Our viands

THE old recipes which follow are taken chiefly from family recipe-books dating back to the last century, and also from two old books without date or title page, but known as ' The Experienced English Housekeeper,' and * The Frugal Housewife.' The frugality of the latter may be doubted, if we are to judge by the quantity and quality of the comestibles recommended, as an instance of which I would refer to the Battaglia Pie (p. 267), but even this is eclipsed by some in the other old book, as for instance, a goose pie which is to be made by stuffing a good fat goose with a large fowl, and that again with an ox tongue; and for a turkey pie it is recommended to have two large capons to fill up the corners. Certainly both the family parties and family appetites of the last century, must have been much larger than those of the present day. It may be of interest also to notice that in a list of things in season appended to the old cookery-book referred to, ' The Experienced English Housekeeper,' we find mention made of hothouse cucumbers in January, forced straw- berries in March, cherries and apricots in April, whilst among the fruits and vegetables are many scarcely known now, such as services, which are the fruit of the service tree, and under the name of sorbes, are still eaten in Italy, but never appear now upon English tables. Then, among vegetables we get cardoons, chervil, tarra- goons, scorzonera, skerrits, salsify, sorrel, chard-beet, burner, tansey, tarragonel mint, butnet, hyssop, tragopogon, 249 250 OUR VIANDS purslane, recombole, finscha, corn salad, etc., etc., a great many of which will read as Greek to modern ears, although we have some others in their places which, if not new, are more abundant than in the days of our great-grandmothers. To the old recipes I have added others of more modern date, supplied by friends who have tried and found them good. Some of these come from the Cape of Good Hope and from Scotland, and a few are culled from the very excellent 'Domestic Cookery/ by a lady, published in 1810, and also two or three Portuguese dishes from Mrs. Addison's * Economical Cookery Book,' which is not so well known as it deserves to be. BREAD, CAKES, PASTRY. Whole-meal Bread. — To 5 Ibs. of meal take i oz. carbonate of soda, f oz. tartaric acid, 3 pints water. Dissolve the soda in 2 J pints of water, and mix thoroughly with the meal in a glazed pan ; let it stand an hour or so ; then dissolve the tartaric acid in the remaining \ pint of water, and mix as quickly as possible ; put on and under tins, and into the oven immediately — oven rather sharp heat. We have been favoured with the above recipe by a London baker. Unfermented Bread. — Take fine flour 5 Ibs., bicarbonate of soda i oz., pure tartaric acid i oz., water i quart, salt \ oz. Mix the bicarbonate of soda and salt with the flour, and put the tartaric acid into the -water, and then blend the whole in the usual way of making dough ; bake in tins, or without. Bread thus made has an agreeable taste, keeps much longer than fermented bread, is more digestible, and less liable to turn sour or mouldy. RECIPES, OLD AND NEW 251