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This is where I note my efforts as I try to recreate some old recipes. Most are taken from my small collection of handwritten recipe books which date from the late 1700's to around 1922. I also have a collection of old tatty old recipe books, well thumbed and heavily splashed from years of use. I love all of them.

The old-fashioned very stylised handwriting writing is sometimes difficult to decipher, measurements and cooking instructions are minimal, no tin sizes given. Luckily I enjoy a challenge. Just to complicate things I cook and bake on my wood-fired Rayburn, which can be... unpredictable.

I suspect this blog is less about the food and more about my passion for these lovely old books and the wonderful women who wrote them.


Wednesday 27 December 2017

Royal Sauce for Plum Pudding & a Kitchen Supper for 60 Persons



Plum Pudding, Christmas Pudding, call it what you will, we never eat it on Christmas Day, we simply don't have the stamina these days.   

There is, of course, the perennial question of what to serve with your Plum Pudding, our preference is for custard, but I know a lot of people prefer brandy butter, cream, or even rum sauce.     Rich and heavy pudding made even richer?  No thank you,  I'll stick to a well made custard sauce, our digestions can cope with that, but each to their own.

One of my old handwritten recipe books gives this recipe, dated December 1862, a note says that it was given by Lady Cagley's Cook.

Royal Sauce for Plum Pudding
Beat a 1/4 lb butter to a cream then add by degrees 3 oz of very fine loaf sugar.  When well beaten add 1 glass of wine and 1 of brandy.   It should be sent up in a boat and should look like thick whipped cream.

Sounds like a version of Brandy butter to me.




The same book gives a recipe for Christmas Puddings - vast quantities of them.

3 lbs flour
10 lbs currants
10 lbs raisins
3 lb bread crumbs (2 loaves)
4 lbs suet
1 oz candied peel   I wonder whether this was supposed to be 1 lb?
2 oz allspice
2 lbs sugar
1 1/2 dozen eggs
Milk to mix
1/2 pint Brandy

Boiled for 9 1/2 hours in basins.

Why such a large quantity?   Well this was a vicarage cook and my did they know how to feed large numbers of people.


Kitchen Christmas Tea and Supper - 60 persons present

Elder Wine
56 lbs Beef cooked for 9 hours - properly done(!)
1 Joint of Cold Pork
15 Puddings
2 Tarts
6 Loaves
3 lbs Butter
Plum Loaves
3 lbs Sugar
1/2 lb Tea
1 Pint Cream


Dining Room Tea - 25 Persons

Portion of above, plus
Cold Tongue
Eggs
Cakes
1 Pint Cream
1 lb Sugar
Bread and Butter

The above quantities were more than sufficient with regard to Meat and Pudding.   Bread, Tea, Sugar and Cream just about right.


The book was written by a cook at a vicarage.  Luckily for me, the name of the parish is mentioned once, so by the magic of internet and sheer curiosity, I have  managed to find some photographs of the vicarage in question as it is presently up for sale.   It is a big old place with enormous rooms, Grade II listed.

It gave me quite a thrill to be able to look at photographs of the old kitchen and dining room where the writing, cooking and eating took place, way back in 1848!

Tuesday 26 December 2017

Books, Books, Books


As this is my 'kitchen' blog, here are some of my new books.    They are all rather battered and worn with not a single high-gloss photograph between them.  Exactly the kind of recipe book I love. 

They are not as old as some, the oldest one dates to 1930's, but the recipes within are much older.  Some have hand written notes, splashes and splodges, which all add to the charm, in my opinion. 

Before Christmas I bought a copy of Nigel Slater's new book, The Christmas Chronicles.   I have flicked through it and no doubt it is an excellent read, but somehow it doesn't call to me in the same way as these books.

Enjoy Boxing Day.   

Left-overs for us, surely the best part of the Christmas Feast...and we certainly won't be visiting the sales.   It is a day for extra-long walks with the dog and then a guilt-free hour or two spent reading by the log fire.



Saturday 23 December 2017

Parsonage Cottage Kitchen at Christmas


The older I get, the more I seem to enjoy Christmas.    Simple things, like getting out the Christmas china,  baubles and decorations for the tree, and some of my mother's favourite old cake decorations.




My helpful Kitchen Angel - a rather large, golden, papier mache cherub - also makes an appearance.  She has been watching over my festive kitchen cooking for almost twenty years and has more or less ensured that everyone is well fed and happy.

Today has been a happy, pottering kind of day and I have made mince pies, shortbread, tomato and garlic bread, regular white bread, English muffins,  and I have a large pan of red cabbage with cranberries and apple gently cooking in the Rayburn.

I had fairy lights a-twinkling, carols and Christmas hits playing on the radio.   Bah humbug! you may say, but I enjoyed it.

These days we host a Christmas Day breakfast party for the family, which means that by around midday peace descends upon Parsonage Cottage.   We could go out to eat with the family, but we enjoy this small oasis of peace and quiet, after years of hosting enormous Christmas Day lunches.     

We'll settle down in front of the fire for a quiet afternoon


 
punctuated only by the demands of the cats or the need to walk the dog.   My husband will tuck into his very favourite Christmas food - turkey and piccalilli sandwiches and I will indulge in a smoked salmon sandwich - as we watch the Queen's Speech and then dip into our new books.    Bliss!

Merry Christmas, however you celebrate it.
xxx