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Pate of Veal
Mrs. L. J. Tilton.
Three and one-half pounds of the leg of veal, fat and lean, chopped fine; six or eight small crackers rolled fine; two eggs, piece of butter the size of an egg, one tablespoon of salt, one of pepper, and one of nutmeg; a slice of salt pork chopped fine. Work all together in the form of a loaf; put bits of butter and grate bread crumbs over the top. Bake two hours; to be cut in slices when cold.
A Victorian veal loaf, baked as a terrine and meant to be eaten cold in slices. Most of it translates directly; the seasoning does not.
- Scale back the pepper and nutmegA tablespoon each of pepper and nutmeg in a three-and-a-half pound loaf reads as extraordinary today, and the nutmeg in particular will dominate everything. A teaspoon of each is closer to modern palates; the tablespoon of salt is roughly right for that weight of meat plus salt pork.
- The chopped veal"Chopped fine, fat and lean" means what a butcher's grinder now does. Ask for ground veal from the leg, or grind cubed leg yourself on a coarse plate — commercial ground veal is often leaner than this recipe assumes, which is part of why the salt pork is there.
- CrackersSix or eight small crackers means plain unsweetened crackers of the soda- or water-cracker type; if you use modern saltines, allow for their surface salt. Roughly three-quarters to one cup of fine crumbs. Unseasoned dry breadcrumbs work in their place.
- Butter the size of an eggAbout two ounces, or four tablespoons.
- Oven temperatureThe book assumes you know; 325–350F is right for a two-hour bake. Any hotter and the outside dries into a crust before the centre sets.
- Cook to temperature, not the clockTwo hours suits a loaf packed into a deep tin. Ground veal should reach 160F at the centre — check at ninety minutes, since a flatter, wider loaf will get there sooner.
- Press and chillThe instruction to slice it cold is the hinge. Let the loaf cool in its tin under a light weight, then refrigerate overnight; a warm veal loaf crumbles apart under the knife, while a chilled and pressed one cuts clean.
- YieldServes eight to ten as a cold luncheon or sandwich meat. It keeps three or four days refrigerated.
Veal loaf of this kind was a fixture of American household cookery from the 1870s onward — a way to turn an inexpensive leg into a cold sliced meat that could stand in for potted or pressed veal without the labour of a proper terrine. It belongs to the same impulse as pressed chicken and jellied tongue: dishes made deliberately in advance, served cold on a sideboard, and cut through over several days of luncheons and suppers. The name pâté here is aspirational rather than technical, borrowing French prestige for a straightforward baked loaf. The Home Cook Book, first compiled in Chicago in 1874 as a charity fundraiser, gathered its contents from named local subscribers — hence Mrs. L. J. Tilton — and that community-cookbook format spread across North America for decades afterward. The heavy hand with nutmeg is characteristic of the period, when the spice was often reached for with veal and other pale meats.