Archive for the '20th century' Category

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Diets: Going Historically Raw

Published on April 8, 2012 in 20th century and Diets. 7 Comments

Now and then, I like to immerse myself in the diet of another time and culture. I’ve been hungry, vegetarian, kosher, vegan, and drunk.

Recently, my friend Sharon (of Starting from Scratch) emailed me a 1904 cookbook: Uncooked Foods and How to Use Them, by Eugene and Molly Griswold Christian. It’s an early raw- foods manifesto and you can read it on Google Books here. For the next week, my diet will be entirely “raw.”

What is a Raw Diet?

A contemporary raw diet is defined by “unprocessed raw vegan foods that have not been heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius). ‘Raw foodists’ believe that foods cooked above this temperature have lost their enzymes and thus a significant amount of their nutritional value and are harmful to the body, whereas uncooked foods provide living enzymes and proper nutrition. ” (source) There are several liberal offshoots of the raw food movement, wherein you include a certain percentage of raw foods in your diet, or simply always not cook foods that can be eaten raw, and cook foods that cannot.

Eugene and Molly Christian are both less specific, and more strict in their diet: it contains no heated foods, and although they do have a chapter on warm soup, the recommend against it. There are additional prohibitions on vinegar, “fermented” foods (like alcohol), and leavened bread. Their diet, however, is not vegan: raw seafood and meat are acceptable.

The raw food diet is the most primordial diet a person can eat: before man discovered fire, his diet was entirely raw. Modern histories of the raw food movement begin with this ideal of early man, mention Pythagoras (who was vegetarian) and then skip straight to the 1930s, when a raw food clinic opened up in Switzerland. There is no mention of the Christians and Uncooked Foods, despite the fact that this seems to be the earliest raw food “cook” book there is.

Why Go Raw?

According to Uncooked Foods, there are three reasons:

1. Simplicity and Economy. Less ingredients and less time spent cooking equals more money and time for other things.

2. As a Remedy. The Christians were “cured” of all their ailments by a raw food diet, which is what inspired them to write their book. They say that most ailments are caused by a poor diet and eating nature’s perfect foods, uncooked, is the remedy.

3. Emancipation of Women. The Christians argue that less time spent cooking equals more time for women to do other things. Preparing three meals a day is incredibly labor intensive; I’ve done it for the purposes of this blog. As soon as I finished one meal it was time to get ready to make the next. Freedom from these duties will “…Prove and important factor in lifting [women] mentally, morally and physically into an entirely different sphere.” An intriguing idea–and not something I had envisioned as part of this early manifesto.

Uncooked Foods says that “raw” is a horrible, ugly word for this movement. A ripe apple or peach is not “raw,” the authors argue: “These things are finished, ready for use; they are perfect, they are not raw, they are done; and when they are cooked, they are undone.”

The Menu for this Week

I’ll be posting about my experiences daily.

Sunday:

Breakfast: Grape Fruit or Oranges; Pecans; Protoid Nuts (Pine Nuts); Dates; Whipped Eggs; Milk

Lunch: Bananas (ripe); English Walnuts; Protoid Nuts; Unfired Crackers; Dates; Cold Slaw with Olive Oil; Persian Prunes with Cream; Milk

Dinner: Winter Nellie Pears; Pecans; Black Walnuts; Ripe Olives; Celery; Flaked Wheat, Dates, and Cream; Unfired crackers; Combination Nut Butter; Fruit Jelly with Whipped Cream; Dates; Egg-nog

Monday:

Breakfast: Apples; Protoid Nuts; Filberts; Turkish pulled figs with cream

Lunch: Pecans; Olives; Vegetable Salad with Hygeia dressing; Unfired Crackers; Sweet Butter; Evaporated Peaches and raisins; Milk

Dinner: Oranges; Apples; Pecans; Protoid nuts; Ripe Olives; lettuce; Flaked Oats, Dates and Cream; Unfired Crackers; Sweet Butter; Fruit Salad; Egg Nog.

Tues:

Breakfast:Apples; Pecans; Bananas and Cream; Unfired wafers; seeded raisins; milk

Lunch: Apples; Chestnuts; Pecans; Celery Salad; Unfired Crackers; Date and nut Butter; Dates; Persimmons with Cream

Dinner: Sliced Pineapple; Pecans; Blanched Almonds; Ripe Olives; Celery; Unfired wafers; Combination Nut Butter; Sliced Bananas, Dates and Cream; egg-nog

Weds:

Breakfast: Sliced sweet apples with cream; pecans; protoid nuts; sliced oranges; dates; egg-nog

Lunch: Pears; pecans; english walnuts; tomato salad with hygeia dressing; fruit wafers; cream cheese; turkish figs with cream; dates; milk

Dinner: Oysters on Half Shell; unfired crackers; ripe olives; stuffed peppers; pecans; chestnuts; sun-cooked corn; ice cream; fig and nut cake

Thurs:

Breakfast: Sliced Banana with Thick Cream; Pecans; Protoid Nuts; Dates; Egg-nog

Lunch:Oranges; Pecans; Cold Slaw; Persian Prunes with Thick Cream; Unfired Crackers; Combination cereal; Dates; fig butter; protoid nuts; milk

Dinner: Tokay grapes; Pecans; Unfired crackers; sliced cucumbers; cherry pie; sweet butter; brazil nuts; seeded raisins; ripe olives; milk

Fri:

Breakfast: Sliced pineapple; Pecans; Protoid nuts; Evaporated Apples; Dates

Lunch: Apples; Pecans; English Walnuts; Lettuce; Sweet Butter; Unfired wafers; Dates; Fruit and Nut medley; Milk

Dinner:Oranges; Protoid Nuts; Black walnuts; ripe olives; sliced tomatoes; unfired wafers; cream cheese; prune whip with whipped cream; figs; milk

Sat:

Breakfast: Grapes; Apples or Pears; Nuts; Dates; Milk

Lunch: Red Banana (very ripe) with Thick Cream; Pecans; Brazil Nuts; Seeded Raisins; Dates; Whipped Egg; Rich Milk

Dinner: Grapes; Pecans; Peanuts; Lettuce with Olive Oil; Fruit and Nut Medley; Turkish Figs with Cream; Unfired Wafers; Cream Cheese; Dates: Egg-Nog

When Betty Draper Ate at Schrafft’s

Published on March 22, 2012 in 20th century. 7 Comments

Note the Schrafft’s bag in her hands.

What to Serve at Your Madmen Watching Party

In anticipation of the premiere of Mad Men on Sunday, I’ve been re-watching the series from the beginning. Mad Men is full of delightful details of day-to-day life in the 1960s. One of these period touches caught my eye in the season two finale: Betty Draper clutched a bag from Schrafft’s.

Schrafft’s was probably the most popular chain restaurant in mid-20th century New York. Geared towards women, it offered a space where it was considered appropriate and acceptable for ladies to dine together without the company of men. It offered luscious desserts and boxes of chocolates (I bet Betty’s got some sweets in her bag), as well as waist-conscious salads and practical sandwiches.

Digression: For a deeper level of food nerdery, I noticed that one of the production managers for the show is named Dwayne Shattuck. Frank Shattuck was the founder of Schrafft’s. It’s not a common name, so I wonder if they’re related, and the careful placement of that Scrafft’s bag was a nod to Dwayne’s heritage? Dwayne, if you’re out there, tell me if I’m right!

If you’re planning on serving a little gnosh at your Madmen watching party, why not serve some treats from Schrafft’s? There is a great recipe book called When Everybody Ate at Schrafft’s. It’s chocked full of tasty dishes from the iconic restaurant. But the best Schrafft’s recipe I know is for their famous Cheese Bread, which was originally served stacked with slices of grilled ham. I’m not a bread expert, but I’ve had great luck with the recipe and it is well worth making. It’s warm, satisfyingly cheesey, and great in sandwiches or simply slathered in butter. Get the cheese bread recipe here.

If you’d like to make a few more items from Schrafft’s, there are vintage menus available here, and here is a recipe for their butterscotch cookies.

Need a side-dish for your Mad Men feast? How about Jell-O Vegetable Trio, a “…dazzling, delicious rainbow of fresh vegetables at you dinner table,” from 1962. And for dessert, try a classic Baked Alaska.

Any ideas for your own 1960s Mad Men dinner?

Origin of a Dish: What Was So Great About Sliced Bread Anyway?

Published on March 13, 2012 in 1920s, 20th century, bread and origin of a dish. 8 Comments

We’ve got a guest blogger on FPF this week: Aaron Bobrow-Strain the author of the new book White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf. Below, Aaron gives us a little teaser history of sliced bread and the reactions it garnered when it was first released.

***

When Frank Bench, the owner of a nearly bankrupt bakery, and his friend Otto Rohwedder, an equally down-at-the-heels inventor, successfully ran the world’s first automatic bread slicer in Chillicothe, Missouri, they accomplished something nearly every member of the American baking establishment thought impossible—and utterly stupid.

By July 1928, when Bench and Rohwedder’s surprising product debuted, retail bakers had used machines to slice loaves at the point of sale for years, but few in the industry believed that bread should be automatically sliced as it came off the assembly line. Bread was too unruly. What would hold the sliced loaves together? How would slicing affect the chemistry of taste? What would prevent sliced bread from rapidly molding or staling?

Rohwedder’s designs for the automatic slicer dated back to 1917, but he found no takers for the idea and had almost given up hope. For Bench, installing the machine was a favor to his friend and a last shot in the dark. What did he have to lose?

The results astounded all observers. Sales of sliced bread soared 2000 percent within weeks, and a beaming Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune reporter described housewives’ “thrill of pleasure” upon “first see[ing] a loaf of this bread with each slice the exact counterpart of its fellows…indefinitely better than anyone could possibly slice by hand.” News spread rapidly. Sliced bread took off first in Missouri,Iowa, and Illinois, then spread throughout the Midwest by late summer 1928. By fall 1928, mechanical slicing had hit New York, New Jersey, and the West Coast. By 1930, 90 percent of all store-bought bread in the country was automatically sliced.

Some bakers dismissed sliced bread as a fad, comparing it to other Roaring Twenties crazes like barnstorming and jazz dancing. Nevertheless, as bakers wrote in frantic trade magazine articles, anyone who resisted the new technology would be crushed by the competition.

An automatic bread slicer. source: www.todayifoundout.com

While awaiting deliveries of mechanical slicers from hopelessly backordered manufacturers, bakers asked themselves a logical question: What’s so great about sliced bread? “Why does anyone want sliced bread anyway?” one baker wrote. “The housewife is saved one operation in the preparation of a meal. Yet, try as one will,the reasons do not seem valid enough to make demand for the new product.”

He had a point. How much extra work is it really to slice your own bread? And what about housewives’ “thrill of pleasure”? A little saved labor couldn’t explain a reaction like that. Why did so many people care so much about perfectly neat slices? What had sliced bread come to symbolize?

***

Aaron tracks down the answers to these questions in his new book, and the answers will surprise you. He says “…It may get you thinking twice about our own confident visions of what counts as ‘good food.’” Ok, my interest is piqued.

But I want to throw this question out to you, readers: What do you think was/is so great about sliced bread?

Community Eating via Buca di Beppo

Published on January 3, 2012 in 20th century, chinatown, how we eat and italian. 4 Comments

From the Buca di Beppo facebook page.

One of my colleagues at the LES Tenement Museum is collecting oral histories from Chinatown. This excerpt about eating caught my attention:

Interviewer: I remembered when I came to this country, one day I was dining out in a restaurant in Manhattan Chinatown. I saw lots of people ate with a fork on a plate. I wasn’t very used to it. In Taiwan, we only used plates to collect bones we didn’t want.

Interviewee A: Ah…..that’s right.

I: In Taiwan, we ate from small bowls with chopsticks, not from plates with forks. (A & I laughed)

A: Yes, that’s a big difference.

Interviewee B: In Chinese culture, we share dishes with everyone sitting at the table. The Westerners prefer to have their own dishes.

A: They prefer that everyone orders their own dishes and eats it separately.

B: It is individualistic. Sharing a dish with someone else is not something that would come to their mind first…… this is a cultural..uh..uh..

I: Cultural difference.

A & B: That’s right.

This conversation immediately reminded me of my experience with the opposite circumstance: seeing communal eating for the first time. Sometime in the mid to late ’90s, a Midwestern chain restaurant called Buca di Beppo opened in the mall near my home town. Offering “Italian Immigrant Cuisine,” the restaurant served family-style meals: large dishes were brought to the table for everyone to share. I remember my friends patiently explaining to me that I could not order my own, personal dish of cavatelli, that the table had to work as a whole to decide on several dishes everyone might enjoy. As silly as it feels to me now, I know that night was the first time I had eaten out at a restaurant where the table ordered together and shared the food, as opposed to every individual ordering their own plate. The concept was completely new to me.

Being young, I picked up on the method after the first time, and thereafter could laugh along with my friends when we told exasperated stories of how our parents and grandparents just didn’t get it. I remember family members getting truly irritated: “But I want stuffed shells!” “Grandma, you’re going to get stuffed shells, but it’s too much for one person. You share it with everyone.” Many of my relations vowed never to return to that terrible restaurant, where they couldn’t order their own food.

Culinary historian Hasia Diner remarks on American eating habits in her book Hungering for America, a look at immigrant foodways in the United States. Diner attributes the habit of eating individually to the bounty on food available in the US as compared to the relatively poor fare of the Italians. She quotes the oral history of an Italian immigrant from the 1920s who said ” (back home) The meal was one dish, from which the entire family ate; here there is a variety of food and each person has his own plate and eating utensils.”

I believe that Buca di Beppo was the first chain restaurant to introduce communal eating to a main-stream audience. It’s a way of dining that I still see as relatively uncommon in midwestern restaurants. Since my teenage experience there, I’ve eaten Chinese, Indian, Greek and Ethiopian food; styles that culturally require you to share dishes with the whole table. Buca is not the perfect restaurant, but I do believe it gave me my training wheels to understand how other cultures eat communally.

Has anyone had a similar (or different) experience eating out?

NYHS: Unusual Meats

Published on November 17, 2011 in 20th century and adventures in meat. 6 Comments

In our final installment of our exploration of the New York Historical Society’s culinary collection, we are taking a look at Unusual Meats, a pamphlet published in 1919. Because frankly, who wouldn’t be intrigued by a pamphlet called Unusual Meats?

The meats in question are those sold by Swift’s Fancy Meats company, which are in fact not at all fancy, and are in fact offal.

Like brains.

And pork “plucks.”

and Beef melts.

And other suspiciously named body parts. A “melt,” I found out, is actually the pancreas. And I really wanted to try the Salisbury beef melts after pancreas meat was prominently featured in last week’s episodes of American Horror Story. But butchers don’t seem to carry pancreas anymore, so all I could get my hands on was a veal heart.

When I purchased the heat, I had fully intended cooking it according to the recipe below. But at the moment, the heart is just sitting in my refrigerator. After the moose face…I’m just so tired.

NYHS: The Chinese Festive Board

Published on November 15, 2011 in 20th century, chinatown and entrees. 8 Comments

I haven't decided if this image is racist or super racist.

“It would be well perhaps if we first altered some of our preconceived notions regarding the Chinese diet. Many people think that the Chinese live entirely on rice; some believe that rats also occupy and important place on the daily menu. Both ideas are mistaken and should be discarded.” – Corinne Lamb

In our ongoing look at the culinary holdings at the New York Historical Society, today we explore the The Chinese Festive Board published in 1935 by author Corinne Lamb.

Written by a woman who seems to have lived in China for a number of years, it’s one of the earliest books I’ve seen on Chinese cooking in China (as opposed to Chinese-American cuisine). The first half is all about Chinese dinner customs and the second half is an extensive recipe book. Lamb also includes helpful vocabulary for ordering in Chinese restaurants.

The tone of the book’s writing is bizarre: it simultaneously condescends to Chinese culture, while praising the deliciousness of its food. The author straight-up uses ethnic slurs throughout the book. Keep in mind, this is a time in our nation’s history when immigration was banned from China.

The book is a window into another era and we are definitely looking through the lens of an American perspective on Chinese life. The recipes are interpreted to use ingredients readily available to an American housewife. I decided to throw a 1930′s Chinese dinner party, following a sample menu from the book, as well as her description of a formal Chinese dinner party.

Below, a menu Lamb describes as a typical dinner in the home of a middle-class Chinese family:

Dinner parties, the author points out, were nearly always given in restaurants, and were nearly always for men alone; but since I wanted to cook and eat the recipes myself, I decided to bend the rules a little bit and have the party in my own home. First, an invitation was necessary. Lamb provide an example of one in her book, printed on an elegant piece of rice paper that had been gently pasted into one of the pages (see left). Translated, it says: “The fifth month, the twenty-third day, one o’clock in the afternoon ‘the cups will be cleaned and your presence will be awaited’. Mr. Ma Lien-liang respectfully writes: ‘The feast is arranged’ outside of Hataman Gate, Bean Curd Lane, No. 7.”

I should have mailed a beautiful rice paper square to my guests, but instead I just texted them. They accepted: two friends from Brooklyn, Brandon and Madeline, the latter of whom spent a year living in China for work.

They came over on Friday evening, and while I finished prepping the food, I fed them peanuts and cups of green tea, which Lamb describes as the proper way to begin a feast. Then, just before I began cooking the food, we sat down for a round of drinking games.

Lamb says drinking takes up only the earlier courses of the meal and is set aside once substantial foods come out. The drink of choice is Chinese rice wine, which Lamb describes as being close to sherry, and Madeline describes as “gross.” The liquor store didn’t have it, so I selected a nice bottle of sake, that I poured out in handsome shot-glasses, for lack of the appropriate vessels.

The game of choice in China is hua ch’uan, or “matching fingers”, a drinking game still played to this day. It involves two people throwing fingers, similar to rock-paper-scissors, and each player “loudly shouts his estimate of the total number of fingers shown on both hands.” If one player guess correctly, the other has to drain his glass. Examples of hand positions are below:

It’s harder than it seems.

Madeline also mentioned that beer was now an equally acceptable drink in China, which Lamb mentions was gaining popularity in her time. Madeline also said that drinking now seems to last through the entirety of the meal, accompanied by a tradition of toasting: Madeline toasted me for having them over, and we both drank. Madeline toasted Boyfriend Brian as well, and they both drank. I toasted Madeline to thank her, and we both drank… and so on. After we ran out of sake, and turned to beer, it begun to feel a little bit like a power hour.

Then, thankfully, it was time to eat. Lamb describes her recipes as coming “…Mostly from well known restaurants in Peiping…” known today as Beijing, in the north-east of China. I got four pans going on my stove top, three melting lard, one with olive oil, and continued to play the drinking games while I cooked. The recipes seemed so simple that they couldn’t possibly be delicious, let alone authentic. But I was ready to find out.

Homestyle Chinese spread.

My menu was as follows, based on the recipes Lamb provided in her book.

***
Rice

I was nervous about this recipe, it being vastly different than the “one cup of rice to one and a half cups water” formula that I know of. But I tried it, using my big Calphalan pot with the inset strainer. And the rice turned out just as promised: not too wet or gooey, not too dry either. Just perfect, with every grain an individual. I was amazed.

***
Fried Pork Balls

I made these slightly differently, after looking at another of Lamb’s recipe for Pork Meat Balls. I rolled them and then squashed them flat, which let me use less lard to cook them and allowed a greater surface area to get crispy. These were hands-down my favorite. Crispy on the outside, soft and tender in the middle; so savory with an appealing texture. I ate the leftovers for the next two days and I would absolutely make them again.

***
Sauteed Leeks and Pork

***
String-Beans and Pork

The sauteed pork dishes were the favorites of my guests, who loved to combine them both in one bowl of rice. The soy and ginger made a lovely sauce, and the string beans were cooked to perfection.

***
Eggs and Mushrooms

There wasn’t a recipe for this dish in Lamb’s book, so I created one based on the recipe she gives for “Scrambled Eggs with Shrimps.”

6 eggs
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
3 tsp Chinese Wine
2 tsp lard
1 pinch salt
1 pinch black pepper

With a pair of chopsticks, beat eggs thoroughly. Add salt, pepper and wine and beat again. Heat the lard in a frying pan and sautee the mushrooms until tender, then add the egg mixture, and cook as you would scrambled eggs.
***

On Chinese wine, Lamb says “It will be noted that many of these recipes call for Huang Chiu. or Chinese wine. Sherry is recommended as a substitute. With the repeal of the 18th amendment it should not be long before Chinese wine will be available in every American city, and when that is so its use in in preparing Chinese food will be found preferable.” It wasnt’ available at my local liquor store, so I used a Japanese plum wine that taste very much like sherry. This, mixed with the eggs, was AWESOME. I don’t even like eggs, and I hate mushrooms, but this dish was just as good as everything else on the table. The wine was really a star when mixed with the eggs. It was a surprise.

We ate in the way lamb suggests, Family-style, using only bowls and a pair of k’uia tzu, or “quick little boys,” or better known here as “chop sticks.” We topped big piles of rice with the sauteed dishes, sometime two or more at once. We ended in a very Chinese-American way with more tea and a few baked sweets: sugar cookies, lotus seed cakes, and “R-rated” fortune cookies; all of which were from Chinatown in Manhattan.

Madeline somehow found "R-rated" fortune cookies.

The food was delicious–really delicious. But was it authentic? I have no clue– but I’m looking in to it.

What do you think?

The History Dish: Sour Apple Compote

Published on November 1, 2011 in 20th century, apples and history dish. 0 Comments

Sweet n’ Sour! Apple compote.

I always like to share a good apple recipe this time of year, so you can take advantage of the fall apple bounty, or use up a couple of fruits on the verge of going bad. This is a really unique one from the Manual For Cooking and Baking.

The lovely lady pictured is Hinde Anchamnitzki (pronounce Hinn-dah Ahn-prwah-nit-ski), who published the first Yiddish cookbook in America. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is working on translating it, and is planning on building a larger program around her seminal work utilizing their new demo kitchen space.

Below is her recipe for “English Apple Compote” that plays with the sweet/sour flavors that traditionally appear in Jewish cooking. I’ve tried it, and it’s fantastic. It calls for “Sour Salts,” which is citric acid; I was able to find it at Williams Sonoma, of all places. It gives the dish the mouthpuckering Sour Patch kids sensation one doesn’t normally associated with turn-of-the-century food. Additionally, cooking the raisins in the sugar syrup teases the flavor out of the dried fruits, and give the dish a distinct raisin tang.

The original recipe is below; it was traslated for me by vice president of education at the Tenement Museum, Annie Polland; I modernized the recipe myself.

The original recipe.

***
European Apple Compote
From Manual For Cooking and Baking by Hinde Anchamnitzki, 1901.
1/2 lb Sugar
1/4 lb Raisins
1/2 tsp Sour Salts (Citric Acid)
1/4 c Sugar
6 medium baking apples
Combine sugar, raisins, sour salt and water in a large pot; cook over a medium heat until all of the sugar is dissolved. Peel and core apples, and cut them into 1/4 in. slices. Cook in a large pan, covered, until the apple slices are tender when pierced with a fork. Add to sugar syrup; allow to cool, and serve.

***

If you like, you can pair this compote with a pie crust, like this one made of Matzo meal. The crust is tasty enough to serve any time of year, not just for Passover!

Origin of a Dish: The Ice Cream Cone

Published on September 26, 2011 in 20th century, chocolate, ice cream, vanilla and World's Fair. 1 Comment

Waffle Cone?

I had some custard left over from demoing ice cream making at the Brooklyn Brainery over Labor Day weekend, so I decided to toss it in my ice cream maker and enjoy a little made-from-scratch ice cream at home. Plus, I wanted to try out these neat tip I learned during class: I team-taught my session with Soma, one of the founders of the Brainery. At the end of the class, students could pitch their dream ice cream flavors, and Soma would explain how to make them by using different techniques to incorporate flavors. To add a “swirl,” like chocolate, you take the ice cream out of the ice cream maker and you layer it in a Tupperware much like a parfait:

How to make a chocolate swirl.

Then you put it in the freezer. When you scoop it, it comes out like a chocolate swirl. I layered my vanilla bean ice cream with U-Bet Chocolate Syrup.

For my class, I did a lot of research on the history of ice cream in America. I got really curious about the origin of the ice cream cone when I stumbled across this article from Saudi Aramco World: Zalabia and the First Ice Cream Cone. SAW is a cool publication from which I’ve previously cooked some medieval Middle Eastern recipes.

The idea of an ice cream cone has been around for a few hundred years–they were known as “cornets” in Europe. But as far as modern American cones, SAW recounts and ice cream cone legend I have heard before:

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also called the 1904 World’s Fair, was the largest the US had seen since the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It covered some 500 hectares (1235 ac) and showed off such inventions as the year-old airplane, the radio, the telephone switchboard and the silent movie… (There were also less memorable attractions, among them a butter sculpture of President Theodore Roosevelt and a bear made out of prunes.) With more than 18 million visitors passing through the Exposition over its seven-month run, there were also scores of vendors offering much to eat.

(Ernest) Hamwi and his wife, the story goes, took their meager life’s savings and invested them in a zalabia booth, joining other like-minded immigrants from the Levant in attempting to transplant to the US the crisp, round, cookie-like snack so popular back home. Each zalabia was baked between two iron platens about the size of a dinner plate, hinged together and held by a handle over a charcoal fire. They were served sprinkled with sugar. The Hamwis wound up doing their cooking next to one of the approximately 50 ice-cream stands dotted around the fair, though exactly who owned the stand is in some doubt: It was either Arnold Fornachou or Charles Menches. Whoever it was, his ice cream sold faster than Hamwi’s zalabia—so fast, in fact, that one day he ran out of clean glass cups. At this moment, some say, the ice-cream man saw the possibilities of the zalabia; others claim the zalabia man saw the possibilities of the ice cream.

It’s Hamwi himself who originated this story, in an ice cream trade journal, and is generally credited with inventing the ice cream cone. However, his story has never been proven, nor has there been any evidence found that he had a booth at the fair at all.

But people do seem to think that the 1903 Exposition is the time and place that ice cream and cone met, and that the pizzelle-like zalabia had something to do with it. I got curious to make a zalabia, which hail from Lebanon, Syria, Greece and Turkey. However, when a scoured the internet for a recipe, all I could come up with were recipes for north-African zalabia, a yeast-risen, deep-fried dough with honey syrup. Not the same.

I ended up trying out this Martha Stewart recipe for waffle cones, but being that I don’t have a pizzelle maker, I ended up making waffle ~~cones~~. The result was freaking delicious, but not what I had set out to do.

If anyone out there has a zalabia recipe, hit me up! In the meantime, read the rest of the fascinating Saudi Aramco World article here.

Going Vegan Day 5: A Vegan Feast!

Published on September 20, 2011 in 20th century, desserts, dinner party, vegan, vegetables and vegetarian. 2 Comments

Nut Roast!

I kept breakfast and lunch simple today: oatmeal with soy milk in the morning; almond butter on coconut bread with banana slices for lunch. The coconut bread was really tasty, and also a throwback to the 1910 cookbook.

Cocoanut Bread – 1 lb. whole wheat flour, 1 lb. white flour, ½ lb. cocoanut meal, some cane sugar.

I used 1 cup of cane sugar for this recipe, and the coconut shreds I used were also sweetened. I also added 1 tsp of baking powder. The bread was delicious!

In the evening, I opened my doors to 13 guests ready to given veganism a try. Some were seasoned vegan veterans, some were hardened omnivores. The Menu:

First Course
Autumn Salad
Shaved Cabbage, Grated Beets and Apples, Mint, Lemon Juice and Toasted Walnuts.

Second Course
Semolina Soup
with Mizuna greens

Third Course
Pine Nut Roast
with Sauteed Spinach and Spaghetti Squash

Fourth Course
Continental Tart
Coconut Bread with Homemade Blackberry and Blueberry Lime Jam
or Malt Syrup

The first course was another salad recommended in Henderson’s 1945 book. It was light, refreshing, and delicious. The second course was the Semolina Soup I made earlier this week, flavored with Marmite. Everyone was bowled over by the soup, and wanted the recipe to make it at home. I passed around the Marmite jar for everyone to ogle.

The third course was Nut Roast, adapted from the 1910 recipe I made earlier this week, with some adjustments according to Henderson’s 1945 recipe. Henderson gives several suggestions as to how her basic recipe can be served; I roasted mine in individual portions, and served it on top of spinach and spaghetti squash.

When I mixed this recipe, I simply put a bowl on top of my kitchen scale. I dumped the ingredients in one at a time and weighed as I went along. Below, is my adapted version of the recipe. I used dried herbs from my mother’s garden.

***
Nut Roast

8 oz pine nuts, coarsely chopped if large.
8 oz bread crumbs
1 large onion, chopped
4 medium tomatoes, skinned and pulverized.
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1 tsp sage
2 tsp parsley
1 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper

1. Use hands to mix all ingredients, added a little water or vegetable stock if there is not enough liquid. Press into a pie plate or individual ramekins. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, or until the top is browned.

***

The nut roasts, cooked in individual star-shaped ramekins, delighted my guests. For the vegans, it was the first time they had ever had a nut roast, and were excited to try it. One guest, who went to school in Scotland, informed us that nut roasts are still a common vegetarian option, at least in her school cafeteria.

And for dessert, I served an apple Continental Tart, also from Henderson’s book.

Continental Tart!

***
Continental Tart

For the Crust:

5 oz. whole wheat flour
5 oz. breadcrumbs
5 oz Soy baking butter substitute
5 oz brown sugar
2 oz ground almonds (I ran almonds in my food processor until coarsely ground)
Lemon Juice

For the Filling:

6 medium baking apples
1/2 cup mixed, dried fruit
1/2 cup apple cider
1-2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg.

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, adding enough lemon juice to make a dough. Leave overnight in the refrigerator, then press into the bottom and sides of a round cake or pie pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until crust is puffy and brown.

2. In the meantime, pare and core apples, and slice them into 1/4 wide slices. Cook, covered, over medium heat with spices, fruit and cider until tender. Pour into baked crust and set aside.

3. 15 minutes before serving, place tart in the oven at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Allow to cool 5 minutes; cut and serve.

***

The tart was also a big hit, provoking inquiries about the contents of the crust. Margarine, I discovered, is not vegan! It has whey in it! So be sure to use a soy spread (or butter, if it doesn’t matter to you.)

We had a second dessert of slices of coconut bread, spread with some of my mother’s homemade jam (Blueberry Lime and Blackberry) or dribbles of malt syrup, which the vegans had never heard of before and were very enthusiastic about.

Our dinner table conversation turned to the origins of veganism, as well as why people do or don’t go vegan today. ”It’s not cheap,” a vegan friend admitted. ”It can be very expensive to choose vegan products.” We went on the discuss that a lot of the methods that allow the cheap production of food are also the methods that can be deemed unethical, like caged hen production of eggs. I pointed out that perhaps it was a policy change that was needed: “We’d all like to be buying cruelty free, hormone free milk, but I don’t think anyone in my neighborhood could afford it.”

“We don’t need to drink as much milk as we consume,” he answered. He suggested consuming less of a better quality, but that “…It can be different if we’re talking about trying to feed your family of four.”

The conversation danced around a variety of topics, but focused on the food, and ideals, at hand. There was a discussion about the “preachiness” and “pushiness” associated with veganism. A dear friend and long-time vegan attended, who was the inspiration for the entire experiment. He piqued my interest in vegan cuisine without ever pressing upon me the ideals behind veganism; he let me start asking those questions myself, and I admire him for it. He amicable joked about the outspokenness of the vegan movement : “How do you know the vegan at a dinner party? Don’t worry, he’ll tell you.”

We talked about the difficulties of finding vegan products: for example, learned that filtered wine is not vegan; it uses isinglass, an extract from the swim bladders of fishes. Animal products appear in the most unlikely of places.

And most of all, we talked about how delicious the food was. Everyone who attended, vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore all agreed the dishes were excellent, and asked for recipes for each one. All said they would make these foods again, just for the pleasure of them. And then my friend Emily rose to give a toast:

“Lohman,” she said, raising a glass of vegan wine high, “Every time I get invited over for dinner, I’m always worried. It’s always like, ‘come eat my beaver’ or my bear or my vegan food or whatever. And I always think ‘Eeee…Well, at least the company will be good.’ But then I come, and the food is always, always delicious. You have an amazing talent for making bizarre foods taste amazing.”

We cheersed, and spent the rest of the evening guzzling bottles of wine. The next day, my boyfriend and I broke our vegan fast in the evening with sloppy joes and chocolate chip cookies.

There is a lot of debate, and a lot of passion, surrounding the topic of veganism. I’ve enjoyed this past week, but I would not adopt veganism forever. My line of work is food and I feel I would never want to limit myself in regards to what I can and cannot eat. Additionally, I do believe an ethical, omnivorous diet is possible. I will continue to respect and admire my vegan friends, and this project has inspired other to try out veganism: my friends Sharon and Kathy are going vegan this week, you can follow their adventures here.

I think I’m going to leave it at that, but I’m really curious to hear from you, dear readers: What do you think of veganism?

Going Vegan Day 4: Why Have I Never had a Soy Chai Latte Before?

Published on September 18, 2011 in 20th century, vegan, vegetables and vegetarian. 1 Comment

Oatmeal with cinnamon, raw sugar, and grated apple.

In the morning, I decided to give this oatmeal thing another shot. But no more muesli–I cooked rolled oats in Apple Broth, with a little brown sugar and cinnamon. Then, when it was all hot and steamy, I topped it off with a grated apple. This. Was awesome. The softness of the oatmeal with the textural crunch of the apple was perfect; I would definitely make it a part of my normal breakfast routine.

I had another day of running around in Manhattan ahead of me, and after a morning meeting, I felt my blood sugar crashing. I decided I needed a Starbucks, not just for the chai, but for the bathroom. I know I talk about my bowels a lot on this blog. But what goes in is linked to what comes out. During this week, my boyfriend and I have both experienced a demanding and urgent regularity in the movement of our bowels. Now you know.

After taking care of business, I ordered up a chai with soy milk, which I would have never had gotten if not for this experiment. And it was utterly delicious. The soy milk added a nuttiness that married well with the chai spices. I remember ages ago someone told me to try a chai with soy milk, and I poo-pooed them. ”Soy!?” I thought, “Blech! I only drink cows.” But I was wrong: my soy chai may have been the best chai I’ve ever had.

When I returned home in the late afternoon, I mixed myself up a gorgeous, late summer salad. Henderson gives charming advice on salad building, offering suggestions for Foundation (lettuces and other greens), Interest (tomatoes, carrots, edible flowers, fruits), and Piquancy (horseradish, fresh mustard, and garlic “if appreciated.”). I did a variation on her “Summer Salad,” with blackberries and dill. By the way, most of my veggies for this week came direct from a farmer upstate, via the Long Island City CSA.

Summer salad, with mixed greens, tomato, leek, blackberries, dill and olive oil vinaigrette.

Dinner was “gnocchi,” which was unlike any gnocchi I’ve ever had before:

I loaded them up with dried herbs from my mother’s garden and served them fried with sauteed spinach and onions. I made a quick soup with a small squash and carrot, and my boyfriend picked up some pumpkin ale on his way home with work. So Fall! Dinner was good, but at the same time, I began to grow tired of all of my meals centering around one or another type of moosh.

“Gnocchi,” with squash soup and a pumpkin ale.

I also baked up a Malt Cake, which use malt syrup as a sweetener. It tastes like malted milk and molasses had a baby. But the cake was a bit of a fail. Henderson promises “Although this cake contains no sugar, it is sweet from the fruit and the syrup,” my boyfriend took one bite and said “Oh no. No, that has nothing to do with sweet.”

My boyfriend and I spent some time reflecting on the past few days; the next day would be our last as vegans.

“I think this project has expanded my knowledge of delicious things,” he told me. ”It’s all pretty good–but at the same time, it’s day after day of things that are not meat ground up and stuck back together to vaguely resemble meat.”

Agreed. One more day left, and I’m throwing a special dinner party for some Real Vegans.