Blog Post Twelve
Photo by Annie Spratt
Connections Through Cooking: Part 2, Christmas
Holiday Meals of my Ancestors
After discovering the title and author of my grandmother’s tattered cook book, The American Woman’s Cook Book by Ruth Berolzheimer, I thought I would try to find some Christmas recipes and what I found was an entire menu for the occasion. I’ve enjoyed a variety of Christmas dinners over the years – large family gatherings, multiple gatherings over a few days, small dinners, turkey dinners, ham dinners, and KFC dinners. I’ve never had a dinner quite like the one laid out in the cook book, and the menu planning section of the book provides a very interesting philosophy about planning the perfect menu to please the human brain: “The appearance of food is important to civilized man. Beautiful color and dainty, attractive arrangement play a large part in a successful meal.”[1] She wasn’t totally wrong, as a culture we do prefer perfect presentation made evident by the sheer amount of cooking and baking competition shows being made now.
Christmas Menu
Two options are given in this edition, one with main course of roast goose and one with roast beef as the main. I chose the roast goose menu because it’s nothing like any of the Christmas dinners I’ve had: oyster cocktails in green peppers shells, celery, ripe olives, roast goose with potato stuffing, apple sauce, string beans, potato puff, lettuce salad with riced cheese and bar-le-duc, French dressing, toasted wafers, English plum pudding, and bonbons served with coffee[2].
Photo by Kala McCotter-Mullen
Oyster Cocktails in Green Pepper Shells[3]:
30 large oysters
3 tablespoons tomato catchup
2 teaspoons prepared horseradish
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons vinegar
4 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ teaspoon Tabasco sauce
Chill oysters. Mix remaining ingredients well and chill. Place oysters in chilled glasses and cover with sauce. Serves 6. Oysters baked in shells – scrub unopened oysters well and place, deep shell down, in pan. Baked in hot oven (450°F) until shells open, abut 10 minutes. Season with butter, salt and pepper; serve in shells.
Roast Goose[4]
1 8-pound goose
Salt and pepper
Flour
Potato stuffing
Select a young goose, clean, singe, wash in hot water and dry on outside. Flatten breastbone by striking with a rolling pin. Fill body cavity lightly with Potato Stuffing, skewer the opening or truss. Roast in a slow oven (325°F) for 45 minutes, on rack in uncovered roasting pan. Remove from oven, pour off fat, season with salt and pepper, dredge with flour return to oven.
When the flour is browned, pour 1 cup hot water into pan and baste goose often, dredging each time with a slight sifting of flour to absorb fat. Allow 20 minutes per pound for a young goose, and 25 minutes for older goose. Remove from pan, add 1 cup hot water to gravy and thicken, if necessary, with browned flour. Garnish goose with parsley and serve with Giblet Gravy. Serves 5. Serve with applesauce, hot or cold, spiced fruit, cranberry-orange relish, or coddled minted apples. Salmis of Goose – Use leftover roast goose. To 4 cups sliced goose, add 2 tablespoons each of lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce, and 2 cups goose gravy; simmer 20 minutes. Add ½ cup sherry and 12 ripe, sliced olives, and reheat. Garnish with parsley and serve on hot buttered toast.
Potato Stuffing[5]
2 cups hot mashed potato
1 cup bread crumbs
½ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sage
4 tablespoons melted butter or other fat
2 tablespoons onion juice
Mix ingredients in order given. Makes 3 cups.
Apple sauce[6]
4 quarts sweet cider
2 quarts apples
By boiling it uncovered, reduce four quarts of new cider to two quarts. Pare, quarter and core the apples and simmer with the cider for four hours. Flavour with cinnamon, if desired.
String beans[7]
1 quart string beans
Salt and pepper
Butter
Wash beans, string and snap or cut into short pieces. Cover with least possible amount of boiling water and cook gently until tender. Salt the water just before cooking is completed. When done, drain and season with butter, salt and pepper. If the flavour of salt pork is liked cut slice of salt pork into small pieces and fry until brown, then add one tablespoon flour, one cup hot water, and the beans. Simmer for a few minutes and serve hot.
Potato puff[8]
2 cups hot smashed potatoes
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter or other fat
To the mashed potatoes add the fat, the egg-yolks which have been beaten until very light, and the milk. Stir until well blended and then fold in the stiffly beaten egg-whites. Mix lightly and pile the mass in a well-greased baking dish. Set in a pan containing hot water and bake in a moderate oven (375°F) twenty to thirty minutes. Serve at once.
Bar-le-duc[9]
1 quart currants
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
Stem and wash currants. Combine sugar and water and heat to boiling, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Boil rapidly for 5 minutes. Add currants and boil rapidly for 15 minutes. Pour into clean hot jars and seal. Makes 3 (1/2 pint) jars.
English plum pudding[10]
¾ cup sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon mace
½ pound raisins, chopped
½ pound dried currants, chopped
¼ pound citron, chopped
1/8 pound lemon peel, chopped
1/8 pound orange-peel, chopped
1/8 pound blanched almonds, chopped
¾ cup hot milk
½ cup fine bread crumbs
½ pound brown sugar
4 eggs, separated
½ pound suet, chopped
¼ cup fruit juice
½ cup jelly
Sift flour, salt, soda and spices together; stir in fruit and almonds. Pour milk over bread crumbs and let stand 10 minutes. Beat sugar with egg yolks until light and fluffy. Add suet and crumbs to egg yolk mixture; stir into flour-fruit mixture. Add fruit juice and jelly and mix thoroughly; fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Fill greased mold, 2/3 full, cover tightly and steam for 3 ½ hours. Serves 12. Use grape, plum, or currant jelly.
It’s through things like recipes and searching for stories about their lives that I keep connections to my ancestors, especially those I should have known but never got the chance to know. I’ll never know if my grandmother ever made any of these dishes for Christmas, or if she ever made Christmas dinner when so many family members lived nearby. Did they take turns hosting each year? Did the same household host each year? I don’t expect I’ll ever know what my ancestors’ traditions were, but thinking about what they might have made makes me feel that much closer.
[1] Ruth Berolzheimer, The American Woman’s Cook Book, (Chicago: Consolidated Book Publishers, unknown year), 47.
[2] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 56.
[3] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 207.
[4] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 288.
[5] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 304.
[6] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 320.
[7] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 390-391.
[8] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 407.
[9] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 672.
[10] Berolzheimer, American Woman, 548.