Important: Safety Warning
This page describes home-canning methods from before the causes of botulism were understood. Canning low-acid foods without a pressure canner, as described here, can allow the growth of Clostridium botulinum, whose toxin is among the deadliest known. Follow current USDA home-canning guidelines instead.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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An Excellent Way of Boiling Cabbage: Mushrooms
MUSHROOMS. 692. TO STEW BROWN.-Peel the mushrooms, and cut off the end of the stalk, then cut them into four or six, according to their size, add a good deal of pepper and salt, with a very small quantity of water; stew them in an earthen pipkin three or four hours as slow as possible; put sippets in the dish. They will keep several days, but should be done as soon as gathered. 693. TO STEW BUTTONS WHITE. - Peel some mushrooms, and cut off the end of the stalk, put them in a stewpan with some milk, a little cayenne pepper, and salt; let them stew gently, and thicken with flour and butter.
Another and better Receipt.-Peel some mushrooms, sprinkle them with a little pepper and salt, and lay them in a stewpan; set them on a stove or by the side of the fire to draw the liquor from them, then add cream sufficient to cover them, or a little milk thickened with butter and flour; give them a boil up. Serve with or without sippets round the dish. 694. MUSHROOM POWDER -Take the thickest, largest buttons you can get, peel them, cut off the decayed end, but do not wash them; spread them separately on pewter dishes, and set them in a slow oven to dry; let the liquor dry up into the mushrooms; it makes the powder stronger, and let them continue in the oven till they will powder. Then pound them in a marble mortar, and sift them through a fine sieve, with a little cayenne pepper and pounded mace. Bottle and keep it in a dry place. 695. BUTTERED MUSHROOMS. - Rub some large button mushrooms with a piece of flannel dipped in salt, and dry them carefully with a cloth : with two teacupsful of buttons thus cleansed, put three quarters of an ounce of fresh butter into a strong saucepan, shake it over the fire till thoroughly melted, and continue to shake the saucepan, to prevent burning, for five minutes; then throw in some salt and pepper, and, if liked, a little mace pounded fine. Stew them till tender, and serve. 696. MUSHROOMS TO BROIL. -The largest and most open mushrooms are the best for this purpose, and the stalks should be cut short, then peel them and lay them on the heated bars of a gridiron (having rubbed the bars previously with suet). Sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and when done rub a little cold butter under and over them, CUCUMBERS. and serve on a hot dish. They will begin to steam when done enough. If preferred on a toast, prepare them as above, and set them on a buttered toast in the Dutch oven, spreading butter on the top of them before serving. 697. A PUREE OF MUSHROOMS. - Peel the mushrooms and cut off the stems. Squeeze the juice of half a large lemon into a stewpan with a little water; put in the heads and stew them till tender; drain out the mushrooms and mince them to a pulp; add a piece of butter and the minced mushrooms to the stew; stir on the fire till the butter is melted, and then add half a teacup of good gravy, and the same of cream; when the purée is of a proper thickness, add pepper and serve. 698. MUSHROOMS TO POT. -Rub either small flapped mushrooms or buttons with a new flannel and salt, and if moistened with the salt wipe them dry with a soft cloth. Put into a stewpan one and a quarter ounce of fresh butter, and a pint of mushrooms, a small tea-spoonful of salt, a salt-spoonful of mace and a little cayenne; stew them till tender. When done drain them on a sloping dish, and when cold lay them (pressed down) in small pots. Pour clarified butter over them, and if intended to keep more than a week or two, it would be well to lay a paper over the butter when cold, and then pour over it a thick layer of melted suet. They should be stored in a cool but dry place. N.B. The skins and stalks cut away from mushrooms should be carefully collected, and strewn over with salt in a jar or cup, then set by the fire to draw out the liquor, which should be flavoured with spice for present use as ketchup.
A run of mushroom cookery from the days when mushrooms meant field mushrooms gathered that morning, thick-fleshed and dirty, rather than cultivated buttons sold clean in a punnet. Most of these preparations translate directly; the potting recipe at 698 does not.
- Why 698 failsMushrooms packed into pots, sealed under clarified butter and suet and stored for weeks at cellar temperature are a low-acid food held in an oxygen-free environment — the exact conditions in which Clostridium botulinum produces toxin. Nothing in the method acidifies the mushrooms or heats them to a sterilising temperature, and the fat seal is the hazard rather than the protection. The same applies to the ketchup note at the end, where salted skins and stalks are drawn by the fire and bottled. Mushroom preserves should be made only to a current tested recipe.
- The rest of the pageRecipes 692 to 697 are ordinary cooking, eaten hot, and carry no such risk. Mushroom powder at 694 is dried to brittleness and stored dry, which is a sound method.
- PeelingPeeling was necessary for large open field mushrooms with tough, gritty cuticles. Cultivated mushrooms need only a wipe or a quick rinse; peeling them is unnecessary and wastes a little of the flavour.
- Pipkin, and three or four hoursAn earthen pipkin is a small glazed clay pot with a handle, used for very slow cooking at the hearth's edge. A heavy casserole in a very low oven (around 275-300F) approximates the effect. Thick field mushrooms may well need the full three or four hours to collapse into their own dark liquor; cultivated ones will be done considerably sooner.
- SippetsSmall triangles or fingers of bread fried in butter or toasted, arranged round the edge of the dish to soak up the sauce.
- Teacupsful and other loose measuresA Victorian teacup is usually reckoned at about a quarter of a pint (5-6 fl oz), so two teacupsful of buttons is roughly 12 fl oz by volume rather than a weight; three-quarters of an ounce of butter is about 20g. A saltspoon is a scant quarter-teaspoon.
- Drying for powderFor drying, use the lowest setting the oven has, around 120-150F with the door propped, or a dehydrator; a period 'slow oven' was hotter than this, but the aim here is to dry rather than bake. Pewter is not needed; any tray will do. Dry until the caps snap rather than bend, or the powder will cake in the bottle.
- Gridiron and Dutch ovenThe gridiron is a grill over coals; suet on the bars is a rubbed-fat non-stick. The Dutch oven of this period is an open reflector shield set before the fire, not a lidded pot — use an overhead grill for the toast version.
- Foraged mushroomsThese recipes assume field mushrooms picked and cooked the same day. Wild fungi should only be eaten when identified with certainty, and cooking does not neutralise the toxins of the dangerous species.