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February 24
Menu: Vegetarian; Cream of Celery Soup; Mock Veal Roast; Stewed Turnips; Crackers; Asparagus Salad; Cheese; Apple Pie; Coffee Mock Veal Roast-1/2 pint shelled roasted peanuts, 1/2 pint lentils, 2 tablespoons melted Crisco, 1½ pint toasted breadcrumbs, milk, pepper and salt to taste. Soak the lentils over night; drain, bring them to a boil; throw away water; cover with fresh water and boil until tender; drain again; press them through a colander. Add nuts, chopped or ground, melted Crisco, breadcrumbs and seasoning, with sufficient milk to make it the consistency of mush. Pour into baking dish and bake in a moderate oven 1 hour. Beans or peas may be substituted for lentils.
A vegetarian nut loaf from Crisco's 1913 promotional cookbook, built on lentils, peanuts and crumbs. The measurements are given in liquid pints for dry goods, which needs translating before you start.
- Half a pint means a cup1/2 pint shelled roasted peanuts is about 1 cup (roughly 5 oz), and 1/2 pint dry lentils is 1 cup, which cooks up to nearly 2½ cups. The 1½ pint of toasted breadcrumbs is 3 cups, loosely packed.
- Moderate oven350F. An hour at that temperature is right for a loaf of this density in a shallow baking dish; a deep dish will want longer.
- CriscoPlain vegetable shortening. Two tablespoons is the whole fat content, so the mixture is lean and depends on the milk for moisture. Butter or oil can be substituted here.
- The double boil is optionalSoaking overnight, boiling, discarding the water and starting again was a common way of treating pulses, often said to reduce the gas-producing sugars. Modern lentils are clean and cook in 20-25 minutes from dry; a single pot is enough unless you want the milder flavour.
- Milk quantity is not givenExpect somewhere between 1/2 and 1 cup depending on how wet the pressed lentils are. Add it gradually until the mix drops thickly from a spoon: too stiff and the loaf is dry, too loose and it will not slice.
- Press through a colanderThis means forcing the cooked lentils through the holes to make a coarse purée. A potato masher or a few pulses in a food processor gives the same result; leave some texture rather than making it smooth.
- Grease and restThe pan needs oiling, and the loaf should sit 10 minutes out of the oven before cutting or it will crumble. A brush of melted fat on top helps it brown.
- YieldServes about six as a main course. It is bland by design for its period, and takes well to onion, sage, thyme or a mushroom gravy.
The Story of Crisco (1913) was Procter & Gamble's book-length advertisement for its new hydrogenated cottonseed shortening, and its "Calendar of Dinners" assigned a menu to every day of the year. This one falls on February 25. "Mock" cookery of this kind was widespread by then, and the nut-and-pulse loaf in particular is generally traced to the vegetarian sanitarium kitchens of the late nineteenth century, where roasted peanuts stood in for meat because they browned, held together and tasted savoury. Crisco had its own reason to promote such food: being made from cottonseed oil rather than lard, it could be sold as suitable for cooks who avoided animal fat, whether for religious reasons or dietary ones.