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Minced Ham in Cider Cups
1 cup boiled ham
1½ package or two tablespoons
3 hard-cooked eggs gelatin
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup cold water
Pepper
2 cups cider
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ cup sugar
3 tablespoons lemon-juice
1 cup whipped cream
½ cup celery
Soak gelatin in cold water, and pour over it boiling cider to which the sugar and lemon have been added. Strain into border molds. When firm, remove from the molds and fill with the mixture made of the other ingredients and serve immediately.
A cider jelly ring filled with a ham salad bound with whipped cream — a made-over dish from the era when unmolded gelatin was a mark of a good table. The instructions assume you know that the seasonings belong in the filling, not the jelly.
- Read the layout firstThe ingredient list is printed in two columns and reads as nonsense straight across. The jelly is gelatin, cold water, cider, sugar and lemon juice; everything else — ham, eggs, celery, salt, pepper, cayenne, whipped cream — is the filling.
- The gelatin quantity is ambiguous"1½ package or two tablespoons" does not reconcile: a standard envelope is ¼ oz, a scant tablespoon, so 1½ packages is nearer 1 tablespoon than 2. Two tablespoons in 2½ cups of liquid gives a firm, sliceable jelly that unmolds cleanly, which is what a border mold needs.
- Cider means sweet ciderCider most likely means sweet cider -- in American books of this period cider usually refers to unfermented apple juice, and the added sugar here points that way. Use fresh unfiltered juice if you can get it; hard cider will read as sour against the half cup of sugar.
- Border moldA ring mold; the recipe says "molds", plural, so individual rings are likely, and the jelly amounts to only 2½ cups of liquid in total. Rinse the mold with cold water before filling and dip it briefly in warm water to release.
- Setting timeNo chilling time is given. Allow at least four hours in the refrigerator, and overnight is safer for something that has to stand up on a platter.
- Cayenne is not a misprintA quarter teaspoon of cayenne in a cup of ham is assertive by modern standards but deliberate — it is there to cut the sweet cider and the cream. Taste the filling before you commit; boiled ham varies enormously in salt, and the extra half teaspoon may not be wanted at all.
- Whip the cream unsweetenedThe jelly carries all the sugar the dish needs. Fold the cream in at the last moment and keep it stiff, or the filling slumps.
- "Serve immediately" is the hingeCream-bound filling in a chilled jelly ring weeps and softens within the hour. Unmold and fill at the table's edge, not in advance.
- YieldNot stated. The quantities (1 cup ham, 2½ cups of jelly) suggest a small luncheon dish.
This belongs to the "made-over dishes" chapter — the part of a household book devoted to turning yesterday's boiled ham into something a hostess could put in front of guests without apology. The form depended on a recent convenience: granulated gelatin sold in measured packets, on American grocery shelves from the 1890s, which replaced the long business of clarifying calf's-foot stock and made molded salads a weeknight possibility rather than a professional feat. Butterick, a pattern company that had expanded into general domestic advice, was selling exactly that promise of achievable elegance. The cider is seasonal shorthand: sweet cider was an autumn commodity in the northeastern United States, cheap and abundant at pressing time, and pairing it with ham draws on the same apple-and-pork logic as applesauce beside a roast.