Recipes from Old New-England

["Skeet" McD]

Just received, unexpectedly, the email newsletter of "Historic New England"...who--particularly sadly for a very early organization whose entire purpose is to preserve the past--felt that they had to ditch their original name of "The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities." Sigh. But, that's a rant and moan for another place.

At any rate, as another effort (and a better one) to shed the musty-dusty image, they seem to have begun a "recipe of the month" feature...this month's offerings are from the mid 1920s (The State of Maine Cookbook by The Democratic Women of Maine) and offer a nice glimpse into traditional New-England cooking, as it was understood at that time. Among other things, you'll find a very dead-on iteration of the iconic pork and beans. Gentlemen and Ladies, start your bean-pots!

http://www.historicnewengland.org/resources/Americas_Kitchens.asp?Sect=7

"Skeet"
P.S.: If you like what you see, apparently you can buy the whole affair, in facsimile:
http://www.awb.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=6457

 

[dhermann1]

New England boiled dinner

When I was a kid, my mom, who started out as not a very good cook, and wound up a pretty good one, used to make New England Boiled Dinners. You take a big kettle, stick in a big old corned beef, a bunch of cabbage sliced up, and a bunch of potatoes and carrots, fiil the pot with water, and boil it till everything is an appetizing color of gray. OK, not quite, but almost. It actually makes a terrifically filling dinner on a cold winter night. Just add all the mustard in the world.
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/new_england_boiled_dinner/

 

[Carlisle Blues]

Thanks Skeet I like what I see so far as I am compling my own cookbook in anticipation of the next move in my life.

However, I do not know how traditional "CAMBODIAN LEMON CHICKEN"
is it looks great though... lol lol lol

 

["Skeet" McD]

Thanks Skeet I like what I see so far as I am compling my own cookbook in anticipation of the next move in my life.

However, I do not know how traditional "CAMBODIAN LEMON CHICKEN"
is it looks great though... lol lol lol

Good luck, CB: whatever that move is, and for whatever reason: it's good to know you won't starve....

I know, I know: more "relevance/diversity" sh--te. But, of course: cambodian lemon chicken IS, presumably, a traditional cambodian dish...and, Heaven knows, there is a large cambodian population in (at least coastal) New England today (when I lived in Saugus, Lynn had a thriving community)...so, quite truthfully (at least given another couple of decades....) it should be at least as traditional--on the same terms--as spaghetti and "gravy".... "ANTHO---NEEEEEE!" (you'll have to provide the appropriate Khmer cognate....)

"Skeet"

 

[Carlisle Blues]

^^^

AHHHHH traditional Cambodian I see .....makes perfect sense..

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have that actual Maine Democratic Women cookbook, and it's real home-cookin'. Note that it takes 11 hours to cook beans properly -- like anything else here, you don't just sit down and eat a good meal. You have to *earn* it first.

(But it's OK if you serve the beans with canned bread. In fact, it's expected.)

 

[Carlisle Blues]

I have that actual Maine Democratic Women cookbook, and it's real home-cookin'. Note that it takes 11 hours to cook beans properly -- like anything else here, you don't just sit down and eat a good meal. You have to *earn* it first.

(But it's OK if you serve the beans with canned bread. In fact, it's expected.)

........and that is the spirit with which any real meal should be prepared...:eusa_clap :eusa_clap

 

["Skeet" McD]

I have that actual Maine Democratic Women cookbook, and it's real home-cookin'. Note that it takes 11 hours to cook beans properly -- like anything else here, you don't just sit down and eat a good meal. You have to *earn* it first.

(But it's OK if you serve the beans with canned bread. In fact, it's expected.)

Rather expected we'd hear from you on this one, Lizzie! Yes, my 90YO father, son of the Ocean State, would have bread-in-a-can as a treat when I was growing up; although my mother, now deceased may she rest in peace--daughter of the Bluegrass State--never made pork and beans.

But, frankly....as long as you've got a slow oven going for hours on end, it's dead easy to make your own. Here's the recipe I use:

Boston Brown Bread
Ingredients:
1 Tbsn soft butter for greasing mold
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup rye flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 tspn baking soda
1/2 tspn salt
1/3 cup dark molasses
1 cup milk
1/2 cup raisins or currants

Method:
Preheat oven to 325°. Generously grease one–quart pudding mold or one–pound coffee can.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in mixing bowl. Stir in molasses and milk. Fold in raisins or currants.

Fill mold with batter no more than 2/3 full. Cover top with aluminum foil and tie securely with string to make airtight.

Place mold in deep baking pan and fill with boiling water to half the depth of the mold.

Place in preheated oven and allow to steam for 2 hours, checking on water level after 1 hour and refill with boiling water if necessary.

Check with skewer for doneness; if ready, remove foil and allow to cool for 1 hour before unmolding.

"Skeet"

 

[dhermann1]

Brown bread!

Ah, brown bread! Fond menmories. Back in the day, a few decades ago, when the old Chock Full o' Nuts restaurant had a place on every other corner, they had a wonderful little standard, brown bread with creme cheese sandwich. SOOO good, Great with coffe or tea.
My mother (and grandmother's) college, Mt Holyoke, had a traditional dish using brown bread, and I don't know what else, called Deacon Porter's Hat. Deacon Porter was an important person in the college's early history.
I guess they use a whole loaf of the round brown bread to represent the good Deacon's stove pipe hat.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~dalbino/books/lester/porter.html

 

[Brad Bowers]

The recipe didn't say what kind of beans to use. The only kind I cook with are pinto beans, so I'm unfamiliar with any other kind.

Brad

 

[High Pockets]

Brad, I too use pintos most of the time, but I assumed they were talking about white beans. Not positive mind you, but most bean recipes I've seen from up north use them.

 

[Brad Bowers]

Brad, I too use pintos most of the time, but I assumed they were talking about white beans. Not positive mind you, but most bean recipes I've seen from up north use them.

Thanks. I'll look for them at the store.

The hardest part might be finding the proper crockery. I only have a Crock Pot, and using it for this recipe would probably be blasphemous.

Brad

 

[LizzieMaine]

The recipe didn't say what kind of beans to use. The only kind I cook with are pinto beans, so I'm unfamiliar with any other kind.

Brad

Up here we use yellow-eye beans, which are sort of like white kidney beans, or pea beans, similar to navy beans. I prefer pea beans, myself - they aren't as mealy as other kinds.

 

["Skeet" McD]

Bean Pots Galore....

Thanks. I'll look for them at the store.

The hardest part might be finding the proper crockery. I only have a Crock Pot, and using it for this recipe would probably be blasphemous.

Brad

Not so hard as you'd think. Up here, you can find old ones pretty easily; less so in your neck of the woods, I'd imagine.

First up: Tourist ware, which JUST makes it into the period most people are interested in here:
http://www.potshopofboston.com/aboutus.htm

All the fun of being a tourist in Boston, without all the fun of being a tourist in Boston!

This is pretty traditional:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0026FDD10/ref=asc_df_B0026FDD10963465?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=googlecom09c9-20&linkCode=asn&creative=380341&creativeASIN=B0026FDD10

And, if you want to go ALL the way:
http://www.enssc.com/Products.aspx?subcat=344

Available in small medium and large....but, hey: if you're making beans, you might as well make a LOT of them....

"Skeet"

 

[Brad Bowers]

Thanks for the links to the pots. I think I may ask St. Nick for one for Christmas.

On the same topic, I read an article this weekend about something traditional to New England called Indian Pudding. I think it was molasses and grits, or something to that effect. Any of our New Englanders have any recipes for this?

Brad

 

["Skeet" McD]

You may be a crypto-New-Englander....

Thanks for the links to the pots. I think I may ask St. Nick for one for Christmas.

On the same topic, I read an article this weekend about something traditional to New England called Indian Pudding. I think it was molasses and grits, or something to that effect. Any of our New Englanders have any recipes for this?

Brad

Or at least you seem to be well on your way....

Ummmm....we don't call them "grits" up here...."indian" or "corn meal"...but, of course...it's the same stuff.

Durgin-Park has the iconic Injun Pud in our neck of the woods; here's the recipe:
http://www.recipelink.com/cookbooks/2003/140160028X_4.html

This is also a good 'un:
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/indian_pudding/

"Skeet"

PS: when you get your secret New Englander decoder ring, you can officially have pie for breakfast. Every day

 

[High Pockets]

Up here we use yellow-eye beans, which are sort of like white kidney beans, or pea beans, similar to navy beans. I prefer pea beans, myself - they aren't as mealy as other kinds.

Thanks for the info LizzieMain,.......if you have any more info PM me as I'd love to try them. I'll Google them now, I never heard of "yellow-eye beans".

Thanks for the link Skeet,....I just ordered a 2 1/2 qt. pot!!

Yummy!

 

["Skeet" McD]

Durgin-Park Injun Pud...again, and better, I think

In the wind-up to Thanksgiving, our small local paper printed an unascribed "Durgin Park Indian Pudding" recipe...which strikes me as better than that I referenced before, in terms of being more traditional....in a number of ways: It cooks VERY SLOWLY, in a slow oven; it's BIGGER (twice the size; if you're going to have the oven going all day, you might as well make enough); it prefers lard as the lipid of choice; and it understands that the proper accompaniment to the dish is unsweetened heavy cream, not the latter-day vanilla ice cream. So, just in time for Thanksgiving.....

Durgin-Park Indian Pudding

Ingredients:
1 cup cornmeal
½ cup molasses
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup lard (or butter)
½ tspn salt
¼ tspn baking soda
2 eggs, well-beaten
6 cups milk (as 3 and 3)

Method:
On the morning of day wanted, preheat oven to 300°.
Heat milk to just below boiling. Take half (i.e., 3 cups) and add to all other ingredients in well-buttered stoneware crock. When mixed, put in oven, and check to see when it has reached boiling.

When the mixture has boiled, add remaining 3 cups of milk and continue to bake for 5 to 7 hours. The excellence is achieved by very slow cooking: the longer it bakes, the darker and thicker the pudding becomes. It is done when it will hold its shape on a spoon.

The traditional accompaniment is unsweetened heavy cream, although in modern times this is usually replaced by vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!
"Skeet"

 

[High Pockets]

http://www.historicnewengland.org/resources/Americas_Kitchens.asp?Sect=7[/URL]

"Skeet"
P.S.: If you like what you see, apparently you can buy the whole affair, in facsimile:
http://www.awb.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=6457

Thanks for starting this thread Skeet,...UPS delivered my Bean Pot yesterday and we just sampled my first pot full of Boston Baked Beans an hour ago. The recipe that comes with the pot is perfect!!
For years I've tweaked recipes to suit our own tastes, always trying to improve them,.......I will NOT be altering this one.

It's a pretty safe bet I've bought my very last can of Pork & Beans!!

Thanks again!

 

["Skeet" McD]

Thanks for starting this thread Skeet,...UPS delivered my Bean Pot yesterday and we just sampled my first pot full of Boston Baked Beans an hour ago. The recipe that comes with the pot is perfect!!
For years I've tweaked recipes to suit our own tastes, always trying to improve them,.......I will NOT be altering this one.

It's a pretty safe bet I've bought my very last can of Pork & Beans!!

Thanks again!

Dear HP,
My pleasure! So glad you're pleased. Send a picture of the pot and the results, why don't you?

Next, you'll be having pie for breakfast....

"Skeet"