For the first time in my life I've signed up for a CSA and last week got my first box. It was just crammed with greens! A bunch of lactinato kale, a bunch of rainbow chard, a bag of spinach, two stalks of green garlic, two little red lettuce heads, a bunch of fresh basil, a purple daikon radish, and a dozen eggs! Thankfully we love greens in my household and simple creamed greens is one of my favorite ways to eat them.

You may be familiar with creamed spinach, but in the 18th and early 19th centuries, spinach and cream was more likely to be served with sugar than with garlic. It's really not until the turn of the 20th century that savory creamed spinach becomes a steakhouse staple (and even then it's often still got nutmeg in it).

​Although creamed spinach is quite good, I actually prefer to cream sturdier greens. Kale, in particular, especially the curly kind, is very good creamed. It's not as meltingly soft, but I prefer a little more texture. Many creamed greens recipes use a white sauce or cream cheese, and while those are good, the easiest way to make them is simply to reduce cream with a little salt. It gives the greens a creamy coating without overpowering them.

This dish turned out even more delightfully than I expected. Be forewarned - like most dishes of cooked greens, it takes a lot to make a lot. This recipe results in really just two hearty servings - four if you're eating other foods on the side. You can of course substitute just about any hearty greens in this dish. For a richer dish, use heavy cream instead of half and half (which was all I had in the fridge). 

2 tablespoons butter
2 stalks green garlic
1 bunch lactinato kale
1 bunch rainbow chard
1/3 cup or so half and half
4-6 small leaves fresh basil
2 inch square of feta, plus extra for garnish
salt to taste
whole grain toast

In a dutch oven, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Slice the green garlic thinly crosswise, white and green stalk (discard the tough leaves), then mince. Add to the butter. Chiffonade the kale and finely slice the stems of the rainbow chard. Add to the butter and garlic and increase the heat to medium. Sautee until the stalks are tender. Chiffonade the swiss chard leaves and add to the pot. Sautee a little longer, until all greens are wilted. Meanwhile, mince the basil finely. Add the cream, basil, and feta. Increase the heat to medium-high and simmer until the cream thickens and is almost completely absorbed. Pile on hot toast and garnish with more feta. 

The garlic and basil flavors were subtle but delicious. If you like stronger flavors, add more basil and use clove garlic, or add the green garlic later in the cooking process. 

You might think that a pile of greens with a few crumbs of cheese is not a very satisfying meal, but you would be wrong. The greens are part silky, with tender but toothsome bits of stalk. The feta adds a salty tang and it's all tinged with fragrant basil and garlic. It is very true, however, that two whole bunches of greens does cook down quite a lot, and my husband and I ate the whole pot, just the two of us. So if you're looking to get more greens in your diet, this is a great way to go! But if you're cooking for a crowd, definitely double or triple the recipe.

Do you have a favorite way to eat dark leafy greens? 

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Our 30th episode! Hard to believe we started in March, 2019 at episode 1! In this episode of Food History Happy Hour, we made the Pink Garter cocktail from 1946 and discussed all things wedding food! We started off with WWII rationing and wedding cakes, moved into 19th century wedding breakfasts, why they were called "breakfasts," and the types of food served, including the Medieval origins of wedding cakes, which were originally (and sometimes still are) fruitcake! Then we moved onto trends in cake design, the influence of Queen Victoria on fashionable weddings, and launched into a discussion of famous literary weddings (including Laura Ingalls Wilder and Meg March from Little Women) which then devolved into an (attempted) discussion of what was served at Miss Havisham's wedding breakfast.

In earnest pursuit of Anna Katherine's request to know what was at Miss Havisham's wedding breakfast, I could find no official reference. The original text only refers to the bride's cake and an epergne filled with something cobwebby and rotting. Almost certainly fruit if, like Elizabeth theorized, Miss Havisham's wedding had taken place in the 1810s. 

I did, however, find an etiquette book from 1834 that had this to say about weddings:

"The breakfast should be supplied by a first rate confectioner and the table should be as beautiful as flowers plate glass and china can make it. The ordinary menu of a wedding breakfast is as follows. Tea, coffee, wines, cold game and poultry, lobster salads, chicken and fish à la Mayonnaise, hams, tongues, potted meats, game pies, savory jellies, Italian creams, ices, and cold sweets of every description."

So lots of meat, seafood, and sweets, all served cold. I can only imagine what rotting lobster or fish smelled like in Miss Havisham's house. Yuck.

And while I wasn't able to find an actual menu from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's wedding, I did find a clip from the show Anna Katherine was referring to! 

Tonight's cocktail came from perennial favorite The Roving Bartender by Bill Kelly, published in 1946. This was a very straightforward, very delicious drink. Super simple, but surprisingly complex-tasting. If you like raspberry lemonade, this drink will be right up your alley. If sweet drinks are not your thing, cut down on the grenadine, or up the gin ratio. It calls for:

1/3 ounce lemon juice
1/3 ounce grenadine
1 ounce dry gin

Shake with ice and strain into a martini glass. I garnished mine with a maraschino cherry for extra pizazz. 

Still looking for more wedding food history? You can watch my illustrated talk as recorded recently for a library lecture!

That's all for this month's Food History Happy Hour! I've got a TON of talks coming up in June, so be sure to check out the events calendar, and we'll see you at the next Food History Happy Hour on June 18th!

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As you may know, I am a huge fan of Ida Cogswell Bailey Allen. A PROLIFIC cookbook author with over fifty titles to her name, I'm not sure anyone has ever done a comprehensive bibliography of her work. So when I saw this little cookbook on Etsy, I squealed.

I squealed in part because, as far as I can tell, this is one of her first cookbooks! And I also got excited because she is listed as an "endorsed lecturer" for the United States Food Administration!

The cookbook does have a few ration-friendly recipes in the very back - basically for wheatless baking recipes. But the majority are regular ol' recipes designed for The Citizens' Wholesale Supply Company from Columbus, Ohio. There's not a lot out there on this company, but from what I can tell it started out as a co-op, and then morphed into a company focused on food products - the Golden Rule brand. The Golden Rule Cook Book, (not to be confused with THIS Golden Rule Cook Book of meatless and vegetarian recipes), doesn't appear to be digitized anywhere, nor are there many versions for sale online. Which makes it all the more interesting!

It was likely designed as an advertising cookbooklet, which were a common advertising device for food products and companies from the 1890s until quite recently. As you can see, the recipes all call for at least one Golden Rule brand ingredient, often a flavoring extract. This "French Peach Pie," however, caught my eye. It appeared to be an upside down cake, albeit baked in muffin tins. Ida Bailey Allen probably called it "French" because it loosely resembles tarte tatin. I wasn't sure exactly how many muffin tins, as I knew some historic tins were only 6 muffins big, and I had only a 1 dozen pan. So I decided to make a few changes. First, I made it in a round cake pan, instead of individual cakes in a muffin tin. I also added chopped pecans, because I had some and that sounded good with peaches. I added a pinch of salt, because Ida never does and baked goods taste flat without it. More commentary with the recipe.

I put the "pie" in quotes because this is really an upside down cake. If I make this again, and I think I will, I am going to make a few more changes, mainly using regular all-purpose flour and using the full egg, instead of just the yolk, as the batter was a bit dry and needed an infusion of extra milk. I even added a little of the leftover peach juice!

Here's the verbatim recipe:
Butter muffin tins thoroughly, and half fill with sliced canned peaches, adding a teaspoon of juice to each compartment. Make a cake batter of one tablespoon butter, one-half cup sugar, one-fourth cup milk, one cup bread flour, one egg yolk, one teaspoon Golden Rule Baking Powder, and a few grains Golden Rule Nutmeg. Drop a spoonful on each pan, set in the oven, and bake slowly for thirty minutes. Then invert, and serve with lemon sauce, or Golden Rule Marshmallow Whipped Cream.

Here's my translation:
1 quart canned peaches
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/4 to 1/2 cup milk
Leftover peach juice
1 cup bread flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt (1/4 teaspoon at least)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Well-butter a 9 inch round cake pan. Add the peach slices to the bottom of the pan (I was missing a few from my quart from an earlier snack), and a few tablespoons of the juice. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar (it WILL work, just takes a minute), then mix in the egg yolk. At this point I dithered between adding the milk or adding the flour, or alternating. I ended up adding the milk and blending well before adding the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and chopped pecans. This was VERY thick and did not even absorb all the flour, so I added another a little more milk and the remaining peach juice (about 1/4 cup) to make something more closely resembling a thick batter. I dolloped spoonfuls into the pan and tried to spread it out as best I could. I then baked it at 350 F (a "slow" oven is usually between 300 and 350 F), and 30 minutes wasn't quite long enough, as it was a larger pan, so I baked it for probably 40ish minutes, or until the cake was starting to turn golden brown at the edges. 

I then used a knife to loosen the edges of the cake, placed a cake plate on top of the pan, and flipped to release. Only a little of the cake stuck to the bottom - likely because I added a smidge too much milk. 

The cake was oddly firm-textured, I think because of the use of bread flour, and a bit dense. Next time I make it I am definitely using all-purpose flour and a whole egg and we'll see how that turns out. And I'll add a little more salt next time. And more peaches! There were insufficient peaches. Lol. And I think this recipe would be much better with fresh peaches, but canned were perfectly fine. ​

The Golden Rule Marshmallow Whipped Cream I did not try, but it is simply whipped cream stabilized with a tablespoon or so of marshmallow creme. Liquid cream is much better, in my opinion! Especially since this cake was quite sweet. 

Interestingly, although this dessert is not in the World War I section of wheat-saving recipes, it calls for just one tablespoon of butter and one egg yolk, at a time when butter was rationed and eggs were often scarce. It would also be easy to shift this recipe to all barley flour or all or part rye flour to substitute for the wheat. The sugar could also probably be substituted in part or all for honey or maple syrup, which would give added moisture to the batter as well. 

What do you think? Would you try French Peach "Pie?" Maybe next time I'll be brave enough to try it in the muffin tin!

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Rice is one of the world's oldest cultivated crops. Domesticated in China as many as 15,000 years ago, trade routes helped spread this grain across the ancient world. Rice has many different uses, but porridge-y things, from congee to rice pudding, seem common in cultures around the world. Although Americans may be most familiar with Asian "white rice" and "brown rice," there are actually hundreds of different varieties. In fact, the first rice to be cultivated in the United States was actually an African variety.

The development of rice plantations in the American South is a direct result of skilled labor and knowledge by enslaved Africans exploited by the people who enslaved them. South Carolina and Georgia in particular were some of the few places in North America where rice was grown commercially until the later 19th century, when rice spread to Louisiana and Texas. In the early 20th century, Arkansas and California followed suit. Today, Southern states still grow Carolina varieties of African rice, while California focuses more on japonica varieties of Asian rice, likely influenced by Chinese immigration during the Gold Rush of the 1840s and after. 

Early recipes for rice pudding included cooking it in a pie crust, baking it with just butter and milk, or in a custard. In the U.K., a short-grained "pudding rice" is most often used to make rice pudding. In the U.S., Americans tend to use long grain white rice varieties. You don't find rice pudding too often these days. Usually relegated to nursing homes and hospitals, you'll occasionally find it on restaurant (or especially New York deli) menus. But I think rice pudding deserves a revival.   

When life has you down, nothing tastes more comforting and nourishing than homemade rice pudding. But rice pudding can be finicky stuff to make. I don't know when I discovered the idea for this genius recipe, but I'm sure it was somewhere on the internet about ten years ago. This recipe couldn't be easier, and it's the only one I ever use. No eggs, no custard, no baking, one pot and done. So simple. 

As a Scandinavian, rice pudding is in my blood. This one is a cross between the traditional Norwegian kind, served hot and cinnamon-y at Christmas, with a lucky almond in someone's bowl resulting in a marzipan pig, and the Swedish kind I grew up eating at midsommar - cold, creamy, and with raspberries on top. It's good hot or cold, with or without milk or cream or whipped cream. It's one of my favorite comfort recipes, and I hope you enjoy it, too.

The genius of this recipe comes from the substitution of arborio or risotto rice for regular white rice. The arborio rice thickens the milk as it cooks, creating a creamy, sweet deliciousness that's in the rice to the core. I can't take credit for discovering it, and the American who came up with it was probably inspired by the "pudding rice" of the U.K., but it's too easy and delicious not to share. This recipe does bear a little watching, as milk is quick to boil over, but make it while you're doing dishes, baking something, or otherwise puttering around in the kitchen. 

1 cup arborio rice
5-6 cups whole milk (or milk of your choice)
1/2 cup sugar
1 cinnamon stick
about 1 cup raisins (I used half Thompson and half golden)

Place all ingredients in a 4 or 5 quart stock pot and cook over medium to medium-high heat until the milk comes to a boil (watch it so it doesn't boil over!). Then reduce the heat to medium low and cook, stirring frequently, until most of the milk is absorbed. When it's still a bit soupy, turn the heat off and let the rice rest. It will absorb more milk as it sits. Serve hot for breakfast or warm or cold for dessert. It keeps well in the fridge, but the rice will absorb milk, so if it gets too thick, add a little milk to thin. If you don't have a cinnamon stick, a sprinkling of ground cinnamon is fine. If you'd rather leave out the raisins, feel free! Add dried cranberries, blueberries, or serve with fresh or frozen strawberries or raspberries. You could also flavor with orange or lemon zest, nutmeg, almond or vanilla extract, or any other flavorings you enjoy.

Do you have a favorite creamy dessert? A favorite way to eat rice pudding? I must admit that while this recipe is very good, it's not quite as good as the Swedish rice pudding I grew up eating, which was VERY creamy, sweet, and served cold with thawed frozen sweetened raspberries with their juice. I would stir it to turn the rice pudding purple and make sure I got raspberries in every bite. Alas, the only recipe I have for that makes gallons, so I've never tried it. 

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I've spent the last several weeks packing up one room after another in my house, having it painted, and then unpacking. It's been quite a tedious chore, and I must admit, I left the worst for last - my office/guest bedroom which houses my cookbook library!

So a friend came over to help me pack up my fragile historic cookbooks and move bookshelves (among other things), so we started our day with a little tea party lunch. We had deviled eggs, spring pea "hummus" sandwiches, oatmeal nutmeg scones with butter and strawberry jam, and plenty of tea with sugar and milk. You can find my favorite deviled egg recipe and oatmeal nutmeg scone recipe here, but the spring pea "hummus" is new, so I thought I would share it as a nice, springy, Meatless Monday recipe. It's not historic in the least - it's my own creation - although it does FEEL like someone in the 1940s would have thought of this as a sandwich spread.

If you want to keep the green color, you need an acid to prevent the peas from turning olive green. Yogurt, buttermilk, lemon juice, or vinegar will all help keep that vibrant green. Fair warning - this makes a lot! Close to a quart. So cut the recipe in half if you live in a small household.

1 bag frozen peas
1/4 cup salted, roasted almonds
3 scallions
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 tablespoon (or more) lemon juice
salt & pepper to taste

Bring about about an inch of water to boil in a 2 quart saucepan with a lid, then add the peas and steam, covered for 2 or 3 minutes, until they are tender and bright green. Drain and rinse in several changes of cold water to stop the cooking (and preserve the color). In a food processor or chopper, add all the ingredients, with the scallions and almonds in the bottom, so they blend first and best. Pulse until well-blended. Add a little water or more lemon juice to taste. 

This is a very forgiving recipe, and will take substitutions easily, provided the peas stay. Substitute walnuts or pumpkin seeds for the almonds, or leave the nuts out altogether (they do give some body). Substitute yogurt or sour cream or even a little buttermilk, or even avocado for the cottage cheese. Use vinegar instead of lemon juice, garlic or raw onion or chives instead of scallions. Add spinach or fresh parsley or dill for extra color and flavor.

I served this spread on toasted rye bread, but you can serve it on any kind of bread, or crackers, or flatbread, or potato chips, or with vegetables, or roll it up inside thinly sliced salami, or a piece of cheese. Use it as an addition to a BLT (you can leave out the T, if you're so inclined), or a ham or turkey sandwich. Put pickled onions on top or dollop it on a baked potato, or both. Stir it into hot pasta with some chicken and roasted spring vegetables for a yummy pasta primavera. The possibilities are endless!

Let's be honest, the scones and deviled eggs are just about gone, but the spring pea hummus will be making several showings this week for lunch. It's a nice way to get an extra, and yummy, serving of vegetables in. I hope you enjoy it!

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Spring has sprung, with daffodils nodding in the frosty air and trees starting to bud out. So it seemed apt to celebrate with another tea party!

​Once again, our tiny tea party with just one friend featured all-vegetarian recipes, since said friend is a vegetarian. And also because chicken salad, while delicious, seems lazy when you're looking for something new and interesting to try.

This one featured recipes from a new cookbook acquisition, The Lunch Box and Every Kind of Sandwich by Florence Brobeck. My edition was published in 1949, although I believe the original was published sometime in the 1930s.

It's also a bright orange library binding without the original dust jacket. So no pretty cover to show off this time!

Unlike last time, my ambitious list didn't go QUITE as planned. Adapting historic recipes can be like that.

Radish and butter sandwiches just scream spring to me, and they're very easy to put together. To make things extra fancy, cut sliced bakery bread (not the squishy kind from the bread aisle - hit the bakery and get peasant, sourdough, brioche, or in a pinch, French or Italian bread) with a cookie or biscuit cutter into rounds. Spread with soft butter, top with thinly sliced radishes, and a sprinkling of salt (I used pink Himalayan). The salt is what makes the radishes look wet, but adds a nice flavor.

Open-faced cucumber sandwiches are equally easy. Make a cream cheese spread with softened cream cheese (15 seconds in the microwave does the trick), and thinly sliced scallions and dried dill. You can use jarred garlic or minced sweet onion instead of scallions. Spread it on any kind of rye bread. Top with English (a.k.a. seedless - even though they're not - or burpless) cucumbers. If you're hungry, top with another slice of bread spread with the cream cheese mixture, otherwise serve open-faced (which is prettier and more Scandinavian). If you're going really fancy, use fresh dill in the cream cheese and top each sandwich with a sprig of fresh dill.

The little square sandwiches were a mashup of two recipes from the The Lunch Box - "Roquefort Cheese and Celery" and "Pecan and Celery" fillings.

I decided to mash them up - literally - into one, slightly more interesting filling. I mixed a quarter pound of very soft blue cheese with about a cup each of diced pecans and finely minced celery, with a splash of Worcestershire sauce. It was a curious mixture. Next time I would probably add cream cheese to temper the blue cheese a little, and maybe add some scallions and/or smoked paprika. But otherwise it was quite nice on squares of thinly sliced whole grain bakery bread. 

Half the fun of tea sandwiches is the fun and dainty shapes you create. I always find it easier to slice the bread first, and then fill, but some people do it the other way around. 

When one encounters a recipe entitled "Honey Bread," one expects it to taste of, well, honey. Instead, the spicing of this little quick bread leaves the impression of gingerbread more than honey. Curiously, the recipe also contains no fat. I was skeptical, but aside from an accidental overbaking (which I think dried it out), it turned out fairly decently, if scarcely tasting of honey. 

I followed this recipe pretty much to the letter. It makes a tall loaf with a springy crumb - not at all the crumbly, moist, cake-like texture we come to associate with most quick breads today. Much more like true bread texture than cake. Here's the original recipe:

2 cups flour (I used white whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/2 cup liquid honey

Sift the flour and measure it; then sift three times with the dry ingredients (or if you're lazy, just whisk everything together). Beat the egg with the milk, and stir this into the dry ingredients alternately with the honey. Beat and pour into a greased loaf pan.

Bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.) about forty-five minutes or until done.

Tip out of the pan and cool on a rack. Serve with salted butter, honey butter, and/or jam. 

This recipe is deceptive. The title, "Plain Buns" is not accurate - flavored with lemon zest and currants (I used golden raisins), the flavor was surprisingly strong and delicious. Designed to be used with cake yeast, all I had was rapid rise yeast, so I think they got a little overproofed. I'm going to try making them with active dry yeast again, so I won't comment too much on what I did, and just give you the original recipe:

1 cup scalded milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 yeast cake
1 cup flour
2/3 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 tablespoon lard or shortening
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 lemon, grated rind
1 cup seedless raisins or currants (I used golden raisins)
2 or more cups flour
1 egg yolk

Scald the milk, add the sugar to it and, when it has cooled to lukewarm, add the yeast cake broken into small pieces. Cover this and let it stand twenty minutes. Then stir in one cup of sifted flour mixed with the salt. Cover and let this rise until light. Work the butter and lard together until creamy, add gradually the sugar, then the lemon rind. Combine with the first mixture, add the sifted flour (about one and one-half cups) to make a stiff sponge. Beat it well. Cover and let it rise again. Then add chopped raisins or currants and enough more sifted flour to make a soft dough. Cover and let rise again. Then pull off pieces and shape into large rolls. Arrange on a greased baking sheet one inch apart, cover them, and let rise again. Then brush them over with egg yolk, diluted with one teaspoon of water.

Bake in a moderately hot oven (375 degrees F.) twenty minutes. This makes twenty to twenty-four buns.

Obviously I didn't let rapid rise yeast go through fours separate rises! But I think it still overproofed a bit. I also forgot the egg wash! Which meant the buns looked a bit more like rocks. But they sure tasted good, and that's what mattered. If you enjoy the citrusy flavor of hot crossed buns, you'll love these.

I've made Strawberry Lazy Daisy Cake before, but this time I was somehow out of coconut, so I used chopped pecans for the topping as chopped nuts are the other traditional topping ingredient. Not QUITE as good as the coconut, but still yummy. 

Sadly for you, I did not make the walnut tassies (my friend did), and thus cannot share the recipe. However, she, like I did, had to make some substitutions! For Walnut Tassies are supposed to be Pecan Tassies, but my friend was out of pecans, so walnuts it was. The original recipe is supposed to be like tiny pecan pies, but tiny walnut pies were equally good.

One of the primary joys of tea parties, of course, is in the dishes. I've got my vintage Fire King Azurite Charm teacups and saucers, with newly acquired luncheon plates, some milk glass compotes with sugared strawberries in them, milk glass D ring mugs for cocoa, and assortment of vintage servingware in springy shades, on a vintage floral tablecloth. With tulips in the middle, of course. 

If you missed the last spring tea party, you can check it out here, with a promise of more to come!

Have you had a tea party recently? What favorite food did you feature? Tell us in the comments!

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Thanks to everyone who joined me for Food History Happy Hour this month. We talked about all things Irish and food, including the origins of corned beef, Irish soda bread, the Irish Potato Famine, Irish slavery and prejudice, cabbage, brussels sprouts, and the role of brassicas in European and Asian cuisine, and we touched on carageenan or Irish moss pudding, scones and bannocks, Irish coffee, and Irish desserts. 

Tonight's cocktail came from Fox's Bartender's Guide by Richard K. Fox (1902). The 1902 edition was preceded by The Police Gazette Bartender's Guide, first published in 1888, and with a much more interesting cover. Richard K. Fox was the Irish immigrant publisher of The Police Gazette, widely considered the one of the first men's magazines, and which covered tabloid-style sensationalist news, manly (and illegal) sports such as boxing and cockfighting, coverage of vaudeville shows, and "girlie" images of burlesque dancers and other ladies of ill repute. 

The cocktail itself is called "Irish" because of the use of Irish whiskey, which also features in several other cocktail recipes. Fox (or whomever was authoring the recipes) seemed rather fond of both absinthe and especially curacao, which feature prominently in most of the cocktail recipes. 

I won't replicate my version of this recipe as I made a number of substitutes (some knowingly, some out of ignorance) and the end result was not to my taste. Perhaps your version will be better!

Irish Cocktail.
Use large bar glass.
Fill glass with shaved ice.
Two dashes of absinthe. (or anisette)
One dash Maraschino. (the liqueur, not the cherries)
One dash Curacoa. (he means Curacao)
Two dashes bitters.
One wine-glassful of Irish whiskey. (probably 2 ounces)

Stir well with spoon, and after straining in cocktail glass, put in medium olive and squeeze lemon peel on top. (a.k.a. a twist of lemon)

This cocktail took on a rather unappealing hue, in large part because modern Curacao, an orange-flavored liqueur, is colored bright blue (something that apparently dates to the 1920s). But even historically absinthe was green. Thankfully, Maraschino liqueur is clear. But blue, green, and brown (the whiskey) a muddy-looking cocktail make, so keep that in mind. 

• The Irish Potato Famine - History.com
• "The curse of Cromwell: revisiting the Irish slavery debate" - History Ireland magazine
• "Is Corned Beef Really Irish?" - Smithsonian Magazine
• "Corned Beef Contains No Corn, and Other Things You Didn’t Know About Irish Food" - Cornell Daily Sun
• "History of Soda Bread" - Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread
• "The short but fascinating history of Irish soda bread" - Trafalgar.com
• "Irish Soda Bread: Not Actually Irish?" - Today.com
• And I forgot to talk about Curacao! So here's a nice article from the Atlantic - "Behind the Caribbean's Iconic Liqueur" 

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time!

George Washington Carver is a historical figure you may have heard of. Perhaps you grew up learning in elementary school that he invented peanut butter (he didn't), or perhaps you know his work in popularizing sweet potatoes. You might know he was born into slavery, and through his pioneering efforts at plant science, helped found the agricultural college at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. 

But the bulk of his accomplishments have been glossed over in popular culture, until now. Grist recently published an excellent overview of the real contributions Carver made, and why they have largely been ignored. 

George Washington Carver died on January 5, 1943. Just a few months before his death, he published Nature's Garden for Victory and Peace, his contribution to the victory garden conversation during the Second World War. 

Many people wrongly attribute Carver's booklet as a guide to victory gardens. In fact, it is a guide to foraging, and in line with Carver's ideas about food sovereignty that were decades ahead of their time.

Carver knew that access to land meant access to food, and even if Black families were denied access to land to grow gardens, they could forage in the wild public spaces or unclaimed verges of roads, edges of fields, etc. Still coming out of the Great Depression in 1941, people were eager to supplement often meager food supplies however they could. Free food was worth the labor to collect and process it. 

Nature's Garden lays out not only the common and botanical names of many wild-growing and native greens and herbs, some with accompanying line drawings, but also advice for harvesting and processing, recipe suggestions, and advice on drying garden produce for long-term storage - cheaper and easier than canning, which required expensive equipment and jars. 

Carver also includes references to Indigenous food uses, such as the use of sumac in making "lemonade," and directions for how to make "Lye Hominy," using the nixtamalizing process invented by Indigenous peoples in Mexico to hull corn and make the naturally-occurring niacin in the corn absorbable by the human body.

The booklet was given away free - one copy per person. Additional copies could be acquired at the cost of printing. 

One of the few recipes Carver actually outlines in Nature's Garden is also one of the first - a recipe for dandelion salad.

It reads: "A simple, plain and appetizing salad made be made thus:
1 pint of finely shredded young dandelion leaves
1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
2 small radishes, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of minced parsley
1 tablespoon of sugar (can be left out)
Salt and pepper to taste

"Moisten thoroughly with weak vinegar or mayonnaise, mix, place in salad dish and garnish with slices of hard boiled egg and pickled beets. This is only one of the many delicious and appetizing salads that will readily suggest themselves to the resourceful housewife." 

A modern incarnation might be made with arugula, instead of dandelion leaves, if you are unable to forage your own safely. 

Today, other foragers are trying to reclaim foraging for BIPOC communities. Alexis Nikole Nelson, also known as Black Forager, is one of those people. Like Carver, she reminds everyone that foraging has been the purview of BIPOC communities for as long or longer than the white male foragers who often get all the attention these days. 

I love Alexis' near-daily posts and how she cooks the food she forages - the most important information and often left out of the foraging equation. She's been profiled by TheKitchn, and Civil Eats, but you can learn the most by just following her on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or Facebook. You can also support her work by becoming a patron on Patreon!

To learn more about George Washington Carver, check out these excellent resources.

• George Washington Carver Exhibit, National Agricultural Library, USDA
• "The land-healing work of George Washington Carver" on Grist
  
• "Carver’s Food Movement: How the famous botanist paved the way for today's 'sustainable agriculture'" in The Common Reader
• "Dr. George Washington Carver Biographical Information" - George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center
• My Work Is that of Conservation: An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver by Mark D. Hersey - if you purchase from the Bookshop or Amazon links below, you'll be helping support The Food Historian.

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time!

It's been cold and snowy lately here in the northeast, and sometimes you just have to have soup. But going to the grocery store in a snowstorm is ill-advised. This recipe lets you use up all kinds of bits and ends that might be languishing in your refrigerator. 

This particular recipe is my own creation, based on what was in my kitchen, but is entirely inspired by history. Several parts of history, in fact.

The first is reducing food waste. Historical peoples did not throw out potatoes just because they were starting to sprout, or lettuce because it was a bit wilted, and neither should you. Putting lettuce in soup is also extraordinarily historic, and a practice that should be revived. 

Another is that this recipe is based on one of my favorites, "Green Onion Soup," from Rae Katherine Eighmey's Hearts & Homes: How Creative Cooks Fed the Soul and Spirit of America's Heartland, 1895-1939 (2002). Eighmey read hundreds of agricultural magazines and gleaned recipes and wisdom from the farm home sections. Found in the December 26, 1924 issue of Wallace's Farmer, Green Onion Soup is a unique recipe. A combination of simply green onions and potatoes, the soup is cooked in a small amount of water, and then partially mashed right in the pot without draining. Cream and milk are added to thin the soup and add richness. The soup is comforting and nourishing and retains all of the vitamins and minerals that might otherwise be lost by draining away the cooking water. 

Which brings me to the final inspiration - vitamin retention in the style of recipes from World War II. By cooking the vegetables in the water that becomes the broth, you lose far fewer nutrients and flavor. Plus, other aspects of the soup are also quite appropriate to WWII - it's meatless, in line with rationing, and makes good use of milk, a favorite 1940s ingredient. 

I had a number of foods that needed using up that made their way into this soup: a few red potatoes, a head of wilted red lettuce, the fresh bits of baby spinach out of a box that was on the verge of getting slimy, a whole celery root starting to go a bit soft, some garlic starting to go green in the middle, and the tail end of a gallon of milk. The only fresh addition was two bunches of green onions. You could modify it pretty much however you want - any kind of greens, any kind of onion, any kind of root vegetable. 

4 red potatoes
2 bunches green onions (scallions)
1 celery root
3 cloves garlic
1 head red lettuce
1-2 cups baby spinach
water
salt
pepper
1/2 cup half and half
1 cup buttermilk
whole milk

Scrub and dice the potatoes, cutting away any eyes or bad parts, but leave the skin on. Slice the green onions, white and green parts. Cut away the knobbly skin from the celery root, then cut into small dice. Mince the garlic, wash and chop the whole head of lettuce. Add it all, with the spinach to a large stock pot and add water not quite to cover. Add at least 1 teaspoon salt (I used wild garlic flavored crystal salt languishing in a drawer) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer hard until all vegetables are very  tender and potatoes fall apart when pierced with a fork. Do not drain. Using a potato masher or sauce whisk, mash vegetables in the pot until blended with the water, leaving some chunks. 

Add a the half and half and buttermilk (or you could use part heavy cream, or leave out the buttermilk, or just use milk) then add milk to thin out the soup and to taste. Taste for salt and add more if necessary, along with pepper and whatever other herbs and spices you like. Serve nice and hot with buttered bread or toast. 

The buttermilk does add a nice, distinctive tang. If you don't have any, add a dollop of sour cream, or some plain yogurt, or a splash of lemon juice.

You could make this vegan with plant-based milk and butter. For a different flavor, add whatever fresh herbs you have lying around - dill, parsley, basil, and cilantro would all be good here. Add vegetable broth and some lemon juice instead of milk for a bright, brothy soup instead of something creamy. Use sweet potatoes or squash and tomato broth with the greens. The possibilities are really endless. 

If you'd like more interesting recipes, you can purchase Eighmey's book from Bookshop or Amazon - either way, if you do, your purchase will support The Food Historian!

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time!

Thanks to everyone who joined us for Food History Happy Hour tonight! We made a version of "Fruit Punch" from 1924, doctored with some spiced rum. We also discussed the history of tea, coffee, and hot chocolate, the use of tea in 18th century punch recipes and in the Temperance movement, the influence of coffee houses on politics and science, the gendering of these drinks, and the difference between high tea, low tea, and afternoon tea. 

We often think of fruit punch today as the bright red sugary concoction of questionable flavor profile. Historically, fruit punches were non-alcoholic alternatives to highly alcoholic party punches popular in the 18th century. This version was probably inspired by Philadelphia Fish House Punch, a heady mix of citrus fruit, rum, brandy, cognac, and black tea. Here's the original recipe:

1 cup sugar
1 cup very strong tea
3/4 cup orange juice
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 pint ginger-ale
1 pint apollinaris (seltzer/club soda)
This makes about 10 glasses.

Here's the lovely alternative I made
1/2 cup sugar (this was VERY sweet, feel free to cut it to 1/4 cup)
1 cup very strong tea
juice of 2 oranges
juice of 1 lemon
1 cup ginger ale
1 cup seltzer
1/2 cup spiced rum

Stir tea and sugar together over ice, then and the other ingredients and stir to combine. Serve cold in small cups. This is very good and very smooth. 

You could easily leave out the rum for a more Temperance-friendly non-alcoholic punch, or you can see other alternative punches, along with a history of Temperance, here. 

Next weekend I'm going to have another tea party, but in the meantime you can review the one from last weekend! So fun. 

​The Food Historian blog is supported by patrons on Patreon! Patrons help keep blog posts like this one free and available to the public. Join us for awesome members-only content like free digitized cookbooks from my personal collection, e-newsletter, and even snail mail from time to time!