Memory Monday: Black Butter

my great-grandmother

BLACK BUTTER

While I was researching for my historical magazine last month, I came across an interesting recipe. Well, the recipe might not be all that interesting, but the name was—Black Butter. The more I looked at the recipe, the more I realized that I wanted to make it—especially with blackberries, which I love. It’s really a very simple recipe and I think it would be good on some warm homemade bread—I could do that with my bread machine. This recipe came from a book titled, The Ready Adviser and Family Guide. It was published in 1866—my great-grandmother would have been eleven at the time, so she may have made something like this.

Black Butter.—Put to any kind of ripe berries half their weight of brown sugar; mash and stew them gently for half an hour, stirring them frequently. This is a good substitute for butter spread on bread and is usually much liked by children, and is more healthy than butter, particularly for those afflicted with humors in the blood.

I have no idea what “humors in the blood” are, but blackberry spread would make anything better.

By the way, if you like history and things of the past, please take a look at my historical magazine at worblysmagazine.com Almost everything in it is taken from books and magazines published prior to 1868. Some of the hints and recipes from that time are very interesting to read.

What are some of the things your mother/grandmother/great-grandmother made that you have wanted to try and create yourself? What are some of the things they talked about or made that you never, ever want to make or try again?

Memory Monday: Coffee in Our Family Part 2

my great-grandfather's brother and sister-in-law

COFFEE IN OUR FAMILY—Part 2

Last week I wrote about how we drink coffee in my family. This week I want to share some interesting tidbits about making coffee. Recently as I was researching for my historical magazine—Worbly’s Family Monthly Magazine—I came across ways to make coffee without coffee beans. My great-grandfather and his brother would still have been at home when the following book came out. Here the hints for the homemaker from The Ready Adviser and Family Guide by Isaac Shinn, published in 1866:

Acorn Coffee (a pleasant beverage).—Take sound, ripe acorns, peel off the hull or husk, divide the kernels, dry them gradually, and then roast them in a close vessel. When roasted, add a little butter in small pieces, while hot, in the roaster. Grind like other coffee, and to each teacup­ful add a tablespoonful of common coffee. To be made and drank as common coffee.

A Substitute for Coffee.—Boil clean white rye until the grains swell; then drain and dry it. Roast it to a dark brown, and prepare as other coffee, allowing twice the time for boiling. This alone makes good coffee, but if you add a little of the extract of coffee, or some beets or carrots sliced thin and dried in an oven till brown, it will make a coffee but little, if any, inferior to the genuine article.

Another.—Roast Indian meal in a bread-pan to a very dark brown; then mix it with molasses to a thick batter, and put it in a pan, and bake slowly until it becomes dry. It can be stirred often, so as to make it crummy, or baked in a cake, and a piece ground, or pounded fine, when wanted for use. This is said to make good coffee.

Last week, I said that I love cream/half & half. Well, 150 years ago, the people also needed something to lightened that black beverage. But what to do if there was no cream handy? Here is the solution they had for that problem:

A Substitute for Cream.—Cream, when unattainable, may be imitated thus: Beat the white of an egg to froth, put in a small lump of butter, and mix well; then turn the coffee to it gradually, so that it may not curdle. If perfectly done it will be an excellent substitute for cream. For tea, omit the butter, using only the egg. This might be of great use at sea, as eggs can be preserved fresh in various ways.

I am so thankful we have several grocery stores nearby so I can get my canisters of Folger’s Black Silk ground coffee, my cream, and flavored syrups. Think I’ll go make a large glass of iced English toffee coffee.

Memory Monday: A 19th Century Summer Bill of Fare

My Great-grandmother

A 19^th CENTURY SUMMER BILL OF FARE

I was looking at some of my old editions of Worbly’s Family Monthly Magazine and came across something I thought was very interesting. It is from Mrs. Goodfellow’s Cookery As It Should Be, published in 1865. (My great-grandmother, pictured above would have been a young girl of 13 at that time.)

In this article, there is a summer’s Bill of Fare for the young housekeeper. Here is a suggested menu for a week in the summertime:

MONDAY.

Breakfast. Cold bread, fish, boiled eggs.

Dinner. Lamb and peas, calves' head, vegetables,

Dessert. Fruits.

Tea. Cold bread, light cake, fruit, curds and cream.

TUESDAY.

Breakfast. Cold bread, broiled ham, poached eggs.

Dinner. Ochra soup, fried chickens, calves' feet boiled, parsley sauce, vegetables.

Dessert. Fruit, floating island.

Tea. Cold bread, corn bread, fruits.

WEDNESDAY.

Breakfast. Cold bread, chops, boiled small hominy.

Dinner. Roast lamb, mint-sauce, green peas, boiled pigs' feet, parsley sauce, boiled tongue, vegetables.

Dessert. Pie, trifles.

Tea. Cold bread, toast, cream cheese, fruits.

THURSDAY.

Breakfast. Cold bread, fish, fried mush.

Dinner. Lobster, boiled mutton, stewed liver, vegetables

Dessert. Pudding and fruit.

Tea. Corn bread, light cake, stewed fruit.

FRIDAY.

Breakfast. Cold bread, clam fritters, boiled rice, and boiled eggs.

Dinner. Fish, beef steaks, vegetables.

Dessert. Pudding, fruit.

Tea. Corn bread, cold bread, fruit, cream cheese.

SATURDAY.

Breakfast. Corn bread, cold bread, fish and boiled eggs.

Dinner. Boiled fowls, egg or celery sauce, tongue, cutlets, vegetables.

Dessert. Pie, floating island, &c.

Tea. Cold bread, sliced tongue, fruit.

SUNDAY.

Breakfast. Cold bread, boiled ham and eggs, and small hominy.

Dinner. Roast beef, fricasseed chicken, vegetables.

Dessert. Fruit, jelly, or blanc-mange.

Tea. Cold bread, fish, fruits, light cake.

Now you have to realize that while I live in 2017, I write mid-19^th Century historical fiction, a lot of the time about farmers or ranchers, not city dwellers who go to the butcher shops every day or two. So if the reader of this cookbook was a farm wife, Mrs. Goodfellow would, in one week, have the young housekeeper take apart a whole cow and serve it part by part. Notice: Monday—head, Tuesday—feet, Thursday—liver, Friday—hips or ribs (steaks), Saturday—tongue, and Sunday—hips or ribs again (roast). My question is: if this young farm wife uses all those parts one week, what is she supposed to do the next week when there is not head, feet, or tongue? Let her family starve? Or just give them more cold bread to eat? And why does the bread have to be cold? Why can’t she toast it or at least let it come to room temperature? And don’t even get me started on all this fish for breakfast? The one saving thing about this bill of fare is that there are plenty of desserts.

My final thought after reviewing this suggested menu for a week—Thank goodness for McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Subway! With these three, I can eat all summer without worrying how I can find a cow’s head, tongue, and feet every week.

Memory Monday: Why Did They Do It Like This Back Then?

My Great-grandmother Emma

WHY DID THEY DO IT LIKE THIS BACK THEN?

While I was doing research for my historical magazine, Worbly’s Family Monthly Magazine (if you haven’t seen it, here is the link http://worblysmagazine.com/ ), I came across a cookbook that left me wondering a bit. It had an interesting section titled: MEDICINAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Now I might be a bit odd at times, but normally I would put medical recipes and miscellaneous recipes in different sections—who knows, I might skip a line and bathe my feet with toast and cider if I didn’t.

Anyway, I wanted to share the names of the recipes that were grouped together in this section. Do you see any problem with the way it was done (the rest of the book was done as a traditional cookbook—meats, vegetable, pies, cakes, etc.)? The name of the book is The Improved Housewife, published in 1855—the same year my great-grandmother Emma was born.

Here are the recipes—in order—from the section MEDICINAL AND MISCELLANEOUS:

831. For Sprained Ankle.

832. Roast Apple Tea, and Acid Jelly.

833. Toast and Cider.

834. To Bathe the Feet.

835. R—f and R—y's Cure for Corns.

836. Mild Cathartic for Dispepsia.

837. Mustard Drafts.

838. Dropped Eggs.

839. For Teething Complaints of Children.

840. For Over Dose of Laudanum.

841. Chicken or Cracker Panada

842. For Prickly Heat.

843. Red Mixture, for Summer Complaint.

844. Ringworms.

845. Runaround.

846. Tobacco Salve. Royal.

847. For the Tetter.

848. To Stop Vomiting.

849. To Cure Seed Warts.

850. Toast Water.

851. Cure for Wens.

852. Cheap Cement for Bottles and Jars.

853. To make French Pomalum. Nice.

854. Southern Yellow Pickles.

855. Virginia Temperance Preserves.

856. Charleston Pudding.

857. Norfolk Spoonful Pudding.

And then they added these final two in the section—the only two that are not recipes:

858. General Rule

If a thing be worth doing at all, it is worth well doing:—best done, by self.

859. Punctuality

Fifteen minutes before the time.

Please help me—do you see the logic in this grouping? By the way, I just love this picture of my great-grandmother. I wish that I had known her.

Memory Monday: Grammar in the Mid-19th Century and How It Differs from Today

My great-great uncle, born in 1833

GRAMMAR IN THE MID-19^TH CENTURY AND HOW IT DIFFERS FROM TODAY

Since May of last year, I have been putting together and publishing a magazine titled Worbly’s Family Monthly Magazine. I date each edition 150 years ago, so last month’s magazine was dated August 1866. As I read through books from that time period (and before), I have noticed several interesting things concerning grammar and punctuation. I “correct” them in my magazine so the reader of today will have fewer problems reading the magazine.

Below are a few of the differences in the way they did it back then and how we do it today.

Contractions: Back then, do n’t or is n’t, now don’t or isn’t

Compound words: (they didn’t seem to use them) Back then, any one, now anyone

Open quote marks: Back then, there is a space between the opening quote marks and the first letter of the quote, now there is no extra space

Question marks and Exclamation points: Back then, there was an extra space between the last letter of the sentence and the ? or !. now there is never an extra space after those two punctuation marks

Semi-colon: Back then, there was an extra space in front of a semi-colon, now there is not that extra space.

Not every one of these differences appears in all books. Each book or magazine seems to have its own set of rules. I know that I spend a lot of time in the editing process of putting the magazine together “correcting these “errors.”

If you like things from the 19^th Century, I invite you to take a peek at Worbly’s Magazine. There are over a year’s worth of editions archived here: http://worblysmagazine.com/

By the way, everything in the magazine with the exception of “Manners Matter”, “Letters to the Editor”, a few of the ads, and the tidbit on the front page is right out of books and magazines actually published prior to 1867. So the things in the stories, poems, book chapters, and recipes are things my great-grandparents or my great-great-uncle (like the man in the picture above) might have read.

Blog Editor's Note: Grammarly was used in the editing of this post, so I didn't have to worry about grammatical mistakes. :)