Cooking School Recipes Provide a Glimpse Into Yesterday’s Kitchen : deck : Neighbor’s Magazine Conjures Memories of Thanksgiving, 1910

Mrs. Robert Craig, my neighbor, had cleaned out her back house and appeared one bright morning at my doorstep carrying a load of the Boston Cooking-School Magazine publications dating back to the turn of the century. They had been her grandmother’s, she said, and she wanted me to have them. The November 1910 issue lay on top. Serendipity, I thought. A Thanksgiving issue. Just in time for my Thanksgiving plans. And yours.

There were nine Thanksgiving menus in the magazine. All glorious examples of the days when the cooking was done by a large kitchen staff, not a lone, harried working gal rushing home from work. The book exploded with the pitter-patter of bustling feet in the kitchen, the call of the cook, the maid, the butler, the rattle of the pans, the wooden spoons, the rustle of crisp, starched aprons. I could hear the call for tea from the mistress of the house through an ancient intercom somewhere upstairs. A symphony no longer heard. Extinct.

I imagined I could hear Basil Rathbone reciting the magazine’s “New England” menu:

Cream of Clam Soup,

Fresh Codfish Boil With Egg Sauce,

Gherkins, Olives, Celery,

Roast Turkey With Cape Cod Cranberry Sauce,

Mashed Potatoes Nantaise ,

Onions in Cream Sauce,

Chicken Pie,

Sweet Pickled Peaches,

Pumpkin Pie,

Ice Cream Sundae, Sultana Roll Style,

Grapes and Apples

Coffee.

I could hear Teddy Roosevelt reciting the “Southland Menu”:

Bisque of Crab Meat

Young Guinea Hens, Roasted, with Guava Jelly

Rice Croquettes. Candied Sweet Potatoes

French Endive and Kumquat Salad

Banana or Squash Pie

Grape Juice Syllabub or Zabione

Fruit, Nuts

Coffee

There were other equally wonderful-sounding menus, including Simple Dinner, which started with cream of oyster soup and included roasted chicken, buttered onions, mashed potatoes, squash au gratin and Waldorf salad, with pumpkin pie and Charlotte Russe for dessert.

An elaborate dinner called for lobster cocktail, consomme a la royal (topped with salted whipped cream), truffled fish timbales with lobster sauce, oyster patties with brown sauce, roasted turkey with giblet sauce, sausage cakes with cranberry jelly, squash au gratin, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts with Hollandaise, ginger-ale punch, roasted wild ducks, kumquat and celery salad, pumpkin pie, ice cream sundae, fruits and nuts.

A chafing-dish Thanksgiving supper--meant, we suppose, for the B list after the A list had their early-afternoon Thanksgiving feast--included clam bouillon, celery with olives, chicken a la King, Waldorf salad and rolls and zabione for dessert. Not bad for a second-class menu.

Yet another chafing-dish supper started with cream of oyster soup, olives, salted nuts, chicken-and-celery soup molded in aspic jelly, bread and butter sandwiches, vanilla ice cream with maple sauce and chopped nuts. We could hear the kitchen staff moaning and groaning.

It was all too wonderful. Choices galore to muse. Kaleidoscopic visions to amuse. Then finally we decided.

We found our menu among the “Seasonable Recipes” that graced the pages of all the Boston Cooking-School Magazines in my possession, I noticed.

The cooking instructions presumed knowledge of cooking, which, by today’s home-cooking standards, were extraordinarily high. Cooks in those days apparently knew, without being told, all about cooking times, intricate techniques, carving, mixing batters, stuffing sausages, pickling cauliflower, making syrup, cleaning squirrels.

The recipes in those days were general maps, not detailed blueprints upon which cooks today rely to pull them through. A recipe for sugar cookies, for instance, told the cook to “mix (ingredients) in the usual manner, adding milk according as a rich, crisp or a less rich and soft cookie is desired.” Try those instructions in The Times’ Food Section today and see what happens.

There were, however, a few recipes, such as the Cauliflower au Gratin, whose simplicity pleased me. All you do is cook the cauliflower, pour a can of cream sauce over it and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Although canned foods were beginning to enter the marketplace at the turn of the century, homemade cream sauce was standard. We use canned cream sauce or mushroom soup for convenience.

So we streamlined all the recipes, except for the cauliflower dish, to meet time limitations and skills of today’s cooks, tested them and now pass them on for anyone, like me, who needs a little help with Thanksgiving menus now and then.

MENU

Crab Meat Bisque Roasted Turkey with Guava Jelly

Cauliflower au Gratin

Candied Sweet Potatoes French Endive and Kumquat SaladCranberry Tarts

Chestnut Pudding

Fresh Fruit

Nuts

Coffee

The Crab Meat Bisque can be prepared in advance and reheated at the last moment. Assemble the Cauliflower au Gratin and Candied Sweet Potatoes ahead and refrigerate until ready to pop into the oven at the last moment (after removing the bird from the oven). The salad can be assembled refrigerated until ready for the dressing. Both Cranberry Tarts and Chestnut Pudding (before adding meringue) can be made a day ahead. Add and brown the meringue on the chestnut pudding early in the day, then keep the dessert chilled.

CRAB MEAT BISQUE

1/2 pound crab meat

2 cups chicken broth or bouillon

1/2 cup soft bread crumbs

1 tablespoon diced onion

3 sprigs parsley

2 cups half and half

Salt

Cayenne pepper

Ground nutmeg

3 tablespoons Sherry

Flake crab meat into fine pieces and add to broth with crumbs, onion and parsley. Simmer 20 minutes. Stir in half and half and simmer 15 minutes longer. Rub mixture through sieve or puree in blender and season to taste with salt, cayenne and nutmeg. Simmer 5 minutes. Stir in Sherry. Makes about 6 servings.

CAULIFLOWER AU GRATIN

1 small head cauliflower, separated into flowerets

1 (10 3/4-ounce) can mushroom soup or cream sauce

1/2 cup cracker crumbs

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Cook cauliflowerets in boiling water until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain. Place flowerets in 6 individual buttered oven-proof dishes. Spoon about 2 heaping tablespoons mushroom soup over each serving. Sprinkle with cracker crumbs and dot with butter. Bake at 375 degrees until crumbs brown slightly and casseroles are bubbly, about 20 to 25 minutes. Makes 6 servings.

CRANBERRY TARTS

Pastry for single-crust pie

1/2 (17 1/4-ounce) package puff pastry

Cranberry jelly

Granulated sugar

Prepare pastry for pie. Roll out and cut into (3-inch) rounds. Roll out puff pastry and cut into 6 (3-inch) rounds to be used as covers. Place 1 scant tablespoon cranberry jelly on pie crust rounds. Brush edge with cold water and press puff pastry rounds well over pastry. Sprinkle with sugar and bake at 375 degrees 15 minutes or until golden brown and puffed. Makes 6 tarts.

CHESTNUT PUDDING

Zest of 1/2 lemon

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons butter

2 eggs, separated

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup preserved chestnut puree

1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs

Juice of 1 lemon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine lemon zest and milk in top of double boiler. Bring water to boil and heat milk until scalded. Remove from heat and add butter. Beat egg yolks with 2 tablespoons sugar, chestnut puree, bread crumbs, lemon juice and salt. Stir into milk mixture and continue to cook and stir over simmering water until thickened. Pour into 2-cup heat-proof dish or 6 individual souffle dishes. Cool. (Pudding can be refrigerated at this point.) Beat egg whites until dry. Beat in remaining 2 tablespoons sugar and vanilla until stiff peaks form. Spoon over pudding, sealing with meringue around edge of dish. Bake at 375 degrees until tips of meringue are browned. Makes 6 servings.

ENDIVE KUMQUAT

SALAD

1 bunch curly endive

Hazelnut Oil Dressing

1/2 pound Belgian endive

16 kumquats

1 avocado, seeded

Cayenne pepper

Few Belgian endive leaves for garnish

Chopped hazelnuts

Tear curly endive into small pieces. Place in salad bowl and toss with some Hazelnut Oil Dressing. Slice Belgian endive crosswise. Toss separately with dressing and place over curly endive. Cut kumquats into quarters or halves if small, and slice avocado. Toss with dressing and arrange over salad. Sprinkle lightly with Cayenne. Toss remaining Belgian endive leaves with any remaining dressing and arrange around salad. Sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Note: Any nuts or fresh herbs can be used to garnish salad.

Hazelnut Oil Dressing

1/4 cup Champagne or other white wine vinegar

1 small clove garlic, pressed

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

Freshly cracked black pepper

1 teaspoon powdered sugar

1/2 cup hazelnut oil

Mix vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper and sugar. Drizzle in oil while whisking. Makes 3/4 cup.

Note: Pecan or walnut oil may be substituted.