To start her fire, our housewife would need kindling, wood, matches (which tended to produce a shower of sparks which caused frequent burns) and much patience. She also had ashes to contend with and all of this before she could start cooking.
Many of her utensils were made of iron and therefore heavy and her ingredients did not come all nicely packaged as ours do today. Baking powder, soda and yeast as we know them today did not exist. The 1830's housewife had to make her own yeast for bread making. Pearlash (potassium and carbonate) was used as a leavening agent in cakes. Much corn meal was used by these women as well as a variety of spices.
With no freezers or refrigerators, the spices helped to improve the flavor of meats and other foods that were not quite fresh. Meats were either used fresh or were salted in some fashion and fruits and vegatables not used fresh had to be dried to preserve them for later use.
All of this was part of our homemaker's work to provide for her family.
Food Preparation. As part of the 150th birthday of the McCook House, I thought it would be interesting to find out how Martha McCook prepared her family's food.
I found that vegetables were boiled and mostly seasoned with butter and salt and sometimes pepper.
The boiling was very long - two or three hours for beets, an hour and a half for green beans, two hours for green lima beans and it was said tomatoes would not lose their raw taste in less than three hours' cooking. The cooking liquid was drained off before serving. Today we know that the less water used in cooking vegetables and the quicker the time, the more nutrients are preserved.
Probably the most that could be said of vegetables cooked in the McCook's kitchen was that they were filling and as they were accustomed to them, thought they tasted good.
Meats also were boiled or on occasion roasted on a spit over or in front of the fireplace fire. Placing meat in an oven as we do today, would not have been roasted, it would have been "baked". Some food considered delicasies in days gone by would probably find little favor on today's menu.
For example, "To fricasee a calf's head - take half a calf's head that is boiled tender, cut into slices, and put it into a stew-pan with some good veal broth.: season it with mace, pepper, salt, and artichoke bottom cut in dice, some force-meat balls first boiled, morels and truffles; let these boil together for a quarter of an hour; scum it clean; beat up the yolks of two eggs in a gill of cream, put this in and shake it round till it is ready to boil; squeeze in a little lemon, and serve it up." (Susannah Carter, The Frugal Housewife, 1792)
Lady Frances McDougall in her 1837 edition of "The Housekeeper's Book" gave direction for carving a calf's head - "some nice fat about the ear. . . a tooth in the upperjaw, called by some the sweet tooth, very full of jelly, and the eye, which mayy be forced from the socket by . . . the point of the knife . . . and divided in quarters."
A woman learned to cook from experience, not simply by reading a cook book.
Following are some early recipes:
SHORT CAKE - " When people have to buy butter and lard, short cakes are economical food. A half pint of flour will make a cake large enough to cover a common plate. Rub in thoroughly a bit of shortening as big as a hen's egg; put in a teaspoonful of dissolved pearlash; wet it with cold water; knead it stiff enough roll well, to bake on a plate, or in a spider. It should bake as quick as it can, and not burn. The first side should stand longer to the fire than the last." (Lydia ra Child's American Frugal Housewife, 1832)
ACK CAKE - Prepare two pounds of currants by picking them clean, washing i draining them through a cullender, and then spreading them out on a large dish to dry before the fire or in the sun, placing the dish in a slanting position. :k and stone two pounds of the best raisins, and cut them in half. Dredge the currants (when they are dry) and the raisins thickly with flour to prevent them from king in the cake. Grind or powder as much cinnamon as will make a large gravy spoonful when done; also a table-spoonful of mace and four nutmegs; sift these spices, and mix them all together in a cup. Mix together two large glasses of white wine, one of brandy and one of rose water, and cut a pound of citron into large ~s. Sift a pound of flour into one pan, and a pound of powdered loaf-sugar into another. Cut up among the sugar a pound of the best fresh butter, and stir them to a cream. Beat twelve eggs till perfectly thick and smooth, and stir them gradually to the butter and sugar, alternately with the flour. Then ad by degrees, the fruit, juice and liquor, and stir the whole very hard at the last. Then put the mixture into a well buttered tin pan with straight or perpendicular sides. Put it immediately into a moderate oven, and bake it at least four hours. When done, let it remain in the oven to get cold; it will be better for staying in all night. Ice it next morning; firstt dredging the outside all over with flour, and then wiping with a towel. This will make the icing stick.
ICING - A quarter of a pound of finely powdered loaf sugar, of the whitest and best quality, is the usual allowance to one white of egg. For the cake in the proceeding receipe, three quarters of a pound of sugar and the whites of three eggs will be about the proper quantity. Beat the white of egg by itself till it stands ne. have ready the powdered sugar , and then beat it hard into the white of egg, till it becomes thick and smooth; flavouring it as you proceed with a few drops oil of lemen, or a little extract of roses. Spread it evenly over the cake with a broad knife or a feather; if you find it too thin, beat in a little more powered sugar. Cover with it thickly the top and sides of the cake, taking care not to have it rough and streaky. When dry, put on a second coat; and when that is nearly dry, lay on the ornaments. You may flower it with coloured sugar-sand or nonparels; but a newer and more elegant mode is to decorate it with devices and borders in white sugar; they can be processed at the confectioners, and look extremely well on Icing that has been tinted with pink by the addition of a little echineal.
You may colour icing of a pale or deep yellow by rubbing the lumps of loaf-sugar (before they are powdered) upon the outside of a large lemon or orange. This will also flavour it finely.
Almond icing, for a very fine cake, is made by mixing gradually with the white of egg and sugar, some almonds, half bitter and half sweet, that have been pounded in a mortar with rose water to a smooth paste. The whole must be well incorporated, and spread over the cake near half an inch thick. It must be set in a cool oven to dry, and then taken out and covered with a smooth plain icing of sugar and white of egg.
Whatever icing is left, may be used to make maccaroons or kisses.
By Pat Rutledge
(Carroll County Historical Society Quarterly, Winter, 1987)
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