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Fish
BOILED FISH WITH VEGETABLES. -Put a whole fish in kettle, and cover with stock made as follows: Fry in a saucepan two onions, a carrot, a piece of celery or celery-seed, a tablespoon butter, one of flour, a sprig of parsley, a teaspoon of whole black peppers, and three cloves; add two and a half quarts of water, two teacups vinegar, boil twenty minutes, salt and skim. Pour this over the fish, and boil gently until done. Serve with egg sauce. -Mrs. S. T., Mobile, Ala.
BROWN FISH SOUP.-Any kind of fish will answer, cut in small pieces, roll in flour, and brown in some olive oil or butter in a saucepan; cover with hot water. Season with salt and pepper, and boil slowly for about fifteen minutes. See that there is plenty of water. One pound will make a quart of soup. A clove of garlic may be added. -Mrs. F. H. M., Atlanta, Ga.
CRAB STEW. One peck of live crabs, steam twenty minutes, bone and pick claws and dodies, stew with one pint milk or cream the flesh and eggs of the crab fifteen minutes; flavor with salt and cayenne pepper. TO PICKLE CRABS.-Soft crabs are delicious pickled. Clean, boil in salt and water until done; take out and drain; when cold and dry put them in a jar and cover with a cold spiced vinegar (scalded with spices.) Hard crabs can be used this way.
BOILED HADDOCK WITH PARSLEY SAUCE. - Take a threepound haddock as soon as it comes from market, wash it thoroughly, and lay it in a large pan containing plenty of cold water and a handful of salt. When it is time to cook it, put it into the fish-kettle with cold water enough to cover it; a gill of vinegar; a tablespoonful of salt, the root of the parsley, six cloves, and one sprig each of thyme and marjoram. Set the kettle over the fire and bring it to a boil. By the time the kettle boils the fish is usually done, but it may be tested by pulling out a fin, if the fin comes out easily and the flesh of the fish looks clear white, it is done. Lift the kettle off the fire, and let the fish stand in the water until wanted for use. Make the sauce by stirring together over the fire one ounce or one tablespoonful each of butter and flour, until they bubble. Then stir in half a pint of boiling water, or a little more, if the flour thickens the sauce. Move the sauce to the side of the fire, chop the parsley fine and add it to the sauce with a saltspoon each of pepper and grated nutmeg; the sauce will then be ready to use. To serve the fish, take it up carefully without breaking, remove the skin by scraping it gently so as to avoid tearing the fish, pour the sauce over it, and it will be ready for the table. Haddocks are at their best in November, December, June and July. But any fish can be cooked by this recipe. Mrs. L. A., Tullahoma.
CREOLED HALIBUT. - Get a thick square piece of halibut, wash and place over a baking dish, season with salt and pepper, chop a clove of white garlic about the size of a bean, and strew over the fish, then put on a cup of fresh or canned tomatoes. Bake until the flakes separate; dish up without breaking. The combination of garlic and tomatoes gives the name of Creole to the dish.
BAKED HERRINGS. - Scale and clean two pounds of herrings carefully without washing, unless this be absolutely necessary. Split them down the back and remove the backbones. Sprinkle them inside with a little pepper, salt and powdered mace mixed together; if there are any roes enclose them in the flesh, and lay the latter in layers in a deep baking dish with half a dozen whole cloves, the same nunber of peppercorns and two bay leaves between them. Cover with vinegar and water equally mixed, salt plentifully, tie a sheet of oil paper over the dish, and bake one hour. These are in season in February, March and April.- Mrs. Capt. Howe, Nashville, Tenn.
TO PUT UP HERRINGS FOR FAMILY USE. - Mix three pecks each of fine and rock salt; take one thousand herrings, put them loosely in layers with salt between, after four days, drain well and repack in close layers on their backs covering each layer with a mixture of three pecks each of fine and rock salt, one and a half pounds brown sugar, one fourth pound of saltpeter. Leave several months until salt takes effect.
TO BOIL LOBSTER. - To a gallon of water, add a teaspoon of salt, and a teacup of vinegar; when boiling plunge lobster in head first; boil thirty minutes; remove cut off head and small claws which are never used; crack shell gently and remove meat. Lobster can be stewed as crabs, or served cold, with crab dressing and salad, or prepared according to recipe for derilled crabs.
OYSTER SALAD. - Three dozen fresh oysters, two heads of celery with part of their green tops, about half as much tender white cabbage; after washing the celery and cabbage throw them into boiling salted water, let boil five minutes, pour off the hot water and drain and chop them fine. Add an equal quantity of vinegar, some broken pepper-corns, pepper-sauce and salt; put in the oysters and keep shaking the pan while they are scalding that they may be set in round and plump shape; do not let them boil, drain and set them away on a dish to become ice cold. When to be served season the chopped celery slightly with oil and vinegar; spread part of it in a dish or in individual dishes, place the oysters in it side by side and the rest of the celery on top of them; smooth the top a little and pour mayonaise sauce, or a tartare sauce without the minced onion or gherkin, over just thin enough to run. Pickled or minced oysters answer well for salad as above instead of the fresh.
OYSTERS AND MACARONI-A third of a package of macaroni, one cup of oysters, one cup milk, one egg, one tablespoon flour, pepper and salt; boil macaroni alone in salt water twenty minutes and drain dry, butter the bottom of a three pint baking dish or pudding pan, put in half the macaroni, strew oysters over it, and dot with butter, in small pieces, dredge with salt and pepper and cover with rest of macaroni, moisten the spoonful of flour with a little milk, beat in the egg, then the rest of milk and oyster liquor, if any, pour in the pan and bake about twenty minutes or until set; the water should be at boiling point when macaroni is first put in. A PILLAU OF FISH. -Take two parts of any kind cold cooked fish, one part cold mashed potatoes; mince fish very fine and mix with potatoes and three hard boiled eggs cut fine. To one quart of this mixture, add tablespoon of butter, half a pint of water (milk is better); season with cayenne pepper and salt. Serve as soon as ingredients are well blended. SCALLOPS.-The heart is the only part used, dip them in beaten egg, then cracker crumbs and fry in hot lard; they can be stewed as oysters. .
Those sold in markets are generally ready for frying or stewing, but if bought in shell boil and take out hearts.
SHRIMP PIE. To two quarts peeled shrimps, add one cup of vinegar, one tumbler catsup and two tablespoons butter, season with salt and pepper; scald all together and pour in an earthern dish, strew top with bread crumbs and bake twenty minutes.
BAKED SHEEP'S HEAD. - When ready for cooking, salt and pepper well, gash the sides in three or four places, mince four onions fine, add one pint bread crumbs, a little finely minced fat meat, yolk of two eggs; blend all together; season with a little cayenne pepper, salt and thyme; with this stuff the fish and fill gashes on the outside; sprinkle over with flour and black pepper; bake slowly in a large pan with one quart hot water two hours. Serve with or without sauce, as liked.
SMELTS. Salt, pepper and roll in salted meal, or better, egg and bread crumb them; fry in boiling lard; serve immediately or the crispness and flavor will be lost. When designed to garnish a large fish, form them in rings by putting tails in mouth and securing with a piece of polished wire while frying, then withdraw; place these rings around fish, adding a garnish of parsley and lemon slices, or serve smelts alone around sides of platter with a tomato or tartare sauce in the center. STURGEON STEAKS. - Skin steaks carefully end place in cold salt water for an hour to remove the oily taste; wipe each steak dry, salt and broil over hot coals on a buttered gridiron. When cooked, butter and pepper, serve in a very hot dish, garnished with parsley; send to table accompanied by a small dish of sliced lemons, or sauce prepared thus: Put a tablespoon of butter into a frying pan stirring until it browns, not burns; wet with cold water a tablespoon of brown flour, then stir in a half tea cup boiling water and add to butter, season with salt, a teaspoon of Worcestershire or anchovy sauce, juice of a lemon, and when boiled pour over steaks. A simple way to prepare anchovy sauce is to add a tablespoon anchovy paste or the extract to a cup of drawn butter, mix and warm in stew pan, or soak eight anchovies in cold water for several hours; cut up and stew in very little water twenty minutes, strain into a cup of drawn butter, heat all in stew pan until boiling hot; pour in tureen, add a little cayenne pepper, tea spoon lemon juice and serve.
VIRGINIA BAKED STURGEON. - A piece of sturgeon weighing five or six pounds is enough for a handsome dish; skin and put in salt and water for thirty minutes; parboil to remove oil; prepare a dressing of bread crumbs, fine bits of fat salt pork, sweet herbs and butter; gash upper end of fish quite deeply and rub this force meat well in; place in baking dish with a little water to prevent burning and bake for an hour. Serve with a sauce of drawn butter, in which has been stirred a spoonful caper sauce and one of walnut catsup or anchovy sauce.
TURTLES.-Boil one hour, take out and remove skin from legs and feet; place in fresh boiling water and boil one and a half hours; take out and cool, when cold clean thoroughly removing the round liver which contains the gall, cut meat into small bits, and place into a stew pan adding pepper, salt and eggs found within. For four turtles use one quart water, one half pound butter, and two tablespoons of flour mixed with a little cold water; mix all thoroughly, stew about twenty minutes, as you remove from fire add one half-pint Maderia wine.
BAKED WHITE FISH. - Take out bone and then take off skin and cut fish in pieces three inches long and two inches wide. Use two soup plates or two deep earthen dishes same size; butter thickly with cold butter, place in layer of fish, season with peper and salt and a little butter, then another layer with plenty of butter on last layer; then butter inside of second soup dish very thoroughly and turn it upside down over the fish; put in oven and bake twenty minutes or till flakes break. Those who use wine can pour over fish before baking a wine glass sherry or madeira, using less butter.
Most of these are straightforward pan-and-oven fish cookery once the old units are translated, but three of them — the herring cure, the pickled crabs and the turtles — cannot be reproduced today and are flagged first.
- The herring cure is unusable"To Put Up Herrings for Family Use" gives a thousand fish, six pecks of mixed salt and a quarter pound of saltpetre with no brine strength, no temperature and no holding conditions beyond "several months." Nitrate at an unmeasured ratio against an unmeasured weight of fish is exactly the situation modern curing rules exist to prevent, and a low-acid, low-salt failure in a sealed mass of oily fish is the classic setting for Clostridium botulinum. Use a current cured-fish recipe with weighed cure and stated temperatures if you want salt herring.
- Pickled crabs, likewiseBoiled crab meat packed cold into a jar and covered with an unspecified "cold spiced vinegar" has no measured acidity and no heat process. Cooked crab is a well-documented vehicle for Listeria and for toxin-producing bacteria at room temperature. Not a keeping preparation by any modern standard.
- TurtlesThe recipe does not say which turtle, though the small size implied (four to a quart of water) points to terrapin or a small freshwater species rather than a sea turtle. All sea turtles are protected under the Endangered Species Act and CITES, and diamondback terrapin is protected or closed to harvest across much of its range. The recipe also directs you to remove "the round liver which contains the gall" after cooking. Skip it.
- A peck of crabsA peck is 8 dry quarts, a quarter bushel: about 15 to 20 medium blue crabs, yielding roughly a pound of picked meat. "Dodies" is almost certainly a misprint for bodies — the lump and flake meat from the body cavity, as distinct from the claws.
- A gillHalf a cup. The haddock takes a gill of vinegar in its poaching water; that plus a tablespoon of salt is a court-bouillon, and the vinegar is there to firm the flesh.
- Lobster and the thirty minutesThirty minutes will reduce a 1½-pound lobster to cotton. Modern practice is roughly 10 to 15 minutes at a hard boil for that size, longer for a two-pounder, and the same logic applies to the boiled fish and haddock — cook to doneness at the thickest point rather than by the clock. Public-health guidance for fish and shellfish is 145°F.
- Oysters must not boilThe oyster salad is explicit about this and it is the hinge of the dish: shake the pan while they scald, just until the edges ruffle and they plump, one to two minutes. Boiled oysters shrink and turn to rubber, and no amount of mayonnaise recovers them.
- Oven settings"Bake slowly" for the stuffed sheepshead means about 300–325°F. The book gives no oven indication for the baked white fish, the shrimp pie or the baked herrings; a moderate to hot oven (roughly 400°F for the two twenty-minute dishes, lower for the covered hour-long herrings) is a modern guess, not the book's instruction.
- Sheep's head is a fishSheepshead (Archosargus probatocephalus), a Gulf and Atlantic porgy with human-looking teeth, not a sheep's skull. Any firm whole fish of three to four pounds — black drum, snapper, striped bass — takes the same bread-and-onion stuffing.
- Oil paper and second soup plate"A sheet of oil paper" is oiled paper, the period's greaseproof cover; parchment or foil does the same job. The two buttered soup plates clamped face to face in the white-fish recipe are an improvised covered baker, and a small lidded gratin dish steams the fish in its own butter the same way.
- Sturgeon and scallopsWild sturgeon is protected or tightly regulated in US waters; farmed sturgeon is sold and behaves the same way, though the hour-long soak to "remove the oily taste" is unnecessary with farmed fish. The scallop "heart" is the adductor muscle — the white cylinder that is all we now sell as a scallop.
- YieldsThe brown fish soup states its own ratio: a pound of fish to a quart, so two pounds serves four. The crab stew from a peck of crabs with a pint of cream feeds four; the shrimp pie, two quarts of peeled shrimp, feeds six to eight.
The Dixie Cook-Book was compiled by Estelle Woods Wilcox and published in Atlanta in the 1880s, built on the frame of her earlier Buckeye Cookery but filled out with contributions solicited from Southern households — hence the initials and towns appended here: Mobile, Atlanta, Tullahoma, Nashville. What the chapter records is a coastal and river larder that a modern Southern cook would barely recognize. Oysters were cheap enough to be shovelled into salads and macaroni bakes; blue crabs came by the peck; sturgeon was abundant enough in the Chesapeake and the Southern rivers to be sold as everyday steaks; and terrapin was a market staple on its way to being eaten nearly out of existence. The heavy reliance on vinegar — in the poaching liquor, over the baked herrings, in the crab jar — is often read as the signature of a kitchen without mechanical refrigeration, where acid did some of the work ice does now. And the note that haddock are "at their best in November, December, June and July" is a reminder that seasonality here was not a preference but a fact of what the wagons brought.