Choice Cuts

by Mark Kurlansky

  Hot chocolate can be made with either sweet chocolate, unsweetened chocolate, or semisweet chocolate. The French use sweet chocolate, the Spanish unsweetened chocolate, and the Mexicans and Puerto Ricans a packaged sweetened chocolate flavored with cinnamon and sometimes blended with finely ground almonds that is combined with milk to make a very rich drink. If you are using unsweetened chocolate, I think that honey, rather than sugar, makes a very pleasant sweetening.

  For each cup of Hot Chocolate, melt a 1-ounce square of unsweetened chocolate in a heavy saucepan (less of a problem if you melt it in a warm oven rather than over direct heat), then mix in 1 cup cold water and honey to taste. Heat over medium heat, beating with a whisk or rotary beater, until it reaches the boiling point and is good and foamy. Serve with a dusting of cinnamon on top, or whipped cream if you like.

  The rotary beater is our modern equivalent of the traditional Mexican molinillo, a little wooden stick with a roughly carved end that is twirled between the palms to beat the chocolate to a froth. The old chocolate pots had rounded bottoms and a molinillo that stuck through a hole in the top, and they made a beautifully foamy chocolate. You can still buy molinillos, and they are rather fun to use.

  To make chocolate with the Mexican cinnamon-flavored sweet chocolate, use 1 ounce per cup and heat with cold water or, for a richer result, warm milk or light cream, beating as before. With semisweet chocolate, melt 1 ounce per cup, then stir in warm milk and a bit of cinnamon, vanilla, or vanilla bean, and heat until it comes to a boil. It is unlikely that you will need further sweetening, but taste and see.

  For another delicious chocolate drink, equally good hot or chilled, for every 4 cups melt 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, then add sugar to taste and 1 cup hot coffee. Blend the coffee with the melted chocolate, and then gradually stir in 3 cups warm milk, beating until it reaches the boiling point and is foamy. Pour into heated cups and serve with whipped cream dusted with cocoa or cinnamon.

  If you let the chocolate cool and then pour it over ice cubes in a tall glass and top it with whipped cream, you’ll have iced mocha, as refreshing and welcome on a hot day as hot chocolate on a cold day. Try it either way, and I think you’ll agree that chocolate drinking is a delightful habit well worth reviving.

  —from Beard on Food, 1974

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Their Just Desserts

  Dessert is a relatively new concept. Sweetness, of course, is a very old one, and the ancients used it, as the Chinese still do, as a flavor to counteract other flavors. Apicius believed sweet dishes were a pleasant counterpoint to salty ones. But few of his dishes were truly sweet. The blending would be within the single dish. Apicius’s dishes that might seem to us like a dessert, such as a berry pie or a rose custard, were invariably mixed with salts such as a broth, and with pepper.

  Pliny wrote, “Salt corrects our aversion when we find something oversweet.” Throughout Medieval Europe, sweet, usually honey, was used as a countermeasure to ham, salt cod, and other salty dishes.

  Sometimes sweet would be added to a dish, but other times a salty dish would be followed by a sweet one. The word “dessert” first appeared in eighteenth-century France, from a verb meaning “to clear the plates.” After the dishes were cleared, the dessert would be served. Originally, this was the ending of each course in the meal. The English kept to the main point by continuing to use the word “sweet,” but French desserts started to become more than just something sweet. They became elaborate, architectural showpieces—eventually so extravagant that they came only after the meal.

  —M.K.

  PLINY THE ELDER ON BEES AND HONEY

  Bees and apiaries are particularly associated with gardens and flowers. In favourable conditions, beekeeping offers large returns for minimal outlay. So, for the sake of the bees, you should plant thyme, wild parsley, roses, violets, lilacs and many other flowers.

  What I have discovered about bees’ food is amazing and worth recording. Hostilia is a village on the River Padus. When their food-supply fails in this region, the local people put the hives on boats and carry them 5 miles up river by night. At dawn the bees come out, feed and return every day to the boats, whose position alters until such time as they have settled low in the water under the very weight of honey—an indication that the hives are full. They are then taken back to Hostilia and the honey is extracted.

  In Spain the locals transport the hives about on mules for a similar reason. The food that the bees eat is of such great importance that even their honey may become poisonous. At Heraclea, in Pontus, the honey is extremely harmful in certain years, even though it comes from the same bees. The authorities for this have not said from what flowers this honey is obtained but I will record the findings. There is a plant called ‘goat’s bane’ from its fatal effect on cattle, especially goats. When the flower of this plant withers in a rainy spring, the bees take from it a harmful poison. Consequently the ill-effects are not experienced in all years. The signs of poisonous honey are that it fails to thicken, causes sneezing and is heavier than pure honey. Cattle that have eaten poisonous honey throw themselves to the ground, seeking to cool their bodies which are running with sweat.

  —from Natural History, first century A.D.,

  translated from the Latin by John F. Healy

  GALEN ON PASTRY

  Now is the opportune moment to elaborate on the other sorts of pastries that are made with wheat flour. What are called griddle cakes by the Athenians, but girdle cakes by Greeks like me from Asia, are cooked in olive oil. The olive oil is poured into a frying pan which is placed over a smokeless flame. When the oil is hot, wheat flour kneaded with lots of water is spread on top. Fried quickly in the oil, this mixture becomes as firm and thick as the soft cheese that sets in wicker-work baskets. Then the cooks turn it, making what was the top the bottom, so that it comes into contact with the frying pan. When it has been sufficiently fried, they turn it so that the underside is now upperside, and when this has set they turn it two or three times more, until it is certain that the whole cake has been evenly cooked.

  This food is, of course, full of thick juices, blocks the bowels and produces undigested fluids. So some people mix in honey with the dough, others sea salt. This is one sort or type (whatever term you want to use) of flat cake which, along with lots of other flat cakes, those living both in the country and the city make in a rough and ready way. All thin cakes that contain no yeast and which are baked in an oven, should be taken out and dipped at once in hot honey so as to saturate them. These are one sort of flat cake, as are all the honey cakes made with wafer biscuits.

  —from On the Powers of Food, A.D. 180,

  translated from the Latin by Mark Grant

  APICIUS ON ROSE PATINA

  Take roses fresh from the flower bed, strip off the leaves, remove the white [from the petals and] put them in the mortar; pour over some broth [and] rub fine. Add a glass of broth and strain the juice through the colander. [This done] take 4 [cooked calf’s] brains, skin them and remove the nerves; crush 8 scruples of pepper moistened with the juice and rub [with the brains]; thereupon break 8 eggs, add 1 glass of wine, 1 glass of raisin wine and a little oil. Meanwhile grease a pan, place it on the hot ashes [or in the hot bath] in which pour the above described material; when the mixture is cooked in the bain maris sprinkle it with pulverized pepper and serve.

  —first century A.D.,

  translated from the Latin by

  Joseph Dommers Vehling

  A BAGHDAD RECIPE FOR MEAT SWEETS, AND BANANAS

  This dish, known in Arabic as mauziyya, from the word “mauz,” meaning banana, is not a dessert in the modern sense but an example from the fourteenth century of the use of sweets.

  —M.K.

  Take lean meat of fat lamb and the same amount of fresh tail, and put them in a pot, and with them are a little Chinese cinnamon and mastic and one jug of water, so that it covers it. Then cook it and take away its scum. When it starts to be done, you transfer the wat
er from it and the meat fries in the fat. You will have pounded one part pistachios, one part toasted hazelnuts, two parts sugar, and a little saffron rubbed with rosewater. Then take half of this and throw it on the meat in the pot. Cut fine yellow bananas onto it after it is taken from the fire and heat diminishes. Then cover it with the rest [of the nuts and sugar] and sprinkle it with a little rosewater and use it, and it is good.

  —from Kitab Wasf al-At’ima al-Mu’tada, The Description of Familiar

  Foods, 1373, translated from the Arabic by Charles Perry

  AMELIA SIMMONS’S INDEPENDENCE CAKE

  This is one of my favorite recipes, and it leaves a great deal to the imagination. I would like to try it one day if I ever found cake pans large enough. I think the independence cake would work out better than her “election cake,” which only calls for three dozen eggs, ten pounds of butter, and fourteen pounds of sugar, but mixes them with thirty pounds of flour.

  Little is known of Amelia Simmons other than that she called herself “an American orphan” and makes reference to having worked in kitchens. Her complaints about badly copied recipes by her publisher has led some to believe that she was not literate. Her book, published at her own expense in 1796, first in Hartford and later in Albany, holds an important place in history because it was the first cookbook written by an American in the United States for Americans, though the style of cooking is clearly British.

  —M.K.

  Twenty pound flour, 15 pound sugar, 10 pound butter, 4 dozen eggs, one quart wine, 1 quart brandy, 1 ounce nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, mace, of each 3 ounces, two pound citron, currants and raisins 5 pound each, 1 quart yeast; when baked, frost with loaf sugar; dress with box and gold leaf.

  —from American Cookery, 1796

  GIUSEPPE TOMASI DI LAMPEDUSA ON RUM JELLY

  At the end of the meal appeared a rum jelly. This was the Prince’s favourite pudding, and the Princess had been careful to order it early that morning in gratitude for favours granted. It was rather threatening at first sight, shaped like a tower with bastions and battlements and smooth slippery walls impossible to scale, garrisoned by red and green cherries and pistachio nuts; but into its transparent and quivering flanks a spoon plunged with astounding ease. By the time the amber-coloured fortress reached Francesco Paolo, the sixteen-year-old son who was served last, it consisted only of shattered walls and hunks of wobbly rubble. Exhilarated by the aroma of rum and the delicate flavour of the multi-coloured garrison, the Prince enjoyed watching the rapid demolishing of the fortress beneath the assault of his family’s appetite. One of his glasses was still half-full of Marsala. He raised it, glanced round the family, gazed for a second into Concetta’s blue eyes, then said: ‘To the health of our Tancredi.’ He drained his wine in a single gulp. The initials F.D., which before had stood out clearly on the golden colour of the full glass, were no longer visible.

  —from The Leopard, 1958

  GELATIN HINTS FROM KNOX

  The first patented gelatin dessert in America was in 1845 by Peter Cooper, who was too far ahead of his time and unable to sell prepackaged desserts. Orator Woodward, on the other hand, was a man who understood his times when, in 1902, he came out with a product called Jell-O. The contents were sugar, gelatin, adipic acid, disodium phosphate, fumaric acid, artificial color, natural flavor with BHA, and artificial flavor. That ought to work. It did, and traditional gelatin companies, selling simply a gelatin to mix with fruit juice or other flavorings, had to become more aggressive. Knox Gelatine began publishing booklets on using its product.

  —M.K.

  Always use a real orange and lemon in making your Desserts and Salads, and take advantage of the pure health-giving vitamins that fresh fruits contain.

  Electric Refrigerators—Ices and sherbets may be chilled or frozen more satisfactorily in the trays with the addition of Knox Sparkling Gelatine.

  When there are odds and ends of food left over use them up in combinations with gelatine dishes and show real economy in the household. Our book, “Food Economy,” directs you in their use.

  Gelatine will harden much quicker if put in several small molds than in one large one. Jellies will take less time to cool and set if the soaked gelatine is melted over hot water and the remaining liquid added cold—instead of using hot liquid to dissolve it.

  If you wish to combine fresh pineapple with gelatine, always first scald the pineapple, both fruit and juice. When using canned pineapple, this is not necessary, as the pineapple has already been cooked.

  Jellied desserts and salads are a great help to the busy housekeeper, as they may be prepared hours before needed, or even the day before, and when guests arrive there is no last-minute hurrying.

  Flowers or flags may be molded in jelly for table decorations for special occasions. Pour liquid jelly into a plain wet mold to make a thin layer. Very carefully arrange flowers and leaves on this when it has stiffened, remembering that the mold will be turned upside down, and the more attractive side must be down. Allow the remaining jelly to stiffen slightly and carefully place about the flowers by spoonfuls, and fill mold.

  Instead of making fruit jellies during the hot summer months, can the juice, with or without sugar. Then during the winter months, make gelatine jellies as you need them. The gelatine jellies are much more easily prepared.

  To make currant, grape or other jelly firm: If a fruit jelly does not “jell” after being boiled a sufficient length of time, add to each pint a level tablespoonful Knox Sparkling Gelatine that has been softened five minutes in one-fourth cup cold water. Heat to the boiling point, skim and strain into the glasses.

  Melted ice cream should never be thrown away. Stiffen it with gelatine, using a level tablespoonful of gelatine to a pint of cream. Chocolate, Strawberry, Coffee and Pistachio are especially delicious. Chopped raisins, dates, nuts, cherries or marshmallows make an excellent combination.

  Use left-over coffee for a Coffee Jelly, Coffee Spanish Cream or Mocha Sponge.

  Cream puffs and eclairs may be filled with Bavarian Cream. Filling should be put in just before serving that the crust may remain crisp. These are very effective when filled with Strawberry Bavarian Cream and garnished with a few whole berries.

  The jellied salads and meats are especially pretty when served in dainty baskets. These may be made with timbale irons, or line little fluted gem pans with a savory short crust and bake in oven. Baskets may also be made of halves of lemon, orange or grapefruit skins, or serve in an apple, tomato or pepper shell.

  When making croquettes, try the following: Soften a teaspoonful of gelatine in a little cold water and dissolve over hot water (using as little water as possible to reduce the gelatine to a liquid). Stir into the croquette mixture and set aside until gelatine has had time to stiffen it. Croquettes may then be shaped very easily, and the heat of the frying will dissolve the gelatine again, making the inside of the croquettes soft and creamy.

  —from Dainty Desserts for Dainty People, 1929

  PELLEGRINO ARTUSI ON ICE CREAM

  According to an article I once read in an Italian newspaper, the art of chilling is strictly Italian, and ancient; apparently, the first ice creams to be served in Paris were those served at the court of Caterina de’Medici, in 1533. Reading on, I discovered that among the French the secret remained at the Louvre [the royal palace] because the Florentine chefs, pastrymen, and chillers in service at court jealously guarded their secrets. Thus, the people of Paris had to wait for more than a century to taste ice cream.

  Despite devoting considerable effort to trying to confirm this information, I’ve been unable to do so. The following, however, is certain: The use of drinks chilled with the aid of stored ice or snow comes from the Orient and dates to remotest antiquity, while ice creams were introduced to France around 1660 by one Procopio Coltelli, from Palermo, who opened a café under his own name—the Café Procope—in Paris, directly in front of the theater of the Comedie Française; it became a favorite meeting place for well-to-d
o Parisians. The rapid success of the café, where the ice cream was modeled to look like eggs and served in egg cups, convinced those who sold lemonade or other drinks to follow Mr. Coltelli’s example. One who did was named Tortoni; thanks to the popularity of his delicious ice creams, he was able to open a café that became renowned throughout Europe and made him rich.

  According to Athenaus and Seneca, the ancients made icehouses to keep snow and ice, much as we do now, by digging deeply into the earth and covering the ice and snow, after thoroughly packing it down, with oak boughs and straw. They hadn’t learned, however, that salt, added to the ice, greatly enhances its ability to transform any type of liquid into sherbet.

  You’ll almost certainly score a success with all your guests if you serve them sherbet or ice cream at the end of the dinner, especially during the summer months. Ice cream, in addition to tasting good, draws the heat of the body to the stomach, thereby aiding in the digestion. Now that American ice cream machines with triple-action mechanisms that don’t require the use of a plunger have become available, making ice cream is quicker, and the ingredients are less likely to separate. Given this improvement, it would be a pity not to indulge frequently in the voluptuous pleasure ice cream provides.

  To save money, the salt can be recovered from the ice water used to freeze the ice cream, by evaporating the water over the fire.

  Gelato al Limone

  Lemon Sherbet

  1½ cups sugar

  3 lemons

  2 cups water