Pancakes (with Nutmeg)
Three eggs, a half pint of milk, two tablespoonfuls of flour. Mix eggs and flour; add milk, salt and nutmeg. Fry a tablespoonful at a time in hot lard.
Another thin, crepe-like pancake — small, lacy, and warm with fresh nutmeg.
- “Half a pint of milk”That’s 1 cup of milk.
- A thin, eggy batterThree eggs to just 2 Tbsp flour makes a loose, custard-like batter — expect delicate little pancakes, not thick ones.
- Fried in lardSmall spoonfuls in hot lard give crisp, brown edges; a neutral oil or butter works if you’d rather not use lard.
- Grate the nutmeg freshA little goes far — start with about ¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg for the whole batch.
- Cook small and hot“A tablespoonful at a time” keeps them thin; fry quickly over good heat and serve hot.
The whisper of nutmeg here carries a surprisingly bloody history. For centuries nutmeg grew nowhere on earth but the tiny Banda Islands of what is now Indonesia, and the spice was so precious that the Dutch fought and killed to monopolize its trade in the 1600s. By the time this recipe was written, nutmeg had become an everyday baking spice in American kitchens, yet it was still valued enough that thrifty cooks kept a whole nutmeg and a little rasp in the pantry, grating it fresh — exactly as you should — because the ground spice fades fast. A pinch was a small, affordable piece of a once-priceless luxury.
From page 56 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
