Betty Lives!

Woman’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery Vol. 7

1966

My friend Teresa found this entire Encyclopedia at her town dump in New Jersey and, knowing my fondness for old cookbooks, did me the great favor of hauling all 12volumes back to her house. I had seen these books over the years at garage sales and flea markets and always passed them over for books that seemed more interesting like The Congressional Club Cookbook. What a huge mistake, these books are amazing. They are a condensed version of the Time Life Foods of the World Series, with each volume containing little mini-cookbooks that represent different countries, mixed with the Time Life Good Cook series and its dictionary-like scope. I haven’t perused each volume but I saw that both James Beard and Helen Evans Brown contributed a large number of entries which lends to the significance of this Encyclopedia.

In Volume 7, Kidney to Mocha, there are mini-books on Korean, Mexican and Midwestern cookery, as well as a feature on kidney cooking across Europe and a section devoted to low-calorie foods. I found the veal loaf in an entry called “How to Cook Superbly: Meat Loaves”. Well OK then! The loaf contains: 2lbs ground veal, 3oz pork fat, grounds, 1/2 cup cracker crumbs, minced onion, heavy cream, eggs and dried herbs. The loaf gets mixed and molded and then cooked for an hour while being basted with butter. I could not love this recipe any more. It contains my three favorite food groups: pork fat, heavy cream and butter.

I didn’t have straight pork fat so I used salt pork and this worked because ground veal is bland anyway. It cooked beautifully and un-molded perfectly. The gelatin in the veal and the little bits of fat held the loaf together and allowed it to be sliced thinly without crumbling. We loved it, the kids loved it, and it was even better cold the next day with a little Dijon mustard.

How America Eats

Clementine Paddleford

1960

Oh my god, this casserole was an enormous undertaking. I don’t know what I was thinking. Actually, what I was thinking was that I wanted to make a chicken dish and I had a ton of leftover sourdough bread so what the hell. I must have had a brain fart because this dish took two days, has four different parts and yields enough for 20 servings.

First, you boil a roasting chicken in water along with chopped carrot, onion and salt. I added celery, peppercorns, parsley stems, bay leaves and my secret chicken soup ingredient: star anise. The chicken and broth are cooled and then the chicken is stripped of its meat and skin, which are ground together. I thought this step was extremely intelligent; the skin here serves the same purpose as fat in hamburgers or sausages. After the boiling, stripping and grinding I refrigerated it all and went to bed.

The next day I made a stuffing from onion and celery (sauteed in chicken fat from the broth) along with poultry seasoning, dried sage and my leftover bread, all moistened with the broth. Then came a classic white sauce which called for 1 cup of the same chicken fat, 1 cup of flour, 4 cups of hot broth, 1 cup of milk, and 4 eggs. Illustrating how we’ve bred all the good (read: fat) out of modern chickens, my broth yielded barely a 1/4 cup of fat and I had to supplement with some duck fat I had in the fridge. When I had measured out 3/4 cup of fat into the pan I just couldn’t bring myself to add more, it was too gross. Ditto with the eggs. I only got to two before I got weak and put them away. Neither Doug nor I has high cholesterol but I was afraid this casserole might put us into dangerous territory.

The recipe says to layer the ingredients in a 4-quart casserole but since I only have a high-sided 3-quart Pyrex, I used that instead and increased the number of layers. I laid out stuffing, sauce, ground chicken and repeated up to the top which I finished with sauce and then sprinkled with dry bread crumbs. Again, I left out the 1/4 cup of melted butter out of fear for my health. I baked it at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and then let it rest. Every element was so white that it was hard to differentiate the layers. My son took one look and asked, “Is that dinner?” When I nodded he said simply, “I’m not eating that.” As I’ve mentioned, he does not like white foods.

Doug and I LOVED it. I declared it to be the “essence of chicken” thanks to - god help me -all the chicken fat. It was even good cold, and re-heated two days later for another dinner. At the rate we’re going it might be finished by August.

On another, sadder note, Ms Paddleford attributes the casserole to Mrs. Robert E. Bogue of Wichita, KS. Mrs Bogue was a former Miss Kansas in the Miss America Pageant and she is described in the book as something of a supermom to her three children. Unfortunately, those children didn’t turn out to have such storybook lives. You can read about it here.

Sunset Magazine

1960’s

I have written about these little wonders before so in this entry I’ll just give the recipe.

12 oz oil-marinated artichoke hearts

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 small onion, finely chopped

1/4 tsp salt1/4 tsp each: pepper, dried oregano, tabasco

4 eggs

1/2 cup dry bread crumbs

1/2 lb sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

1. Drain about half of oil marinade into a skillet and heat over medium heat. Chop artichokes and set aside. Add garlic to skillet and cook, stirring, about 30 seconds. Add onion and cook until limp, about 5 minutes. Add seasonings, remove from stove and let cool sightly.
2. In a bowl, beat eggs with a fork. Add half of crumbs, cheese, and reserved artichokes. When cool, add onion mixture.
3. Turn into a lightly greased 7×11 baking pan and sprinkle with remaining crumbs. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes. Let cool in pan then cut into small, bite-sized squares.
   Serve at room temp.

The Fireside Cook Book

James Beard

1949

I think a lot of people my age who watched Cheers throughout high school wished that they too could eventually find a bar where the bartender (and everyone) knew their name (la, la, la). Not me. All I really dreamed of was a neighborhood butcher shop and a butcher who knew my name. When we moved to Park Slope I found that shop, Great Western Fine Foods, and that butcher, Jimmy. Over the last six years Jimmy has provided me with countless pounds of ground beef, also chickens, ducks and sausages. Not to mention indulged my requests for bizarre pig parts, 2-inch t-bone steaks, and various fresh game birds in season. He is a sweet and gentle man whom I have come to know well and like immensely. He talks to me about the changing neighborhood, about my recipes, and, when I shipped my daughter off to camp on the bus for the first time, he allayed my fears and calmed me down. He is an accomplished photographer, he thinks that one day he would prefer to coach wrestling, and on the first warm day of Spring he puts his boat in the water and spends every free moment he can aboard it. He has two little girls who are excellent swimmers. His siblings are all successful professionals but it was Jimmy who followed in his father’s footsteps at Great Western and the store has served the Park Slope community for over 60 years. So it was with both shock and grief that I walked over to buy a leg of lamb and found the gates down, the lights out.

A few months ago Jimmy had whispered something to me about selling the building so he could spend more time with his kids on Long Island, but the plan seemed vague and without body. I wish he had told me how quickly it would happen. I wish he had written me a letter of recommendation for another butcher so I could just walk in, hand over the document, and shop at the new place like they know me. Mostly I just wish he had said goodbye.

I ended up buying the lamb at a sort-of Park Slope mini-chain called Union Market from a guy who wouldn’t be able to tell a skirt steak from a shell steak if there weren’t little plasticized labels. The meat in the case was getting dark and crusty at the edges. There is no way these guys will ever order tripe for me. I’m heartbroken.

The Fireside Cook Book was Beard’s fourth effort and by the time he wrote it, he was well on his way to celebrity. It’s a fantastic piece of work to read and experience (the magnificent illustrations are by Alice and Matin Provensen). The lamb recipe, which Beard claims is traditional in Sweden, sounded odd: roast lamb “in the usual way” (meaning to add some onions, carrots and potatoes to the pan) and halfway through, pour a cup of coffee with cream and sugar over the top. Beard says to baste with the coffee every ten minutes but because his lamb was cooked until medium and mine was cooked until rare, he got more bastings in. When I took it out of the oven it just looked like a regular roast that someone had mistakenly spilled their drink on, so I reduced the liquid. This worked out because the cream and sugar created a nice glaze for the meat and vegetables and removed the deep coffee flavor. The resulting taste was more like caramel with a slightly bitter aftertaste. I made Doug guess the secret ingredient which he insisted was truffles for ten full minutes.

The quality of the lamb was adequate I suppose, but it didn’t come with any banter or good boating stories. So long Jimmy, I’ll miss you, and you still owe me a suckling pig.

Newspaper clipping

A time long ago

It’s that time of year again: my son’s pre-school class picnic.  This is my fifth consecutive school picnic if I count the years my daughter attended the same school, and because it’s my last I felt measurably less committed to cooking for it.  Why should I care about impressing people I will never see again?  I opted for The World’s Greatest Cookie because the preparation is effortless and I didn’t have to make a separate shopping trip to collect ingredients.

First, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Then line a sheet pan with parchment and lay out saltines, side by side, to fill the pan.  Heat 1 1/2 sticks of butter with 1/2 cup of sugar until sugar is melted.  Pour the butter evenly over the saltines and bake for 10 minutes.  Take the pan out of the oven, sprinkle the saltines with bittersweet chocolate chips and allow the chips to melt slightly into the crackers.  At this point cool down the pan and eventually refrigerate it for at least a couple of hours.  When chilled the butter/sugar hardens into crispy caramel and you can easily break up the cookies.  I am telling you, it is the greatest cookie ever invented.  I forgot to take pictures and at the point I realized I needed to they had all been eaten.  Just go make them.

Summer Cooking

Elizabeth David

1955

It is so blazing hot in New York right now that the thought of turning the oven on makes me cringe. Naturally, I turned to the one book that is geared specifically for hot weather and found an instant winner. I don’t really need to go into the glory that is Elizabeth David, do I? If you are reading this blog there is a good chance you not only know her work but own it.

The Eggs with Skordalia was just about right for tonight plus I had all the ingredients on hand. There’s not much of a “recipe” here, just directions for making the skordalia and then the suggestion to serve it with hard-boiled eggs, raw tomatoes, black olives and some radishes. David’s skordalia is made from 4 large garlic cloves, two egg yolks, salt, pepper, 1/4 pint of olive oil, 2 oz fresh bread crumbs, 2 oz ground almonds, lemon juice and chopped parsley. A side note for those who care: To insure that your mayonnaise (which is essentially what this is) emulsifies, all the ingredients must be at room temp, including the egg yolks. And know that if the first drop goes well, the rest is cake.

I don’t know if I weighed out 2 oz poorly, but my skordalia came out thick as paste and had to be diluted with water. Once thinned, it was a sight to behold and the scent was pure garlic heaven. My eggs were bought from the magnificent Flying Pigs Farm stand at the greenmarket and were of such buttery deliciousness that it seemed unfair to swath them in skordalia, but it was yummy. Also bought at the greenmarket were radish seed pods which I substituted for the radishes. I’d never had these before and they are excellent - crisp and spicy. I supplemented the feast with sliced cucumbers, a tart purslane salad and our favorite bottle of Rosé. All in all, it hit the spot and the house stayed cool. Thanks ED.

The Hundred Glories of French Cooking

Robert Courtine

1973

I have lived in Paris during two different periods of my life, the last being cooking school in 1993. Since then I have gone back every year for at least one week to visit my friends, walk the city end to end, eat like I haven’t seen food for the previous 51 weeks of the year, pretend I am French, and, since the arrival of my children, to retrieve my balance. I know it has become out-of-fashion to love France (Spain being the new France), but without this single and singular week in Paris I would lose my mind. Adam Gopnik writes in his brilliant Paris to the Moon:

“The hardest thing to convey is how lovely it all is and how that loveliness seems all you need. The ghosts that haunted you in New York or Pittsburgh will haunt you anywhere you go, because they’re you’re ghosts and the house they haunt is you. But they become disconcerted, shaken, confused for half a minute, and in that moment on a December at four o’clock when you’re walking from the bust stop to the rue Saint-Dominique and the lights are twinkling across the river…you feel as if you’ve escaped your ghosts.”

My one week in Paris is transforming in exactly that way.

I got back last Saturday and, as usual, my heart is aching from the rupture. I decided to soothe the pain with a traditional French recipe for Boeuf à la Ficelle which Courtine describes as having an “uplifting effect on the spirit.” Bingo. Courtine was considered one of the most famous French gourmands of the 20th century, known primarily through his column “The Pleasures of the Table” written for the newspaper Le Monde. The Hundred Glories is less a cookbook than a paean and if you’ve never gone to cooking school in France, I wouldn’t attempt to actually prepare a dish from it. But Courtine’s prose is beautiful and I certainly agree with him on everything. Sorry Señor Adria, all the molecular cuisine in the world can’t hold a candle to honest, old-fashioned French bistro food.

Boeuf à la Ficelle (beef on a string) is crazy easy but also rich and deeply flavorful when done right. I made a stock, as Courtine suggests, with leeks, carrots, turnips and herbs, but also added onions, celery, and also some veal bones I had in the freezer. Courtine says to simply let it come to a boil and then submerge your meat (on a string, of course), but the point is really to create an exceptional stock that lends its flavor to the beef during cooking. For this reason I let the stock simmer for two hours and then added a big dose of salt. I let my kids cook their own beef (I used fillet) and served it along with the simmered vegetables, some steamed, buttered potatoes, cornichons, and good French mustard.

It’s not much to look out so forgive me, I mostly took pictures of the kids. Later that evening Doug and I enjoyed our own fillets and then finished off the meal in the traditional way with a bowl of the broth. Comforting yes, but not quite Paris.