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Cayenne, Salt, and Pepper
Mix all these ingredients well together in a basin. Freeze this mixture in a mould or ice-box for about one hour, turn out, cut into small square pieces, and serve on croûtons of fried bread.
This page has come down to us as a method without its ingredient list — the heading is only the seasoning line from the column above it. What survives is the technique for an iced savoury: a seasoned cream or soft cheese mixture frozen firm, cut into cubes and set on fried bread for the savoury course.
- The missing ingredientsThe verbatim text refers to "all these ingredients" but the list belongs to the preceding page, so no faithful reconstruction is possible. Comparable Edwardian iced savouries are built on cream cheese or grated hard cheese loosened with whipped cream, seasoned with cayenne, salt and pepper; treat the method here as a template rather than a complete recipe.
- "Ice-box" in 1900Not a domestic freezer in the modern sense. An ice-box was an insulated cabinet cooled by a block of ice; in cookery books the word can also cover the freezing box or pail in which a mould was packed with crushed ice and coarse salt, the salt driving the brine below freezing point. A modern freezer will set the mixture at least as quickly, so start checking before the full hour is up.
- The hinge is the cutThe mixture has to be cold enough to cut into clean squares but not so hard it shatters or numbs the palate. Freeze until firm at the edges and just yielding at the centre, unmould onto a chilled board, cut quickly, and return the cubes to the cold while you finish the croûtons.
- Croûtons of fried breadThe recipe specifies only fried bread; small rounds or squares fried in butter or clean frying fat until dry and pale gold, then drained and cooled completely, suit the purpose. Warm croûtons will slump the frozen cubes on contact, and greasy ones will taste of the pan.
- Cayenne quantityCayenne is the characteristic heat of the savoury course, and cold blunts the perception of salt and pepper. Season the mixture noticeably sharper than you would want it at room temperature.
- Assemble at the last minuteBuild the croûtons as they leave the kitchen. An iced savoury has a working life of only a few minutes on the plate.
The savoury was the last course of the formal British dinner from the later nineteenth century into the 1930s: something small, salty and sharply seasoned served after the sweet, often anchovy, cheese or a devilled morsel on fried bread. Cayenne, salt and pepper are its signature seasonings, and croûtons of fried bread its most common vehicle — a way of giving a soft mixture shape and a plate a little crispness. Iced savouries of this kind depended on an ice trade that by 1900 is generally said to have delivered blocks to town kitchens with some regularity; the freezing pail of ice and coarse salt, borrowed from ice-cream making, let a cook set a cheese cream firm enough to cut into cubes. When the savoury course fell out of fashion after the Second World War the dishes went with it, surviving mainly as cocktail savouries.