Kitchen Wisdom

Although I have a computer, a Kindle, 

and more televisions than I care to count,

I still enjoy looking through old books 

during the long nights of a wintery January.

Reading old cookbooks can be an enlightening experience.

I'm not speaking of slick, commercial recipe collections,

which often restrict themselves

 to a rather prosaic accounting of ingredients and methods.

I'm speaking of cookbooks self-published by small community groups.

These are the ones that contain glimpses into times 

that had different social mores and  culinary tastes.

These are the books that offer household advice and local custom

along with their recipes.

I learned a few things from the 1970s cookbook Virginia Hospitality.

For example, some favorite colonial recipes included fricasseed pig ears, 

which required the ears to be simmered in stock 

and then served in a white sauce; 

And there was also some delight called pigs pettitoes. 

There are indeed pig toes, as confirmed by Google images.

And I didn't even know pigs had toes.

Regardless, I don't care to visualize a large bowl 

heaped with any animal's toes on my dinner table.

But it certainly demonstrates how frugal 

and less wasteful previous American generations were.

persimmon photo courtesy of morguefile.com

Other points of interest gleaned from Virginia Hospitality:

bear meat is succulent but may cause violent or erotic dreams; 

persimmons are a perfect complement to possum meat;

buffalo still roamed in the valleys of the Virginia Piedmont

during the colonial period.

And this trick for preserving eggs:

coat them in mutton suet and pack them in bran,

small end pointing down.

All fascinating and all a little strange to the modern reader.

But the strangest has to be this little tidbit from the appetizers section:

"A petrified rat was found sealed in the wall. 

This may have been intentionally placed there to scare off witches,

according to an old British custom."

At least it wasn't an appetizer.

~

Join me tomorrow when I look at some unusual advice.

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Very Virginia Soups

Last night, I made roasted butternut squash soup for dinner
using a pumpkin soup recipe I adapted.
The roasted squash lent a sweet flavor to the soup,
so for our taste, a meal-sized bowl was too much of a good thing.
But a small cup as an appetizer would be perfect.

I don't know where the recipe for butternut squash soup came from,
but my sense is that it is a fairly recent idea,
perhaps arising from the trend toward vegetarianism that started in the 1970s.
All I know for certain is my mother and grandmothers
would have been amused at the idea
that squash could escape its status as a side dish
and end up the star of the dinner show.
Judging from my soup, it should remain a side dish a while longer.

My opinion of squash soup is similar to how I feel about peanut soup.
It's good, but a little goes a long way and it's more satisfying as an appetizer.

Of course, peanut soup is one of those soups

 that is emblematic of Virginia cooking,

as are she-crab soup, oyster stew, and Brunswick stew.

The recipes for each are below, so try one each week in January. 
And read on to see why Brunswick stew is the subject of regional disagreement.

photo courtesy of  morguefile.com

Peanut Soup

Saute 1/2 cup of diced celery and 1 small diced onion in  4 tablespoons of butter.

Add 2 tablespoons of flour and 2 cups of stock and bring to a boil. 

Reduce heat and add 1 cup of milk and 1 cup of cream.

For a smooth soup, strain the the soup at this point or use a hand blender.

Return to heat and whisk in 1 cup of peanut butter until smooth.

Simmer for a few minutes.

She-Crab Soup 

Heat 2 1/2 cups of stock, 1/2 pound of crabmeat.

Heat stock, add crabmeat and simmer for several minutes.

Then add 1/2 cup of cream and heat through.

Season to taste. (Some people add a little sherry during the heating).

photo courtesy of morguefile.com

Oyster Stew 

Combine 1 1/2 pints of oysters with liquid 

and 5 Tablespoons of butter, simmer together until oysters curl slightly. 

Add 1 cup of hot milk and 2 cups of heavy cream. Heat to just under boiling.

Season to taste.

~

Both of these seafood soups are pretty quick to fix, 

but they definitely require a love of milk and cream--

something I do not have, so I don't eat these.

But they are "very Virginia."

Another popular Virginia soup is Brunswick Stew.

I've been in several towns that lay claim to Brunswick Stew,

but Brodnax in Brunswick County, Virginia apparently holds the proof,
citing an 1828 hunting trip 
in which a camp cook named Jimmy Matthews 
tossed a couple of squirrels, some stale bread, 
and a few onions into an iron pot and created a new taste sensation.
According to the website http://www.brunswickstewmasters.com/History.htm

the returning hunters were reluctant to try Mr. Matthews' concoction.

Hesitation over stale bread and squirrels cooked for hours in a pot? 

Understandable.

Here's a more modern Brunswick Stew recipe
 that substitutes chicken for the game:

Brunswick Stew

Place 1 whole chicken cut up in a pot and cover with water.

Add 1 quartered onion, 2 ribs of diced celery, 1 teaspoon of salt and 

1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Boil the chicken until meat falls from the bone.

Remove from broth and set aside. Add 16 ounces of corn,

10 ounces of frozen butter beans, 16 ounces of canned tomatoes,

2 small potatoes cut in cubes, 1/3 cup of ketchup and 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.

Bone chicken and add meat to vegetables along with 1/2 teaspoon of tabasco sauce

and 1 teaspoon of worcestershire sauce.

The key is to cook the stew until it thickens.

~

Tomorrow, a few strange things one can learn from cookbooks.

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Nail Soup

Since I've never been a fan of January

with its wintery days and interminable nights,

over the years I've found a few ways to amuse myself

until February rolls in.

Of course reading is a great past time, 

and I love to read biographies and nonfiction. 

I figure if I'm going to spend the time reading,

I may as well learn something.

But when I was younger, I read a lot of fiction.

One of my favorite short stories then was Nail Soup.

This is the way I remember the story:

A man, hungry and cold,

traveled through the woods one winter night.

He came upon a small home where a light burned brightly,

and he knocked on the door.

The old couple within admitted him, but being stingy folk,

they lied and told him they had no food to share.

No problem, our traveler assured them. 

I can make delicious soup with just a nail, he said.

The old couple were skeptical, but their curiosity was piqued.

So they gave the visitor a pot of water to place on the fire

and watched in fascination as he produced a nail tied on the end of a string 

and submerged it in the water.

photo courtesy of morguefile.com

That's all there is to it? they asked.

Well, the traveler said, sometimes if I have them, I add potatoes.

Well the mistress said, I might be able to find a small potato or two.

The traveler added the potatoes and remarked

 that the soup would unfortunately still be a little thin

since he'd been making soup with the same nail for a few days.

Well, the master of the house said, there might be a carrot in the bin.

And so on and so on until the old couple unwittingly helped the traveler 

make a bountiful soup.

And I actually used the steps in this story 

to make my first pot of vegetable soup

when I was a young bride learning to cook for two--
before I had my cookbook collection or the internet.

Nowadays, I look at recipes online, in recipe books, and magazines,

especially when the weather is cold 

and I'm facing four weeks in January lacking proper holidays to celebrate.

Tomorrow, I'm sharing four soups that are very, very Virginia,

one for each week of January.

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