Shrewsbury Cakewiches

Yesterday's Shrewsbury Cakes experiment was fascinating (to me, at least) because it felt like tasting the past.  Those of you who know about my past as an archaeologist (and the fact that I'm dating a historian) know that I have long been interested in recreating the past, and that's what I felt I was doing yesterday, albeit with some modern enhancements.  One of the things I couldn't get into in yesterday's post was the history of Shrewsbury Cakes themselves.  I mean, that post was already verging on novel-length, so it was a good thing I clipped it when I did.

Shrewsbury Cakes for as long as the eye can see.

Old-timey Cooking - Shrewsbury Cakes

Alright, friends, today is the day.  After all this research-cum-procrastination, today is the day I conduct my first old-timey cooking experiment from American Cookery.  Picking a recipe wasn't that straightforward - I don't eat a lot of meat, and even if I did, I'm not quite up to the task of something like Dreffing a Calves Head, Turtle Fafhion.  I'm not even really sure what that means, but anything that involves me messing around with a cow's brain is not going to happen (and especially not with the recent reports of mad cow disease in California).  So that cut out a lot of recipes right there.  Not the cow brains, per se, but the meat in general.

Another gratuitous shot of the flowers from Matt.  Not like I'm bragging.

Of the baking recipes, I don't have the leavener needed for her cookies and many of her breads.  This is a solvable problem, but I haven't yet solved it.  For the cookies, Amelia uses pearl ash to create carbon dioxide in her recipes, thus getting a rise out of her cookies and cakes.  Pearl ash was an early precursor to the baking soda and baking powder we use today, but the chemical properties of it are different so substituting baking soda in Amelia's recipes won't quite do the trick.  For her other bread recipes, Amelia calls for something called "emptins" as the leavener.  She also describes how to make emptins: Take a handful of hops and about three quarts of water, let it boil about fifteen minutes, then make a thickening as you do for ftarch, ftrain the liquor, when cold put a little emptins to work them, they will keep well cork'd in a bottle five or fix weeks."  Since Matt's semester is over, I think he'll start brewing again, so the next time we go to the brewery supply store I can pick up some extra hops to make the emptins.  But until then, I have neither pearl ash nor emptins.  Many other early recipes call for beating by hand "for an hour" to incorporate air into the batter.  Unsurprisingly, that is not appealing.

Pineapple Pavlova

Matt and I spent the afternoon in Back Bay Saturday - we did some window shopping, I failed at actual shopping, and we spent some time in the Boston Public Library.  The Library is awesome, by the way.  There's a beautiful courtyard in the middle that seems like the perfect place to sip a cup of coffee while you read your new favorite book.  Our library trip was pretty successful - I checked out three new books that I've spent the rest of the afternoon flipping through and dreaming about what to make.  Here's what I know for sure:  We are totally making Thomas Jefferson's ice cream recipe (found in The Founding Foodies: How Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin Revolutionized American Cuisine.  Once again, we will learn that Ben Franklin invented everything.).  Jefferson also has an asparagus recipe with raspberry vinaigrette that Matt has requested (with raspberries!  He wants raspberries!  I tried to conceal my excitement about this.  I love raspberries!). 

We also checked out A Colonial Plantation Cookbook: The Receipt Book of Harriott Pinckney Horry, 1770.  A quick flip through reveals a lot of similar recipes to Amelia Simmons, and something called "Water Cake" that requires an hours worth of beating.  I might try to speed that process up.  And last but not least, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat's award-winning History of Food.  This was originally published in French, and as such, has more of a Continental feeling than my other early cookbook research.

Pineapple Pavlova - yum!

Leftover Thursday - Lemon Roasted Vegetables

Around about Thursday is when my dinner planning stops.  There are usually some leftover ingredients in the fridge that need to be used, and caution is thrown to the wind.  And that's where I found myself this afternoon, facing a half-full (or half-empty, depending how you look at it) container of mushrooms, a lemon that was nearing the end of its prime, half a bunch of collard greens, part of a head of broccoli, and two chicken breasts.  There are probably about a million combinations of those ingredients that would result in a delicious dinner (or, you know, at least ten), but this is the one I came up with.  

And don't worry, y'all - my new found love of early American cooking is still going strong.  Early Americans had a variety of poultry and fowl available to them, and Amelia Simmons has this general advice for the homecook choosing a bird: "Having before ftated that the female in almost every inftance, is preferable to the male, and pecularily fo in the the Peacock, which, tho' beautifully plumaged, is tough, hard, ftringy and untafted, and even indelicious - while the Pea Hen is exactly otherwife, and the queen of all birds."  I'm not even going to touch that "ladies are better than gents" statement, or make a broader analogy about peacocks or anything.  Though it would certainly be easy to do...

American Cookery, the first cookbook published in America by an American. 

Stuffed Bell Peppers

Yesterday's brief research into the history of brownies got me thinking about how cool it would be to focus this blog on the histories of different foods and/or recipes, particularly in American cooking.  As I noted yesterday, the Michigan State library has an online collection of old cookbooks (here).  Anyway, I spent some time tooling around their catalog today, and found what is generally credited to be the first American cookbook - Amelia Simmons' American Cookery, or the art of dressing viands, fish, poultry, and vegetables, and the best modes of making pastes, puffs, pies, tarts, puddings, custards and preserves, and all kinds of cakes, from the imperial plum to the plain, adapted to this country, and all grades of life.  That title just rolls off the tongue. 

First published in 1798 - a full 20 years after the Revolutionary War began - the cookbook was the first to be written by an American using American ingredients, although many of her recipes were borrowed from British cookbooks of the time.  Her cookbook is truly unique, though, in its use of New World ingredients, which at that time were uncommon in Britain.  Crops like corn, squash, and bean (known as the Three Sisters), as well as Jerusalem artichokes and cranberries, are featured in her cookbook but were harder to come by for the average Brit. Besides shedding light on early American cookery, Simmons' book also provides a glimpse into the development of a national identity, and particularly the role of women in America - indeed, she writes that her "treatife is calculated for the improvement of the rifing generation of Females in America."  (Oh those crazy early Americans, using f's in place of s's when they feel like it!)  She was the one to emphasize Females, by the way, not me.  For what it's worth. 

What would Amelia Simmons do?

Brownies

A person's preference in brownies can say a lot about that person.  Cakey, fudgy, with nuts, without, and the most important distinction - from scratch or not.  While I know people who swear by a boxed mix, I'm clearly going for a scratch made brownie, and I like them without nuts and the perfect balance between fudgy and cakey.  I made brownies today, mainly to satisfy a cute boyfriend who was sad that the cookies I made the other day were being shipped to a brother.  I've been making pretty much the same recipe for years, with minor changes here and there, and I'm not necessarily looking to change that routine.  But it makes me wonder: who came up with the (brilliant idea of) brownies, and what were they originally like?

Step 1: Heat butter, sugar, and water.

The Muffin Man

Matt is one of those people who doesn't eat breakfast.  I don't understand those people, since I basically wake up hungry, but he doesn't seem to have that problem.  I never knew this about him until I got laid off and am home in the mornings now.  Before, I'd leave for work while he was still asleep (ah, the life of a grad student), so I had no idea how he sustained himself in my absence (and I still don't know that).  No breakfast certainly doesn't work for me - I get cranky, and quickly - but I guess it works for him.  Until now (mwahahahaha). 

I've become something of a breakfast-pusher, and muffins are my gateway breakfast food.  Everyone loves a muffin, right?  And since his last assignment for the semester is due today, I thought some warm homemade muffins would be just the thing to help him cross the finish line!  I mean, that would totally work for me. 

What he really wants in the morning.

Dumpling soup

I don't know about where you are, but it's been pretty miserable outside here all day.  Cool, almost cold, and rainy - not the kind of day you want to spend outside.  Thanks, Nor'easter! 

Matt took this picture.  You can't tell how wet those boots are, but they are.

What it is, though, is the perfect day for soup.  A hot, tasty, filling soup to eat while curled up on the couch watching Ghostbusters 2, for example.   Or you know, something else, whatever.  I'm not judging.

The inspiration for this soup was Matt suggesting wonton soup for dinner, and me remembering that I had some dough in the freezer from when I made dumplings a few weeks back that needed to be used up.  One of my roommates a few years back gave me her recipe for Chinese dumplings (Jiaozi), which she also patiently walked me through.  Mine have never turned out as neat as hers, but they taste good! 

Cookie of the Month - Vanilla Sablés

I love giving people gifts, but am horrible at figuring out what to get them.  I've tried to espouse my dad's gift giving philosophy, which is that the perfect gift is one that the receiver doesn't even know he or she wants, or something they'd like but would never buy for themselves.  I'm not saying I always achieve such gift-giving perfection, but it's the goal.

A few years ago, it was a couple of days before Christmas and I could not think of something to get my younger brother.  Clothing seemed so uninspired, and his hobbies are technical enough that I can't just go out on my own without his guidance.  One of his favorite things about Christmas is that it is the one time of year he gets his favorite cookies - peppermint candy cane cookies from an old Betty Crocker cookbook my mom has.  "You know," he said to me while I was busy baking said cookies, "if you ever don't know what to get me, you could always make me cookies." And he plopped one in his mouth as he walked out of the kitchen.

Fiddleheads!

Today's adventure in cooking was pretty simple - garlicky fiddlehead ferns atop a hodge-podge, kitchen sink kind of salad.

I don't actually know that much about fiddleheads, but I do know that they are baby ferns and are delicious.  They taste kind of like a cross between green beans and asparagus tips, I think.  Part of what I like about fiddleheads (most of what I like about them?) is the name.  Fiddlehead Fern.  Besides the alliteration, I think it makes a great insult.  "You broke a glass?? You're such a fiddlehead!" Also, they don't look like fiddles or heads, so I'm not sure where the name came from.  It should have been a Coffee Talk skit - the fiddlehead is neither a fiddle nor a head.  Talk amongst yourselves.

Anyway, Matt tasted them and said, "It tastes like a vegetable." 

Collards with Black Eyed Peas

After a scorching couple of days earlier this week, it finally cooled down and I was able to do a little cooking/baking without melting. Yesterday I made homemade cheez-its (yum) and today I baked a new oatmeal cookie recipe and made collard greens and stuffed chicken rolls for dinner. The recipe for the collards is inspired by my mom's hoppin' john recipe, and surprisingly, seems to be one of Matt's favorite veggie dishes.  People don't usually go for collards right off the bat - I mean, I did, but I grew up in the South - but he often requests this when I ask him what kind of veggies he wants.  When I don't ask him, we have broccoli. 

 

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog, aptly titled The Kitchen's a Mess.  To be honest, the rest of the house is a mess, too, but I'd rather not advertise that.

I'm envisioning this as a place to combine my interests in writing, cooking, and photography, and as a more productive time-suck than re-reading the latest Us Weekly.  I am neither a professional cook nor a professional photographer (though I have been a professional writer), so I can't really vouch for those aspects of this adventure.  Hopefully that semester of photography in college will amount for something.  I have mixed feelings starting this, since I'm pretty sure the last thing the world needs is another cooking blog, and I don't know that that I have anything insightful or clever to say.  But in an effort to keep myself gainfully occupied while being unemployed, I figure this as good of an activity as any.

A few weeks ago, also in an effort to occupy myself, I started going through my cookbooks and making a list of recipes that I want to make and of ones that I've already made.  My list of "To Make" already has over 200 recipes on it (majority of which are cookies, I think).  So that got me thinking.  I enjoy baking much more than I enjoy cooking, and I think that is because if I had my druthers, I'd eat baked goods all day.  The sweet tooth is strong in this one.  Which is not to say that I don't enjoy cooking, because I really do, and I do a lot of it.  But here's the difference: when it comes to cooking, I rarely follow a recipe to the letter or at all.  I use recipes more of guidelines or suggestions when cooking, and read recipes more for inspiration than for direction.  So what that means is that our dinners are usually pretty simple - a few ingredients, nothing too complicated, often dictated by either what is in season or what we have around the house.  This is definitely not how I approach baking, even things that I could bake in my sleep.  I always look at the brownie recipe, even though I've definitely got it memorized.  So part of this effort to list all the things I want to make is an attempt to expand my repertoire in the cooking department.  We'll see how that goes. 

First post complete!  Yay!