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Cabbage
A Divide a small head of cabbage into four parts, cutting down through the stock; soak for one-half hour in a pan of cold water to which has been added a tablespoon of vinegar; then remove from the water and cut in slices. Have a large saucepan full of boiling water; put in the cabbage, pushing the slices under the water with a spoon; add a tablespoon of salt and cook from twenty-five to sixty minutes, according to the age of the cabbage. Drain through a colander; then put in a chopping bowl and mince. Season with butter, pepper and more salt if needed, and stand over the fire for a few minutes to reheat. Allow a tablespoon of butter to a pint of cooked cabbage.
The addition of a quarter teaspoon of bi-carbonate of soda reduces the time of cooking, helps retain color and lessens the odor.
A plain boiled cabbage from the era when vegetables were cooked until they surrendered. The method is sound; the clock is not.
- The timing is the whole problemTwenty-five to sixty minutes will reduce sliced cabbage to grey pulp, and long boiling tends to make the smell worse rather than better. Sliced cabbage in plenty of boiling salted water is done in about five to eight minutes, and wedges in ten to twelve.
- Skip the sodaBicarbonate does hold the green and soften the leaf faster, but it does so by breaking down cell walls and it destroys much of the vitamin C along with them. It is also said to leave a slippery texture and a faintly soapy taste. Short cooking in a large volume of water gives much the same colour without it.
- The vinegar soakSoaking in salted or acidulated cold water was commonly recommended in cookbooks of the period to drive out insects hiding in the leaves of field-grown cabbage. With modern heads it is generally unnecessary, though a rinse and a check of the outer leaves does no harm.
- Cut down through the stock"Stock" here is the stem or core. Quartering through it holds the wedges together in the water; core the pieces afterwards, before slicing.
- A large saucepan fullThe volume matters more than it looks. Cabbage dropped into a small pot cools the water, stalls the boil and stews rather than boils.
- Butter ratioA tablespoon of butter to a pint of cooked cabbage works out at roughly 15 g per 500 ml, which is modest by current standards. Many modern recipes use considerably more, plus a good grind of pepper.
- Chopping bowl and minceMincing was a common finish in cookbooks of this period. It is optional. Drained slices dressed with butter directly in the hot pan are better eating.
- YieldA small head, about 1 to 1.5 lb trimmed, gives roughly a pint and a half cooked and serves four as a side.
Boiled and minced cabbage of this kind was a fixture of Anglo-American cookery long before Mrs. Fryer set it down, and the anxieties in the recipe are as revealing as the method: the vinegar soak against insects, the soda against smell, the long boil against toughness. Cabbage in the early twentieth century was often overwintered and coarse-stemmed, which is why the instruction hedges between twenty-five and sixty minutes "according to the age." The soda trick was widely printed in domestic manuals of the period, though it is often said to have drawn objections from those concerned with what was then called the antiscorbutic value of green vegetables. Mrs. Fryer's book belongs to the moment when cookery instruction was moving from inherited habit toward measured, teachable technique, and this page sits squarely on the seam between the two.