Or “weird old recipes that you aren’t brave enough to try yourself.”
I went to garage sales a couple weeks ago, and one of the items nabbed for a whole 75 cents was “The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book,” which is by none other than Fannie Merritt Farmer. The first edition was published in 1896; the edition I have was published in 1946. It’s full of useful information – did you know that if you’re out of butter, you can substitute 4/5 cup of clarified bacon fat? I didn’t until I read that, and I am now prepared to make hickory-smoke-flavored cookies.
Obviously the book is full of all sorts of advice that you just won’t find in a modern cookbook. For example, there’s an entire page on how to prepare turtle. You’re supposed to boil it alive and then rub the skin off. Mmm!
Anyway, there is one recipe that has me very curious, but I’m not brave enough to do it myself. And I don’t like the real article anyway. And I don’t have olive oil or vinegar or a fine sieve.
The recipe in question? Potato mayonaise. The concept of this is entirely bizarre to me for some reason, even more bizarre than eating regular mayonaise, and I feel that it should be texted empirically. But not by me.
Therefore, I propose that somebody else does it.
Here it is:
Any takers? Come on, gang, you know you want to use this as a base for a salad dressing or to pour over your steamed asparagus. And to take pictures of, so I can see it.
If anybody else has any weird old recipes that they’d like to have a Doper try out, please post them as well. I’m willing to be a guinea pig for anything I’m not allergic to.