Aw, crap.
throws out jelly
OK, I’m home now, and I have the cookbook in front of me.
The White House Cook Book
A Comprehensive Cyclopedia of Information for the Home
containing
Cooking, Toilet and Household Recipes, Menus, Dinner-Giing, Table Etiquette, Care of the Sick, Health Suggestion, Facts Worth Knowing, etc.
It was published in 1908, and there’s a photo of Edith Carew Roosevelt on the flyleaf. Pretty comprehensive for a cookbook, eh? I’m going to try to find something interesting to cook and document out of it, but if it’s all a little too much, I may revert back to my 1943 Joy of Cooking.
I made a wreath out of white berry clusters on sumac. Great looking, I wore gloves and clear spray painted it before it went into the house.
I still don’t plan on making jelly with the stuff.
I will be picking blackberries tomorrow, if I can stand long enough to do it.
The page has corn cob jelly too. This is the type of person that led to those peas and carrot jello molds.
We made jelly from prickly pear cactus “fruits” one year, but it was pretty tasteless (didn’t have much flavor, not cracked vulgar jokes to our moms). You really have to be carefull to clean them and strain thoroughly, there are tiny little stickers in the little clumps.
Bolding mine.
All I’m saying is that if it did do that, I’d totally make some. I can’t imagine the time I’d save in my day if I had a condiment that would dish out my witty “your mom” insults for me. 
Edit: Curses, I misread. Well, my mom likes “Your Mom” jokes, too. So, just as well!
Oh, god, it’s everything I could have hoped for. It looks like pure evil.
I’ll have to see what we have kicking around the kitchen for the jellied chicken monstrosity. Creative substitutions are part of great cooking! It might have to wait until we barbecue chicken again. I can only imagine that the grilled flavor will, uh, improve the taste. In true post-war tradition, I’ll use extra lighter fluid.
Also, sign me up for the mama-insulting jelly. What fun is toast if it can’t burn you? (Hi-oh!)
OK, I have one - not from an old cookbook, but this dessert was Roman dish, formed the basis of the original blancmange, and is now served across Turkey. I saw the recipe in a cuisine magazine I subscribed to, but was too scared to try making it, and I would have tried it in Istanbul, but by the time I was there I was a vegetarian.
Vegetarian, you say? How could any dessert be a problem?
3 words: Chicken Breast Pudding.
TAVUK GOGSU
(CHICKEN BREAST PUDDING)
I think the amounts below are metric, but don’t think it could make to much difference if you used US versions:
Ingredients Measure Amount
Chicken breast 1/2 medium size 100 g(cooked)
Cracked rice 3/4 cup 150 g
Water 1/4 cup 60 ml
Milk 4 cups 1 lt
Sugar 1 1/5 cups 240 g
Cinnamon 1 teaspoon 2 g
Instructions:
Cook chicken breast in water to cover, over low heat in a saucepan 10-15 minutes or until barely tender. Drain and bone tear breast into very thin hair like fibers. Set aside; chill. Cover rice with warm water for 2 hours. Drain and place into a food processor container. Process until well ground. Mix ground rice with milk in a saucepan blending well. Cook over low heat for 5 minutes or until thickened, stirring constantly. Stir in chicken breast-torn into fibers-mixing thoroughly. Cook for 5 minutes stirring gently and constantly. Reduce heat. Add sugar mixing well. Cook over very low heat for 1 minute or until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour into individual dessert bowls. Cool and sprinkle with cinnamon. Serve chilled.
Let me know how you go, sounds like a Man’s Dessert!
Got you all beat [unless there are more SCA cooks on here…]
Cariadocs Miscellaney and cookbook collections
The miscellaney are recipes that he and his wife have made and worked out modern redactions to recipes from the collection of books. They are many of the oldest ‘cookbooks’ still extant. They range from the 1200s to the 1600s, from Scandanavia to Bagdad.
More ancient fun with food is De re coquinaria which is a compendium of roman recipes. I concur the Vehling version sucks dick, but the Flower/Rosenbaum version I use is much better [and yes I do have both=)]
For discussion on all aspects of medieval and renaissance Stefann’s Florithingy as his friends call it is a seriously searchable archive of many years of usenet and internet medieval interest groups communications.
Earlier this week, I cooked me up a mess of Neckbones. The kind of food they used to make back in the Depression when there wasn’t any, you know, food to be had.
Rubbed three pounds of pork neckbones with salt and cayenne, covered them with chicken stock in a soup pot, added a chopped onion and celery stalk and bay leaf, and simmered for two hours. I let it cool and refrigerated it overnight, then skimmed off the congealed fat. Added two Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered, a handful of fresh green beans, and a handful of frozen limas I had left over in the freezer, and simmered for another half hour.
Absolutely delicious – really more of a substantial gravy with vegetables than a meat dish, since the bits of pork fall right off the bones. And then you get to suck the bones. Try it.
aruvquan, are you aware of Gode Cookery? It’s my favorite source for medieval recipes (which I do for my own amusement, since the SCA in my area never seems to have an event closer than two hours away). My favorite article on there is probably the A Tale of Two Tarts, which is a comparison of apple pie recipes from the 14th and 16th centuries.
I believe the technique is to flame sear the outside to burn off the little fine prickers.
I’m jealous! The oddest cookbook I have is Chas Addams Half-Baked Cookbook. Anyone up for Potted Woodland Squirrel?
Coincidence? I think not! Here’s a message I sent to a few friends earlier this week:
Subject: To my South Dakotan Foodie Friends
This recipe is from the Old Danish Brotherhood Society Centennial Cookbook, Viborg, South Dakota. The book was with some things that Nikki’s grandmother left to her. It was actually great nonfiction reading - or it was until I came across this gag-inducing little gem.
Meat Preserved in Lard - Danish
(Kod Sylte I Fedt)
Fry pork chops or other pieces of pork until done. (Also can be done with beef.) Season with salt and pepper. Then place in a sterilized crock. Pour boiling hot lard over meat to cover. Put a cover on the crock and place in a cool place. When you want some to eat, take out what you want and heat. Keeps well indefinitely. This recipe is at least 80 years old.
Must be some Danish obsession with lard: Microwaved Rendered Lard
Use a large covered casserole and fill with raw ground lard. Cook on high for 15 minutes and stir. Do this until done. Takes about 45 minutes. Strain to remove cracklings. Add 1 teaspoon Sta-Sweet for each quart of lard. Put in jars or tin containers while hot, seal, and freeze when cool.
There are also recipes for Beet Wine, Beet Cake, Soft Deer Jerky, Corn Cob Jelly, Egg Coffee, Methodist Cake (Burnt Sugar Cake), Krumkaka, Crackling Cookies (first ingredient is 2 cups cracklings, probably leftovers from the recipe above), Liver Cheese and Head Cheese.
All my suspicions about Midwestern salads came true; vegetables are rarely mentioned. Instead we have: Salad (plainly named, first ingredient is pretzels), Fruit Salad (whipped cream, marshmallows, fruit cocktail, pineapple syrup), 24 Hour Salad (white cherries, canned pineapple, miniature marshmallows), Glorified Rice (can crushed pineapple, rice, whipped cream), Pineapple Fluff (marshmallows, graham cracker crumbs), Pineapple Cheese Salad (can crushed pineapple, gelatin, grated cheese, whipped cream).
Nikki’s grandmother owned and operated a small town restaurant and was an excellent cook. Thanks goodness she never used any of the Viborg Centennial Cookbook recipes!
I went through that cookbook cover to cover, and everything there seems to be either huge or actually farily normal, once you get past the archaic directions. So I think I’ll fix something from that, but actually like it.
I dug out One-Dish Dinners from 1972 and found a perfectly horrible jellied chicken mold. Yeah, I’m going with that one.
Read the Christian Family Robinson book and you’ll find lard preserved meat. They had a few items I’m glad we have better preservation for.
Excerpt:
We might provide ourselves with valuable food for the rainy season, by
placing them, when half cooked, in casks with melted lard or butter
poured over them.
Also:
He, thinking his mother was melting some glue for carpentry,
was eager to know `what papa was going to make next?
Where can I get it, dear?’ said she, `we are a long way from a
butcher’s shop! But these cakes are made of the juice of good
meat, boiled till it becomes a strong stiff jelly–people take
them when they go to sea, because on a long voyage they can only
have salt meat, which will not make nice soup.
Grabbed up some of my oldest ones when I got home, and now I’m seeing that there wasn’t as many bad things as I’d thought. At least in the meat one (other than tongue, heart and tripe… none of which I eat and am not inclined to).
This other one is interesting though.
The Home Cook Book compiled from recipes contributed by the ladies of Toronto and other cities and towns: published for the benefit of the hospital for sick children. The original printing was in 1877, and I love the warning on the editors page that:
The utensils list is very interesting too… needing such things as two boilers, one for clothes and one for ham… or a hammer, screw driver and ice pick!
But how about this?
Plain Calf’s Head Soup
Take a calf’s head well cleaned, a knuckle of veal, and put them both into a large kettle; put one onion and a large tablespoon of sweet herbs, into a cloth and into the kettle, with the meat over which you have poured about four quarts of water. If you wish the soup for a one o’clock dinner, put the meat over to boil as early as eight o’clock in the morning; let it boil steadily and slowly and season well with salt and pepper. About one hour before serving, take off the soup and pour it through a colander, pick out all the meat carefully, chop very fine and return to the soup, putting it again over the fire. Boil four eggs very hard, chop them fine, and slice one lemon very thin, adding at the very last.
Cowgirl Jules I just found a jellied chicken in the Home cook book that’s put in a mould…
Do the calf’s head the same way but take it out of the soup and make tamales instead.
From my 1931 copy of “The Settlement Cook Book” by Mrs. Simon Kander: Tested Recipes from The Settlement Cooking Classes, The Milwaukee Public School Kitchens, The School of Trades for Girls, and Experienced Housewives (whew!) 
How To Measure Bulk Butter
Proper Dress For The Kitchen (no jewelry!)
Dinner Service - Russian (formal), English (family), Compromise (between the two)
Washing Dishes (glassware first!)
To Remove Grease From the Floor
To Make Soap
Window Box For Keeping Food Cold
Invalid Cookery
Now to the recipes!
Irish Moss Lemonade (made with boiling ater, lemon, sugar and…wait for it…Irish moss!)
Lime Water (boiling water poured over a cube of unslacked lime)
Toast Water (toast bread thoroughly then pour boiling water over & strain)
Chicken Custard (chicken soup, cream & egg)
Brown Flour Soup
Mock Roast Duck (made with rump steak)
Mock Birds (made with round steak of veal)
Mock Venison (made with lamb)
How to cook reindeer meat (“Reindeer meat, introuduced by the Government…”)
Dill Pickle Vegetable (cut in slices & boil till tender - serve with Sweet & Sour sauce)
Haggis
Jellied Chicken/Veal/Meat Loaf/Vegetairan Loaf/Vegetarian Chicken
Mock Crab on Toast (made with anchovy paste)
Peanut Butter Rarebit
Rinktum-Dity (tomatoes, chees, onion, green pepper, butter, eggs)
English Monkey (bread crumbs, milk, soft cheese, butter, egg)
It’s a fun read!
VCNJ~
My favourite recipe book in the whole world is “Round the World in Eighty Dishes” by Lesley Blanch. It was published in 1955 and is really not horrifying, but the trouble that she has to go to to explain what various things are and how one might substitute for exotic ingredients in post-war England is quite funny.