/2 c. (”a handful”) grated horseradish root
2 red peppers or 1 tsp. cayenne
Salt
1 pint wine
1/2 pint vinegar

Skin and slice the tomatoes, and boil them an hour and a half. Then put to one gallon not strained, a quarter of an ounce of mace, the same of nutmegs and cloves, one handful of horseradish, two pods of red pepper, or a large teaspoonful of cayenne, and salt as you like it. Boil it away to three quarts, and then add a pint of wine and half a pint of vinegar. Bottle it, and leave the bottles open two or three days; then cork it tight. Make this catsup once, and you will wish to make it every year.

Here again we see the direction to leave the bottled product exposed to the air, although at least we are down to “two or three days” rather than Mrs. Haskell’s outlandish “three months.” Since these sauces were to be made when the tomatoes were ripe and then stored for use throughout the year, this instruction is particularly baffling as it seems guaranteed to lead to a putrid, moldy goop in fairly short order.

What we also see is that this was a vastly tangier product than the stuff we dump by the gallon over our burgers and fries today. The catsups of the 19th century were intended for use in very small quantities. Mrs. Cornelius says “This kind of catsup is specially designed to be used in soups, and stewed meats,” as a flavor enhancer and appetite stimulant. Ketchup was not a vegetable in those days either.

From the at-least-vaguely-familiar territory of a catsup based on the known tomato, we turn now into the trackless wilderness of those sauces which have gone the way of the dodo and the passenger pigeon in the intervening century. The best known loser in the ketchup evolutionary race, the T-rex of its kind as it were, comes to us from the land of the fungi.

MUSHROOM CATCHUP

(from The Cook’s Oracle by Dr. William Kitchiner, 1832) (some text omitted as Dr. Kitchiner was an incredibly longwinded twit if you must know, or else he got paid by the word)

1 quart mushrooms
Salt
1 and 1/2 oz. black peppercorns, whole
1/2 oz. allspice, whole
Brandy

…Look out for mushrooms from the beginning of September.

Take care they are the right sort, and fresh gathered. Full-grown flaps are to be preferred: put a layer of these at the bottom of a deep earthen pan, and sprinkle them with salt; then another layer of mushrooms, and some more salt on them; and so on alternately, salt and mushrooms: let them remain two or three hours, by which time the salt will have penetrated the mushrooms, and rendered them easy to break; then pound them in a mortar, or mash them well with your hands, and let them remain a couple of days, not longer, stirring them up and mashing them well each day; then pour them into a stone jar, and to each quart add an ounce and a half of whole black pepper, and half an ounce of allspice; stop the jar very close, and set it in a stew-pan of boiling water, and keep it boiling for two hours at least.

Take out the jar, and pour the juice clear from the settlings through a hair-sieve (without squeezing the mushrooms) into a clean stew-pan; let it boil very gently for half an hour: those who are for superlative catchup, will continue the boiling till the mushroom-juice is reduced to half the quantity; it may then be called double cat-sup or dog-sup.

There are several advantages attending this concentration; it will keep much better, and only half the quantity be required; so you can flavour sauce, &c., without thinning it….

Skim it well and pour it into a clean dry jar, or jug; cover it close, and let it stand in a cool place till next day; then pour it off as gently as possible (so as not to disturb the settlings at the bottom of the jug.) through a tamis, or thick flannel bag, till it is perfectly clear; add a table-spoonful of good brandy to each pint of catchup, and let it stand as before; a fresh sediment will be deposited, from which the catchup is to be quietly poured off, and bottled in pints or half pints (which have been washed with brandy or spirit): it is best to keep it in such quantities as are soon used. Take especial care that it is closely corked, and sealed down, or dipped in bottle cement.

We told you he was longwinded, and that’s the trimmed and edited version. Of course the one thing he doesn’t go on (and on and on) about are terms which to him were commonplace and everyday, so let’s go through a few of them:

–A “hair sieve” is not something you put in the shower drain to keep your follicular rejects from clogging the plumbing at an inconvenient moment, like ever. It isn’t even made of hair, but rather of fine threads or wires close together. If a colander is a strainer for big things (for objects the size of beans, spaghetti noodles, etc) then a hair sieve provides the same service for much smaller ones. A common hand-pumped or -cranked flour sifter would qualify as a “hair sieve.”

–A “tamis” (pronounced like the name “tammy” on account of it is French) serves much the same function as the hair sieve but the term is more commonly used for a strainer of liquids rather than solids. Usage varies from one time and author to the next. A modern recipe would just say “strain through a doubled layer of cheesecloth.” Blessed are the cheesemakers, as the saying goes.

–”From which the catchup is to be quietly poured off” just means pour gently so as not to get the sediment in the bottom of the bottle stirred up and mixed with the liquid.

To continue with our trek through the deserted ruins of the kingdom of ketchup…

OYSTER CATCHUP (from Kitchiner again, p. 285)

1 qt. oysters
1 pint sherry (wine)
1 oz. salt
2 drachms mace (about 1/4 tsp.)
1 drachm Cayenne pepper (about 1/8 tsp.)
1 glass brandy (1/4 c. )

Take fine fresh Milton oysters; wash them in their own liquor; skim it; pound them in a marble mortar; to a pint of oysters add a pint of sherry; boil them up, and add an ounce of salt, two drachms of pounded mace, and one of Cayenne; let it just boil up again; skim it, and rub it through a sieve, and when cold, bottle it, cork it well, and seal it down. Obs.–This composition very agreeably heightens the flavour of white sauces, and white made-dishes; and if you add a glass of brandy to it, it will keep good for a considerable time longer than oysters are out of season in England.

As is often the case with Kitchiner the British origins of “his” book poke through the rather thin layer of Americanization he was employed to cover it with. The first clue, oyster aficionados will have already recognized, comes in his recommendation of “Milton” oysters, a variety of the mollusk native to a particular region in England. An interesting discussion of the marketing value of such nomenclature can be found here as we continue to wander.

And following the above recipe in Dr. Kitchiner’s work is one of his rare examples of terseness:

COCKLE AND MUSCLE CATCHUP

May be made by treating them in the same way as the oysters in the preceding receipt.

The second mollusk mentioned here is more commonly spelled “mussel” nowadays. But we continue, to the exceedingly misleadingly named

FISH CATCHUP (Bryan)

2 qt. mushrooms
Salt
1 and 1/4 lb. anchovies
1 lb. onions, chopped
1/2 oz. allspice
1/2 oz. mace
1/4 oz. black pepper, whole
1/4 oz. red (cayenne) pepper
1/4 oz. ginger, sliced
2 qt. vinegar
2 qt. beer, strong
1 pint liquid in which anchovies were packed

Take two quarts of the proper mushrooms, chop them small, and sprinkle them with salt. Mix with them a pound and a quarter of anchovies, chopped small, one pound of chopped onions, sprinkling them with salt, half an ounce of allspice, half an ounce of mace, a quarter of an ounce of whole black pepper, a quarter of an ounce of red pepper, and a quarter of an ounce of sliced ginger. Put the whole into a pan or kettle, with two quarts of good vinegar, two quarts of strong beer and one pint of the anchovy liquor or pickle. Cover the vessel, and boil it until the liquor is reduced two quarts then strain, cool and bottle in securely. It will be found fine for flavoring fish sauces, gravies, &c., and if made as directed will be good for any length of time.

Sauces based on or including anchovies are both of great antiquity, traceable back to the Roman Republic, and extremely modern. Worcestershire sauce and similar products are anchovy-based. As the fish lives entirely in the ocean we are not sure how easily they would have been obtained by the average backwoods housekeeper in Kentucky, but again we drift off culinary matters into realms better left to sociologists.

It is worth noting too that the fish-based catsups are probably the most faithful to the “original” sauce. A fish sauce from the Malay Peninsula known as “kitsap” is believed to be that product, although other claims are made for sauces of fresh or fermented fish from other parts of Asia as well. Both the name and details of the makings evolved as it passed from the Malay to the Dutch to the English and then on around the world.

We are now leaving the carnivorous products for a more vegetative tone:

WALNUT CATSUP (from Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia, Haskell)

1 gallon walnut juice (see directions)
1 oz. cinnamon
1/2 oz. mace
1/4 oz. cloves
Salt

Bruise the nuts, press out the juice; add to a gallon an ounce of cinnamon, half an ounce of mace, and a quarter of an ounce of cloves; put the spices in a bag without rolling or grinding; boil until the liquor is half reduced; pour it in a jar; add a little salt; let it settle two days, and filter until clear; bottle in pints or half-pints, and seal the corks. It is better two years old.

We will pause while our readers of the masculine persuasion unclench their legs after reading the first line of this receipt. As to the actual process of walnut bruising and pressing, we regret Mrs. Haskell does not give any further details.

Possibly a press more usually employed to make apple cider would serve? The thought of using a mortar and pestle on the number of walnuts–which, recall, have already had to be peeled of their tough outer coating and also extracted from the shell–required to produce a gallon of their juice is depressing indeed and causes incipient carpal tunnel syndrome just from thinking about it. The wonders of modern technology make it possible to buy the juice pre-pressed and canned, but the process our ancestors used is lamentably under-researched.

One possible explanation comes in our second version of Walnut Catsup, this one from Mrs. Lettice Bryan’s The Kentucky Housewife, published in Cincinnati in 1832. This one would seem to virtually require having the walnut tree in one’s front yard, or at least conveniently nearby:

WALNUT CATCHUP (Bryan)

Walnuts
Salt
Vinegar
(Per quart of resulting juice:)
1 oz. black pepper
1 oz. ginger, pounded
1/2 oz. allspice
1/2 oz. mace
1/4 oz. cloves.

The walnuts should be gathered while very young and tender, so that you may pierce them through with a needle. Put them into a stone jar, pour enough boiling water on them, that is strongly impregnated with salt, to cover them well; tie a cloth over them, and set them by for four days: then take the from the liquor [liquid], mash them fine, put them into a jar, and pour over enough good vinegar to cover them entirely. Close the jar, and let them stand for two days, stirring them well once a day: after which put them with the vinegar into a linen bag; press through all the juice you can, mix it with the other liquor, and to each quart add one ounce of black pepper, one ounce of pounded ginger, half an ounce of allspice, half an ounce of mace and a quarter of an ounce of cloves. Boil it in a closely covered vessel for twenty minutes, skimming it well, and when cold bottle it for use.

While we think of walnut trees today as simply a common feature of the landscape, they are in fact native to Asia and did not come to North America until they were introduced into California in the 1700s. The English, or Persian walnut is most commonly eaten today, but whether it or the black walnut was more popular in the Kentucky of 1832 is unknown. Falling out of the tree, modern harvesters note, is usually sufficient to cause the outer hulls to fall off on their own, or “dehisce,” a marvelous word indeed. Mrs. Bryan makes no mention of getting the nuts out of the shells, however, so possibly this step can be omitted. Not having a walnut tree in the vicinity we have done no experiments ourselves.

Mushroom, tomato and walnut catsups were the Big Three of their day, but this does not even come close to exhausting the list. Making the following may exhaust the cook, but let’s plunge in and at least take a look:

CELERY CATSUP (Mrs. Haskell)

1 oz celery seed
1 tsp. white pepper, ground
6 oysters
1 tsp. salt
1 qt vinegar (strong–10 percent acid if available)

Mix an ounce of celery seed ground, with a teaspoon of ground white pepper; bruise half a dozen oysters with a teaspoon of salt; mix and pass the whole through a sieve; pour over the mixture one quart of the best white vinegar; bottle and seal tight.

Here we are bruising things again, although at least it’s mollusks this time so we trust there was less flinching. Since oysters tend to be of a rather rubbery consistency it may be hard to tell the difference between “bruising” and “mashing to a pulp” but we leave such matters to the discretion of the cook.

CATSUP FOR MUTTON CHOPS (Mrs. Haskell)

3 tsp. black pepper
3 tsp. dry mustard or ground mustard seed
1 tsp. allspice
3 tsp. salt
2 qts. horseradish, grated
1/2 onion (optional)
Vinegar

Three teaspoons of black pepper, three of mustard, one of allspice, three of salt, mix the spices with two quarts of grated horseradish, half an onion or not, as desired; beat the ingredients together quickly; strain the liquor from the radish, add one-quarter as much ten per cent. vinegar as there is liquid; bottle in half-pint bottles, and cork immediately.

CUCUMBER CATSUP (Mrs. Haskell)

Cucumbers
Vinegar
Salt

Grate large cucumbers before they begin to turn yellow; drain out the juice and put the pulp through a sieve to remove the large seeds; fill a bottle half-full of the pulp, discarding the juice, and add the same quantity of ten per cent. vinegar; cork tightly; when used, add pepper and salt; sale kills the vinegar if put in when made. This is almost like a fresh-sliced cucumber when opened for use.

The question this brings to mind is how bottled cucumber mush can be said to resemble a fresh slice of the original, but then again we are not great cucumber fans to begin with so should probably keep quiet on the subject. Possibly this would serve as something like an early form of pickle relish. In any case most of these catsups are intended for use as secondary ingredients in other sauces and not as free-standing condiments.

Past the borders of the realm of the vegetables the remainder of our exploration will take place in the orchards and patches of fruit. (Well, mostly…but continue on to the end because then it’s time to hit the booze.)

PEACH CATSUP (Mrs. Haskell)

Peaches
Sugar
(Per quart of resulting juice:)
1 tsp. mace, broken not ground
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. black peppercorns, whole
Strong vinegar

Boil ripe peaches over steam with the pits; press out all the juice; to every quart allow a pound of loaf-sugar; boil without the sugar until it is reduced one-third; add to each quart of juice before boiling a teaspoon of broken, not ground, mace, two of cinnamon, half a teaspoon of cloves, and one of peppercorns; boil all together; when half reduced remove the spices, add the sugar, boil until quite thick, and reduce to a convenient consistency for bottling with strong vinegar.

The “boil over steam” simply means put the cut-up peaches, with their pits, in the top of a double boiler. By this process they can be heated to release their juice without being diluted with water, as would be needed to keep the fruit from burning if it was cooked directly over the heat.

Nearly all recipes from this period for “stone fruits” call for including the pits, both shell and kernel, during cooking. This is not usually advised today since it is now known that the seeds contain a form of cyanide. Not very much per pit, it is true, but one never knows where an individual food sensitivity is liable to pop up. We would suggest only serving the with-pit version to people you particularly dislike, but that raises the question of why you would go to the trouble of making such an exquisite sauce for somebody you dislike? We will leave further discussion of the subject to philosophers.

PLUM CATSUP (Haskell)

Whole plums
Per quart of resulting juice:
1 tsp. cinnamon sticks, broken
1 tsp. mace
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp pepper (black or red not specified)
2 lbs. sugar
1 qt. strong vinegar

Boil whole plums over steam; press out the juice; pass the pulp through the sieve; boil in a quart of the juice a teaspoon of broken cinnamon, one of mace, and half as much of cloves and pepper until reduced [by] half; add this to the pulp, with two pounds of loaf0sugar, and heat it, stirring constantly; when the sugar is dissolved, reduce the catsup with one quart of ten per cent. vinegar.

The straining is presumably intended to remove the plum skins and seeds from the scene. “Loaf sugar” refers to the way in which sugar was sold in these times, in solid cone-shaped masses which were a result of the sugar refining process. This made sugar usage a bit of a nuisance since it had to be chopped into chunks which then had to be grated into a granular form. While no doubt good for the health, since it discouraged use of the product, it is not a matter we need to bother with today.

The remaining fruit catsups are similar to the ones so far noted, varying only in the types and amounts of spices used in the different ones.

GRAPE CATSUP (Haskell)

Grapes
(Per quart of juice)
1 tsp. cinnamon, broken
1 tsp. mace
1/2 tsp. cloves
Wine or vinegar

Boil grapes over water; to each quart allow a teaspoon of broken cinnamon, one of mace, one half-teaspoon of cloves; simmer over water one hour; strain, and add to every quart one pound of sugar; reduce nearly to jelly, and add wine or vinegar to thin it to the proper consistency.

This is one which might be the easiest to attempt at home, given the ready availability of high-quality, full strength grape juice in stores. Just skip down to where it says “To each quart allow” and proceed from there.

CHERRY CATSUP (Haskell)

1 lb. cherries
1 lb. “coffee sugar” (can substitute light or dark brown sugar)
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. mace
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. cloves
Vinegar

To every pound of fruit allow one pound of coffee sugar; boil the fruit and sugar together, drain off the syrup, and to every quart add a teaspoon of pepper, one of mace, two of cinnamon, one of ginger, and half a teaspoon of cloves; boil until the syrup is highly flavored; pass the fruit through a sieve, strain the syrup, add it to the pulp’ boil all together until of the consistency of very thick molasses; thin with ten per cent. vinegar until it is only of the consistency of common catsup. Bottle while hot and seal immediately.

Coffee sugar, as best we can tell from historical sources, was named as much for the fact that it was close to the color of coffee as for the fact that it was commonly used to sweeten that beverage. Sugar as a rule costs more the whiter it is, since each step in processing takes out more of the sap (molasses) that imparts the brown coloring. And as to the “cherry catsup” itself, we see ever more clearly that the term is being used as a catchall for any kind of sauce the author fancies. This would be far better suited to use on waffles, for instance, than on a hot dog.

WHORTLEBERRY CATSUP (Haskell)

1 gallon whortleberries
2 qts. water
1 tsp. mace
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. white mustard (seed, presumably whole)
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. pepper (presumably black, presumably whole)
1/2 lb. sugar
1 tsp. citric acid
Vinegar or wine, as needed for thinning

Add to every gallon of fruit two quarts of boiling water; let it stand all night; in the morning draw off the juice; pass the pulp through a sieve; add to each gallon of the liquor [juice] a teaspoonful of each of the following spices: mace, cinnamon, white mustard, ginger, pepper; boil one hour gently; strain off the liquor; add to every quart half a pound of sugar; stir in the pulp, and boil it in the spiced juice; dissolve a teaspoon of the citric acid in a little of the juice reserved for the purpose; add it to the catsup, and if too thick thin with vinegar or wine.

The only unusual item in this recipe is the citric acid called for. This, we are told by the invaluable Wikipedia, “was first isolated in 1784 by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who crystallized it from lemon juice. Industrial-scale citric acid production began in 1860, based on the Italian citrus fruit industry.” The things you learn while making catsup! The product is as readily available today, probably in the aisle near the canning and pickling supplies.

Oh, you say, you were wondering more what the h*ll a “whortleberry” is? It’s a little bitty blueberry. They grow mostly in the northeast, so if you aren’t there or in any case don’t have a patch growing in some accessible area, use regular blueberries instead. We won’t tell.

LEMON CATCHUP (OR PICKLE) (Bryan)

2 oz grated horseradish
2 oz. mustard seed
1/2 oz nutmeg, cracked or ground
1/2 oz. mace
1/2 oz black pepper
1/4 oz cayenne pepper
1/4 oz. cloves.
12 lemons, sliced and seeds removed
2-4 tbs. salt (”a large handful”)
3 pints strong vinegar

Mix together two ounces of grated horseradish, two of mustard seed, half an ounce of nutmegs, half an ounce of mace, half an ounce of black pepper, a quarter of an ounce of cayenne pepper, and a quarter of an ounce of cloves. Beat them very fine in a mortar, and put it in a stew-pan with one dozen lemons, which have been sliced and divested of the seeds, a large handful of salt, and three pints of good vinegar. Cover the pan, and boil it for fifteen or twenty minutes; then put it in a jar, cover it, and let it stand for four weeks, stirring it up occasionally; after which strain it, put it in small bottles, and cork them tight. A very little of this catchup (or pickle as it is sometimes called,) gives quite an agreeable flavor to fish and other sauces.

Standard vinegar of the 19th century was assumed to be of 10 percent acidity, but terms like “strong” or “good” vinegar are not really defined. Most people outside of cities kept a barrel of vinegar which was replenished with spoiled or leftover wine, cider or other liquids (a description of the process, at least as it was known in 1881, can be found here) so they were probably not all that finicky about it either.

One way to make stronger vinegar out of the wimpy commercial varieties today is to put it in a bowl and the bowl in the freezer for a time. The layer which freezes on top should be all water with the vinegary part (acetic acid) accumulating underneath. Remove and throw away the ice layer and the process repeated until the total mass has reduced by half. But again we digress from our topic.

Finally, as promised, we get to the kicker: Booze Catsup!

RUM CATCHUP (Bryan)

“Small handfuls” of thyme, parsley, sweet basil, sweet marjoram
Peel (orange part only) of 2 oranges
Peel (yellow part only) of 1 lemon
1/2 oz. mace
1/2 oz black pepper
1/4 oz. cayenne pepper
1/4 oz cloves
1 qt. good vinegar (see note above)
“Handful” of salt
1/2 pint madeira wine
1/2 pint rum

Chop fine a small handful of thyme, parsley, sweet basil, sweet marjoram, the peel of two fresh oranges, and one lemon, half an ounce of mace, half an ounce of black pepper, a quarter of an ounce of cayenne pepper, and a quarter of an ounce of cloves. Put them all in a pan with a quart of good vinegar, cover it, and boil it a few minutes till the flavor of the spices, &c. is extracted. Then strain it, throw in a handful of salt, and set it by till it gets cold; after which stir into it half a pint of madeira wine and half a pint of rum. Put it up in small bottles, filling them quite full, and securing the corks with leather. This, like other catchups, is designed to flavor sauces and gravies; they are sometimes sent to table in castors, and sometimes sent in the small bottles in which they are put up.

We will probably get a whiny letter from the Madeira Wine Marketing & Promotions Commission complaining that we failed to capitalize the name of their favorite product, but Mrs. Bryan didn’t do it so it’s not like we have any choice in the matter. This recipe actually sounds so good we keep meaning to try making a batch, but we keep suffering the inexplicable disappearance of that half-bottle of rum we were saving to dedicate to the project. The CWi test kitchen is obviously haunted.

So there you have it, very nearly everything you always wanted to know about ketchup, catsup, and catchup, but were afraid to ask.

[Historical article]

http://civilwarinteractive.com/cooking/?page_id=403

Plasters, Poultices and Paregoric: The Civil War Medicinal Cookbook

PLEASE NOTE - These medicinal recipes are not intended for actual use! At best they’ll make you go “yech”. At worst, they’ll kill you. We present them only to demonstrate what our ancestors went through. You have been warned.

The middle of the 19th century was a terrific time to be a doctor. To be a patient, on the other hand? Eh…not so much. If you think figuring out Medicare Part D is confusing, picture yourself with a bodily affliction and a need to figure out whether a botanicist, hydropathist, orthopath, naturalist, or, Lord help us, a phrenologist, was the party to seek out for a cure.

So what was the fallback in the search for medicinal miracles? Mom, of course. Cookbooks of the period are almost as much medical textbooks as sources of courses of meals. Folk wisdom it may have been; “old wives’ tales” if you will, but old wives were rare enough, given rates of mortality in both childhood and childbed, that they were usually worth listening to.

A section found in nearly every cookbook of the period is “Cooking for the Sickroom.” First of all, why a separate room for the sick? While only available, obviously, to people of sufficient means to have a house big enough to designate one room just for the sick or injured, it had many advantages. Sick people are not only unpleasant to be around, but in need of quiet as well as better room-temperature control than was usually available in the days before central heating. And finally, while the scientific basis for it (germ theory) lay just a few years in the future, everybody knew that many diseases were contagious, so isolating a sick person from the healthy as much as possible was a good idea.

One of the best accounts of a properly equipped and operated sickroom is found in The Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia by Mrs. E. F. Haskell, available in a reprint edition from compiler R. L. Shep. After a discussion of proper layout, suggested furnishings and the like, some eminently practical advice is given for nurses in a day when they knew well that “treatment” consisted largely of wishful thinking:

Be careful to follow to the letter the directions of the attending physician; if he does not suit, dismiss him, and engage another; but while he is employed, he should be implicitly obeyed. In the preparations of medicines, be particular to disguise powders and prepare liquids in such a manner as to make them as little disgusting as possible. There is more art in covering powders than is usually supposed; any medicine is less nauseous taken in fluid than in a half-covered powder.

The more quiet the nurse the better. Often sewing, knitting, or any other employment which would assist the nurse in passing the time, proves a source of real suffering to her patient. Reading in a quiet voice, combing the hair, gently rubbing the palms of the hand, will often induce sleep, when anodynes fail. Another important matter not to be lost sight of in a nurse is a cheerful obliging temper. Be always ready to humor a sick person in every thing that will do them no harm; never think of your own trouble, when you can, in the smallest particular, add to the comfort of the sick…It is not well to cross a sick person, if it can be avoided. A person with a gloomy disposition is unfit to take charge of the sick.

Now that we have a proper room, correctly furnished, a suitable physician and a very quiet but upbeat nurse, what are we to do for actual treatments? We shall just go through a list at random, trying to avoid things that are too dangerous, illegal or just plain disgusting to talk about:

INTERNALS: WHEN A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR WON’T BE MUCH HELP

COUGH SYRUP

Three pints of water, a coffee-cup of elecampane, half as much hoarhound; steep the two together, until the water is reduced to less than a quart; strain, and add a lump of tartaric acid, the size of a small hickory-nut, and half a teacup of best honey. Take two table-spoonfuls once every half hour, until the cough is broken up.

(As noted above, we absolutely, positively, most certainly do NOT recommend any of these recipes for actual consumption under any circumstances. However, just as a matter of intellectual interest, if we were makers of mild over-the-counter medicinal products instead of historical editors, we would be tempted to look into the practicality of this potion. The ingredients seem harmless enough and have evidently been used for uncounted centuries as medicines, a practice you would think would have died out if the patients had done the same.)

To continue:

FLAXSEED JELLY FOR A COUGH

(We have no idea what therapeutic qualities boiled flaxseed might have, but this preparation should at least have been considerably tastier than the elecampane and hoarhound mix previously noted. Whether its effects were sufficient to justify the hours of boiling and other preparations required is another matter. )

A coffee-cup of flaxseed, two quarts water, boil several hours until reduced to jelly; strain through a thin cloth, squeeze in the pulp and juice of a large lemon; roll a quarter of a pound of the best raisins, mix them in the jelly, simmer, without boiling, one hour; strain again, add half a teacup of the best loaf-sugar. Take a table-spoonful every half-hour.

CURE FOR DYSENTERY

(”Given over” is a euphemism for “given up on”, which is probably what one would be better advised to do than to partake of this treatment. Sheep fat and sugar we will take as self-explanatory. Nitre, more commonly spelled here and now as “niter,” would apparently have been bought at a chemist or pharmacy shop, or from a doctor. You could buy just about anything at such a shop in those days, the concept of “controlled substances” belonging to the distant future.)

Procure a lump of mutton suet fresh from the sheep, as large as a coffee-cup, and a lump of loaf-sugar one-third as large; put the suet in an earthen bowl, and lay the sugar on it; set it before the fire, where the heat will gradually melt the sugar and suet together; when rightly prepared, the tallow and sugar is browned together in one mass. There must be no heat under the dish, or the suet will melt faster than it should. For an adult, a dose is one teaspoonful every hour, of the browned sediment in the bowl. If feverish, the patient should drink freely of nitre in water, in the usual proportion, and take no other nourishment. This rule has cured cases of this disease given over by the physicians.

DYSENTERY RECEIPT
(Dysentery and related ailments of the bowels were the number one killers of troops during the Civil War, a conflict in which disease killed three times as many men as did enemy fire. Besides diarrhea, alternating fever and chills were the usual symptoms resulting in a dysentery diagnosis. Lab tests being entirely unknown, what the actual underlying cause of the ailment was could hardly be determined. This recipe is at least helpful to avoiding dehydration, and avoids the toxic nitrous products of the one previous.)

Boil two quarts of oats in a gallon of water, until reduced to two quarts; sweeten with double-refined loaf-sugar, and give two gills [1 cup] every half-hour, until the disease is checked.

HICCOUGH
Oil of cinnamon can be bought commercially at herbalist or health food shops. It must be produced from the actual bark of the cassia tree (similar in appearance but apparently not biologically related to the “true” or Ceylon cinnamon) so is not easily produced at home.

A single drop of oil of cinnamon dropped on sugar, dissolved in the mouth.

EXTERNALS: AT LEAST YOU DON’T HAVE TO TASTE THEM

So far we have dealt with ingestible substances. For external use we have poultices and plasters in supply as well. A poultice is a damp mixture applied thickly to the skin, with or without a layer of cloth (sometimes of a specific variety) over top to hold it in place. A plaster is a poultice allowed to dry to a shell, as opposed to being kept moist or replaced when dried out. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Although vile in many cases, and almost uniformly useless, they managed to stick around for quite a long time so may at least have provided what is now called a placebo effect:

OINTMENT FOR THE ITCH
(Ewwww.)

Heat lard, and melt in it a quantity of brimstone; apply over the whole body three times at night, rubbing in well before a hot fire.

STINGS OF INSECTS
(Think of the sort of key used to wind a grandfather clock. Tube or barrel keys were commonly used for good quality door or trunk locks in these days. That part of the treatment is still perfectly good, although we leave the topical application of tobacco to the past. Saleratus is an old form of baking powder.)

Press the sting with the tube of a key, which will extract the sting. Then bind on a cloth, in which is a little chewing tobacco wet in ammonia. If the ammonia is not at hand, use tobacco; if neither, saleratus, onion, or, if in the woods, fresh earth, until you can do better.

LIP SALVE
(We have no way of knowing if the “white wax” called for here is beeswax, something made from whale oil, or a petroleum-based product such as paraffin, or even more peculiar products. Beeswax is probably the best bet given the time period.)

White wax and almond oil melted together and stirred until cold, is excellent for chapped lips.

TREATMENT FOR SPRAINS (from Mrs. [Lydia] Child’s American Frugal Housewife)
Paper and cloth, in and of themselves as opposed to carriers or coverings for other medicinal agents, turn up with surprising frequency. We don’t know if anyone has studied this topic because attempting to search words like “medicine cloth paper” turns up nothing but books on medicine and details as to whether they were published with hard (cloth) or soft (paper) covers. Ptooey. Anyway, here’s another one from Lydia Child:

A poultice of wheat bran, or rye bran, and vinegar, very soon takes down the inflammation occasioned by a sprain. Brown paper, wet, is healing to a bruise. Dipped in molasses, it is said to take down inflammation.

BURNS
We would like to remind Mrs. Child that brevity is the soul of wit, not medicine, but we work with what we have. And one more:

Cotton wool and oil are the best things for a burn.

QUINCY OR CROUP
Quincy, in modern terms at least, is a dreadfully dangerous form of tonsillitis. Croup is more of a symptom–a sort of barking cough, often compared to the cries of a seal– than a name of an actual disease, as it can be caused by anything that produces swelling in the throat. In the 19th century it was often a sign of diphtheria, which could be deadly.

For a sudden attack of quincy or croup, bathe the neck in bear’s grease, and pour it down the throat. A linen rag soaked in sweet oil, butter, or lard, and sprinkled with yellow Scotch snuff, is said to have performed wonderful cures in cases of croup: it should be placed where the distress is greatest. Goose-grease, or any kind of oil grease, is as good as bear’s oil.

LOCKJAW (TETANUS) (From Mrs. Child)
This is much the same treatment that is often recommended for snakebite, so the theory that pork had some attractive effect for bad things carried inward by puncture wounds of the skin seems to be prevalent. Turpentine, which was readily available almost everywhere since it was made by distillation from pine trees, would produce an intense stinging sensation which was seen as helpful. It might even have had some sort of disinfectant effect, but we don’t know and have no great desire to find out.

A rind of pork bound upon a wound occasioned by a needle, pin or nail prevents the lock-jaw. It should be always applied. Spirits of turpentine is good to prevent the lock-jaw. Strong soft-soap, mixed with pulverized chalk, about as thick as batter, put, in a thin cloth or bag, upon the wound, is said to be a preventative to this dangerous disorder. The chalk should be kept moist till the wound begins to discharge itself, when the patient will find relief.

CHILBLAINS
(Chilblains are not the same affliction as frostbite, modern doctors will tell you. They are less likely to recommend mashed turnips as a solution, though. For that other ailment–

Soak [the affected body part] in a pail of water in which turnips have been boiled. Mash the turnips, leave them in the water, and set the feet into them. A poultice of mashed turnips is also useful. The writer has seen bad cases of chilblains entirely removed, by merely soaking the feet several times.

FOR FROSTBITTEN HANDS AND FEET
(You knew, of course, that sugar of lead is not really a good cure for frostbite, or anything else for that matter, right? Stay warm.)

Wash the parts often in sugar of lead. If badly frosted, wet linen cloths, and keep them on the frozen parts.

NERVOUS HEADACHE
(We suspect this treatment will continue until the patient is in more fear of having a boiled head than they are of the pain of the headache. Then again, it might in fact work. We will stick to aspirin, thank you.)

Apply cloths dipped in water as hot as it can be wrung out, and change them every three minutes until the pain ceases.

DYSENTERY AND CHOLERA-MORBUS
These are two more afflictions defined more by their symptoms, which were obvious and unpleasant, than their causes, which were, in the days before lab testing or even a clear awareness of germs as causes of disease, unknown. Both were frequently found listed on death certificates, particularly of soldiers in confined camps or prison compounds.

Flannel wet with brandy, powdered with Cayenne pepper, and laid upon the bowels, affords great relief in cases of extreme distress.

BURN LINIMENT
(The “lime-water” referred to here means calcium hydroxide, not anything to do with a green citrus fruit. Not that you really needed to know that, since of course you would never contemplate using this or any of the other recipes listed here, right? We note this purely for historical information.)

Take strong clear lime-water, and mix with it as much linseed oil as it will cut; apply, as soon as possible, after the accident. It is the best cure for burns that can be had, and no housekeeper should be without a bottle in the house, ready prepared. Shake the bottle before applying, wrap the burn in cotton wadding, saturated with it, wet it as often as it appears dry, without removing the cotton from the burn for nine days, when the new skin will probably be found ready formed.

CUTS

Press a cut together, and bind it firmly without cording; if it bleeds, use ashes, salt, or what is better, spiders’ webs.

(Perhaps the question should be how anybody survived the 19th century, not why so many died of things easily cured today. And that’s even without the added burden of war and suchlike disasters.)
CORNS

Wet the corns every morning with saliva, and paste on them young peach leaves.

(Young peach leaves, of course, are pretty much only available in early spring. After that they become “dried out withered up old peach leaves” whose curative powers apparently wane. The matter of how one gets the saliva from the source to the affliction, most usually found on the toes and feet, we leave to the ingenuity, and flexibility, of the reader.)
TO STOP A BLEEDING OF THE NOSE

Tie a string tightly around the little finger, so as to cord it. Elevate the arm, or pour cold water on the back of the neck.

(The usefulness of elevating the arm is questionable, although it was also recommended for other afflictions such as dyspepsia, or at least Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was said to use it for that purpose. The string-on-the-finger is more likely to accomplish nothing but trading a nosebleed for gangrene. Cold water on the neck, on the other hand, might actually help in some cases, by constricting the large blood vessels and thereby discouraging the blood leakage at the source. Doing this in the winter seems more likely to exchange a brief exsanguination for long-term pneumonia.)
HAIR

Brandy and salt will prevent the hair from falling out.

(We assume the ingredients are to be mixed and applied to the body part that is losing the hair. Applying the brandy internally instead would at least elevate the spirits otherwise depressed at the onset of baldness, and guzzling salt might kill off the user before the condition got any worse.)
CURE FOR WARTS

Pare the hard skin, and touch them with strong acetic acid twice a day. If it touches the hand it will take off the skin. Milkweed will cure warts, if applied frequently.

(Acetic acid is distilled, highly concentrated vinegar. The science of chemistry was racing so fast in the 19th century that products were not infrequently devised faster than any rational use for them could be thought of. We suggest sticking to the milkweed.)

ORAL HYGIENE: REMEMBER TEETH WERE PULLED BY BARBERS

TINCTURE FOR TEETH
(Peruvian bark is better known today as cinchona. Although the plant which produces it is native to South America, the same name is used for a herbal remedy dating to ancient times in China and India, so its actual origins are unclear. It was a popular ingredient in everything from digestive powders to cures for malaria, in which latter case it may indeed have done some good thanks to the fact that it contains quinine.)

Infuse, in half a pint of brandy, one ounce of Peruvian bark, coarsely powdered, and gargle the mouth with the infusion every morning.

TO CLEAN THE TEETH

(For those who thought myrrh had gone out of fashion after Biblical times, stand corrected. Unfortunately modern science seems to have regressed somewhat on the matter and sources are entirely unsure on what plant the substance is derived from or how it is made. At least the fresh sage would provide an interesting flavor for a toothpaste.)

Powder one ounce of myrrh, a tablespoon of green sage, and mix them in white honey; wet the teeth and gums night and morning.

MAD, BAD AND DANGEROUS TO TAKE (OR MAKE FOR THAT MATTER)

Opium products are now a no-no of the worst sort, so bad for us that our government is determined to protect us from them no matter how many of us they must imprison to do so. Do not even think about making the following products. Mrs. Haskell uses opium in some of her medical recipes, but does not mention these two, which were therefore taken from Dr. Chase’s Recipes, or Information for Everybody, Dr. A. W. Chase, published in this edition in 1866 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

LAUDANUM

Best Turkey opium 1 oz, slice, and pour upon it boiling water 1 gill [1/2 cup], and work it in a bowl or mortar until it is dissolved; then pour it into the bottle, and with alcohol of 76 percent proof 1/2 pint, rinse the dish, adding the alcohol to the preparation, shaking well, and in 24 hour it will be ready for use. Dose–From 10 to 30 drops for adults, according to the strength of the patient, or severity of the pain. Thirty drops of this laudanum will be equal to one grain of opium. And this is a much better way to prepare it than putting the opium into alcohol, or any other spirits alone, for in that case much of the opium does not dissolve.

Laudanum is the tonic du jour of not just the Civil War but nearly the entire Victorian era of over half a century. Ladies were particularly famous for swilling the stuff like mad for any affliction of body or mind which came to hand. Amusingly enough it was eventually overtaken by patent medicines whose principal active ingredient was alcohol, at a time when the temperance movement was reaching the screeching heights of its power in the crusade to ban alcohol as a pleasurable beverage.
PAREGORIC
(*”Dr.” is the abbreviation for “dram, a quantity amounting to about half a teaspoon.)

Best opium 1/2 dr.* dissolve it in about 2 tablespoons of boiling water; then add benzoic acid 1/2 dr.; oil of anise 1/2 a fluid dram; clarified honey 1 oz, camphor gum 1 scruple; alcohol, 76 per cent, 11 fl. oz.; distilled water 4 1/2 fluid oz; macerate [chop or mince]; keep warm for two weeks. Dose: For children, 5 to 20 drops, adults, 1 to 2 tea-spoons.

Just for the record, even in Dr. Chase’s day they were quite aware that, despite its legality, opium products when overused were not at all good for one. He goes on quite a rip about a patent medicine popular around the time of the Civil War:

It is a well known fact that much injury is done to children by the use of anodynes, such as the above [”Godfrey’s Cordial,” basically laudanum flavored with syrup and sassafras to make it more palatable to children] and “Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup,” which is now taking the place, to a great extent, in towns of the foregoing, for I noticed a short time ago eighty seven empty bottles with Mrs. Winslow’s label upon them, sitting on a counter of one of our drug stores, which led me to ask if they put up her syrup. The answer was no, a lady in this city has fed that much to one child within the past eighteen months….

Then let it be remembered that the constant use of opium in any of its preparations on children, or adults, disturbs the nervous system, and establishes a nervous necessity for its continuation. Then use them only in severe pain, or extreme nervousness, laying them by again as soon as possible under the circumstances of the case. Of course we do not give a recipe for the Soothing Syrup spoken of, as its exact composition has not yet come out to the public, but that its soothing properties are owing to opium, there is not the least doubt.

The push to ban opium from public sale, restricting its availability first to “licensed physicians” and later forbidding it almost entirely, is often blamed on a supposed epidemic of addiction after the Civil War. An interesting paper called “Soldier’s Disease and Addiction During the Civil War” suggests that this was pretty much a myth cooked up a generation later by anti-drug crusaders with agendas of their own.

Although opium was bought, dispensed and used in massive quantities by Army doctors on both sides, the amounts when divided by number of soldiers, and number of diseases and procedures for which it was used, are miniscule.

The paper’s author, Jerry Mandel, concludes that

“Soldier’s Disease, though, is a myth. Not one case of addiction was reported in medical records or the literature of the time; under ten references were made in the Nineteenth Century to addiction the cause of which was the Civil War; and no pejorative nickname for addicted veterans, like Soldier’s Disease, appeared in the literature until 1915, and it did not become part of the Conventional Wisdom of drug experts until almost a century after Appomattox.”

While we may find medicines of the era anything from laughable to terrifying from our superior perch in its future, the true tragedy of the Civil War is how many people, both in the military and civilian arenas, might have survived the time if the confirmation of “germ theory” had come just a tiny bit earlier in history.

The idea itself was not new–one source, the “germ theory calendar”, traces the concept itself back to the year 50 BC!–but in midcentury there was an ongoing rear-guard battle between proponents of germs and fans of the theory of spontaneous generation. Florence Nightingale, for one, who founded her famous school for nurses in 1860, never accepted germ theory until the day she died.

Of course theory is of limited value without the ability to put it into hard practical use. Smallpox, for instance, was known to be contagious even if the method of spreading (germs) was not, and the technique of vaccination developed decades earlier. George Washington ordered his troops to be vaccinated during the Revolutionary War, for heaven’s sake. And yet Civil War soldiers, particularly Confederate soldiers, particularly in prison camps, died by the scores of smallpox outbreaks.

At any rate, they lived the best they could in the circumstances they had, as do we today. They knew more than we often give them credit for, and at least did their best to distribute such help as they could give to anyone who needed it. Whether it did any good or not.

http://civilwarinteractive.com/cooking/?page_id=377

Sweet Herbs for Hearth and for Health: The Civil War Kitchen Garden

“A bundle of sweet herbs” is a frequent ingredient found in recipes from the 19th century, and is the occasion for many inquiries. What exactly is a “sweet herb” anyway, how do I get them, and is this going to cause the local drug authorities to take an unhealthy interest in me if I go to the store and ask around?

You can attract the interest the entire vice squad if you go asking for “Old Man,” for instance, if you are not aware that it is a very obscure term for a variety of aromatic herb used in the making of absinthe (which was perfectly legal in 19th century America) (and has only recently become legal again.)

One way to avoid such unpleasantness is to grow one’s own herbs. It will be found that the difference in flavor between a fresh plant and a dried commercial version, stored for who knows how long, is substantial. Plus it’s cheap, so why not?

The term “herbs and spices” are so often seen together that we tend to blur the difference between them. Technically, at least historically, spices were defined as “fragrant, aromatic plant products like cinnamon, cloves, ginger and pepper… found in plants grown in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.” The word herbs on the other hand meant more green, leafy products like mint, rosemary and thyme grown in more temperate areas.

So you can put the division between parts of the plant (seeds, roots, fruits and buds vs. leaves), but in practical terms the following is a good rule: if you have to import it from somewhere else, it’s a spice. If you can grow it in your yard, patio or windowsill, it’s an herb. Even exotics like saffron can be grown with no more effort than is required for common crocuses so long as one takes care to get the proper bulbs (okay, “culms” if you want to be all technical about it) to start off with.

Historically speaking, though, it is interesting that some of the most common herbs today–basil, for instance, or tarragon–are are rarely mentioned in the cooking books of the 19th century. Conversely, they make great use of things like “summer” and “winter” savory for which you will seek in vain in the spice racks of modern supermarkets. Some of these difference are just changes of name, but others speak of more significant matters.

Let’s look at a fairly typical recipe of the Civil War period, from Mrs. Marion Harland’s Common Sense in the Household, published just after the war in 1871 in New York:

BREAKFAST STEW OF BEEF

Cut up two pounds of beef–not too lean–into pieces an inch long; put them into a saucepan with just enough water to cover them, and stew gently for two hours. Set away until next morning, when season with pepper, salt, sweet marjoram or summer savory, chopped onion and parsley. Stew half an hour longer, and add a teaspoonful of sauce or catsup, and a tablespoonful of browned flour wet up with cold water; finally, if you wish to have it very good, half a glass of wine. Boil up once and pour into a covered deep dish. This is an economical dish, for it can be made of the commoner parts of the beef, and exceedingly nice for winter breakfasts.

For starters, of course, we will note that beef stew is seldom contemplated as a breakfast dish these days, nor do we expect to see it in the aisles devoted to flakes, frostings, marshmallow bits and granolas any time soon. Few are the families with a half hour to devote to preparing such a dish, or the further time needed to consume it, or the two hours of stewing required the evening before. Most of us would consider this an intolerable imposition even for an evening meal when temptation lurks in the phone which has both pizza delivery and Chinese takeout on speed dial.

But houses in the 1860s did not yet as a rule have central heating. Cars did not lurk outside the door with preheatable seats, to take us to a climate-controlled work environment. A substantial meal in the morning was a requirement, not a luxury or even an indulgence. But we drift from our subject.

The herbs involved are three, but with five names between them: sweet, marjoram, summer, savory and parsley. Parsley is as lacking in controversy as it is in strong flavor, so we will set it aside. The question we face is, is there a marjoram which is not sweet, and a savory which is not summery? Yes, it seems, and no.

Sweet marjoram, wild marjoram, and just plain marjoram would appear to be botanically identical, with sweet being something intentionally cultivated and wild being, well, wild as in gathered from the woods or roadside. In an earlier time when rural living was more common, and herbs frequently used as much for medicinal purposes as culinary ones, this distinction had some meaning. Hunters know that a wild duck or turkey tastes quite differently from a domesticated one.

The savory situation is more complicated. There are, it seems, two related but botanically different plants (many of these herbs are “related” to a greater or lesser degree; marjoram for instance is at least a distant cousin of oregano). The summer savory is an annual which must be replanted every spring. Winter savory is a “semi-perennial” which can survive in climates similar to or warmer than those of its native Portugal.

Although the individual stalks, as well as the small leaves which constitute the herb itself, look somewhat alike, the overall shape of the two plants are different. The summer variety grows tall and straight while the winter one is squat and fat like a bush.

Some of our rarely seen herbs, unused by themselves, turn up like murder victims, floating in containers of vinegar. From Mrs. Haskell:

TARRAGON VINEGAR–Fill a large wide-mouthed bottle with fresh tarragon leaves, picked from the stalk before the plant flowers; steep them in strong vinegar for fourteen days, or longer if convenient; strain clear; fill half-pint bottles with the vinegar, and cork tightly; this us used to flavor mustards and salads.

BASIL VINEGAR–Infuse basil leaves in best wine vinegar; when it has steeped two weeks, drain it off, press the basil, and add fresh leaves; continue to do this until the vinegar has the desired flavor, when cork and wire down.

VINEGAR OF NASTURTIUMS–Pick young nasturtium seeds, and put them in vinegar; when all the strength is extracted, throw out the seeds, and add more until the vinegar is very strongly flavored.

You get the drift. Similar techniques are used for vinegars of mustard, chili, peach pits, garlic and even celery, which one would think hardly had enough flavor for itself much less to have an influence on a vinegar which in the 19th century was at least twice as strong as it is in modern times. (The standard was 10 percent as opposed to 5 percent today, and even weaker for some generic brands.)

Not all herb vinegars were intended to wind up in the soup:

WORMWOOD VINEGAR–Bruise green wormwood; to one pound add one quart of strong vinegar, steep the wormwood and vinegar together, by setting the bottle in cold water, and heating to boiling heat; let the wormwood and vinegar remain together for two weeks, then strain, press out all the juice, and bottle. This is excellent for all sprains, and ought to be ready to use at any time.

HOP VINEGAR–Steep one quarter of a pound of ripe, but not dry hops in one quart of strong vinegar; let it steep two weeks and then press out the liquor; keep it for colds, quinsy and throat troubles.

Both hops and wormwood can be easily grown in most parts of the US. If you wind up with more hops than you need for vinegar you can use the leftovers for homemade yeast or beer. Advice on growing other legal herbal products can be found in an amazing variety of places. Tarragon, interestingly enough, although usually classed as a “sweet herb” is in fact a relative of the notoriously bitter wormwood.

Mrs. Haskell has a lovely section in her Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia concerning gardening. Most of it concerns such overall subjects as establishing proper drainage, or such distasteful but necessary matters as fertilizing–or as a more straightforward era called it, “manuring”–but she has some useful tips on the herb patch:

…[on the size of the patch for various herbs, to satisfy “a family,” size unspecified]

Nasturtiums spread very much, a bed three by six, with six plants, would be sufficient…Parsley, a bed three by six, or can be used as borders for other beds; a bed three by six for sage, the same for summer-savory, half as much room for thyme and sweet marjoram; a bed three by six containing wormwood, tansy, Old Man, etc..

The humble parsley gets mentioned twice:

Double-curled Parsley can be sown in the fall, or early in the spring; thin the plants as soon as well up, to an inch apart; and again when large enough to use; it should stand one foot apart when sufficiently thinned. It bears it seed the second year, and then dies. Old seed vegetates sooner than fresh.

parsley: The curled is the most beautiful, and could be kept in a growing state all winter with slight protection. It is used as seasoning to different soups and meats, and also to ornament different dishes at table. It can be dried as other herbs, and used pulverized in soups, broths, etc. Take up some roots, ad pack them in a barrel filled with soil, with large holes bored at regular distances. Put the roots through the holes, leaving the crowns nearly outside; set the barrel in a warm light cellar, and moisten the soil once or twice every week. It can also be kept growing, by making a cold-frame over it, thus protecting it from the frost; but unless it has some light, it will blanch, and lose much of its beauty.

Whereas two better-known items get but one mention each, and even then lumped in together with near rifraff:

Thyme and sage should be planted where they can remain three years; thin the plants to one foot apart. Summer-savory and sweet marjoram are annuals, and can be sown more thickly; tansy, wormwood, and Old Man are perennials, they must seldom be transplanted; sage is tender and needs a little protection. The time for cutting herbs is when in flower; the do not need rich soil; the flavor is stronger in poor soil.

Mrs. Haskell then throws us for a loop. In a chart of a suggested layout for the garden, she notes that one patch should be devoted to the growing of “okra, marteneas, and herbs.”

Okra, check. Herbs, well, that’s what we’re here for. Marteneas? Huh? Whuzzat?

According to a popular search engine we will call “gargle” to avoid copyright issues, there is no such thing as “marteneas.” In any language. Anywhere on this planet.

Finally tracked down to its lair, appears that we, or Mrs. Haskell, have been victims of a spelling shift. The plant is now known as “martynia” and while obscure, is by no means unknown. And indeed, it is similar in structure and use to okra, so planting them next to each other makes sense. While Mrs. Haskell no doubt intended it to be grown for its edible pods, it seems that there may nowadays be some use for the plant in medicine, as an anti-inflammatory agent and painkiller.

Once gathered, the herbs must then be put away for future use. Again we have advice, in this case directed at one but applicable to most if not all:

Few people know how to keep the flavor of sweet-marjoram; the best of all herbs for broth and stuffing. It should be gathered in bud or blossom, and dried in a tin-kitchen at a moderate distance from the fire; when dry, it should be immediately rubbed, sifted, and corked up in a bottle carefully.

Mrs. Haskell was far from the only author of the period to write of herbs. Lydia Maria Child, writing under the proper Victorian style of simply “Mrs. Child” dealt with the subject as well. Her bestselling American Frugal Housewife, for instance, first published in 1828, was in its 12th edition by 1833. We quote her at some length to illustrate how herbs were broadly defined both in function and identity (horseradish an herb? Well…maybe…yeah….):

All herbs should be carefully kept from the air. Herb tea, to do any good, should be made very strong.

Herbs should be gathered while in blossom. If left till they have gone to seed, the strength goes into the seed. Those who have a little patch of ground, will do well to raise the most important herbs; and those who have not, will do well to get them in quantities from some friend in the country; for apothecaries make very great profit upon them.

(Some things never change, eh?)

Sage is very useful both as a medicine, for the headache–when made into tea–and for all kinds of stuffing when dried and rubbed into powder. It should be kept tight from the air.

Summer-savory is excellent to season soup, broth and sausages. As a medicine, it relieves the cholic [sic]. Pennyroyal and tansy are good for the same medicinal purpose.

Green wormwood bruised is excellent for a fresh wound of any kind. In winter, when wormwood is dry, it is necessary to soften it in warm vinegar, or spirit, before it is bruised, and applied to the wound.

Hyssop tea is good for sudden colds, and disorders on the lungs. It is necessary to be very careful about exposure after taking it; it is peculiarly opening to the pores.

Tea made of colt’s-foot and flax-seed, sweetened with honey, is a cure for inveterate coughs. Consumptions have been prevented by it. It should be drank when going to bed; though it does good to drink it at any time. Hoarhound is useful in consumptive complaints.

Note, we have another spelling mutation here–this item is more commonly, if not universally, spelled “horehound” today. And when it became possible to control tuberculosis (consumption) by other methods, the Hore/Hoarhound Manufacturers of America just switched to making candy flavorings. Ahem, back to our history:

Motherwort tea is very quieting to the nerves. Students, and people troubled with wakefulness, find it useful.

Thoroughwort is excellent for dyspepsy, and every disorder occasioned by indigestion. If the stomach be foul, it operates like a gentle emetic.

Sweet-balm tea is cooling when one is in a feverish state.

Catnip, particularly the blossoms, made into tea, is good to prevent a threatened fever. It produces a fine perspiration. It should be taken in bed, and the patient kept warm.

Housekeepers should always dry leaves of the burdock and horseradish. Burdocks warmed in vinegar, with the hard, stalky parts cut out, are very soothing, applied to the feet; they produce a sweet and gentle perspiration. Horseradish is more powerful. It is excellent in cases of the ague, placed on the part affected. Warmed in vinegar, and clapped.

(A note: burdock is considered a weed by most people, particularly farmers. Give thought to how much you value your popularity with your neighbors before deciding to grow it on purpose. Changing your mind later is of dubious value because the stuff is near impossible to eradicate once established.)

Succory is a very valuable herb. The tea, sweetened with molasses, is good for the piles. It is a gentle and healthy physic, a preventative of dyspepsy, humors, inflammation, and all the evils resulting from a restricted state of the system.

The spelling-shift monster has bitten us again. “Succory” is better known nowadays as “chicory,” the beloved coffee additive of New Orleans and surrounding areas.

Elder-blow tea has a similar effect. It is cool and soothing, and peculiarly efficacious either for babes or grown people, when the digestive powers are out of order.

“Blow” refers strictly to the spring blossoms of the elder tree. As the link indicates, several other parts of the plant are used for medicinal purposes as well, but “blow” is an archaic term for flowers.

Lungwort, maiden-hair, hyssop, elecampane and hoarhound steeped together, is an almost certain cure for a cough. A wine-glass full to be taken when going to bed.

To further discourage anyone contemplating trying these recipes for medicinal purposes, note that we have linked above to the disagreeable “black horehound,” the description of which should be enough to drive anyone into the more welcoming arms of modern medicine. The other ingredients listed for this potion, although almost certainly useless, at least seem fairly benign. This “maidenhair” is simply the early spring sprouts of the fern of the same name.

We conclude with a name that sounds familiar, but in the sense meant by our historic herbalists, really isn’t:

English-mallows steeped in milk is good for the dysentery.

As our link indicates there are a great many plants known as “mallows,” but none today specifically called “English mallow” so we must consign this to the mists of historical twilight. How precisely these items mutated into the utterly unrelated little white puff of manufactured fluffy sugar we know today as a “marshmallow” is a long tale best left for another time.

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcakes.html#pioneerbirthdaycake

[snipped]

When did oil become a standard ingredient?
Excellent question with no exact answer. The ealiest print reference we find suggesting oil be used in cake mixes is this:

“In quick-mix cakes, vegetable shortening was recommended, and in using oil in cakes, it was strongly suggested that one employ a recipe worked out with oil in mind and not try to adapt a standard formula. Commerical cake mixes must be used stricly in accordance with package directions. It would be better, panel authorities felt, to standardize labels to eliminate such confusions as “white cake mix” and “silver cake mix,” which are the same type.”
-—”News of Food: U.S. Housewife Baffles Cookery Experts Exceot for Two Things: Flavor, Desserts,” Jane Nickerson, New York Times, November 8, 1952 (p. 14)

Twenty years later, this advertisement suggests the practice is still considered “novel”:

“Try These Delicious Easy Recipe Ideas made with Duncan Hines Cake Mixes...’Lemon Pound Cake (makes 12 to 16 servings). 1 package Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme Deluxe Cake Mix, 1 package lemon instant pudding mix (4 serving size), 1/2 cup Crisco Oil, 1 cup water, 4 eggs. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.. Blend all ingredients in a large bowl; beat at medium speed for 2 minutes. Bake in a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan at 350 degrees for about 45-55 minutes, until center springs back when touched lightly. Cool right side up for about 25 minutes, then remove from pan. Glaze: Blend 1 cup confectioners sugar with either 2 tablespoons milk or 2 tablespoons lemon juice. Drizzle over cake...Be sure to use Crisco Oil as some other oils may cause the cake to fall.”
-—Display ad, Duncan Hines, New York Times, June 29, 1972 (p. 45)
[NOTE: recipes for oil-ingredient Double Upside Down Cake and Neapolitan Refrigerator Sheet Cake, Double Chocloate Nugget, Peanut Butter Cookies and Chocolate Chip Cookies are also included in this ad.]

About cooking “from scratch”
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the word “scratch” has several meanings. The phrase “from scratch” is derived from this:

5b. “The starting-point in a handicap of a competitor who recieves no odds; sometimes colloq. used ellipt. for such a competitor. From scratch, from a position of no advantage, knowledge, influence, etc., from nothing.”

As this applies to food, it means the item was made without the aid of prepared items; all primary ingredients.

Who coined this phrase and when?
Good question. The OED does not offer a first print use for this term as it applies to food. Our phrase books sometimes list these words but only define them. Our food history books do not include the term. The oldest references we find for this phrase (New York Times historic database) date to the 1940s. These articles are promoting making cakes from mixes rather than “from scratch.”

Angel food

The classic story behind the name “angel food cake” is that this dessert is so white, light, and fluffy it must be fit for angels. Who thought up this name? No one knows. We do know [from the study of old cookbooks] that cake recipes with the name “angel food” began showing up in American cookbooks sometime in the late nineteenth century [about the same time as mass-produced bakeware hit the popular market]. It may not be a coincidence that a proper angel food cake requires a special tube pan or cake mold. Some food historians speculate the Pennsylvania Dutch were probably the original makers and namers of angel food, though this connection has not been fully documented. In support of the theory, one of many culinary traditions introduced to America by the Pennsyvania Dutch was the cake mold, a special metal pan for creating festive cakes in unusual shapes. A recipe for “Amanda’s Angel Food Cake” is included in the Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book of Time Old Recipes, Culinary Arts Press [1936] (p. 39) but not listed in Pennsylvania Dutch Cookery, J. George Frederick [1935].

“Angel-food cake...Also “angel cake.” A very light, puffy cake, perhaps of Pennsylvania-Dutch heritage, without yeast and with several beaten egg whites. The egg whites give it a texture so airy that the confection supposedly has the sublimity of angels. Angel-food cake was known by the 1870s in America (the word appeared in print in the 1880s) and served as a sensible usage of leftover egg whites.”
-—Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 6)

“...angel (or angel food) cakes, which some believe evolved as the result of numerous egg whites left over after the making of noodles, may or may not be the brainchild of thrifty Pennsylvania cooks who considered it sinful to waste anything.”
-—American Food: The Gastronomic Story, Evan Jones [Vintage Books:New York] 1981, 2nd ed. (p. 93)

“Angel Food Cake...Name given to a variety of very light spongy cakes originating from America. This type of confection was first introduced to England in 1934. There were many failures in its manufacture in the earlier days, det to the fact that a special soft flour was required to ensure lightness and soft eating qualities.”
-—Master Dictionary of Food & Cookery, Henry Smith {Philospohical Library:New York] 1952 (p. 8)

A survey of late 19th century cookbooks attests to the introduction of a cake named “angel food” sometime in the 1880s. This is a typical recipe from a popular cookbook:

“Angel Cake
One cup of flour, measured after one sifting, and then mixed with one teaspoonful of cream of tartar and sifted four times. Beat the whites of eleven eggs, with a wire beater or perforated spoon, until stiff and flaky. Add one cup and a half of the fine granulated sugar, and beat again; add one teaspoonful of vanilla or almond, then mix in the flour quickly and lightly. Line the bottom and funnel of a cake pan with paper not greased, pour in the mixture, and bake about forty minutes. When done, loosen the cake around the edge, and turn out at once. Some persons have been more successful with this cake by mixing the sugar with the flour and cream of tartar, and adding all at aonce to the beaten egg.”
-—The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, Mrs. D. A. Lincoln [1884] (p. 374)

Prior to the this time, recipes for cakes similar to angel food [calling only for egg whites] were known by different names:

“Silver cake
The whites of one dozen eggs beaten very light, one pound of butter, one pound of powdered sugar; rub the butter and sugar together until creamed very light, then add the beaten whites of the eggs, and beat all together until very light; two teaspoonfuls of the best yeast powder sifted with one pound of flour, then add the flour to the eggs, sugar and butter, also add one-half teacupful of sweet milk; mix quickly, and beat till very light; flavor with two teaspoonfuls of the extract of almond or peach, put in when you beat the cake the last time. Put to bake in any shape pan you like, but grease the pan well before you put the cake batter in it. Have the stove moderately hot, so as the cake will bake gradually, and arrange the damper of stove so as send heat to the bottom of the cake first. This instruction of baking applies to all cakes except tea cakes.”
-—What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking, [1881] (p. 28-9)
NOTE: Mrs. Fisher was the first American ex-slave to author a cookbook

“Snow-drift cake
Three cupsful of flour, two cupsful of sugar, one-half a cupful of butter, one cupful of sweet milk, the whites of five eggs beaten to a stiff froth, one teaspoonful of cream of tartar, one-half a teaspoonful of soda; sift the flour, and do not pack it when measuring it.”
-—Mrs. Porter’s New Southern Cookery Book, Mrs. M. E. Porter [1871] (p. 223)
NOTE: the lack of baking instructions!

Devil’s food

Culinary evidence confirms that recipes under the name “devil’s food” is an turn of the [20th] century American invention.

What is chocolate cake?
In the first half of the 19th century they typical chocolate cake was a yellow or spice cake meant to accompany a chocolate beverage (hot chocolate, cocoa). Chocolate was not one of the cake’s ingredients [Virginia Housewife, Mary Randolph (p. 173)]. In the second half of the 19th century the typical chocolate cake was either a white or yellow cake with chocolate icing or a cake made with chocolate. Recipes for rich, chocolate cakes similar to devil’s food were fairly common in late 19th century cookbooks, but they were not named such. They were typically listed under the generic name “chocolate cake.” Recipes for devil’s food proliferated, sometimes with interesting and creative twists) in the first decades of the 20th century. There are several theories regarding the “devil’s food” was selected for this delicious cake. None of these are “definative.”

“Devil’s food. A cake, muffin, or cookie made with dark chocolate, so called because it is supposedly so rich and delicious that it must be somewhat sinful, although the association is clearly made with humor. Its dark color contrasted with the snowy white of angel-food cake, an earlier confection. The first devil’s food recipe appeared in 1900, after which recipes and references became frequent in cookbooks. The “red devil’s food cake,” given a reddish-brown color by the mixture of cocoa and baking soda, is post-World War II version of the standard devil’s food cake.”
-—Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 111)

Angel food belongs to the nineteenth century but devil’s food to the twentieth. How this chocolate cake came to be called devil’s food no one knows alothough it may have been a play on opposites: it was as dark and rich as angel food was light an airy...In the early 1900s there were a number of bizarre variations on Devils Food Cake. Once called for mashed potatoes and a number for ground cinnamon and cloves in addition to chocolate...”
-—American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 452-3)

Some food historians believe this might be the first mention of Devil’s food. It appears in a memoir written by Caroline King’s of her childhood in 1880s Chicago. Ms. King was a popular food writer in the 1920s-1930s.

“Devil’s Food, though a new cake in our household, had made its dashing appearance in Chicago in the middle eighties, and by the time it reached our quiet little community, was quite the rage. Maud’s receipt was the original one, and made a large, dark, rich cake. Here it is:

Devil’s Food
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 cup sour cream
2 1/2 cups flour
1 scant teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 teaspoon vanilla.

Anna melted the chocolate over hot water while Maude creamed the butter and added the sugar gradually; then she whipped in the slightly beaten yolks of the eggs and the melted chocolate and vanilla. I was permitted to sift and measure the flour and then sift it again with the baking powder and soda. When this was done, Maude alternately added the flour mixture and the sour cream to the egg-sugar-butter-chocolate combination. Last of all, she folded in the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs and turned the delicious-smelling brown batter into three layer-cake pans which Anna had buttered and floured. The baking, in a very moderate oven, was carefully watched. According to a time-honored custom in our family, the cakes were tested with a clean broomstraw and when finished were turned, beautifully brown and entrancingly fragrant, from the pans onto a clean towel.

Now came the next important part, the icing and filling. The Watermans’ receipt called for a thick boiled icing made pleasantly piquant with a few drops of citric acid. But citric acid sounded dangerous to Maud, and besides, as Anna explained, we had no such article in our supply closet. Even Emily’s stock of special flavorings refused to yield it, so Maud used lemon juice, sparingly and judiciously, and the result was perfect.

Altogether it was a noble cake, nobly made.”
-—Victorian Cakes: A Reminiscence With Recipes, Caroline B. King, with an introduction by Jill Gardner [Aris/Berkeley:1986] (p. 35-6)

There is no recipe for Devil’s food in Favorite Dishes: A Columbian Autograph Souvenir Cookery Book, a collection of recipes contributed by prominent Chicago women in 1893. This book, originally compiled by Carrie V. Shuman, was recently reissued by the University Press, Chicago [2001].

What is the difference between chocolate cake and devil’s food?
This simple question has many answers, depending upon the period and cookbook. As noted above, the first 19th century American chocolate cake recipes were white/yellow cakes with chocolate icing. The addition of chocolate to the batter increased as the price of this ingredient declined, thus creating “chocolate cake” as we know it today. 20th century cookbooks often list chocolate cake and devils food on the same page. The most predominant difference between the two? Devil’s food usually contains a greater proportion of chocolate. Fannie Farmer [1923] doubles the amount of chocolate required for her devil’s food (4 ounces compared to 2 ounces for “regular” chocolate cake.). Irma S. Rombauer confirms: “When the larger amount of chocolate is used, it is a black, rich Devil’s Food.” (Joy of Cooking, 1931 p. 236)

Compare this chocolate cake recipe [1894] with Mrs. Rorer’s [1902] & Good Housekeeping’s [1903] devil’s food recipes (below):

Chocolate Cake, No. 3
One and a half cups of sugar, half cup of butter, three-quarters cup of milk, three eggs and yolk of another, two cups of flour, two teaspoons baking powder, one full cup of Baker’s chocolate. Break up the chocolate and put in a cup over the tea kettle until it melts. This will make four layers, and use the following recipe for boiled icing between the layers.

Boiled icing
One cup of sugar (granulated), quarter cup of water (cold), one egg (only white, beaten stiff). Put water on sugar in a saucepan and let it boil until it threads. Then remove from fire and pour over the stiff white, beaten until it thickens. Put on the cake at once.”
-—The Oracle: Receipts Rare, Rich and Reliable, The Woman’s Parish Aid Society of Christ Church, [Tarrytown:New York] 1894 (p. 88)

The earliest recipe we have for Devil’s Food printed in an American cookbook is dated 1902:

“Devil’s Food
1/2 cup of milk
4 ounces of chocolate
1/2 cup butter
3 cups pastry flour
1 1/2 cups of sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder

Put in a double boiler four ounces of chocolate and a half pint of milk; cook until smooth and thick, and stand aside to cool. Beat a half cup of butter to a cream; add gradually one and a half cups of sugar and the yolks of four eggs; beat until light and smooth. Then add the cool chocolate mixture and three cups of pastry flour, with which you have sifted two teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Beat thoroughly for at least five minutes; then stir in the well beaten whites of the eggs. Bake in three or four layers. Put the layers together with soft icing, to which you have added a cup of chopped nuts. The success of this cake depends upon the flour used.”
-—Mrs. Rorer’s New Cook Book, Sarah Tyson Rorer [Philadelphia: 1902] (p. 619)
[NOTE: Mrs. Rorer’s chocolate loaf cake recipe (p. 615) calls for 2 ounces of chocolate]

Devil’s Food Cake
Two and a half cups of sifted flour, two cups of sugar, one-half cup of butter, one-half cup of sour milk, one-half cup of hot water, two eggs, one-half or one -fourth cake of chocolate, one teaspoon of vanilla, one teaspoon of soda. Grate chocolate and dissolved with the soda in hot water. Use white icing.”
-—Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book, Isabel Gordon Curtis, [Phelps Publishing:New York] 1903 (p. 50); recipe attributed to Mrs. Nelson Ruggles.
[NOTE: This book’s recipe for chocolate cake (p. 50) is white cake with chocolate filling]

By 1913, devils food and devils cake were all the rage. How do we know? Anna Clair Vangalder’s Modern Women of America Cookbook [Modern Woodman Press:Rock Island] lists no less than 23 recipes! Some are simple, others are complicated. Sour milk and brown sugar seem to be the standard ingredients, though some recipes specified white sugar and sweet milk cut with boiling water. Melted/grated unsweetened chocolate (cake, bakers) was the norm, though some recipes used cocoa. Some cakes were layered, others were baked in simple loaf pans. About half of the early devils cakes were iced.

Recipes for devil’s food cake have changed over the years. Duncan Hines Dessert Book [New York:1955] lists three recipes for Devil’s Food Cake, and one each for Cocoa Devil’s Food Cake, Party Devil’s Food Cake, and Sour Cream Devil’s Food Cake (p. 37-41). Jean Anderson’s American Century Cookbook (p. 452-3) does a good job outlining the evolution of this particular recipe.

Red Devil’s Food

What makes this cake red? According to the culinary experts, the combination of baking soda and cocoa. Recipes for Red Devil’s Cake begin to appear in North American newspapers and cookbooks during the 1930s. Some are specifically called “red devil,” others are simply called devil and are undistinguishable unless the cook examined the ingredients.

[1938]
“Red Devil’s Food
Cook one cup brown sugar, two-thirds cup cocoa, two-thirds cup buttermilk and one egg yolk five minutes, stirring constantly. Beat and cool. Cream one-half cup vegetable shortening and one cup granulated usgar, add cooked custard alternately with two and one-fourth cups flour which have been sifted with one teaspoon each soda and baking powder and one-fourth teaspoon salt. Beat two eggs and add with one-half cup water and one teaspoon vanilla. Pour in two layer-cake pans which have been lined with waxed paper. Bake twenty-five minutes in 375 deg. F. oven. Cool and frost.”
-—”Devil’s Food cake Wins Plaudits,” Marian Manners, Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1938 (p. A6)

[1946]
“Red Devil’s Food
Generally popular—but not with me, which is not to be taken as a criterion.
Measure:
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
Resift with:
1 1/2 teaspoon tartrate phosphate baking powder or 1 teaspoon combination type
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
Cream until light and fluffy:
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup sugar
Add one at a time and beat well:
2 eggs
Melt: 2 ounces chocolate in 1/2 cup boiling water
Cool slightly, then stir these ingredients into the egg mixture. Add the dry ingredients in about three parts alternately with:
1/2 cup sour milk
Add: 1 teaspoon vanilla
Stir the batter after each addition until it is well blended. Bake it in two greased 9 inch layer pans in a moderate oven 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. Spread the cake with Seven Minute Morocco Icing.”
-—Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer [Bobbs-Merrill:Indianapolis] 1946 (p. 542)

[1956]
“Real Red Devils Food Cake
A rich, moist cake...made with cocoa. Developed by Lorraine Kilgren of our staff...

Grease and flour: 2 8 or 9” layer pans or 13 X 9” oblong pan
Sift together into bowl: 1 3/4 cups Softasilk flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 1/4 tsp. soda, 1 tsp. salt, 1/3 cup cocoa
Add: 1/2 cup soft shortening, 2/3 cup milk
Beat 2 min.
Add: another 1/3 cup milk, 2 eggs (1/3 to 1/2 cup), 1 tsp. vanilla
Beat 2 more min.
Pour into prepared pans. Bake until cake tests done. Cool. Finish with White Mountain or Satiny Beige Frosting or with Chocolate Butter Icing. Temperature: 350 degrees F (mod. oven).
Time: Bake 8” layers 35 to 40 mon., 9” layers 30 to 35 min., oblong 45 to 50 min.”
-—Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, Revised and Enlarged, second edition [McGraw-Hill:New York] 1956 (p. 151)
[NOTE: We can supply the icing recipe of your choice.]

Of course? There’s always chocolate angel food! (Joy of Cooking [1931] p. 234)

Baba

Baba (aka babka) is not one recipe, but several. According to the food historians baba doughs range from simple yeast-based mixtures to complicated alcohol-drenched pastry. The origin of this item (while sketchy) is generally attributed to Slavic peoples. Plenty of legends surround the introduction/invention of “Baba au Rhum.” Not so for basic baba. Notes here:

“Babas, cakes, and pastries were adopted by the Russians only in the eighteenth century, although yeast had been used in Russia since ancient times. German and Polish influences are particularly strong in this type of baking. It is perhaps not surprising that Americans are unfamiliar with the variety of babas and kuliches that were well known to Molokhovets [Russian cookbook author, 1861]—Russian cookbooks for Americans rarely contain more than a single recipe for each kind of yeast cake. But Russian cooks also are in danger of losing this aspect of their culianry heritage, which now appears mostly in specialized books on baking. In part, the nomenclature has changed (pirogi has broadened in meaning), but mostly altered tastes and circumstances have diminished the interest in baking.”
-—Classic Russian Cooking: Elena Molokhovets’ A Gift to Young Housewives, translated and introduced by Joyce Toomre [Indiana University Press:Bloomington] 1992 (p. 398)
[NOTE: This book contains several recipes for mid-19th century babas. Your librarian can help you obtain a copy.]

“Baba. A sweetened bread or cake made from a rich dough, baked in tall, cylindrical moulds. The shape is Slavic in origin, and of great antiquity. The 12th-century Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus describes a Baltic pagan harvest-festival bread as a ‘cake, prepared with mead, round in form and standing nearly as high as a person’. The word means ‘old woman’ or ‘grandmother’ and refers to the vertical form, and anthopomorphic usage similar to the derivation of pretzel and bracelli, because the twist of dough resembles folded arms...If the shape is Slavic in origin, the same may not be true of the actual recipe—it has been suggested by Lesley Chamberlain...that this came from Italy: “The recipe for it probably came to Poland from Italy in the sixteenth century via Queen Bona, as a transplant of the Milanese panettone. Since then much ritual has surrounded the baking of this fragile masterpiece. Precious pastrycooks declared it needed to rest on an eiderdown before it went in the oven, after which baking took place in an atmosphere of maternity. Men were forbidden to center the kitchen and no one was allowed to speak above a whisper.”...there are rival claims from the Ukraine. Savella Stechishin...says that baba or babka is one of the most distinctive of all Ukranian breads, traditionally served at Easter. The name ‘baba’ is the colloquial Ukranian word for woman or grandma, while ‘babka’ is a diminutive of the same word. (The name ‘babka’ is more commonly used, as the modern loaves are smaller and the name sounds dantier.)...Stechishin speculates that the baba-bread may have originated in prehistoric times when a matriarchal system existed in the Ukraine...the baba’s homeland is generally regarded as being W. Russia and Poland. It is related to other Russian festive breads of cakes, such as Easter kulich...or the krendal which is baked in a figure-of-eight shape to celebrate name days. They, however, are fortified with dried fruits and nuts, while the baba was originaly plain. Polish and Ukranian recipes commonly include other flavors (from ingredients such as saffron, almond, cheese, raisins). Other additions, noticeable in the Baba au rhum and other versions which are now part of the international repertoire, consist in adding dried fruits and...soaking the cake in an alcoholic syrup...after it has been made. These changes seem to have been made in France after the baba emigrated westwards to Alsace and Lorraine. This had happened in 1767 (when the term first appears as a French word) and the baba eventaully became a well-known French confection...To make a baba, yeast is mixed to a liquid batter with flour, eggs, and milk; this is allowed to rise, and then melted butter is beaten in. As for other yeast-risen cakes, much beating is necessary to impart air to the mixture. More eggs are used than in a brioche dough...and the recipe delays the addition of butter until after the first rise to enable the yeast to work to its full effect.”
-—Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 46-7)

“A baba is an open-textured, yeast-leavened cake, sometimes including raisins, and moistened with rum and sugar syrup. The first reference to it in English is by L.E. Ude, in French Cook (1828). Its origins, which are Polish, have been richly embroidered. It is said to have been invented by King Stanislas Leczinski, whose favorite reading was the Thousand and One Nights, and who consequently named his creation after the character Ali Baba. Less apocryphal, perhaps, is the story that it was introduced into Western Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the Parisian pastrycook Sthorer, who encountered it amongst members of the Polish court then visiting France. However that may be, the word itself represents Polish baba, literally ‘old woman’...”
-—An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 14)

“Baba au Rhum (Romovaya baba). Although the romovaya baba has been adopted into the classical French cuisine, its roots are Slavic, as it was created at the court of the deposed Polish king Stanislaw Leszczynski. The word baba is a pejorative term for “old lady” (the original shape of the cake was said to resemble an old woman in skirts), but the dessert’s whimsical moniker belies its true elegance.”
-—A Taste of Russia: Traditional Recipes from Russia, Darra Goldstein [Robert Hale:London] 1985 (p. 93)

[1828] Ude’s recipe
“Baba.
Dilute this paste the same as the brioche. Take eight grains of saffron, which infuse in a little water, and then pour out this water into the paste; add two glasses of Madeira, some currants, raisins, and a little sugar; then make the cakes as you do the brioches. You must butter the mould when you put them in; the oven must be moderately hot, as the babas must remain a long time in; after one hour you must look at them, and preserve the colour by putting some paper over them.”
-—The French Cook, Louis Eustache Ude, photoreprint of the 1828 ed. published by Carey, Lea and Carey, Philadelphia, [Arco Publishing:New York] 1978 (p. 406)

What is the relationship between baba and savarin?

“Savarin...is essentially an enriched yeast dough baked in a ring mould. A syrup with kirsch or rum is used to soak it whe cool, and the central hole may be filled with fruit or cream. There is also a solid, holeless form, mazarin, which is split and filled with cream. The savarin derived from the E. European baba, as naturalized in Alsace in the 18th century. What happened was that in the mid-or late 1840s one of the brothers Julien, Parisian patissiers, experimented with the baba in a slightly different form. He used the same dough, but removed the dried fruits and soaked the savarin in his own ‘secret’ syrup. He named his new confection in honour of the famous gastronomic writer Brillat-Savarin, although the name for it does not seem to have been recorded until the 1860s.”
-—Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 697)

Who was http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/brillat/savarin/b85p/part1.html";> Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin and what did he write?

[1869]
“Savarin.
Put 1 lb of sifted flour in basin;
Make a hole in the middle, and put in 1/2 oz. of German yeast, and 1/4 gill of warm milk; mix it with the flour immediately surrounding it, about one quarter of the whole quantity, to make the sponge, and stand the basin in a warm place;
When the sponge has risen to twice its original size, add 1 gill of warm milk and 2 eggs; work the contents of the basin with a spoon, and mix in another egg; then add 3/4 lb. of worked butter, 14 oz. salt, 1/2 oz. of sugar, and 1/2 gill more warm milk; continue working with a spoon, and adding one egg at a time, until 5 eggs have been used;
Cut 2 oz. of candied orange peel in very small dice, and mix it in the paste;
Butter a fluted cylinder-mould; strew a tablespoonful of chopped almonds on the butter, and half fill the mould with the paste; let it stand, and when it has risen to the top of the mould, put the savarin to bake in a moderate oven;
When done, turn it out of the mould; let it cool for twenty minutes; pour over it some syrup, flavoured with Anisette; and serve.”
-—The Royal Cookery Book, Jules Gouffe, translated from the French and Adapted for English by Alphonse Gouffe [Sampson, Low, Son, and Marston:London] 1869 (p. 503-4)

[1874]
“Savarin Cake.
Put one pound of dried and sifted flour into a pan, and make a hollow in the centre. Dissolve half an ounce of German yeast in a small quantitiy of warm milk, and set the sponge by pouring this into the hollow, and beating into it with the fingers about a quarter of the flour. Sprinkle four over the batter thus made, put the basin in a warm place, and let the sponge rise slowly to twice its size. Work into it with a spoon or with the right hand a quarter of a pint of warm milk and two eggs, and add gradually three-quarters of a pound of butter beaten to a cream, half an ounce of salt dissolved in a little warm water, two ounces of powdered sugar, the eighth of a pint additional milk, and three more eggs. Lastly, add two ounces of candied peel cut small. The additions should be made very gradually, the eggs being put in one at a time, and the preparation being beaten well until it leaves the sides of the bowl easily. Butter the inside of a fluted mould rather thickly, and sprinkle a table-spoonful of blanched and chopped almonds on the butter. Beat the paste up again, and half fill the mould with it; let it stand in a warm place till it has risen level with the top of the mould. Tie a broad band of buttered paper round the top of the mould, to keep the paste from running over the sides, and bake the cake in a moderate oven. When done enough, turn it out carefully, run a skewer into several parts of it, and our over and into it a thick syrup flavoured with curacoa or any other suitable liquer. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the surface, and send to the table warm. Time to bake, one hour or more. Probable cost, 3s., exclusive of the liquer. Sufficient for five or six persons.”
-—Cassell’s Dictionary of Cookery with Numerous Illustrations [Cassell, Petter, Galpin:London] 1874 (p. 837)

[1919]
French Coffee Cake (Savarin)

Related items? Bundt cake & gugelhopf, kulich, brioche & Sally Lunn.

Banana nut cake

This a very interesting food to research. Bananas have been around since the beginning of time. Sweet nut breads and cakes were eaten by the ancient Roman and Greeks. Who decided to combine these two foods? According to the food historians, banana bread is a relatively is a recent phenomenon. In the early 20th century bananas were very popular and were used in many recipes. Nut breads (also sometimes known as tea cakes, muffins) were likewise popular. The earliest banana-nut combinations recipes we find are for salads!

“Banana bread is said to have been invented by a Depression-era housewife in search of a way to make some extra money at home. It is curious that it took so long to discover, for since the 1930s, banana bread has taken its place on the menu in millions of homes. Grocery stores often provide customers with banana bread recipes when bananas have begun to brown, in a last-ditch attempt to sell their produce. Faced with overripe bananas, many cooks turned them into banana muffins or banana pancakes. Homemade banana bread is considered a thoughtful hostess present, good for breakfast, with a cup of coffee or tea, with lunch or dinner. In the twenty-first century, as fewer women have time to bake, banana bread is quick and easy, and it satisfies the urge to bake something fresh. There are even packaged banana bread mixes available for people without the time or inclination to mash their own bananas.”
-—Bananas: An American Story, Virginia Scott Jenkins [Smithsonian Institution Press:Washington] 2000 (p. 114-5)

ABOUT BANANAS & BANANA COOKERY

“It seems likely that edible bananas date back several thousand years in India. They were certainly known by repute to the Greeks in the 4th century BC, when the army of Alexander the Great encountered them on trees in India...”
-—Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 54-5) [NOTE] This book has an excellent history of bananas—ask your librarian to help you find it; there is no mention of the ancient peoples using bananas in their bread/cake recipes.

“Banana fritters with honey sweetened Napoleon’s last days on St. Helena, but the cookery writers of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries ignore the fruit entirely....exporting bananas was difficult because transport was so slow.”
-—History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat [Barnes & Noble:New York] 1992 (p. 668-680) [Ask your librarian to help you find this book too!]

“In The Notions of a Travelling Bachelor, James Fenimore Cooper listed bananas among tropical fruits as common as need be’ in New York markets during the 1830s. But the great popularity of the fruit in the United States had to wait until the improvement of refrigeration and transportation facilities, a generation or so after Captain Lorenzo Baker of Wellfleet in 1870 brought the first ship loaded exclusively with bananas into Boston harbor. Breads, pies, and cakes made with bananas—and cookies, too—were soon thereafter being turned out by innovative American cooks.”
-—American Food: The Gastronomic Story, Evan Jones, 2nd edition [Vintage Books:New York] 1981(p. 473)

“When bananas were broadly introduced in the 1880s, tableware designers and glass manufacturers quickly responded by producing special footed serving bowls, called banana bowls or banana boats...”
-—Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts: Dining in Victorian America, Susan Williams [Pantheon:New York] 1985 (p. 108)

Banana recipes began showing up in popular American Cookbooks in the 1880s. It is apparent that trendy Americans cooks were eager to include this new fruit in their meals. Most of the banana concoctions were simple adaptions of existing recipes. Mrs. Rorer’s New Cook Book, Sarah Tyson Rorer [1902] contains isntructions for fried bananas, baked bananas, sliced bananas, banana pudding and banana cake in a special section titled “Hawaiian Recipes.” Other cookbooks contain recipes for banana ice cream, bananas en surprise (mashed bananas with strawberries), fruit salads with bananas and, of course, Jell-O molds with bananas inside. The banana split was invented in 1904.

Banana nut bread eventually became a mainstream staple item [ie included in many popular American cookbooks] by the 1920s. This coincided somewhat with the mass marketing of baking powder/soda, ingredients used to create “quick breads” [breads that did not require yeast]. Food companies flooded the American consumer market with recipes [we have one from this Pillsbury’s Balanced Recipes [1933] to promote the use of their flour and baking soda products. Eventually these companies manufactured boxed mixes [instant cake mix was introduced in the late 1940s] for banana nut bread. You can still buy these today.

“Banana bread...It was as if an alien ray struck America from coast to coast. Suddenly, in the early sixties, everyone started baking banana bread. It was the strangest darned thing. After all, recipes for banana bread had been around for most of the century. And bananas, like kiwifruit, weren’t exactly new. What seems to have happened is that America rediscovered the joys of baking. While most breads required a certain level of skill, banana bread (which is really more of a cake than a bread) was a cinch...”
-—American Dish: 100 Recipes from Ten Delicious Decades, Merrill Shindler [Angel Press:Santa Monica] 1996 (p. 98)

American cookbooks printed in the 1960s bear this out. Not only was basic banana bread popular, but variations were featured. The Good Housekeeping Cook Book [1962] has recipes for banana-apricot, banana-date, banana-nut, banana-prune and banana-raisin breads (p. 332).

Mrs. Rorer’s Banana Cake [1902]

“Banana Cake
Beat to a cream a quarter of a cup of butter, add a half cup of sugar and one egg; when very light, stir in enough flour to make a stiff dough; roll into a thin sheet and line a square, shallow baking pan. Peel five good, ripe bananas, and chop them very fine; put them over the crust in a pan, sprinkle over a half cup of sugar, the pulp of five tamarinds soaked in a quarter of a cup of warm water; squeeze over the juice of two Japanese oranges, put over a tablespoonful of butter cut into pieces, a saltspoonful of mace, and two tablespoonfuls of thick cream. Grate over the top two small crackers, bake in a moderate oven a half hour, and cut into narrow strips to serve.”
-—Mrs. Rorer’s New Cook Book, Sara Tyson Rorer [Arnold and Company:Phildadelphia] 1902 (p. 697)

The earliest recipe we find for banana bread is dated 1933:

Banana nut bread
Recipe makes 1 large loaf, 8X4X2
Temperature: 350 degrees F.; Time: about 1 1/4 hours
2 cups Pillsbury’s Best flour
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup chopped nutmeats
1/2« Pillsbury’s Wheat Bran
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons thick sour cream
1 1/2 cup mashed bananas
1. Sift four, soda, salt and baking powder together; stir in nut meats and wheat bran.
2. Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
3. Combine mashed bananas and sour cream; add alternately with flour to first mixture.
4. Bake in a greased loaf pan lines with waxed paper, in a moderate oven.”
-—Balanced Recipes, Pillsbury Flour Mills Company, Minneapolis, MN [1933] (breads, recipe #3)

[1947]
Banana tea bread
1 3/4 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening
2/3 cups sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 to 3 bananas)
Sift together flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Beat shortening until creamy in mixing bowl. Add sugar gradually and continue beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat well. Add flour mixture alternately with bananas, a small about at a time, beating after each addition until smooth. Turn into a well-greased bread pan 81/2X41/2X3 inches) and bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) About 1 hour 10 minutes or until bread is done. Makes 1 loaf.
-—Chiquita Banana’s Recipe Book, United Fruit Company, North River, New York [1947] (p. 22)

Birthday cake

Cakes were eaten to celebrate birthdays long before they were called “birthday cakes.” Food historians confirm ancient bakers made cakes (and specially shaped breads) to mark births, weddings, funerals, harvest celebrations, religious observances, and other significant events. Recipes varied according to era, culture, and cuisine. Cakes were usually saved for special occasions because they were made with finest, most expensive ingredients available to the cook. The wealthier one was, the more likely one might consume cake on a more frequent basis.

The birthday cakes we enjoy today are inventions of the 19th century. These were enjoyed by middle and upper classes. People with less money and poorly stocked larders also made birthday cakes. Their were not quite the light, fluffy iced concoctions served by their wealthier contemporaries. In all places and times, cooks blessed with creativity and “make do” spirit generated some pretty fine foods in the name of love. This was also true in War time.

The practice of eating cake on a regular basis by “average people” became possible in the 19th century. Why? The Industrial Revolution made many baking ingredients more affordable (mass-production) and readily available (railroads). It also introduced modern leavening agents, (baking soda, baking powder), a variety of cheaper substitutions (corn syrup for sugar; margarine for butter), and more reliable ovens.

Cake history expert Simon R. Charlsey makes this observation:

“Birthday cakes might still in the nineteenth century be of the same kind [as wedding cakes], but as their use spread, their composition became typically simpler. For preference of the child or other person celebrating, or of the cook, or whatever the confectioner had used for a decorated shop cake.”
-—Wedding Cakes and Cultural History, Simon R. Charsley [Routledge:London] 1992 (p. 61)

“The dominant English culture in America shaped birthday patterns for some time. Colonial birthdays were enjoyed by privileged adults, who feasted well, or at the very least, shared a glass of wine and a small slice of fruitcake with friends. Children’s parties echoed the adult formats...In the new age of democracy, birthdays did not remain class-limited. As the nineteenth century progressed, a number of factors reshaped the events. The growth of industry, elevated urban material standards, and emering middle class culture amde more elaborate birthday celebrations increasingly attractive. Changing notions of the nature of childhood stimulated a new style of young people’s parties...Ice cream and cake became defining elements, whether after a meal or as the centerpiece of a party...Although fruitcakes and rich, yeasted cakes were the traditional English festive cakes, the modern form of birthday cake originated in American kitchens in the mid-nineteenth century. In contrast to their European counterparts, American women were active home bakers, largely because of the abundance of oven fuel in the New World and the sparsity of professional bakers. By the late 1800s, home bakers were spurred further by several innovations. The cast-iron kitchen stove, complete with its own quickly heated oven, became standard equipment in urban middle-class homes. Women in towns had more discretionary time, compared to farm-women, and they had an expanding social life that required formal and informal hospitality. Sugar, butter, spice, and flour costs were dropping. Improved chemical leavening agents, baking powder among them, enabled simpler and faster baking and produced a cake of entirely different flavor and texture. A cake constructed in layers, filled and frosted, became the image of the standard birthday cake. One observer of the early 1900s compared bubbly soap lather to “the fluffiness of a birthday cake” and snowy, frost covered hills to iced birthday cakes...Writing on birthday cakes began with professional bakers and caterers, who were proliferating in growing cities. The cakes of the late 1800s were decorated with inscriptions like “Many Happy Returns of the Day” and the celebrant’s name, a tradition that continues into the twenty-first century. Sometimes the cake was home-baked but then decorated by a specialist...The phrase “Happy Birthday” did not appear on birthday cake messages until the popularization of the now-ubiquitous song “Happy Birthday to You” (1910). Cookbook authors began to recommend decorating with birth dates and names and offered instruction on how to make colored frostings...By 1958, A.H. Vogel had begun to manufacture preformed cake decorations. Inexpensive letters, numbers, and pictorial images, such as flowers or bow, with matching candleholders were standard supermarket offerings.”
-—Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 99-100)

FerFAL, an Argentine who runs a blog on survival (called Surviving in Argentina!), said that actually small gold chains and rings are the most valuable form for gold. They have immediate value for others and are easy to carry and conceal. Argentina’s economy collapsed in 2001 after the gov’t defaulted on its debt and the populace swarmed Buenos Aires and drove the president De La Rua out of office. Of course that didn’t help and his successors have made things a lot worse.

His blog is here.

http://ferfal.blogspot.com

In his most recent post, FerFAL quotes SeekingAlpha, an excellent source for financial news. The writer he quotes talks about gold. I hope this helps.

FRIDAY, MAY 29, 2009
As the Dollar Continues to Collapse, Where Will You Put Your Money?
This is an article from seekingAlhpa. Though you guys might like it.
FerFAL

As the Dollar Continues to Collapse, Where Will You Put Your Money?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/139440-as-the-dollar-continues-to-collapse-where-will-you-put-your-money?source=hp_mostpopular

This piece follows a previous article, in which I warned against shorting equities — despite the fact that I believe the stock market is going to fall dramatically, at least in real terms (which I’ll again expand upon later). As usual, my cautious outlook prompted a flurry of emails from readers asking what they should be doing with their money in order to prepare for the impending firestorm of rising prices that will derive from the inflationary printing and unprecedented credit-easing governments worldwide are foisting on their citizens.

It’s important to note that, although I refer to “the” collapse of the dollar and Treasuries, these events are not going to happen in one minute, or one day, or even one week. Indeed, since I started writing about this scenario in December, the government has done so much to try to reverse the course of this trend, and yet the cracks have widened, and the dollar and Treasuries continue their inexorable march downward. Even though I don’t believe, however, there will be any particular event that will trigger the collapse, I do believe it will accelerate with time — ultimately exploding in a quick, catastrophic climax.

I am forever an analyst, but I am no longer an adviser or manager, and I want to encourage anyone investing money to do a prodigious amount of research before committing funds to anything – especially in this environment. Having said that, the best and safest place to start discussing my own opinions about capital allocation is to reiterate what you shouldn’t be investing in: stocks, Treasuries, and dollars. As I said in my last article, although the stock market may trade sideways or even go higher from here, once the consequences of the unparalleled governmental printing spree and credit-easing of the last few years finally do hit the economy, earnings and dividends growth — which are the main drivers of stocks – will never be able to keep pace with the inevitable and substantial inflationary price increases in the general economy.

This highlights what I consider to be the most dangerous part of this environment: your portfolio will appear to be going higher, but in real terms, you’ll be losing money – on a scale greater than, I believe, even that of the 1929 to 1932 collapse. The only thing I can imagine worse than watching the market fall the 90% or so that it did 80 years ago is watching a stock market rise in a period in which it is vastly underperforming inflationary price explosions. The drop from 1929 to 1932 may have been painful, but at least it was an honest market.

So where do you go to survive, or even to outperform?

SHORTING THE DOLLAR INDEX?

The dollar index is merely a gauge of the dollar against a handful of the rest of the world’s major currencies – leading to a general misperception that I call “currency relativity.” Unfortunately, the fact is that every other central bank on earth is employing the same quantitative easing principles as the U.S., and so their currencies are equally doomed. If you short the dollar index, you are merely taking a position that the dollar is going to be weak relative to other major currencies, and that probably isn’t going to be the case; they’re all trapped in the same burning house.

On a related note, you may want to pay attention to the fact that Treasuries and gold seem to be decoupling from their heretofore nearly direct inverse relationship with equities. What does this mean? Mainly, in my eyes, it decries the old notion that, just because the stock market goes down, people will run to Treasuries as a safe haven; apparently the so-called “risk-free” rate of return isn’t so risk-free anymore. Likewise, it would seem that, just because the stock market is going up, people aren’t necessarily dumping gold. And this lends credence to my theory that investors not only expect inflationary pressures to drive stocks higher in nominal terms (but not real terms), but also that, in order to really survive rising prices, gold is one of the best places to be.

REAL ESTATE?

Have we hit the bottom, and are prices going to rebound from here? My best guess is that, again in nominal terms, we are near a “bottom,” but as with the stock market, what does that mean? Yes, housing prices might rebound, but will those prices outperform inflationary pressure in the entire economy? Probably not. I will say this, however: when rates and prices are shooting skyward, having a personal residence with a relatively low interest-rate fixed-rate mortgage is a great position to be in – assuming you have a job, and you are going to be able to keep it. First, there’s the tax deduction on the mortgage interest. But more importantly, a fixed-rate is just that: fixed. Even as all other prices and rates move higher, the mortgage payment doesn’t – making it a progressively smaller part of a household budget.

To illustrate the way fixed-rate mortgages work with inflationary trends, think about the house your parents or grandparents bought for $20,000 several decades ago. Their monthly payment remained fixed at around $200 per month for thirty years, and yet their wages undoubtedly increased dramatically in that time. At the beginning, $200 was likely a hefty part of their budget, but toward the end, it was probably insignificant. Now, imagine how much that effect would be amplified by a hyper-inflationary economy – which, unfortunately, our government has all but guaranteed in the coming years. Remember, we all have to live somewhere, and if part of your cost of domicile is going toward equity, and the interest you’re paying is fixed — in an environment of rising rates and prices — well, I guess it doesn’t get much better than that. The alternative is to rent — and leases escalate with inflationary surges.

In general, however, the reason I believe housing won’t outperform inflation is that credit is all but gone; no matter what any of the pundits say on CNBC, the stark reality is that people can’t get loans. It doesn’t take much to recognize that if the consumer can’t borrow, then he can’t buy a house. And if that condition has become the status quo – and I believe it has – then what will drive the housing market?

COMMODITIES?

People call me a gold bug. I’m going on the record here — I am not a gold bug. I am, however, a huge fan of commodities right now — and gold is hovering near the top of my list. Gold has almost no industrial value, but I follow it anyway, because it is nearly a perfect metric for the anticipation of future inflationary price-increases. Why? Gold has a psychological component that it shares with almost no other thing on earth — it literally packs eons of historical consistency and value; people have always been passionate about gold, and it has unfailingly been the ultimate measure of economic and financial stability. As such, when people are frightened, they fly to the one thing that embodies that stability in order to protect wealth, and this means that gold will react to inflation faster and more accurately than just about anything else.

Further, its overall popularity means it is more liquid than other scarce metals and stones. All of these variables come together to convince me that, when the bottom falls out of the dollar and Treasuries, not only will gold keep up with prices, but it will outperform as people flock to its empirical safety. Remember: during a panic, everything tends to overshoot intrinsic value, to the upside and to the downside. Gold’s universal nature will undoubtedly put it at the head of the pack, all but guaranteeing an above-average rate of return – at least until everything stabilizes. Unfortunately, however, I think we are sitting on the cusp of a colossal crisis, the likes of which we’ve never seen. At this point, economic stabilization seems like little more than a distant dream.

For many of the same reasons I like gold, I also like oil and agriculture. Let’s face it — getting a loan these days is almost impossible for anyone, and farmers and oil-producers are no exceptions to this troubling rule. Yes, I understand a slowing economy means slowing demand for commodities. But demand for food and oil will not simply cease; 2 billion Chinese and Indians may not be buying at the Gap (GPS) this season, but they aren’t about to stop driving and eating. So — unlike gold — oil and agriculture do have practical aspects to their demand that ensure more than a mere “safe store of wealth.” As currencies falter, prices of oil and agriculture will keep pace; the fact that producers in these industries can’t borrow should limit supply in a world in which demand probably won’t fall all that significantly – relative to everything else. All this will almost certainly equate to better-than-average performance.

SHORTING TREASURIES?

Shorting long-term Treasuries at this moment may be my favorite investment of all time. I love how the Fed commits to buying $300 billion worth of 10- to 30-year Treasuries in order to keep down the long end of the yield curve, and yet those rates go up anyway. This is just more evidence that the United States government is rapidly losing its ability to manipulate the economy, as well as further testimony that now is the time to bet against the Fed, and to bet against it big. I know, I know, I’m a doomsday prophet and a conspiracy theorist. Believe me, I’ve heard it all. Try to remember, though — if you can see through that fog of skepticism and doubt — that people were also ridiculed for predicting the failures of the Roman, British, and Soviet empires. And yes, you are correct — anyone can make a general prediction, but timing is everything.

Let me be clear on this point, however: I am not making a vague prediction; I am predicting, specifically, that the dollar is going to weaken to the point of collapse – along with many other global currencies, and that it’s going to happen sometime in the next two years (probably sooner). Try to bear in mind that the U.S. has committed itself to almost $13 trillion just to battle this financial crisis alone, and that figure is 50% more than the government has spent on every single project, war, or undertaking since the country’s inception, in real dollars — combined.

Despite what you may or may not believe about my prediction, shorting long-end Treasuries continues to be a no-lose proposition. If by some miracle, the Fed manages to pull some proverbial rabbit out of its hat and fix this incomprehensible mess, then part of its solution, ipso facto, will necessarily be raising rates to maintain the integrity of the dollar. On the other hand, if my prediction is correct and the dollar fails, well, Treasuries are going to follow it all the way down. Yields have been hovering near all-time lows for months. There’s no place to go but up.

HOW DO YOU GET INVOLVED?

The obvious and inevitable question is: what vehicles offer the easiest and most practical way to participate in some of these moves? Until recently, the only way the average investor could profit from such events was to use futures contracts or to take physical positions, both of which are cumbersome, complicated, and involve a great deal of maintenance. Fortunately, however, times have changed. In recent years, many companies have introduced exchange traded funds (ETFs), some of which even offer two- or three-times leverage. There are a lot of them out there, and I again encourage you to do thorough research before diving headfirst into any investment vehicle. In my own portfolio, I am using some of these ETFs, which I have disclosed below.

Disclosures: Paco is long TBT, UGL, and DXO. He also holds U.S. dollars by necessity, pending the advent of private gold-backed currencies.
Posted by FerFAL at 11:26 PM 0 comments
Labels: investments

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