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To Stew Beef Tongue
Put a fresh tongue in water sufficient to cover it, and let it simmer six or seven hours. Skim the gravy well. Half an hour before dishing it, add one-half wineglassful wine, one-half wineglassful walnut catsup, a little mace, and a few cloves to the gravy, and stew awhile together.--Mrs. S.T.
A plain braise that leaves out the one step every modern cook needs: the skin. Otherwise the method holds up, though the timing belongs to a slower stove.
- Peel it hotThe original never mentions the thick outer skin, which it seems to take for granted. Lift the tongue out when tender, slit the skin lengthways and pull it off while the meat is still hot; once cool it grips and will not come away cleanly. Trim the gristle and small bones at the root end, then return the meat to the pot for the final half hour.
- "Fresh" tongueThis means uncured — not the pink, saltpetre-cured pickled tongue sold in delis. A fresh beef tongue runs 2.5 to 4 lb and will want salting; the recipe says nothing about salt.
- Cooking timeSix or seven hours is longer than a modern burner needs. At a bare simmer, a beef tongue is tender in about 3 to 3.5 hours — test with a skewer through the thickest part, and give it longer if it resists.
- A wineglassfulRoughly 2 fl oz in nineteenth-century American usage, so about 1 fl oz — 2 tablespoons — each of wine and catsup. Any dry red or a madeira works; the book does not specify.
- Walnut catsupA dark, salty condiment of green walnuts, vinegar, anchovy and spice, once as common as ketchup is now. Mushroom ketchup is the closest survivor; a tablespoon of Worcestershire plus a splash of the cooking liquid gets you to the same savoury, slightly bitter place.
- Mace and clovesUse blade mace and whole cloves — four or five cloves is plenty, as they dominate quickly. Fish them out before serving, or tie them in muslin.
- The gravySkimming matters here; tongue throws a lot of fat. The cooking liquid will be thin after simmering, so reduce it hard while the tongue rests, then slice the meat across on the diagonal and pour it over.
- YieldA 3 lb tongue serves six to eight. Cold leftovers slice thinly and keep three or four days refrigerated.
Tongue was standard household meat in Virginia in the nineteenth century, when a beef carcass was often bought or butchered whole. Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housewives credited by initials — hence the "Mrs. S.T." — carries tongue recipes. The walnut catsup is the period marker: English condiments of pickled green walnuts, anchovy and vinegar were a staple of Anglo-American cooking from the eighteenth century onward, made at home each summer when the walnuts were still soft enough to pierce with a pin, and used much as we now use soy sauce or Worcestershire to darken and deepen a gravy. They faded out over the following century as commercial tomato ketchup took the name and the shelf space.