Christopher Kimball until recently, host of America's Test Kitchen decided he wanted to host a Bostonian Victorian dinner based on the 1896 cookbook by Fannie Farmer. She was the first cook to standardize measuring cups and spoons. Until her book was published, cooks used a handful of this, a peck of that, pinches and dashes. Ok for most things but not precise enough for baking. unless you didn't mind the occasional hockey puck.
She published twelve course dinner menus in her cook book and Christopher decided to replicate one of those dinners as nearly as possible. Twelve courses!! Now a days we usually gobble down a one meal dish and dash.
According to the Victorians, you could spill a drink at dinner but not announce it, just continue with dinner and a servant will clean up after you. No discussion of politics or any rude topic.
This whole Victorian dinner took planning...over a year!! and that was not just the cooking.
The dinner was slated to take place in the family's Bostonian brown house. He found an old antique
coal cooking stove and had the monster installed in his first floor kitchen. The mason had to work in the brick work surrounding the chimney and back of the stove. The stove was converted to wood burning and boy does it get hot. They can make pizza in that monster.
His wife searched for a year for period table ware, cutlery, stem ware, linens and there was a gorgeous punch bowl for serving the rum punch.
Chris's coworkers from AMT did the recipe testing and it took months of trials to actually find the ingredients and try variations because Fannie Farmer's recipe did not include such things well known to the kitchen help in that period but which have long fallen out of common usage.
For instance the menu called for mock turtle soup. Since the local turtles were on the endangered species list they could not use the local terrapins. The Brits had somehow determined that mock turtle soup taste was best replicated by usage of calves heads. The recipe did not specify how the calves heads were to be cooked; with brains and eyes or what. Through trial and error it was discovered that the brains and eyes were to be removed prior to cooking. The brains were poached and made into small balls that were then fried up for the dinner. The eyes were discarded. This was only the beginning. Head meat was to be shredded, various veggies prepped and all must be clarified into lovely soup.
There was a goose course. The goose was covered in bacon. There was a salmon course, and they diverted from Fanny's recipe for her salmon and simply grilled it on the woodstove. The original called for a white sauce and some other unappetizing details. There was a venison course. The venison was larded using a long needle threading a core of lard into the meat to provide moisture. The stove was too hot and smoked the ends of the lard so they cut it off and it went up for service.
About four courses in there was a lemon sorbet as a palate cleanser. That looked lovely.
The only vegetable course was artichokes and they were fried. Not a speck of fresh lettuce salad as we know it was served.
There were three different jellies. The cooking of this involved preparing calves foot jelly and it was grueling. Boil, boil, boil, calves feet, scrape off fat, voila jelly. The jelly was then mixed with various flavorings, fruits and colors and set in layers in molds, quite colorful and delicious.
Wine was served throughout the dinner. The upstairs butler had a microphone to let the downstairs cooks know that the next wine course was being poured and to bring up the next dish. Good grief.
Dessert was an elaborate cake called Mandarin cake. It was basically a chiffon cake backed in a mold, hollowed out and a lovely fruit crème inserted inside it and allowed to set. The cake was decorated with whole mandarin oranges that were hollowed out and filled with layers of jellies and when sliced open were beautiful. The display cake was left whole and individual slices of the cakes and jellies were presented on plates for each of the guests.
There was so much work that went into this and to think that the Victorian Bostonians tossed an effort such as this on a more or less daily basis. Shudders. The modern crew that worked on this numbered about the same as the guests, a dozen or so. I hope they got to nibble on the left overs. It sure looked like fun.
Now, I am no longer going to be able to follow Mr. Kimball on America's Test Kitchen because they have parted was in a flurry of litigation. I have listened to him on the podcasts enough to form a hazy picture of what he looks like. Not close. He resembles Mr. Rogers with glasses and a bowtie. And the web search revealed that he had lost 200 lbs to get to his present nicely slim weight. Could not believe the before pictures. Good job, now he can live longer and plan more elaborate dinners. Yay!!!
She published twelve course dinner menus in her cook book and Christopher decided to replicate one of those dinners as nearly as possible. Twelve courses!! Now a days we usually gobble down a one meal dish and dash.
According to the Victorians, you could spill a drink at dinner but not announce it, just continue with dinner and a servant will clean up after you. No discussion of politics or any rude topic.
This whole Victorian dinner took planning...over a year!! and that was not just the cooking.
The dinner was slated to take place in the family's Bostonian brown house. He found an old antique
coal cooking stove and had the monster installed in his first floor kitchen. The mason had to work in the brick work surrounding the chimney and back of the stove. The stove was converted to wood burning and boy does it get hot. They can make pizza in that monster.
His wife searched for a year for period table ware, cutlery, stem ware, linens and there was a gorgeous punch bowl for serving the rum punch.
Chris's coworkers from AMT did the recipe testing and it took months of trials to actually find the ingredients and try variations because Fannie Farmer's recipe did not include such things well known to the kitchen help in that period but which have long fallen out of common usage.
For instance the menu called for mock turtle soup. Since the local turtles were on the endangered species list they could not use the local terrapins. The Brits had somehow determined that mock turtle soup taste was best replicated by usage of calves heads. The recipe did not specify how the calves heads were to be cooked; with brains and eyes or what. Through trial and error it was discovered that the brains and eyes were to be removed prior to cooking. The brains were poached and made into small balls that were then fried up for the dinner. The eyes were discarded. This was only the beginning. Head meat was to be shredded, various veggies prepped and all must be clarified into lovely soup.
There was a goose course. The goose was covered in bacon. There was a salmon course, and they diverted from Fanny's recipe for her salmon and simply grilled it on the woodstove. The original called for a white sauce and some other unappetizing details. There was a venison course. The venison was larded using a long needle threading a core of lard into the meat to provide moisture. The stove was too hot and smoked the ends of the lard so they cut it off and it went up for service.
About four courses in there was a lemon sorbet as a palate cleanser. That looked lovely.
The only vegetable course was artichokes and they were fried. Not a speck of fresh lettuce salad as we know it was served.
There were three different jellies. The cooking of this involved preparing calves foot jelly and it was grueling. Boil, boil, boil, calves feet, scrape off fat, voila jelly. The jelly was then mixed with various flavorings, fruits and colors and set in layers in molds, quite colorful and delicious.
Wine was served throughout the dinner. The upstairs butler had a microphone to let the downstairs cooks know that the next wine course was being poured and to bring up the next dish. Good grief.
Dessert was an elaborate cake called Mandarin cake. It was basically a chiffon cake backed in a mold, hollowed out and a lovely fruit crème inserted inside it and allowed to set. The cake was decorated with whole mandarin oranges that were hollowed out and filled with layers of jellies and when sliced open were beautiful. The display cake was left whole and individual slices of the cakes and jellies were presented on plates for each of the guests.
There was so much work that went into this and to think that the Victorian Bostonians tossed an effort such as this on a more or less daily basis. Shudders. The modern crew that worked on this numbered about the same as the guests, a dozen or so. I hope they got to nibble on the left overs. It sure looked like fun.
Now, I am no longer going to be able to follow Mr. Kimball on America's Test Kitchen because they have parted was in a flurry of litigation. I have listened to him on the podcasts enough to form a hazy picture of what he looks like. Not close. He resembles Mr. Rogers with glasses and a bowtie. And the web search revealed that he had lost 200 lbs to get to his present nicely slim weight. Could not believe the before pictures. Good job, now he can live longer and plan more elaborate dinners. Yay!!!
1 comment:
I forgot to mention that the kitchen was on the first floor, the dining room was on the second floor, so each serving took six wait persons to take them upstairs...twelve courses!!!
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