And again I got a pile of old books, this time cookbooks of various kinds. How do I store my food during wartime? was called one. My first thought was that those foodstuffs can be stored in wartime just as they would in peacetime, because foodstuffs have no idea of occupation, hiding or Mad Tuesday.
It was instructive. For example, I read that flour should be kept in motion to prevent mites and mold. ‘Usually it is enough to put the bag on the other side, every 3 weeks. The contents are shaken sufficiently by putting the package down a little.’
Are there maggots in the flour? They can be sifted out. “The poultry like to eat the maggots.” Moldy legumes, cooked with vinegar, can go to ‘the pig’. Not a book for city dwellers, I think.
I also learned how to protect my foodstuffs against ‘war gases’: packaging in ‘cellophane’, according to ‘Dr. J. Visser of the medical gas laboratory in Bandoeng’. The mustard gas is a terrible battle gas and cannot be washed off with water. Contaminated food is life-threatening for humans and animals.’ Too bad for ‘the pig’ and ‘the poultry’, but alas.
And onward, to the book Modern cooking from 1893, when modern cooking still relied heavily on cold meat jelly: ‘scalded veal legs’ are used and ‘an old chicken’, ‘4 cans of water’, ‘4 lead salt’, various ‘measures of vinegar’, we learn the art of the ‘chemiser’: ‘After having put the mold in ice, put some jelly in it and let it run around the mold while turning, until it forms a thick membrane on the bottom and on the sides.’
When you read it, you can already feel that thick membrane on your tongue. But I’m definitely going to make those ‘Bridal Tears’ Liqueur: ‘Fill a wide-necked bottle half full with well-washed sultanas. Fill the bottle with brandy and put 2 ounces of sugar on each jug; add some cloves and pipe cinnamon and let it steep for over 3 months.’ That actually resembles what we now call ‘farm boys’, but it sure is delicious.
Then a book from 1920: 100 American tomato recipes† From the preface: ‘During my five-year stay in America I got to know so many tomato recipes and to appreciate the tomato fruit as tasty and healthy that I was often sorry that my Dutch compatriots are still so unfamiliar with the dozens of tasty and nutritious foods that come with can be put together using tomatoes.’
Most recipes, a century later, are open doors (slices of tomato with mayonnaise, fried egg with tomato), but an interesting dish is called ‘dry puree’: ‘The tomato puree is boiled down until, spread thinly on a plate, when cold, looks like a piece of soft leather. (It’s called ‘tomato-leather’ here.) Rub hands with vegetable oil and knead the puree into balls the size of a mesh ball (wooden ball used to make socks, SW† Put them away in jars.’
Funny: a hundred years later, this stuff is again popular with trendy girls under the name ‘fruit leather’. Nowadays a blender is used, a silicone baking sheet, a ‘dehydrator’ and often also the ‘natural’ (but very nasty) sweetener stevia.
the last book, A selection of practical recipes for the kitchenundated, but apparently from the 1930s. Publisher: Maggi. Ingredient of each recipe: Maggi. Yes, also the ‘Duck bird’, the ‘Mayonnaise sauce’ and the ‘Indian chicken dish’.
But yes, ‘Magi’s Aroma has been recognized in scientific research as a first-class aid for digestion’.
That you know.