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Veal, Potted, with Tongue
Take three-quarters of a pound of cold cooked veal, free from fat, skin, and gristle, and a quarter of a pound of boiled tongue. Mince these ingredients finely, and pound them to a perfectly-smooth soft paste. Add very gradually whilst pounding five ounces of clarified butter, a small tea-spoonful of white pepper, half a spoonful of freshly-made mustard, a tea-spoonful of essence of anchovy, and a pinch of grated nutmeg. Add salt if required, but it is probable that the tongue will make the whole salt enough. Press the meat into small potting-jars, cover with clarified butter or dripping, and store in a cool, dry place.
The paste itself is ordinary cooked meat, butter and seasoning, but the preservation method at the end of the recipe is the whole point of the dish and it is the part that cannot be reproduced today.
- Why the storage failsA layer of clarified butter poured over cooked meat creates a sealed, effectively oxygen-free, low-acid environment. Held at room temperature in a "cool, dry place", that is close to ideal conditions for Clostridium botulinum to germinate from spores that survived cooking and produce toxin, which is odourless and gives no warning in the taste. Potted meats and pastes under fat have been implicated in botulism poisoning, and ambient-temperature potting has rightly been dropped in favour of refrigerated keeping.
- No cure, no acid, no measured processThere is no nitrite, no vinegar, no sugar, no measured heat process and no stated shelf life anywhere in the recipe. The only barrier to spoilage is the fat seal, and fat excludes air rather than killing anything. If you want a potted meat, use a current recipe with defined refrigeration and a defined keeping time.
- Pounding by handThe original assumes a mortar and a good deal of work; "perfectly-smooth soft paste" is the standard. A food processor reaches it in under a minute, though the texture is finer and less short than a pounded paste.
- Essence of anchovyA thick bottled anchovy sauce, sold commercially from the eighteenth century onward and still made. Anchovy paste is the nearest supermarket equivalent, used sparingly, as it is more concentrated and saltier.
- Clarified butterButter with the milk solids and water removed, so it sets hard and clear. Five ounces to a pound of meat is a lot by modern taste, but it is what makes the paste spreadable when cold rather than crumbly.
- "Half a spoonful" of mustardThe recipe specifies a small tea-spoonful of pepper but leaves the mustard spoon size unstated, and "freshly-made" means English mustard powder mixed with water shortly before use, which is considerably hotter than a jarred prepared mustard.
- TongueBoiled ox tongue, sold cooked and pressed by butchers in this period and still available from some. It supplies both the colour and, as the recipe notes, most or all of the salt.
Potting was the standard English answer to leftover roast meat and to the problem of a portable, keepable savoury before refrigeration: cooked meat pounded with butter and spice, packed tight to exclude air, and sealed under a cap of clarified butter or dripping. The technique is documented in English cookery books from the seventeenth century and was still routine domestic practice when Cassell's was compiled in the later nineteenth century. Veal and tongue is one of the classic pairings, the tongue giving both the salt and the pink flecks through a pale paste, and potted meat of this kind was one of the fillings for the thin sandwiches of a Victorian tea or a shooting luncheon. The commercial descendants outlived the domestic version: tinned potted meat and sandwich paste sold in jars are the same idea, made under process controls a home kitchen never had.