Two complete menu suggestions, from soup to dessert, that represent complete meals as they would have been served in the mid-1800’s.
Based on recipes from Godey’s, 1864.
Menu I
Potato Soup
- Peel and chop four onions, [one onion per pound of potatoes
- Put them into a gallon saucepan, with two ounces of dripping fat, or butter, or a bit of fat bacon
- Add rather better than three quarts of water
- Set the whole to boil on the fire for ten minutes
- Throw in four pounds of peeled and sliced up potatoes, pepper and salt, and with a wooden spoon
- Stir the soup on the fire for about twenty-five minutes, by which time the potatoes will be done to a pulp, and the soup ready for dinner [This was also served for breakfast.]
Roast Fowl
- First, draw the fowl, reserving the gizzard and liver to be tucked under the wing
- Truss the fowl with skewers, and tie it to the end of a skein of worsted [woolen yarn], which is to be fastened to a nail stuck in the chimney-piece so that the fowl may dangle rather close to the fire, in order to roast it [modern day: bake in oven at 350 degrees at 20 minutes per pound]
- Baste the foul, while it is being roasted, with butter or some kind of grease
- When nearly done, sprinkle it with a litter flour and salt, and allow the fowl to attain a bright yellow-brown color before you take it up
- Place it on its dish, and pour some brown gravy over it
Brown Gravy for the Fowl
- Chop up an onion, and fry it with a sprig of thyme and a bit of butter [and one tablespoon of drippings from the baked fowl]
- When it is brown, add a good teaspoonful of moist sugar and a drop of water
- Boil all together on the fire until the water is reduced, and the sugar begins to bake of a dark brown color
- Stir on the fire for three minutes longer; after which moisten it with half a pint of water; add a little pepper and salt
- Boil all together for five minutes; and strain the gravy over the fowl
Buttered Swedish Turnips
Swedish turnips yield more substance than the ordinary turnips. Let them be peeled, boiled in plenty of water [30 minutes if cut into chunks; 45 minutes if quartered], and when done, mashed with a little milk, butter, pepper, and salt.
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