Monthly Archive for June, 2010

Trying to decide what to serve your guests on the Fourth of July?  How about a traditional, historic New England meal of green turtle soup, poached salmon with egg sauce, and apple pandowdy?

Recently, I had an article published in Edible Queens magazine that focused on this menu.  Read on to find out what John and Abigail Adams have to do with the 1964 World’s Fair.  Tomorrow, we’ll focus on recipes, so you too can prepare a delicious, historic meal this Independence Day.

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A Revolutionary Menu
Historic Gastronomist Sarah Lohman recreates a centuries-old Independence Day feast.
Written By Sarah Lohman – Photographed by Everett Bogue and Sarah Lohman
Excerpt first published in Edible Queens Magazine, Summer 2010.

If you’ve ever driven down the Grand Central Parkway in Flushing, you’ve seen the rusted spires of alien architecture rising up on the horizon.  In 1964, this corner of Queens was home to the New York World’s Fair: a teeming village of international pavilions and expos of invention.  The Fair brought technology and modern living to the forefront,  debuting the Ford Mustang while animatronic children chanted “It’s a Small World.”  Nestled amongst this exuberant exploration of America’s future, there was an homage to its past.

The Festival/64 Restaurant was conceived by George Lang a decade before he took over his longtime role as owner of the Café des Artistes.   Designed as a tribute to historic American cuisine, Lang lovingly describes the Festival/64 Restaurant in his autobiography Nobody Knows the Truffles I’ve Seen:

“There was a need for an American restaurant that would combine the richness and breadth of our heritage…(and)  fuse it all into a contemporary American cuisine for contemporary American sensibilities.  The opening menu was a bold and convincing answer to the ubiquitous questions I received whenever I mentioned to European journalists that we were opening a restaurant featuring American food: ‘You mean hot dogs, hamburgers, steak, and apple pie?’

The restaurant featured dishes inspired by early American specialties, but guests could also order full historic menus including “Dining with Jefferson at Monticello.”  Lang’s interpretation featured a “…pan-fried young pheasant with cornmeal square and fresh peach chutney as its main course.”

I was inspired to recreate one of Lang’s menus; I thought that the Fourth of July, a holiday closely tied with American history, would be the perfect occasion.  The New York Times covered the Fair’s glorious Independence Day celebrations, including what was on the menu:  “At the Festival ’64 Restaurant in the Gas Pavilion, George Lang, the director of the restaurant, came up with a meal served by John and Abigail Adams at their home on July 4, 1776…The menu consisted of green turtle soup, New England poached salmon with egg sauce and apple pandowdy.”

Although this menu is attributed to the Adams, John and Abigail’s letters place them in different states on the first Independence Day, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts respectively.

For his restaurant, Lang seems to have relied heavily on one source for all his historic menus, The American Heritage Cookbook, which was published contemporaneously with the Fair.  This volume is the first time this Fourth of July menu appears in print.   The accompanying text explains that this meal was traditional New England fare, likely served by the neighbors of the Adams.

It seems there was a mistake in the menu’s provenance and to this day it is still attributed to the Adams.  However, this meal does reflect what early Americans were eating in the summer months.   In July, salmon would have been running on the shores and rivers of New England.  Poached fish would have been served alongside early peas and new potatoes would have been gently unearthed and boiled in their skins.

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Tomorrow, part two of the article, concerning my culinary adventures with turtle meat.

Described as a “Dazzling, delicious rainbow of fresh vegetables at you dinner table,” the Vegetable Trio come from The Joys of Jell-O Gelatin Dessert, published in 1962.  This little cookbook was in circulation at the height of Jell-O’s commercial success and it’s filled with all kinds of “dazzling” vegetable salads.

Yes, those are shrimps.

Apparently, when my mother was young, my grandmother made a lime Jell-O, carrot, and cabbage mold every Thanksgiving.  My grandma was the only one that ate it, so no one could figure out why she made it every single year.  I think my grandmother was under the same strange hypnotist’s spell that Jell-O somehow manged to cast over all mid-20th century housewives.

Today, we take my grandmother’s recipe up a notch with the Vegetable Trio: lemon Jell-o, carrots, cabbage, and spinach in three glorious layers.

There’s something very satisfying about layering Jell-O: you get to watch chemistry in action and get a very pretty result.  Lovely to look at–but how did the Trio taste?  About how you’d imagine raw vegetables in lemon Jell-O would taste.  In fact, we were all puzzled by the result of this recipe: “I don’t understand how they wanted this to taste?” “Was this the intent of the recipe?” “Raw vegetables in Jell-O is really unappealing.”

I don’t why I had this wild hope that dishes like the Trio would be a revelation; a long-lost exploration in mind-blowing flavor. I thought these Jell-O recipes were just waiting to be dusted off and reintroduced to a new, enthusiastic audience.  I always thought: “If they tasted so bad, why would they have been so popular?”  I really don’t get it.

Tomorrow, we end on a high note.

Jell-O sorbet?  Now there’s an idea worth thinking about.

In 1934, Jack Benny was hired as spokesman for Jell-O, and Jell-O in turn became a sponsor of his radio show The Jack Benny Program, with Mary Livingston, Don Wilson, and the Jell-O Orchestra.  This was also the same year the now famous J-E-L-L-O jingle was introduced; listen to an original version here.

One of the results of this union was Jack & Mary’s Jell-O Recipe Book, published in 1937, and the source of the following recipe for Jell-O Fruit Ice.  The pamphlet contains some typical Jell-O recipes of the era (prune whip, for one.  At what point did we stop loving prunes?), surrounded by some pretty unfunny and occasionally disturbing cartoons.

Awkward.

On one of the last pages, there are recipes for Jell-O Ices, described as “a grand new idea.”

Here’s my variation on the recipe: one package raspberry Jell-O dissolved in one cup boiling water; add one cup cold water, one cup pineapple juice, one tablespoon lemon juice and one cup fresh raspberries.  I did not add the extra sugar the recipe recommends.

My roommate doesn’t trust me after the Corned Beef Loaf incident.  He eye this mixture up and said “That doesn’t look *too* terrible…”

Freezing a fruit ice in 1937 involved a lot of directions concerning a “freezing tray of an automatic refrigerator” and “the cold bowl” and taking things out periodically and whipping them with a “rotary mixer.”  I decided the best modern approach would be to use my ice cream maker.  Done and done.

I poured the Jell-O mixture into the machine and turned it on; I let it spin for about twenty minutes.  When I stopped the machine, I was surprised to find that the Jell-O had become pale in color and had a light, fluffy texture.  I stashed the mixture in the freezer to harden.

Jell-O after a spin in the Ice Cream Maker.

A few hours later, I scooped myself some Jell-O ice.  It was pretty good; the texture is not really icey like a sorbet, it’s much more smooth.  Like a frozen mousse.  It was a cold and refreshing treat, and I ate my whole serving, but I still haven’t quite decided if I like it.  I’m going to serve it to some unsuspecting dinner guests tonight.  We’ll see what they say.

And don’t forget, tomorrow is the Jell-O Mold Competition at the Gowanus Studio Space in Brooklyn.  It’s free to attend (there’s a $5 suggested donation) and you’re going to see some amazing Jell-O creations.

The recipe for Glorified Rice comes from the earliest Jell-O ephemera in my collection:  Jell-O, America’s Most Famous Dessert, At Home Everywhere published in 1922.

Watch out! That bear is about to get all up in your Jell-o!

It’s the grand tour of Jell-O.  It’s kind of cute, because it’s playing off American’s increasing desire to explore their country.  With the growing popularity of the car and continental railroads criss-crossing the land, there was less and less of America that was inaccessible to the average citizen.  Additionally, Jell-O’s advertising bread and butter at this time were pastoral oil paintings, scenes of everyday life from across the nation, of a fine enough quality that they were displayed in galleries and museums everywhere (allegedly).

Jell-O’s version of America is romantic; but it is also a stereotype.

It’s a Chinese cook!  Cooking what else– but rice!! And I think that cowboy’s mad. “Rice again??” he says. And I think that other guy it going to steal the Jell-O! Crazy!  The caption: “In The Cattle Country: Jell-o is so easily made, and the package takes so little room, that it has been on the provision list of places like this for years.  It makes a dessert possible where ‘pie timber’ is both scared and costly.”

Left: “Under Northern Lights: Far-fetched? Not a bit of it, except in the sense that this box of Jell-O has been brought a long, long way.  For we do have customers who live under the Artic Circle, and who say cold, hard things of us if we do not arrange for shipping connections before the trails are closed with the winter’s snows.”

Right: I think Catholicism may represent diversity in this image.
“In the Mission Country: It is a many sided America.  Into the quiet of such places as this Jell-O has made its way.  It is in keeping with the strictest fast days, and in its fancy forms will measure up to the standard of a feast day.”

Left: “Wherever hot water is available, even in a ‘Gipsy’ auto camp, Jell-O may be enjoyed.  Yet in other circumstances it may be moulded as elaborately as this Neopolitan.”

Right: No trip around American is complete without romanticizing slavery.
“Jell-O costs so little that it may be found in the most unpretentious homes of the old plantation.  It is delicious enough to be accepted by those at the ‘Big House” who have cultivated good living as a fine art.”

When I paged through this pamphlet, I came across a Jell-O technique I was unfamiliar with: The Whip.  Essential, you whip Jell-o until it fluffs like whip cream.  That’s essentially the way you make marshmallows: whip gelatin to a foam and then let it set.  I was intrigued and decided to give it a whirl; I found this recipes for Glorified Rice, which seemed like it might be a little like rice pudding.

I did as the recipe told me, including “salt to taste” despite the fact I had no idea how much salt I liked in my Jell-O.  When I unmolded the dish and took a bite…the glories of rice pudding were the furthest from my mind.  I cannot tell you how unappealing rice is when it’s floating in Jell-O.  Not the creamy dream I had hoped for, the too sweet, too lemony Jell-o broke around dry, flavorless grains of rice.  The combination was NOT delicious.

However, I found another recipe in this pamphlet that sounded simple and satisfying: lemon Jell-o dissolved in 1/2 cup boiling water, then mixed with 1 1/2 cups ginger ale.  This was a delight.  It had a taste that reminded me of lemonheads, and felt like it was made of bubbles.  The original recipes added walnuts, and maybe celery.  I recommend keeping it simple.  My version was a refreshing summertime treat.

Tomorrow…things get worse.