FoodNet

A practical cook and text book for general use

1896

Page 63 · 1 recipe record on this page

Presented as published in 1896. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Peanut Sandwiches need no recipe, being already so well known and popular, but there is a form of nut butter which flavors so strongly of peanuts that it will make an excellent substitute for dairy butter to spread the bread and hold the crushed nuts in place. Toimatoes may be used, and with the small unleavened biscuit are particularly nice. Peel the tomatoes by scald- ing, as usual, using only the solid varieties ; cut cross- wise and lay face down on a towel on ice. Select those of the same size as the biscuit to be used, so that when NUTS AND THEIR CULTURE. 1 55 sliced and enclosed they shall fit and a red ring show all around the biscuit. Dust with powdered sugar and serve. For a Picnic all sandwiches should be wrapped sep- arately in parafine paper. Sandwich Fillings may be made of chopped dates, raisins, figs or other dried fruits mixed with equal parts of crushed nuts and creamed nut butter to give the proper consistency. The Nut Loaf makes an excellent sandwich filling, with small bits of lemon or orange laid on after being spread. Cold baked beans and other vegetables as sand- wich fillings will please children who are fond of them. Cut the slices of bread a little thicker than the conven- tional sandwich. To Blanch Nuts. Shell and pour hot water over them ; let them stand a few minutes, when the tough skins can be easily removed with the hands or a towel. Those who make use of nuts should purchase them by the quantity, when fr^h, and keep them in a cool, dry place. When the demand becomes sufficient we shall doubtless be able to buy every kind of nut already shelled. To preserve their freshness without shells, keep them in covered glass jars or a tin box. SALADS. 157 CHAPTER XI. SALADS. From ancient literature we learn that "the existence of sallets arose out of hygienic principles.'' Leeks, onions, garlic and cucumbers were freely eaten by the Egyptians, the usual breakfast being made of bread and onions. Garlic was equally popular with Greeks and Romans, who fed their soldiers with it to excite their courage and their laborers to produce strength for hard work. Nero ate greedily of garlic and onions to improve his voice. Lettuce and endive flavored with minced onions were daily used in Rome, dressed with oil and honey. The following directions for simple and compound sallets are equally ancient. Simple Sallet. " First then to speak of sallets, there are some simple, some compound, some only to furnish out the table, and some both for use and adornation. Your simple sallets are young onions, washt and cleane and half of the green tops cut cleane away, and so served on a fruit dish, or chives, radish roots, boyled carrets, skirrets and turnips with such like served up simply ; also all young lettuce, purslane and divers other herbs which may be served simply with a little verjuice (crab apple vinegar) sallet oyl and sugar, so is camphire, bean-cods, sparagus and cucumbers, with a world of others too tedious to nominate." Compound Sallet. *' Your compound sallets are, first, the young buds, knots of all manner of wholesome herbs 158 THE FAT OF THE LAND. at their first springing, as red sage, mint lettuce, violets marigolds spinage and many other, mixed together and then served up to the table with vinegar, sallet-oyl and sugarCompound Sallet." Then follow profuse recipes for sallets of pickled flowers and dried and fresh fruits and their elaborate arrangement in patterns for the adornment of the table, — excellent " boy led " sallets, the preserving of sallets, sallets for stews only, and the making of strange sallets in which "yellow, blew and red flowers retain their colors." A century later we find salads bore such an important place that John Evelyn of Diary fame, devoted the mental energies of his closing life to the production of " Acetaria, a Discourse of Sallets," dedicated to Lord Chancellor Somers.