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Nut and Cheese Relish
1 package cream cheese 2 tablespoons whipped cream Salt and red pepper 1 cup chopped nut meats 1 teaspoon chopped parsley Mix the cheese with the cream, nuts, parsley and seasonings. Roll into balls and serve cold, garnished with parsley and chopped nuts.
This makes a pleasant accompaniment to a plain lettuce or lettuce and tomato salad, served on the same plate.
A three-minute cheese ball scaled down to garnish size. The only real translation problem is the word "package," which meant something much smaller in Mrs. Fryer's day than it does now.
- "1 package cream cheese"In this period a package of cream cheese usually meant a small brick of about 3 ounces rather than the modern 8-ounce block. Use 3 ounces, or scale the nuts up to keep the proportion if you start with a modern 8-ounce package.
- Red pepperThis means cayenne, not paprika and not a fresh bell pepper. A pinch is enough — the whole point is a faint heat behind the cheese.
- Whipped creamUnsweetened heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks, folded in to lighten the cheese. Two tablespoons of whipped volume is not much; whip a quarter cup and measure from that.
- The nutsA full cup of chopped nut meats to 3 ounces of cheese makes a stiff, nubbly paste rather than a smooth one, which is what makes it roll. Walnuts or pecans are the likeliest reading of "nut meats" here; toast them briefly if you want more flavor than the original delivers.
- Chill before rollingSoftened cheese and whipped cream will not hold a ball. Refrigerate the mixture 30 minutes, roll with lightly dampened hands, then chill again before the final coat of chopped nuts so the coating stays crisp.
- YieldExpect about 12 to 16 balls the size of a large marble, enough for four to six salad plates. Made a day ahead they are fine, though the nuts soften.
This belongs to the era when an American "salad course" meant a small composed plate — a few lettuce leaves, a slice of tomato, and something rich set alongside to make it worth eating; the recipe itself suggests exactly that service. Commercial cream cheese in small wrapped packages, on the market from around 1880, is what made this kind of thing easy for a home cook: a soft fresh cheese that needed no draining, no press and no waiting. Mrs. Fryer's book was issued in loose-leaf form, so a housekeeper could add her own pages, and short accompaniment recipes of this sort — not a dish for its own sake, but a thing to put on the same plate as something else — sit naturally in such a collection.