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February 21
Menu: Boiled Halibut, Anchovy Butter; Pigeons, a la Chasseur; Griddled White Potatoes; Stewed Lettuce; Oyster Salad; Cheese Relish; Pineapple Cream; Coffee Stewed Lettuce-Wash the desired number of heads of lettuce, cutting off the stalks at the roots, and put into a saucepan with 1 onion sliced, 1 tablespoon Crisco, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, and salt and pepper to taste, with a very little water, to cook slowly for 2 hours. By this time the water should have pretty well cooked away, leaving the lettuce fairly dry. Remove from it the onion and parsley, put into a dish, dress well with melted butter and send to table hot. Washington's Birthday
A braise of whole lettuce heads from the Crisco book's menu section. The only thing that needs rethinking is the clock.
- Two hours is too longModern romaine or cos braises to tenderness in 15 to 25 minutes over low heat, and butterhead in less. Two hours reduces lettuce to a grey thread; the long timing may reflect a slower, gentler range heat than a modern burner gives.
- Which lettuceUse firm romaine, Little Gem or a tight butterhead. Modern loose-leaf and bagged salad lettuces collapse into water and will not survive any braise.
- CriscoThe book's house fat, an all-vegetable hydrogenated shortening. Today's Crisco is reformulated and carries less than 1 g of trans fat per serving; any neutral oil or an equal amount of butter works, and butter suits the dish better.
- "A very little water"Two to three tablespoons in a heavy pan with a tight lid. The lettuce releases a great deal of its own liquid, and the aim, as the recipe says, is for it to cook away by the end rather than be drained off.
- Wash and drain hardLettuce hides grit at the base of the leaves. Split the heads lengthwise if large, rinse between the layers, then shake dry so you are not adding more water than intended.
- The onion and parsley are aromaticsThey are lifted out before serving, so slice the onion thickly and keep the parsley in a bundle rather than chopping it fine, which makes retrieval simple.
- YieldAllow one small head or half a large romaine per person as a vegetable side. Four heads serve four.
- Season at the endSalt draws water from lettuce. Add most of the salt and pepper after the liquid has reduced, along with the finishing butter, so the seasoning is not diluted and then boiled away.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was Procter & Gamble's promotional cookbook for its new hydrogenated cottonseed shortening, introduced in 1911; the promotional matter and recipes were later issued as A Calendar of Dinners, laying out a year of menus in which Crisco quietly replaced butter and lard in nearly every dish. Stewed or braised lettuce itself is much older and much more European than the book's American setting suggests: laitues braisées, cooked slowly in a little stock and fat, was a standard French vegetable garnish, and English cookery books are often said to have been stewing lettuce with onion and butter since the eighteenth century, when lettuce was as often a cooked vegetable as a salad. The Crisco version keeps the old shape of the dish, including the melted butter poured over at the table, which rather undercuts the sales pitch.