Preserving the Harvest: Quinces

We were graced with a picture perfect Indian Summer day for our annual Preserving the Harvest program at Minute Man National Historical Park.  Great weather, a steady stream of very interested visitors, along with the contributions of our tireless participants, made for a successful event.  Oh yes, and there was that amazing array of culinary delights that made up the groaning board for nooning!

What makes this particular program so much fun, is that it's a learning experience for us, as well as the public. Participants are tasked with selecting a period method of food preservation, giving it a try, then sharing what they learned at this event.

For those of you who could not join us, our wonderful participants have kindly offered to relate their experience with food preservation techniques with The Buzz at the Hive. To kick off our series on Preserving the Harvest, we'll look at quinces, brought to you by guest blogger, Ruth Hodges.

In preparing for Preserving the Harvest, I had a wonderful time poring through several old cookbooks before settling on making quince marmalade from The Art of Cookery Made Plainand Easy by Hannah Glasse, first printed in 1747.  There were a number of things that pulled me toward this recipe even though I had never before made any kind of jelly or jam.  First, I loved the idea that the quince was a common fruit in New England in the 18^th century, and now it has nearly disappeared (having been badly afflicted by a blight here in North America).  And being a word nerd, I discovered that the word marmalade, now almost solely identified with the orange variety, comes from the Portuguese word for quince.  So the original marmalades were made from quinces and not oranges!  Finally, I read that quinces ripen in October and November so the timing was perfect for Preserving the Harvest.

I found quinces at a specialty food store in Cambridge, two varieties actually.  One variety looked like a green apple and was from California.  The other was from a small farm in Vermont and was yellow and more pear-like in shape.  And even though the quince is in the same family as the apple and pear, the appearance is pretty much where the similarity ends.  They are very hard and dry, more like dealing with a winter squash when it came to paring, quartering and coring them!  I used both varieties in my marmalade.  

The 18^th century recipes are written in a narrative style rather than the list of ingredients and chronological steps we find in modern recipes.  Some of them were a bit difficult to decipher so I ended up going back and forth between recipes and cookbooks to make sure I understood what was meant.  I referred often to Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery and Book of Sweetmeats because I had an annotated version which I found very helpful in this regard. 

There were recipes for both white marmalade and red marmalade.  For white marmalade, you boil the quinces just until they’re soft enough to mash.  The longer you cook the quince, the deeper and rosier its color becomes.  I made the red variety and it was glorious when it cooked down to a wonderful amber red, thick consistency.  It was delicious!

To make Red Marmalade.

   Take full ripe quinces, pare and cut them in quarters, and core them;  put them in a sauce-pan, cover with the parings, fill the sauce-pan nearly full of spring-water, cover it close and stew them gently till they are quite soft, and a deep pink colour;  then pick out the quinces from the parings, and beat them to a pulp in a mortar;  take their weight in loaf-sugar, put in as much of the water they were boiled in as will dissolve it, and boil and skim it well;  put in your quinces and boil them gently three quarters of an hour;  keep stirring them all the time, or it will stick to the pan and burn;  put it into flat pots, and when cold tie it down close. 

I also made macaroons (mackroons) for our nooning.  This recipe came from Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery and Book of Sweetmeats, a cookbook that had been handwritten in the 17^th century and which came into Martha’s hands in 1749.  The language in these recipes is clearly earlier than in Mrs. Glasse’s cookbook written a century later.  Still, many of the recipes were similar.  I chose to make the mackroons because I love to bake and the recipe was straightforward and simple.  Of course, I “cheated” by buying almonds that were already blanched and I ground them quickly in an electric coffee grinder rather than using a stone mortar and pestle specified in the recipe.  While I couldn’t find the ground muske, I did find rose water in that Cambridge specialty food shop.  The preservation of flowers was common in the 17^th century and rose water turns up in many of the recipes for cakes and other desserts.  I learned that rose water is very condensed and a little goes a long way, and according to the editor’s notes, over time it was replaced by vanilla extract for baking in Britain and America.  The two flavors are very different but serve the same purpose in baking.  The recipe called for “a spoonful or 2 of rose water” so I used a tablespoon.  I think next time, I’d reduce that amount to a teaspoon. 

~~Ruth Hodges

 page184             TO MAKE MACKROONSTake a pound & halfe of almonds, blanch & beat them very small in a stone morter with rosewater.  put to them a pound of sugar, & ye whites of 4 eggs, & beat ym together. & put in 2 grayns of muske ground with a spoonful or 2 of rose water.  beat ym together till yr oven is as hot as for manchet, then put them on wafers & set them in  on A plate.  after a while, take them out.  yr oven is cool, set againe & dry ym.               
                 

                          

                 

MARTHA WASHINGTON’S

BOOKE OF COOKERY

AND

BOOKE OF SWEETMEATS:

being a Family Manuscript, curiously copied by an unknown Hand sometime in the seventeenth century, which was in her Keeping from 1749.

Ruth's notes:

I purchased blanched slivered almonds which I then ground in a coffee grinder.

I mixed the ground almonds with the sugar.  Separately, I beat the egg whites in the electric mixer for 30 seconds or so.   

I added one tablespoon of rose water which may have been a little too much. Try one teaspoon next time.

Then I added the almond/sugar mixture to the eggs in the electric mixer.

I put them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet to bake them.  I made them as “drop cookies”, about walnut-sized.

I convection baked them for 10 minutes at 300 degrees F for 10 minutes.  I then turned down the oven to 170 degrees F for five minutes or so.  I then turned off the oven and left them in for another five minutes or so. 

Then I took them out, removed the cookies from the cookie sheets and put them on a cooling rack.

Makes about 60 cookies.

YUM!!

 Preserving the Harvest, Minute Man National Historical Park

20 October 2012

Preserving the Harvest - Fresh Eggs

Last year and this year, at the Hartwell Tavern food preservation event, I put up fresh eggs, in an 18th century manner, to last all winter without refrigeration. This is the recipe I was given, but I don't know where it comes from:

To use lard or shortening to coat the eggs, first melt the grease and cool it till it begins to solidify again. Dip each egg in the melted grease individually and set them on a paper towel to dry. When the shortening or lard is dry on the eggs, rub the eggs with a clean towel, removing excess solid grease. Rub gently and buff each egg. Now repeat the process, before the shortening solidifies. Work fast, allowing the shortening to get almost solid before re-heating it. When dry put them in a box of ash and keep them covered until use.

Eggs should always be packed with the small end down, because the yolk will not settle toward the small end so readily as toward the large end or the side. It is important to have clean eggs but do not wash them as it removes the protective covering.

I've since done my own research; see below for documentation.
Last year, I melted commercial lard (the kind you can buy in some grocery stores, that's labeled "lard" and "manteca"). It was a chilly day, so I hardly had to let it cool at all. I rubbed the eggs, and then rubbed them clean. I had ashes sifted from the fireplace and a wooden box, and I put in a layer of ashes, set in eggs small end down, covered them with ashes, laid in a second layer, and covered them with ashes. I put the box in my "root cellar" (my basement) and kept them there from October. Every week or two I went down and fished out another egg for breakfast, and each egg was as fresh as the last. In mid-April, when my basement became palpably warmer, I put the the last four eggs in the fridge, and finally used them to make Hannah Glasse's recipe for nun's cake for a tea at the Needham reenactment, which cake was eaten with relish by all (particularly as I had substituted currants for caraway seeds).

Why ashes? Why not sand, as you use for potatoes? It might be for some chemical property of the ashes, but after fishing out eggs all winter, I think it's because ashes are soft, and if you were scrabbling your fingers through sand, you'd be too likely to break an egg. The Universal Cook, and City and Country Housekeeper recommends salt, but essentially everyone in the 18th century had a fireplace, so ashes were free for the labor of sifting them.
Why small end down? I am told that it is to keep the yolk from settling against the shell, but I haven't found documentation of it.
This year, I used a mixture of leftover bacon fat and sausage grease. It was messier, but we'll see if it works as well. Also, I buried the eggs in last year's ashes, and I found I couldn't pack the eggs as closely. It would have been better to empty the ashes into another container and layer them back in as I went.
Here are some more experiments to try:

• What temperature is my basement in winter? Colder than many people's since I heat with a low temperature heat pump rather than a gas or oil furnace.
• If I leave the eggs in the basement after it warms up in spring, how long will they stay fresh?
• This year, I didn't rub the eggs after greasing them. Will there be any ill effect other than it being messier?

Documentation

From The Universal Cook, and City and Country Housekeeper, by Francis Collingwood and John Woollams, 1792, p. 333.

From The London Magazine or The Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, Vol. XIX For the Year MDCCL (1750), p. 180.

The Art of Hatching and Bringing up Domestick Fowls, &c., By M. de Reaumur, Of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. Printed for C. Davis, London, MDCCL (1750), pp. 412–414.

Preserving the Harvest - Herbs

Herbalist Deb Fate-Mental taught our guests about herbs - what they were used for and how they were preserved.  Here is her report from Saturday's "Preserving the Harvest".

Deb shares her knowledge of herbs with our guests

Due to the warmer weather this year I was able to bring many fresh herbs as well as a few dried ones for my herb table at Preserving the Harvest.  I grow mainly traditional English herbs along with a few native North American plants.  I brought some good English staples – mugwort, comfrey, roses, violet, dandelion, burdock, yellowdock, horseradish, angelica, hyssop, lavender, witch hazel, oak, yarrow, lady’s mantle – and one native American herb, Lobelia inflata, that became quite popular in the early 19^th Century.   I had also made a conserve of rosehips to show people different methods of preservation, along with herbs preserved in oil and ones that had been dried.  In the morning I made electuaries, little herb candies.  The ones I made were for sore throats and contained powered marshmallow root and powdered slippery elm bark held together by honey.  These were used just like we use throat lozenges today (that’s where we get the idea from).  I ended up having quite a few as my voice and throat tired out by early afternoon!   

We had a lot of visitors, many of which were quite curious, asked questions and made comments -- "This, I like!"  There seemed to be several themes running through the day.  The first was the belief that our ancestors gathered much of their medicinals and that they were native American plants. I’ve not seen much documentation of settlers using native American plants until the 19^th Century.  Describing them, yes.   Noting how natives used them, yes but our ancestors using them, outside rare occurrences, no.  Our ancestors brought plant seeds with them, along with the women’s Books of Physick, and planted gardens.   English people planted good English herbs.  

The second theme I noticed revolved around isolationism.  This was especially apparent as I was next to Val, who was making mead with popular spices of the day (cinnamon, cloves, pepper, ginger, etc.).  People seemed to think that colonial people moved here to become isolationists and that everything was local and that trade was something to be avoided.  Many people assumed that all those exotic spices were grown here.  I got the same reaction when people found I had used olive oil for preserving the herbs.   “I thought the colonists didn’t want to trade for anything with anyone.”  Really?!!! I heard that several times throughout the day. Needless to say, we had lots of teaching moments.

It was a great day and a wonderful opportunity to educate people.  I think people learn much more about 18^th Century life from displays and demonstrations like Preserving the Harvest than they do from watching battle reenactments.  I get asked very few questions at reenactments but was overwhelmed by really good questions on Saturday.  This event was excellent and great fun!

Preserving the Harvest -- In a Pickle

I selected pickling as one of my demonstrations/experiments, though it will be hard to top last year's pickle-o-rama brought to us by Niels & Carmen, which included everything from cucumbers to samphire.

Last year's picklefest!

On a smaller scale, I tackled pickled mushrooms, beets, turnips and carrots.  What was pretty interesting about the period receipts, was the wide use of mace, peppercorns, nutmeg, and allspice.  Very different from the typical herbs and spices we generally think of when we think of pickles.  Here is the receipt I used.  Since I was not planning on storing the pickles I made, I put them in sterile modern canning jars and passed on using a bladder to seal them.

From "The Compleat Housewife"

I also picked beets, turnips and carrots from a receipt in "The Pennsylvania Housewife" written by Past Masters in Early American Domestic Arts.  What was intriguing, was that the receipt called for cochineal (which are dried beetles used to dye things a wonderful scarlet color -- think British officer's coats).  Why would you need to add an expensive dye for something that had beet juice in it? I will make these pickles again without the cochineal to see if it really made a difference, but I'm guessing that the turnips wouldn't have turned out a deep pink and the carrots wouldn't have taken on the wonderful red color that they did just from the beet juice alone.  Funny, you could always expect a reaction every time you showed the tourist kids the vile of cochineal beetles and explained that they are still used today for natural red food coloring -- "EEEEWWW, I've eaten bugs!"

Pickled beets, turnips & carrots

While searching the period cookbooks, my husband Ken got a kick out of one receipt in particular -- Pickling Sparrows.  Seems as if larks or squabs could be used as well.  The pickling process took several months and -- "when the bones are dissolved, they are fit to eat".  Not sure I'll be trying that receipt next year.  Anyone else want to give that one a try?

Coming tomorrow -- our herbalist.......

Preserving the Harvest - The Learning Process

 Living in a time when a full bounty of almost any food imaginable is available year round at your local grocery store,  it's hard for most people to wrap their minds around the concept of transforming today's harvest into forms that will last till things start growing again months from now -- and without the benefit of refrigeration and modern canning practices.  At our "Preserving the Harvest" event at Hartwell Tavern our guests were exposed to a variety of methods used to ensure a food supply through the winter and early spring.

Over the next week, we'll share some of the food preservation techniques we tried.  Most of the time we can reasonably reproduce a receipt from a period cookbook, servant's directory or household guide, even when it involves obtaining that not so readily available ingredient, but what we often are missing is the common knowledge base of the time which most often it is not so much the how you do things but why you do them.  By actually going through the process you frequently learn more about what you don't know and that's where the real fun is - in trying to unlock these mysteries!

Hive Event: Preserving the Harvest-- Saturday, October 22, 2011

Preserving the Harvest – Preparing for Winter

Take an active part in a living history day at Hartwell Tavern on Saturday, October 22, 2011 where we will secure the abundance of the harvest to sustain us through the winter and well into spring. Throughout the growing season, a substantial portion of each crop from field or garden has been set aside for home use. Fruits and vegetables have been dried, pickled, cellared, brined, salted or preserved in vinegar, spirits or oil. Milk has been turned into butter or cheese. As we move into mid-autumn, households are a frenzy of activity; harvesting crops, preparing them for cellaring, repairing barrels, gathering herbs, cleaning the house, airing linens, compounding herbal cures, gathering honey and nuts, preparing fresh eggs for storage, renewing the husks in mattress ticks, readying the wood supply and making the necessary repairs to house, barn or outbuildings. 

Making sausages

We will be demonstrating these activities using 18^th century methods for the public or other re-enactors who want to learn and use these skills.

Interested in participating? Contact SabraWelch at dsrwel@metrocast.net with the activity you would like to demonstrate – either household chore or food preparation.  Participants are encouraged to prepare a bibliography for the documentation of their activity.  Want to participate but not sure how?  Contact Sabra, we'll find something for you to do.

Nooning will be available for volunteers in kit at $5.00 person plus a contribution of an 18^th century sweet, bread or condiment to add to the fare per family and/or group.

Preparing apples for cider

Vegetables to be cellared

Fruit for drying