American cooking suffers from American nerv-
ousness, exactly as American nerves are suffering
from American cookery. We are too hurried to
eat properly, to enjoy what we eat as well as what
we see and hear, except while travelling in Europe.
Many people will recall certain dishes here given,
having tasted them abroad. Others, transplanted
families, may be glad to have recipes from the
Fatherland, and from all lands searched for house-
hold treasures, which are grouped beneath our flag
to make America what she is, — the best combi-
nation of the best traits. In tracing each recipe
to its source, some interesting comparisons were
xvii
Introduction
found. Hagerstown pudding, which Southerners
know and laugh at, is merely " nun*s fritters *' of
French convents, but although a dish centuries
old, the fried bread is served here with molasses
and in Europe, it is first dipped in batter, then
served with honey. Catholic gentlewomen intro-
duced it as a relic of school-days. Again, scrapple
is only the brawn of English winter fare and known
wherever the English have settled. Terrapin was
cooked to imitate turtle soup, and pork and beans
was either a copy of pease porridge or else a recipe
brought entire by slaves from Jamaica, who got it
from Spain, where it still exists. But what do
Americans — save those of French descent — know
of braising, that delicious mode of rendering tough
meat tender and succulent ? To many it is a rev-
elation. It lies between baking and frying, and
the closed saucepan or casserole used retains the
nutritious fumes of the meat, which usually go off
into thin air, utterly wasted. A young Gascon
named Braise — Gascony has ever been a country
of epicures — won a silver gridiron in a cooking
contest, under Louis XIV., for introducing this
new fashion in foods. Again, Paris first knew
brioches — fine biscuits, made like our eclairs —
when Marie Antoinette brought the formula from
Vienna ; Austria has always been famous for cakes
xviii
Introduction
and rolls. When the starving mob raged for
bread, the queen asked wonderingly, " Why don't
you give them brioches? " Because, of course, she
did not know the cost of things. Another delect-
able Parisian sweet — Baba pudding — was intro-
duced by King Stanislaus of Poland, on a visit,
about 1725, who brought his own cooks in his train.
In Poland it is still called ^^babka," meaning a
little old woman, because it has a huddled look,
like a poor old creature muffled in a shawl. In
northern France, especially in the province of
Normandy, baked fish is larded with strips of
bacon, stuffed with a forcemeat of mushrooms,
shrimps, and oysters ; and it is known that when
Marie de Medici married the dauphin, son of
Francis I., the young couple lived at the ancient
castle of Chambord, where the Italian cooks, seek-
ing variety, tried to serve the carp from the foun-
tains for dinner ; these fish are very insipid and dry,
and the foreign method of baking in stock with
the above improved them. Italy thus gave
France her first lesson in cookery, and the art was
indigenous to this country since the luxurious days
of pagan Rome, Charlotte Russe, the English
will tell you, was a pudding invented for the
wife of George III., but the French say that
Chartres, an old town of the north, originated this
xix
Introduction
Page 5
Presented as published in 1902. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
American cooking suffers from American nervousness, exactly as American nerves are suffering from American cookery. We are too hurried to eat properly, to enjoy what we eat as well as what we see and hear, except while travelling in Europe. Many people will recall certain dishes here given, having tasted them abroad. Others, transplanted families, may be glad to have recipes from the Fatherland, and from all lands searched for household treasures, which are grouped beneath our flag to make America what she is, — the best combination of the best traits. In tracing each recipe to its source, some interesting comparisons were
Introduction
found. Hagerstown pudding, which Southerners know and laugh at, is merely " nun's fritters'of French convents, but although a dish centuries old, the fried bread is served here with molasses and in Europe, it is first dipped in batter, then served with honey. Catholic gentlewomen introduced it as a relic of school-days. Again, scrapple is only the brawn of English winter fare and known wherever the English have settled. Terrapin was cooked to imitate turtle soup, and pork and beans was either a copy of pease porridge or else a recipe brought entire by slaves from Jamaica, who got it from Spain, where it still exists. But what do Americans — save those of French descent — know of braising, that delicious mode of rendering tough meat tender and succulent ? To many it is a revelation. It lies between baking and frying, and the closed saucepan or casserole used retains the nutritious fumes of the meat, which usually go off into thin air, utterly wasted. A young Gascon named Braise — Gascony has ever been a country of epicures — won a silver gridiron in a cooking contest, under Louis XIV., for introducing this new fashion in foods. Again, Paris first knew brioches — fine biscuits, made like our eclairs — when Marie Antoinette brought the formula from Vienna ; Austria has always been famous for cakes
xviii
Introduction
and rolls. When the starving mob raged for bread, the queen asked wonderingly, " Why don't you give them brioches? " Because, of course, she did not know the cost of things. Another delectable Parisian sweet — Baba pudding — was introduced by King Stanislaus of Poland, on a visit, about 1725, who brought his own cooks in his train. In Poland it is still called ^^babka," meaning a little old woman, because it has a huddled look, like a poor old creature muffled in a shawl. In northern France, especially in the province of Normandy, baked fish is larded with strips of bacon, stuffed with a forcemeat of mushrooms, shrimps, and oysters ; and it is known that when Marie de Medici married the dauphin, son of Francis I., the young couple lived at the ancient castle of Chambord, where the Italian cooks, seeking variety, tried to serve the carp from the fountains for dinner ; these fish are very insipid and dry, and the foreign method of baking in stock with the above improved them. Italy thus gave France her first lesson in cookery, and the art was indigenous to this country since the luxurious days of pagan Rome, Charlotte Russe, the English will tell you, was a pudding invented for the wife of George III., but the French say that
Chartres, an old town of the north, originated this
Introduction