Tag Archives: food

Holiday Sweets with Pet Milk 

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By Anthony Murisco, Public Engagement Librarian 
 
Despite the name, Pet Milk isn’t for your furry friends! Formerly the Helvetia Milk Condensing Company, the company broke ground in Highland, Illinois in 1885. For years, they would be the standard for canned and condensed milk. If their own words are to be believed, they may have even given whole milk a run for their money.  

Pet Milk’s messaging made them seem like the All-American brand of milk. They were there when future President Teddy Roosevelt fought alongside other soldiers in the Spanish-American War. The canned beverage was available for our troops overseas during both great wars. What was more American than providing nourishment and daily vitamins for these heroes? When they returned, seeing the brand name in their cupboard or on the store shelves could trigger strength and loyalty. Milk was the drink of choice with the average American’s dinner. It’s no wonder that the brand had garnered such popularity! 

The 1932 Pet Cookbook comes after two huge American events; the end of World War I and the Great Depression. In their introduction, Pet Milk boasts of “a valuable new quality,” the addition of vitamin D. An essential vitamin, it prevents rickets in children. Despite this priceless addition, the company reminds readers—in big font—that; “the cost of Pet Milk has not been increased because of the extra sunshine vitamin D it now contains.” As Americans struggle amidst an economic downfall, the values of an American company remain true to their customers.  

The cookbook is a masterpiece of marketing and nutrition. Each recipe inside specifically calls for Pet Milk. This was done not only because they put out the recipe book, they assure you, but because their product is unlike other kinds of milk, including “ordinary whole” milk. With milk being “one of the most important of all our items of food,” or even “the most nearly perfect food,” you want to be sure you are choosing the right kind! The vitamins contained in a serving of Pet Milk span the alphabet. This isn’t the case with any other milk, they claimed. The company speaks of the importance of “irradiated” milk: using ultra-violet rays to provide an extra dose of Vitamin D.  

The company claims that typical whole cow’s milk could vary in taste, while Pet Milk’s provides uniform taste. For that reason, they believe it should be the standard to use in recipes. Don’t believe their words? Pet Milk boasts of the “melt-in-your-mouth texture” that stems from making candy with their product and tells you why. The photomicrograph on the left shows fewer numbers and larger crystals when making candy with regular milk. The image on the right shows what happens when you make candy with Pet Milk. Smaller crystals, and more of them, results in an eruption of flavor for your taste buds. The company was so confident in their science that it appeared almost verbatim two years later in a holiday- themed recipe book.  

Candies may be one of the most “desirable” gifts for your “holiday entertaining.” It’s not just for the younger ones! “Sweet-toothed” adults also appreciate getting treats during the holiday season. Brand loyalty is important here, Pet says. Your family will taste the difference when you make your holiday sweets with Pet Milk. And of course, you’re providing them with all the added nutrients you’ve come to expect!  

Any of these recipes featured can be replicated today. Pet Milk may not have the panache it once had but it is still available. Other brands of condensed milk can also be substituted. We cannot confirm or deny whether the lack of “flavor crystals” will impact the taste. You might want to make a couple batches just in case….  

If you can somehow manage to save some of these delicious candies for gifting, you’ll want to dress them up a bit. Pet Milk provides some suggestions for how you’ll want to give these out. Head over to your local “ten-cent store” for various containers to put them in. You can get creative here. For an added look, “flowers” made of cellophane-wrapped candies can be draped on top.  

From all of us at the New York Academy of Medicine Library, we wish you a happy and healthy holiday season. Seasons’ eatings!  

References:  
“Our History,” PET Milk, https://www.petmilk.com/history, accessed December 15, 2023. 

Pet Milk Company. Candies. St. Louis, Mo.: Pet Milk Co., 1934. 
 
Pet Milk Company. The Pet cookbook: 700 cost-saving recipes for better food / tested and approved by Good Housekeeping Institute. St. Louis, Mo.: Pet Milk Co., 1932.  

A Summer Script for Relaxation

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by Anthony Murisco, Public Engagement Librarian

Relaxation is just what the doctor ordered! Specifically, Dr. George S. Stevenson of the National and International Association for Mental Health. In his book, How to Deal with Your Tensions (1957), he says that “anxiety and tension” are essential parts of being alive. If we did not experience these feelings, we wouldn’t be equipped to manage the high or low-intensity situations we experience day to day.  It is indeed an anxious time. We face threats such as climate change and the spread of misinformation. Writing in 1957, Dr. Stevenson spoke of real high tensions his society faced, “While it is true that we live today under pressure of intense competition, economic uncertainty, and the possibility of war…” Stevenson continued, “our ancestors faced other perils of equal magnitude.” It is important to realize each generation has its own struggles. 

The title page of How To Deal With Your Tensions by George S. Stevenson, MD. It carries the seal of approval from the National Association for Mental Health. The emblem for that is a large bell with MH inscribed on it.

Dr. Stevenson produced eleven tenets for dealing with our feelings. These range from “Talk It Out” to “Shun the ‘Superman’ Urge’ to “Give the Other Fellow A Break.” We know these ideas but hearing them prescribed feels different.

One of Stevenson's tips. This says "7. Shun the "Superman" Urge" and features a balding man with glasses and a pipe wearing a costume similar to Superman. His hands are at his sides in classic Superman fashion.

The two that we want to focus on are #2, “Escape for a While,” and #11, “Schedule Your Recreation.” His ideas of escape are not necessarily jetting off to an island vacation! You can find escape by “[losing] yourself in a movie or a book or a game.” Even a “brief trip or change of scene” can make you feel relaxed. Public parks are beautiful places to go for a stroll. 

Scheduling recreation is sometimes hard—especially for an adult. When  we are younger, we get scheduled vacation. The summer is ours! As adults, we have more responsibilities. As Dr. Stevenson mentioned, we don’t have to schedule a week-long trip! We can buy tickets in advance to the latest blockbuster or art-house film. We can schedule an hour or two before bed to transport ourselves with the help of a book. 

Another of Stevenson's steps is "11. Schedule your recreation." This image features a woman making a ship in a bottle. She stands next to an array of tools while she places a tiny tool into the bottle. It looks as though she has almost finished the project.

This summer we asked, “How are you recharging?” We want to hear what recreation and relaxation you have been taking part in. Dr. Stevenson has spoken of the benefits but so have others. 

In 1924, Joseph Ralph, a psychologist and psychoanalyst, declared that he had found the fountain of youth. It was not in some unobtainable secret cave, and he was not going to keep it to himself. The secret to still being young was electronic relaxation, a method of inducing tension.

The title page of "The Man Who Stopped Growing Old." This features a portrait of the subject, Jason Ralph. It identifies him as well as his profession of psychologist and psycho-analyst.

Ralph declared that the secret to eternal youth lived in the cell’s protoplasm. Through wear and tear, the protoplasm becomes weak, causing us to age. The agent responsible was not our physicality but instead our mental conflicts. Our intense emotional reactions cause the protoplasm inside the cells to harden. If hardened, they can no longer provide us with the energy we need. He deduced that this is why we acted “older.”  By creating tension, Ralph believed the protoplasm was being stretched and worked out like a muscle.

Even your insurance company wants you to relax! Metropolitan Life Insurance gave advice in their pamphlet “Relax and Revive.” In comparing the body to the mechanical machines, we use daily, they remind us that “extra care avoids shutdowns.”

The title page for Relax and Revive by Met Life. The font is turquoise.

Whether we get a day, a whole weekend, or the entirety of a season, it’s important to carve out time for yourself. As Met Life put it, “How you use your precious hours of leisure is of the greatest importance in keeping yourself fit, and in fighting the good fight on the home front.” To take care of what you need to take care of, you have to start with yourself.

Like Dr. Stevenson, the insurance company wanted you to figure out what works best for you. Besides the typical ways we think of recreation, the pamphlet stated that perhaps just sitting there is what works for you! “Maybe idleness is your recreation. That’s all right too.”

An image of a man showing the fish that he and his son caught to his neighbor. The two adult men are separated by a fence. The boy has climbed the fence to proudly speak with his dad.

While we all may have ideas of what recreation is, it looks different for all. We wanted to share how people have been relaxing so far this summer. We’ve gotten pictures, postcards, and stories from fellow NYAM staff, friends, family, and patrons. We thank everyone for their responses so far.

The staff here at NYAM filled out beautiful New York City—centric postcards. They relayed their goals for the summer, which included personal goals (vacations, exercise, spending time with family and pets, and of course, recovery), as well work goals (planning notable events, organizing office space, and remembering to respond to emails on time).

A colorful illustrated postcard of times square. The iconic yellow taxi rides through the street. Marquees for Broadway productions illuminate the sky. They are Phantom of the Opera, West Side Story, Hair, and South Pacific.

We even got a response from a friend of a famous 100-foot-tall ape…

A response that reads "This summer I am climbing the Empire State Building with a giant gorilla."

Parks are always fun to visit during the summer. This one comes from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, one of 63 with that distinction.

A scan of a postcard from Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This shows the Painted Canyon. The canyon appears very yellow.

Indiana seems like a popular destination this summer. Three of our postcards come from different parks there.

Rachel visited Wolf Park and talked about the different wildlife she saw there, including foxes, turtles, and of course, wolves! She mentioned how the park gave her tips on how to help the wildlife there and in the larger environment.

A scan of a postcard from wolf Park. Three wolves are howling to the left. There is another wolf who is howling to the right,.

Megan went on a trip to Turkey Run State Park in Indiana where she went on a hike for her recent birthday. She loved being in nature with her sister and best friends.

A scan of a postcard from Turkey Run State Park. It shows a walking bridge surrounded by green trees.

Our Historical Collections Librarian sent a postcard from a road trip she took. One of her stops brought her to the Indiana Dunes National Park. There she got to walk along the Lake Michigan Shoreline!

A scan of a postcard from Indiana Dunes National Park. It is the shoreline of Lake Michigan. The sun is setting right in the middle.

One of our patrons, Dr. Sharon Packer, sent us these photos from Bearsville, New York. The pictures remind us of the beauty and therapeutic power of relaxing in our natural environment. For those in a big city, it’s nice to get away for a bit. We are lucky to live only a train ride away from such different scenery. There also looks to be delicious home cooking! Both making and eating are perfect relaxation practices.

A photo with a blooming pink flower in frame. Behind it is a small, shy brown dog looking at the camera.
A delicious looking quiche that is set in front of a red barn. The quiche has cut scallions on top.

We don’t want to scare you; the summer is not over yet! With that, we are still collecting postcards and pictures.

Postcards/letters can be sent to:
Attn – NYAM Library
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10029

Or you can always e-mail us at: librarysocial@nyam.org.

We look forward to hearing from you! And more importantly, we hope you are having a relaxing summer.

A large pink flower is in focus.

References:
Harris, Antron. The Man Who Stopped Growing Old : Joseph Ralph, Psychologist and Psycho-analyst, Discoverer of the Electronic Relaxation Method of Mental and Physical Rejuvenation. B.F. Tibby, 1924.

Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Relax and Revive. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 1920?.

Stevenson, George S. How to Deal with Your Tensions. National Association for Mental Health, c1957.

Cooking Our Collection: Pi Day 2023

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By Anthony Murisco, Public Engagement Librarian

My name is Anthony Murisco. I am the Public Engagement Librarian here at NYAM. A few weeks back, we celebrated Pi Day by baking a couple of pies. I wanted to share my own experience.

For those who may not know or need a refresher, Pi is a mathematical constant. The symbol π, the Greek letter for P, represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The ratio will always be π. When written out, π is approximately 3.14. π is an irrational number, whose decimal form continues forever, which is why a shorter form is used. Hence March 14, 3/14, is known as Pi Day.

Pi Day is a celebration of all things mathematical as well as that certain baked good. Pi and pie not only share a name but are both circular. While the holiday may have earlier origins, the first recorded celebration was heralded by physicist Larry Shaw in 1988. When discussing the “mysteries of pi” with a colleague, he realized the irrational number has some rationality to it! In an effort to make learning math fun, he conducted the first Pi Day celebration with his class. The event, now celebrated by math enthusiasts all over, includes reciting the value of π to as many decimal places as one can, a real memorization challenge, and of course, pie tasting.

An illustrated image of chef's working in a kitchen in a hotel.
From The encyclopædia of practical cookery (1898) by Theodore Francis Garrett

What better way to celebrate than by baking a pie? This year, this was my task. The New York Academy of Medicine Library has a plethora of recipe books, some more than 200 years old. A selection of these books has been shared before, on social media, in this very blog, and even on our digital exhibition. Here was one of the first attempts of our staff making a dish!

After searching through several books and finding only savory recipes, our Historical Collections Reference Librarian, Arlene Shaner, discovered what I was looking for. In the 1824 edition of The Virginia house-wife lay a recipe for simply “Apple Pie.”

An advertisement payed for by The Apple Growers of America. A blonde woman is holding up an apple. The caption reads "For weight control... a tasty appetite-appeaser."

Mary Randolph first published The Virginia Housewife in 1824. Its popularity led to several editions and reprints. The Virginia housewife, or Methodical Cook was the first of its kind, a published manual of recipes and housekeeping tips that would later surge and create an industry. This was the perfect book to make a pie from.

Title page of the 1824 edition of The Virginia house-wife by Randolph.
Title page of the 1824 edition of The Virginia house-wife by Randolph.

The book featured three different recipes. Only one specified that it was a pie. Arlene predicted that the second recipe was for pie filling. She is an experienced baker. She went with that one. I had never baked a pie before. I didn’t want to do anything wrong. I stuck with Randolph’s “Apple Pie.”

I looked at the recipe to make a list of ingredients. Apples. Cloves. It called for “powdered sugar.” And rose water. I stopped by my local pop-up market and got four large red delicious apples. Each looked almost double the size of a single apple. Surely this would be enough! Powdered sugar and whole cloves were easy to get. It wasn’t on my list but, I opted for a pre-made crust. While I know that pre-made is not ideal, I had never made a crust before. I would have needed even further directions! If store-bought is fine for Ina Garten, it would be good enough for me. The rose water ended up being the most elusive ingredient in my neighborhood. After several failed shopping trips, I contemplated looking up replacements. I ended up finding rose water downtown at a hip chain grocery store.

Having never baked like this before, I tried to stick exactly to the recipe. The years of doing mail-in meal services will do that to you! Without the exact measurements, I was left a little confused—how would I know how much to use?

Three recipes from page 152. Apple Pie. Baked Apple Pudding. A Nice Boiled Pudding cuts off at the end.
Two of the pie recipes. Notice how the second is not specifically stated as a pie!

The Virginia House-wife and other older cookbooks are not specific with their instructions. There’s a notion that you have some culinary instinct if you are reading it. The recipes are a supplement to your knowledge. Randolph did not foresee someone like me, a beginner, taking on the challenge.

A picture of a pie crust in process of being filled with apples, cloves, and powdered sugar.

During the filling of the crust, I noticed, two apples in, that I should have gotten more apples. I’ve seen pies filled before with an arrangement of the fruit, a kind of beautiful Busby Berkeley dance. This was not my case. Still, I used what I had! While the apples didn’t fill the pie completely, it wasn’t as empty as I had feared.

The pie completed before it was baked. On top is the pi symbol carved in.
Ready to be baked!

When I discussed my experience with Arlene, she told me that the powdered sugar I used was the wrong ingredient. Powdered sugar today is not the same as it was then. In the past, you would get a loaf of sugar, scrape off what you needed, and “powder” the cake that way. It was more akin to granulated sugar today. Modern-day powdered sugar, or confectioners’ sugar, quickly dissolves and tends to absorb the moisture. Though the pie tasted good, I had given it a different spin. I think that may have been Randolph’s goal. She doesn’t want to tell you exactly how to bake or cook, she just gives you some general directions.

The finished product.

While it may not have looked the best, that didn’t matter. The pie I made was tasty. The powdered sugar dried up some of the apples. I also put too many cloves. This led to quite a spicy taste.

Since 2020, Dr. Rachel Snell, a historian, has been working her way through The Virginia house-wife. Using two editions, 1824 and 1838, she created “The Virginia Housewife Project” to explore the recipes while investigating ideas of domesticity and the history of each recipe. I wish I had seen her blog prior to making the pie, so I could have prepared a little more!

I hope to be able to share more of these recipes in the future. In the meantime, please check out our digital collection of cookbooks. Maybe something will inspire a course for your dinner tonight!

A piece of Arlene's baked apple pudding pie.
A piece of Arlene’s finished baked apple pie.


References:

Berton, Juston. “Any way you slice it, pi’s transcendental,” San Francisco Chronicle (11 March 2009) https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Any-way-you-slice-it-pi-s-transcendental-3169091.php, accessed 27 March 2023.

Randolph, Mary. The Virginia house-wife. Washington : Davis and Force, 1824.

Snell, Rachel A. “The Virginia House-wife Project” https://virginiahousewifeproject.com/, accessed 27 March 2023.

Valentine’s Day Cards from NYAM

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by the NYAM Library Team

On February 14th we observe Valentine’s Day!

Our previous blog posts on this commercial holiday highlighted both cards created for Valentine’s Day as well as trading cards from our collection. At the close of the 19th century, improvements in printing allowed for cheaper goods and paper cards for friends, lovers, and families to send written sentiments.

These early cards varied from caricatures of their subjects and beautifully drawn miniscule script, to what we now think of as Valentine’s Day cards – humorous or sentimental acknowledgements.

To celebrate this year, we have created six of our own Valentine’s Day cards featuring images from our collections. One is for the celebration of the popular Galentine’s Day, a celebration of friendship.

Feel free to print out and share with your loved ones!

From Sei sparsam!… by Anny Wothe (Leipzig, 1900.)
From Historiæ animalium... by Conrad Gessner (Zurich, 1551.)
From Illustrated Natural History of the Three Kingdoms…edited and compiled by A. B. Strong (New York, 1853.)
From Illustrated Natural History of the Three Kingdoms…edited and compiled by A. B. Strong (New York, 1853.)
From De motu cordis et aneurysmatibus… by Giovanni Maria Lancisi (Neapoli, 1738.)
From Ryzon Baking Book compiled and edited by Marion Harris Neil (New York, 1917.)

The History of Garlic: From Medicine to Marinara

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Today’s guest post is written by Sarah Lohman, author of Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine (Simon & Schuster, 2016). On Monday, June 5, Lohman will give her talk, “The History of Garlic: From Medicine to Marinara.” To read more about this lecture and to register, go HERE.

Ms. Amelia Simmons gave America its first cookbook in 1796; within her pamphlet filled with sweet and savory recipes, she makes this note about garlic: “Garlickes, tho’ used by the French, are better adapted to the uses of medicine than cookery.” In her curt dismissal, she reflected a belief that was thousands of years old: garlic was best for medicine, not for eating. To add it to your dinner was considered the equivalent of serving a cough syrup soup.

There are records of ancient Greek doctors who prescribed garlic as a strengthening food, and bulbs were recovered from Egyptian pyramids. Garlic was being cultivated in China at least 4,000 years ago, and upper class Romans would never serve garlic for dinner; to them, it tasted like medicine.

In medieval Europe, garlic was considered food only for the humble and low.  While those that could afford it imported spices like black pepper from the Far East, lower classes used herbs they could grow. Garlic’s intense flavor helped peasants jazz up otherwise bland diets. It was made into dishes like aioli, originally a mixture of chopped garlic, bread crumbs, nuts and sometimes stewed meat. It was intended to be sopped up with bread, although it was occasionally served as a sauce to accompany meats in wealthier households.

woodville_medicalbotany_garlic_1790_Watermark

Garlic (Scientific name Allium Sativum) from Medical Botany (1790) by William Woodville.

The English, contrary to the stereotype about bland British cooking, seemed particularly enchanted by garlic. In the first known cooking document in English, a vellum scroll called The Form of Cury, a simple side dish is boiled bulbs of garlic. Food and medicine were closely intertwined in Medieval Europe, and garlic was served as a way to temper your humors. Humors were thought to be qualities of the body that affected on your health and personality. Garlic, which was thought be “hot and dry,” shouldn’t be consumed by someone who was quick to anger, but might succeed in pepping up a person who was too emotionally restrained. According to food historian Cathy Kaufman, a medieval feast might have a staggering amount of different dishes, all laid on the table at one time, so that different personality types could construct a meal that fit their humors.

Up through the 19th century, people also believed you got sick by inhaling bad air, called “miasmas.” Miasmas hang out by swamps, but also by sewage, or feet–I always imagined them as the puddles of mist that lie in the nooks between hills on dark country roads. Garlic can help you with miasmas, too. Ever see an image of plague doctors from Medieval Europe wearing masks with a long, bird-like beak? The beak was filled with odorous herbs, garlic likely among them, designed to combat miasmas.

In 18th-century France, a group of thieves may have been inspired by these plague masks. During an outbreak of the bubonic plague in Marseilles in 1726 (or 1655, stories deviate), a group of thieves were accused of robbing dead bodies and the houses of the deceased and ailing, without seeming to contract the disease themselves. Their lucky charms against the miasmas? They steeped garlic in vinegar, and soaked a cloth or a sponge in the liquid, then tied it like a surgical mask over their mouth and nose. In their minds, the strong smells would repel miasmas. This story is probably a legend, but I think there is some grain of truth to it: in modern studies, garlic has been shown to obfuscate some of the human smells that attract biting bugs. Since we now know bubonic plague was carried by fleas, it’s possible the thieves were repelling the insects. The plague is also a bacterial infection, and both vinegar and garlic are effective antimicrobials.

Garlic remained in the realm of medicine for most of the 19th century. Louis Pasteur first discovered that garlic was a powerful antimicrobial in 1858. In 1861, John Gunn assembled a medical book for use in the home, The New Domestic Physician, “with directions for using medicinal plants and the simplest and best new remedies.” Gunn recommends a poultice of roast garlic for ear infections:

“An excellent remedy for earache is as follows: Take three or four roasted garlics, and while hot mash, and add a tablespoonful of sweet oil and as much honey and laudanum; press out the juice, and drop of this into the ear, warm, occasionally.”

Salmon_EnglishHerbal_1710_408_garlic_watermark

Garlick from Botanologia: The English Herbal (1710) by William Salmon.

He also recommends garlic for clearing mucus from the lungs and reducing cough, given by the spoonful with honey and laudanum.  Gardening for the South: Or, How to Grow Vegetables and Fruits, an 1868 botanical guide, says the medicinal values of garlic include making you sweat, which,  like bloodletting, was believed to leach out disease; it will also make you urinate, and is an effective “worm destroyer,” for any intestinal hitchhikers you might have. By the late 19th century, scientists also used garlic to treat TB and injected it into the rectum to treat hemorrhoids.

Today, garlic is one of the most heavily used home remedies, and it is increasingly being studied in the medical field. Some of its historic uses have been proved as bunk–while others, like its efficacy as a topical antiseptic, hold up. But since the late 19th century, garlic has found an even more worthwhile home, thanks to French chefs and Italian immigrants, who spread their garlic heavy cuisine around the world, and made even garlic-reticent Americans a lover of this pungent plant.

Join us on Monday, June 5 to learn more about this topic.  Click HERE to register.

Announcing the March Madness Food Fight Club Winner

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Drum roll please…

The winner of the 2016 March Madness Food Fight Club is…

Vegetable Curry!

Background image: Kirkland, The modern baker, confectioner, and caterer, c1907.

Background image: Kirkland, The modern baker, confectioner, and caterer, c1907.

Thanks to all who voted throughout the competition. If you decide to make this winning recipe, please tell us about it and share some photos.

Vegetable Curry recipe in Blatch, 101 Practical Non-Flesh Recipes, 1917.

Vegetable Curry recipe in Blatch, 101 Practical Non-Flesh Recipes, 1917. Click to enlarge.

The four recipes in this competition—from a pamphlet, a manuscript receipt book, and two printed cookbooks—don’t begin to scratch the surface of what our cookery collection holds. We acquired our Margaret Barclay Wilson culinary collection in 1929, and it now contains about 10,000 items. The collection includes manuscripts, menus, and pamphlets that demonstrate the way cookery changed over time, and a large collection of printed books, beginning in the 16th century. These include works by Scappi, Platina, and Carême, as well as many other milestones in culinary printing.

Our cookbooks offer aspirational recipes, practical recipes, and everything in between.  Our collections hold a snapshot view of what daily cooking was like in a range of households across the world. These recipe books also reflect the changes that occur when people have access to new innovations—refrigeration, for example, or the gas range. We also have strong collections related to diet regimens and cooking for health, as well as cookbooks published during wartime when resources were scarce.

Interested in researching historic cookbooks? Our library is open to the public. To make an appointment, call 212-822-7315 or email library@nyam.org.

Food Fight Club Final: Snail Water v. Vegetable Curry

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It’s the Food Fight Club final! Snail Water won round 1 and Vegetable Curry won round 2. Now it’s time for these two tough competitors to duke it out once and for all.

Background image: Kirkland, The modern baker, confectioner, and caterer, c1907.

Background image: Kirkland, The modern baker, confectioner, and caterer, c1907.

This final bout pits a recipe from a manuscript recipe collection against one found in a printed cookbook.

From A Collection of Choise Receipts. Click to enlarge.

From A Collection of Choise Receipts. Click to enlarge.

The recipe for Snail Water comes from A Collection of Choise Receipts, one of 36 manuscript receipt books in our collection. These collections of recipes, dating from the late 17th through the 19th century, tell stories about the ways food was prepared in a range of households. In many cases, they incorporate source material from contemporary cookbooks in print, showing us the kinds of recipes households valued and relied on. These manuscripts often include personal information about the families who kept them. One noteworthy case in our collections is a recipe for “How to make coffy of dry swet aple snits (slices),” found in a recipe book kept by a German-American family in Pennsylvania-Dutch country between 1835 and 1850. Manuscript cookbooks can also show us the kinds of cooking technologies used by families. Repeated references to coals and the Dutch oven indicate that Pennsylvania-Dutch cookbook’s author was cooking at the open hearth.

Vegetable Curry recipe in Blatch, 101 Practical Non-Flesh Recipes, 1917.

Vegetable Curry recipe in Blatch, 101 Practical Non-Flesh Recipes, 1917. Click to enlarge.

Publishers of printed cookbooks responded to demand from readers. These books—and the number of editions that were published—can tell us a great deal about cooking trends. Our 1917 copy of 101 Practical Non-Flesh Recipes, for example, is the book’s second edition, the first published just a year before. Cookbooks could be aspirational, practical, or a combination of both. A 19th-century cookbook published in Milwaukee in German in multiple editions tell us that there was a demand for cookbooks written in the mother tongue for newly-arrived German immigrants. The mixture of German and American recipes in these books indicate a need for familiar recipes from the Old World, as well as instruction on how to prepare foods that were more typical of the New. A number of printed cookbooks in our collection have emended recipes or manuscript recipes laid-in to their pages, offering clues to how readers modified published recipes for personal use.

Which recipe should be crowned the 2016 Food Fight Club Champion? Vote for your favorite—be it the most appealing, least appealing, or one that just tickles your fancy more—before 5 pm EST on Monday, March 28.

Food Fight Club Round 2: Vegetable Curry v. Ragout of Squirrel

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It’s time for match two of our March Madness Food Fight Club.

First, the reveal of last week’s smackdown: Snail Water triumphed over Pear and Tomato Chutney. Whichever recipe wins this week has a tough competitor for next Wednesday’s final match.

March Madness Food Fight Club_Round1winner

Background image: Kirkland, The modern baker, confectioner, and caterer, c1907.

This week, we pit Vegetable Curry against Ragout of Squirrel.

Vegetable Curry recipe in Blatch, 101 Practical Non-Flesh Recipes, 1917.

Vegetable Curry recipe in Blatch, 101 Practical Non-Flesh Recipes, 1917. Click to enlarge.

The innocuous-sounding vegetable curry comes from Margaret Blatch’s 101 Practical Non-flesh Recipes, a nice little vegetarian cookbook from 1917. The title might sound a bit odd to modern readers and is an interesting choice, considering the term vegetarian was well-established by the 1840s.1 A 1908 physical education article sheds some light on the terminology of the time, saying the word vegetarian “usually suggests a person who abstains not on hygienic but on religious, ethical, or theological grounds,” preferring instead “flesh-abstainer.”2 It appears “non-flesh” was less provocative than “vegetarian.”

Ragout of Squirrel recipe in Recipes for the Jewett Chafing Dish, 1896. Click to enlarge.

Ragout of Squirrel recipe in Recipes for the Jewett Chafing Dish, 1896. Click to enlarge.

Our next contestant features two items not commonly seen on today’s dinner tables: Chafing dishes and squirrels. In the 1890s, chafing dishes experienced a surge in popularity in America, and Recipes for the Jewett Chafing Dish was just one of many cookbooks published featuring recipes specifically for the dish. The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel offered “chafing dish suppers” to top socialites, and stores sold table linens to match the cookware.3 Squirrel, too, was a common sight at the American dinner table due to its availability. One can track its rise and fall by looking at editions of The Joy of Cooking over time, where the numerous squirrel recipes of the 1930s gave way to recipes for chicken.4

Which recipe should face Snail Water in the final round? Vote for your favorite—be it the most appealing, least appealing, or one that just tickles your fancy more—before 5 pm EST on Monday, March 21.

References
1. Spencer C. The Heretic’s Feast: A History of Vegetarianism. UPNE; 1996. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?id=rIjZo-cvifAC&pgis=1. Accessed March 15, 2016.

2. Fisher I. The Influence of Flesh-eating on Endurance. Modern Medicine Publishing; 1908. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gW8yAQAAMAAJ&pgis=1. Accessed March 15, 2016.

3. Lovegren S, Smith AF. Chafing Dish. Oxford Companion to Am Food Drink. 2007:103. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?id=AoWlCmNDA3QC&pgis=1. Accessed March 10, 2016.

4. Smith H. Al rodente: Could squirrel meat come back into vogue? Grist. 2012. Available at: http://grist.org/animals/al-rodente-could-squirrel-meat-come-back-into-vogue/. Accessed March 10, 2016.

Food Fight Club Round 1: Snail Water v. Pear and Tomato Chutney

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Today we begin our March Madness competition, Food Fight Club.

This week and next, two recipes will go head to head, vying for your votes. The following week, the winners of the first two rounds will duke it out for the honor of being named the champion of our first Food Fight Club.

Background image: Kirkland, The modern baker, confectioner, and caterer, c1907.

The smackdown begins with Snail Water versus Pear and Tomato Chutney.

This lovely snail water recipe comes from A Collection of Choise Receipts, a late 17th-century English manuscript written in exquisite penmanship, perhaps written by a professional scribe. Snail water was thought to treat ailments including “sharpness in [the] blood” and appetite loss. Learn more about snail water in our blog archives.

From A Collection of Choise Receipts. Click to enlarge.

From A Collection of Choise Receipts. Click to enlarge.

It takes a bold competitor to go up against this beauty. But we have one: Pear and Tomato Chutney from the American Can Company’s undated Relishes from Canned Food pamphlet. As early as the 1850s, commercially canned goods—especially sardines, tomatoes, condensed milk, and fruits and vegetables—found an eager consumer audience in the Western United States. Their popularity only increased over time; by the 1930s, foods from supermarkets were increasingly prepackaged (learn more in our 2015 April Fool’s blog—the food history facts are true!).

Pear and Tomato Chutney from American Can Company, Relishes from Canned Foods, no date. Click to enlarge.

Pear and Tomato Chutney from American Can Company, Relishes from Canned Foods, no date. Click to enlarge.

Which recipe should move on to the next round? Vote for your favorite—be it the most appealing, least appealing, or one that just tickles your fancy more—before 5 pm EST on Monday, March 14.

Gather ‘Round the Table, We’ll Give You a Treat

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By Johanna Goldberg, Information Services Librarian

It’s almost Hanukkah, a time to light the candles, spin the dreidel, and argue about how to spell the name of the holiday.

It’s also a time to eat foods fried in oil, traditionally potato pancakes (latkes) and jelly doughnuts (sufganiyot), a remembrance of the oil that miraculously burned for eight days to rededicate the Temple after its defilement by the Greeks.1

If you are looking to expand the offerings on your holiday table this year, Mildred Grosberg Bellin’s The Jewish Cook Book (New York, 1941) does not disappoint. She provides an elaborate “Menu for Channucah”:

The "Channucah" menu in Bellin's Jewish Cook Book, 1941.

The “Channucah” menu in Bellin’s Jewish Cook Book, 1941.

Click on an image to view each recipe listed:

The “Seven Layer Schalet” not enough dessert for you? The Economical Jewish Cook (London, 1897) offers a 30-minute recipe for “Hanucah Cakes.”

"Hanucah Cakes" in Henry's Economical Jewish Cook, 1897.

“Hanucah Cakes” in Henry’s Economical Jewish Cook, 1897.

And what would the holiday be without doughnuts? Here are a selection of recipes, one from the Brooklyn Jewish Women’s Relief Association’s A Book for a Cook (1909) and the rest from The International Jewish Cook Book (New York, 1918).

Recipe for doughnuts in the Jewish Women's Association's A Book for a Cook, 1909.

Recipe for doughnuts in the Jewish Women’s Association’s A Book for a Cook, 1909.

Several doughnut options from Greenbaum's The International Jewish Cook Book, 1918.

Several doughnut options from Greenbaum’s The International Jewish Cook Book, 1918.

If you try making any of these recipes, please let us know and share a picture of the results.

Note

1. Yes, we know the holiday commemorates a military victory, too.