Archive for the '18th century' Category

Taste History Today: The Sugar Loaf Baking Company

Published on January 18, 2013 in 18th century and cake. 3 Comments

I celebrated my birthday this week, so for the next few days, I present a few posts on cake!

I first want to write a few lines about an amazing man I met way back in August, at Deborah Peterson’s Pantry Foodways Symposium–a gathering of 18th century food enthusiasts (because that’s how I roll). Niel V. De Marino had a vendor’s booth set up displaying the most gorgeous cakes I had ever seen–all from 18th century recipes.

I tried to convince Neil to open a stand at the Brooklyn Flea, but he seemed unconvinced there was a market for 200 year old cake in New York City. I disagree. He has no website, so the only way to contact (and commission) him is by phone. His info is at left.

I sampled some of his cakes on site, and snapped a few photos–bear with me on the quality of the images, they’re cell phone pics.

These were filled with some sort of rose petal jam.

I think this one was called a “Queen’s Cake” – almondy, sweet, and moist. My favorite.

I don’t remember what these were called; they had dried fruit in them and were soaked in brandy and aged much like a fruit cake.

An incredibly rich and complex gingerbread cake, filled with spices and chunks of candied ginger.

Cookies–I think they were anise flavored? They were made with cookie stamps, and had the clearest impressions I had ever seen achieved.

Seed cake–flavored with caraway seeds.

The Whisk and the Witch’s Broom

Published on September 12, 2012 in 17th century, 18th century and eggs. 13 Comments

A witch’s broom re-purposed as a whisk.

I’ve launched a new collaboration with Etsy this week: I’ll be blogging twice a month about making, doing and consuming in the kitchen. Look forward to history and adventures, all based on the treasures you can find on Etsy.

My first post was a whisk history–a humble kitchen tool that has changed design over the centuries, striving to make a laborious task, like beating eggs, simple and succinct. Read The Magic Whisk here here to follow me whisking up meringue by hand.

A birch whisk from Deborah Peterson’s Pantry.

But before wire whisks were introduced in the 19th century, cooks made whisks from bundles of sticks. You can still buy modern whisks made with birch twigs, but they are fairly expensive: $20-$30. I was really curious to try one out, and test it against a modern whisk, but I had difficulty convincing myself to drop three tensies on sticks. Reading this, you probably think I’m nuts: “Go outside, get some sticks!” you’re thinking. Well, I live in New York and things aren’t so simple. In my neighborhood, I can get food from 30 different nationalities; But sticks we don’t got.

Recently, I had a chance to handle one of these birch whisks in person. I carefully turned it over in my hands, committing to memory the length and the weight of it, the texture and the stiffness of the straw-like twigs. Then I went to my local craft store to see if I could find something to replicate it. I noticed the store already had its “seasonal items” out and immediately thought “witch’s broom!” I scored one for $6. To make my reproduction whisk, I sliced off the tape that held bushy twigs them to the broom handle, rebundled them with kitchen twine, and trimmed the ends to an even length. It looked almost exactly like the authentic $30 whisk, and seemed to be a pretty good recreation of a pre-industrial whisk.

It was time to try out my pre-industrial whisk. I separated an egg, and set aside the yolk. I let the white warm to room temperature in a deep mixing bowl, and then I grabbed my twig whisk and went to town. It took a surprisingly short amount of time to make a stiff meringue–ten minutes, twelve seconds–although my biceps ached after half a minute. The twig whisk had a huge downside: as I whipped the eggs, hundreds of shards of whisk broke off into my meringue. Big sticks and tiny twigs peppered the egg froth. It’s possible that after you use the twig whisk several times, it would stop shedding its bits and pieces. But the first time through, it produced a voluminous, but woody, meringue.

A twig whisk and the woody meringue it produced.

I tested four more whisks and pitted them against my modern mixer; to see the results, head over to Etsy.

Origin of a Dish: Chocolate Ice Cream

Published on August 29, 2012 in 17th century, 18th century, chocolate and ice cream. 2 Comments

Ice cream made with 18th century chocolate!

There are only a few more official days of summer left, so I’m going to use them to their best advantage by devouring as much ice cream as possible. But chocolate or vanilla? A very important question. According to the International Ice Cream Association, 30% of ice cream eaters prefer vanilla, while a mere 10% prefer chocolate.

But more important important to me is the question: which flavor came first, chocolate or vanilla?

Some of the earliest frozen desserts were scoops of snow or shaved ice topped with flavored sugar syrups; sometimes, these were made into icy drinks. In the Middle East they were known as sharbates or serbets–the origin of the words sorbet and sherbet.

Drinking Chocolate making tools: a pot and mixing device. From Lady Anne Fanshawe’s journal, c. 1665.

Because of the precedent of frozen drinks, some of the earliest ice cream flavors were drinks, like coffee and tea. Which is why chocolate ice cream was invented long before vanilla. The first frozen chocolate recipe was published in Naples, Italy in 1692 in the book The Modern Steward. ”Chocolate” was popular hot drink in 17th century Europe, and was commonly mixed with spices like cinnamon, chili peppers, anise, almonds or musk (glandular extracts from the musk deer (eww)). Today’s “Mexican Chocolate” is actually a descendant of how chocolate was served in the Spanish court, not how it was served by the ancient peoples of Mexico.

The Historic Division of Mars make a historic chocolate based of an authentic 18th century recipe. It looks like a chocolate crayon, and is blended with anise, red pepper, nutmeg, orange zest, and cinnamon.

I decided to make a version of the original chocolate using a basic ice cream recipe and half a cup of grated historic chocolate. Before the 19th century, ice cream was made using only cream, but I think that gives it a borderline buttery texture. I like a 2:1 ratio of cream and whole milk.

As the cream and chocolate froze in my modern ice cream maker, the rotated action of the dasher release the oils of the ground spices, and made my kitchen extremely fragrant. Homemade ice cream is supposed to freeze once in the ice cream maker, and then it should go into the freezer, to become hard-packed ice cream.

I stole my first taste of historic chocolate ice cream off the dasher as it came out of the ice cream maker: it tasted just like a Mc Donald’s chocolate milkshake, which was super weird. Or at least how I remember them tasting–I haven’t had one since middle school, when my mom would always buy me one as a treat after visits to the orthodontist. I tasted the ice cream after it was fully frozen a few hours later: the chocolate wasn’t the prominent taste. Instead, all the warm spices the chocolate was blended with where in the forefront. Anise was the most pronounced, but without leaving a liquorice aftertaste.

If you’re interesting in trying this recipe out, you can buy historic chocolate here. It’s also great hot with lots of cream and sugar.

Next up: Vanilla! How America’s favorite ice cream came to be.

***

Much of the research for this article came from Of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making. Learn more about this book here! For a history of drinking chocolate, check out A History of the World in Six Glasses here.

The History Dish: Pearlash, The First Chemical Leavening

Published on May 23, 2012 in 18th century, baking, cookies, cooking american cookery, hearth cooking and history dish. 13 Comments

Pearlash is powdery and slightly moist.

The History

If you were to scoop the ashes out of your fireplace and soak them in water, the resulting liquid would be full of lye. Lye can be used to make three things: soap, gun powder, or chemical leavener.

A “leavener” is a substance that gives baked goods their lightness. Today, we think nothing of adding a teaspoon of baking soda or baking powder to our cakes and cookies. But using chemicals to produce the carbon dioxide necessary to raise a cupcake is a relatively new idea.

Before chemicals, cooks would use yeast. Not just in bread, but yeast was often added into cake batter, along with a helpful dose of beer dregs or wine. The alternative was whipping eggs to add lightness, like in a sponge cake, although that particular recipe didn’t become popular until the end of the 19th century, after mechanized egg beaters were introduce.

Sometime in the 1780s an adventurous woman added potassium carbonate, or pearlash, to her dough. I’m ignorant as to how pearlash was produced historically, but the idea of using a lye-based chemical in cooking is an old one: everything from pretzels, to ramen, to hominy is processed with lye. Pearlash, combined with an acid like sour milk or citrus, produces a chemical reaction with a carbon dioxide by-product. Used in bakery batter, the result is little pockets of CO2 that makes baked goods textually light. Pearlash was only in use for a short time period, about 1780-1840. After that, Saleratus, which is chemically similar to baking soda, was introduced and more frequently used.

I was curious to try this product out and see if it actually worked. I ordered a couple of ounces from Deborah Peterson’s Pantry, the best place for all your 18th century cooking needs. I used it during my recent hearth cooking classes in a period appropriate recipe.

The Recipe

The recipe, for orange-caraway New Year’s Cakes, came from the cookbook-manuscript of Maria Lott Lefferts, a member of one of the founding families of Brooklyn. The use of pearlash, plus a recipe for “Ohio Cake,” serves to date this book to about 1820. It looks like this:

“New Year Cake

28 lbs of flour 10 lbs of Sugar 5 lbs of Butter

caraway seed and Orange peal”

This recipe doesn’t mention pearlash, but several of the other recipes in this book do. I checked the first cookbook printed in American, Amelia Simmon’s American Cookery, for an idea of how much pearlash to add. Here is the recipe I came up with:

New Years Cakes
Based on Marie Lott Leffert’s cookbook, c. 1820

1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 stick salted butter
3 teaspoons pearlash dissolved in 1/2 cup milk
4 cups all purpose flour
Zest and juice of one orange
1 tsp ground caraway and 1 tsp whole caraway

Whisk together flour, zest and caraway. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add orange juice and pearlash, then mix. Slowly add flour; mixing until flour is incorporated. Put in freezer one hour. Break off small pieces and roll very thin; cut with a cookie cutter or knife. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Bake until cookies are slightly golden on the bottom, about 10 minutes.

***

Cookies leavened with pearlash come out of the oven.

The Results

I made the dough in advance and froze it, then dragged it to Brooklyn to be baked in a very period appropriately in a wood fire bake oven.

When the cookies came out of the oven, they had risen! They gained as much height, and as much textural lightness, as a modern cookie made with baking powder.

But how did they taste? The first bite contained the loveliness of orange and caraway (for a modern version of this recipe, I highly recommend using this recipe, and replacing the coriander with orange zest and caraway). But after swallowing, a horrible, alkaline bitterness filled my mouth. My body reacted accordingly: assuming that I had just been poisoned, I salivated uncontrollably.

At first, I wondered if I hadn’t used too much pearlash. But then something dawned on me: the earliest recipes to use pearlash were gingerbread recipes. Of the four recipes in Simmon’s cookbook, half of them were for gingerbread. A highly spiced gingerbread probably did a lot to hide the taste of the bitter base chemical.

And that’s why I like historic gastronomy. If I hadn’t actually baked with pearlash, and tasted it, I never would have made the gingerbread connection. There’s something to be said for living history.

The Gallery: Urban Hearth Cooking Photos

Published on May 21, 2012 in 18th century, 19th century, gallery, hearth cooking and new york. 1 Comment

Here are some snapshots my students took the past two weekends at my Urban Hearth Cooking class at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn! If this looks like fun to you, be sure to get in the class when it returns in September. To be the first to know about future classes, sign up for my mailing list here.

Brandishing the proper sized wood for a good cooking fire. Photo by Russell Karmel.

Directing students on the most effective way to light a fire. Photo by Adriana Stimola.

Working on a stubborn fire in the bake oven. Photo by Adriana Stimola.

A student moves hot coals out of the fire. Arranged in small piles, the coals will be our cooking surface. Photo by Adriana Stimola.

A student prepares dough for rusks, a fried roll. Photo by Russel Karmel.

Rusks frying next to a simmering soup. Photo by Adriana Stimola.

The first course of our fire-cooked meal: rusks and a spring soup. Photo by Adriana Stimola.

Baking cookies in a dutch oven. Photo by Adriana Stimola.

Baking cookies in the bake oven. Photo by Adriana Stimola.

Events: Learn Urban Hearth Cooking!

Published on April 23, 2012 in 18th century and events. 2 Comments

Campfire Cuisine Beyond Hot Dogs: An Introduction to Hearth Cooking
Two dates: Sunday, May 6th or Sunday, May 13th
11:00 am – 3:00 pm
The Old Stone House & Washington Park, Park Slope, Brooklyn
$45 Buy tickets here.

In this hands-on class, you’ll learn the primal cooking skills that will make you a better cook in your daily life.

While preparing a meal on an outdoor hearth, we’re going to cover the four basic cooking techniques: baking, roasting, frying and boiling. You’ll learn how to tell temperature without a thermometer, how to tell the doneness of food by using all of your senses, and how to build a bad-ass fire.

The skills you will learn in this four-hour session will allow you to amaze your friends on your next camping trip; put on an old-timey costume and cook at a historic house; or simply become a better, more intuitive home chef.

The cost of the class includes a light meal you will help to make. Purchase tickets here.

Drink Like a Colonial American Day: What Have We Learned?

Published on January 6, 2012 in 18th century and alcohol. 5 Comments

This is me at 8am yesterday morning. It’s admittedly not the best photo ever taken of me.

“SHAME!”

That’s the one word Roommate Jeff had for me at the end of the day, after I bailed out on Drinking Like A Colonial American. ”SHAME!” He was disappointed in me, to say the least.

I still can’t figure out why the day was so hard; my guess is the combination of drinks, plus the pacing. One of the last things I want to do when I’m drinking is sober up, and that seems to be the name of the game when you’re ingesting a drink an hour.

I’d be interested to hear other people’s experiences with it, if they’re brave (foolish) enough to try a colonial drinking day at home.

The one thing I learned that truly amazed me is the effect the temperance movement had on America’s drinking habits. I feel like the temperance movement has always gotten a bad wrap, particularly recently with the boom in books and documentaries about prohibition. But considering in 1830 we were drinking five gallons of distilled spirits per person per year, and a decade later that number was down to two–that’s pretty incredible. Perhaps our country was ready for a change.

But honestly, the most fascinating part of yesterday’s experiment was the discussion that sprung up in the comments. If you haven’t read them, I encourage you to do so.

Thank you for participating, everyone! I’m going to take a break from torturing myself for the next week while I celebrate my birthday. I’m going to post a few lighter posts. And then…well, we’ll see what the new year brings.

Drink Like a Colonial American Day

Published on January 5, 2012 in 18th century, alcohol and Diets. 55 Comments

Dr. Benjamin Rush's "Moral and Physical Thermometer," published 1789

I’ll be updating this post throughout the day, so check back frequently.

8:30am:

I have to start my day by “taking my bitters.” Bitters, infusions of herbs in spices in high proof alcohol, started out as health tonics. Starting the day with an “eye-opener” of spirits, water, sugar and a healthy dose of bitters was not only considered socially acceptable, but good for you. In fact, the first drink to ever be called a “cock-tail” was exactly this concoction, using whiskey for the spirit. And that’s how I’m started my day today, using an 1833 recipe for the original cocktail, as it appears in David Wondrich’s book IMBIBE!

1 tsp sugar
2 oz whiskey
3 oz water
4 dashes bitters
Nutmeg

Muddle sugar with water until dissolved. Add whiskey and bitters. Stir. Top with grated nutmeg.

I grabbed the first whiskey I saw in the liquor cabinet, which was Old Crow. Only after I made my drink did i realize we had a Buffalo Trace corn whiskey, that would have been more period appropriate because it was un-aged.

My boyfriend demanded to join me from under the comforter on the bed. I fixed him a drink, and he sat sleepy-eyed on the edge of the bed holding it.

“Well, what are you going to do now that you’re awake and drinking bourbon?”

“I don’t know…vomit?”

Running Total: 2 oz of hard spirits consumed @ 80 proof

8:51 am:

I realized I made our drinks with one oz of water instead of three. Whoops. So we are just drinking bourbon on an empty stomach.

9:38 am:

Had a tankard of hard cider with breakfast (eggs, bacon, toast). John Adams, an ardent temperenace supporter, had a tankard of cider with breakfast every morning. It wasn’t cider, beer, or wine that was considered “alcoholic,” it was distilled spirits considered ruinous to the working man (see above chart).

Cider was the American drink–scholars believe that Americans consumed more alcohol through hard cider than the much more potent spirit, Rum. The desire for hard cider didn’t subside until the temperance movement convinced many farmers to cut down their apples trees. Thankfully, events like Cider Week are bringing attention back to New York State growers and distillers.

11 oz of hard cider @ 10 proof. Running Total: 3 units of alcohol.

Yes. I’m a little drunk. Time to take a shower and get some work done.

11 am:

It is now the “elevens”!!! The Colonial American version of a coffee break! A hot toddy is appropriate at the elevens when the weather is cold, so I’ve decided to make apple toddys, one of the first cocktails to be recorded in print. I baked apples with “apple pie spice”, sugar and butter; then added them to hot water and apple brandy. I used apple brandy from Warwick Valley Winery, and from Laird’s who received the very first distiller’s license after the Revolutionary War.

I have not managed to take a shower yet. Let’s be honest here: if colonial Americans drank like this every day, their tolerance would be quite high. I will be drunk, but the Common Man in 1780 would have just been getting started.

I am trying to drink a glass of water between every drink.

2 oz of apple brandy @ 80 proof. Total: 5 units of alcohol in 2.5 hours.

11:40: am:

Where has the time gone? I have still not showered. I know I am drunk because everything is a celebration: “yaaaaay! It’s time to water the plant!!!”

12:22 pm:

Trying to sober up a little before lunch. IN the meantime, there was an interesting thread on Facebook yesterday regarding Colonial drinking, and I wanted to share some of the highlights.

R: All I can say is that I’d hate to be Sarah the morning after tomorrow! They also drank fortified wines (in 18th and 19th centuries) which get you crazy-drunk. I’ve heard a lot of people say that everyone drank ale, even children, because the water wasn’t potable. That may be true if you got your water from Collect Pond, but rich people would have had their own wells. I think they just liked tying one on.

Me: I don’t buy the “safer than water” excuse. In NYc — possibly. But the rest of the country was not so densely populated, and America was known for good quality water. That’s why everything we brewed/distilled was so delicious! I think the bottom line is grain and apples are worth more as liquor; and this is also a time when we had little else to drink but water. Alcohol provided variety, that today we replace with soda and fruit juice. Also true about the beer–but it was brewed at home, and only slightly alcoholic. More like today’s fermented sodas.

D: That’s a good point about water availability in America. But I wonder if the prevalence of cider was partly a continuation of European standards, though. In Europe, there was very little clean drinking water, so people might have just thought that alcohol was healthier than water. And even in New World, a lot of clean streams wouldn’t have stayed clean for long once settlers arrived.

Me: I think it’s a myth. I think it has more to do with financial reasons. Grain and apples go bad. Spirits and cider not, and you can sell the latter for more than the former.

D: Is there anything we know about what the colonists *did* think about nutrition, including the nutritional aspect of booze? I mean, there must have been some as-far-as-they-knew medical knowledge and folk wisdom about what foods you had to eat in order to be healthy. Did they think of spirits as having some kind of common nutritive properties with grain, such that one was a decent substitute for the other?

Me: I don’t know a ton about the topic, but I do know that “small” beer (home brewed, weak), cider, and wine were considered healthy, nutritive drinks that brought wealth and happiness, while distilled spirits would be the ruin of the working man. Dr Benjamin Rush was an early temperance advocate, and he made this great chart of what will happen to you if you drink various alcohols in various quantities (see above).

Thoughts?

1:19 PM:

I’m hungover and its painful.

2:11 PM:

Managed to get to the grocery store for more cider and a DiGiorno pizza. The lady at the store wished me a happy birthday (it’s the 15th) and I responded “You too!”

Having another cider with lunch. Here’s my line up for the rest of the day:

Throughout America, early afternoon dinner was accopanied by hard cider or distilled spirits mized with water; in later afternoon came another break; then supper with more refreshment. Finally, in the evening it was time to pause and reflect upon the day’s events while sitting by the home or the tavern fireside sipping spirits. (The Alcoholic Republic, W.J. Rorabaugh)

Ugh. My head hurts.

12 oz of cider @ 10 proof. Total: 6 units of alcohol in 6 hours.

4:13 pm

After my last hard cider, my boyfriend and I sat down to watch The Brave Little Toaster. We promptly fell asleep. Now that I’m awake, I’m clearly sober, clearly hungover, and I have a sickening migraine.

To be honest, I’ve walked this weird tightrope between sobriety and drunkeness all day. Consuming so much alcohol so early in the day, on an empty stomach, is a surprsingly unpleasant feeling. It’s honestly not what I expected. I thought since the alcohol was spread out through an entire day that I would feel pleasantly buzzed, and not much more, as I Colonial drank away the hours.

I’ve taken my migraine meds and I’m trying to decide if the experiment should go on or if I should call it. I still have afternoon drinks, dinner drinks, and after dinner drinks to go.

5:29 PM

My brother just texted to point out that I’m halfway through, and I’m already on step six in the Drunkard’s Progress: Poverty and Disease. It’s only a short step down until I’m forsaken by friends.

I am trying to drink what a man’s portion of booze for a day would be. Here’s what Rorabaugh has to say about the ladies:

While men were the heartiest topers, women were not faint-hearted abstainers. Little, however, can be learned about either the reputed 100,000 female drunkards or the more numerous women who consumed for one-eighth to one-quarter of the nation’s spirituous liquor. The subject received scant attention because it was ‘too delicate’ to be discussed. The ideal of femininity did discourage tippling, for a woman was supposed to show restraint consistent with virtue, prudence consonant with delicacy, and a preference for beverages agreeable to a fragile constitution. The public was not tolerant of women drinking at taverns or groceries unless they were travellers recovering from a day’s arduous journey. Then the ladies might be permitted watered and highly sugared spirituous cordials.The concept of feminine delicacy led women to drink alcohol-based medicines for their health; many who regarded spirits as ‘vulgar’ happily downed a highly alcoholic ‘cordial or stomach elixir.’

See, I’m doing this for my health!

5:48

That’s it. I’m calling it. I can’t continue. I know I’m going to get a lot of shit from my friends for now being able to go the distance, but I feel HORRIBLE. I suspect it’s the hard cider, which I’m not used to drinking. Something didn’t agree with me, perhaps.

Even if I hadn’t gotten a headache, I don’t think I could have done the whole day.

I haven’t drawn any conclusions about my experiences yet. Let me dwell on it for a bit.

Tomorrow: Drinking like a Colonial American

Published on January 4, 2012 in 18th century, 19th century, alcohol and revolutionary war. 5 Comments

The Drunkard’s Progress, 1846 temperance propaganda. ”Step 1. A glass with a friend. Step 2. A glass to keep the cold out. Step 3. A glass too much. Step 4. Drunk and riotous. Step 5. The summit attained. Jolly companions. A confirmed drunkard. Step 6. Poverty and disease. Step 7. Forsaken by Friends. Step 8. Desperation and crime. Step 9. Death by suicide.”

Colonial Americans drank. A lot.

How much?

These charts come from The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition by W.J. Rorabaugh, an analysis of how totally trashed we were in Colonial times. In 1770, the average per capita intake of distilled spirits (whiskey, rum, gin and brandy) was 3.4 gallons; by 1830, the per capita intake exceeded 5 gallons.. The average adult male was imbibing half a pint of spirits per day. When you see the chart take a dip in the 1840s, that’s the temperance movement. Today, we clock in at under two gallons per capita.

I also think it’s interesting that the total amount of alcoholic beverage we consumed dropped during prohibition; but the consumption of spirits rose. Bathtub gin was the drink of choice.

I’ve found Rorabaugh’s account of drinking in early America inspiring. Tomorrow, I plan to drink the quantity of alcohol commonly consumed during the course of an average day in Colonial America. I plan to imbibe beverages appropriate to the time period: bitters, hard cider, brandy, whiskey and rum; served up in period appropriate drinks. And I’m going to follow the schedule of a Colonial drinker, from an “eye-opener” before breakfast, to a tankard of hard cider beside the fire at night.

And I’ll be live blogging every step of the way. Check back through the day to see how I’m progressing.

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.