Tag Archives: eggs

LUMBAR PIE

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DINNER WITH FRIENDS

I love making coffins, and so, when we invited three couples to dinner, that was top on the menu. I also made rolls and a warm bean salad. Our guest brought hors d’ oeuvres and dessert, a special treat was freshly dug steamers just dug off of Newburyport that same day, thank you Connie and Bart, who also brought blueberry pie. Ray and Linda provided bacon wrapped figs which were wonderful. This carried on my theme as I had figs in my coffin. Bob and Barbara made a crab dip, a receipt out of Food TV magazine.

The house was decorated for Christmas and looking very festive. I have four trees this year. The fresh one with all the family ornaments is in front of the Cage Bar as far away from the hearth as it can get. It needs water every day.

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With such a large group of guests, I made two coffins. I used the roller to make some of the designs.

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With the bake oven hot, they were ready to put in and bake for an hour.

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They came out of the oven brown and ready to eat.

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Connie took this picture with her phone. Here I’m cutting off the top of the coffins.sandie

The coffin was filled with lamb and veal meatballs that had both sweet and savory spices in them, ginger, nutmeg and cloves as well as salt and pepper. And a little nuget of bone marrow in the center. Large white grapes added some moisture and the, figs a bit of crunch. Eggs and three types of mushrooms rounded out the ingredients. I made a gravy with the drippings from the meatballs and added some fresh rosemary to it this was then added to the coffins. Most early cookery books had at least one receipt for a Lumber pie; they seemed to be very popular.  I know I love them.

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Connie was taking pictures of the opening of the coffins and got this shot of the men coming in to find a seat. We ladies sat down, and dinner began. Our conversation ranged from a new Clock Jack that was purchased, then the name of my Rooker that was used to remove embers from oven, and the trials and tribulations of moving a first-period house that might be up for sale, and discussion of early foods and many compliments on the dinner. Connie loved the crust and ate the top crust alongside her meal, so much for giving the coffin remains back to the kitchen help.

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Dessert was served, and we sat by the fire for a long time relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. Our guests are friends, so it made the evening even more delightful.

I hope you will have many occasions to share food with friends and family over the Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I’m looking forward to having Christmas here and a Beef Wellington with family.

Sandie

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart. ~Washington Irving

 

Ragout with a Cabbage

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Hanging Cabbages

Hannah Glass has a receipt called “Or this Way Beans Ragoo’d with a Cabbage. “ If the 17th and 18th century mothers were lucky, they might still have a cabbage hanging in the root cellar now and a few carrots and turnips. The cabbages would be hung from their roots with the large leaves left on. The turnips and carrots would be stuck in sand to stay damp (not wet) so they think they are resting in the ground. This was the common practice of looking ahead and providing fresh produce for one’s family throughout the winter months and into early spring. So, hopefully, you still have something left in the root cellar.

I talked with Ryan Beckman at Old Sturbridge Village to see what they had in the root cellar there. Unfortunately, no cabbage, as they were hit badly with blight last year and are not growing any this year in an effort to thwart it. Ryan said they had just run out of carrots last week and are focusing on the potatoes and the multitude of eggs they are blessed with at the moment. This is the time of year that they interpret the “six weeks of want.” We have cabbage still at our Farm Markets so, here in New Hampshire, we were lucky. And I found a nice small one. The turnips fared well too and the carrots may be a bit on the wilted side yet usable.

Along with my planked fish I needed a vegetable, so this receipt seemed doable, given the coolness of the season. Having no beans yet, I omitted them and decided on fresh spring asparagus. Now this receipt has a lot of steps to it. First you must clean the cabbage and cut the stem side flat so it sits nice on a plate. Then it needs to be par-boiled so it can be pierced with a fork but not fall apart. Hannah has you put the carrots and turnips in the same pot, I did mine separately.

cab 1

When the cabbage was soft, I took it out and cut a cavity in the upper part for the ragout and saved the cone to mix with the other vegetables.  I mashed all the vegetables together with salt and pepper and added a little of the cabbage liquid I had saved.

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The cabbage went back into the pot with a bit of water, wine, vinegar from the pickled mushroom, butter and the mushroom ketchup I had made I made last fall. This was covered and simmered gently. I needed to check on it often to make sure it did not run out of liquid. With the other vegetables mashed, I placed them by the fire to keep warm.

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Once the fork slid easily through the cabbage it was removed and put on a plate stem side down. The cavity was filled with the ragout’d vegetables, and the asparagus were placed around the plate. The liquid for the last cooking of the cabbage was poured over it and my side dish was complete. I added a little more vinegar, as I like mine tart, and, as a whole, it was tasty and looked very nice on the plate.

 

cab 4I’m really looking forward to using my new root cellar come fall. It is now clean of construction debris and I can start planning the shelves and boxes I’ll need. It will be a fun project.

Sandie

“The cabbage surpasses all other vegetables. If, at a banquet, you wish to dine a lot and enjoy your dinner, then eat as much cabbage as you wish, seasoned with vinegar, before dinner, and likewise after dinner eat some half-dozen leaves. It will make you feel as if you had not eaten, and you can drink as much as you like.”
Cato (234-149 B.C.)

EVERY DISH HAS A PAST

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WITH SANDRA OLIVER

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What a fun, challenging, and educational workshop. Sharing several days with some of the top food historians and a few enthusiastic novices, we all had something to share as we progressed with our chosen receipt. Sandy, Historic Deerfield, and participants all brought receipt books from very early to modern times. It was hard not to want to look at them all. However, we each had a mission, and mine was to research Hot Water Paste to make coffins. First we all made a list of keywords that we could use in looking up things in the Oxford English Dictionary and several others that were at hand.

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My keywords were, hot water paste, raised pye, great pye, coffin, hot water crust, paste pye and standing crust. I found that I could go back as far as 13th century if I wanted too, however, I thought I’d narrow this down a bit. I started in 1596 with Thomas Dawson’s chewits and went on to an 1880 book by Agnes Marshall. Of the ten receipts the majority were in the narrative, with a few short sentences listing ingredients in copious amounts, the three that were scientific gave measurements in cups, tablespoons and pinches, as a list, and then directions on the process. Proportions depended largely on the size of the coffin, or raised pie that was being made. All most all called for three items, hot water, flour and some type of fat. Butter was used over lard and only one receipt used suet. The flour differed in the type of pye being made, rye for a high stiff crust and fine flour for smaller pies. Three of the receipts used eggs and one used saffron. Few tools were needed to make the crust, a pot to boil water and a board to mix everything on. Very few had any instructions at all and Ann Wilson who wrote Food and Drink in Britain said of making dough “Pastry making was one of the crafts which medieval cooks or house wife’s had to learn by hearsay” I would add, by practice also.

medieval-pie

Once made into a coffin, standing pye or whatever you might call it, it then needed to be filled. Now this brings me to the wonderful history that I found regarding coffins being made as far back as the 14th century in France, most notably in the context of court banquets. They were not always filled with food. Sometimes they were filled after baking as an Illusion food, called a Sotellties. These were served between courses as an entertainment. The cook book Epulario published in 1598 mentions baking a coffin then stuffing it with frogs and or birds to pop out as they cut the top crust. Does four and twenty blackbirds ring any bells?

They were also made as wedding gifts and for traveling to picnics. No medieval feast would be without a Great Pye containing whole legs of venison or beef, swan, peacock or other foods laden with rich spices, herbs and eggs. All made with a very stiff paste. In 1785 Abigail Adams who was in France wrote a letter to Lucy Cranch relating the customs there. “Religion of the country requires an abundance of feasting. The day before, it is customary to make a large paste pie” So hot paste had a long run in cookery book and feast days. Raised by hand or with the use of a wooden mold if you happen to have one. It was not until the late 1880s that they were made inside a form to hold their shape.

Marshall-game-pie

Agnes Marshall’s Cookery Book (London: 1880).

Back to the 17th and 18th centuries- whether or not the coffin was eaten after the content was gone is unclear. The cookery book “Good Housewife handmaid for the kitchen” published in 1596 states “but ye must take heed ye not put too many yolks of eggs for if you do it will make it drie and not pleasant in eating.” Sounds like they did eat the crust.

Yet, look at the picture by Pieter Claesz; you see a coffin with the content spooned out and crust on top.

Pieter-Claesz

However, Willem  Claesz Heda paints his with it cut much like a pie wedge today. So was the crust consumed or discarded? Was it taken to the kitchen for the cooks or passed out at the door for the peasants. I have not seen any primary source confirming either way.still_life_of_food_and_drink_o_hi

So with the research completed on our chosen receipts each participant took 15 minutes to share their findings. Then it was off to the Hall Tavern to try our hand at cooking them. I chose Robert May’s 1685 receipt for my paste and filling. And my next blog will include my disaster and triumph in raising a coffin.

Once again I thank Sandy for a wonderful workshop, and am also appreciative of all the participants who were so generous in sharing their knowledge. As my roommate for the workshop mentioned later, “We came for the food and left with all these wonderful folks in our pockets.”

Until next week,

Sandie

OPEN HEARTH COOKING CLASSES

There are still opening for the up-coming classes for April – May

Look for them in the gray box on the right side of the site –

Hope you can join us

Sandie