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Posted on Saturday, April 07, 2012 9:23 AM
I'm pretty much taking the weekend off to concentrate on a crucial chapter of "On the Road to Frogmore." If you're desperately hungry for something to read, you may want to drop over to my other blog, where I'm re-playing a little travelog and cookbook that I wrote several years ago as a Lions Club fundraiser. All week I've been talking about the kinds of "meat-and-three" meals you can find at noon in western Tennessee. Today, it's time for desserts. Enjoy! Find the recipes at http://ontheroadtofrogmore.blogspot.com/ |
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Posted on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 11:52 AM
Since
tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day, I thought you might enjoy a couple of Irish
recipes that Nellie Chase, heroine of Beyond All Price, picked up from the
Scotch-Irish members of the 100 Pennsylvania Regiment. CORNED
BEEF AND CABBAGE
Corned
beef is brisket, topside or silverside, which has been pickled
in brine. It is especially popular around Dublin. It is best
to soak a joint overnight to remove excess salt.
• 5 pound
joint of corned beef • 1 large
cabbage • bay
leaf • 2 large
onions • cold
water to cover • 2 large
carrots • ground
black pepper • 4
potatoes
Quarter
the cabbage and put aside. Peel and slice the other
vegetables. Cover the
meat with the water and bring to the boil. Skim the
surface, add the vegetables (except the cabbage),
the bay leaf and the pepper and simmer gently for 20
minutes. Add the
cabbage and cook for a further 30 minutes. Serve the
meat surrounded by the vegetables with additional
mashed potatoes AULD
REEKIE COCK-A-LEEKIE
This
is an old Scotch-Irish recipe much favored by soldiers for obvious
reasons.
• 5
ounces single-malt Scotch whiskey • 4 pints
water • 1
tablespoon dried tarragon • 1
teaspoon brown sugar • 1
3-pound boiling chicken, giblets removed • 3
slices streaky bacon, chopped • 1 pound
shin of beef • 2
pounds leeks, chopped (white and pale parts only) • 1 large
onion, chopped • salt
and pepper to taste • 8
prunes, pre-soaked
Mix the
whiskey with the water, tarragon and sugar. Place the
chicken, bacon and beef into a large bowl and pour the
whiskey marinade over. Leave to marinate overnight. Next day,
transfer mixture to a large soup pot. Add the leeks
(reserving one) and the onion, and season to taste. Bring
slowly to a boil, cover, and then simmer for 2 hours, or
until the bird is tender. Skim off excess fat from the
liquid. Remove
the chicken from the pot, skin, remove bones and cut
meat into pieces before returning to the pot (cut up the
shin of beef, if necessary). Add the prunes and remaining
sliced leek and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes. |
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Posted on Friday, January 27, 2012 10:17 AM
So much has been happening this week that I've fallen a day behind in my scheduled blog posts. Here's Thursday's entry featuring Civil War recipes. I'll catch up with "The Second Mouse" later today.
Nellie Chase’s inspiration to learn more about
cooking for an army on the move came during a train ride. At one relay station,
a group of volunteer women had set up an outdoor kitchen to provide hot,
home-cooked meals to the soldiers passing through. The following passage comes from Beyond All Price, Chapter 4. Looking around, she noted how the
soldiers, almost to a man, had perked up. They were smiling, laughing,
relaxing. Mentally Nellie made a note. I won’t be able to see the men fed like
this often, but I must try to come up with some sort of treat for them now and
then, she thought. I’ve heard an army marches on its stomach, but I never
realized how true that is. It took several hours for the baggage
handlers to unload the train and reload the Roundhead baggage onto wagons. Nellie
filled the time by chatting with the women who had provided their meal. One
gray-haired lady cheerfully introduced herself as the Widow Barlow. “I don’t
have anybody to cook for at home anymore,” she said, “so I enjoy getting the
chance here to put on some really big feeds. Who cooks for all these men when
they’re in their camps?” “Well, mostly they do their own cooking,
which isn’t good, I’m afraid. And at the moment I’m not much help. I can stir
up some broth for those who are sickly, but I don’t know what to suggest to the
men sitting around a campfire with nothing but a great big pot.” “I can help you there. Let me find a scrap
of paper and I’ll give you a couple of recipes that’ll fill their bellies.”
CABBAGE STEW
The Widow Barlow called this recipe “older
than dirt.” • One head green cabbage • Salt pork • Onions • Stewed tomatoes
• salt, garlic, pepper, ground red pepper
Cut the salt pork into small cubes. Slice the cabbage and onions
(approximately 1/2 & 1/2) If you use canned tomatoes, open the can.
If not, cook them well ahead of time. Fry the salt pork in a large, hot, cast
iron pot until well browned. (Do NOT drain). Turn the heat down. Add cabbage and cook
until wilted Add onions and cook until wilted.
Let cook approximately 1 hour (low fire). Add
tomatoes to more than cover. Simmer.
You can't really overcook this dish. The
flavors will blend nicely the longer it cooks. Add seasonings. Be sure to taste after
adding each time. It takes the seasoning a few minutes to make themselves known.
Better to add too little than too much. People can add more at the table if
they wish.
After approximately 2-3 hours, start
tasting. . . . It's the cook's sworn duty to taste test!! If you feel really
brave, offer a spoonful to someone else |
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Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2012 10:21 AM
Seems like I'm reading more and more posts from folks who are suffering from the January crud that is going around. Besides sympathy, I thought I'd offer you a couple of remedies I discovered while doing the research for Beyond All Price, the story of a Civil War nurse. They are designed to give you a laugh, not a cure.
DO NOT TRY THESE AT HOME!
COUGHS
Three cents' worth of liquourice; three cents' worth of rock candy; three cents' worth of gum arabic. Put them in a quart of water, simmer them till thoroughly dissolved; then add three cents' worth of paregoric, and a like quantity of antimonial wine. Let it cool, and sip whenever the cough is troublesome.
FEVER
Quinine is best, but there are many ways to substitute for it.
Raw corn meal unsifted and freshly ground, administered in doses of a large table spoonful six or eight times a day, or a tea made of fodder, is an admirable remedy in intermittent fever. The yellow corn is the better variety, and a drink made of a table spoonful of the meal stirred in a glass of water and taken frequently, is not only a good remedy but a pleasant and refreshing beverage, which may be taken in all stages of the disease without the slightest evil effects.
In the present scarcity of quinine, it is worth knowing that the berry of the common dogwood will break fever as successfully as quinine. One pill is a dose. There is also a plant in the country, known among the non-professional as "bone set," that is almost as good for chills or ague as quinine.
When any person is taken with ague and fever, let them take an emetic, after its operation take an active mercurial, say 4 grains of calomel, 4 grains of blue mass and one grain of ipecac made into two pills, the pills to be taken at an interval of 2 hours.
Then after its action eat a raw onion with salt, pepper and vinegar to suit the taste.
Notes:
Fodder tea, of course, is made from hay from the barn. Yummy!
Paragoric is a camphorated tincture of opium.
Antimonial wine contains tartar, and was used by the Romans to allow binge eating and purging. "Bone-set" is a common medicinal herb, probably OK unless you get it mixed up with its poisonous cousin. Blue mass was a pill or powder containing mercury.
Hey! Be grateful you have some 21st-century over-the-counter remedies!
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