PRE=CHRISTMAS COOKING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1938, Page 10

PRE=CHRISTMAS COOKING

OLD TIME RECIPES. Christmas will soon be here with all its goodwill and merriment—and all its good things to eat. Looking through an old exercise book in which a lady of 150 years ago had written her pet recipes in the most exquisite penmanship, I found some for Christmas fare writes a London correspondent.

There were other recipes, too; cures for coughs, bad complexions, indispositions, fits, agues, consumptions, “all proven to have made complete cures even in the most extreme cases.” Peacock pie was a great feature of the dinner, the entire tail of the peacock being used to decorate it. Nowadays, of course, we have to content ourselves with more humble poultry, and the following very old recipe for the stuffing of a turkey may be of use:

. “Making a Stuffing of sausage meat, or if sausages are served in the dish, make it of bread. To either add a little shredding of sharlot, also breadcrumbs and beaten egg.’ ‘ This old sauce for serving with roast chicken also sounds good: “Put into stew pan two slices of ham, a clove of garlic, a laurel leaf and sliced onions, add a little good gravy, a sprig of knotted marjoram, and a spoonful of tarragon vinegar; simmer slowly an hour, then strain.” No Christmas feast is complete without mince pies, for each pie eaten means a happy month, so I quote a filling for them from the book of handwritten recipes, and as this one was old when entered in that book you may put its age as,about two centuries. “One pound of fine suet, three pounds currants, powdered sugar one pound, raisins one pound, cloves quarter of an ounce, mace ditto, nutmeg ditto, salt three-quarters of an ounce. Apples grated two pounds, Carraway seeds quarter of an ounce, quarter of a pound of lemon and orange peel. Chop all fine, add teacupful of brandy, mix all together and put in jars and keep close covered with a brandy paper, until needed to put into the pies.” In the book I can only find one rich Christmas cake. It is headed “A Very Fine Cake.” Indeed, it is perhaps, too fine to make these days, but as it shows us how they did things in the good old times we have copied it. “Wash two pounds and a half of fresh butter in water, then in rose water, beat the butter to a cream, beat 20 egg yolks and whites each lot separately. Have ready two and a half pounds of finest flour kept, likewise a pound and a half of sugar pounded and sifted, one ounce of spice in finest powder, three pounds of currants nicely cleaned and dry, half a pound of almonds blanched, and three quarters of a pound of sweetmeats cut not too thin. Mix all the dry ingredients; pour the eggs to the butter, mix half a pint of sweet wine with a large glass of brandy, pour it to the butter and eggs, mix well, then have all the dry things put in by degrees; beat them very thoroughly. Having half a pound of stoned jar-raisins shopped as fine as possible, mix them carefully so that there be no lumps, and add a teacupful of orange flower water. Beat the ingredients for a full hour at least. Butter well your pan, also line with white paper round its sides which must be buttered, too. Fill it three parts with the mixture. Bake in quick oven. It will require three hours. Ice with icing in which you have added orange flower water.”

Perhaps the beating of so many eggs helped to keep folk warm when the snow lay so thick about! In the old-time English homes, when the Christmas dinner was nearly ready to carry into the dining hall, the timeold custom was for the chief cook to summons all the serving men and maids to readiness by his beating loudly thrice with the rolling pin on the dresser, and Sir John Suckling wrote some quaint lines about this Christmas ritual of the kitchen which we may like to remember as we do our Christmas cooking:— Just in this nick the cook knocked thrice And all the waiters in a trice His summons did obey; Each serving man, with dish in hand, March’d boldly up, like our train-band Presented and away.