Nothing says Saint David’s Day like accessorizing with leeks.

At least to the Welsh, who don an allium boutonnière every March 1, the feast day of their patron saint. The precise root of this practice is mired in myth, although it seems that this cousin to the onion was elevated to both sartorial splendor and national emblem back in the sixth century during a battle against the Saxons that took place in, of all places, a leek field. David—their patron saint, not LC’s beloved saint, publisher, and editor-in-chief—reputedly ordered troops to identify themselves by affixing the oniony stalk to their helmets. They emerged victorious. Ever since, this saint’s feast day has meant leeks to the Welsh—whereas to those of us at LeitesCulinaria.com, it means a day spent reminding our David that no, the holiday’s not for him, and by the way, he’d better watch himself if he ever hopes to be canonized.

Donning a leek corsage as an act of patriotism has persisted throughout the centuries, meriting a mention or two in Henry V and, more recently, sprouting into veggie contests on this day at Welsh grammar schools. The glory goes to the lad sporting the, ahem, longest leek. (We’re not making this up. We swear.) Victory, however, seems a dubious honor, given that the winner is prodded to eat the allium. Nothing says “champ” like the crunch of gritty sand in a raw leek, right? (This assumes he’s not given the option of halving the stalk, soaking it in cold water till the dirt sifts to the bottom of the bowl, then sautéing it slowly with a pat of butter and a sprinkle of nutmeg before wolfing it down.) We imagine the culmination of the ritual must offer more than a little comfort to the second-place schoolboy, who, though deemed inadequate in the length department, will at least have better breath, not to mention a bit of greenery of his own to contemplate for dinner.

Leeks Recipes to Honor Saint David’s Day

Pumpkin, Chicken, and Leek Soup

Leek Panade

Swiss Chard, Leek, and Goat Cheese Tart

Hungry for more history like Saint David’s Day? Read up on these:

• A Slice of Ranching History from The Pioneer Woman
• History of Tapas from ECurry
• Caesar’s Last Salad: The Foods of Ancient Rome from Leite’s Culinaria
• The Uncommon Origins of the Common Fork from Leite’s Culinaria

Saint David’s Day corsage photo © 1957 Full Homely Divinity. All rights reserved.

Gil Marks | Encyclopedia of Jewish Food | Wiley, 2010

Sufganiyah is a jelly doughnut.
Origin: Germany
Other names: Austria: krapfen; France: boule de Berlin; Germany: Berlinerkrapfen, Berlinerpfannkuchen,
Berliners, gefüllte krapfen, Pfannkuchen; Italy: krafen; Poland: paczka, paczki; Portugal; sonhos; Russia: ponchiki, pyshki; Yiddish: ponchik, pontshke.

In 1485, the cookbook Kuchenmeisterei (Mastery of the Kitchen) was published in Nuremberg, Germany. In 1532, it was translated into Polish as Kuchmistrzostwo. Besides serving as a resource for postmedieval central European cooking and being one of the first cookbooks to be run off Johannes Gutenberg‘s revolutionary printing press, this tome contained what was then a revolutionary recipe: the first record of a jelly doughnut, “Gefüllte Krapfen.” This early version consisted of a bit of jam sandwiched between two rounds of yeast bread dough and deep-fried in lard. Whether the anonymous author actually invented the idea or recounted a new practice, the concept of filling a doughnut with jam spread across the globe.

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Although most modern versions of doughnuts have a sweet interior, the original filled doughnuts were primarily packed with meat, fish, mushrooms, cheese, or other savory mixtures. At that time, sugar was still very expensive and rare in Germany, so savory dishes were much more practical. In the sixteenth century, the price of sugar fell with the introduction of Caribbean sugar plantations. Soon sugar and, in turn, fruit preserves proliferated in Europe. Within a century of the jelly doughnut’s initial appearance in Germany, every northern European country from Denmark to Russia had adopted the pastry, although it was still a rare treat generally associated with specific holidays. Much later, someone in Germany invented a metal pastry syringe with which to inject jelly into already fried doughnuts, making the treat much easier and neater, and in the twentieth century, machines were developed to inject doughnuts in mass production.

Since at least the early 1800s, Germans had called jelly doughnuts simply Berliners. According to a German anecdote, in 1756 a patriotic baker from Berlin was turned down as unfit for Prussian military service, but allowed to remain as a field baker for the regiment. Because armies in the field had no access to ovens, he began frying doughnuts over an open fire, which the soldiers began calling after the baker’s home, Berliners. The term soon became narrowed to denote only filled krapfen. Thus technically John F. Kennedy’s famous declaration at the Berlin Wall, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” means “I am a jelly doughnut.”

By the end of the century, jelly doughnuts were also called Bismarcken, after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Due to the large number of central European immigrants, jelly doughnuts are known as bismarcks in parts of the American Upper Midwest, in Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada, and even in Boston, Massachusetts. In Manitoba, they are called jam busters. In Britain, they became jam doughnuts. And in general American parlance, they are jelly doughnuts. Poles named jelly doughnuts paczki (flower buds). Polish Jews fried these doughnuts in schmaltz or oil instead of lard and called them ponchiks. In certain areas of Poland, they became the favorite Hanukkah dessert. A doughnut without a filling in Yiddish is a donat. Some Australian Jews, many of whom emigrated from Poland, still refer to jelly doughnuts as ponchiks. Polish immigrants brought ponchiks to Israel, along with the custom of eating them on Hanukkah. In Israel, however, ponchiks soon took the name sufganiyah (sufganiyot plural), from a “spongy dough”mentioned in the Talmud, sofgan and sfogga. The word sphog, meaning “sponge,” is so ancient that there is a question as to whether it was initially of Semitic or Indo- European origin.

In the late 1920s, the Histadrut, the Israeli labor federation, decided to champion the less widespread jelly doughnut as a Hanukkah treat rather than levivot (latkes), because latkes were relatively easy and homemade, while sufganiyot were rather difficult for most home cooks, thereby providing work (preparing, transporting, and selling the doughnuts) for its members. Companies began turning out the doughnuts days or even weeks before Hanukkah, stretching both the amount of work and the period of enjoyment for eating them, although there are those who insist on waiting to eat one until after lighting the first candle. Sufganiyot subsequently emerged as by far the most popular Israeli Hanukkah food. They are sold throughout the eight- day festival at almost every bakery and market, and enjoyed by people in every community and of every religious stripe. In 1995, culinary students at the Hadassah College of Technology in Jerusalem whipped up the world’s largest sufganiyah, weighing 35 pounds, including 5 pounds of jelly, although it paled in comparison to the jelly doughnut listed in the Guinness Book of World Records made in Utica, New York, in 1993 and weighed 1.7 tons.

In 2009, about eighteen million sufganiyot were consumed in the weeks before and during the holiday, or about three doughnuts per Israeli, with the Israeli Defense Force alone purchasing around a half million that year. About 70 percent of all sufganiyot consumed are stuffed with jelly, but a number of contemporary Israeli fillings have become popular, including halva, crème espresso, chocolate truffle, and numerous exotic flavors. Jelly doughnuts in Brazil are commonly filled with dulce de leche (a milky caramel), which recently also became a popular Israeli filling, known as ribat chalav in Hebrew. American Jews by and large adopted the sufganiyah, although most tend to stick to the old- fashioned jelly fillings and a confectioners’ sugar dusting.

Reader Ronal Ellison requested that we provide some background and history for Puglia’s burrata, an über-trendy, decadent, cream-filled take on traditional mozzarella, at once a simple pleasure and an unctuous extravagance. While, as Mario Batali has often said, Parmigiano Reggiano is the “undisputed king of cheeses,” burrata is the undisputed queen. There’s even a Facebook page for burrata cheese with more than 6,000 devoted members, although, alas for many of us, it’s written entirely in Italian.

There’s curiously little on the subject of burrata cheese in English, with most mentions not much more than a few words in a restaurant review—although these mentions aren’t without merit. Firenze Osteria, in Los Angeles, features a fawning tribute to the cheese in three traditional appetizers: burrata with balsamic-marinated grilled vegetables, with prosciutto and melon, and as a twist on the classic Caprese salad. The Ritz-Carlton in Florida’s Key Biscayne combines the creamy cheese with blanched haricots verts tossed in a fruity olive oil. New York’s Dona takes a less traditional, more luxe route, melding caviar, sea urchin roe, and a purée of fava beans. San Francisco’s SPQR serves tortelloni stuffed with burrata and garnished with baby peas and mint. And at Phoenix’s Tapino, there exists an upscale last course of burrata with mascarpone and truffle honey, garnished with shaved white truffle.

As with other mozzarellas, burrata cheese owes its existence to the water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), a large draft animal brought to Italy from its native Asia sometime in the 15th century. The milk of the water buffalo is richer and higher in protein than that of cows—which means more curds and less whey—although it lacks carotene, the yellow pigment found in cow’s milk. As a result, mozzarella di bufala is pure white. Originally all “mozzarella” was made with the milk of water buffaloes—and the best still is. In Italy, cow’s-milk mozzarella is distinguished by the legal name fior di latte, while most American mozzarella is now made from less-stellar cow’s milk.

Burrata cheese begins life like other mozzarellas, with rennet (usually animal-based) used to curdle the warm milk. Whereas for fresh mozzarella the curds are plunged into hot whey or lightly salted water, kneaded, pulled to develop the familiar stretchy strings (pasta filata), and then shaped into whatever forms, during the making of burrata the still-hot cheese is instead formed into a pouch which is filled with scraps of leftover mozzarella and topped off with fresh, rich cream, called panna. Burrata is traditionally, but not always, wrapped in leaves of asphodel (yes, these are the lilies that Alexander Pope said bloomed “in ever-flowing meads” in Homer’s Elysian fields, and should still be green when you serve the cheese, an indicator of the cheese’s freshness). The pouches are tied, each with its own little brioche-like topknot. The cheese is then moistened with a little whey and, for the sake of convenience in these modern times, often placed in a polietilene, or a plastic bag.

When burrata is sliced open, the luxuriously thickened panna flows out. It has a wonderfully rich, buttery flavor yet retains a fresh milkiness, and is best when consumed within 24 hours, and certainly within 48 hours, of being fashioned. Consequently, it’s only in recent years that burrata has traveled outside of Andria, let alone its native Apulia, save for rare exception (the Shah of Iran used to fly it in for special occasions). If you haven’t tried it, you really ought.

This unconscionably decadent cheese was first hand-crafted around 1920 on the Bianchini farm in the town of Andria, situated about two-thirds of the way up Italy’s heel to the spur of Apulia. In the 1950s, a number of local cheese factories began producing it, making burrata somewhat more widely available. At least one native of the region suspects that factories were interested in it because it was a way to utilize the ritagli (“scraps” or “rags”), which refers to the little bits that are left when cheeses are trimmed to uniform size. (There are leftover scraps in large-scale operations; when formed by hand, burrata doesn’t incur much waste.)

Yet even after burrata was being manufactured along a 130-kilometer stretch of Puglia from Andria to Bari, Gioia del Colle, Modugno, and all the way to Martina Franca (that’s about the equivalent of 80 miles, for those not familiar with the metric system), it managed to retain its premium-product status.

Very often, for Italians, dishes from the next town are “foreign food.” In Lecce, just 60 miles below Martina Franca, burrata is as foreign as brie. Burrata may be better known in the United States than it is in parts of Italy outside the area in which it’s produced. In fact, there’s now a producer of high-quality burrata in the United States: the Gioia Cheese Company, owned and operated by Vito Girardy, a native of Bari who opened the California factory in 1992.

Food historian Nancy Harmon Jenkins suggests that burrata may be an “invented tradition,” much like how corned beef and cabbage is considered a traditional Irish dish but is only served in Ireland because American tourists expect it. This theory may lend a clue to the relative scarcity of reliable information about burrata. The cheese’s reputation as an artisanal treasure—conjuring bucolic images of family farms in unspoiled Italy—might be diminished by mentioning an association with factories. This may seem trivial considering how delicious these cheeses actually are, but much of our appreciation of the foods we enjoy is based on what we imagine about them, and marketers are very reluctant to allow facts to interfere with what we think we know about the foods we love. Since anyone who has experienced burrata di Andria immediately recognizes the eminence of “La Regina dei Formaggi,” why quibble about mere facts, especially in the presence of nobility?

While there’s nothing quite like eating burrata with nothing more than a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkling of sea salt, and a few grinds of black pepper, you can enjoy it in a Caprese salad, on an eggplant sandwich, and even on a simple pizza.—LC eds.

Acknowledgements, References, and a Source for Burrata Cheese

This article could not have been written without the much-appreciated assistance of Nancy Harmon Jenkins, Janice Mancuso, and Clifford Wright—molto grazie a tutti.

Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Gosetti, Fernanda. Il Grande Dizionario dei Formaggi. Milan: Istituto Geografico de Agostino, 1989.

Gioia Cheese Company
1605 Potrero Ave.
South El Monte, CA 91733
(626) 444-6015

The stern, matronly home economics volumes published during the frugal mid-decades of last century may seem hopelessly out of touch with reality today. And in many ways they are. Yet these schoolmarmish lessons—especially on canning and preserving foods—have newfound relevance for those of us experiencing a resurgent or initial interest in melding modernity with domesticity.

There’s a campy charm to these home ec tomes, despite the humorless old-school pragmatism they harbor that hearkens back to the days of wholesome simplicity. (Witness such finger-waggling admonishments as practicing “scrupulous cleanliness and eternal vigilance.”)

Our domestic desires for preserving foods have not changed so greatly over the years, though the means to their ends have. Today’s home cook clatters at the keyboard whilst a pot of jam simmers on the apartment-sized stove, the mind musing about life on the homestead and puttering about in a frock and apron, newly canned lids pinging in a steel-drum orchestra, pickles burping fetid fumes in their crock, chickens clucking contentedly in the backyard. She (or he!) can even adorn her (or his!) home-hewn goods with vintage-inflected labels in gingham or faded floral print, thanks to the advent of home printing. The yesteryear of yore is our new future, and we embrace it with calico-clad arms.—Sean Timberlake, founder of Punk Domestics

LC Putting Food By Note: The term “putting food by” is simply a quaint term from the days of yore that refers to any manner of preserving foods, whether canning, pickling, jellies, curing, or so forth. We rather like the old-fashioned phrase and would like to see it, too, make a resurgence.

TIPS ON CANNING AND PRESERVING FOODS

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Excerpted from Home Economics: Vintage Advice for the 21st-Century Household by Jennifer McKnight-Trontz

Why is canning and preserving so important? Fresh fruit is usually more palatable and refreshing than cooked fruit, but it is not always obtainable. The importance of canning and preserving is therefore obvious. Canned goods of all sorts can be purchased, but they are usually inferior to the home-prepared foods. Many homemakers refuse to can and preserve because they are scared. If proper care is taken, no harm can possibly befall the foods. The great secret of success in the canning of any food is absolute cleanliness. Fruit must be carefully picked and washed, and all stems removed, and only as much as can be cooked while it still retains its color and crispness should be prepared. Peaches, plums, and tomatoes may be readily skinned after a three-minute plunge in boiling water. (Although we think a 30-second dip is plenty.—LC ed.)

The Science of Canning and Preserving Foods

Fruits and many other foods spoil because certain kinds of yeasts, molds, and bacteria grow on them and cause changes that make them unfit for us to eat. Therefore, it is necessary to kill all these organisms and to use preserving jars that are free from germs and sealed so tightly that no germs can get in.

The first thing to do is to sterilize the jars (include the lids and rubbers, too). By sterilizing is meant the killing of all bacteria, yeasts, and molds. This is done by boiling the jars for about 20 minutes in a kettle of water. It is best first to wash the jars clean, rinse them, and put them in a kettle of cold water; this tempers the jars as well as sterilizes them. To keep the perserving jars from cracking, put a cloth in the bottom of the kettle and place the jars on their sides.

The beginning canner should start preserving high-acid foods, such as fruits, that can be safely canned using the open-kettle method. Low-acid foods, such as many vegetables, need higher temperatures, and often require the use of a pressure cooker.

Open-Kettle Method
This canning method is one using an open kettle. The fruit is put into a kettle with a little liquid, boiled directly over the flame until tender, and then put into jars and sealed. It is most satisfactory for berries, jellies, jams, and fruit for sauce. The steps to be followed in preserving by the open-kettle method:

1. Sterilize the jars, rubbers, and lids.
2. Prepare the fruits or vegetables by washing. Have them as clean as possible.
3. Have the required amount of liquid boiling hot, with the seasoning of sugar or salt as necessary.
4. Put the fruits or vegetables into the liquid and boil them until they are tender.
5. Put into the jars, seal quickly, and test for air bubbles by turning upside down.
6. Label the contents. Store in a cool, dark place when cold.

Again, Keep it Clean
Scrupulous cleanliness and eternal vigilance are the price of canning success. The kitchen should be freshly swept and dusted; the fruit should be carefully gone over and bruised or gnarled portions removed; and all jars and utensils should be thoroughly sterilized. Saucepans, spoons, jars, covers, straining bag, etc., should be put on the fire in cold water, heated gradually, and boiled for 10 or 15 minutes. The preserving jars must be taken one at a time from the boiling water, and not removed until the moment each is to be filled. Never use old rubbers or lids that are bent. Be sure that lids are boiled and rubbers dipped in boiling water just before using.

In Preserving Fruits, There are Several Tips to Remember:

• No iron or tin utensils should be used, as the fruit acids attack these metals and so give a bad color and metallic taste to the food.
• All fruits should, if possible, be freshly picked, and it is better to have them underripe than overripe, as the fermentative stage follows closely upon the perfectly ripe stage.
• It is more satisfactory if fruits are heated gradually to the boiling point and then cooked the given time.

Jelly Making

Jelly is made from sugar combined with the juice of fruits that contain acid and pectin. Ripe or overripe fruit does not contain as much pectin as underripe fruit. Some fruits like apples, quinces, grapes, and currants contain sufficient pectin to make jelly. Other fruits like peaches, pineapples, and strawberries do not contain enough pectin to jelly.

Pickling

Another way of storing food for the winter is pickling, one of the oldest preservation methods. The term pickling is applied to the process of preserving food when either salt or vinegar is used. Pickled foods whet the appetite and help to make dishes—especially meat ones—more palatable.

Labeling
Attractive labeling is just as necessary for jars in the home fruit cellar as for those offered for sale. It is always a good idea to write the contents when these may not be readily identified, and the date of canning as well.

When we received a query from Colleen Flood inquiring about the history of chicken fingers, nothing came to mind except silly jokes about chicken lips and hen’s teeth. After all, chickens don’t actually have fingers, do they?

Many of us have memories of “chicken fingers,” “fish sticks,” and other forms of mystery meat composed of who-knows-what portions of who-knows-what animal’s anatomy. It’s oddly discomforting to know that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)-an agency that prides itself on creating lengthy definitions for cuts of meat and, for that matter, just about anything else we might consider consuming-has no definition for anything called “chicken fingers.” The term is clearly commercial in nature, but it’s an interesting story as to when it first appeared-and why.

To answer the first part of the question, we need look back no further than the early 1990s, when health-conscious Americans worried about consuming red meat but didn’t want to give up the convenience foods of which they’d become accustomed. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts seemed like the ideal dinnertime solution.

Now, if you’ve ever skinned and boned a split chicken breast, it probably wasn’t a perfect replica of the uniformly thin, boneless, skinless chicken breasts found in restaurants and in grocery stores. Yours, like mine, was probably thicker and rather uneven, with parts falling off in a most unprofessional manner. The reason for this can be found in the structure of this cut of poultry. A chicken breast is composed of two separate muscles: a large, flat piece, shaped like a longish rounded triangle, and a tapered narrow flap that’s not unlike the tenderloin in beef. In order to fabricate a chicken breast that is tidy, trim, and at an even thickness so that it cooks at the same rate, the two fillets must be separated.

Given that most Americans prefer to have pieces of protein on their plates that are large enough to cut, the larger, triangular portion lends itself more to dinner. But what of the smaller fillets, the tenderloins, commonly known as “tenders”? The savvy answer for chicken producers was not to try to make a dinner portion out of the tenders, but to sell them as something else: finger food.

Americans love to eat casually. Just about anything we can eat with our hands, we do. When someone saw that chicken tenders sort of looked like fingers, and could be eaten with fingers, a stroke of marketing genius happened. If you’ve ever watched an episode of Mad Men, you may be able to visualize the kind of brain-storming session that could lead to the creation of an anatomical feature that nature never intended.

Compare the two fillets: both are equally low in fat, both are equally tasty, and both cook almost equally fast-actually, fingers tend to cook more quickly. Yet the chicken fingers sell for approximately 7 cents more per pound, wholesale, than the larger cut. When you consider that between three and six million pounds of chicken fingers are sold each year by conventional chicken producers including Tyson, Purdue, and Pilgrim’s Pride, you can understand the drive to push chicken fingers. Essentially, it creates millions of additional revenue each year.

It’s at least comforting to know that “chicken fingers” are not in the same category as the dreaded mystery meats of our school days. Whereas nuggets are mass-produced out of various scraps and trimmings and then bound together with soluble protein and salt, just like sausage (at least we hope, although we have lingering doubts), the fingers are real chicken breast meat-which is why Jamie Oliver included them in his redesigned school lunch program. It was a brilliant idea, taking a junk food that children already liked and replacing it with a healthier, more natural item that they would not automatically reject. Chicken fingers also lend themselves to quick-and-easy preparation in a variety of recipes-a characteristic that helped Oliver wear down the resistance of the food-service personnel, which was essential to the success of his school lunch program as well as his Emmy award-winning television program, Food Revolution.

The fact of the food’s success is no mystery at all, not when you consider how simple it is to turn a chicken fingers recipe into a family-pleasing dinner And let’s just be thankful that your children will never have to wonder if real chickens have “nuggets.”

Resources

I’d like to thank Bill Roenigk of the National Chicken Council and Sylvia Small of the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association for their help with this article.

Chicken fingers article © 2010 Gary Allen. Photo © 2007 hddod. All rights reserved.

Reader Marg Smart, feeling nostalgic for a cake from the days just after World War II, wrote in for help finding a British recipe for what she called “Allies’ Celebration Cake.”

My search yielded many, many celebration cakes of varying origins. It seems the British, like we Americans, tend to mark many an important occasion with cake—although not all cake-worthy occasions were celebrations, of course. There were funeral cakes, for example. And some intended-as-celebration cakes actually turned out to be, well, something else. In 1936, Alf Landon was so certain that he would defeat Franklin Roosevelt that he ordered a huge celebration cake, decorated in red, white, and blue icing, to serve his supporters. One presumes the cake was never served, since FDR won in the most lopsided victory in U.S. presidential election history.

As Marg no doubt discovered, there’s little mention of any particular cake specifically intended to celebrate the defeat of the Axis—that is to say, Germany, Italy, and Japan (you may recall that our previous president tried to link his cause to the victory of 1945 through the phrase “Axis of Evil”). There were, however, several mentions of cakes—albeit minus recipes, unfortunately—that had been created to celebrate the end of the hostilities. The search for “Allies’ Celebration Cake” was ultimately futile.

A search for “Victory Cake,” however, led to dozens of recipes. Victory cakes were essential both abroad and at home during World War I, and were revived a generation later for World War II. Their primary function was to make agreeable use of ingredients that weren’t rationed for the war effort. This allowed the folks at home to have dessert with their patriotism intact, knowing they weren’t taking food from the boys at the front. (It’s rather sad to think of all the fresh eggs converted to powdered for the troops.)

As an aside, the K-rations issued to our soldiers included Lucky Strike cigarettes and Hershey chocolate bars. Lucky Strike lost the green ink from their packages so the pigment could be available for whatever the Army needed. The cigarettes seem to have addicted millions, guaranteeing post-war profits. The chocolate bars, on the other hand, had a far more noble ending. Given how the GIs doled them out to civilian women and children, they became a symbol of wartime diplomacy.

Back to Victory Cakes. Most of the ones I found were American, although I did happen upon a British spice cake recipe, which can be found below. The note that accompanied the recipe alluded to the fact that many foods were in short supply at the time, among them sugar, eggs, fats, and chocolate—cake-making staples. As such, it seems a very lean cake, depending on plumped raisins for moistness and calling for only enough cocoa to provide a hint of color and flavor to round out the edges. Then again, this minimal chocolate presence may actually reflect British preference, as cakes in the old world generally featured spices and dried fruits, all the way back to the Middle Ages. (One of the first wedding cakes not to consist of these ingredients was served at the wedding of Queen Victoria in 1840.)

Many foods continued to be in short supply in England for some time even after the war ended, whereas in the United States most rationing—save for sugar—ended with the war. Interestingly, all of the American cakes that celebrated the victory were chocolate. The ingredient was readily available in the United States, given that shipping lanes from cacao-growing regions were safe and the American chocolate industry—like the automotive and aircraft industries—was still geared-up at wartime production levels. While chocolate cakes were not unheard-of in the U.S., before the war they tended to be reserved for special occasions. Celebrations, if you will. Chocolate pies, puddings, and cookies were considered far more everyday fare. I’ve included a wartime chocolate cake recipe from Swans Down flour’s pamphlet titled How to Bake by the Ration Book to give you a sense of the kind of cake popular during this era.

A final word on celebration cakes: The earliest reference I found for a cake meant to celebrate a military victory dated from 1683, and it bears a curious connection to the British cake just mentioned. According to former New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton, it was baked in a tube pan, much like today’s Bundt pans. It was supposed to resemble a turban, to mark the defeat of the Ottoman Turks in Vienna.

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British Victory Cake | Makes 1 10-inch cake
The note that accompanies this cake from 1950s Britain reads, “This is my Uncle Vic Abbott’s recipe, it has no eggs or milk and only uses a small amount of butter. Apparently it was used during the war to save on rationed food.” Unfortunately, the recipe didn’t list the amounts of the spices. Since tastes change over time, I consulted similar spice-cake recipes from the era to make the recipe as accurate as possible, although I’ve left the wording largely as it was to reflect the culinary sentiment of the day.—Gary Allen

LC Note: Some things are best left in the past—including this cake.

convert Ingredients
2 cups of seeded raisins, 3 cups flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt [ground spices: 1/2 tsp. allspice, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. cloves], 2 cups of cold water, 3 tbs. butter, 2 cups sugar, 3 tbs. cocoa

Method
Prepare a 10″ tube pan, as described above. [No description was provided, but probably called for the pan to be buttered and dusted with flour]

Boil together for 5 mins.: butter, seeded raisons [sic], sugar, cold water. Let cool.

Sift together flour and all other [dry] ingredients [including the cocoa.]

Mix the boiled ingredients and the flour mixture together until blended.

Place the batter in the tube pan.

Bake at 350F for 1 1/2 hours. In the last 1/2 hour, cover with foil to prevent burning.

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Eggless Chocolate Cake
This recipe was found in How to Bake by the Ration Book, a helpful, albeit promotional, little pamphlet of wartime recipes published by Swans Down flour company. The note attached to this recipe reads, “They won’t believe you, but it’s true. No eggs at all and only 1/3 cup shortening in this tender, delicious, quick chocolate cake that took you only 1 minute to beat. The secret in two words.” The recipe also appeared in Swans Down advertisements in the early ’40s, with similarly persuasive lines such as “Who said ‘No cake’? Indeed you can make wartime cakes—minus eggs—with Swans Down! And what cakes…No ordinary flour could give such results.”

LC Note: We can’t say as we agree with what the propaganda says, at least not compared to today’s cake standards, although apparently it served it’s purpose at the time!

convert Ingredients
2 squares Bakers unsweetened chocolate
1 cup milk
1 3/4 cups sifted Swans Down cake flour, plus more for the cake pans
3/4 teaspoon soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening or butter, plus more for the cake pans
1 teaspoon vanilla

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 375° F (190° C). Grease and lightly flour two 8-inch cake pans.

2. Combine the chocolate and milk in the top of a double boiler and cook over rapidly boiling water 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Blend with a rotary egg-beater [LC Note: You could whisk it or beat it with an electric or standing mixer] and let cool.

3. Sift the flour once. Measure the flour, add the soda, salt, and sugar, and sift together 3 more times. Cream the shortening or butter, then add the flour, vanilla, and chocolate mixture and stir until all of the flour is dampened. Then beat vigorously for 1 minute.

4. Bake for 20 minutes, or until done. Let cool. Spread Easy Fluffy Frosting between the layers and on top of the cake. (LC Note: As was the fashion at the time, do not frost the sides of the cake.)

Variation: Substitute 1/4 cup Baker’s Breakfast Cocoa for chocolate. Sift it with dry ingredients; add cold milk with vanilla.

.

Easy Fluffy Frosting
Makes enough to frost a 10-by-10-by-2-inch cake or the tops and sides of two 8-inch layers

convert Ingredients
1 egg white
Dash salt
1/2 cup light corn syrup or honey
1 teaspoon vanilla

Method
1. Beat the egg white with the salt until stiff enough to hold up in peaks but does not seem dry.

2. Pour the syrup in a steady stream over the egg white, beating constantly until it’s of the right consistency to spread, 4 or 5 minutes. Add the vanilla. Use immediately.

References
Bentley, Amy. Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the Politics of Domesticity. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Neil, Edna. A&P Everyday Cook & Recipes Book. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Library (reprint, 2006).
Witchel, Alex. “The Way We Eat: Man with a Pan,” The New York Times, December 25, 2005.

Article © 2010 Gary Allen. Photo © 1945 BBC.com All rights reserved.

Absinthe, the drink of 19th-century slackers and ne’er-do-wells, had a moment a few years ago. Newly celebrated in the United States after a 97-year-old ban was lifted, the emerald-hued drink wasted no time in becoming the beverage du jour in neon-lit lounges with thumping house music. It took no time at all for a new generation to learn to dance with the Green Fairy, as the drink was known in its heyday.

No mere fashion or fad, absinthe is still having that moment. The storied drink continues to inspire a fascination among discerning drinkers. Today, nearly a century after it was scuttled from American liquor cabinets and 2,000 years after its inception, absinthe has settled into place at contemporary speakeasies as well as neighborhood restaurants and is once again a household term, if not a household stash. But it took a rather boisterous ride to get there.

Absinthe’s earliest incarnation was an elixir consisting of nothing more than wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) steeped in alcohol. The bitter herb’s etymology—Artemisia is a nod to Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt and of all things wild, and the Latin absinthium is derived from the Greek word absinthion for “undrinkable”—tells us quite a lot about what the ancients thought of this bitter concoction. Its original use was, perhaps not surprisingly, purely pharmaceutical, a panacea of sorts. The mathematician and scientist Pythagoras prescribed the potion, as did the writer Pliny the Elder.

Fast forward to the late 1700′s. In the intervening one and a half millennia since absinthe’s birth, the bitter beverage with anise overtones quietly evolved to be one of a class of digestifs, an after-dinner liqueur of sorts intended to stimulate the flow of gastric juices. Like many “medicinal” liqueurs of the current era, absinthe drew upon an assortment of bitter but aromatic botanicals such as anise, chamomile, coriander, dittany, hyssop, lemon balm, parsley, spinach, and sweet flag. Yet unlike the rest of these modestly intoxicating sips, absinthe was fueled with high-powered octane—136 proof, compared to the more modest 40 proof of most digestifs.

Despite—or perhaps because of—its alcoholic content, absinthe was once again promoted for medicinal purposes, this time by Dr. Pierre Ordinaire, a French expatriate living in Switzerland. Ordinaire generously bequeathed the recipe to Henri Dubied, the father-in-law of Henri-Louis Pernod, who quickly became the most ardent and prestigious purveyor of absinthe. Needless to say, absinthe experienced a resurgence. By 1834, the fervor for the strangely opalescent green drink was so profound—and Pernod so successful—that the company hired Gustave Eiffel, the engineering wizard responsible for the namesake tower that symbolizes all things French, to design the huge iron-vaulted Combier Distillery in the Loire Valley.

It wasn’t just absinthe’s powers of intoxication that made it compelling. The bitter potation’s primary ingredient was wormwood, which in turn contained the compound terpene thujone, a purported hallucinogenic that was rumored to heighten clarity, increase perception, and foster astounding creativity. Little wonder, then, that by the close of the 19th century, pale-green absinthe was not only the most popular drink among high-society in Paris, but among the ragtag groups of bohemian poets and painters of the Rive Gauche, among them Edouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Ernest Hemingway. The artists often portrayed the drinkers and the drink in their works, while writers extolled the mind-expanding qualities of their muse in words.

Although absinthe was pretty tame by comparison to modern mind-altering drugs such as LSD and mescaline, it was nonetheless the 19th century’s boldest leap into altered states. In 1872, a French newspaper quoted a doctor who had subjected himself to absinthe—purely for purposes of research, of course. “The most curious thing about this transformation,” he explained, “is that all sensations are perceived by all the senses at once. My own impression is that I am breathing sounds and hearing colors, that scents produce a sensation of lightness or of weight, roughness or smoothness, as if I were touching them with my fingers.” He prescribed small doses.

The Green Fairy was, for good reason, summoned only after it was diluted with water and a soupçon of sugar. A special spoon was required, the neck of which had a distinctive kink that allowed it to rest on the edge of a pedestal glass without danger of slipping. The bowl of the spoon was nearly flat and decoratively perforated. Once the spoon was set in place, a lump of sugar was placed on the perforated bowl. Ice water was slowly poured atop the sugar, only to drip slowly, mesmerizingly, into the emerald-green absinthe below, causing the liquid to take on its characteristic cloudy appearance. Known as “surprising the spirit,” this act was repeated until the spirit was diluted three to five times over. The ritual, not something that could be rushed, no doubt lent much to absinthe’s mystique.

Absinthe’s powerhouse gut punch—some would say rotgut— made it the earliest casualty of the prohibition movement seething at the beginning of the 20th century. Belgium was the first country to ban absinthe, followed by Switzerland, Holland, and the United States. It was eventually outlawed everywhere except England, France, and Spain (where the brands Absenta and Ojen have been sold continuously for decades).

Not surprisingly, absinthe-like beverages tried to lay claim to absinthe’s fan base. Among the many replacements were Pernod and pastis, which contained most of the herbs found in the original absinthe recipe, save for wormwood—and, hence, no offending terpene thujone. Ouzo, Greece’s pseudo-absinthe, was drunk like the original—diluted with water—except it turned milky white instead of green. And vermouth, which contains a close relative of wormwood known as mugwort, drew attention not as something to brandish over a martini but as a proper drink all of its own. Mugwort was also a component of several other beverages both bitter and bittersweet, among them Amaretto, Altvater, Benedictine, Campari, green Chartreuse, and Fernet Branca.

The Combier Distillery recently began producing absinthe again, anticipating heightened interest following the ban. It was not disappointed. Bottles of what was once contraband flew off American liquor shelves in 2007, the first time any absinthe had been sold stateside—at least legally—since Prohibition.

Of course, today’s absinthe drinkers consider old-fashioned traditions, such as the absinthe drip, through post-modern eyes. Just as this younger generation reformulated its parents’ cocktails into newer, hipper versions, it’s made absinthe into a newer, hipper ingredient. Today’s mind-bending cocktail menus are far more likely to feature absinthe as an undertone, with concoctions such as gin, Lillet blanc, Cointreau, and lemon with a simple absinthe rinse, or even a few drops of the emerald alcohol floated on top of just about anything. Two millenia after its inception, absinthe is still going strong.

Perhaps the hippest of these new—or newly rediscovered—cocktails is one that tips its hat to Hemingway. He reportedly invented the iconic drink Death in the Afternoon not by pouring absinthe into water or wine, but something a little more lively. “Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.”

References
Allen, Gary. The Herbalist in the Kitchen. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2007.

Conrad, Barnaby III. Absinthe, History in a Bottle. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1988.

Lanier, Doris. Absinthe, the Cocaine of the Nineteenth Century: A History of the Hallucinogenic Drug and its Effect on Artists and Writers in Europe and the United States. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1995.

Article © 2010 Gary Allen. All rights reserved.

The traffic noise gets louder by the minute as motorists and cyclists pour into Hang Giay Street. But the people sitting next to me at this low table are oblivious to all the commotion. Instead, they’re anxiously wiping their chopsticks, fiddling with their little dishes of lime and chopped chilies. It’s early morning, and morning means pho, pronounced “fuh,” the country’s beloved rice noodle soup with beef.

I had come to taste my favorite food in Hanoi, the city that created it. And this particular bowl of pho was as soothing and delicious as I had imagined it would be. The rice noodles here are almost sheer, and the broth is clear, like spring water, yet intensely aromatic. As I slurp my steaming soup, I can’t help but flash back to Saigon in the sixties. Whenever my parents could afford it, which was about once a month, they would take my siblings and me to Pho 79. It was small and run-down, with wobbly tables and squeaky stools. Yet no one ever judged it by its looks. Every time we arrived, the place was packed. When our soup would arrive, we would bend down and inhale the aroma, as it to verify its authenticity. Invariably, the broth smelled utterly beefy, laced with just-roasted spices. The rice noodles looked velvety and fresh, the edges of the rare beef curled up expectantly in the hot broth. All was well.

Pho originated in northern Vietnam, here in Hanoi, following the French occupation in the latter part of the 1800s. The Vietnamese, who valued cows and buffaloes as indispensable beasts of burden, didn’t eat red meat, preferring instead pork, chicken, and seafood. When the French arrived, however, many Vietnamese—especially those belonging to the upper classes—began to share the French affection for beef.

How this actually led to the creation of pho remains a debate. Some scholars believe the dish parallels the history of Vietnam, harboring both a Chinese and a French connection. It was the French, they theorize, who introduced the idea of using bones and lesser cuts of beef to make the broth. (After all, in a society that wasted nothing, what was one to do with all the bones carved with biftecks?) They believe the precursor to pho was created when Vietnamese cooks learned to make pot-au-feu for their French masters. The name pho might even have come from the French word feu, for fire. Others argued that while the French popularized beef, it was actually the Chinese who created pho, as evidenced by its use of noodles and ginger.

Regardless of its origin, pho remained a mainstay in northern Vietnam. The infectious enthusiasm for the simple beef and noodle soup spread in 1954, when the country was partitioned in two. The north fell under Communist control and almost a million northerners fled to the south, taking with them a dream of a new life and a love of pho, which took the south by storm. When pho migrated, however, it was embellished. Southerners demanded richer and livelier flavors and discernible textures. Pho was served with more meat, more noodles, more broth, reflecting the abundance of its new surrounding. Southerners started adding bean sprouts and herbs. Garnishes such as lime wedges, fresh chilies, chili sauce and tuong, or bean sauce, giving the dish a new character, the one it retains now.

When my family and I first arrived in the United States following the fall of Saigon, one of the foods we missed most desperately was pho. To us, a steaming bowl of pho was a taste of home. Over the years, immigrant families have readjusted and rebuilt our lives. Somehow, in the midst of all this transformation, the soup followed us through tumultuous times and journeys and has become a big part of our everyday life. Authentic recipes have been dusted off, preserved and cooked with great fervor. And so, as I’m slurping my bowl of pho in Hanoi, it’s comforting to know that wherever I happen to be, whether it’s in Vietnam or California, pho will always lurk in the background, ready to nourish and sustain me.

Recipe
Pho Bo

Excerpted from Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table | HarperCollins, 2001
© 2010 Mai Pham. Photo © 2005 Un rosarino en Vietnam. All rights reserved.

Reader Ann Drak recently wrote us with the following request: “I’m looking for foods of England from the early 1900s, particularly the foods of the Virginia Woolf set.”

In reading the diaries and letters of author Virginia Woolf and her Bloomsbury friends, it’s pretty apparent that meals were little more than an excuse for interesting people to gather. Comestibles were beneath consideration and played a secondary role. Woolf was curious about the actual food and understood its importance to her work, yet she was also keenly aware that in the writing of her day, too much attention to such seemingly mundane topics would be regarded as de classé. Bear in mind the context in which Woolf lived. She and her social friends were of the educated class and had servants who did the cooking. She and her literary friends were products of British universities, where the classics—whose epic authors rarely mentioned the preparation of meals—were regarded as the foundation of literature.

Woolf, clearly torn between what she knew to be significant and what she knew to be literary decorum, lamented this conundrum in A Room of One’s Own: “It is part of the novelist’s convention not to mention soup and salmon and ducklings, as if soup and salmon and ducklings were of no importance.” Still, when food was mentioned in her novels, it was only in passing or in tandem with female characters, who were naturally involved in things of the table. There are, however, three notable exceptions:

In Orlando, she writes about the time that Orlando spends with gypsies in Greece and how he discovers that the Greek language had no word for beautiful. To describe a sunset, Orlando instead exclaims the closest approximate: “How good to eat!”

In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf famously compares the dinner fare served at male and female colleges. While the men eat sumptuously, the women must make do with bland, dreary foods. “A good dinner is of great importance to good talk,” she complains. “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”

In To the Lighthouse, the reader encounters countless small domestic scenes including coffee cups and ordinary meals. We also see a sharp departure from this restraint when Woolf passionately serves up two pages of a rapturous description of boeuf en daube, contrasting its succulence with the abomination that “passes for cookery in England.”

It’s tempting to think that Woolf’s appreciation for French food came from writers like Elizabeth David, but Woolf’s suicide occurred a decade too early. Nonetheless, David’s books can provide an outline of what was considered to be good cooking at that time, at least in the south of France and Italy, places that people of Woolf’s class would have known well. Here are two of David’s recipes over which Woolf may very well have swooned.

Boeuf en Daube a la Niçoise
Elizabeth David, from whose files this recipe comes, suggested accompanying this meal with a hearty red wine from the Rhone region, such as a Gigondas or Châteauneuf-du-Pape. She consented that a Vin de Pays from  Mt. Ventoux or the Ardeche may work well should a budget be in place.

For the marinade
Olive oil, 1/2 cup
Onion, 1 sliced
Carrot, 1 chopped
Celery, 1/2 stalk chopped into small pieces
Shallots, 4 chopped
Red wine, 2/3 cup
Garlic, 3 cloves
Parsley, 2 sprigs
Peppercorns, to taste
Herbs*, to taste
Salt, to taste

For the daube
Round of beef, approximately 3 pounds
Carrots, 1/2 pound cut in 1-inch rounds
Garlic, 3 cloves
Herbs*
Slab bacon, 1/2 pound
Black olives, pitted, 1/2 pound
Tomatoes, 3 peeled and chopped

Directions
1. Heat the oil in a small pan, then add the onion, carrot, celery, and shallots. Sweat them for a minute or two.

2. Add the remaining marinade ingredients and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Cool, then strain the marinade before using.

3. Choose an earthenware or other flameproof casserole with a lid that is just large enough to contain the beef. Arrange the beef in the casserole and the carrots, garlic, and herbs around the beef.

4. Pour the cooled marinade into the casserole, then top with the slab bacon.

5. Cover the casserole with oiled paper and the lid.

6. Cook in a slow oven (300°F/150°C) for 2 1/2 hours.

7. Remove the lid, add the olives and tomatoes, and cook for an additional 1/2 hour.

8. Remove from the oven. Slice the beef thickly. Cut the bacon into cubes and serve atop the beef, which should be served moistened with a bit of the cooking liquid.

*Note: David suggests bay leaves and the typical blend of herbs de Provence (thyme, marjoram, and rosemary). She says they may be fresh or dried; consequently, the measurements are “to taste.” Note that all temperatures and measurements have been adapted for use in American kitchens.

.

Aigrossade Toulonnaise
This simple garlicky aiöli was commonly served in the South of France, often with vegetables and chickpeas. It’s included here because it’s typical of the Provençal dishes that Woolf and her friends might have known.

For the aiöli
Egg yolks, 2
Garlic, 2 or 3 cloves crushed to a paste
Dry English mustard, 1 teaspoon
Salt and pepper, to taste
Olive oil, about 1 cup
Tarragon vinegar, a few drops
Lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon

For the aigrossade
Mixed vegetables, approximately 3 pounds steamed or boiled, such as artichokes and green beans, dried beans, or chickpeas

Method
1. In a heavy bowl or mortar, combine the yolks, garlic, mustard, salt, and pepper. Stir until uniformly combined.

2. Slowly add a few drops of the oil and stir until all the oil is absorbed. Slowly add a little more oil, a few drops at a time, stirring all the time. Continue to add the remaining oil in this fashion. From time to time add tiny amounts of tarragon vinegar, and then — when almost done adding the oil — add the lemon juice. Ms David says you should “Stir steadily but not like a maniac.”

3. Strain the cooked vegetables, coat with the aiöli, and serve in a warmed dish. Do not attempt to reheat.

References
David, Elizabeth. A Book of Mediterranean Food. London: John Lehman, 1950. (reissued in Elizabeth David

Drummond, Jack Cecil, Sir, and Anne Wilbraham. The Englishman’s Food: A History of Five Centuries of English Diet. London: Tralfalgar Square, 1993.

Flandrin, Jean-Louis and Massimo Montanari. Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. New York: Penguin, 2000.

Hartley, Dorothy. Food in England. London: Warner, 1999.

Mennell, Stephen. All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1996.

Tannahill, Reay. Food in History. (rev. ed.) New York: Crown, 1995.

Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne. History of Food. Anthea Bell, trans. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1994.

Wilson, C. Anne. Food and Drink in Britain: From the Stone Age to Recent Times. London: Constable, 1973.

© 2009 Gary Allen. All rights reserved.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find much in the way of side dishes. I was, however, sufficiently intrigued by this curiously named Beefsteak Stanley to procure a recipe for it. But first, a little background information on its purportedly healthful precursor, the Salisbury steak.

Long before Dr. Atkins and even Dr. Kellogg became household names, people looked to famous physicians to help them lose weight and, presumably, attain spiritual purity through their diets. Dr. James H. Salisbury was one of these early diet gurus. Dr. Salisbury believed that a corrective diet could cure everything from anemia to tuberculosis. His approach included the avoidance of almost all vegetables and starches in favor of—you guessed it—minced meat. Lots of minced meat. One pound, three times a day, to be exact. It’s hard to imagine that a hearty, meaty staple of middle-class dining rooms has its origins in a strict dietary regimen, but it’s true.

The recipe for what came to be known as Salisbury Steak appears in his book, The Relation of Alimentation and Disease:

“Eat the muscle pulp of lean beef made into cakes and broiled. This pulp should be as free as possible from connective or glue tissue, fat and cartilage. The ‘American Chopper’ answers very well for separating the connective tissue…The muscle should be scraped off with a spoon at intervals during chopping. Simply press it sufficiently to hold together. Make the cakes from half an inch to an inch thick. Broil slowly and moderately well over a fire free from blaze and smoke. When cooked, put it on a hot plate and season to taste with butter, pepper and salt; also use either Worcestershire or Halford sauce, mustard, horseradish or lemon juice on the meat if desired.”

And the doctor’s beverage of choice? A somewhat less suspect dose of three quarts of plain hot water a day.

Over time, Americans grew bored with Salisbury’s bland, monotonous diet and, it appears, were anxious to move on to newer, more ridiculous diets—such as those requiring adherents to restrict themselves to grapefruit or sauerkraut. But the Salisbury Steak lived on, gradually acquiring homier sauces and garnishes such as flour-thickened gravies and mushrooms—indulgences our good doctor would never have countenanced. Eventually, Salisbury Steak acquired a garnish, and a new name, that must have been beyond the doctor’s wildest dreams: sauteed bananas.

No one seems to know the origins of the name “Beefsteak Stanley” anymore. One story says it was invented by Sir Henry Morton Stanley (of “Dr. Livingston, I presume” fame). I have my doubts about that. Stanley was pretty famous when he died in 1904—famous enough to have things named after him—but other than the bananas, there’s nothing to suggest that an African explorer had anything to do with the dish. I suppose we could make up our own story. If so, I’m going with the Stanley Steamer connection, as a harbinger of the culinary weirdnesses published in Manifold Destiny.

I found this Beefsteak Stanley recipe in Cooking Instructions for the Preparation of Dishes Served in Dining Cars Throughout the System, a dated guidebook for cooks on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Books like this typically dated to the 1940s, but this one includes no date at all. My guess is that it comes from the 1920s or 1930s, by which time Salisbury Steak had long ago become an American staple.

Beefsteak Stanley
Make 4 portions

Ingredients
2 cups of finely ground beef
1/2 cup of fresh bread crumbs
1/2 cup of cream
1 egg
1 small onion minced, washed and sauteed
Salt and pepper

Preparation
1. Mix ingredients well together and form into oblong steaks, fry in pan on both sides nice and brown for about 10 minutes.

2. Cover the bottom of dish with Horseradish sauce, set steak in sauce, top garnished with 2 halves of glaced banana (see Note). A little tomato sauce poured around.

Horseradish Sauce: Make a roux with 1/2 cup of flour, 1 kitchenspoon of butter. Let cook 10 minutes, then add 1 quart of boiling strained broth, stirring constantly, and 1/2 cup of cream. Cook 20 minutes, strain in jar, then add 1 kitchenspoon of grated horseradish (if bottled horseradish is used, squeeze dry).

LC Note: To make “glaced banana,” slice a banana lengthwise (as for a banana split), then saute it in a little butter. A “kitchenspoon” is what we call a teaspoon nowadays.

References
Cooking Instructions for the Preparation of Dishes Served in Dining Cars Throughout the System. n.p.: Pennsylvania Railroad, Dining Car Department, n.d.

Salisbury, James H. The Relation of Alimentation and Disease. New York: J. H. Vail and Company, 1888.

Schwartz, Hillel. Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies & Fat. New York: Anchor Books, 1990.

© 2009 Gary Allen. All rights reserved. Photo © 2008 skinnyde