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March 18
Menu: Broiled Spanish Mackerel; Grilled Guinea Chicken; Candied Sweet Potatoes; Baked Eggplant; Cold Asparagus, Vinaigrette; Devilled Cheese; Macedoine of Fruits; Coffee Broiled Spanish Mackerel-Split a good-sized Spanish mackerel down the back, clean and wipe as dry as possible, leaving the head and tail on or off, as desired. Sprinkle well with salt and pepper. Rub the wire broiler with Crisco and lay on this, flesh side up. Turn when the flesh is tender and broil on the skin side until brown and crisp, and serve with cucumbers dressed with oil and lemon juice.
A split, flat fish over direct heat — the whole method depends on the fish being dry and the grill being hot and greased before the fish touches it. Everything else is seasoning.
- "Wire broiler" is a hinged grill basket"Wire broiler" is a wire gridiron held over coals -- in this period the term usually covered a double, often hinged wire frame, which is why the recipe casually says "turn." A hinged fish basket over a hot grill, or a well-oiled cast-iron grill pan, does the same job. Under an overhead broiler you cannot flip it easily, so cook skin side down the whole time and skip the turn.
- Grease the grate, not just the fishRubbing the wires with Crisco (or any neutral solid fat) before the fish goes on is the step that keeps the skin from tearing when you turn it. Do it while the grate is hot, and wipe it on rather than pouring.
- Dry the fish seriously"As dry as possible" is doing real work here — surface moisture steams instead of browning, and the skin will stick. Pat both sides, then leave it uncovered on a rack in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes if you have time.
- Timing and donenessA split Spanish mackerel of roughly 1½ to 2 lb will take something like 4-5 minutes flesh side, then 3-4 minutes on the skin, though the recipe gives no weight or times and tells you only to turn "when the flesh is tender." Cooks commonly pull oily fish at 135-140F at the thickest part (official guidance is 145F), or when the flesh at the backbone just parts. Mackerel is oily and forgiving of heat but dries out fast once past that point.
- Buying the fishSpanish mackerel is still sold whole on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. If it is unavailable, use bluefish, Boston mackerel, or Spanish mackerel fillets with the skin on — all take the same treatment. Ask the fishmonger to butterfly it down the backbone if you would rather not.
- The cucumber dressingNo proportions are given. Something like three parts oil to one part lemon juice, salt and pepper, over thinly sliced cucumbers works; salting the slices and draining them for 15 minutes first keeps the dressing from going watery.
- YieldOne good-sized mackerel split this way serves two, or three as part of a longer menu of the sort this calendar assumes.
This comes from a Procter & Gamble promotional cookbook built around Crisco, the hydrogenated cottonseed shortening the company introduced in 1911 — which is why a straightforward broiled fish pauses to specify greasing the broiler with a branded product. The recipe sits in a "Calendar of Dinners," a menu-a-day format common in American household books of the era, and the March date is not incidental: Spanish mackerel run in spring and early summer along the southeastern coast, and a book organized by the calendar was quietly organized by what the market had. Splitting a fish down the back and broiling it over coals, skin side finished until crisp, is far older than Crisco or gas ranges; it is the standard treatment for any oily fish whose own fat bastes it as it cooks. The cucumbers in oil and lemon are the period's usual acid counterweight to a rich fish, standing in for the sauce a French kitchen would have made.