Curious Facts

Everything below is in the book — each one links straight to the page it comes from.

1. The book exists because summer embarrassed housekeepers. Mrs. Rorer's preface: "During the hot weather old housekeepers frequently become embarrassed over the arrangement of seasonable dishes" — so she sends "this little directory as a helpmate." Read it in the book →
2. The artichoke needed an introduction. In 1888 Philadelphia the French or Globe Artichoke is explained from zero: "a plant resembling a thistle, with a large scaly head like the cone of a pine," edible parts carefully specified. Read it in the book →
3. Asparagus in Ambush hides in bread rolls. A quart of asparagus tops baked inside nine hollowed stale breakfast rolls under an egg custard — the era loved a dish with a joke in its name. Read it in the book →
4. Blind Hare contains no hare. It is a cold spiced loaf of chopped veal and round steak, baked three hours and served in thin slices — mock game for a kitchen too hot to roast in. Its neighbour is called Bewitched Veal. Read it in the book →
5. Never cut a beet before boiling it. "If the skin is broken before cooking they lose their flavor and color in the boiling water" — Rorer's rules arrive flat and confident. Read it in the book →
6. The junket sets itself with rennet wine. A tablespoonful of rennet wine — the calf's-stomach enzyme in bottled form — sets a quart of sweetened milk in ten minutes, no fire needed beyond warming. Read it in the book →
7. Cracked ice is this book's real stove. The Charlotte Russe cream is whipped in a basin standing in a pan of cracked ice; moulds are dipped in cold water and nested in ice; berries are pressed into gelatine against chilled tin. Read it in the book →
8. Boned chicken is stuffed with sausage. The grandest make-ahead dish begins with a pair of year-old chickens and a pound and a half of sausage meat, boned, stuffed, pressed and served cold. Read it in the book →
9. A pudding named for Shakespeare's fairy midwife. Queen Mab's Pudding — a moulded cold pudding light enough to carry the name of the fairies' midwife from Romeo and Juliet. Read it in the book →
10. Sheepshead led the fish market. The Boiled Fish method opens with the fish an 1888 Philadelphia reader would know best: "Sheep's head, whitefish, flounders, in fact all large fish may be boiled according to the following recipe." Read it in the book →