Sunday, March 17, 2013

A very exhausting menu

I love, love, love old cookbooks. And not simply to find new (old?) recipes, but often for the comedy of it. For example, The Frugal Housewife, or Complete Woman Cook, offers up a "bill of fare for every month of the year" that leaves me wondering just who this poor woman is cooking for. I copied out January and February, and I'm exhausted just thinking about making ... let alone eating ... all of that food.

And this is just two months' worth!


Bill of Fare for Every Month in the Year
January - Dinner: 
beef soup, made of brisket of beef, and the beef served up in the dish. Turkey and chine roasted, with gravy and onion sauce; minced pies. 
Or achbone of beef boiled, and carrots and savoys, with melted butter; ham and fowls roasted, with rich gravy; tarts. 
Or vermicelli soup; forequarter of lam and salad in season; fresh salmon, a sufficient quantity boiled, with smelts fried, and lobster sauce; minced pies.
Supper:
Chickens fricaseed; wild ducks with rich gravy sauce; piece of sturgeon or brawn and minced pies.
Or a hare with a pudding in the belly, a strong gravy and claret sauce; hen turkey boiled, with oyster sauce and onion sauce; brawn or minced pies.

February:
Dinner:
Chine or saddle of mutton roasted, with pickles; calf's head broiled and grilled, garnished with parsley and butter, salt, pepper and a little vinegar; the tongue slit and laid upon the brains; a boiled pudding.
Or ham and fowls roasted, with gravy sauce; a leg of lamb boiled, with spinach.
Or a piece of fresh salmon, with lobster sauce, and garnished with fried smelts and flounders; chickens roasted and asparagus, with gravy and plain butter.
Supper:
Scotch collops; ducklings, with rich gravy; minced pies.
Or fried foals (soals?) with shrimp sauce; fore quarter of lamb roasted, with mint sauce; dish of tarts and custards

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1 comment:

  1. I love old cookbooks, too, and sometimes find myself marveling at the amount of food being prepared at one time. I read Edna Lewis' The Taste of Country Cooking this year, and her descriptions of the food being prepared are often awe-inspiring, both in terms of quantity and how delicious it all sounds.

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