Rhubarb Cups

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Rhubarb Cups

Rhubarb Cups are a simple, three-ingredient, make-ahead dessert from the 1847 cookbook The Lady’s Receipt Book by Eliza Leslie. Rhubarb Cups would be a perfect dish to add to your recipe rotation if you’ve got a freezer full of stewed rhubarb! I have to admit, they don’t end up being the most visually appealing dessert, but what they lack in aesthetics, they make up for in taste. The cups themselves are very mild, but this recipe also includes a zippy and flavourful butter, sugar and lemon hard sauce. As an added bonus, in this blog post you’ll find out where you can find rhubarb growing wild in Banff National Park.

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Spinach and Ricotta Dumplings

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Spinach and Ricotta Dumplings

Spinach and Ricotta Dumplings is found in The New York Times Cook Book from 1961 and it’s a recipe that I had to make twice to end up with something edible. I had to veer from the original cooking method and I recommend adding some additional ingredients to amp up the flavour. The recipe gives the instruction to “shape into small balls” and since small could mean many sizes, I decided to make my dumplings the size of a Timbit.

That’s where the rambling nature of this blog post begins. I realized that most people who read my blog don’t live in Canada and might not know what a Timbit is. I started there, which led to explaining what Tim Hortons is, which led to writing about the first Tim Horton’s restaurant ever in my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario. And then...since measuring something in Timbits is a very Canadian measurement, at the end I have a look at some very Canadian measurements on COVID-19 social distancing signs in Hamilton and Toronto. I’d love to hear what the COVID-19 signs are like in your part of the world, so please leave a comment!

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Queen of Puddings

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Queen of Puddings

Queen of Puddings comes to us all they way from Toronto in 1877. The Home Cook Book is Canada’s first community cookbook with recipes contributed by women as a fundraiser for The Hospital for Sick Children. Queen of Puddings must have been popular in Toronto in the late 1870s because this recipe (with various names) was submitted by 5 different women to the Puddings chapter of the book!

I had plenty to share with friends & family and I described it to the people I gave it to as a lemony soufflé bottom with a jam layer and meringue on top. The reviews I received were: no response, that it was delightful, “it was very good and had a unique texture”, and it was weird to eat with mint ice cream.

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Oeufs au fromage

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Oeufs au fromage

Oeufs au fromage (Eggs with Cheese) is probably the most delicious scrambled egg recipe I’ve ever made! The flavours of the Gruyere cheese, parsley, green onions, nutmeg and white wine combine beautifully and the recipe itself is simple to pull off. I found this recipe in the 1825 edition of La cuisinière bourgeoise, which was the first cookbook to be published in Canada and this is also my first bilingual post in both English and French.

Oeufs au fromage est probablement la plus délicieuse recette d’œufs brouillés que j’ai jamais préparée! Les saveurs du gruyère, du persil, des oignons verts, de la muscade et du vin blanc se marient à merveille et la recette est simple à réaliser. J'ai trouvé cette recette dans l'édition de 1825 de La cuisinière bourgeoise, le premier livre de recettes publié au Canada. C’est aussi mon premier poste bilingue en anglais et en français.

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Icing for Cake

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Icing for Cake

Icing for Cake saved the day when I had about 5 dozen bland Ammonia Cakes that needed some extra pizzazz! Both Ammonia Cakes and Icing for Cake are found in the 1898 The New Galt Cookbook, which is a community cookbook compiled not far from where I grew up and where I live today. Icing for Cake is a simple white sugar and milk icing that hardens within minutes and you could drizzle it on cakes, cookies, donuts or squares.

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Ammonia Cakes

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Ammonia Cakes

Ammonia Cakes: probably the least appetizing cookie name that I’ve ever come across. These cakes use ammonium bicarbonate (baker’s ammonia) as the leavening agent and I assure you that they don’t taste like ammonia, but they will temporarily stink up your kitchen while they bake! Ammonia Cakes fall on the bland side of the cookie spectrum, so I was lucky to find the recipe Icing for Cake in the same recipe book and I iced them the next day.

Added later: If you’re interested in learning more about Baker’s Ammonia or Ammonium Bicarbonate, continuing reading after this recipe to find out some history and background about this leavening agent.

If you’re more interested in baking a delicious cookie that uses Baker’s Ammonia, head over to my Cup Cookies recipe (I don’t recommend baking Ammonia Cakes).

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Scalloped Turnips

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Scalloped Turnips

I wanted to prepare one last root vegetable recipe before the greens & herbs start popping up here in Ontario, and I thought I'd turn to a local 1898 cookbook: The New Galt Cook Book. Galt is a town which is now part of Cambridge, Ontario and it's also close to where I grew up and where I live now in Hamilton. Scalloped Turnips is an interesting twist on scalloped potatoes. The turnips provide additional flavour to the dish, and it is creamy but also light because the sauce uses a butter & flour roux and the cooking water from the turnips instead of a white bechamel sauce.

Coincidentally, I had this recipe selected and the turnips purchased before I knew that cooking at an event using recipes from The New Galt Cook Book was even a possibility! I'll be preparing food from this cookbook for a Victorian Tea at the Fashion History Museum in Cambridge, Ontario on May 18th, and Food Historian Carolyn Blackstock will be speaking about her year-old journey making a recipe a day from The New Galt Cook Book.

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Piquant Beets

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Piquant Beets

I'm not a fan of the taste of beets, although I have evolved enough to abide roasted and pickled beets on occasion. I liked Piquant Beets, though, and I can't say that I've ever thought that about a recipe made with boiled beets! This recipe takes those (in my mind at least) repulsive boiled beets and jazzes them up with horseradish, honey, lemon juice and...wait for it...bacon. Steve's response to tasting this dish was, "I don't even mind the beets", which is probably the highest praise he could give to this recipe. We can thank Elaine Collett and Mary-Etta Macpherson, who compiled the 1965 Canadian classic The Chatelaine Cookbook, for this culinary miracle.

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To restore from stroke of lightning

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To restore from stroke of lightning

Cookbooks used to not only be a resource for learning how to prepare food, but would also contain medicinal recipes and household tips. I’ve been wanting to explore other facets of cookbooks, so to start with, I chose my favourite remedy, To Restore from Stroke of Lightning. This “cure” is my favourite because it makes me chuckle every single time, no matter how many times I read it.

This helpful tip is found in the Medicinal Receipts chapter in The Home Cookbook, published in 1877, which was Canada's first fund-raising community cookbook and the best selling Canadian cookbook in the 19th-century. I had the vague thought that I had an ancestor who was killed by lightning, so I did some research and found out who it was! In this blog post, you’ll read the story of my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather’s death, along with a few other tales from that branch of my family tree.

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Albany Cake

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Albany Cake

If a sweet scone and a cookie got married and had a baby, that baby would be Albany Cakes. However you classify Albany Cakes, this sweet bit of bakery with cinnamon and rose water flavours is deelish! This was another recipe that we made at the cooking classes that I taught this autumn at Nelles Manor Museum in Grimsby. Our Albany Cakes recipe comes from The Frugal Housewife's Manual, published in Toronto in 1840, but written by “A.B.”, a mysterious resident of Grimsby who likely would have known the Nelles family.

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Pumpkin Soup

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Pumpkin Soup

This Pumpkin Soup recipe comes from The Canadian Housewife's Manual of Cookery, which was compiled & published in my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario in 1861. It is hearty & flavourful, and I think the reason for this can be found in a one-word answer: butter. Expect a creamy robust soup with small chunks of pumpkin (or squash, if you can't find pumpkin). This soup is so rich that it might make a better side dish rather than the main component of your meal, but if you do try this recipe out, I highly recommend the historic recipe's suggestion of adding croutons made of fried bread to your bowl!

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Squash Puff

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Squash Puff

If you asked anyone in my family about our traditional family recipes, probably the first dish listed by everyone would be Squash Puff. I'd describe Squash Puff as a cross between squash pudding and soufflé. It is light, fluffy and very flavourful considering it doesn't contain any onions or herbs. My Mom cut the recipe out of a newspaper at some point and it's been in her giant binder of recipe clippings ever since I can remember. Give Squash Puff a try at your next Thanksgiving, potluck or family gathering...or when you've got a hankering for some satisfying comfort food.

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