Tag Archive | The Cook and Housewife’s Manual

Mrs. Barlow’s Tasteful Advisements to Young Matrons and Overwrought Mothers of Daughters: Made-Dishes

Apr18

This post is part of the Authors in Bloom Ten-Day Blog Tour. Each stop on the tour will offer a prize, and a Grand Prize of an eReader and a $25 Gift Card will be awarded to two participants who comment on each and every one of the participating blogs.

My prize is a print copy of my time travel romance, A Home for Helena, about a young woman who discovers she was kidnapped from Regency England as a child. This prize is International and will be awarded to a random commenter on this blog post.

Note: Be sure to leave your contact email in your comment so that you can be contacted if necessary.

 

Made-Dishes

What is technically called a made-dish, presupposes either a more elaborate mode of cookery than plain frying, boiling, or roasting or else some combination of those elementary processes,—as, for example, half-roasting and finishing in the stew-pan, which is a very common way of dressing a ragout. All dishes commonly called French dishes are of this class, such as fricassees and ragouts, meat braised, larded, &c. and so are hashes, curries, and generally all viands that are re-dressed.

…

Made-dishes are valued by the gourmand for their seasonings and piquancy, but they are equally esteemed by the economist from the circumstance of a much less quantity of material than would suffice for a boil or roast, making a handsome and highly-flavoured dish; while, by the various modes of re-dressing, every thing cold is, in a new made-dish turned to good account. The most common fault of made dishes is, that they are overdone.

…

The very name made-dish, with us implies something savoury and highly relishing, and though over seasoning is to be avoided, it is proper that made-dishes should rather be piquant than insipid.

Made-dishes of beef that has been dressed.

Few persons come to the years of eating-discretion like cold meat, and though the days are quite gone when the hospitality of the landlord was measured by the size of the joint, it still happens that where a table affords any variety of dishes, much meat will be left cold. The invention of the culinary artist is thus put on the rack for new forms and modes of dress, and new names for various dishes which are intrinsically one. The most common and the best methods of dressing cold beef are broiling, heating in the Dutch oven, or hashing.

Click here for links to all of Mrs. Barlow’s recipes.

Introducing Mrs. Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow, mother of five lovely daughters herself, has graciously condescended to provide Susana’s Parlour with some of her tasteful advisements on housewifely matters, such as meal planning and the rearing of children, in hopes that our readers will find them informative. Having recently set up a Twitter account where she will be sharing her most treasured household tips, she hopes many of you will follow her: https://twitter.com/lucybarlowsmom

Much of her advice comes from this manual, which she insists should be in every housewife’s possession:

The Cook and Housewife’s Manual, Containing the Most approved Modern Receipts for Making Soups, Gravies, Sauces, Regouts, and All Made-dishes; and for Pies, Puddings, Pickles, and Preserves; Also, for Baking Brewing, Making Home-made Wines, Cordials, &c.

Mrs. Margaret Dods (Christian Isobel Johnstone), Edinburgh, 1826

Available free on Google

About A Twelfth Night Tale

Without dowries or the opportunity to meet eligible gentlemen, the five Barlow sisters stand little chance of making advantageous marriages. When Lucy, the eldest, attracts the attention of a wealthy viscount, she knows she should encourage his attentions, since marriage to a peer will be advantageous to all. The man of her dreams was Andrew Livingston, her best friend’s brother. But he’s always treated her like a child, and now he’s betrothed to another. Perhaps the time has come to accept reality… and Lord Bexley.

Andrew returned from the Peninsular War with a lame arm and emotional scars. Surprisingly, it’s his sister’s friend, “little Lucy”—now a strikingly lovely young woman—who shows him the way out of his melancholy. But with an eligible viscount courting her, Andrew will need a little Christmas magic to win her for himself.

Amazon • iBooks • Kobo • Nook

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Barlow’s Tasteful Advisements for Young Matrons and Overwrought Mothers of Daughters: Sauces

Mar25

Sauces, Essences, and Condiments

“Elements! each other greeting,

“Gifts and Powers attend your meeting!”

Pirate

“It is the duty of a good sauce,” says one of the most recondite of modern gastrologers, the Editor of the Almanach des Gourmands, “to insinuate itself all round the maxillary glands, and call into activity each ramification of the palatic organs. If it not be relishing, it is incapable of producing this effect, and if too piquant, it will deaden instead of exciting those titillations of tongue and vibrations of palate, which can only be produced by the most accomplished philosophers of the mouth on the well-trained palate of the refined gourmet.” This, we think, is a tolerably correct definition of what a well-compounded sauce ought to be.

The French, among our other insular distinctions, speak of us as a nation “with twenty religions and only one sauce,”—parsley and butter, by the way, is this national relish,—and unquestionably English cookery, like English manners, has ever been much simpler than that of our neighbours. Modern cookery too, like modern dress, is stripped of many of its original tag-rag fripperies. We have laid aside lace and embroidery, save upon occasions of high ceremonial, and, at the same time, all omnegatherum compound sauces and ragouts, with a smack of every thing. Yet the human form and the human palate have not lost by this revolution. The harmonies of flavours, the affinities and coherence of tastes, and the art of blending and of opposing relishes, were never so well understood as now; for the modern kitchen still affords, in sufficient variety, the sharp, the pungent, the sweet, the acid, the spicy, the aromatic, and the nutty flavours, of which to compound mild, savoury, or piquant sauces, though a host of ingredients are laid aside.

The elegance of a table, as opposed to mere lumbering sumptuousness, or vulgar luxury, is perhaps best discovered in the adaptation of the sauces to the meats served, and in their proper preparation and attractive appearance. Plain Sauces ought to have, as their name imports, a decided character; so ought the sweet and the savory. All Sauces should be served hot,—a matter too often neglected in the hurry of dishing and serving dinner. Sauces with which cream and eggs are mixed must be diligently stirred after these ingredients are added, to provent their curdling, and suffered to warm through, but not to boil. The same care must be taken in mixing capers and all acid pickles in sauce. Though it is willful waste to put wine, catsup, lemon-juice, aromatic spices, and other expensive ingredients, into sauces for more than the time necessary to extract the flavour, yet, on the other hand, these things must be infused or boiled long enough to be properly blended, both in substance and flavour, with the basis of the sauce. The previous concoction must also be duly attended to, whether at the mincing-board, in the mortar, or saucepan. As a general rule, brown sauces should be thinner than white. Cream should be boiled before mixing.

…

The basis, or, more correctly, the vehicle of most English sauces, is butter, whether melted, oiled, browned, or burnt; or gravy, clear, brown, or thickened; also water, milk, cream, and wine, or some substitute. A numerous class of sauces is composed of vegetables and green fruits, another of shell-fish, and a third of meat. There are still other sauces compounded of an admixture of all these ingredients. It will simplify arrangement to take these in regular order; though the philosophers of the kitchen, it must be owned, shake themselves tolerably free of the trammels of system.

Click here for links to all of Mrs. Barlow’s recipes.

Introducing Mrs. Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow, mother of five lovely daughters herself, has graciously condescended to provide Susana’s Parlour with some of her tasteful advisements on housewifely matters, such as meal planning and the rearing of children, in hopes that our readers will find them informative. Having recently set up a Twitter account where she will be sharing her most treasured household tips, she hopes many of you will follow her: https://twitter.com/lucybarlowsmom

Much of her advice comes from this manual, which she insists should be in every housewife’s possession:

The Cook and Housewife’s Manual, Containing the Most approved Modern Receipts for Making Soups, Gravies, Sauces, Regouts, and All Made-dishes; and for Pies, Puddings, Pickles, and Preserves; Also, for Baking Brewing, Making Home-made Wines, Cordials, &c.

Mrs. Margaret Dods (Christian Isobel Johnstone), Edinburgh, 1826

Available free on Google

About A Twelfth Night Tale

Without dowries or the opportunity to meet eligible gentlemen, the five Barlow sisters stand little chance of making advantageous marriages. When Lucy, the eldest, attracts the attention of a wealthy viscount, she knows she should encourage his attentions, since marriage to a peer will be advantageous to all. The man of her dreams was Andrew Livingston, her best friend’s brother. But he’s always treated her like a child, and now he’s betrothed to another. Perhaps the time has come to accept reality… and Lord Bexley.

Andrew returned from the Peninsular War with a lame arm and emotional scars. Surprisingly, it’s his sister’s friend, “little Lucy”—now a strikingly lovely young woman—who shows him the way out of his melancholy. But with an eligible viscount courting her, Andrew will need a little Christmas magic to win her for himself.

Amazon • iBooks • Kobo • Nook

Mrs. Barlow’s Tasteful Advisements to Young Matrons and Overwrought Mothers of Daughters: Preserving Roots and Vegetables

Mar15

To Preserve Roots and Vegetables

Potatoes are of most consequence. Choose them of the middle-size, fresh from the mould, or the store-pit. Yellow kidneys are for the earlier part of the season; and red or calico potatoes for the spring months, as these keep best late in the year. Keep them in a cellar below ground, where the temperature is pretty equal, and never very low, and defend them well from frost and currents of air with straw or mats. In spring, have them turned over, and the growths carefully picked away, which process must be again repeated later in the season. Keep carrots and turnips, parsnips, and beet-roots, with their native mould about them, in dry sand: onions are best preserved strung, or the small ones in nets, in a cool but not a damp place. Use the thick-necked spongy ones first; they may have the germ taken out, with a larding-pin, and then be strung up, or they may be kiln-dried. Parsley may be picked, and dried by tying it in bundles to a rope, or drying it in a cool oven; and so may other herbs. French beans [green beans or string beans] will keep by salting and closing them up, and soaking them before they are dressed; but they lose a good deal of their flavour and colour. Cucumbers, kidney-beans, endive, &c., may be parboiled and kept closed up in strong pickle; soaking them to freshen them before they are dressed. Green peas are shelled, scalded repeatedly, drained, dried in cloths, spread on plates, and put in a cool oven, and afterwards hung up in paper-bags to harden’ soak them before they are used. After all this trouble they are but the ghosts of green peas. They may also be scalded, bottled, covered with clarified butter, corked up, and the corks dipped in rosin; but nothing will preserve the sweet flavour and marrowy substance of the young pea. Cabbages, lettuce, greens, endive, leeks, cauliflower, &c., if carefully removed in dry weather from the ground, without injuring the roots too much, and laid in a cold cellar, or on a stone floor, covering the roots with earth or sand, will keep through the winter, even when the frost might destroy them if left in the garden; and this we conceive the best mode of preservation.

To Store Fruits of Different Kinds

This art is now so well understood, that in spring and early summer, apples, and even pears, are seen as plump and fresh as in the autumn when they were gathered.

Gather the fruits when just ready to drop off easily, but not over-ripe—do not bruide the fruit in gathering—lay it to sweat for a week in heaps, covered with mats, flannels, &c. Wipe each apple or pear, one by one, and place them in glazed stone-ware gallon jars, bedded in fine sifted sand, dried in an oven; fill up the jars with sand. Pack each sort by itself, label the jars and close them, and keep them in an airy loft, but protect from frost by covering them with a thick linen cloth.

N.B.—Eggs, fruit, and other things packed in straw acquire a very musty flavour. This, which is called being straw-tasted, may be avoided by using dried fern for packing.

Click here for links to all of Mrs. Barlow’s recipes.

Introducing Mrs. Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow, mother of five lovely daughters herself, has graciously condescended to provide Susana’s Parlour with some of her tasteful advisements on housewifely matters, such as meal planning and the rearing of children, in hopes that our readers will find them informative. Having recently set up a Twitter account where she will be sharing her most treasured household tips, she hopes many of you will follow her: https://twitter.com/lucybarlowsmom

Much of her advice comes from this manual, which she insists should be in every housewife’s possession:

The Cook and Housewife’s Manual, Containing the Most approved Modern Receipts for Making Soups, Gravies, Sauces, Regouts, and All Made-dishes; and for Pies, Puddings, Pickles, and Preserves; Also, for Baking Brewing, Making Home-made Wines, Cordials, &c.

Mrs. Margaret Dods (Christian Isobel Johnstone), Edinburgh, 1826

Available free on Google

About A Twelfth Night Tale

Without dowries or the opportunity to meet eligible gentlemen, the five Barlow sisters stand little chance of making advantageous marriages. When Lucy, the eldest, attracts the attention of a wealthy viscount, she knows she should encourage his attentions, since marriage to a peer will be advantageous to all. The man of her dreams was Andrew Livingston, her best friend’s brother. But he’s always treated her like a child, and now he’s betrothed to another. Perhaps the time has come to accept reality… and Lord Bexley.

Andrew returned from the Peninsular War with a lame arm and emotional scars. Surprisingly, it’s his sister’s friend, “little Lucy”—now a strikingly lovely young woman—who shows him the way out of his melancholy. But with an eligible viscount courting her, Andrew will need a little Christmas magic to win her for himself.

Amazon • iBooks • Kobo • Nook

Mrs. Barlow’s Tasteful Advisements to Young Matrons and Overwrought Mothers of Daughters: Vegetables and Roots

Mar11

Vegetables and Roots

Vegetables are at their best when just on the eve of being ripe, in their natural season, and when their growth has neither been retarded, nor forced on by artificial means. The vanity, and it is no better, which spurs on people to load their tables with flavourless, colourless, immature vegetables, is ever punished by the expense and disappointment it occasions. Much, however, has been judiciously done of late years, both to improve the quality and to spread the cultivation of vegetables. Where a turnip, a cabbage, or a leek, was twenty years ago the only vegetable luxury found on a country gentleman’s table, we now see a regular succession of not merely brocoli, cauliflower, and peas, but the more recondite asparagus, sea-kale, endive, and artichoke, with an abundance of small saladings. The vegetable-markets of most towns have within the same period undergone a wonderful improvement. The number and quantity of articles are more than doubled, and the price, except for early vegetables, has diminished at least a half; so that this healthful and harmless luxury is now within the reach of all classes. But vegetables of the more delicate species are still comparatively such recent acquaintances, that, even at tables otherwise elegantly appointed, they are seldom seen perfectly well dressed, at least in so far as regards colour. That homely chemistry, which does not disdain to descend to the kitchen, has indeed considerably assisted the cook of late in this department. A few general observations will, if attended to, supply the place of long or often-repeated directions for dressing vegetables. Unlike animal substances, vegetables can never be dressed too fresh, though some kinds, such as French beans and artichokes, will keep a few days. They must, after being carefully cleared from insects and decayed leaves, or other spoiled parts, be washed in plenty of water; they cannot be too much washed. Let them lie in salt and water, head downwards, till they are put to boil. This simple method will bring out every insect that may lurk in the leaves. To preserve their beauty, they must be boiled alone, in a perfectly clean and well-tinned vessel, and in abundance of soft water. A tea-spoonful of salt of wormwood, or a bit of pearl-ashes or soda of the size of a nutmeg, will not only preserve the green colour, but contribute to the tenderness of cabbage, savoys, &c. Put in all vegetables with soft boiling water and plenty of salt; with hard water the colour will keep better, but the quality will not improve. Make them boil fast, and do not cover the vessel if you desire to preserve their fine colour. In a former section it was recommended to boil several sorts of vegetables and roots with the meat, when salted, with which they are to be served; and this, though it may injure the colour, will certainly improve the quality,—a point of greater importance. All vegetables should be enough boiled. The cook’s rule of having them crisp is as inimical to health as offensive to the palate. If boiled quickly, which they ought to be, vegetables are ready when they begin to sink in the boiling water, and they will spoil ever instant after that. Meat may wait a little, but vegetables will not.

Obs.—Stewed and roasted onions used to be a favourite supper-dish in Scotland, and were reckoned medicinal. The onions were stewed (after boiling) in a butter-sauce, to which cream was put,—the sauce blanche of France.

Click here for links to all of Mrs. Barlow’s recipes.

Introducing Mrs. Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow, mother of five lovely daughters herself, has graciously condescended to provide Susana’s Parlour with some of her tasteful advisements on housewifely matters, such as meal planning and the rearing of children, in hopes that our readers will find them informative. Having recently set up a Twitter account where she will be sharing her most treasured household tips, she hopes many of you will follow her: https://twitter.com/lucybarlowsmom

Much of her advice comes from this manual, which she insists should be in every housewife’s possession:

The Cook and Housewife’s Manual, Containing the Most approved Modern Receipts for Making Soups, Gravies, Sauces, Regouts, and All Made-dishes; and for Pies, Puddings, Pickles, and Preserves; Also, for Baking Brewing, Making Home-made Wines, Cordials, &c.

Mrs. Margaret Dods (Christian Isobel Johnstone), Edinburgh, 1826

Available free on Google

About A Twelfth Night Tale

Without dowries or the opportunity to meet eligible gentlemen, the five Barlow sisters stand little chance of making advantageous marriages. When Lucy, the eldest, attracts the attention of a wealthy viscount, she knows she should encourage his attentions, since marriage to a peer will be advantageous to all. The man of her dreams was Andrew Livingston, her best friend’s brother. But he’s always treated her like a child, and now he’s betrothed to another. Perhaps the time has come to accept reality… and Lord Bexley.

Andrew returned from the Peninsular War with a lame arm and emotional scars. Surprisingly, it’s his sister’s friend, “little Lucy”—now a strikingly lovely young woman—who shows him the way out of his melancholy. But with an eligible viscount courting her, Andrew will need a little Christmas magic to win her for himself.

Amazon • iBooks • Kobo • Nook

Mrs. Barlow’s Tasteful Advisements to Young Matrons and Overwrought Mothers of Daughters: Broths, Soups, and Gravies

Mar7

C’est la soupe qui fait le Soldat.

French Proverb.

Soup has been termed the vestibule to a banquet. We call it the only true foundation to the principal repast of the day, whether it be a Cottage or a Cabinet dinner. With this belief we hold as maxims, that the French take the lead of all European people in soups and broths, that the Scotch rank second, the Welsh next, and that the English, as a nation, are at the very bottom of the scale; and farther, that if soup be the foundation of a good dinner, it is equally true that beef is the only foundation of good soup. Whether brown or white, plain or rich, the basis must still be beef,—fresh-killed, juicy young beef, and soft pure water. The essential qualities of soup are, that it be nourishing and restorative. It is the food of childhood and extreme old age, of the declining and the debilitated, for whom the soup-pot performs half the offices of the digestive organs. With these invigorating and salutiferous qualities, the mildest, the richest, and the most poignant relishes may be combined, by the judicious employment of the numerous ingredients which go to the composition of soups. The capital defect of soups is generally not so much the want of meat as of the time necessary to the due concoction of a rich fluid composed of so many ingredients. These defects it is vainly attempted to conceal by the excessive use of pepper and herbs. The following elementary rules, from the French of the chemist Parmentier, were assumed by the Club as practical directions to the cook.

Rules for Making Nourishing Broth

  1. Sound healthful viands.
  2. Vessels of earthenware in preference to those of metal, as a less degree of heat keeps them boiling; and once heated, a few hot cinders will maintain that slight degree of ebullition which is wanted.
  3. Double the weight of water to that of the meat used.
  4. A sufficient quantity of common salt to facilitate the separation of the blood and slime that coagulates under the form of scum.
  5. In the early stage of the process such a degree of heat as will throw off the whole scum.
  6. A lower, but an equal temperature, that the soup may simmer gently till the substances employed, whether nutritive, colouring, or flavouring, are perfectly combined with the water, according to their several degrees of solubility.

Some soups are very good when made the day before they are to be eaten, as the top-fat can be removed in a cake, and they attain more complete consistence… without losing their flavour, but they need not be seasoned till wanted; and should then be slowly heated to the boiling point: if permitted to boil, some soups will lose part of their flavour; and of soups with meat, the meat will harden. Excellent judges differ on this point. Many think every hot preparation best when fresh cooked, and soups of the number. Of this kind are brown soup, hare soup, soup of game of any kind, giblet soup, and generally all soups made of the meat of animals of mature growth. Soups into which vegetables and young meats enter in any quantity, are best when fresh made, as those things have a strong tendency to ferment. This also holds of veal and fish soups… In all English books on cookery there is too much wine ordered for soups, and sometimes too little meat. The former error is less dangerous, as what is levied from the cellar does not always find its way to the soup-pot. All roots, bread-raspings, barley, and meal, for plain common soups, ought to be put in as soon as the pot is skimmed, when the roots are merely intended to thicken and flavour the soup. When to be cut in pieces and served in the broth, an hour’s boiling is fully enough for carrot, turnip, onions, &c. Many things are used to thicken and give consistence to common soups and sauces. The best perhaps is fine toasted oatmeal, potato mucilage, or bread not too stale. When the soup or gravy is too much boiled in, the waste must be supplied with boiling water or broth; and though we strenuously recommend, in general, close-covered pots, yet when the soup is watery and weak the lid may be taken off till the watery particles evaporate; for thickening gives consistence, but not strength… Broth made of fat meat may have a larger proportion of greens, leeks, cabbage, or whatever green vegetable is used, than leaner meat. The best plain browning for soups, sauces, gravies, &c., is red wine, soy, or mushroom or walnut catsup… The cook is entreated to bear in mind, that the elegance of all brown soups consists in transparency, united with richness and flavour; of white soups, and fish and vegetable soups, in the goodness of the desired colour and fullness on the palate.

Soup may be made in an infinity of ways. There is no end to the combinations of meat, games, fish, herbs, roots, spices, and mucilage, with water; but the basis of the best soup is, as we have said, beef,—fresh, full of juices, young, succulent, and not too fat,—the lean parts of a fat animal.

Introducing Mrs. Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow, mother of five lovely daughters herself, has graciously condescended to provide Susana’s Parlour with some of her tasteful advisements on housewifely matters, such as meal planning and the rearing of children, in hopes that our readers will find them informative. Having recently set up a Twitter account where she will be sharing her most treasured household tips, she hopes many of you will follow her: https://twitter.com/lucybarlowsmom

Much of her advice comes from this manual, which she insists should be in every housewife’s possession:

The Cook and Housewife’s Manual, Containing the Most approved Modern Receipts for Making Soups, Gravies, Sauces, Regouts, and All Made-dishes; and for Pies, Puddings, Pickles, and Preserves; Also, for Baking Brewing, Making Home-made Wines, Cordials, &c.

Mrs. Margaret Dods (Christian Isobel Johnstone), Edinburgh, 1826

Available free on Google

About A Twelfth Night Tale

Without dowries or the opportunity to meet eligible gentlemen, the five Barlow sisters stand little chance of making advantageous marriages. When Lucy, the eldest, attracts the attention of a wealthy viscount, she knows she should encourage his attentions, since marriage to a peer will be advantageous to all. The man of her dreams was Andrew Livingston, her best friend’s brother. But he’s always treated her like a child, and now he’s betrothed to another. Perhaps the time has come to accept reality… and Lord Bexley.

Andrew returned from the Peninsular War with a lame arm and emotional scars. Surprisingly, it’s his sister’s friend, “little Lucy”—now a strikingly lovely young woman—who shows him the way out of his melancholy. But with an eligible viscount courting her, Andrew will need a little Christmas magic to win her for himself.

Amazon • iBooks • Kobo • Nook

Mrs. Barlow’s Tasteful Advisements to Young Matrons and Overwrought Mothers of Daughters: Suppers

Mar4

Suppers

The ingenuity of the genteel economist is as often taxed to contrive supper-things of scanty materials, as in arranging dinners, which admit of less temporizing. Economy, good taste, and neatness, can, however do much with slender means, where the chief organ to be propitiated is the eye; for the lateness of modern dinner-hours has now, almost universally, changed suppers from a solid meal into a slight shewy refreshment.

It is said that ladies are the best critics in suppers, while gentlemen are better qualified to decide on the more substantial business of the dinner table. However this may be, ladies are unquestionably more conversant with the things on which the elegance of a supper depends,—namely, the beautiful shapes and arrangement of china, glass, linen, fruits, foliage, colours, lights, ornamental confectionary, and all the natural and artificial embellishments of the table. These articles, so beautiful in themselves, cannot fail, if gracefully disposed, to gratify the eye, however slender the repast with which they are intermixed.

When a formal supper is set out, the principal dishes are understood to be roasted game or poultry, cold meats sliced, ham, tongue, collared and potted things, grated beef, Dutch herring, kipper, highly-seasoned pies of game &c. &c., with, occasionally, soups,—an addition to modern suppers which, after the heat and fatigue of a ball-room, or large party, is found peculiarly grateful and restorative. Minced white meats, lobsters, oysters, collared eels, and crawfish, dressed in various forms; sago, rice, the more delicate vegetables, poached eggs, scalloped potatoes, or potatoes in balls, or as Westphalia cakes, are all suitable articles of the solid kind. To these we may add cakes, tarts, possets, creams, jellies in glasses or shapes, custards, preserved or dried fruits, pancakes, fritters, puffs, tartlets, grated cheese, butter in little forms, sandwiches; and the catalogue of the more stimulating dishes, as anchovy toasts, devils, Welsh, English, and Scotch rabbits, roasted onions, salmagundi, smoked sausages sliced, and those other preparations which are best adapted to what among ancient bon vivants was called the rere-supper.

A supper-table should neither be too much crowded, nor too much scattered and broken with minute dishes. Any larder moderately stored will furnish a few substantial articles for supper on an emergency. A few sweet things readily prepared, some small patties, shell-fish, and fruits, will do the reset, if the effect of contrasted colours, flavours, and forms, be understood, and that light and graceful disposition of trifles, which is the chief art in setting off such entertainments.

French wines are lately become an article of ambitious display at fashionable suppers, even in families of the middle rank. Where they can be afforded in excellence and variety, nothing can be more appropriate at a light, shewy, exhilarating repast.

Introducing Mrs. Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow, mother of five lovely daughters herself, has graciously condescended to provide Susana’s Parlour with some of her tasteful advisements on housewifely matters, such as meal planning and the rearing of children, in hopes that our readers will find them informative. Having recently set up a Twitter account where she will be sharing her most treasured household tips, she hopes many of you will follow her: https://twitter.com/lucybarlowsmom

Much of her advice comes from this manual, which she insists should be in every housewife’s possession:

The Cook and Housewife’s Manual, Containing the Most approved Modern Receipts for Making Soups, Gravies, Sauces, Regouts, and All Made-dishes; and for Pies, Puddings, Pickles, and Preserves; Also, for Baking Brewing, Making Home-made Wines, Cordials, &c.

Mrs. Margaret Dods (Christian Isobel Johnstone), Edinburgh, 1826

Available free on Google

About A Twelfth Night Tale

Without dowries or the opportunity to meet eligible gentlemen, the five Barlow sisters stand little chance of making advantageous marriages. When Lucy, the eldest, attracts the attention of a wealthy viscount, she knows she should encourage his attentions, since marriage to a peer will be advantageous to all. The man of her dreams was Andrew Livingston, her best friend’s brother. But he’s always treated her like a child, and now he’s betrothed to another. Perhaps the time has come to accept reality… and Lord Bexley.

Andrew returned from the Peninsular War with a lame arm and emotional scars. Surprisingly, it’s his sister’s friend, “little Lucy”—now a strikingly lovely young woman—who shows him the way out of his melancholy. But with an eligible viscount courting her, Andrew will need a little Christmas magic to win her for himself.

Amazon • iBooks • Kobo • Nook

Mrs. Barlow’s Tasteful Advisements to Young Matrons and Overwrought Mothers of Daughters: the Bill of Fare

Feb25

Introducing Mrs. Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow

Mrs. Leah Barlow, mother of five lovely daughters herself, has graciously condescended to provide Susana’s Parlour with some of her tasteful advisements on housewifely matters, such as meal planning and the rearing of children, in hopes that our readers will find them informative. Having recently set up a Twitter account where she will be sharing her most treasured household tips, she hopes many of you will follow her: https://twitter.com/lucybarlowsmom

 

Much of her advice comes from this manual, which she insists should be in every housewife’s possession:

The Cook and Housewife’s Manual, Containing the Most approved Modern Receipts for Making Soups, Gravies, Sauces, Regouts, and All Made-dishes; and for Pies, Puddings, Pickles, and Preserves; Also, for Baking Brewing, Making Home-made Wines, Cordials, &c.

Mrs. Margaret Dods (Christian Isobel Johnstone), Edinburgh, 1826

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Bills of Fare

As landmarks to the inexperienced housekeeper, we subjoin a few bills of fare, observing, at the same time, that these must, in every instance, be let to individual taste and discretion. Bills of fare may be varied in endless ways,—nor can any specific rules be given for selecting dishes for the table, which must depend wholly on fortune, fashion, the season of the year, local situation, and a variety of circumstances. Neatness and propriety alone are of universal obligation in the regulation of every table, from the humblest to the most splendid. To the credit of the age it may be remarked, that modern fashion inclines more to a few dishes, well selected and elegantly disposed, than to that heterogeneous accumulation of good things with which notable British housewives used to conceal their table-linen.

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The manner of laying out a fashionable table is nearly the same in all quarters of the united kingdoms; yet there are trifling local peculiarities to which the prudent housewife in middle life must attend. A centre-ornament, whether it be called a dormant, a plateau, an epergne, or a candelabra, is found so convenient, and contributes so much to the good appearance of the table, that a fashionable dinner is now seldom set out without something of this kind.

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…[O]ne important art in housekeeping is to make what remains over from one day’s entertainment contribute to the…next day’s repasts. This is a principle understood by persons in the very highest ranks of society, and who maintain the most splendid and expensive establishments… [V]egetables, ragouts, and soups, may be re-warmed; and jellies and blancmange remoulded, with no deterioration of their qualities. Savoury or sweet patties, potted meats, croquets, rissoles, vol-auvents, fritters, tartlets, &c., may be served with almost no cost, where cookery is going forward on a large scale…

At dinners of any pretension, it is understood that the first course shall consist of soups and fish, succeeded by boiled poultry, ham or tongue, roasts, stews, &c.,; and of vegetables, with a few made-dishes, such as ragouts, curries, hashes, cutlets, patties, fricandeaus, &c., in as great variety as the number of dishes permits; as a jelly and a cream, a white and a brown, or a clear and a stew-soup. For the second course, roasted poultry or game at the top and bottom, with dressed vegetables, omelets, macaroni, jellies, creams, salads, preserved fruit, and all sorts of sweet things and pastry, are employed. This is a more common arrangement than three courses, which are attended with so much additional trouble both to the guests and servants.

But whether the dinner be of two or three courses, it is managed nearly in the same way… In the centre, there is generally some ornamental article, as an epergne with flowers, real or artificial, or with a decorated salad… Two dishes of fish dressed in different ways, if suitable, should occupy the top and bottom; and two soups, a white and a brown, or a mild and a high-seasoned, are best disposed on each side of the centre-piece: the fish-sauces are placed between the centre-piece and the dish of fish to which each is appropriate; and this, with the decanted wines drank during dinner, forms the first course. When there are rare French or Rhenish wines, they are placed in the original bottles (uncorked) in ornamented wine-vases, at the head and bottom of the table,—that is, between the centre-piece and the top and bottom dishes; or if four kinds, they are ranged round the plateau.

The Second Course, when there are three, consists of roasts and stews for the top and bottom, Turkey or fowls, or fricandeau and ham garnished, or tongue, for the sides; with small made-dishes for the corners, served in covered dishes; as palates, stewed giblets, currie of any kind, ragout, or fricassee of rabbits, stewed mushrooms, &c. &c. Two sauce-tureens, or glasses with pickles, or very small made-dishes, may be placed between the epergne and the top and bottom dishes; vegetables on the side-table are handed round…

The Third Course consists of game, confectionary, the more delicate vegetables dressed in the French way, puddings, creams, jellies, &c.

Rummer (a water glass)

Water-bottles, with rummers, are placed at proper intervals. Malt liquors and other common beverages are called for; but where hock, champagne, &c. &c. are served, they are handed round between the courses. When the third course is cleared away, cheese, butter, a fresh salad, or sliced cucumber, are usually served; and the finger-glasses, where these disagreeable things continue to be openly used, precede the dessert. At many tables, however, of the first fashion, it is customary merely to hand round quickly a glass vessel or two filled with simple, or simply perfumed tepid water, made by the addition of a little rose or lavender water, or a home-made strained infusion of rose leaves or lavender spikes. Into this water each guest may dip the corner of his napkin, and with this (only when needful) refresh his lips and the tips of his fingers…

The Dessert may consist merely of two dishes of fine fruit for the top and bottom; common or dried fruits, filberts, &c. for the corners or sides, and a cake for the middle, with ice-pails in hot weather. Liqueurs are at this stage handed round; and the wines usually drank after dinner are placed decanted on the table along with the dessert, and the ice-pails and plates removed as soon as the company finish their ice. Where there is preserved ginger, it follows the ices; or is eaten to heighten to the palate the delicious coolness of the dessert wines.

About A Twelfth Night Tale

Without dowries or the opportunity to meet eligible gentlemen, the five Barlow sisters stand little chance of making advantageous marriages. When Lucy, the eldest, attracts the attention of a wealthy viscount, she knows she should encourage his attentions, since marriage to a peer will be advantageous to all. The man of her dreams was Andrew Livingston, her best friend’s brother. But he’s always treated her like a child, and now he’s betrothed to another. Perhaps the time has come to accept reality… and Lord Bexley.

Andrew returned from the Peninsular War with a lame arm and emotional scars. Surprisingly, it’s his sister’s friend, “little Lucy”—now a strikingly lovely young woman—who shows him the way out of his melancholy. But with an eligible viscount courting her, Andrew will need a little Christmas magic to win her for himself.

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