Suppress the ends of a pound and a half of small sweet potatoes, peel and cut them into pieces and fry them in some butter, moisten them to their height with stock (No. 189), and when the potatoes are done and the moistening reduced, pound them in the mortar, seasoning with salt and nutmeg, and adding a gill of cream. Pass this puree through a tammy (No. 170), heat it up well, and before serving, stir in two ounces of fine butter.
A French-style vegetable purée from Delmonico's kitchen, meant as a garnish beside roast meat or game rather than as a dish in its own right. It is straightforward once the period vocabulary is translated.
The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its logic is French throughout: this appears under Garnishings, not vegetables, because a purée in that system exists to be spooned beside something else — venison, duck, a saddle of mutton. The sweet potato is the American note in an otherwise wholly classical preparation, and Ranhofer treats it exactly as a Paris kitchen would treat chestnut or celeriac, sweating it in butter, moistening with white stock, pounding and passing it through the tammy. That sieve work is the mark of the era's professional cooking: before food mills, a smooth purée meant a mortar and a great deal of arm. The nutmeg is standard nineteenth-century seasoning for anything creamy and pale, and the butter beaten in at the last moment is the monter au beurre finish still used on sauces today.