Curious Facts

Everything below is in the book — each fact links straight to the page it comes from.

Ice wafers were baked in tongs greased with cream, butter — or bacon. The book records the disagreement rather than settling it: "Grease the wafer tongs with cream, butter, or bacon; different cooks prefer these different things." The wafers were cooked over a charcoal fire if possible, then rolled "quite tight, and as thin as possible - the length of a pencil, coffee coloured, and very crisp." Read it in the book →
A fish sauce that finished with green turtle, four glasses of sherry, and the black skin of a cod's head. The recipe infuses basil, marjoram, chives, thyme and sage so that "not one of these flavours should predominate," then directs: "at the last moment take black skin of the Cod's head and put in the soup tureen 8 or 10 pieces of fat green turtle, 4 glasses of good sherry, 1 juice lemon, and 1 pinch of Cayenne pepper." Read it in the book →
For apple cake, use "old English unreformed Russetins". Mr. Courtenay's "Gâteau de Pommes" specifies sharp, freshly gathered fruit: "Golden Pippins, Ribston Pippins, or old English unreformed Russetins." Read it in the book →
Salt was banned from wafers because it makes them attract damp. "To make all wafers crisp, avoid salt; it makes them attract moisture." Once baked they had to cool completely and go "at once into a tin box." Read it in the book →
Cracked wheat had to be explained to British readers as an American novelty. A footnote reports that "Mrs. Hoover tells me that 'Cracked Wheat' is an American preparation of wheat with husks removed said to make an excellent porridge" — and adds that it "seems to resemble the old English 'Wheat Flummery.'" Read it in the book →
Sheep's head came with brain sauce. The index of "Sauces Appropriate for Various Joints" routes the reader to "Brain Sauce with Sheep's Head No. 5" — one entry in a list that also assumes the cook is dealing with pettitoes, tendrons, calf's head and sucking pig. Read it in the book →
Bone marrow was recommended as a substitute for butter in cakes. A parenthesis at the head of the cake section notes that "Marrow is recommended by Mrs. Weston in place of butter for making Cakes," cross-referenced to her short sugar paste. Read it in the book →
Savoury biscuits were sized against a five-shilling piece. Anchovy "Devils" could be served on toast cut to shape, on fried croûtons, "or on biscuits, the size of 5s. bit at most" — and if wanted very hot the biscuits were first dipped in oil, peppered and warmed on the gridiron. Findon haddock, kippered herring or kippered salmon would do instead of anchovy. Read it in the book →
"Badminton": claret cut two-to-one with soda water, "delicious in summer". The whole recipe is three ingredients — "2 bottles of soda water to 1 of claret, 1½ tablespoonfuls of pounded lump sugar, all well iced." Read it in the book →
Pigeon fillets were poached under a lid of buttered foolscap paper. Cold cooked fillets were spread with forcemeat pounded from two other uncooked pigeons, then set in a buttered sauté pan with boiling stock and cooked "covered with buttered foolscap paper as a lid." Read it in the book →
The meat screen doubled as a drying cupboard for biscuits. Wafers were revived in the same apparatus used to shield roasting joints: "Before dishing, dry them a few minutes in the meat screen, but do not send up warm." Elsewhere "Bows" are baked, twisted and "finish[ed] in the screen." Read it in the book →
Orange-flower water was dripped over almonds as they were pounded, to stop them oiling. In the recipe for Almond Wafers "for dinner": "as you pound, drop over them a little orange-flower water to prevent them oiling." The finished wafers were twisted into cornucopias, rimmed with pistachios or coloured sugar, and filled with iced Italian cream at the last moment. Read it in the book →
Anchovies had to come out of oil, never brine. The instruction is repeated in savoury after savoury — "Anchovy Crusts" are pounded hard-boiled egg and butter "spread on croûtons previously fried in lard, and with fillets of anchovy out of oil, not brine, placed in cross bars over them," served hot on a napkin. Read it in the book →
Lady Clark's own verdict on a biscuit: crispness is the merit, and no glaze. The wafer-thin cakes are to be dried "on a sieve in the top of the screen to keep crisp till served. Their crispness is their merit. Serve them with a cream shape." A closing line adds that "Lady Clark prefers them unglazed." Read it in the book →
The original 1909 edition was arranged strictly from A to Z. The editor's note explains that soups no longer sit beside soufflés: the recipe sections have been reordered from the first edition, "which was strictly alphabetical, to the more logical and now generally accepted arrangement." Read it in the book →
The ice moulds pictured come from Mrs. Marshall, the decorations from Aubrey Beardsley. The illustration credits gather a very Victorian jumble: "Moulds for Ices, from Mrs. A. B. Marshall's Book of Ices 1900; decorations from Aubrey Beardsley, Heywood Sumner, William Morris and various sources of the period." Read it in the book →