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Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving Day Food and Floats




Turkey:
Get one which is plump and young. Clean as usual; do not omit drawing the tendons in the leg and removing the lungs and kidneys; clean and truss as usual. Place on a rack in the dripping pan; brush well with soft butter and dredge with flour. Set in a hot oven and when well browned reduce heat; lay it on the side, turn and brown the other and finally lay it on the back to brown the breast; this ensures an even color. Baste with butter till nicely browned, then add a pint of water and renew if needed. Dredge with flour at every alternate basting. If the cook cannot be trusted to baste often, a hen turkey should be chosen, but the cock has higher flavor and is better for boning, boiling and braising.
[farmer note: make up your own basted John Boehner cock-tanning boner joke at this time... and continue]

Allow two hours for an eight pound turkey.... If giblets are not liked in gravy, use them for forcemeat balls, or cook, chop and mix them for stuffing.


I've rendered my own suet many times. Which basically involves boiling fat in a pot on a stove until it is liquid and then allowing it to cool. It was always a for the birds labor of love and will make your kitchen smell like a thousand heart exploding bacon-suns. But I had no idea you could relish it up into a zesty roly-poly and feed it to fellow humans. Until I ran across this old time heirloom formula for:
Suet Pudding:
1 cup suet, chopped fine.
1 cup sweet milk.
2 cups raisins.
1 cup molasses.
2 cups flour.
1 cup currants.
1/4 cup each of citron, lemon and orange peel.
1 teaspoon soda, cinamon, cloves and nutmeg (each).

Steam two hours. This is a very nice pudding. If not wanted so rich, omit fruit entirely or use one cup raisins. Serve with any good sauce either hard or liquid.


[farmer note: I prefer to serve this with a hard rum sauce or a maple fondant, and a pack of commercially sold cigarettes. Also too note: may attract wild birds if served outdoors]

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For the guests who aren't vegetarians:

Calf's Head with Torture Sauce
Take out the brains and lay them in ice-cold salted water. Wash the head thoroughly and cover with cold water, boil until the flesh will drop from the bones; lift from the kettle and take out every bone; put the kettle, with the water in which the head was boiled, back on the range, and add to it a knuckle of ham. When this soup has boiled three hours gently, strain it into a stone jar, and leave it until the next day for mock turtle soup.

Cut the thick skin and flesh of the calf's head into two-inch strips and keep it warm.

Make the Torture Sauce thus: One and one-half pints of brown consomme, one bay leaf, the liquor from half a can of mushrooms, half a can of tomatoes; boil about fifteen minutes and strain. Put it back into a sauce-pan with a dozen mushrooms cut into halves, one truffle chopped finely, and one large wineglass of sherry. Let it boil for five minutes, stirring in at the last one teaspoon of blended flour; boil up once and pour over calf's head.

Garnish with new beets sliced, water cresses or parsley.


[farmer note: if you do not have a stone jar readily available you may substitute an empty five gallon (washed and rinsed) plastic drywall joint compound bucket]

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[farmer note: aka, Boned Turkey Jello. The kids will love it!]

Jelly for Boned Turkey
Strain the broth in which it [the turkey] was cooked and skim off every speck of grease. Let boil for five minutes, then pour it over one ounce of well soaked gelatine. Crack into another bowl the whites and shells of two eggs, juice of one-half lemon, one gill of Maderia wine and whisk them all well together. Add the soup very slowly, stirring fast with a wire whip. Place over a moderate fire and let come gently to a boil. Simmer a few minutes until there is a thick scum like leather.

Hold this back with a skimming spoon while the clear soup is poured into a flannel bag to filter. Set to cool overnight and it will be fit for use.





[farmer note]: Photos are from the Macy's Day Parade circa 1930s. All the recipes above are actual recipes, which appear in my copy of the Gold Medal Flour (Christmas Edition) Cookbook, originally published in 1904. Let me know if - when - you want the recipes for Clam Toast, Prune Kringles or Smelts Garnish.

Happy Holidays!

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15 comments:

the farmer said...

Oh yes, another tip for this holiday. I found this new invention (I'm sure an American invented it because we are so exceptional) which is basically a plastic bag thing with an elastic band which you can use to cover any bowl or dish of food for storgage. Its called something like a Zippy Cover Up or something like that although I'm sure they go by many trade names by the time I am writing this. They are like hair nets except they don't have holes in them like a net and they aren't for hair... otherwise, they are just like like that. Except you "wear" them over food dishes. And you can rewash them by hand too. Awesome. I have never seen anything like it! America is back on the move.

Thanksgiving to one an all.

pjk said...

you too, farmer.

We got ours out of the way Wednesday evening so as to better deal with availability. The turkey took about 45 minutes longer than expected, but other than that all was well with the World.

In short, our post-feast couch cushions are one day farther along in the airing-out process than the majority of the nation.

Does your vintage cookbook list things by degrees of repulsiveness?

the farmer said...

Does your vintage cookbook list things by degrees of repulsiveness?

Put it this way: there's even a couple of recipes for a now endangered species.

Another one of my favorites is for pigeon pie. And this is what is says about shrimp: "Shrimps are caught in immense quantities along the seashore from early spring till late autumn, but are chiefly used for bait and for lunches for the parties of children who have unlimited time to pick them from their paper-like shells."

So next time ya go to buy some shrimp for 15.95 per pound just tell them: "15.95 per pound, are you fuckin' bullshittin' me? God-damn shrimps are frickin' bait and lunch snacks for god-damn kiddy parties! And I don't even want to know what you get for night crawlers!"

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pansypoo said...

love the old parade pics. KRINGLE! hey, we messed with danish cookie back then? the only alow almonds + pecans in their kringle. WI has perverted it well tho. mmmmmm, rhubarb kringle.

the farmer said...

yeah, there's a recipe for almond kringles too. And something called giffles, which is kringle dough with jelly (or jam) rolled up inside.

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pansypoo said...

that might be danish. but prunes? the tart fillings are better. bet prune is sweet.

the farmer said...

in the kringle recipes your shape the kringle dough into sticks and roll the sticks in the cut up pieces of prunes or almonds or whatever, twist them into ovals or pretzel shapes and bake. in the giffle recipe you cut the kringle dough into squares and put the jelly on the square and roll it up corner to corner so the jelly is inside and it comes out in a crescent roll shape. so i guess the difference between a kringle and a giffle in this case is probably mostly the shape of the thing.

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pansypoo said...

yes. 'pretzel'. just got a catalogue for a ery good racine kringle shop. tho, th lemon one was at a small shop on main street. mmmm, lemon kringle. funny that i did not have ANY kringle while in denmark.

the farmer said...

racine kringle shop

Is it Larsens? They have a mail order catalog? Another thing about this old cookbook is that the kringle recipes are in the bread section as opposed to the pastry/pie section.

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pansypoo said...

larsen's is very good too, no. O & H. i think obama was there. it kills us 'danish' kringle in supermarkets is the WORST. it is not morthy.

probably cause yeast. is there a stollen(?) one?

pansypoo said...

what happens to old parade ballons? and what about our looming helium shortage?

the farmer said...

what happens to old parade ballons?

Apparently back in the 1920s (or even 30s maybe) they just let them go after the parade was over. They let them float away until they popped. Macys attached return info kits to the ballons and anyone who found the remains could redeem it for a prize (or something like that). Dunno if any of the old ones still exist. Maybe in a box in the basement of the old Goodyear World of Rubber Museum or somewhere like that.

and what about our looming helium shortage?

They'll have to bring back the Federal Helium [conservation] Program.

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pansypoo said...

made a kringle run to the health food store. OMG! only VEGAN. how far is racine? oh, it was larsons.

pjk said...

pansy-

I can eat Jumbo Shrimp, oxymoron or not; But Vegan Kringle? I'll pass (but thanks for asking!).

Do they have a turkey portabella spinach garlic butter cream cheese olive version without the Minced Moose Meat y'all 'n me secretly crave as closeted Grand 'Ol Poofter party fellow third rail terrorist lovin' bitches 'n bastards we really are, down deep-


uh,... right?

Or is eating something stupider than a than a Pine Nut like, let's say a Butterball, still not ok with some factions out there?

Beef sticks, softer-than-leather jerkey, a bag of multicolor cheese curds, marinated artichokes and/or molten spinach artichoke cheese dip, a little antipasto and an ample supply of robust yet light beer on hand versus vegan... ANYTHING?

Tough call.

pansypoo said...

the vegan kringle was not horrid. not as good, but ok. fucking egg lovers. i am PRO-CHOICE, let the eggs be cracked!
now i gotta try coconut shortbreads again.