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Farina Pudding
Five ounces farina stirred gradually and boiled in one quart of milk, then let it cool, separate the yolks and whites of • five eggs, beat the whites to a stiff froth, and stir the yolks and sugar together, then stir all into the cool boiled farina, flavor and bake three-quarters of an hour; it will be light like a souffle if made in this manner.
A soufflé-style pudding built on a cooked semolina base. The recipe assumes you know how to handle beaten whites and gives no oven temperature, dish size, or sugar quantity, so a few decisions are yours.
- The hinge: cool the base firstThe farina must be genuinely cool — barely warm at most — before the eggs go in, or the yolks scramble and the whites collapse on contact. The recipe says so twice, which is a fair sign the writer had seen it go wrong.
- Fold, do not stirWhere the original says "stir all into the cool boiled farina," fold the whites in with a spatula in two or three additions. The cooked semolina is stiff, so slacken it first with the yolk-and-sugar mixture, then lighten it with a spoonful of whites before the rest goes in.
- FarinaFarina here is finely milled wheat semolina — the same thing sold as Cream of Wheat or as fine semolina. Do not substitute coarse couscous-grade semolina, which will not swell smoothly in milk. Five ounces is a scant cup by volume.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Bake at 350F; the 45 minutes specified suits a moderate oven and a dish about 2 quarts, buttered. Set it on a middle rack and do not open the door in the first half hour.
- SugarUnspecified, as often in books of this period. About 1/2 cup granulated suits a quart of milk and reads as a dessert rather than a side dish; less if you mean to serve it with a sweet pudding sauce.
- "Flavor"Period options are vanilla, grated lemon rind, a spoonful of brandy or sherry, or grated nutmeg. Add it to the yolks and sugar so it distributes before the whites go in.
- Cooking the baseRain the farina into the milk in a thin stream over low heat, whisking, and cook until it has thickened to a stiff porridge, roughly 5 to 8 minutes. Milk this thick scorches easily; use a heavy pan and keep the flame gentle.
- Yield and servingServes six to eight. Like any soufflé-style pudding it sinks as it cools, so bring it to the table straight from the oven, with a pudding sauce or cream.
Semolina puddings of this kind reached American cookbooks by more than one route — English semolina puddings were already common — though German and Austrian kitchens, where Grießpudding and Grießauflauf (a cooked semolina base lightened with beaten whites and baked) were everyday nursery and family desserts, are one clear line of descent. The word "farina" simply means flour or meal in Latin and Italian, and in nineteenth-century American grocery use it settled on finely milled wheat middlings sold as a breakfast cereal; the branded farina familiar to later cooks is generally traced to a North Dakota mill in the 1890s. Its appearance in a bride's cookbook is characteristic: the ingredients are cheap and shelf-stable, the method depends on technique rather than expense, and the promise that "it will be light like a souffle if made in this manner" is precisely the sort of reassurance these volumes offered a cook working without a teacher at her elbow.