March 31^st is the anniversary of this blog – and in honour of my first recipe, Cayenne Cheese from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, which is the first written recipe for Cheese Straws, I’ve been making recipes that feature flour, butter, cheese, salt and cayenne pepper each year to mark the occasion. This Cheese Cookie recipe is from the 1940s edition of the Joy of Cooking.

It’s my anniversary today! Three years ago today, I was furiously completing my first blog post, Cayenne Cheeses, which still is one of my favourite historic recipes. Each year ever since, I’ve made another baked cheesy recipe with cheese, butter, flour, salt and cayenne pepper in the ingredient list.

This Cheese Straw recipe is from the 1903 Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book and it’s very simple to put together. Grate cheese, season with salt and cayenne pepper and sprinkle it on top of thin strips of pastry. It’s an excellent recipe for making a delicious snack from the extra pastry when you’re making a pie. You could also make or buy pastry if you want a larger batch. They taste quite more-ish, so you might very well want to make pastry specifically for this recipe!

Cu p Cookies are a milk lemon sugar cookie with an almond, sugar & cinnamon topping sprinkled on top. This recipe is from Aunt Babette’s Cook Book from 1889, and its leavening agent is Ammonium Bicarbonate or Baker’s Ammonia

I’ve chosen this recipe because for the last 2 years, my Ammonia Cakes recipe has been my most popular post by far. That shows me that there’s an appetite for information about and recipes using Baker’s Ammonia, but I’m torn, because Ammonia Cakes is not a delicious recipe at all! I had to make a second recipe, Icing for Cake to save the Ammonia Cakes so they were edible and they didn’t end up in the compost.

Cup Cookies are a much more delicious ammonium bicarbonate cookie. Stick with this recipe for the deliciousness, but head over to Ammonia Cakes for a bit of history about Baker’s Ammonia.

Today’s my 2^nd Blogaversary! 2 years ago today, I nervously and excitedly hit “publish” on my very first recipe post. The recipe I picked was Cayenne Cheeses from the 1861 cookbook Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. I picked it because it was – and it still is – my favourite historic recipe that I’ve ever made and eaten.

A year later, I started the tradition of posting a similar recipe each year on March 31^st to celebrate the milestone. Last year’s recipe was Cheese Hooies from the 1965 Stillmeadow Cookbook by Gladys Taber. 2020’s twist on baking flour, butter, cheese, salt and cayenne pepper together is Cheese Straws. This recipe come to us all the way from the 1891 Tried and True Cookbook, a community cookbook compiled by the “Ladies Aid Society and Friends of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Deadwood, South Dakota”.

One evening recently, I found myself driving home from visiting my Mom with a small harvest of fresh rhubarb from her garden in the passenger seat. Basically as soon as I set foot in my door, I searched for a historic rhubarb recipe that wasn’t Rhubarb Jam, Stewed Rhubarb or Rhubarb Pie (the things I do for fun!). Rhubarb and Banana Fool, from the 1900 cookbook Mrs. Beeton’s Cold Sweets, was the most intriguing to me. A good description of this recipe in today’s terms would be a low-sugar banana and rhubarb smoothie, with a suggested whipped cream topping.

This recipe got me to start thinking about a few things: what immediately sprang to mind was one of my Father-in-Law’s favourite stories to tell first time he ate a banana in the 1950s. It’s a funny tale, so be sure to keep reading for a chuckle.

Discovering the Rhubarb and Banana Fool recipe also made me wonder: “When did people start eating bananas in North America?”, so I delve into answering that question by having a look at American and Canadian cookbooks.

You’ll also find a bit of bonus info about Cochineal, an insect used as a red dye. At the end, I briefly run over the beginnings of the banana growing industry in the Americas, and the grave injustice of the more-delicious Gros Michel banana becoming almost wiped out by disease, to be replaced by our less-tasty Cavendish bananas that we eat today.

One year ago today, on March 31st, I hit the "Publish" button for the first time and put out my first Food History blog recipe for the world to see and taste. I selected Cayenne Cheeses, a scrumptious cheese biscuit, from the 1861 Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management because it has been one of my favourite historic recipes since I began working in Historic House Museums. They are really delicious, you should try them!

My 1-year anniversary recipe is Cheese Hooies. When I first read this recipe in the 1965 Stillmeadow Cookbook by Gladys Taber, I saw the ingredient list (butter, cheese, flour, salt and cayenne pepper) and thought, "These Hooies are basically Cayenne Cheeses". Cheese Hooies haven't kicked Cayenne Cheeses off my favourite recipes list, but making them was interesting look at how a century changes a recipe.

This Taheeni recipe isn't a Tahini recipe, simply because its main ingredient is eggplant and not sesame seeds. I'd describe Taheeni as basically Baba Ganoush, ironically without the tahini! I found this recipe in The Blender Cookbook by Ann Seranne & Eileen Gaden from 1961 in the International Specialties chapter under "The Near East".

Today, I'm able to walk into almost any grocery store and buy myself a container of tahini or baba ganoush, but this was likely not the case in 1961. I'll chalk up the name to something getting lost in translation, but whatever it's called, my tastebuds give this this dip two thumbs up.