Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Cooking with Early American First Ladies


In honor of Independence Day, I thought I'd share some recipes and wisdom over the next few weeks from the original White House Cookbook

I have the 1901 version of the book and it's in pretty bad shape (the book was originally published in 1887). (1901 seems to a theme this week at Mystery Playground, yesterday we featured a book on the Mckinley assassination which happened the year this my copy of the book was published.  I bought my copy years ago at a flea market in New York City. 


Because this is the first post about the Whitehouse Cookbook and since it's so awesome, it won't be the last, I thought why not start with dessert first and Cream Strawberry Tarts...



"take a small cup full of cream from the morning's milk..." they had no idea where we would get our milk. 

"Raspberry, blackberry and whortleberry may be made the same. " Whortleberries are now called blueberries. I had never heard this and had to look it up. 



Washington Pie

There is something about politicians renaming something we all know and love to make it their own. And they even did it in 1901. Take a look at the recipe below for "Washington Pie." I guess they couldn't see their way clear to call it Boston Cream Pit, but at least they did reference it. 




Huckleberries with Crackers and Cream

Is it just me or is the Washington Cookbook capping on the Bostonians again.  This dish can be eaten as a dessert by civilized folk or if you're an old fashioned New Englander, for breakfast. It's listed in the dessert section... 



Soft Caramel Custard

I just added this recipe because who doesn't love instruction that tell you to do something until it begins to smoke. 




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