In her introduction to Two Hundred and Seventy-Five War-Time Recipes (1918), Carolyn Putnam Webber writes that the recipes in her book originally appeared “on the slips used at demonstration lectures,” but that she had assembled them for everyday use. She confesses that her recipes represent her belief that “true economy does not consist of going without but in making the most of what one has.” Expressing her conviction that frugal housekeepers in the United States represent a “volunteer army,” Webber adamantly stresses that their efforts can “help avoid rations or restricted diets and stabilize prices.”
Below are two recipes from Webber’s book. They can be served together, or as separate dinners. For the English stew, use whatever meat is most economical. And the samp for the baked samp recipe is not hard to find: Samp is the same thing as hominy, save that it is cracked into smaller pieces.
English Stew with Barley
1 lb mutton 4 potatoes sliced 2 tsp salt 2 onions 1/2 cup pearl barley 1 tsp chopped parsley
Cut meat in small pieces and brown with onions in fat from meat. Add barley and 2 quarts cold water. Simmer in covered dish 1 1/2 hours. Add potatoes and cook until potatoes are soft.
Baked Samp
2 c. boiled samp 1 tbsp. butter substitute 1/4 tsp paprika 1 cup grated cheese 1/2 cup milk 1 tsp salt crumbs
Arrange samp, cheese and seasoning in alternate layers. Add milk, put crumbs on top, bake 20 minutes.
An 1894 edition of Good Housekeeping includes a delightful and informative article on the everyday workings of a small farm in the Ozarks. The “brave and cheerful” housewife at this farm, called Orchard Hill Farm, is “a self-appointed committee of ways and means to see to it that the outgo does not exceed the income.” Indeed, the good farm wife shares a number of ingeniously economical recipes with the journalist from Good Housekeeping. For instance, upon praising the farm wife’s excellent coffee, the journalist finds that it was half sweet potato; “chop them fine, dry and roast them, then grind,” the farm wife reveals, “I use a tablespoon of sweet potato to every tablespoon of coffee.”
Below are two very economical recipes from Orchard Hill Farm: ginger snaps and chowchow, a pickled vegetable stew. Feel free to reduce the quantities given in the recipes; they are intended to feed large crowds of hungry farmhands.
Ginger Snaps
One half gallon of sorghum, two tablespoonfuls of ginger, two tablespoonfuls of salt, one teaspoonful of black pepper, one tablespoonful of cinnamon, two large cupfuls of lard, two tablespoonfuls of soda flour to make a very stiff dough. Bake quickly. This makes a bushel of ginger snaps.
Chowchow
Two quarts of cucumbers, two quarts of green tomatoes, two quarts of onions, two quarts of cauliflower or cabbage. Soak in a weak brine over night. Cook separately until tender. For the paste use one gallon of vinegar, one large cupful of flour, one pound of mustard, one and one half pounds of sugar. Stir the paste until it boils then pour it over the vegetables.
Henry Mayhew, an English social reformer, dramatist and journalist, wrote the groundbreaking survey of the poor London Labour and the London Poor (1851), in which he recorded interviews with beggars, street urchins, costermongers, prostitutes and labourers. In his account, Mayhew supplies the reader with the minutest details about his subjects’ lives, describing their clothes, food, entertainments and how and where they lived. In the preface to the first volume of London Labour (it ran to three volumes), Mayhew writes that he hoped his work “will form, when complete, a cyclopaedia of the industry, the want, and the vice of the great Metropolis.” This undertaking is particularly “curious,” he continues, “because it is the first attempt to publish the history of a people, from the lips of the people themselves — giving a literal description of their labour, their earnings, their trials, and their sufferings, in their own ‘unvarnished’ language; and to portray the condition of their homes and their families by personal observation of the places, and direct communion with the individuals.”
Certainly London Labour and the London Poor is filled with fascinating details about the dour lives of the downtrodden. The book includes detailed illustrations, and the character sketches Mayhew includes vividly bring his subjects to life.
Perhaps the most intriguing section of London Labour and the London Poor discusses the lives of the costermongers — street sellers of food. The costermongers in the poorer sections of London sold a vast array of wares — potatoes, ham sandwiches, oranges and nuts, watercress, hot green peas and sheep trotters being just a few of the delicacies offered by them. But their delicacies were not as savory as they seem: Mayhew writes that the costermongers often played tricks on their customers, adulterating their wares in unsavory ways. He reports that the “more honest costermongers will throw away fish when it is unfit for consumption; less scrupulous dealers, however, only throw away what is utterly unsaleable; but none of them fling away the dead eels, though their prejudice against such dead fish prevents their indulging in eel pies.” “The dead eels,” Mayhew continues, “are mixed with the living often in the proportion of 20 lbs dead to 5 lbs alive, equal quantities of each being accounted very fair dealing.” After all, as a street fish dealer said to Mayhew, “I don’t know why dead eels should be objected to. The aristocrats don’t object to them. Nearly all fish is dead before it’s cooked and why not eels?”
Should you decide to make eel pie, do your guests and family a favor and ensure that your eels are fresh — despite the street fish dealer’s words of wisdom, dead eels are less than appetizing! Below is a recipe for both eel pie and fish pie, as eels are seldom found in markets nowadays. It comes from The Illustrated London Cookery Book (1852), which was a popular source of tasty and interesting dishes for the nineteenth-century cook. Use your favorite recipe for the pie crust, and make sure to use fresh herbs when seasoning the fish, which should have firm, white flesh. Add any number of vegetables to the pie — peas, carrots and onions would all prove delicious.
Eel Pie
Cut middling size eels into lengths of about three inches after skinning them. Mix together pepper, salt, a little chopped parsley, and mushrooms. Lay your fish into the dish and a few bits of butter and a little second stock and a few drops of essence of anchovies.
Fish Pie
This pie may be made of any fish salmon, pike, tench, eel, or any other. Scale your fish and cut it into pieces. Line your pie dish with a good crust. Put in the fish with a bunch of sweet herbs, a little salt, some bruised spices, and a layer of butter on the top. Put on the crust and bake for an hour and a half. When done remove the fat and put in a vegetable ragout made thus: stir a little butter and flour over the fire until a pale brown, moisten with half a pint of sherry, some soup maigre [stock], add a few mushrooms, a little salt, and a bunch of herbs. Let it boil half an hour, add the soft roes of carp parboiled, stew a quarter of an hour and then put the ragout into the pies. Any vegetable ragout may be used.
The Austerity Kitchen 