BS: Question about antique recipe books

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Jan 07 - 07:25 AM

Pressure cookers are useful for high altitude cooking.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Cats
Date: 18 Jan 07 - 05:03 AM

Thanks MMario. On order.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 17 Jan 07 - 09:20 PM

Your thread is a misnomer. Antique indicates 100 years and older.

(However, it is easy to understand your confusion... given... that some "FOLK-Lyrics" posted by MudCat members... are only a few days, or perhaps, hours old.)

Using the good ol' USA scale:
Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book McGraw Hill, USA, no date intact but pre-1950, source back-page inside cover chart:

OVEN TEMPERATURES:

Slow.........................250 to 300
Slow moderate..............325
Moderate.................350
Quick Moderate..........375
Moderately Hot..................400
Hot........................425 to 450
Very hot...................475 to 500

As long as I am around for another week...I will seek the "Search Light Cook Book" and "Coupon Cookery" WWII era books they are here somewhere.

I cook from scratch. I can/preserve/freeze. I bake. I steal yeast spores for brewing. If I could I would tune my own piano - but that is hope-less....some-things are best left to the barter-system.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Scoville
Date: 17 Jan 07 - 11:36 AM

Ha ha! Half of our cookbooks have notes in them about "in high altitude cook at . . . " or "does not work in high altitude" from when we lived in Denver.

I remember my father attempting to make chili during once, shortly after we moved there, and then getting mad because we wouldn't eat the still-crunchy undercooked beans.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: MMario
Date: 17 Jan 07 - 11:16 AM

cats - you looked at any of the recipes in Robert May's cookbook? Just post 1600 I believe...

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: GUEST,Cats
Date: 17 Jan 07 - 11:12 AM

Lat year I did a 6 course meal for a friends birthday using the recipes from Hampton Court Palace from around 1599, i.e. when my house was originally built. The first thing I had to do was translate them into something like modern English, then work out what on earth they were telling me to do. Fantastic. The meal took about 3 days to prepare as I did it all without using modern methods as far as possible. All the spices and herbs had to be ground in a mortar and pestle and mixed accordingly. I suppose I am lucky as I still have 'shelves' or boxes about 18 inches square, in my granite walls, which are lined with slate and keep things cool, even in the hottest day in the kitchen [excellent for keeping beer in!]. Time consuming it was and although the food was not a highly coloured [I don't mean added colours just natural ones] as modern food tends to be, the taste was superb. The house smelled how I believe it would have done when it was first built. It really is worthwhile finding out very old recipes and trying them out. It might be time consuming but you get fabulous recipes in the end, e.g. I now have a really good recipe for whole duck, rubbed with a mixture of aromatic spices and served with a sauce which includes port, fresh raspberries and jelly! So, persevere and if you need any help pm me and I'll do what I can to answer your questions.. or do we just have an 'aunty cats recipes and coking tips' thread!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 07 - 08:03 PM

The University at Fort Collins Colorado Food Science and Human Nutrition department has experimented with high altitude baking for over 50 years.

"High Altitude Baking"
"Simply Colorado Too"
"Gluten-Free High Altitude Cookbook"

Of course, using High Altitude Flour leaves never a guess about what to add and what to leave out! Try it! You may find the High Altitude flour at City Markets and Walmart.

No need for a cat's tomatoe souflee to fail just because they live in Grand Junction, CO.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 10:16 PM

I was raised in Santa Fe, elevation 7000 feet, so I am able to echo Slag. Not only cooking times but ingredients had to be altered in amounts.
Cakes were an especial problem. There are high-altitude cookbooks, but for something not in them, expermentation is necessary in order to get realy good results.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Slag
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 06:12 PM

I don't recall seeing it mentioned in the thread but another reason for the somewhat vague discripton of oven heats can be attributed to variations in the altitude of the operation. The higher you are, the lower the boiling point of water and the less combustion in your cooking fuel. Cooking is an art and when you truly know how to cook it IS a pinch of this and a dash of that. You lift the pan off the flame for a few seconds because it feels right to do so, and so it is!

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 05:38 PM

There is an excellent conversion table for oven temperatures (Euro and American) in the back of Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun. I just found it. I mentioned on the "What Are You Reading Now" thread that I've been reading it since before christmas. The recipes in this book are divine!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 03:46 PM

Old cooking books are interesting, but the names often heard are not necessarily good.

Mrs Beaton's "Book of Household Management (also Sanitary, Medical and Legal Memoranda)," often called a cookbook, is a monster compendium about running a large, well-to-do household, first printed in 1861.
Mrs. Beaton was not a cook, she was the lady of the house and its overseer and administrator. She may have ben able to boil water, but could not have been trusted with a soufle. Her information came from her kitchen and household staff.

Hugo Zieman and Mrs. F. L. Gillette, 1889, "The White House Cookbook," is more practical and much more simple. The recipes are suitable for a middle class household of the time, but never were used in the "White House" in Washington, or any other large house.

Of these books, the first to use accurate measurements and to be based on sound culinary principles was "The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book," first issued in 1894, written by culinary pioneer Fannie M. Farmer, and later carried on by Wilma Lord Perkins under the title, "Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook."
This book remains the first source in our house, especially the 8th Edition of 1946. Later editions simplified some of the recipes, removing recipes gleaned from fine restaurants, reducing the cream and rich ingredients, and which made the book a prize beyond compare.
Copies of the eight ed. are available used at reasonable cost.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 01:58 PM

Uncle DaveO....Dave....The last thing i would eat would be a Presbyterian.....there are many other religious groups with more taste. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Charmion
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 01:46 PM

I grill steak in a ridged skillet on the back hob of my gas range, under the extractor fan. I test the heat of the skillet by holding my hand about six inches above it; if the palm of my hand is uncomfortably hot after a couple of seconds, it's probably hot enough. I test it with a few drops of water, which should bounce, or a dribble of peanut oil, which should smoke. Peanut oil has the highest ignition temperature of cooking oils.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 10:00 AM

Georgiansilver commented:

Presbyterian cookbooks...who want to cook Presbyterians anyway?

Sure! You wouldn't want to eat them RAW, would you?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 01:43 AM

Reminds me, my granma used to cook beautiful sponge cakes in a wood fired iron oven (like a slow combustion stove but with no 'insulation') - used to test the temp using her hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 09:04 PM

Thanks, Gargoyle. You found the reference to using flour to test the temperature. I looked through the cookbooks I have but none of them had it. I used to have a much older Commonsense Cookbook than the one I have now, printed in 1970, and I'm sure the older one had that method. That copy would have fallen apart from being used so much, I think.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: GUEST,White House Cookbook
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 07:21 PM

White House Cookbook

Revised Edition

Francis Folsom Cleveland The Bride of the White House

No copyright or publisher information in my copy; it probably fell out.

Well used and loved by my grandmother. I was taught dozens of these guidlines for the methods of cooking.

Page 284 - Pastry, Pies and Tarts
Great care is requisite in heating an oven for baking pastry. If you can hold your hand in the heated oven while you count twenty, the oven has just the proper temperature, and it should be kept at this temperature as long as the pastry is in; this heat will bake to light brown, and will give the pastry a fresh and flakey appearance.

Page 252 - Cakes
To ascetain when the cake is done, run a broom straw into the middle of it; if it comes out clean and smooth, the cake will do to take out.(sic)

Pages 251-252
...care should be taken that no cold air enters the oven....the oven should be a moderate heat, not too cold or too hot; much depends on this for success.

....The heat should be tested fefore the cake is put in, which can be done by throwing on the floor of the oven a tablespoonful of new flour. If the flour takes fire, or assumes a dark-brown color, the termperature is too high, and the oven must be allowed to cool; if the flour remains white after the lapse of a few seconds, the temperature is too low. When the oven is the proper temperature, the flour will slightly borwn and look slightly scorched.

Pages 212-213 Bread

As a general rule, the oven for baking bread should be rather quick, and the heat so regulated as to penetrate the dough without hardening the outside....When the loaves are ready to put into the oven, the oven should be ready to recieve them. It should be hot enough to brown a teaspooful of flour in five minutes. The heat should be greater at the bottom than at the top of the oven, and the fire arranged as to give sufficient strength of heat through the baking without being replenished.

Page 94 Meats

A great deal of the success in roasting depends on the heat and goodness of the fire; if put into a cool oven it loses its juices, and the result is a tough, tasteless roast; whereas, if the oven is of the proper heat, it immediately sears up the pores of the meat and the juices are retained.

The oven should be hottest when the meat is put into it, in order to quickly crisp the surface and close the pores of the meat, thereby confining it natural juices. If the oven is too hot to hold the hand in for only a moment, then the oven is right to receive the meat.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Always in the best of taste.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Peace
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 03:23 PM

To say nothing of ruining a perfectly delightful bouillabaisse.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Slag
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 03:14 PM

Correction. Toxins are not living things that can be killed by heat. They are exudates secreted by an organism. They are semi-stable organic compounds that resist decomposition at some cooking temperatures. The bacteria that produce the toxins die almost immediately on exposure to heat and oxygen but their waste persists. You must clean the bowls. Boil the water 15 minutes or more and take no chances. Food poisoning is no fun and can be one of the worst forms of death!

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Scoville
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 02:57 PM

The best reason I can think of to specify a clean bowl is that some contaminants might react with whatever you're cooking, especially if they're particularly acidic, alkaline, or if the bowl is greasy, or if whatever you're making is especially at risk for spoilage.

Some recipes specify not to use a metal mixing bowl because some ingredients will react with them (as opposed to glass or glazed ceramic bowls).

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 02:47 PM

I caught that John. Use the dirty bowl and see what happens. Heat will kill anything toxic more than likely.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Slag
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 02:46 PM

Weel, I just got out my original copy of LEE'S PRICELESS RECIPIES, the Standard, 3000 secrets for the home, farm, laboratory, workshop and every department of human endeavor. A Gold Mine. Copyrighted 1912. It has everything from homemade explosives and fireworks to drugs and linaments and making your own paint but not a word on oven settings. If you want to drive flies from a room p;ace a castor-oil plant in the room and the flies will leave. Probably closely followed by yourself I would assume!

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Peace
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 02:32 PM

Recipe for rabbit stew:

Kill rabbit
Skin and clean
Put in pot with water
Add stuff you like
Cook

People sure do get fancy these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: GUEST,Scoville
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 02:24 PM

My boss collects 19th-early 20th century Texas cookbooks. Her living and dining rooms are lined with shelves full of cookbooks. She even--she's a librarian--made a catalog of available titles with notations as to where they are kept (her collection, Texas Woman's University, UT, etc.). It's very interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Tig
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 10:51 AM

I've got some great old cookbooks both printed and handwritten. Amongst them is the one which belonged to my Great Aunt who was housekeeper at the Judges House in Leeds in the Twenties. It says things like "take a dozen eggs and 2 pints of cream ..... average cost per person 3d"! Mind you it also tells you what to do with leftovers.

I've also got a handwritten one which suggests the use of laudeum and other substances of a similar nature for various ailments. We think it was my Great great grandmother's. The following pages have recipes for floor polish and toothpaste.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 08:01 AM

Presbyterian cookbooks...who want to cook Presbyterians anyway?
Have had many old cookbooks over the years including an early Mrs Beetons which fetched £110 on Ebay.....get looking in bookshops folks.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 07:08 AM

some of the cake recipes in my book says to bake in a moderate oven, or gentle oven, or even better "Bake 1 & a half hours or even less" with no temperature given there. This recipe must be for experienced cooks.

But I found something even better in the Home Nursing section

Cure for Diarrhoea - 40 drops of Oil of peppermint, 80 drops launanum, half pint of brandy. Dose - 1 tablespoon in same quantity of water, repeat the dosew in 10 minutes. f the symptoms are not relieved, continue taking the medicine at intervals of half an hour. For adults only. This remedy has been used successfully for English cholera.

And to think that for years - decades - I've envied my Aunt getting Great Aunt's copy of "Enquire within for everything." This book will join my reading pilke, rather than be returned to the cookbook shelf, looks like there is lot of good reading there.

On the next page the recipe to Destroy Ants calls for 20 grains of white arsenic!

fThe irst editon of this wonderful book was issued in 1895 & the 17th in 1922, & I think I've heard of later editions, but I bet those recipes/hints aren't there any more.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 05:28 AM

My gas oven has numbers 1 to 9. I think the settings in Peace's link are roughly equivalent to 2 to 9 (with 1 available for baby kittens).

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: RangerSteve
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 02:29 AM

Peace - thanks. That should do it.

I see that two messages above mention Presbyterian cookbooks. Oddly enough, it's a Presb. cookbook from 1925 that I was talking about. They must have done a lot of cooking, and they came up with some good stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 11:08 PM

I've got an old cookbook I've never been able to use.

Every recipe in it starts of with:

"In a clean bowl ...."


John

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Helen
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 10:46 PM

Sandra,

(Hi again, in a different thread!) It was the old Commonsense Cookery Book I was thinking of, but the paper test might not be in that book.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 10:09 PM

Jennie, I was going to check my great aunt's 1922 Presbyterian cookbook!

I also haave my 1960's school textbook The Commonsense Cook Book.

Both get referred to on occasion.

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: JennieG
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 09:17 PM

I have a couple of old books, and I like ingredients such as:

"Take two eggs
Also take their weight in flour, butter and sugar"........etc

One of my old books is a Presbyterian Church cookbook from 1932, and another is my mother's wedding cook book - my parents were married in 1946, and the book was put out by the CWA (Country Women of Australia). Both books also have wonderful household hints.

Cheers
Jennie

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 07:46 PM

and hold the kittens!

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 07:41 PM

I think what I would do is choose a cheap recipe from the book and experiment with your oven.

Rhiannon

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: SINSULL
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 07:29 PM

I wondered what you were going to make of those recipes. "A handful" of this and a "dash" of that and into "a warm oven". heh heh Right...

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 07:22 PM

I remember my grandmother doing the baked paper test on the 'range' (which may or may not have been a wood fueled AGA) for the little oven, specifically, just before one of the winter-born litters of kittens was popped into it for a few minutes to 'get them going'.

If the paper came out brown, the kittens went in the bottom oven, if it was still white, they went in the little oven. They never went in the big oven, or in the pot on the top.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 06:24 PM

Heck, I got cookbooks older'n that! Try the amount of stuff needed:

Two quarts of flour (okay...was the quart the same size in 1750 as now?)
A piece of chocolate the size of a walnut (hulled? shelled?)
Two dozen eggs (like I can afford that! And what size were the eggs?)

Heat your oven and rake out the coals... (I have three electric ovens and a toaster oven availble, not to mention two microwaves....)

Actually, I can do it. I also can do Dutch oven cooking. I love old cookbooks.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 05:12 PM

well, moderate would most likely be 350 and most stuff I cook is cooked at that temperature. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Helen
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 04:25 PM

I don't know the exact method, but with fuel stoves, i.e. wood fired stoves for cooking, there used to be a method where you put a piece of white paper or some flour in the oven and you could tell the temperature by how how quickly and how brown the paper or flour went.

I Googled but the one promising link was disconnected. I remember seeing that in an old cookbook but I don't know if I still have it.

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 04:06 PM

Filling your house with too many books is a recipe for disaster!

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 03:05 PM

I have a few recipes like that. If you're still in doubt, compare the 1925 recipe with a newer book's version of the same dish and see what temperatures are suggested. If you're like me, you have a cupboard full of cookbooks for possible comparison. My mother collected cookbooks, hence my collection. And when my Dad died I grabbed a couple of his.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 02:33 PM

Well done Bruce. The original electric and gas ovens were equipped with settings as described but with no temperature guide as such...that is the reason for the 'discrepancy', for want of a better word, in the book. Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 02:30 PM

Here ya go, Steve.

Subject: BS: Question about antique recipe books
From: RangerSteve
Date: 13 Jan 07 - 02:00 PM

I got a 1925 recipe book from my formerly secret Santa (thanks, again, Sinsull), and the recipes all look worthwhile, but I have a question that I hope some of you can answer. The book predates the invention of actual temperature controls. What exactly is meant by the terms: slow oven, quick oven, moderate oven and hot oven?

I've already thought of the obvious only slightly humorous replies, so you can skip them. Or not, I don't care.
Thanks,
Steve