The Prison Cookbook
Page 19
4Corned Beef and Pickle Roll, Crisps
DGrilled Gammon,
Mashed Potato, Green Beans
5Jacket Potato and Coleslaw
EPork Pie Salad
XEves Pudding
YFresh Fruit
Fri
Breakfast pack Milk
(semi-skim) Bread Roll
Bread and Soup
1Vegetable Spring Roll, Chips and Peas
ABean and Vegetable Curry, Boiled Rice, Cauliflower
2Breaded Fish, Chips and Peas
BChicken Chasseur,
Boiled Rice, Cauliflower
3Cheese and Beano Grill, Chips and Peas
CHalal Beef Casserole, Boiled Rice, Cauliflower
4Cheese and Tomato Roll, Crisps
DFish in Parsley Sauce, Boiled Rice, Cauliflower
5Jacket Potato and Tuna
EVegetable Quiche Salad
XSponge Pudding and Custard
YFresh Fruit
Sat
Breakfast pack Milk
(semi-skim) Bread Roll
Bread
1Veg Sausage x 2, Fried Egg, Hash Brown x 2
ASoya Lasagne
Garlic Bread and Salad
2Chicken Sausage x 1, Bacon x 1, Hash Brown x 2, Fried Egg
BMinced Beef Lasagne Garlic Bread and Salad
3Halal Chicken Sausage x 2, Hash Brown x 2, Fried Egg
CHalal Beef Italienne Garlic Bread and Salad
(1-3 served with Tinned Tomato and Toast)
DRice and Bean Stuffed Peppers Salad
4Turkey Salad Roll, Crisps
ECheese Salad
5Jacket Potato and Corded Beans
XSultana Scone
YFresh Fruit
NOTES
Vegetarian Cottage Pie made here as bought in product is not Vegan friendly.
Jacket Potato is served with its filling only.
Crisps go with Lunchtime Rolls only.
Soya Lasagne keep portions back for Vegans and top with Tomato Sauce instead of Cheese Sauce. Garlic Bread not suitable for Vegans.
Vegetable Supreme to be made with Soya Milk and Vegan Margarine.
Vegans to be given a portion of Mushrooms in place of Fried Egg on Saturday.
INMATE COOKS
Unskilled inmate labour has long been used in prison kitchens to help prepare the daily output of meals. In more recent times, however, there has been increasing provision for prisoners to acquire their own culinary skills. In one early scheme, at Cardiff prison in 1905, a cookery demonstrator from the local university gave female inmates lectures on matters such as how to provide and prepare meals, and the most nourishing and economical foods.246 Training in skills such as cookery and needlework became a standard part of the regime at borstal establishments, with the aim of helping inmates earn their own livelihood after release. Men, too, were included. At Wormwood Scrubs in 1909, eleven young male offenders held under the modified borstal system gained cookery certificates from the National Food Association.247 By the 1930s, borstals were offering six-month-long training courses in ‘simple cookery’, leading to an examination by the Universal Cookery and Food Association.248 A course was also offered in ‘nautical cooking’ – presumably aimed at young men – with a ‘bread-bakery and yeast-goods’ class replacing it in 1953.249
By the 1950s, evening cookery classes were being held in many prisons and continued to grow in popularity – Pentonville’s 1992 cookery course was reported as being heavily oversubscribed.250 Formal qualifications continue to be seen as a valuable result of such training with several prisons now entering candidates for National Vocational Qualifications in Food Preparation and Cooking. At High Downs prison, regular ‘gourmet lunches’ are held where those in training can try and impress potential outside employers with menus such as pumpkin soup with chive and Gruyere croutons, followed by roast fillet of beef with watercress puree and truffle and brandy sauce, or pan-fried Dover sole on roasted aubergine with tomato and olive tapenade rounded off with chocolate and raspberry bavarois.251
A lesson in how to make scones for inmates at Askham Grange female training prison in around 1950.
FEASTS FOR BEASTS
Improvements in prison food have not always met with universal approval. Even the culinary treats traditionally served on Christmas Day have sometimes sparked controversy. The exact details of the Christmas fare served to inmates rarely feature in official records, since it was – and still is – largely a matter of local discretion. The 1946 Christmas menu at Camp Hill prison, recorded by a former inmate, was said to be typical of its time:
Breakfast: Fried egg, with two rashers of bacon and fried bread. Sweetened porridge and tea. The usual ‘cob’ and a double ration of margarine.
Dinner: Roast beef and/or mutton. Roast and/or boiled potatoes. Greens. Christmas pudding, sauce, custard. Mince-pies, sweet tea. A packet of pressed dates or figs to each man, with a packet of ten cigarettes. Apples, nuts.
Tea or Supper: Bread. Double ration of sugar and margarine. Cocoa. Christmas cake with marzipan and icing. Mince pies, nuts, jam.252
The Christmas ‘extras’ at Camp Hill were largely self-funded and relied on the prison cook saving up a small part of the normal rations for several weeks beforehand. Christmas donations from outside were not welcome, however. Prison standing orders required that:
All offers of fruit, cake, &c., for the prisoners at Christmas will be courteously declined; intending donors may be informed that a special dinner is given to all prisoners on Christmas Day, and it may be suggested that the money … could, with greater advantage, be given to a Prisoners’ Aid Society.253
In more recent times, providing prisoners with seasonal indulgences is a topic that has often received critical comment in the popular press. A typical example in The Sun newspaper, under the headline ‘Feasts for the Beasts’, bemoaned the Christmas ‘pampering’ of inmates at Wakefield prison where a number of convicted murderers and sex offenders were being held. 254 The Christmas Day lunch menu in 2008 reportedly included a choice of turkey with chipolata sausages, roast lamb with mint sauce or Halal roast beef with horseradish, together with roast potatoes, stuffing and onion gravy. The dessert alternatives were Christmas pudding and rum sauce or fruit cocktail with melon. Boxing Day options included buttered corn-on-the-cob or lemon and peppercorn escalopes, followed by half a roast chicken and mushroom sauce, roast beef with horseradish or gammon steak with pineapple. New Year’s Day was celebrated with apple and cranberry roast grill, salmon in a dill sauce, roast pork with apple sauce or braised steak. The pudding menu included luxury chocolate ice-cream and strawberry cheesecake.
In 2007, following a request under the Freedom of Information Act, the Home Office released details of the previous year’s Christmas Day menu (below) at Exeter prison which was calculated to cost £2.50 per head:
Breakfast:
Cereal, Scrambled Egg, Tinned Tomatoes, Grilled Sausage, Toast / Marmalade, Beverage pack
Lunch: (Pre-select)
Roast Turkey, Bacon Roll, Stuffing
Salmon Fillet and Parsley Butter
Vegetarian Nut Roast
Halal Chicken Kiev
Chicken Roll Sandwich
Chicken Roll Salad
(All served with Roast Potatoes, Brussels Sprouts, and Baby Carrots)
Christmas Pudding and Vanilla Sauce
Coffee
Dinner: (No Pre–select)
Sliced Gammon Ham
Spicy Chicken Pizza
Cheese and Tomato Pizza
Chips
Pasta Salad
Christmas Muffin
Mince Pie
The members of the 1878 Committee on prison dietaries, for whom a Spartan diet provided ‘an opportunity for the infliction of salutary punishment’, were no doubt turning in their graves.
MANUAL
OF
COOKING & BAKING
FOR THE USE OF
PRISON OFFICERS.
PRINTED AT H. M. CONVICT PRISON, PARKHURST.
1902
(8553)
CONTENTS.*
CHAPTER I.
Elementary Observations on Cooking and Food—Classification of Food. Stuffs—Effects of Cooking upon Food-stuffs
CHAPTER II.
General Instructions for the Guidance of Cooks and Bakers
CHAPTER III.
Observations on the Selection and Choice of Food Materials— Meat—Suet— Fish— Eggs— Milk— Butter— Cheese— Bacon— Fowls—Cabbage—Carrots—Parsnips—Turnips—Onions—Potatoes —Peas—Beans—Rice—Sugar—Tea—Wheat—Whole-meal—Flour—Oatmeal
CHAPTER IV.
General directions for the various methods of Cooking—Guide for cooking meat—Boiling—Steaming—Baking—Roasting— Gravy—Stewing—Broiling and Grilling—Frying—General rules for cooking Vegetables—Stock-pot, etc.
CHAPTER V.
Prison Diets, their ingredients, method and instructions in preparation—Soup for Local Prisons—Vegetable Soup (Beef) for Convict Prisons—Boiled Bacon—Haricot Beans—Pea Soup —Meat Liquor—Broth made from the above—Cocoa—Tea— Potatoes—Suet Pudding—Gruel—Porridge-—Milk Porridge
CHAPTER VI.
Hospital Diets—Instruction and mode of preparation—Beef Tea—Veal Broth—Mutton Broth—Chicken Broth—Vegetable flavouring—Directions for frying fish—How to make the batter for frying fish—Directions for boiling fish—Sauce for fish—Fish stew—Fish cakes—Chicken stew—Chicken balls—Minced chicken—Boiled rabbit—Onion sauce—Batter pudding—Broiled chop—Stewed chop or cutlets—Cornflour cup (Low Diet)—Arrowroot—Rice pudding—Tapioca or Sago pudding—Ordinary custard pudding—Custard pudding—Cornflour mould—Cornflour, thin, like gruel—Stewed figs—Stewed prunes—Apple jelly—Milk jelly
CHAPTER VII.
Bread and Bread-making—Introductory Observations on the Science of Bread-making—Rules for Bread-making—Yeast— Ferment—Sponges—Doughs—Salt—Moulding—The Oven and Baking—Testing the oven heat
CHAPTER VIII.
Practical Methods of Bread-making—How to make Malt Yeasts—Yeast Ferments (compressed and liquid yeasts)—Setting the Sponge—Making the Dough—Proving—Baking—Wholemeal Bread No. 1 or No. 2—White Bread—Hints on Faulty Bread
DIETARY SCALES, &c.
* Please note that page numbers indicated here reflect this book and not the original Manual of Cooking and Baking
PREFACE.
IT having been one of the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Prison Dietaries that a Manual of Cooking should be in the hands of Prison Cooks, the following instructions have been prepared to form a culinary guide for everyday reference for the Cook and Baker.
A chapter on the selection of food-stuffs has been added with the desire that it may prove useful, not only to the Cook, but to all those who have to inspect and supervise prison food supplies.
By Order,
E. G. CLAYTON,
Secretary.
PRISON COMMISSION,
January, 1902.
MANUAL: COOKING & BAKING.
CHAPTER I.
ELEMENTARY OBSERVATIONS.
COOKERY, though essentially a manipulative art, requires also a certain amount of scientific knowledge in order to understand the rudiments which underlie the art. For if performed unsystematically or on the so-called rule of thumb principle, it is rarely uniform, and the results obtained are too often unsatisfactory and disappointing. It is a handicraft which cannot be learnt merely by scientific or theoretical training, but also needs much assiduous and constant practice, on well recognised methods, before any degree of proficiency can be attained. Most of the natural substances used as food, when raw, are difficult or even impossible to digest, and it is only by sundry manipulations, such as the application of moisture and heat, or in other words by cooking, that they are rendered palatable and digestible.
For cooking to be a success it is important that the cook should not only know how to select the various ingredients used, and when rightly. selected how to prepare them, but he should also possess some acquaintance with the composition of the various food materials employed and understand the changes brought about by the application of heat, &c.
Food is necessary to repair the waste that is constantly going on in the body and also to maintain its natural warmth. Food stuffs have therefore been described as (1) Tissue-formers and (2) Heat-producers. This division however is somewhat misleading and inaccurate, for most foods are not absolutely restricted to one or other of these functions, but may combine the two actions, though in very different degrees.
But as man derives his food from the animal and vegetable kingdom as well as from the mineral world, foods can be more scientifically divided into (I) the Organic, as belonging to the active or living world, and (II) the Inorganic, as belonging to the non-living world; these broad divisions, being classified into five groups, according to their chemical constituents, in the following way:—
I. ORGANIC.
(a)Nitrogenous substances, or Albuminoids; so called because their type is that of the albumen (white) of egg, as for example the syntonin and gelatin of meat, the gluten of flour, and casein, the chief constituent of cheese. All these contain the four chemical elements,.carfeon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, sometimes also phosphorus and sulphur.
(b)Carbohydrates, which are such substances as starch, sugar, dextrine, &c., and they derive their name from the fact that they are composed of carbon and water.
(c)Fats; Oils, and all vegetable and animal fatty matters, such as butter, cream, suet, lard, &c., come under this head; these contain carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but the oxygen is less in amount than in the carbohydrates.
II. INORGANIC.
(d)Salts.
(e)Water.
The Albuminoids are to be found chiefly in the flesh of Meat, Fish, Poultry, Milk and Eggs, and also in certain fruits, as Lentils, Peas and Beans.
The Carbohydrates are to be found chiefly in Flour, Oatmeal, and other Cereals, as Maize, Rice, Barley, and in Vegetables, especially Potatoes, and Fruits.
It is not to be assumed that the foods which principally contain albuminoids do not contain fats, salts, and a certain amount of carbohydrates, or that those consisting chiefly of carbohydrates do not contain some of the other alimentary substances; for example, meat, besides albuminoids, contains more or less fat and salts, flour contains a nitrogenous body called gluten and a small amount of fat as well as the starchy matter. Milk contains all the elements of a typical diet, hence it is called a “complete food.” Eggs form another example of the natural admixture of the various alimentary principles.
Except in infancy and in sickness, man does not live exclusively on milk and eggs, for many reasons; and for the purposes of ordinary life we find it more expedient to amalgamate and partake of various kinds of foods. A “mixed” diet is the universal practice.
Man is the only animal that cooks his food; let us see the reasons for his doing so. It has already been said that cooking renders food more easily digested; it does more, it makes it pleasing to the eye, and agreeable to the palate and olfactory organ, thus increasing the desire to take the nourishment necessary for the body. The exposure of food to a high temperature also affords security, by destroying parasitic or other minute living creatures or germs which may accidentally be present in it. Food taken warm promotes and stimulates the digestive action of the stomach.
The various methods of cooking consist chiefly in exposing the food to various degrees of heat, according to the character of the article to be cooked and the effect which is aimed at.
Meat possesses great advantages as a form of food, and is an article of diet which cooking makes either most desirable or quite the reverse. In the raw state it is tough and tenacious, and torn apart with difficulty; but when subjected to the proper degree of heat, for a sufficient length of time and no longer, the connective tissue which binds the muscular fibre
s together is softened and gelatinized, the muscle fibres themselves, though becoming more firm and solid, owing to the coagulation of the albumen, lose much of their toughness, and are far more readily divided or masticated by the teeth; sundry extractive matters and juices are also set free and developed, which are agreeable both to the taste and smell. These juices are often described as “osmazome,” and are the substances which give the flavour to meat. The different way of applying the heat varies according to the object required, and it is only by constant practice and study, that the correct degree of heat necessary for cooking can be acquired; for example, in roasting, the object is to retain the juices of the meat as much as possible, to have the surface nicely browned, and the interior of the joint sufficiently cooked. In order to attain this, the joint is at first exposed to a strong heat, and afterwards removed further from the fire and cooked slowly; by these means the albuminous matter in the external layers of the joint is rapidly coagulated, and forms a protective crust which prevents the escape of the juices; the subsequent lower temperature for a longer time coagulating the albumen slowly without any great shrinking or hardening of the flesh. Again, in boiling, the method varies according to the object desired. When a joint is required to be boiled, it is plunged into water which is already boiling, and kept on the boil for about ten minutes, to coagulate rapidly the external surface; the heat then is reduced to from 150° Fah., to 160° Fah., that is, slow simmering heat, until the joint is sufficiently cooked. Should broth be required, the meat is cut into several small pieces and put into cold water, and the temperature gradually raised to about 185° Fah., the object here being to allow the juices of the meat to pass into the fluid, the meat itself being tender and still retaining much nourishment. In the preparation of soups, when the meat, &c., is not served, prolonged and continuous, but not too fast boiling is required in order to fully extract the gelatine. The addition of salt to the water will help in this extraction. Boiled in this manner the nutritive principles of the meat pass out as completely as possible, the residue, fibres, &c., left being only a tough, tasteless, stringy mass. It is thus seen that in boiling either the meat must be sacrificed to the broth, or the broth to the meat.