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Tongue in Aspic
Cook a tongue according to directions on page 210. After removing skin and roots, run a skewer through tip of tongue and fleshy part, thus keeping tongue in shape. When cool, remove skewer. Put a round pan in ice-water, cover bottom with brown aspic, and when firm decorate with cooked carrot, turnip, beet cut in fancy shapes, and parsley. Cover with aspic jelly mixture, adding it by spoonfuls so as not to disarrange vegetables. When this layer of mixture is firm, put in tongue, adding gradually remaining mixture as in Tomatoes in Aspic.
A cold entrée built in layers, and the layering is the whole technique: each addition has to set before the next goes on, or the decorations float and the tongue sinks. Two cross-references are missing here, so a few things need spelling out.
- The tongue itselfFarmer's page 210 carries the boiled-tongue directions, which are not reproduced here; in general practice a fresh or pickled (corned) beef tongue is simmered in barely bubbling water with aromatics until a skewer meets no resistance — roughly 3 to 4 hours for a 3-4 lb tongue. Peel the skin while it is still hot; once cold it clings. Trim the root end and any gristle.
- Skewering to shapeThe skewer runs lengthwise from the tip through the thick part to hold the tongue in a gentle curve as it cools, so it sits neatly in a round mold. Press it under a plate with a weight if you want a flatter, more sliceable block instead.
- "Brown aspic"Clarified, well-seasoned brown stock set with gelatin, cleared with egg white and shell and strained through a cloth. Modern commercial stock will not gel on its own; count on about one envelope of powdered gelatin (roughly 2 1/4 tsp) per 2 cups of liquid for something that holds a slice and unmolds cleanly. Farmer's own aspic proportions are on another page, so any figure taken from this text alone is a guess.
- Season it coldAspic tastes flat when chilled. Season the liquid until it is slightly too savoury and sharp at room temperature — a little sherry, lemon juice or vinegar and more salt than seems right — and it will read correctly set.
- The ice-water bathThe pan sits in ice water rather than a refrigerator because each spoonful of aspic needs to set in a minute or two, not twenty. Keep the working aspic just barely fluid in a bowl of warm water alongside; if it thickens to syrup it will smear the vegetable decoration.
- Decorating face downRemember that the bottom of the pan becomes the top of the finished dish, so lay out the carrot, turnip, beet and parsley in mirror image. Blot the vegetables dry and add aspic by spoonfuls at the edge of the pan, never poured over the centre.
- UnmoldingChill at least 4 hours, then dip the pan in hot water for 5 to 10 seconds, run a thin knife around the rim and invert onto a cold platter. Serve within a day, cut in thin wedges with mustard or a green salad.
Aspic dishes like this one sat at the heart of what the late nineteenth century called "cold entrées" for luncheons, receptions and summer suppers, when a cook wanted something that could be finished hours ahead and carried to the table looking composed. The technique came out of French professional kitchens, where consommé made from calf's foot and veal knuckle was used to glaze and mold everything from fish to foie gras, and it reached American households through cookery schools like the Boston Cooking School, which Fannie Farmer directed. Commercial powdered gelatin, cheap and reliable by the 1890s, is what made it a home dish rather than a caterer's; the same shift put out the wave of molded salads that followed. Tongue was a natural candidate: it is inexpensive, it slices into a neat close-grained oval, and long boiling gives it exactly the firm texture that survives being set in jelly. The instruction to decorate the bottom of the pan with vegetables "cut in fancy shapes" is a small trace of a much larger ornamental tradition, in which the visible surface of a cold dish was treated as a design problem in its own right.