Chapter III: Part 3

Cut into small 1/8 inch squares two medium onions, fry them in butter and add two dessert spoons flour and moisten with two quarts of broth, adding bunch of parsley garnished with chervil, bay leaf and clove and garlic. Season with a little salt, pepper and some meat extract, boil for 20 minutes—then remove the bouquet—pour the soup over very thin slices of bread placed in a metal soup tureen in intervening layers of bread and cheese—Parmesan—finishing with the Parmesan and sprinkle a little over the top of the soup. Bake in hot oven or boil ten minutes and thicken with raw yolks of two eggs diluted in cream.

RICE Á LA MANHATTAN

Chop two onions—fry in butter, add a pound of rice and beat together. When very hot, add enough broth to triple quantity—let boil and cook in slack oven for 20 minutes. Add when done, six ounces grated Parmesan. Pour ⅔ of this into casserole, make hole in center and fill with shrimps and minced mushrooms; around sides lay fillet of sole, pour over lean Spanish sauce—reduced with essence of mushrooms—mix well and cover whole with remainder of rice—put in hot oven for fifteen minutes and serve.

Sauce:—1 quart of stock—melt ¼ pound of butter—stir in same amount of flour—making clear paste—add stock—brown slowly.

LIX

_George Ade_

“SCOLLOPED” OYSTERS

If I must make a decision, I think I shall have to vote in favor of escalloped oysters. Back home we call them “scolloped.” The restaurant and hotel article is not the real thing. The portions are stingy and the oysters are heated just enough to render them helpless and they lie embedded in some dry packing, evidently meant to be an article of food. Escalloped oysters, as prepared at home, came in a deep pan which had been subjected to great heat. The oysters were used with the greatest prodigality. They were cooked in cracker crumbs or corn meal and they were cooked until the delicious flavor of the bivalve had permeated all parts of the dish. Milk or cream and real country butter had been used unsparingly, so that the whole compound was moist and the seasoning had been well distributed, and the whole result was, in my opinion, a triumph. For some reason, the real “scolloped” oysters attain their perfection only when prepared by women past thirty years of age.

I am not undertaking to give the recipe. Probably it is something secret—beyond the reach or comprehension of any man, but the dish itself is worthy of all the complimentary adjectives.

EDITOR’S NOTE:—Here is the way to do it—first butter the
bottom and sides of a pan (deep) or baking dish, then
cover the bottom with those little, round, old-fashioned
oyster crackers, all crisp and salty. Next place a layer of
oysters, fresh or cove. If you don’t know what cove oysters
are ask some one who was raised in the Middle West. Now a
layer of crackers crushed; then more oysters and so on until
the pan is full. Season each layer of oysters with salt
and pepper. Put little bits of butter all over the cracker
layers. Now fill the pan with milk and cream to which has
been added a bit of the oyster liquor. Cover the top well
with crushed crackers. Put a cover on the dish or pan and
slip it into the oven. Some folks add a teaspoonful of
Worcestershire sauce to the milk and cream. Bake until the
juices bubble up. Don’t let too much of the moisture bake
away. At the last minute take the cover off the dish and
brown the top.

The richer the cream and butter the better the result.

The dish is even better than Mr. Ade would lead you to
believe, and it _can be made_ by an amateur male cook—that’s
why Mr. Ade’s contribution is printed in spite of the rank
heresy to which he professes.

LX

_Lyman Abbott_

DEEP APPLE PIE

Dr. Lyman Abbott’s favorite dish is a Deep Apple Pie, which is made like the deep fruit tarts so plentiful in England.

Here is a thoroughly satisfactory way to make Dr. Abbott’s specialty: Line a deep pie tin with a rich crust, fill with tart, juicy apples sliced very thin. Sprinkle sugar and a little cinnamon over them. Scatter bits of butter over the apples, about a tablespoonful in all. Also sprinkle with a tablespoonful of water. Use four or five tablespoonsful of sugar. Cover with top crust and bake slowly for a half, or perhaps three-quarters of an hour.

For the real _deep dish_ pie put the apples, sugar and butter (above proportions) in the individual deep dish and cover with top crust. Bake the same. The spices may be varied to taste.

LXI

_Terry Ramsaye_

LETTUCE (à la Red Creek)

In behalf of my favorite fodder, the tender leafling lettuce that’s newly sprung in June, I am pleased to present a method of introducing it to the human system with a maximum effectiveness.

WILTED LETTUCE:—It is said that this dish comes to us from the Hessians. If this be treason let us make the most of it.

Having obtained the lettuce, young and tender and fresh from the patch, plucked before it is yet headstrong, toss it into a bucket of cold water to crisp it.

Repairing to the kitchen, place on the hot stove a skillet and heave into it a good sized cupful of chopped bacon. Let it fry thoroughly. Add a dessert spoonful of salt, a pinch of mustard, a couple of tablespoonsful of granulated sugar and good cider vinegar in quantity slightly in excess of the bacon fat. Let it simmer smartly until well blended. Meanwhile lay out the lettuce in noble heaps on the plates on which it is to be served. Chop up a handful of green onions, a bit of the tops will do no harm, and at the last moment stir them into the concoction in the skillet.

While the whole is sizzling and boiling vigorously, pour the mixture over the lettuce, using a spoon to apportion the nifty bits of bacon about, and serve forthwith.

By this method one can take aboard amazing quantities of lettuce, which is most desirable in view of the fact that this gentle herb contributes strongly to the summer languor when taken in adequate quantities.

LXII

_R. L. (Rube) Goldberg_

HASH

All joking aside, my favorite dish is hash.

I have never actually been in the kitchen to see hash pass through the various stages of its epicurean development, but I imagine hash is manufactured something like this:

First the father must eat a big lunch, the mother must fill herself up on cake in the afternoon and the children must have spoiled stomachs. This condition of affairs ruins the evening meal completely and there is plenty of meat left over for hash the next day.

The cook takes the beef or veal or whatever it is and throws it into the electric fan. The flying bits of meat are caught on ping pong rackets by experts and knocked back into a pot that contains a large quantity of mashed potatoes. Then the fire is lighted and the cook can go out to an afternoon movie.

The beauty of hash is that, no matter how it tastes, you think it is all right. There is no standard flavor for hash. Hash is fundamentally accidental, so it has no traditions to live up to.

LXIII

_Channing Pollock_

CORN BREAD

When I was young and sometimes went camping my favorite dish was corn bread. In those days, we always began proceedings by building a mud oven. Now I believe portable ovens are convenient and cheap. In any event, following is my recipe:

2 cups of flour
3 cups of cornmeal
4 heaping teaspoonsful of baking powder
2 eggs well beaten
1 teaspoonful of salt
1 tablespoonful of granulated sugar
1 generous pint of milk
2 tablespoonsful of melted crisco or lard
Do not scald the cornmeal.

Mix the meal with flour, baking powder, salt and sugar, beat the eggs until they are light, add the milk and eggs to the other ingredients. Beat the whole until it is smooth and light—about one minute. Finally adding the melted crisco or lard; pack into shallow, greased pan and bake in a hot oven for twenty-five minutes.

LXIV

_Hussein Kahn Alai_

(Minister to the United States from Persia)

CHIRIN POLOW

Necessary materials: One pound of rice (Carolina rice is most suitable); one spring chicken; the peel of four oranges; four ounces of sugar; half a pound of salt; two grams of Spanish saffron; two ounces of almonds; half a pound of butter.

Method of cooking the rice: If the dish is required for a luncheon at one o’clock, it will be necessary, the night before, to rinse the rice three times in water, rubbing it each time with the palms of the hands. Change the water each time.

Next soak the rice in tepid water, letting the water stand three inches over the rice. Pour the half pound of salt on the rice and let it stand until 11 a. m. of the next day.

Into a two gallon caldron pour six quarts of water and let it boil. As soon as it boils pour out slowly and with care the water in which the rice has been soaking since the night before. Empty the rice into the boiling water. Cover the caldron and increase the heat. As soon as the caldron containing the rice begins to boil remove the cover and stir the rice gently with a flat spoon. Then replace the lid and let the contents of the caldron boil again. Repeat the stirring process three times. Next drain the rice in a sieve, shaking it to remove all adherents of salt and starch. Now melt a quarter of a pound of butter in a large cup of water. Pour half of the melted butter into a one-gallon caldron and gently empty the rice into the caldron in such a way that it will spread uniformly without sticking together in rice balls. Place the caldron in a hot oven. Close the oven and after five or six minutes see if the caldron is hot; if it is, bring it out gently and pour the remainder of the melted butter over the rice and replace in the oven. Now reduce the heat until the caldron gives a hollow sound when rapped with the fingers; this will indicate that the rice is sufficiently cooked.

Preparation of the almonds: Boil the almonds for a few minutes until the skins fall off and the almonds become white. Cut the almonds into four quarters perpendicularly.

Preparation of the orange peel: Remove the white part of the peel to such an extent that both sides of the peel are of the same color. When this has been done cut the peel into long thin strings. These should be boiled in two waters so as to remove all bitterness. Then strain.

Combining the almonds and the orange peel: Mix the almonds and the orange peel and boil them in a syrup of sugar for ten minutes. Strain and keep in a warm place until needed.

Cooking the chicken: Begin boiling the chicken very slowly at eight o’clock in the morning. Boil to such a point that the skin and bones detach themselves from the flesh.

Preparation of the saffron: Warm the saffron to remove all dampness and pound it to a powder in a mortar; after which dissolve it in three tablespoonsful of cold water.

Dishing the Polow: One half of the rice should be taken from the caldron and mixed in a bowl with the orange peel and almonds. Over this sprinkle three tablespoonsful of saffron water to color well. Now pour over it about two tablespoonsful of melted butter.

Next remove the remainder of the rice from the caldron and dish it up ready for the table. Place the chicken from which the skin and bones have been removed on top of the rice. Crown the whole with the rice, which has already been mixed with the almonds and orange peel and colored with the saffron.

This will make a delightful and pleasantly flavored dish—Chirin Polow, which means “sweet Polow.”

LXV

_William J. Bryan_

FRENCH-FRIED ONIONS

Onions are on my permitted list of foods and they are prepared for the table in many ways. The best way that I know of has been given the name of French-fried onions. I first ate onions in this form at the famous Grove Park Inn, Asheville, North Carolina, and have since introduced the dish on dining cars and into many private homes.

Take a Bermuda onion—any other large onion would do—cut it into slices through the rings so that each slice will be made up of a large number of whole rings. Then break the slices up into separate rings, drop these into a thin batter and fry them as you fry French-fried potatoes. Each ring looks like a little doughnut. I find that the dish is universally praised.

May I add a word in regard to radishes, of which I am very fond. The long White Icicle radish is, in my judgment, the best variety and I have found that butter added to the salt makes the radish a little more palatable.

LXVI

_Will Irwin_

HAM AND EGGS

Take a frying pan and some ham. Cook the ham in its own fat in the frying pan—cook until the ham is well dappled with golden brown, or until it is cooked enough. Then break some eggs. Take out the ham and put it on a hot platter, then put in the eggs. Baste them a bit with the hot ham fat. Put a cover on the pan and let the eggs cook in the hot pan with no fire. A minute or two will do—then serve the eggs with the ham and—oh, boy!

For the very best results use the best ham you can get and plenty of day old eggs.

LXVII

_Douglas Fairbanks_

BREAD TART

1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1 cup sugar
1 cup chopped nut meats
1½ teaspoons baking powder
5 eggs
2 tablespoons grape juice
1 lemon

_Filling_

1 egg
½ cup chopped walnut meats
½ cup sugar
½ cup lemon

Soak bread crumbs with grape juice and the strained lemon juice. Beat egg yolks and sugar together until light; then add nut meats, baking powder, bread crumbs and the beaten whites of the eggs. Divide into buttered and floured layer tins and bake in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. Put together with filling. Beat up egg, add sugar, lemon juice and walnuts. This tart may be covered with frosting if liked.

LXVIII

_Julian Street_

SOLE Á LA MARGUERY AND DUCK WITH ORANGES

I have two favorite dishes: both being examples of the French cuisine at its highest.

One is “Sole à la Marguery” (which can be made with flounder, also) and was originated by old Monsieur Marguery at his famous restaurant in Paris. It has a sauce which has a wine base and which contains shrimps and small oysters.

_Sole à la Marguery_

Lay your sole in a buttered platter, add about a glassful of
white wine, season and poach:

I. E. Let boil for about fifteen minutes and then take
the juice out, mix with it a yolk of a raw egg, about two
ounces of sweet butter. Beat slowly so as to get it thick,
something like a hollandaise; add a few shrimps, oysters,
mussels, and a few heads of mushrooms, cook the sole with
it, glaze in a salamande two or three minutes and serve.

Another is duck cooked with oranges. I know how to ask for it at the St. Regis and the Brevoort, but am not sure of the spelling. It sounds like Duck “Bigarade.” They do it well at the Brevoort. If potatoes are served with either of these dishes they should be potatoes gaufrettes—on a separate plate.

_Duck Bigarade_

To Roast: Select a young and very tender duck, prepare and
truss it for roasting. It should be roasted on the spit or
in the oven for fifteen to twenty-five minutes, according to
its size and the heat of the fire.

A domestic duck ought to be served quite rare, and should be
killed without bleeding. Dish it after untrussing and pour
over it a little of its gravy.

Sauce Bigarade: Peel an orange without touching the white
parts, cut the peel up into small, fine julienne. Plunge
it into boiling water, and cook until it is tender. Drain
and enclose it in a covered saucepan with four gills of
espagnole or brown sauce. Just when ready to serve finish
the sauce with a dash of cayenne pepper, meat glaze, the
orange juice and the juice of a lemon, strain through a
tamis, adding two ounces of fine butter.

LXIX

_S. S. McClure_

OMELETTE—AND PIE

I can give you a tip on how to prepare, in the very best fashion, two articles of food.

The first is omelette: The frying pan should be held at a slant, with the lower part immediately over a moderate heat, and continually the volume of eggs that becomes cooked should be scraped back and the liquid part allowed to flow over the pan thus emptied, and then when the omelette is, I should say, about two-thirds cooked, it should be removed from the fire and dished.

It is impossible to make an omelette of the utmost symmetry and firmness and have it good at the same time. If it is stiff enough to maintain a certain symmetry, then it is too stiff to be good. I have made an omelette in this fashion containing as many as eighteen eggs. I learned how to make omelette from Madame Poulard of Mont St. Michel in Normandy, one of the most famous omelette makers in Europe.

I am also particularly successful in making pies. On one occasion I made pies for one hundred and eighty-five officers on the troop-ship _Leviathan_. To make pies, one must have the best quality of butter and the best quality of flour. Use a pound of butter to every two pounds of flour. The butter must be rather firm and must be mixed with the flour with your hands. Then when you have a sort of a mass of dough on the table, make a little hollow in the middle, pour in a little cold water, mix it to such a consistency that it can be made into a roll perhaps as thick as your wrist. It will require about two inches to be rolled out thin for the crusts. Dust a little flour in the dish that it is to be baked in and put into the oven at such a temperature as would require one half an hour to bake. There’s a considerable secret in the choice of fruits. The top crust should have little apertures in it so as to permit the steam to escape. It is easier to make perfect pies than any other dish.

LXX

_Basil King_

LOBSTER Á LA KING

Boil medium sized lobsters. Let grow cold and remove meat. Put large piece of butter and one and one-half tablespoons of flour into double boiler. Stir until creamy. Add one pint of milk and cook about five minutes. Add lobster cut in small pieces and cook about fifteen minutes. Just before serving; add three tablespoons cream and one-half tumbler sherry or brandy.

_Note_: Unless brandy or sherry can be added it is useless to attempt this dish.

LXXI

_John A. Moroso_

SPAGHETTI-FOR-THE-GANG

Many a time as a very small boy I watched my distinguished Piedmontese grandfather grandly direct the cook. This is the way our spaghetti sauce was prepared. Buy about three or four pounds of solid meat from the round, cut thick. Ask for the “eye of the beef.” It is inexpensive. Cut little pockets in it and insert bits of fat bacon in some. In others stuff sage, thyme, parsley and bay leaf with salt and pepper to taste. Sometimes I spread thinly with mustard, the prepared sort; covering the top. A clove of garlic tucked in with the seasoning goes well, if you have Wop ancestry. Pale people use onions. But surely one or the other.

Grease well a deep iron skillet with iron top, the pot-roast utensil. When the gravy begins to drip add a little water, but not much. The steam makes the meat tender and brings out all the flavors in the little pockets. Baste from time to time just to get the aroma of the simmering mess and sharpen your appetite. Take a little wire and jab it in the roast after about an hour and twenty minutes and you’ll find out whether it is tender and juicy enough.

Put the big pot on and get your water boiling fast. Add a good sized kitchen spoon of salt. Better salt the water to taste. Throw in a pound of Italian made spaghetti ... the Farina spaghetti. It requires a certain kind of wheat to make good macaroni. Boil for twenty minutes. Drain off water.

To the rich gravy you will find the roast swimming in add a small can of tomato paste, stirring in slowly. As this is poured over the spaghetti add grated Roman cheese. You will get it all properly dressed by using two forks, lifting and dropping the strands. Serve piping hot with an automatic revolver at hand so that the man who cuts his can be disposed of promptly. Some twine the spaghetti about the fork. Others just lead a mass of it to the face and bite off what they want at that particular mastication.

A good salad and Italian bread, to be secured at any small dealer’s where the boss sings _Santa Lucia_ in a thin high voice as he slices the salami, goes well with the roast. This layout will last an old bachelor or a deserted husband two or three days. It’s grand when it’s warmed up in a boiler.

LXXII

_F. X. Leyendecker_

VEAU SAUTÉ MARENGO

During my Paris days (school days) I became very fond of two dishes and they still remain my favorites:

No. 1—Veau Sauté Marengo—nothing epicurean about this, but real tasty; a ragout of veal which must be served in a brown pot. It is flavored with tiny onions and mushrooms, olives and a delicious sauce. I have never found it quite so well prepared as in Paris.

Fry some small pieces of veal in oil, add one chopped onion,
one head of crushed garlic and when it is well brown strain
it, add one glass of white wine and reduce. Moisten it with
one quart of brown sauce. Add two pounds fresh tomatoes and
some fine herbs. Cook slowly for an hour and a half.

Put the meat in another pan, add few small onions cooked in
butter, some small mushrooms already cooked.

Dress and serve on toast fried in butter.

No. 2—Vol au Vent Financière—a pastry form filled with mushrooms, cubes of chicken, something else, and a good sauce. This also seems not quite the same outside of Paris.

VOL AU VENT FINANCIÉRE

Put four ounces of butter in a saucepan, add four ounces
of cooked sweetbread cut in three-sixteenth inch squares,
small bits of the white of chicken, some truffles, olives,
mushrooms, kidney and cock’s combs.

Moisten with one pint of Madeira sauce, let boil and
despumate; when the sauce is done strain it through a tamis,
fill your pastry crust and serve.

EDITOR’S NOTE:—The recipes are French, and properly prepared
and served, they will prove the real thing in Keokuk as well
as in the Quartier Latin.

LXXIII

_Eddie Cantor_

BOILED BEEF AND HORSERADISH SAUCE

I love boiled beef and horseradish sauce—I love it better than any other dish in the world!

Anybody knows how to boil beef. And a good horseradish sauce is made in this fashion.

Melt a good sized lump of the best butter—almost as big as an egg, is good sized. Add to this, first removing from the fire, about two tablespoonsful of flour. Stir the flour and butter together until the mixture is absolutely smooth, and then add cold milk—a trifle more than a half pint, a shade less than a pint. Put over a slow fire in a sauce pan or, for safety’s sake, a double-boiler. Cook slowly until the sauce is of the desired consistency, and then add your horseradish. If you like the sauce very hot add a lot of horseradish. If you like it moderate, a little horseradish. The best way is to begin with a teaspoonful and keep adding and tasting until it’s O. K. Salt and pepper to taste, of course. And, if you like it, a dash of celery salt.

LXXIV

_Frazier Hunt_

STUFFED CELERY

I like food. I like almost any kind of food. I’ve eaten all varieties—in great cities and in out of the way corners of the world. And I’ve never found anything that I couldn’t eat, if I were hungry enough!

But best of all I think that I like stuffed celery. It’s easy to fix, and it’s slightly out of the ordinary, and it’s possible to consume a lot of it without being looked down upon by those who are dining with you. Because everybody eats a lot of stuffed celery.

To a half pound of Roquefort cheese add a quarter of a pound of butter. Cream them together until they are as smooth as it is possible to make any mixture containing Roquefort cheese. Then add a dessertspoonful—or a tablespoonful, if you like—of Worcestershire sauce. A little salt, and some paprika, enough to slightly color the mixture. And then—

Take stalks of celery—very white and crisp and fresh. And stuff the hollow side, until it bulges, with the Roquefort mixture. And serve with your dinner, or after dinner, or with the salad, or all alone. It doesn’t matter when or where you place it on the menu, for it’s apt to be the dominant note!

LXXV

_William Slavins McNutt_

ORANGE COMPOTE

Orange Compote is my favorite dish. After my fourth I begin to forget that I’m a human being. After my sixth I can feel myself drifting into a blissfully comatose state—with only strength enough left to call for a seventh.

Orange Compote, at its best, may be obtained in any small Turkish or Armenian restaurant where the coffee is good and the dishes aren’t too offensively clean. When made at home it is never quite the same—I don’t know why. This, however, is the best working substitute that I am able to concoct.

Take as many oranges as your system is capable of absorbing, and peel them, removing all of the thin white inside skin, and all of the film-like tissue that divides an orange into sections. I forgot to mention that the orange should be large, luscious, juicy and free of seeds. Place the oranges in individual serving dishes and pour over them this sauce, while hot:

For about six oranges you will need one middle-sized jar of orange marmalade and one small can of Hawaiian pineapple. Put the marmalade, the pineapple—cut into small cubes—and the pineapple juice into a double boiler and cook, briskly, until the liquid begins to thicken. Then pour it over the uncooked oranges and allow them—each in its individual dish—to stand in the ice box until dessert time. Just before serving, sprinkle with a few pine nuts, or salted almonds. Pine nuts are best.

LXXVI

_Stephen Vincent Benet_

ZITELLI’S MACARONI STEW

Take one-half pound of real Italian macaroni, boil it in plenty of water, slightly salted, till soft, say, about twenty minutes; take one quart of tomatoes, one-half pint of water and two ounces of fat bacon cut into small pieces. Now one onion and a small bunch of parsley; boil all these together (apart from the macaroni) for half an hour, then pass the mixture through a colander; add one tablespoonful of butter and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Put it on the fire again and let it boil for five minutes. Let the macaroni and the sauce both be very hot. In a tureen place a layer of the macaroni covered with grated cheese; then cover with a ladleful of the sauce and repeat the layers until the entire amount is served. It should be dished in deep soup plates for individual servings.

LXXVII

_James R. Quirk_

TOMATO WIGGLE

To one pound of diced American cheese, add one can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup. Heat over a slow fire until a thick, smooth mass has been obtained. And then—

Add one beaten egg, and follow it quickly with a cup of cream or very rich milk. Stir in a dessertspoonful of Worcestershire Sauce, and enough salt to give the proper kick.

Serve on soda crackers that have been heated—large soda crackers.

The name? That’s just to make it difficult.

LXXVIII

_Charles W. Eliot_

A FAVORITE MENU

I can hardly say that I have a “favorite dish.” But a favorite menu for luncheon or dinner is clam soup, corned beef hash, and baked Indian pudding.

_Note._—If you want to try Dr. Eliot’s menu why not use Rex
Beach’s clam specialty?

Then for the corned beef hash get plenty of fine lean corned
beef and cut it into one-eighth inch bits.

Chop one small onion into very fine particles. Take cold
boiled potatoes (fairly firm) and cut or chop.

Prepare some drawn butter and add a few drops of
Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Now mix the meat,
potatoes, onion and drawn butter. Mold and pat into small,
flat, elliptical loaves (individual servings) and fry in
a hot, lightly buttered pan. Turn frequently until well
browned on both sides. Serve sprinkled with minced parsley.

Top off with this baked Indian pudding:

You must have 1 quart of milk, 3 eggs, ½ cup of the
finest seeded raisins, 1 teaspoonful of salt, 2 heaping
tablespoonsful of corn meal, 4 heaping tablespoonsful of
sugar, 1 heaping tablespoonful of butter.

Boil the milk in a double boiler and sprinkle in the corn meal, stirring all the time. Cook twelve minutes.

Beat the eggs, adding the salt, sugar and a half teaspoonful of ground ginger. Add this mixture with the butter to milk and meal, then add the raisins and stir until perfectly mixed. Remove from the double boiler and bake for one hour.

You will agree with Dr. Eliot.

LXXIX

_H. S. Cumming_

(Surgeon General, U.S.P.H.S.)

VIRGINIA EGG BREAD

I am particularly fond of this dish—it is, I think, my favorite, and I pass along the recipe with the hope that others will find it as satisfying and delicious as do those who already list it among their favorites.

1 cup water ground corn meal (white)
2½ cups boiling water
1 cup sweet milk
3 or 4 eggs
1 teaspoonful salt
2 tablespoonsful butter
2 teaspoonsful sugar

Stir boiling water into the sifted meal; add sweet milk; when cool break eggs into the mixture and beat thoroughly; add salt, sugar and butter melted. Bake in well buttered baking dish in hot oven.

LXXX

_Joseph Santley_

COCOA CREAM CAKE

I will admit that it sounds a good deal like “pink sponge cake” to announce a preference for anything so epicureanly flippant as cocoa cream cake. But it is the one dish that I prefer above any other, and in justice to truth and accuracy, I repeat—my favorite is cocoa cream cake! And my own dear mother will have to stand the responsibility for whatever shame comes to me by openly declaring it. You see, she makes it. And it was from her I learned the secret of its concoction.

Here is the recipe:

Four eggs, one cup of sugar, one cup of cocoa, a teaspoonful of vanilla, and a teaspoonful of baking powder. Cream yolks of eggs and sugar _well_; add the vanilla. Sift the cocoa and baking powder well, and add to the eggs and sugar. Last of all stir in the whites of the eggs, beaten. Bake in two layers, for about ten minutes. When cold whip a pint of thick cream with a teaspoonful of vanilla and sugar to taste—placing half between the layers and half on top.

Oh, boy!

LXXXI

_A. Hamilton Gibbs_

SQUAB EN CASSEROLE

In a casserole put generous layer of sliced onion sauté, two sliced tomatoes sauté, two cups of mushrooms, two cups of potato balls, and a little fresh parsley also sauté. (All the vegetables should be fried in butter). On top place, breast up, a squab or a one-pound chicken—one for each person. On each breast place a slice of crisp fried bacon. Over all pour some rich well-seasoned brown sauce, filling the casserole up with the chicken breasts—three-quarters full—preferably with a cup of sherry added last, if your cellar will still produce it!

Place the casserole in a hot oven, uncovered. When the breasts are brown, cool oven to a moderate heat, cover the casserole and cook for two hours. Then remove the casserole and serve from dish.

The result is an epicurean masterpiece.

LXXXII

_Richard Barthelmess_

SPICED GRAPES

This dish is always reminiscent, to me, of low New England farmhouses, with green blinds. You know the kind—set far back from the road, among tall trees, with hollyhocks, and rose geraniums and old fashioned pinks in the garden. When I see such a house—and I can, sometimes, by closing my eyes—I can always smell the pungent scent of spiced grapes, cooking away on an immaculate kitchen range.

This is the rule for making spiced grapes. A rule that most New England families seem to follow.

To seven pounds of grapes there should be added these materials—three pounds of granulated sugar, one cup of vinegar, two tablespoonsful of ground cinnamon, and one tablespoonful of ground cloves.

Weigh the grapes, wash and pulp them. Cook the pulp until the seeds are loosened—then press the mass through a sieve. Cook the skins just as long as you cook the pulps. Put them on the same stove, but in separate kettles. Add the strained pulps to the skins, then vinegar, sugar, and spices. And cook until the mixture thickens.

This, when served with cold meat, changes a commonplace supper of left-overs into a feast.

LXXXIII

_Don Juan y Gayangos_

(Ambassador to the United States, from Spain)

EGG PLANT AU GRATIN

Peel the egg plant.

Whiten it in salty water, and dry.

Fry, in butter, with salt sprinkled on each piece.

Place in a dish with grated cheese, tomato sauce, and mushrooms, which have been cut into small pieces and put thickly between the layers of egg plant.

Bake, until well cooked, in a moderate oven.

LXXXIV

_Samuel G. Blythe_

TRIPE Á LA MODE DE CAEN Á LA ROY CARRUTHERS

Only an artist should attempt to make Tripe à la Mode de Caen because only an artist can make it. It requires the soul of a poet, the spirit of a painter, and the exaltation of a violin virtuoso in the maker as a prerequisite for its concoction. Of course, it may be eaten by the commonalty, but it is too good for them. It really is a dish for the intelligentsia.

There are not more than a dozen people in the United States who have the temperament and the touch required. One of these is Roy Carruthers. And herewith, as my favorite recipe, I set down the complicated but necessary, procedure for producing this work of art:

Take four pounds of fresh honeycomb tripe and one pound of fresh manyplies tripe (the thickest part) and wash thoroughly in many changes of fresh water. Drain well, and scrape to have all absolutely clean. Take two calf’s feet and carefully bone each foot and cut into pieces two inches square. Have a large earthen pot, scrupulously clean, and line sides and bottom of this pot with very thin slices of larding pork. Place tripe and cut up feet in pot.

Add two small red carrots, two white onions with two cloves stuck in each, and half of a sound, seeded pepper. Make a bouquet of two leeks, two branches of celery, three branches of parsley, and a sprig of thyme, marjoram, a blade of mace and a bay leaf—only one. Put this bouquet in the pot and pour in a half pint of white wine, a pint of cider and a quart of consomme or white broth. Season with a full teaspoon of salt and half a spoon of black pepper.

Now make a stiff dough with a pound of white flour and two gills of water, roll out on a table until you have enough to cover the pot, and cover closely, making sure there can be no evaporation.

Place pot in a very slow oven and cook for fifteen hours.

Then lift up the cover, skim off the fat, and remove the bouquet of herbs and the vegetables.

Chop together six shallots, or scallions if shallots are not procurable, the red part of a carrot, a bean of sound garlic, two ounces of raw ham and an ounce of raw lean pork. Place this hash in a saucepan with a tablespoon of melted butter, cook gently on the fire for five minutes, stirring lightly, and then pour in half a gill of cognac and let it reduce briskly until it is nearly dry.

Put the contents of the pot on the saucepan, add a gill of pure tomato juice, mix lightly with a wooden spoon, and cook slowly for forty-five minutes.

Then dress the tripe on a deep hot dish, sprinkle a little freshly chopped parsley over and send to table very hot with twelve slices of toasted French bread.

That is real Tripe à la mode de Caen. All others are imitations.

LXXXV

_Charles H. Taylor_

CLAM CHOWDER

Try out salt pork. Take out the scraps. Cut up onions and fry them in the pork fat until they are a golden brown. Open clams and save all the clam water. (Most chefs steam the clams first because they are so much easier to handle, but if you want the real flavor you want to shell the clams, wash the meat over carefully and let the clam water settle and dip it out instead of pouring it into your kettle so as to leave out the sand.)

Add to the onions enough hot water to cover them, put in clam water and the bellies of the clams. Cook until the bellies of the clams have practically disappeared (about two hours). Then add whatever more hot water is necessary, add the rest of your clam meat, after having first cut off the black end of the head, and run the meat through the coarsest cutting disk of your meat grinder. Cook until clams are very nearly done and then add your sliced white potato. Cook again until the potatoes are done. Then add whatever milk you put in and let it come to a boil. Put into the chowder what we call Boston cracker. They are shaped like a water cracker only they are soft. Split them in halves. These will soften up immediately and you can then serve your chowder.

Do not use any flour for thickening. If the chowder is prepared and the bellies of the clams cooked as above, this will make the broth thicken up.

LXXXVI

_Cyrus H. K. Curtis_

BAKED BEANS

(_My Favorite Dish_)

To prepare Mr. Curtis’ favorite food is no difficult task and any number of methods original and otherwise may be followed.

For the best results have a large covered bean pot and the rest is easy.

Select fine white or navy beans. Wash them thoroughly and let them soak in clear water for several hours—most folks soak them all night.

Place the beans in the pot with several pieces of salt pork (with fat), cover with water slightly salted. Put the lid on the pot and bake in a moderate oven until done. That’s plain baked beans.

Chili sauce or tomato catsup or chopped tomatoes may be added to taste.

Look at the beans occasionally and add water if they seem too dry or in danger of burning.

Another method which produces wonderful results is to omit the pork and tomato preparations and add generous lumps of butter and brown sugar—better still, add genuine sorghum molasses. When you do it this way be extra careful to see that _just enough water_ is added in small quantities to prevent burning.

Always remove from the oven while the beans are still whole. If baked too long they will break up. The time necessary for baking will vary according to the heat of the oven and the length of time the beans were soaked.

LXXXVII

_Frederick Arnold Kummer_

SPAGHETTI DIABOLIQUE

Brown one and a half pounds top plate of beef in half a cup of boiling olive oil for one hour, turning frequently. Mince the shells of four sweet peppers, one bunch of celery, one bunch of parsley, three large onions, two sections of clove garlic, add a salt-spoonful of ground thyme, a teaspoonful of salt, one of black pepper and red pepper to taste. Add one quart of tomatoes, pour over the beef, cook for an hour, add a pint of water and cook slowly for two hours more.

To make the spaghetti: Measure a quart of flour, break in yolks of three eggs, add three half eggshells full of ice water, work to the proper consistency, roll and cut into thin strips. When dry cook in boiling salted water for twenty minutes.

Place spaghetti in the center of a dish, pour the sauce and shredded meat around it, and serve.

EDITOR’S NOTE:—From the several “favorite dishes” of
spaghetti mentioned in this volume it would seem that there
is a decided male preference for this particular article of
diet. Mr. Kummer goes the limit and tells how to make the
spaghetti, itself!

LXXXVIII

_Albert D. Lasker_

CHICKEN PAPRIKA

Say a five pound chicken—do it this way and see how you like it.

Slice four small onions. Put one-sixth pound of butter into pan, add onions and let cook over fire until soft and a light brown in color. Add two teaspoonsful of paprika and put in the chicken piece by piece, fitting into kettle; add 1¼ tablespoonsful of salt, cover tightly and cook until soft (two hours or more). Remove the chicken, and into the gravy add 1¼ tablespoonsful of canned tomatoes; shake in a tablespoonful of flour and stir well; add ¾ pint of sour cream and stir well over the fire. Strain over the chicken; heat again and serve.

LXXXIX

_Henry van Dyke_

FISH CHOWDER

I will say that I like to cook (and if I have good luck, to eat) a dish for which the following is the recipe:

First catch your fish with hook and line,—salmon, trout or bass, cod, haddock or blue-fish. Then obtain a good sized kettle and put into it, first a layer of sliced potatoes, then a fine sprinkling of fine sliced onion, then a layer of fat pork cut into small cubes, then a layer of fish, skinned and sliced, then a layer of crackers or thin pilot biscuit. Sprinkle salt and pepper on each layer according to taste. Repeat the layers from three to five times according to the size of your kettle. Fill the pot moderately full with water and put it on the fire to cook slowly. If the water gets low replenish it. You can tell when the dish is done by testing the potatoes or the fish with a fork. As a rule it should take about an hour to cook. Just before the end put in two or three cupfuls of milk. If your taste is slightly vitiated by contact with the world you may add a double spoonful of some spicy sauce. But for my part I like a chowder best _au naturel_.

XC

_Macklyn Arbuckle_

SOUTHERN GUMBO Á LA “COUNTY CHAIRMAN”

A year-old fowl. Joint it as you would for frying.

Soup kettle ready on the back of the stove with cold water.

Then, the frying pan—

About one-half dozen thin slices of the best bacon. Reserve this for the kettle later.

Bacon fat in the frying pan—fry the chicken very brown. As soon as each piece of chicken is brown place it in the kettle—then put the kettle over the fire. Let it boil.

Add six small onions or three large ones. Sliced and fried in the bacon grease.

Onions fried golden brown.

Then to the onions add a can of tomatoes or the equivalent of sliced tomatoes.

Keep stirring from the bottom to prevent burning.

All must cook until it has thickened.

While cooking add chili peppers cut fine, green peppers the same, also okra.

Add one or two large bay leaves and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Onions, tomatoes and peppers should be added to the chicken in the kettle when they have cooked sufficiently.

If fresh okra is not available use the best canned kind.

About ten minutes before the Gumbo is ready add—

One can of Golden Bantam Corn.

To serve with the Gumbo have a dish of perfectly cooked rice. You may use the same general formula for Crab or Oyster Gumbo. A Combination Salad is about the only thing worth serving with Gumbo. Although you might wash it down with a bottle of PRE-WAR IMPORTED CLARET—HELP!!!!

XCI

_John Taintor Foote_

MORELS SAUTÉ

There is a dish—a gastronomical ecstasy—the faintest conception of which is magnificently beyond the pen. The fork is the one utensil that can convey to the uninitiated the unique, the utterly sublime flavor of Morels sauté.

A Morel is—in the vernacular of the countryside—a sponge mushroom. It is to be found in ancient, unplowed orchards during the pastel phase of spring when apple trees blossom and bees zoom and bumble and hum in a languid shower of pink and white petals.

Close to a girthy apple tree, scabrous with age, pock-marked by the bills of countless woodpeckers, the Morels, now and then—alas, it is only now and then—poke up through the cold, damp, chocolate-colored earth and flourish shyly for a fortnight or so.

A full day’s tramping through orchard after orchard may win perhaps two dozen of these tiny sponges that have absorbed the very essence of spring. They are almost the exact color of the matted, winter-killed grass in which they nestle to defy all but the most careful searching. A full day’s work for each two dozen, but never was a day’s wage more ample, more exquisitely satisfying.

Take the hard-won double dozen home. Give them in reverent silence to the cook. She knows—if, by the grace of God, she was with you so long ago as the previous spring—just what to do. She will plop the Morels into well salted water, there to remain the night through. In the morning she will place them in a colander to drain for half an hour. She will then transfer them to a frying pan of hot butter, where they will sputter and sizzle for twenty minutes. During that twenty minutes there will waft into the living room, where you are making a pitiful pretense of reading the morning paper, an odor straight from the kitchens of heaven.

You throw down the newspaper and burst with glaring eyes into the dining room. You seat yourself at the table and fiddle wildly with knife and fork and spoon.... Years later the waitress appears with a dish and then—I faint—I swoon—I cannot go on!

XCII

_Maurice Francis Egan_

A DIPLOMATIST’S RECEIPT FOR WELSH RABBIT

I have no hesitation in saying that my recipe for Welsh Rabbit is the best yet invented. It has an international reputation. It has been eaten with gusto by Russians, Turks and some Englishmen who, strange to say, are distinguished _gourmets_. There have been Frenchmen who were too reserved, perhaps, in their praise of it, but then it must be remembered that Welsh rabbit is not sympathetic with the Gallic temperament. The French prefer _timbales de fromage_.

Put a large chafing dish over the hot water pan in which the water must be boiling. Never let the temperature of the heat change for a moment; therefore a big alcohol lamp is preferable. Grate ordinary cheese or cut it into the shape of dice. Drop in a lump of butter of the size of an English walnut. Pour into the pan a pint of near beer or near Budweiser. Slightly heat it. In the old days musty ale was everything. To-day the symbol of beer is almost sufficient. Drop in a half teaspoonful of strong red pepper and then a tablespoonful of paprika,—paprika being merely a flavor and not a condiment. Keep the beer hot; then drop two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, a tablespoon of catsup and a half teaspoon of mustard. When this mixture boils, put in the cheese and stir in one direction until the mixture assumes the consistency of cream.

Use the thick plates sold in the department stores especially for Welsh Rabbit. Have them heated so that the cheese will sizzle when it touches them. Have ready a sufficient number of pieces of toasted bread, the crust carefully cut off. When the cheese is sufficiently plastic, dip a round of toast into it, let it remain for a second, transfer it to the hot plate and _at once_ ladle the mixture in the pan over the toast with neatness and dispatch and you will have an unprecedented success, if no conversation is permitted until the rabbit is eaten. The sound of a human voice lowers its temperature. Coffee or tea must never be partaken of until the morsels are disposed of. During the eating process, Budweiser is a substitute for the real thing—which was musty ale or the Dog’s Head variety.

XCIII

_Livingston Farrand_

SAUSAGE AND GRIDDLE CAKES

I think I would say that my favorite dish is sausage and griddle cakes for breakfast on a cold winter morning. I would call attention to the fact that the sausages should be in cake form and not in skins and that the griddle cakes should be of wheat flour. I am sure there are millions of Americans who agree with me.

EDITOR’S NOTE:—Here is the best of a dozen tried recipes for
the cakes.

To one cup of Hecker’s, or any excellent self-raising flour
(not pancake!) add a full half cup of milk and a beaten egg
mixed together. A little cream will help at this point, but
it isn’t absolutely necessary.

Melt, now, a lump of butter the size of a good big walnut
and stir it into the mixture. Beat for a moment and if the
consistency does not seem just right add a shade more of
milk or flour. The mixture or batter should be about as
thick as molasses in the winter time.

For the very perfection in results bake the cakes on a
soapstone griddle and serve with the best maple syrup
obtainable.

This recipe can be safely doubled any number of times and
then some! As above it serves two unless more are desired,
in which case it is easy to duplicate in no time.

XCIV

_F. Ziegfeld, Jr._

LITTLE CHICKEN TARTS

Here is a dish that I am very fond of and it is really very easy to prepare. The tart molds may be purchased already made, which simplifies things somewhat if you do not want to bother with the dough, but in case you cannot get them here is the whole process and I can vouch for the results.

2 cups of chopped chicken (cooked) or one large can Chicken à la King
½ cup evaporated milk
2 eggs
1 onion
2 cups sifted flour
½ cup shortening
½ cup water
1 teaspoonful salt
Pepper
Parsley
Ice water

Mix salt and flour—cut in the chilled shortening with two knives until the mixture is as fine as meal. With a broad-bladed knife stir in ice water slowly until dough clings around knife in a ball, leaving sides of bowl perfectly clean. Toss dough on floured bread board. Flour the rolling pin and roll it out very thin. Keep the pin well floured. Rub the outside of patty pans or jelly molds with a little shortening and lay dough over these smoothly, bringing it well over the edge. Bake upside down for about ten minutes in a hot oven. If Chicken à la King is used for a filling it will not require any special preparation, but if you really want to cook, and you use the cold chicken, proceed as follows:

Cut the chicken in small pieces, but do not mince. Mince onion and cook until slightly brown in a little butter. Stir in a tablespoonful of flour, add milk and water. When smooth add chicken and season to taste. When bubbling take from the fire and stir in the slightly beaten eggs. Let cool, then fill the pastry shells. The remainder of the pastry dough should have been kept in the ice box. Get it out. Roll it thin as before. Cut in round pieces to cover the tops of the tarts. Wet the edges of the tarts with cold water; press on the covers, bringing the edges well down as they shrink a bit in baking. Slit the tops before putting on. Press the edges with tines of fork. Garnish with parsley.

XCV

_Harold Lloyd_

LEMON LAYER CAKE