Monthly Archive for September, 2011

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Going Vegan: Day 1, Vegans vs. Swill Milk

Published on September 14, 2011 in 20th century, Diets, vegan and vegetarian. 0 Comments
Breakfast

Cereal with Almond Milk and Banana

Lunch

Spinach Soup no. 2
Toast

Dinner

Nut Roast
Roasted Squash
Apple Bread
Baked Banana

To begin the day, we took it easy with a choice of two cereals: Kellogg’s Corn Flakes (invented 1906), and Post Grape-Nuts (developed 1897).  My boyfriend has decided to join me on this adventure, as long as I started the coffee pot every morning.

After breakfast, I cracked the pages of the No Animal Food, from 1910.

NAF, which is available in its entirety on Project Gutenberg here, begins with a manifesto.  The author presents the reasoning behind vegetarianism: “Briefly, the pleas usually advanced on behalf of the vegetable regimen are as follows: It is claimed to be healthier than the customary flesh diet; it is claimed for various reasons to be more pleasant; it is claimed to be more economical; it is claimed to be less trouble; it is claimed tobe more humane.”  He goes on to say that above all, this book is written for the purposes of health, pointing at the proliferation of patent medicines and the high rate of tuberculosis as a sign that we on the whole are malnourished.  The following chapters offer Science to support vegetarianism, as well as a list of notable vegetarians (Tesla!), and then a brief essay to support his other “pleas.”  Some of the writing is quite modern in sentiment.

A 19th century milk man distributing "Swill Milk."

Then he begins a chapter on why a non-dairy diet should be accepted.  I was shocked by the contents of this chapter, as it provides an extremely insightful look into the origins of veganism, which were rooted in a very real health concern of the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Read on:

“It seems to be quite generally acknowledged by the medical profession that raw milk is a dangerous food on account of the fact that it is liable from various causes, sometimes inevitable, to contain impurities. Dr. Kellogg writes: ‘Typhoid fever, cholera infantum, tuberculosis and tubercular consumption—three of the most deadly diseases known; it is very probable also, that diphtheria, scarlet fever and several other maladies are communicated through the medium of milk….’

The germs of tuberculosis seem to be the most dangerous in milk, for they thrive and retain their vitality for many weeks, even in butter and cheese. An eminent German authority, Hirschberger, is said to have found 10 per cent of the cows in the vicinity of large cities to be affected by tuberculosis…Excreta, clinging to the hairs of the udder, are frequently rubbed off into the pail by the action of the hand whilst milking. Under the most careful sanitary precautions it is impossible to obtain milk free from manure, from the ordinary germs of putrefaction to the most deadly microbes known to science. There is little doubt but that milk is one of the uncleanest and impurest of all foods.”

The impurity of milk, particularly in cities, was an absolutely unavoidable truth at this time.  Pasteurization was not required by law until 1912, and large cities like New York had ongoing problems with “Swill Milk“: milk infected by disease, milk from diseased cows, spoiled milk, watered down milk, doctored milk;  you name it.  Unpasteurized milk was responsible for an infant mortality rate as high as 25% on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

The author goes on to give a few other reasons for a dairy-free diet, but this is the most powerful.

So how did my first day of vegan eating go?   Recipes in the next post.

Diets: Be Discerning, Be Determined and dare to Be Vegan!

Published on September 13, 2011 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments
The first issue of “Vegan News,” from 1944.

Bid farewell to meat, dairy and eggs.  For the next five days, I’ll be going historically vegan.

Historically vegan, you say?  Why yes!  Veganism has at least a 100-year history.

To understand the history of veganism, we have to take a brief look at it’s predecessor, vegetarianism.  There have been certain cultures which have been vegetarian for thousands of years: notably, Hindus and Buddhist monks.  In the western world, English author Thomas Tryon was advocating vegetarianism in the late 17th century; his book inspired a young Ben Franklin to give up meat.  Although Franklin didn’t stick with it, he was a lifetime advocate for gastronomic exploration, collecting recipes for dishes like “Towfu.”  The Reverend Sylvester Graham, founder of Oberlin, was a “dietary reformer.”  Students at Oberlin College in the mid-19th century had to be vegetarian, and Dr. Graham also invented a “cracker” you may be familiar with.

But the vegetarian movement really picks up steam around 1900.  This is when John Harvey Kellogg comes onto the scene, opening up his exclusive, vegetarian spa in Battle Creek Michigan.   Not only did he do a lot to develop modern vegetarianism, but he also changed the way all American eat, by popularizing peanut butter, exotic ingredients like soy and seaweed, and inventing breakfast cereal.  We eat less meat as a country because of Kellogg.  This is also the same era we begin to understand nutrition, including calories and vitamins, and the vegetarian movement fit in to the new, broader, “health food” movement.  I have written extensively about Kellogg, and eaten his Battle Creek Sanitarium diet for a week, which you can read about here.

As vegetarianism picked up steam, there was an even more strict movement that was gaining ground, particularly in England: a diet that contained no animal products at all.  In 1910, the first cookbook is published that only contains foods “of the vegetable kingdom”: No Animal Food and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes by Rupert H. Wheldon.  According to the publishers the book is first printed in England, and then adapted for American use.  The “No Animal Food” movement began to take hold:

As early as 1909 the ethics of consuming dairy products were hotly debated within the vegetarian movement. In August 1944, Elsie Shrigley and Donald Watson (a conscientious objector later to be acclaimed as the Vegan Society’s Founder) agreed the desirability of coordinating ‘non-dairy vegetarians’; despite opposition from prominent vegetarians unwilling to even consider adopting a diet free of all animal products.

In November, Donald organised a London meeting of six like-minded ‘non-dairy vegetarians’ at which it was decided to form a new society and adopt a new name to describe themselves – vegan derived from VEGetariAN.
It was a Sunday, with sunshine, and a blue sky, an auspicious day for the birth of an idealistic new movement.

- Elsie Shrigley, The Vegan magazine, Spring 1962

The first issue of “Vegan News,” published by the world’s first vegan society in England, can be read in its entirety here.  It is in this journal that the term “Vegan” is coined.

The next year, in 1945, The Vegan Society of English published a pamphlet titled “Vegan Recipes,” by Fay K. Henderson.  This is the first cookbook to use the term “vegan.”  Henderson also provides the little motto that is the title of this post.

So for the next five days I will be historically vegan!  Today and tomorrow, I’ll be dining from No Animal Food; and Thursday-Saturday I’ll be cooking from the pages of Vegan Recipes.  Wish me luck, and follow along right here, all this week!

 

Travelogue: My Philly Dream Vacation

Published on September 12, 2011 in 18th century, 19th century, revolutionary war, travelogue and vegetarian. 4 Comments

I had the most amazing day trip to Philadelphia.  Eleven hours of non-stop history nerd fun.  Let me tell you about it:

Philadelphians love orange cheese.

First, my beau and I went to the Muetter Museum.   It’s an incredible medical history museum that includes everything from a cast of Chang and Eng‘s body to the world’s largest colon.  The colon is huge, and upon its acquisition (when the owner of said colon died on the toilet), “2 and a half pailfuls of feces” were removed from it’s interior.  How much feces is 2 and a half pailfuls?  Well, one giant colon full, of course.

For the rest of this trip, I let Charles Dickens be my tour guide.  I have an ongoing obsession with his book American Notes, the tale of his 1842 visit to America.  He paints a  fascinating image of us as a young, rowdy country, and I’m continually seeking out places that Dickens visited that still exist: like Eastern State Penitentiary.

Opened in1829, Eastern State is the oldest Penitentiary in the world.  Dickens admired the Quaker founders’ new approach to decriminalization: prisoners were put into solitary confinement and taught a trade, like wood working, to while away their hours and to give them a skill once they were released.  A prisoner had plenty of quiet time to think about what they had done and to make their peace with god.  It also occasionally drove people CRAZY.

Later on, the prison went communal, using solitary confinement as punishment for bad behavior.

The prison was in use for a remarkable 141 years; it was abandoned in 1971, and reopened in 1994 for public tours.  Originally “Visitors are required to wear hard hats and sign liability waivers.”  Today, the prison is stabilized but is in a state of beautiful decay.  Restored areas show how it would have looked originally: very pristine and Baptist church-like.  We took  a guided, hour-long tour of the building and stopped in at a special short tour of the kitchens and dining facilities.

A cell block at Eastern State Penitentiary.

The dining hall at Eastern State Penitentiary

Down in The Hole, and underground facility for solitary confinement. It was flooded from the rain; dark, and miserable.

Next we headed to the Water Works, built in the 18teens , it’s (one of?) the oldest water treatment plant in the States. It’s a restaurant now, but Dickens stopped here when it was functioning to marvel at the modern technology.  It’s a lovely piece of architecture.  On account of the pouring rain on the day we went, the surrounding river was crazy flooded, making for a very interesting visit.

The Waterworks, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Philly sklyine in the background.

The rest of the day was spent in consumption: first, we stopped by Reading Terminal Market, a unique collection of food purveyors including Bassett’s Ice Cream.  Bassett’s is America’s oldest ice cream company, founded in 1861.  I had the Cookies N’ Cream, a  favorite of mine from childhood, and my boyfriend had dark chocolate chip and a scoop of pumpkin.  Really excellent, extremely satisfying ice cream.

I had already devoured most of it before i remembered to take a photo…

Then we walked over to McGillin’s, the oldest bar in Philly, for a beer.  I had the McGillin 1860 IPA; it tasted similar to the house brew at Pete’s Tavern.  We sat at the bar and sipped our beers; the crowd was a little sports bar/ college-ee, but I’ve noticed that’s how these ancient bars seem to be able to stay in business.  Take, for example, McSorely’s: a NYC institution since 1858, it’s still going strong as a NYU hot spot.  Bully for them, I say.

Oldest bar in Philly.

From there, dinner reservations at a restaurant that no history nerd should miss:  The City Tavern.  The original City Tavern (est. 1773) was an immensely popular and fashionable restaurant in the 18th and 19th centuries, attended not only Dickens, but by most of our founding fathers.  The current building is a recreation, with food researched and prepared by chef Walter Staib, who has his own hearth cooking show on PBS.

I was immediately horrified by the attire of the waiters: black 18th-century olde timey outfits.  They appeared to be made from polyester and I think they were wearing sport socks.  From the neck up, they were entirely modern.  I don’t want to be a snob, but I would have rather had my waiters in normal server blacks; I felt the corniness of their dress took away from all the things that were cool about the dining experience.

The menu was fairly typical of restaurants that  serve “historical” fair: unchallenging dishes that could have been served in the colonial era, but are prepared in a modern way.  Having said that, my boyfriend got a pork chop with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut that was THE SINGLE BEST PORKCHOP I’VE EVER HAD.  It was the size of half a pig; had a rich, ham-like flavor from being applewood smoked; and was soo tender it was like meat butter.

Oldhe thymeness

I picked my way through the menu and compiled a historical plate of food.  First, I ordered up a sampling of four historic beers–so cool!

Four historic beers.

On the far left was “George Washington’s Tavern Porter: Brewed from a genuine recipe on file in the Rare Manuscripts Room of the New York Public Library.”  I found it to be reminiscent of the molasses-based beers Brouwerij Lane brewed for last fall’s Bread & Beer event.  I was stoked to try it since I had missed Coney Island Brewing Company’s recreation for the Library’s 100th anniversary.  Next was “Thomas Jefferson’s 1774 Tavern Ale: Thomas Jefferson made beer twice a year.  Our version of this ale is made following Jefferson’s original recipe…” I found it to be floral and pleasant, my second favorite of the four.  The next was “Poor Richard’s Tavern Spruce: Based on Benjamin Franklin’s recipe, written while he was an ambassador to France.”  This beer was better than any attempts I’ve made with spruce based beers, but it was still too dark a beer for my taste.  The last beer was my favorite, “Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Ale: In the style of the common man’s ale…” It was excellent and tasted almost exactly like the Common Ale Pete made over the summer.

I ordered a bowl of Pepperpot Soup, a Revolutionary War-era favorite imported from the Caribbean.  The menu said it was made with “beef;” but actually it’s beef tripe.  I’ve had some bad experiences with tripe in the past, but the soup was delicious, although very, very peppery.

And for my main course, I chose the only entree that included a historical note:  ”Fried Tofu - In a 1770 letter to Philadelphia’s John Bartram, Benjamin Franklin included instructions on how to make tofu. Sally Lunn breaded fried tofu, spinach, seasonal vegetables, sauteed tomatoes & herbs, linguine.”  No shit!  Here’s Franklin:

“…Chinese Garavances, with Father Navarretta’s account of the universal use of a cheese made of them, in China, which so excited my curiosity, that I caused inquiry to be made of Mr. Flint, who lived many years there, in what manner the cheese was made; and I send you his answer. I have since learnt, that some runnings of salt (I suppose runnet) is put into water, when the meal is in it, to turn to curds.”

And the recipes he procured:

1st Process

The method the Chinese convert Callivances into Towfu. They first steep the Grain in warm water ten or twelve Hours to soften a little, that it may grind easily. It is a stone Mill with a hole in the top to receive a small drain of warm water which passes between the two Stones the time of grinding to carry off the flower from between & keeps draining into a Tub which has a Sieve or Cloth at the top to stop the gross parts from mixing with the flower.

2d Process

Then they stir up the flower & put the Water over the Fire just for it to simmer, keeping stirring till it thickens & then taken out & put into a frame that has a Cloth which will hold the Substance, & press the Water from it, & when the Water is gone off the Frame with the Contents with a Weight on it must be put over the Steam of boiling Water for half an hour to harden or something longer. The pressing & boiling over the Steam brings it into the Form you see it carried about at Canton. This is the process as I always understood.

(Thanks to Lord Whimsy for printing this text, originally found in the 1849 printing of Bartram’s letters.)

Colonial "Towfu"!

Afterwards, we stopped by the Franklin Fountain, another of the the new-breed of old-school soda fountains.  I eat a lot of ice cream, but this place has the best sundaes I’ve ever had.  If I lived in Philly, I would go here all. the. time.

My favorite sundae ever! Rocky road ice cream, peanut butter sauce, and pretzels! AAAAAAH SO GOOOOOD!

 

Interior of Franklin Fountain.

House-made syrups for handmade sodas.

Such a wonderful day.  More photos on flickr.

Events: Re-writing Recipes on Thursday

Published on September 11, 2011 in events. 2 Comments

Thursday, September 15th

Rewriting Recipes with Historic Gastronomist Sarah Lohman
7:00 p.m. @ The Brooklyn Historical Society, 128 Pierrepont Street at Clinton Street Brooklyn, New York
$8 Members/$10 General Public   Purchase your ticket here.

Perhaps you found a box of ancient handwritten recipes cards at the Brooklyn Flea. Maybe, you have your grandmother’s cookbook, gathering dust on the shelf. Or perhaps you simply enjoy browsing Google books to page through cookbooks from 100 years ago. Why aren’t you cooking from these recipes? These treasures from the past are valuable resources to draw inspiration for a contemporary kitchen. Sarah Lohman is here to help you negotiate the difficulties of translating historic recipes. In Rewriting Recipes, she’ll use BHS’s historic Lefferts Family cookbook to teach how to interpret historic recipes. Lohman will unveil tricks to modernize these recipes for today’s kitchen: how to interpret amounts, flesh out directions, and find comparable ingredients. Most importantly, she’ll show how to pull inspiration from these recipes to create unique contemporary dishes. Feel free to bring your own vintage and historical recipes to share.

This event is part of BHS’s Brooklyn Food Stories. Advanced ticket purchase recommended as the event will fill up. Tickets: $8 BHS members/$10 non-members. Purchase your ticket here.

 

Tonight on Appetite City: Green Markets

Published on September 8, 2011 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments

New York City offers an abundance of sustainable and locally grown fresh “Green Market” options. Host William Grimes reveals how our food shopping today mirrors a time in the early 19th century when New York City was a world class food mecca – where indoor and outdoor markets dotted the City and people fought for spots in the check-out line. Then uncover the story behind the resurgence of green markets in the City with the co-founder of Union Square Market.

Have you ever had you world rocked by PEAS?  You’re about to.  Tune in tonight, 8pm on NYC LIFE.

Appetite City: Pickled Oysters

Published on September 2, 2011 in Appetite City, pickles and sea food. 0 Comments

Oysters. Gross.
I’m not a happy camper in this episode; I think you can tell.  Although I am always faithful to my rule of trying foods again and again, even ones I don’t like on the first taste, I have never liked oysters.
But oysters have a really fascinating history in New York. And my oyster revulsion is kind of hilarious on camera.  In the end, this week’s recipe, The Pickled Oyster, didn’t taste too bad.
Cooking up this recipes was fulfilling a personal request of Bill Grime’s to revive this 19th century favorite.  I sent a tupperware of them over to his office, but I forgot to ask what he thought.
And who knew that Mark Kurlansky looked like a salty sea captain?
***
Pickled Oysters
from Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cookbook, 1884
and  A Love Affair with Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson, 2007.

1 qt oysters in their liquid
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp salt
2 blades mace
10 cloves
10 peppercorns
10 allspice berries
Pinch cayenne pepper

1. Shuck the oysters, saving their liquor.  Strain liquor through a coffee filter to remove sand.

2. “Place the oysters and their liquid in a large nonreactive pan and set over moderately high heat just until the liquid begins to bubble. The minute the oysters’ skirts ruffle, adjust the heat so the liquid bubbles gently, and simmer 1 minute longer.” (Anderson)

3.  Using a slotted spoon, remove oysters and place in large glass jars, leaving their liquor behind.

4. Add  vinegar and spices to the liquor.  Bring to a boil and boil five minutes.

5. Pour hot liquid over oysters.   Seal jars and refrigerate overnight.  Oysters are ready to serve the next day and up to 2 weeks

Events: Intro to Ice Cream Making

Published on September 1, 2011 in events and ice cream. 0 Comments

I’m teaching a class this Sunday on Ice Cream Making at the Brooklyn Brainery. Sign up here!

Sunday, September 4, 12-2:30pm or  3:30-6pm $30

I won’t lie: buying an ice cream maker has been one of the best investments of my life. I am amazed at the endless joy it has brought me; and now, I want to share that joy with you.

Join me to learn the simple steps of making homemade ice cream, from heating the custard to freezing the final product. We’ll chat about the history of ice cream in America as well as discuss the science of ice cream making. Finally, we’ll sample the delicious results of all our hard work. Sign up here!

 

Tonight on Appetite City: Oysters

Published on September 1, 2011 in Appetite City. 0 Comments

Before New York was called the Big Apple, it could have been called “The Big Oyster.” Join host William Grimes as he dives into oyster history, the commodity that sparked the creation of some of New York City’s first food markets and restaurants. Listen in as Grimes speaks with New York Times bestselling author Mark Kurlansky on what some deemed to be a “worthless commodity” because it was so plentiful. Discover an old recipe made new again and then float to the present with a trip to the Mermaid Inn for a look at the oysters of today!

Oysters.  Having come from a land-locked state, I’ve never loved them.  But if you tune in tonight, you’ll see me make them the least gross way I know how.  Tonight @ 8:30 on NYC Life