You don't want to know what's in mock turtle soup.
Interactive history at its best. From the delightful to the disgusting, recipes from other times and places really let you experience a vanished slice of daily life. In the instance of this 1890 book published in New England, sometimes it looks very familiar. Chicken salad is still chicken, mayo and celery. Pound cake is still mostly butter. Mock turtle soup is mostly calf’s head and pork back fat…ok, well, there are differences.
The introduction to The Compedium of Cookery sounds surprisingly modern, even admonishing us to “eat to live,” not “live to eat.” A closer inspection however reveals a world we’ve left behind…of a world before microwaves, penicillin, and professional funeral homes. Apparently. Well, let’s start at the beginning.
1,000 ways of getting rich, or more likely burning, poisoning or cutting yourself.
The Compendium is not just one useful volume, but actually TWO, split into the food recipes and “The Book of Knowledge.” The BOK is subtitled “1,000 ways of getting rich.” To their credit, the first chapter of the BOK is entitled “Secrets of the Liquor Trade.” Less intoxicating professions follow…including the “new method of embalming.” This method “supersedes the old and revolting mode, and has been introduced into the great anatomical schools of Paris. Risky experiments in metallurgy and pest control are also included. For killing rats in the hayrick, a handy mixture of molten lard, phosphorus, and sulphur. It glows in the dark, hurray! Because I want my barn full of dead, glowing rats.
I think I'd take my chances with the rabies.
What would a cookbook be without home remedies? Well, by today’s standards, normal. But in 1890 you had to be ready for mad dogs and Englishmen, whatever the case may have been. And if it was mad dogs, well, get out the hot poker.
I’m not sure what a “caked breast” is, but I’m also pretty sure that a muskrat isn’t going to help.
All that said, there are some pretty good cake recipes in here. Sadly, there are no temperatures and few cooking times given…nobody had oven thermometers and everyone assumed that the women doing the cooking knew the basics and didn’t need the step-by-step. My cookbooks appear to be written for children in comparison. I can’t cut a fowl into joints, and I wouldn’t know a preserving kettle from a chamber pot. There’s a whole chapter on how to preserve produce for the winter…a reminder that seasons used to actually affect our eating habits.
You know what else used to affect our eating habits? A lot? Eels.
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