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Fried Cauliflower
Remove large outside leaves from cauliflower, and cut flowers from stalk in symmetrical bunches and drop in salted ice water for a few moments. Cook in scalded milk and water until tender, then drain and let cool, and rub well with melted Crisco, which has been salted and peppered. Dip into frying batter and fry in hot Crisco until golden brown, draining upon white paper.
A straightforward two-stage fritter: the cauliflower is parboiled and seasoned first, then battered and deep-fried. The instructions assume a cook who already knows her frying batter, so a few gaps need filling.
- The hinge: dry and cool before batteringThe florets must be thoroughly drained and fully cool before they meet the batter, or the coating slides off and the fat spits. Spread them on a towel and give them fifteen minutes.
- CriscoCrisco is a hydrogenated vegetable shortening, and this book was written to sell it. Any neutral frying fat works — peanut, canola or a modern shortening. The rub of "melted Crisco, which has been salted and peppered" is seasoning, not cooking; softened butter or oil does the same job.
- Scalded milk and waterMilk and water, brought just below the boil; the recipe gives no proportions, and equal parts is a reasonable reading. The milk keeps the cauliflower pale rather than sulphur-grey. Figure 6-8 minutes for medium florets — tender to a knife tip but still holding shape, since they get a second cooking in the fat.
- Salted ice waterThe recipe says 'a few moments' — a brief soak to firm the florets and flush out any insects hiding in the head. Not a brine; a tablespoon of salt to a quart is plenty.
- Frying batterNone is given here; the recipe assumes one given elsewhere in the book. A plain one is 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 egg and about 2/3 cup milk — thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe says only 'hot Crisco'. Period books commonly judged frying fat by a cube of bread browning in about a minute, which corresponds roughly to 365-375F. Below that the batter drinks fat; above it, the outside colours before the interior heats through.
- Draining'White paper' means unprinted paper rather than newsprint or brown wrapping. Paper towels, or better, a wire rack so the undersides stay crisp.
- YieldOne medium head, roughly 2 lb as bought, gives about four servings as a side dish or a light supper course; the recipe itself states no yield.
A Calendar of Dinners was written by Marion Harris Neil and published by the Procter & Gamble Company to promote Crisco, introduced in 1911 as the first widely marketed all-vegetable hydrogenated shortening. That is why the fat is named in every line where an ordinary cookbook would say "lard" or "dripping" — the recipes are competent, but the book is an advertisement with a menu plan attached. Fried cauliflower itself is much older and much travelled: parboiled florets in batter appear as cavolfiore fritto in Italian cooking and as a standard entry in nineteenth-century English and American vegetable chapters, where deep-frying was one of the few ways to make a boiled vegetable interesting enough to serve on its own.