Veal Loaf
3 Pounds Chopped Veal 1 Pound Fresh Pork (chopped fine) 3 Eggs Butter Substitute 1 Pint Rice (boiled) 1 Teaspoon Salt 1 Teaspoon Black Pepper 1/2 Teaspoon each Sage, Thyme Make all ingredients into a loaf. Wrap securely in white muslin, tie the ends.
Place in baking pan with very little water, baste often, turn so as to brown both sides. Leave in cloth until cold.
The instructions assume a cook who knows what a loaf looks like when it is done; nothing here is stated in numbers. The essentials are the cloth wrap, an oven around 350F, and a thermometer.
- Ground meat, not "chopped"In modern terms three pounds of veal and one of pork means ground meat, and the recipe asks for the pork finer than the veal. The cut is not specified; fatty pork shoulder rather than lean loin is the sensible choice, since the pork is there for fat and will keep the loaf from drying out.
- "Butter Substitute"A period euphemism for margarine or oleomargarine, used when butter was dear or rationed. No quantity is given; two to three tablespoons, softened and worked in, is consistent with loaves of this size. Butter works identically.
- A pint of boiled riceGenuinely ambiguous: a pint measured after boiling is roughly 2 cups cooked rice, from about 2/3 cup raw. Measured raw it would be nearly a pound and the loaf would be mostly rice. Cooked is the sensible reading, and the rice should be cool and dry before it goes in.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. A meat loaf of this size wants a moderate oven, 350F, for roughly 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Any hotter and the outside sets and browns long before the centre is safe.
- The hinge: internal temperatureBecause pork and veal are ground together, the loaf must reach 160F at the centre on an instant-read thermometer. The cloth insulates it, so it takes longer than a bare loaf and the surface gives no useful clue.
- The muslin wrapPlain white cotton muslin as directed (a doubled cheesecloth will substitute at a pinch), scalded first, wrapped snugly and tied at both ends like a bolster. It holds the loaf together while the eggs set and makes turning possible. Leaving it on until cold, as directed, lets the loaf firm up so it slices cleanly.
- Basting and turningVery little water in the pan, replenished as it evaporates, and a turn at the halfway point. If the water dries out entirely the muslin scorches and sticks.
- Yield and servingFour pounds of meat plus rice gives 10 to 12 generous servings. This is a cold-sliced loaf, meant for supper plates and sandwiches; serve it with mustard, pickles or a sharp tomato sauce.
Veal loaf belongs to a large family of American cold moulded meats that filled the space between a roast and a pâté: cheap cuts, a starch extender, eggs to bind, and a long slow bake that produced something sliceable and durable in a house without much refrigeration. The muslin wrap is older still, often said to descend from the boiled pudding cloth, and it does the work a loaf pan would later do. Two details suggest, though they cannot fix, a date: the call for a "butter substitute" rather than butter, a usage current from the late nineteenth century through the 1940s, and the assumption that veal was an everyday economy meat, which it no longer is. The seasoning is a restrained sage-and-thyme pairing typical of English-descended American cookery, the same combination used in sausage and stuffing.