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Fried Pork Chops
The pork chops are fried the same as mutton chops, and some cooks sprinkle a little powdered sage over them, also salt and pepper; then add a little flour to the gravy and pour over them. Fried apples are delicious served with the fried pork chops, also tomato sauce.
This is shorthand rather than a full recipe: it assumes you already know the book's method for mutton chops, which means a heavy pan, a very small amount of fat, and high heat. The one thing worth ignoring is the period's assumption about how long pork must cook.
- The hinge: internal temperatureCooks of this era took pork well past pink out of fear of trichinella, and period chop directions tend to call for long cooking; this recipe gives no time at all. Modern pork is safe at 145F followed by a three-minute rest, and a bone-in chop pulled at that point is still faintly pink and juicier.
- "Fried the same as mutton chops"The method is cross-referenced elsewhere in the book and is not given here; period chop frying was generally a hot, lightly greased pan rather than a bath of fat. Pork chops release plenty of their own fat, so a teaspoon of lard or oil to start is enough.
- Chop thicknessThe recipe does not specify, but a fast pan method of this kind suits a relatively thin chop. If you buy a modern 1 to 1.5 inch chop, sear both sides and finish it in a 375F oven, or it will scorch outside before the centre comes up.
- Powdered sageDried sage, ground fine, not fresh. It is potent and scorches easily in a hot pan, so season the chops just before they go in, or stir it into the gravy instead. About a quarter teaspoon per chop.
- "A little flour to the gravy"Pour off all but a tablespoon or so of fat, stir in an equal amount of flour, cook it a minute, then whisk in about a cup of milk or stock for four chops. Season after it thickens, since the pan drippings are already salty.
- Fried applesFirm tart apples, cored and cut in thick rings, cooked in the pork fat after the chops come out. They take 8 to 10 minutes and a spoonful of sugar; leave the skins on so the rings hold together.
- Tomato sauceMost likely a cooked, seasoned tomato sauce of the period rather than ketchup. The wording does not make clear whether it is meant instead of the flour gravy or alongside it.
- YieldReckon one large or two thin chops per person, and cook in batches rather than crowding the pan.
The Butterick Cook Book (1911) came from the pattern and magazine publisher Butterick, part of a wave of household manuals aimed at middle-class American women, which may explain the compressed cross-referencing style here: the reader is expected to have learned the frying method a few pages earlier and to apply it to whatever chop the butcher had. The pairing of pork with apples is much older than the book, and is often said to derive from northern European farm practice, where hogs were reportedly slaughtered in autumn alongside the apple harvest and the fruit's acidity cut the richness of the fresh meat han documented fact. Sage with pork is the same kind of long-settled habit, carried into American cooking through English sausage and stuffing traditions. The generous cooking times found in pork recipes of this period reflect a real anxiety: trichinosis was a recognised hazard of the era's hog raising, and thorough cooking was the only defence available to a home cook.