I know, I know. I KNOW. The only thing I can say is that it’s almost over. Also, you can have cake! So Election Cake is a tradition that NPR is working real hard to revive. Back in The Day, when the US was a primarily agrarian society, Election Day was functionally a civic holiday, and everyone would troop into town, the men would vote and everyone would eat a lot of food (food as … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Election Cake→
I spent the past month or so planning out a small buffet lunch for a friend of mine. In my historical re-enactment group, my friend Bethany was given a VERY large honor (in celebration of all the work she’s put into making our society run), and tradition is that when you get this type of honor, your friends put together a buffet of snacks during the day. When we got word that Bethany was getting … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: A Lunch Spread→
So I don’t know about you, but the state of the world right now has me turning to the bottle a bit more than usual. In the spirit of that, I thought we could delve into the entertaining and frankly quite terrifying world of historical medicine and see a) if we can figure out how the human race survived itself and b) how one would treat a nasty hangover back in The Day. Spoiler: I … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Hangover Cures→
This is a different post than usual. As you may have heard, I was in Stockholm last week! In the Old Town (Gamla Stan) of Stockholm, there is a medieval themed restaurant that uses recipes from several different medieval cookbooks, and you know I was raring to try it out. It’s in a old vault, I think the server said it was a 15th century building? It’s VERY atmospheric. The lighting is mostly candles with … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Sjätte Tunnan→
As you may recall, Amanda and I are heading to Sweden this month, and in honor of the trip, I broke out this book from the late 1940s my mom gave me for Christmas. The thing that made this interesting for me to try was the fact that you’re supposed to make the cheese for this cheese cake. Ost: cheese. Kaka: cake. Ostkaka: Cheese cake! Cheese is fun! Cheese is FINICKY. As I said on … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Ostkaka→
“Dulcia Domestica” translates from Latin into “a home-made sweet” and what’s better than a home-made sweet when spring is here – according to the calendar – but is sitting in its room saying it won’t come out until it’s good and ready. This spring is like a toddler, I swear. Anyway, this is a Roman sweet from Apicius that I’ve made many many times, and brought it to the last meetup of the Boston Bitchery, … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Dulcia Domestica→
One of the delights of my circle of friends is having people in my life who are as into nerdy historical cooking as I am. You remember Abigail, who helped with the quince paste? She also put in a request for helping make a ridiculous pie with a hot-water paste crust (she claims to remember it differently, that I was the one who said “pie!” and she said “okay!” but really it was the other way … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Veal and Ham Pie→
It shouldn’t be a surprise that all of us here at the Pink Palace of the Bitchery are fans of The Great British Bake Off. I am most put out that the only complete seasons I can get through mostly legal means are Series 5, which is on American Netflix as Season 1 (because that was the first season PBS aired), and Series 1, which is on Youtube. There are bits and pieces of other seasons on … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Bisket Bread→
I GOT A PUDDING BASIN. I also got a copy of Lobscouse and Spotted Dog, Which It’s a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels by Anne Chotzinoff Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas. In the realm of British dishes with silly names, Spotted Dog is up there. When I was planning Christmas dinner with my family, I threw out there “Hey, should I make some Spotted Dog?” My dad is a huuuuuge Patrick O’Brian fan (like, has … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Spotted Dog→
Because of the enormity of the topic, and the fact that one could write a book (and indeed, many have) on the topic of chocolate through the ages, I’m choosing instead this month to focus on one very specific era and form of chocolate. The trail from Mayan consumption of chocolate to chocolate chip cookies and hipster dudes trying to pass off mass-produced chocolate as organic bean-to-wrapper that is TOTALLY worth $10 a bar is … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Colonial Era Drinking Chocolate→
It’s December, it’s holidays, holidays mean gingerbread, and here at the Pink Palace of Bitchery And Also Food (we really like food), that means that we crack a book and pull out a recipe for gingerbread from the 14th Century. Going back that far means we have something very different than the cake or cookies that we think of now. The 14th century version is bread crumbs flavored with ginger and other spices and cooked … Continue reading RedHeadedGirl’s Historical Kitchen: Medieval Gingerbread→
