Journeying West Before 1840

TO roast a Pound of Butter or more the Irish Way.--Take a pound of butter, season it well with salt, and put it on a wooden spit; place it at a good distance from the fire, let it turn round, and as the butter moistens or begins to drip, drudge it well with fine oatmeal, continuing so to do till there is any moisture ready to drip, then baste it, and it will soon be enough. A certain Irish woman told me this eats vere nicely, insomuch that she has done on a Christmas eve twenty-seven different pounds so, at a farmer's house in her country, where it has been kept all the holidays, to accommodate a friend with a slice or two, as we do cakes or minced pies here.

Another Irish Country Dish.--Boil potatoes and parsnips till they are soft, make them into a mash with some new milk, and add a cabbage boiled tender and cut very small; mix the whole well over the fire with store of good butter, some salt and pepper, and eat it hot.

To make a Herricane.--Take slices of turneps, carrots, and some young onions; boil them a little to make them somewhat tender, and after some mutton steaks are fry'd and taken up, put in the parboil'd roots and fry them brown; clear your pan, put in some butter, flower, water, and some gravey (if you have it) and brown it; then put in your meat, &c. to warm, and serve it up.

To collar a Breast of Mutton.--Bone and skin it; then prepare some seasoning of parsley, a little thyme, onion, pepper and salt, with some small slips of bacon laid cross-ways, and your seasoning spread along it; roll it up, and tie it, setting it up end-ways in the saucepan with some water; cover it close, letting it stew gently till it be very tender; when you think it about half done, turn it.

To dress a Loin of Mutton.--Skin a loin of mutton, and thrust in long-ways some stuffing of parsley, a little onion, egg, bread, nutmeg, pepper, and salt, and then roast it.

The best Way to roast Pigeons --Is first to stuff them with parsley chopt very small, some butter, pepper, and salt; tie them close neck and vent, parboil them, and afterwards roast them. The parboiling makes them eat pleasanter, plumps them, and they eat not so dry as otherwise; and it takes off the usual strong tang.

Jugging Pigeons --Is to put one or more so stuft without liquor into a stone or other wide-mouthed earthen pot close tied over with bladder, and so boiled in water till enough.

To eat raw Cucumers in a wholesome pleasant Manner.--When you have pared and sliced cucumers, put a little water and some salt over them, and let them stand so about ten minutes; then drain that from them, and just wash them with a little vinegar, throwing that away likewise, before you put oil and vinegar upon them. This will make them eat much crisper and finer than without such management.--The addition of a few green nasturtian pods fresh gathered and eat with them, correct them, and make them much wholesomer as well as pleasanter, especially to such as do not chuse to eat onions with them.

The best Way to pickle Walnuts after the French Method.--Take fine fresh-gathered succulent walnuts about the latter end of June or beginning of July; wipe them well with flannel, and pour upon them rape vinegar enough to cover them. Let it be upon them nine or ten days, then pour it off into a jar or wide-mouth'd glass vessel, adding thereto a few bay-leaves, some horse-radish grosly scraped, some black pepper and salt at discretion; stop the vessel close, and put it by to be used for sauce as kechup, which it far exceeds. Then having put some pieces of horse-radish, a few bay-leaves, and some whole black pepper between every layer of the nuts, till the jar is near full, fll it up with the stoutest right white-wine vinegar cold, and cover it very close with bladder and leather, and they are done.--Be sure let no salt touch the nuts, and (thus managed) they will appear beautifully green, have their natural fine taste, and eat firm and good for five years or more.--This receit with the following one was given by Monsieur Lebat, who says this is the right way, and that in England they do not know how to pickle walnuts right.

To pickle Cucumers.--Take girkin cucumers fresh and dry gather'd, wipe them clean with flannel, and cover them with the best vinegar cold; let it lie upon them nine or ten days, then pour it off and cast it away. Just boil up some more best vinegar with some grosly scraped horse-radish, and whole black pepper; let it stand till it is cold, and having first put a little horse-radish thin sliced and whole pepper between every layer of the cucumers, pour over them the boiled cold vinegar; stop your jar very close with bladder and leather, and they are done.

To pickle Walnuts white.--Take your walnuts at the latter end of June, try them with a pin, &c. pare the green outside till you come to the white, and put them into cold water as you pare them. When done, fling them into a pot of boiling water, boil them till tender and as quick as you can; then take them out, and put them into cold water. A hundred and half will take up a quart of vinegar, one ounce of black pepper whole, half a quarter of an ounce of mace, and twelve cloves. Let them boil together, then fling in the nuts, and give them one boil; when cold, stop them close, and keep for use.

To pickle Oisters.--Take a quart of oisters and wash them in their own liquor from the gravel, then drain your liquor to them again, and set them over a fire to boil a quarter of an hour softly, to plump them; then take them out of the liquor and put them into the pot you keep them in, drain the liquor over again, and put to it four spoonfuls of white-wine vinegar, half a spoonful of whole pepper, a blade or two of mace, and a quarter of an ounce of cloves, with some lemon-peel and some salt. Let all these boil together a little while, pour it to the oisters and the spice with it, and when cold cover close.

Mrs. Hays's Receit to make a Seed Cake.--Take three pounds of flour, four ounces of fine sugar, half a pint of cream boiled, two pounds of melted butter, one pint of good ale yeast, eight eggs with two whites. Mix the sugar with the flour, make a hole in the flour, and put all these together into it. Let it stand by the fire half an hour, then mix it together, and strew in one pound of carraway-seed, then put it in a hoop and bake it an hour.

A notable Oxfordshire Housewife's common Way of makeing Marrow Puddings.--Take the crumb of a penny loaf, a pound of clean pick'd wash'd currants, the quantity of two London quarts of new milk boiled, the marrow of a common large bone, a pound of suet, nine yolks of eggs, half a pound of sugar, a nutmeg, and two pennyworth of mace powder'd, a little salt, and half a dozen large spoonfulls of flour. Mix, and fll your hog's guts but half full, tying each yard in four equal parts. After you have tye'd them up (that they are not above half-full) wash them in rather hotter than blood-warm new milk, and directly throw them into a kettle of boiling water, letting them only simmer therein for eight minutes, for if they continue longer they will burst: When boiled, lay them upon wheat straw on a sieve, and they will dry in seven or eight minutes; then you may broil them brown, and eat them. They will keep five or six days in warm weather, but at Christmas or in a hard frost thee weeks.

The Process of making Hogs large Gut white delicate Puddings.--Take a quarter of a peck of the best flour, three pounds of the hog's leaf cut small, two pounds of the best raisins of the sun, a quarter of an ounce of powder'd ginger, half a nutmeg, a blade of mace, a little stick of cinnamon, and three whole eggs well beat. Season the whole with salt and with new milk, blend these together almost as stiff as paste for pye-crust, fll your large guts moderately full, tie them at both ends about half a yard long, put them in boiling water, and let them boil a quarter of an hour upon a slow fire. Lay these upon straw as the other, and keep them so till used; then cut them in slices about half an inch thick, lay them upon the gridiron over a clear fire, broil them brown and eat them.--n. b. These last are praised much, as being exceeding fine, short, and well relished of the hog's meat.

To preserve the Chine, the Tongue, the Spare Ribs, short Ribs, But-Pieces, Hocks, and Head of a Porker or Baconer.--The common way practised by our Hertfordshire farmers wives to do this is thus: When they salt down the fleshy pieces of pork for pickling them, I say after this is done, they salt the two but-pieces, the two hocks, the two spare ribs, the chine, the head, and the tongue. If the chine and spare ribs are to be sold, I generally contrive to kill the hog a day or two before the market day, for the opportunity of selling them to the London higler, because these pieces fetch a better price than ordinary; in this case they only just sprinkle them with common salt. But if they are to be kept for spending them in the family, they salt the spare ribs, and hang them up where the blow-fly cannot come; and the chine, the hocks, the head, and the tongue, they salt and lay in an earthen glazed pot or tub, where they are to remain as they are put in, till they are dressed. In doing all which, they make use of no other than common salt; for as they are to be boil'd or roasted, or baked in a little time, they think there is no occasion for any other salt.--A second receit is how to salt a chine, spare ribs, and tongue, for drying them in a chimney: To do this, mix about a quarter of an ounce of powder'd salt-petre with a quart of common salt, and with this mixture salt the pieces all over; and when it is rubbed well in, let them lie under this salting two or three weeks; then wrap each of them in paper, and hang them up near but not too near a fire, and if this is cleverly done, the chine and spare ribs will keep good four, five, or six months; the spare ribs for roasting or baking, and the chine for boiling, provided they are (just before using) soaked in warm water a day and a night; and if they are not fresh enough, you may soak them in more warm water, and you need not fear their eating good and fresh: And I also add, that by this same method both pork and bacon offald may be preserved a great while sweet and sound, though kill'd and thus managed in summer; partly because salt-petre is a most powerful searcher and preventer of taints, and because it forces and drives in common salt, when they are mix'd and used together. But salting spare ribs thus is not agreeable to all, because the salt-petre colours them reddish, and hardens the thin meat of these bony pieces too much.--A farmer's wife, that lives near Market-Street in Hertfordshire, allows it to be a housewifely way, to put the short ribs of a porker into pickle, because, as she says, there is less waste of the flesh this way than in salting them; besides which, she thinks this bony meat eats the pleasanter for being thus pickled.--Another of our country housewives manages her offald pieces of pork in this manner: She makes pyes of her short bony pieces, and the coarse pieces she boils first; so that she salts down only her fat fleshy pieces of pork clear of all bone, for if the bony pieces of pork were salted down with the fleshy pieces, they would stink and corrupt the fleshy pieces.

To make a Mince-Pye costly and rich.--To one pound of the meat of a tongue, add two pounds of suet, six pippins, and a green lemon-peel shred small, with an ounce of Jamaica pepper, two pounds of currants, citron, lemon, and orange peels, candy'd and shred small. Mix all these with half a pint of sack, and fll your pye with it. And to make this richer still, add two spoonfuls of lemon juice or verjuice, stoned and sliced dates, with some chop'd raisins.--Another says: take an ox heart, or tongue, or meat of a surloin of beef, parboil it, and chop it with two pounds of suet to every pound of lean meat; this mix with a two-penny grated loaf and eight pippins minced fine. It makes excellent pyes, if spice, sack, and orange-peel are added, with two pounds of currants to every pound of meat. Also that this composition may be kept in an earthen pot in a dry place a month or more good, and to make the pyes eat moist, as soon as they are out of the oven, put in a glass of brandy or white-wine.--Another says, that savoury mince-pyes are best made with equal parts of mutton and veal, and other proper ingredients.--Another says, that double tripe boiled tender and minced small, with currants, sugar, and other materials, makes good mince-pyes.--Another, to make mince-pyes without flesh, says: Boil a dozen or more of eggs hard, then boil also a pound of rice very soft; mince the eggs, and beat the rice to a pap: Mix these with beef suet shred, currants, raisins, sugar, nutmeg, candy'd orange-peel, and put the whole into a pye with sack, and bake it in an oven moderately heated.

From the Country Housewife's Family Companion, 1750. Online version is here

Posted by: Mrs. Stone / 7:02 AM