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Forcemeat
4 ounces bread crumbs 1 onion as large as a hazelnut 1 dessertspoon chopped parsley 1 teaspoon flour 1/2 saltspoon grated lemon rind 1/2 teacup of milk Very little nutmeg, pepper, and salt 1 ounce butter Put the bread crumbs in a bowl. Slice the onion, mince it very fine, and add it to the bread crumbs with the parsley, lemon rind, nutmeg, flour and pepper. Two saltspoons of salt and half a saltspoon of pepper would be sufficient for most people. Now heat the milk, add the butter, and when it has melted, pour it over the breadcrumbs, etc. Stir well, and taste to see whether it is sufficiently seasoned; if not, add more seasoning. The mixture will now be ready for use.
A plain bread stuffing, given here without the suet, egg or chopped veal that a Victorian forcemeat would ordinarily carry. The measures are the fussy small ones of the period and need translating before you start.
- Saltspoon and dessertspoonA saltspoon is 1/4 teaspoon, so the seasoning called for amounts to about 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. A dessertspoon is 2 teaspoons, giving a modest amount of parsley.
- Teacup of milkA period teacup runs about 5 to 6 fluid ounces, so half a teacup is roughly 2 1/2 to 3 fluid ounces, that is 5 to 6 tablespoons. Add it gradually: crumbs vary enormously in dryness and you want the mixture to hold together when pressed, not to slump.
- Four ounces of bread crumbsWeighed, not measured, which is the sensible way. That is about 1 cup of dry fine crumbs or nearer 2 1/2 cups of soft fresh ones; fresh crumbs from a day-old loaf give a lighter result and drink more milk.
- An onion the size of a hazelnutA very small quantity, a teaspoon or two once minced. It goes in raw, so mince it as finely as the recipe insists or it will stay crunchy and sharp inside whatever you stuff.
- The teaspoon of flourProbably there as a light binder rather than a thickener. With no egg in the mixture it is unlikely to slice, so treat it as a loose stuffing rather than something to roll into balls and fry.
- How it is meant to be usedThis is a component, not a dish: it goes into a stuffed marrow, tomatoes, onions, a rolled cabbage leaf or between layers of a savoury pie, and cooks with whatever it fills.
- Taste it, as instructedThe direction to taste is the hinge of the recipe. Nutmeg and lemon rind both dominate quickly, and unsalted crumbs plus unsalted butter will need more than the half teaspoon suggested; modern salted butter shifts the balance again.
- YieldRoughly 2 cups, enough to stuff four to six vegetables or one medium marrow.
Forcemeat comes through the French farce, from farcir, to stuff, and by the nineteenth century it named any bound mixture pushed into something else — poultry, a boned joint, a pie. The classic English versions in Victorian household manuals were built on suet, chopped veal or ham, and bound with beaten egg, which is exactly what has been stripped out here: bread crumbs, milk and butter carry the seasoning instead. Books of meatless cookery multiplied in Britain and America around the First World War, when meat was scarce and expensive, and they worked largely by this method of substitution — keeping the familiar name and the familiar place in the menu while quietly removing the animal.