Old New Zealand cookbooks are full of curious recipes. It might be interesting to add some of these curiosities to a thread. For the odd poster who thinks all recipes must have been tried before posting, please may it be known that I have not made this Schoolboy Favourite and do not intend to :)
SCHOOL BOY FAVOURITES Take some Weetbix and spread generously with honey or jam. Then a thick layer of marshmallow. Marshmallow: 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, 1 tablespoon Davis Gelatine. Heat 1/4 cup water and gelatine. Boil remainder of water and sugar, then cool and add gelatine. Beat till stiff and white. Spread about 1/4in. thick on top of biscuits and sprinkle with coconut.
Source:late 1940s early 1950s Nelson Cookery Book, with all contributors' names, mostly Mrs Somebody plus husband's initials. The cover with date of publication is long gone, but the phone numbers in the local advertisements are only three digits, and the oven temperatures are all, 'hot, cold, quick' etc
INVALID'S DELIGHT Melt one jelly (preferably lemon colour) in one large cup of water. Bring one cup of milk to the boil. Add beaten yolks of two eggs. Whisk in stiffly beaten whites. When cool blend custard with jelly mixture and set in bowl or moulds.
Same source... all the early cookery books have a section for Invalid recipes, some quite grotesque.
elliehen,
Jun 23, 12:31am
BRAIN AND WALNUT PATTIES 2 sets of brains, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 slice onion, 1&1/2 dessertspoons butter, 1&1/2 dessertspoons flour, 1 cup milk, 1/4 cup chopped nuts, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, egg glazing, breadcrumbs, fat. Soak brains 30 minutes in salted water. Clean and boil. Drain, cover with fresh water, add salt and onion. Simmer 15 minutes. Drain, cool, cut in 1/2in cubes. Melt butter, add flour, cook 1 minute. Add milk, stir until boiling. Fold in brains and walnuts, season. Then cook and shape patties with flour, egg glazing and breadcrumbs. Fry.
Source:Same Nelson cookbook. Some believe that walnuts, because they look like brains, are good for the brain. Maybe in a brain and walnut pattie you are getting a double dose of goodness ;)
hezwez,
Jun 23, 3:00am
From an ancient New Plymouth cookbook titled "What Do You Really Know About Bread? " by G South, a baker & Pastrycook, published in the days when phone numbers were 3 digits long, we have: Babooty Curry Half lb bread Half lb cold meat 1 onion 1 egg 1 dessertspoon curry powder A little seasoned stock Moisten the stale bread then mince the bread, meat and onion through machine. Mix the curry and stock to moisten sufficiently. Butter or gtrease a pie dish and put it all in, except for the egg which is beaten separately and poured over the top. Bake half an hour in a moderate oven and serve. All the recipes include bread, not surprisingly, and I was fascinated to see in another where the word catchup is used in lieu of ketchup. Bon appetit!
daleaway,
Jun 23, 4:59am
x1
I recognise that last one - it is a (very) bastardised version of the South African classic recipe Bobotie.
Ketchup/catsup is originally I believe Ketjap or similar spellings, from the Malay which was in turn borrowed from Cantonese "ke chiap", a fermented fish sauce.
hezwez,
Jun 23, 5:17am
That's so interesting daleaway, the way recipes (and words) evolve.
eastie3,
Jun 23, 6:02am
The enemy could use this to torture me.
elliehen,
Jun 23, 6:03am
x1
From a very old book titled South Pacific Cookery, published in Port Moresby, Papua. This is from The Little Sisters, Mission of the Sacred Heart, Kerau.
WILD YEAST "This is how we prepare yeast. Mix together three level tablespoons of sugar, three heaped tablespoons of flour, one cup of water to make a paste. Add a small quantity of potato peelings. If you can get lemons, use eight drops of lemon juice instead of the potato peelings. Pour the mixture into a bottle. Cork it and tie the cork on firmly. Leave it for twelve hours. Now empty the bottle, but do not wash it. Make up a new mixture of flour, sugar, water and potato peelings, pour it into the bottle and leave for another twelve hours. Now empty the bottle again and repeat the process for a third time. At the end of thirty-six hours the paste is ready to use. It should contain enough yeast to make ten small loaves. If you are going to make your own bread all the time, keep on using the same bottle and make up the mixture twelve hours before you need it. "
jessie981,
Jun 23, 6:10am
Have Aunt Daisy No 6 recipe book. Unusual names for recipes in there.
elliehen,
Jun 23, 6:14am
WHEY FLUFF 1oz. Gelatin 1/2 cup cold water 2 cups whey 3/4 cup sugar 1 cup grated raw carrot rind and juice of one lemon 1-2 egg whites Soak gelatin in water, add whey and sugar. Heat till gelatin melts and sugar dissolves. Add lemon rind and juice. When beginning to set, beat and when thick and fluffy fold in raw carrot, and stiffly-beaten egg-whites. Pile in serving dish. Serve with cream or soft custard.
Source: Whitcombe's Everyday Cookery for New Zealand. Price on cover 3/- (three shillings)
elliehen,
Jun 23, 6:20am
Baking tends to have changed little from Aunt Daisy's day, but most contemporary cooks don't use offal the way earlier cooks did and there are a lot more steamed puddings and custards in the old books.
A few recipes have names that wouldn't be acceptable now - 'Maori kisses' for the chocolate equivalent of a plain custard kiss, and 'Chinese Chews' for an oaty slice with ginger in it.
bedazzledjewels,
Jun 23, 6:29am
Fluffs and flummeries were all the rage! I remember Chinese Chews - they were lovely! Interesting thread Elliehen. Does anyone collect old NZ cookbooks?
elliehen,
Jun 23, 6:41am
Yes, lots of traders on Trade Me collect old New Zealand cookbooks. Even the Turnbull Library has an acquisitions librarian keeping an eye out. There is one notable collector who is compiling a database of all pre-1950 New Zealand published cookbooks (about 800 in all) and he has more than half that number in his personal collection.
Condition is not as important as the edition, and some collectors actually prefer the spotty, much-used copies, with annotations and marginalia.
Old cookbooks are an important reference for understanding social history - the primary school recipe book for 1950s 'manual' training asks girls to make an ovencloth out of a sugarbag, a thin hessian-type sack that sugar was packed in. (There's a book called 'The Sugarbag Years' about the Great Depression. )The community cookbooks are full of advertisements for local businesses too and a source of old family names and companies long gone.
Edited for an afterthought :)
falcon-hell,
Jun 23, 6:47am
i have a collection of recipes books that have really old recipes from all over the world-they even have recipes which were apparently served to henry the 8th, they are quite cool to see how food has evolved.
hezwez,
Jun 23, 6:53am
perhaps if that torture didn't work they could try: Hot Liver Sandwiches Three eggs, half cup of milk, 1 cup cooked chopped liver, 2 Tbsp of bacon fat, 1 Tbsp parsley, salt and pepper to taste and slices of crisp bacon. Beat eggs, add salt, pepper and milk, combine with cooked liver and turn into frying pan into which bacon fat has been melted. Cook until creamy and add parsley just before mixture is done. Serve on toast and top with a slice of crisp bacon, and garnish with parsley. The recipe says this provides a "welcome change for those who are on a liver diet" (Shudder)
elliehen,
Jun 23, 6:58am
It might well be a welcome change for those who had to eat chopped RAW liver sandwiches! These were fed to people with diabetes in the middle of the twentieth century.
taniajane,
Jun 23, 7:03am
I love my older cook books. great ideas, good stodgy winter filling food! Tui's Commonsense cookery, Womens Institute and the Modern (1949! ) encyclopedia of cooking. Your right with the baked custards, fluffs but excellent cakes and slices which always take the older patrons back like eccles cakes. I use so many of the puddings as theu are so cheep and easy to make and go so far. The use of lard and shorting and some times no amounts given just the ingrediants.
The curious ones would be the things put in aspic or potted.
bedazzledjewels,
Jun 23, 7:03am
Liver pate I could stand!
elliehen,
Jun 23, 7:27am
Eccles cakes are on the way back! You can buy an excellent old-fashioned Eccles cake at Loafer's bakery in Nelson.
cookessentials,
Jun 23, 8:05am
I treasure my old family cookbooks. I also see there is an Aunt Daisy cookbook in Paperplus.
elliehen,
Jun 23, 9:17am
The handwritten ones are precious. I have one which must have belonged to a farmer's wife. It has a recipe for calf drench on the same page as a recipe for pikelets. The handwritten recipe books often have the name of the person who shared the recipe... Aunty Barbara's Tomato Relish, Lorna's Jazz Cake etc
hezwez,
Jun 23, 9:35am
Years ago I heard of a family who employed a woman to care for the family when the Mum was put into hospital at short notice ~ asked later how she knew which were the family's favourite recipes, she said she simply chose those on the most thumbed pages.
cookessentials,
Jun 23, 10:10am
x1
My old Aunties "Farmhouse cake" which is very basic and is made with lard - I can vouch that it is delicious too.
datoofairy,
Jun 23, 10:22am
I have an old recipe book that was my grandmothers. It has a recipe for a potato topped eel and possum pie in a beer gravy. The potato on the top has finely chopped brussel sprouts mixed in. If I hadnt seen the recipe with my own eyes I would refuse to believe such a vile concoction existed. I can dig it out tomorrow if any feels the need to whip it up for Sunday dinner :o)
smoocherpete,
Jun 23, 10:34am
I'm not sure if this quite fits into this thread but this site has some really interesting recipes http://www.theoldfoodie.com/
elliehen,
Jun 23, 11:17am
Please do! I can't promise to serve it for Sunday dinner, but I'd love to read it. At least half my cookbooks are just there for reading... it took a while before I stopped feeling guilty about buying cookbooks and just reading them, but after all, a cookbook is just another book :)
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