I don’t know what it’s been like in your corner of the world, but in mine, it’s been wretchedly hot all summer. Far too hot to cook.
So this month, I thought let’s try an AMA. Do you have questions about historical cooking? Food? Historical re-enactment? Ask them down in the comments, and I’ll answer things on Sunday.
Ask away!
What’s your favorite historical thing you’ve cooked?
What is your go-to to cook or bake for other people?
Are there regions/times that you *wish* you could research, but cannot due to lack of sources?
Do you find yourself more focused on the region or the time frame when you choose recipes?
What is the strangest or hardest to come by ingredient you’ve had historical cooking?
Do you like cold soups? It is hot here, too so I made Naengmyeon last week – a cold noodle soup made in Korea for a few centuries (so checks the box for historical), with pear juice and quick – pickled cucumbers, so very refreshing, and easy to make vegetarian or keep meatiful. Keep cool!
At what point does historical cooking become modern? Twentieth century? Cookbooks from before WWII can be different and the canning books I have from the 30s are definitely historical.
Is there an ingredient specified in a historical recipe that you’ve never been able to identify or track down? Are there any ingredients (I’m thinking, for instance, of certain grains that may no longer be cultivated commercially) that are not available at all? On average, how many attempts do you make to prepare a historical recipe before you feel you have a final product that reflects what the original may have looked/tasted like?
However did bakers determine and regulate the temperatures of their ovens? I can’t help but think that there was a lot of burnt and raw goods (particulaly harmful!), coming out of these ovens. Did more people rely on commercial bakers? If so, when did it become more common for home bakers?
Do you find that historical recipes use more or less flavoring agents? Is the taste blander or stronger than what we are used to now, or does that depend on the origin of the dish – ie, traditional English cooking would be pretty bland whereas French or continental cooking would tend to be stronger tasting?
Do you feel like pasteurization or homogenization of products impacts historic recipes?
im seeing lot of things about Mexican cooking it seems like. and I m wondering is, is Mexican food , a Mexican thing or is it a spainish thing from spain, or is it a mixture of the two. sometime I watch cooking show and I see the food and it looks mmm is it spainish at all , lot of cook book from spain coming out lately or so it seems to me. mamx
How high on the household hierarchy would a cook have been?
I don’t think this is really historical, but scones do turn up in many historical books. I would love a great scone recipe. I tried to make them once, I was worried about overworking the dough, and left the butter in too big of chunks. I like the scones you find in England, not these huge, dense one with big granules of sugar you find in the US. Do you have a recipe for a good English style scone?
What is your “go to” modern cookbook? What is your favorite historical cookbook or recipe source?
@mamx Mexican food is a Mexican thing and varies by region. It’s a marvelous thing to explore! It’s very much rooted in indigenous traditions, although I suppose you could find some Spanish influence if you’re looking for it. But even the names of a lot of the dishes and delicacies – like huitlacoche, mmmm – are in Aztec and other indigenous languages. A Mexican friend recommended to me the English-language cookbooks of Diana Kennedy as an introduction to the cuisine of Oaxaca, if you’re looking for a place to start.
We’re so lucky here in the US, even as far north as I live, to have access to a lot of the ingredients, as well as great Mexican-American chefs and home cooks. I worked in a restaurant that served American food, but the kitchen staff were mostly originally from Mexico. On our breaks, the chef, who was from Puebla, would make the most amazing off-menu meals for us. The restaurant would sometimes run specials that she’d created, which would sell like crazy and then creep onto the regular menu, and if she took a day off the regulars would nearly riot.
Anyway, Mexican cuisine is definitely worth exploring! And I’m so passionate about it, I’m not following AMA rules. Apologies to RHG! Would you consider doing a series on historical cuisine indigenous to the Americas?
I love No, The Other Anne’s suggestion of a series on indigenous historical cooking! ❤❤❤
I’ve loved all the questions so far,and here’s mine: Is there a particularly memorable moment where a recipe required something that new technology affects? Ex: the invention of a food processor or the lack of a giant breadmaker?
Do you also prepare a light never-fails meal in case you have a flop?
HERE WE GO: ANSWERS! FIrst, we have a couple of questions from Twitter:
From @MisssusBates:
“Did most estates grow/provide their own food? Or were their kitchens stocked mainly by markets/importing? I know it’s a silly question but something I’ve always been curious about!”
First, that’s not a silly question at all, and something I’m going to have to research. But it’ll be a future column! My instinct says that ideally, an estate would have a home farm that provided it with food, but I have no idea how well that worked in reality.
From @sarrible:
“Here’s something I run into as a copyeditor: What are good sources on finding when various foods would have been introduced to different areas of the world? Like, is it ahistorical that people in Northern Europe would be eating rice in the 1700s?”
The first place I would go is to the Oxford Companion to Food: https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-Food-Companions/dp/0199677336. You can also troll wikipedia, many entries for food staples have a section on history. (And yes, Rice was known in Europe ias far back as the Roman era. Blancemange is a medieval recipe that involves chicken, rice, milk and sugar. Its good for sick people. I’ll do that one when it cools down, maybe november.)
Oh, I also found http://www.foodtimeline.org/. I haven’t really played around with it, but there’s another option! MULTIPLE SOURCES IS GOOD.
@Lisa:
“What’s your favorite historical thing you’ve cooked?”
I’m going to say the apple sauce I made for a stubble goose at Michaelmas in 2016: https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2016/10/michaelmas/
What is your go-to to cook or bake for other people?
I’m not a great baker, I’m a competent one because I follow the recipe and don’t mess with the chemistry. I have made the Roman stuffed dates for many a party.
https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2016/05/redheadedgirls-historical-kitchen-dulcia-domestica/
@AmyB: “Are there regions/times that you *wish* you could research, but cannot due to lack of sources?
Do you find yourself more focused on the region or the time frame when you choose recipes?”
I would love to play around in 16th Century Sweden, but I have yet to find books that have been translated into English, and my Swedish isn’t good enough yet. I’m working on it.
When I pick a recipe for this column, it’s more based on a combination of factors like inspiration, season, perhaps a holiday, what ingredients may or may not be in season… that kind of thing.
If I were doing a meal, then I try to keep things either temporally or geographically consistent.
@KellyM
“What is the strangest or hardest to come by ingredient you’ve had historical cooking?”
I haven’t used a lot of strange ingredients thus far, just possibly strange combinations. I think, honestly, the thing that gives me pause is using parts of animals that aren’t normally used in modern cooking, but between this questions and Lords and Ladles, i have some ideas. It’s also handy to live in a large city that has specialty butcher shops that I can call up and say “heeeeeeeeey, I need some caul fat, do you have any?”
@ Critterbee: I really only like soup when I’m sick, but that DOES sound delicious.
@Kay Sisk:
“At what point does historical cooking become modern? Twentieth century? Cookbooks from before WWII can be different and the canning books I have from the 30s are definitely historical.”
That is an interesting question. Under the definition of “vintage” (anything older than 20 years, which OUCH), then… twenty years ago!
I think they way people prepared food is constantly evolving, and yes, how food was made in the 30s evolved into the 40s and ration era cooking, which evolved in the dawn of convenience food (50s), on in to some truly unfortunate things in the 70s and 80s.
Look up Candlestick Salad. But not at work.
So even the Masterchef, Gordon Ramsey we must have a protein, a side, a starch, and sauce, look, all of these plates in this competition are variations on the same form, will be historical some day. In about 20 years.
@DiscoDollDeb: This is a a lot of questions!
Is there an ingredient specified in a historical recipe that you’ve never been able to identify or track down?
Not that I can think of off the top of my head. There’s a few that I haven’t gotten because it wasn’t in my budget (mostly spices). There’s also some I won’t use and will substitute something similar due to food safety concerns. There’s a whole huge community of people who work with food history, so someone has tackled pretty much every “what the eff is THAT?” question, along with every “What I can use as a substitute?” problem.
Are there any ingredients (I’m thinking, for instance, of certain grains that may no longer be cultivated commercially) that are not available at all?
Silphium was a spice that was so beloved in Roman era cooking that it went extinct in antiquity. The Roman era substitute for it is asafoetida, which you can get in Indian grocery stores.
I don’t think there is an ingredient that is the same as it was a hundred, two hundred, a thousand years ago. All of your food has been genetically modified since people figured out how they could influence agriculture, so even as you look at paintings of, saw, watermelon from the 1700s, you can see how different it looks form watermelon today.
Basically, I do my best with what we have, and acknowledge that someone from the era would probably look at my attempt and think “uhhhhhhh what is this?”
“On average, how many attempts do you make to prepare a historical recipe before you feel you have a final product that reflects what the original may have looked/tasted like?”
I’ll let you know when I get there.
@Mishukitty:
“However did bakers determine and regulate the temperatures of their ovens? I can’t help but think that there was a lot of burnt and raw goods (particulaly harmful!), coming out of these ovens. Did more people rely on commercial bakers? If so, when did it become more common for home bakers?”
So I’m assuming your talking about the clay or brick ovens that you built a fire in, and then when it was burned out, you’d pull out the embers, put the dough in and let the residual heat do the baking?
You can’t really control how hot the oven gets, except by the fire you put inside. Baking was a very specialized skill, and would have been taught to apprentices starting at a young age, so you’d learn from your master’s experience while building YEARS of your own. And one of the thing’s you’d learn is stick your arm into the oven and go “yeah that’s hot enough.” ANd you would pull the bread out when it’s done.
The idea of cooking meat in a oven doesn’t come along until we have ovens that can do that, and that begins with the cast iron stove during the 1700s. So much food was boiled because that was a safe and consistent method to cook food that also wasn’t as labor intensive as spit roasting would be.
Have you ever gone the Little House on the Prairie route and hand-whipped egg whites with a fork for accuracy’s sake? I have! It wasn’t fun!
@Mishukitty, for baking without a thermometer, there are baker’s tricks, besides burning your arm, like putting a piece of paper in the oven and timing how many seconds it takes to turn brown. They also would sprinkle a little flour in the bottom of the oven, and when it turned black, the oven was hot enough for bread. More recently, wood cookstoves have been around for a couple of hundred years, and they have dampers, which are vents you can open or close to regulate temperature. You learn through trial and error to judge the right temperature for whatever you are baking. I think in Europe they relied more on commercial bakers in medieval times, but in many other parts of the world, like Africa, Asia, South America, people ate flatbread, whether it was tortillas, pita, injera. or naan. It only takes a minute to bake, doesn’t use a lot of fuel, and it’s easy to tell when it’s ready.
pardon me , this is in reply to the other anne about Mexican I was asking about , it is getting popular that natives regional areas of Mexican food is coming up , and I love mole ,I had that oh, with chip ohh where were fresh deep fried ohh. and pbs has it patti mexian shows on sat , what an eye opner. it seems very historical to me. and old recipes from England and more mmm
mamx
@ JenM
“Do you find that historical recipes use more or less flavoring agents? Is the taste blander or stronger than what we are used to now, or does that depend on the origin of the dish – ie, traditional English cooking would be pretty bland whereas French or continental cooking would tend to be stronger tasting?”
Well,the real answer to that question depends on when you’re asking about. In general, in terms of French and English food, they used spices similarly up until the 17th or 18th century, as signifiers of conspicuous consumption. Spices were expensive, the rich had access, and would use them. A lot. Until the spice trade was so successful that you didn’t need to be rich to afford spices, and then the idea of “food should taste like itself” snobbery came around.
NPR had a great article on this: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/26/394339284/how-snobbery-helped-take-the-spice-out-of-european-cooking
@KtB:
“Do you feel like pasteurization or homogenization of products impacts historic recipes?”
Oh yes. Especially in cheesemaking, finding milk that hasn’t been ultra pasteurized or homogenized is…. expensive. It’s not difficult (for me, see previous comments about large city with lots of resources) but it is a lot more expensive.
One of the themes we can see in this series of answers is that budget limitations are real, y’all.
Side note: the first time I had non-homognized cream in the UK, it was a goddamn religious experience.
@mamx
“im seeing lot of things about Mexican cooking it seems like. and I m wondering is, is Mexican food , a Mexican thing or is it a spainish thing from spain, or is it a mixture of the two. sometime I watch cooking show and I see the food and it looks mmm is it spainish at all , lot of cook book from spain coming out lately or so it seems to me. mamx”
I think, and I haven’t done a lot of work with Indigenous foods (yet) but my gut feeling is that its a lot of hybridization of indigenous and Spanish food influences that have evolved over the past 500+ years.
@Michelle
“How high on the household hierarchy would a cook have been?”
Very high up. it’s a specialized skill that takes a lot of training to not only produce great food but also on time and at the correct temp. Also you want to make sure the person who controls what you eat feels like they are valued.
@Maureen
“I don’t think this is really historical, but scones do turn up in many historical books. I would love a great scone recipe. I tried to make them once, I was worried about overworking the dough, and left the butter in too big of chunks. I like the scones you find in England, not these huge, dense one with big granules of sugar you find in the US. Do you have a recipe for a good English style scone?”
When in doubt, go to Mary Berry. (Almost always true)
https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/tea_time_scones_77839
The rubbing the butter into the flour with your fingers part isn’t going to overwork the dough. But it does help to cut the cubes smaller and make sure the butter is cold when you start.
@ LauraD:
“What is your “go to” modern cookbook? What is your favorite historical cookbook or recipe source?”
Joy of Cooking, hands down. I use it for everything. I also adore the Nordic Cookbook, by Magnus Nilsson, but the one that basically never put away is the Joy. What’s the “I won’t die” temp for pork? What’s the order of operations for cinnamon rolls? How do i skin a squirrel? it’s all there.
@No, the Other Anne:
“Would you consider doing a series on historical cuisine indigenous to the Americas?”
Yes. I picked up a pamphlet from Plimouth Plantation a year ago on “native American cooking” and I keep shying away from it because it doesn’t cite its sources, and that is a subject I really don’t want to get into with dodgy source material.
The 2018 James Beard Best Cookbook winner was the Sioux Chef, by Sean Sherman, from the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. I have that on my wishlist, but again, $$$$$. (No, I don’t like getting cookbooks from the library because I am an exuberant and messy cook, and it shows on my books. It means they are well loved)
@Claudia:
“I’ve loved all the questions so far,and here’s mine: Is there a particularly memorable moment where a recipe required something that new technology affects? Ex: the invention of a food processor or the lack of a giant breadmaker?”
I think the fact that ovens can be set to a specific temp and that’s what we’re used to can make things over-complicated. “Bake in a quick oven” “Roast in a hot oven” what does THAT mean?”
That can also apply to standard measurements, as well.
“Do you also prepare a light never-fails meal in case you have a flop?”
If I’m making something to serve to people, I usually practice it before hand, or at least practice it in my head a bunch of times to see where the sticking points are.
If I’m playing eith something that I also hope will be my dinner and it fails, well, that’s what Grub Hub is for.
@Lisa F
“Have you ever gone the Little House on the Prairie route and hand-whipped egg whites with a fork for accuracy’s sake? I have! It wasn’t fun!”
Fuck no. I made butter in a jar once. Also I’m pretty sure the ghost of my grandmother would show up and beat my head with the fork.
@RHG
YEP. I’m especially concerned about dodgy sources when the term “Native American” is used like it refers to one homogeneous group of people, when there are 500+ distinct indigenous nations currently within or straddling the boundaries of the modern US. Proceed with caution.
And YES Sean Sherman!!! He and his associates work out of Minneapolis here. They do classes/workshops from time to time, and I still need to get to one.
Heid Erdrich (sister of Louise) also has a traditional cookbook/locavore guide called Original Local which is only about $20 in paperback. Still $$ but not $$$$, but also probably fewer actual recipes and more stories (still good!).
There’s a personal question I have always wanted to ask you, RHG: since you seem to be Boston-area SCA, did you know my brother aka Kale Harlansson, one-time Seneschal of Carolingia?
@Dorothea
I did! He was a good friend, and I miss him so much.
I stole his hat once.
@RHG
Wow, small world. Thanks for the reply. {{{hugs}}}
@mishukitty I went to a National Trust historic home once where two volunteers spent the day baking over an open fire where there were cast iron shelves for the food (I think this means post 1800). The women made a sponge type cake and scones and my God they were fabulous. Now, I can barely make a sponge in my own oven without it sinking or coming out raw. I think a good cook learns to put food in specific locations in or over a fire or fireplace to regulate the cooking temperature between slow and quick.