Ponderings about Thanksgiving

Here are some updated pictures of Goldie and Slate.

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I first posted about them [Goldie & Slate] October 6th of this year. CLICK HERE!

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Here we are with a little over a week before one of my favorite Holidays. Seems the reality settled in with the first snow dusting that we had the other day.

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For sure I am pleased all of the wood has been split and stacked as well as covered. We have yet to have a fire inside, not quite cold enough YET. I chuckle inwardly as I will see the neatly pile diminish and leave voids of interest come spring.

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Time to dig out the Christmas and New Year Cards…

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Once again attempt to get them addressed during the Thanksgiving weekend.

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HA that has always been a goal, who knows this year I might attain it.

Well it is a delicious thought.

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Speaking of delicious… what foods come to mind that take you back years?

Those are the memories.

One that my Mother delighted in making was: Creamed peas in a Timbale.

Gosh have not thought about that in years.

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A timbale is a disc-shaped - mould for various sorts of food.

Mom used upside down glass custard cups...she used the left over raw pie dough,

and then she would prick the dough with the tines of a fork. That way there was

no waste.

The name is derived from 'thimble'.

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While thinking about this almost lost memory I found this recipe.

Sure sounds yummy.

I think we will add this to a meal on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, because one

of our children requested Popovers. ;) Someone else has a memory.

What fun it was to sit in front of the glass oven and watch the POP of the OVERS!

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Food historians generally agree popovers are an American recipe.

They descended from 17th century batter puddings made in England.

Yorkshire pudding is the most famous example of these.

"Popover. A light, hollow muffin made from an egg batter similar to that used in making Yorkshire pudding. The name comes from the fact that the batter rises and swells of the muffin tin while baking...In American Food (1974), Evan Jones writes: Settlers from Maine who founded Portland, Oregon, Americanized the pudding from Yorkshire by cooking the batter in custard cups lubricated with drippings from the roasting beef (or sometimes pork); another modification was the use of garlic, and, frequently, herbs. The result is called Portland popover pudding, individual balloons of crusty meat-flavored pastry." Most popovers, however, are not flavored but merely set in buttered muffin tins. They are served a breakfast or with meats at lunch and dinner."---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 249)

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Henderson's Popover recipe [1876]

Popover recipe from 1877:

Minted Green Pea Timbales

1 tablespoon salt

4 cups peas

2 1/2 tablespoons mint, chopped, plus sprigs for garnish

1/4 teaspoon granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon pepper

3 egg whites

1/2 cup whipped cream Sour cream or crème fraîche

Dissolve all but 1/4 teaspoon salt in large pot of boiling water.

Add peas.

Blanch 2 minutes.

Drain and rinse under cold water.

Chill and drain thoroughly.

Puree in blender or food processor the peas, mint, and sugar remaining salt and pepper until

smooth. Continue to puree while adding egg whites 1 at a time.

Pour in cream. Blend until combined.

Divide mixture among 6 greased 1/2 cup ramekins or custard cups.

Set ramekins in baking pan.

Add boiling water to pan to halfway up sides of ramekins.

Cover with foil and vent.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center pulls

clean.

Let set a few minutes. Run sharp knife around edges and invert onto serving dish.

Garnish with mint sprig and dollop of sour cream or crème fraîche

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Lets have a TOAST

OR ~~~ Breakfast for my Sweetie ~~~ my Knight in Shining Armor OR is that Amore'?

Valentine's Day is coming soon I need to prepare to shock his socks OFF! But then every Day should be Valentine’s Day!

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[In West Virginia where love is king~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When boy meets girl here's what they say]

Being a tad more serious, for a moment ~~~

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Ingredients

~~~~~~~ 8 slices of bread

~~ 2 eggs

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1 cup milk *** I used half-and-half

~~ 1/4 cup flour

~~ Fat or butter

~~~ Powdered sugar *** I used baked apples and cranberries

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Instructions

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Mix together the eggs, milk, and flour and pass through a strainer. *** If you mix WELL, this step is not needed

~~~~~~~~~~~ 2. Dip slices of bread into the mixture and fry in the fat or butter on both sides in a frying pan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3. Before serving, sprinkle with powdered sugar. ***Did not use this…

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I added this step: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Dip bread into mixture, allow to soak for 30 seconds on each side, and then remove to a cooling rack that is sitting in a sheet pan, and allow to sit for 1 to 2 minutes.

Recipes for "French toast" can be traced Ancient Roman times. Apicius simply calls it "Another sweet dish." Linguistic evidence confirms the connection, as one of the original French names for this dish is "Pain a la Romaine," or Roman bread. Culinary evidence confirms "French toast" was not just a food of the poor. Recipes printed in ancient and medieval texts employed white bread (the very finest, most expensive bread available at the time) with the crusts cut off. In many cases, expensive spices and almond milk were listed as ingredients. This is not something a poor, hungry person would have eaten. It is also important to note that until very recently, cook books were not written for the "average" person. Only the noble, wealthy, and religious leaders were taught to read. The recipes contained in them reflect the meals of the upper classes. In France the dish is also called "pain perdu!"

"...what amounts to French toast seems to have been popular throughout [medieval] Europe. But everyone seems to have has his own name for the dish: Maestro Martino and some English authors called it "suppe dorate" and "soupys yn dorye" respectively, while French writers favored "tostees dorees," reserving the word "soupe" for slices of bread soaked in the potage (which gives rise to the expression "trempe comme une soupe," the French equivalent of "soaked to the skin"). Eventually, as we know, the world "soup" would come to mean the actual liquid in which these soupes were soaked. Other English sources surprisingly call this dish "payn purdeu," clearly the same as today's French name, "pain perdu." And of course the modern English term is "French toast": what goes around comes around. In England and in Italy, these golden brown bread slices were served with game meats and with peacocks and other grand birds. We do not know exactly how they were used in France even though there are several otherwise undefined menu references to venaison aux soupes,

"game meat with sippets." In any event, we have once again thrown in our lot with Maestro Martino, because his recipe is the most polished of them all, using rose water where no one else thought to do so. Still, some of the English recipe are not without delicacy, specifying that the butter for frying the toast should be clarified (gently boiled to separate out its impurities, which prevents burning) and that the bread would be soaked not in whole eggs but in beaten egg yolks that have been put through a sieve to make them perfectly smooth and creamy."---The Medieval Kitchen, Recipes from France and Italy, Odilie Redon et al, [University of Chicago Press:Chicago] 1998 (p.207) Maestro Martino's recipe.

More History

First made at a roadside tavern not far from the city of Albany in 1724, there are few dishes more truly American than the breakfast favorite known as "French toast". So American is the dish that very few can understand why it is not called "American toast", "Albany Toast" or even "New York State toast". The confusion comes about because the owner of the tavern at which the dish was invented had a very poor knowledge of grammar. When Joseph French decided to name the dish after himself he should have written his invention as "French's toast" (that is to say, the toast of French). Because he did not know how to use the possessive apostrophe, however, the dish appeared on his menu simply as "French toast". In short, the dish has nothing whatever to do with French culinary history but in the two hundred and seventy years that have intervened, no one has taken the time to correct the grammatical error. From further back in time another tells, French toast isn't French. It comes from a Roman cookbook, dating back to 1000 or 2000 B.C., and titled "Apicius on Cooking."

To date, historians know of three different people named Marcus Aurelius Apicius. Which one of them is the "real" Apicius is uncertain. The most famous, though, is the one who (posthumously) wrote a cookbook. Historical accounts are somewhat sketchy, but the Apicius we are talking about was born 25 BC and lived until 37 AD, during the reign of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius. He was the first to inspire a book on high-class Roman cuisine, the "De re coquinaria" or "On Cooked and Baked Things" which was published in the 4th century and consisted of a collection of Apicius' recipes. His other work is the preceding "De condituris" ("On Condiments"), a book on sauces which was absorbed into "De re coquinaria". The latter is one of the oldest cookbooks existing to date.

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Marcus liked living the high life and strove to always find more exotic or just plain weird concoctions, such as nightingale tongue, pickled pig's brains or (I kid you not) stuffed sterile sow's womb. By Seneca the Younger's account, his tragic end was caused by the realization that in the end his fortune only consisted of a mere 10 million sesterces (making him by today's exchange rates still only a paltry multi-millionare), which led to him taking his own life by poisoning.

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Some people are just never satisfied.