Pig Curing & Cooking

We are big fans of Ambrose Heath and pigs.  The End. 

No, there is more.  We love cookbooks and food because, like so many things, everything old is new again.  Really, who hasn't dislocated a shoulder patting themselves on the back for serving pig ears?  Don't get me wrong, we love Fergus Henderson but he did not "invent" nose-to-tail eating.  Poor folks did.  If H.G. Wells traveled back in time and asked those poor folks whether they would rather be eating pig ears or steak, they would probably chosen the latter.  If you told them that you paid $12 for a pig ear sandwich, they would laugh at you.   Truthfully, they would probably rob you.  And feed you to the pigs.

In 1952, a full decade before Fergus Henderson was even conceived, Ambrose Heath wrote a quintessential nose-to-tail book on the pig: Pig Cooking & Curing.  There are recipes for Deviled Pig's Liver, Pig Ear Soup(and you thought they were only for sandwiches), Baked Pig Cheek, Pig Tail in Lentils, and so much more.  Heath includes all the meaty middle of the pig as well, loins, legs, chops, hams, and sausage. 

By now you know that cookbooks of this era have only vague directions for recipes.  But here is a favorite.  It has the date 1806 in parentheses, so my guess is Heath found this recipe and passed it on.  I love it for the title: Loin of Pork to Goosify.  I can honestly say we have have never seen the word "goosify" before.  At first I thought it was a way to make one's pork more like goose.  But that doesn't seem to be the case.   In modern parlance, "goosify" means to have an old lady grab your ass.  By "old" one would need to be over 30, 25 in some video arcades.  But we can find no reference as to why this leg of pork is being "goosified" or whether "goosified" is the past tense for "goosify" as we are sure it has nothing to do with grabassing pork (or whether "grabassing" is a word).   We are in uncharted territory.  Here is the recipe so you too, can gossify your leg o'pork.

Leg of Pork, to Goosify (1806)

Score your pork; stuff it with sage, onions, pepper and salt, a few crumbs and a little butter; stuff it at the shank end.  It will take two hours roasting as a good fire.  Serve it with apple sauce.

Calling all Lexicographers out there -- what did "goosify" mean in 1806?

In the meantime, we saw this on Facebook and while we rarely  never share puppy pix, quotes, blessings from any Deity, or school day photos, we did find this amusing and a bit apropos.

Twenty years ago we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs.  

Now we have no Cash, no Hope, and no Jobs

PLEASE

Don't let Kevin Bacon die

Good Poultry and Game Dishes

In his day, Ambrose Heath wrote and translated more than one hundred works on food. We have a few of them and you might remember that we have featured several of them in the last few years. Good Poultry and Game Dishes falls into another of our favorite categories, game cookbooks.

First, let me say that we cook chicken every single Sunday and on other days of the week, too. Second, let me say that living with a thousand cookbooks often means that is nothing new on the recipe front. If you can eat it, we have read a recipe for it. In fact, we have read recipes for numerous things that you wouldn't put in your mouth in a million years!

So while perusing Good Poultry and Game Disheswe ran across several recipes for hazel hen. What exactly is a hazel hen. Here was something quite new and in need of research.


The hazel hen is a small little grouse. They are found in England and central Europe. The males are quite the little crooners and evidently sing as a way to defend their breeding territory. There are a few recipes out there for this type of grouse and here is Ambrose Heath's.

Hazel Hens, Potted

Cut three or four hazel hens into neat pieces and slice the breasts. Put a few slices of fat bacon into a terrine, and add some pieces of the bird with a bay-leaf, one or two cloves, a little cinnamon and chopped onion and salt and peppercorn, covering with more bacon and repeating the layers until the terrine is full, then pour in enough light red wine nearly to fill the terrine, put on a lid or a pastry top, and bake in a very slow oven for five to six hours. Serve cold.

In a 1958 Sport's Illustrated article, we are told that "21" is the place to go for fowl of all kinds including the hazel hen:

"But Scottish grouse is only one of a large number of game specialties which have helped to establish the considerable reputation of "21." Chukar partridge, mallard and other species of duck, hazel hen, Mexican quail, young Canadian snow goose and Norwegian ptarmigan are other available items in season. Larger game includes venison, of course (the ragout of venison St. Hubert is outstanding), reindeer, moose, elk, hare from Canada and, occasionally, saddle of antelope. Also, of all things, bear. Gary Cooper, I was told, on his visits to New York never misses ordering the grilled black bear chops."

Ambrose Heath has nary a recipe for bear in Good Poultry and Game Dishes, but there are about 99 other books we could try.

Good Egg Dishes

We were thrilled to hear that Angry Bird is coming out with own egg cookbook. As you know, egg cookbooks are a favorite here at Cookbook Of The Day. Until the Angry Bird hatches, you will have to settle for this gem, Good Egg Dishes by Ambrose Heath. Heath wrote and translated more than one hundred works on food, this being the fourth of his books we have reviewed.

Like many egg cookery books, this is not so much a "cookbook" as a list of how to treat the eggs after they have been cooked. It is more of an egg "decorating" book.

Eggs Sur Le Plat Clamart

The bottom of the dish is garnished with green peas
à la française, and the egg is broken on to these and baked.

How many peas? How high the oven? You are left to the imagination.

The most favorite thing about this book is the clever use of recipe titles. Heath wallows in his French providing the most decadent titles for the most simple of dishes. Think about it-- eggs cooked over peas -- I don't think so. But Eggs Sur Le Plat Clamart, I am so making this dish.

How about scrambled eggs? Heath makes a mere scrambled egg a vision of poetry.

Eggs Scrambled Chatillon

The scrambled eggs are served in a border
with minced fried mushrooms in the middle, surrounded by a heap
of fried parsley, and little fleurons of puff pastry round the outside.

Again, if you have to ask how to scramble and egg or make a puff pastry or fry mushrooms or parsley, this book is not for you.

Chatillon is a French town or family or battle, one would guess depending upon how you perceive your eggs.

A border is a small platter with slightly raised edges. Now days a square plate would work nicely.

Fleurons are literally florets. In typography they are those curly cues around type, the frilly bits, which accurately describe the exact way those little bits of puff pastry should adorn the boarder.

Here is his cooking instruction for Eggs Mollets.

"There is no English word to describe this kind of egg, which might perhaps be called a soft hard-boiled one, for it is cooked enough for the white to to be firm enough for the shell to be removed, while the yolk remains quite soft inside."

Let's go out a limb here and and say that in English we would call eggs mollets "soft-boiled" eggs. Again we must point out that a soft-boiled egg doesen't hold a verbal candle to eggs mollets. And, as a added bonus, Heath points out that for every recipe that calls for poached egg, eggs mollets can be substitute and there would, of course, be a name change:

"In any recipe for Poached Eggs that follow, an Egg Mollet can be substituted where convenient. The name would then run: Oeufs Mollets So-and-So."

Next time you are in restaurant and the waiter says, "How would you like your eggs?" You know what to say!

Little Cheese Dishes

As Ambrose Heath writes:

“With cheese in the larder, there is always an appetizing, quickly-prepared meal at hand. Ring the changes in its preparation, please the eye as well as the palate, and you will never be at a loss for a delicacy. Be it a snack to nibble at or a substantial repast, you can make it with cheese –- and quickly.”

Heath compiles his recipes in Little Cheese Dishes, another in the Home Entertaining Series. Heath is British so the recipes for cheese toast abound. In a funny twist, the introduction says,

“...it was advisable, however, to dispense with those recipes that are so generally known, such as Macaroni or Cauliflower Cheese."

I am pretty sure that if you can make Macaroni and Cheese you can probably make Cheese Toast, but who am I to question Ambrose Heath. During his writing career, Heath wrote and translated over a hundred books about food. He translated Madame Prunier's Fish Cookery Book.

Here is a nice twist on potato pancakes and a great planned-over if you are making mashed potatoes.

Cheese Potato Cakes

Mash up half a pound of potatoes with butter, work in two ounces of flour and two ounces of grated cheese, and bind with beaten egg. Roll out and cut into small round cakes which can be baked in the oven or cooked on a girdle or heavy frying-pan.

A much better choice than Cheese Toast!

Good Food on the Aga

There are a few thing in this world I covet and one of them is an Aga stove.


The first Aga’s were designed in Sweden, in 1922 by Dr. Gustaf Dalen. The Nobel Prize winner lost his sight. He designed the cooker with the intention of making it easy to use for a blind person. A British manufacturer took over the production and it has been a British made product ever since.

Some people sit around and think of driving a Porsche or a Jaguar but me, I want an Aga. Currently, I am forced to merely own Aga cookbooks instead of the actual stove.

One of my favorites is a reprint of Ambrose Heath’s Good Food on the Aga. I especially love it because the reprint in a Persephone Book. They are the most beautifully done books in recent memory. Many of their books are fiction reprints, but several titles are cookery books and each on features carefully chosen endpapers from historic fabrics. Good Food on the Aga was published in 1933. The endpapers were designed in the same year by Bernard Adeney. The block-printed linen furnishing fabric was designed for Allan Walton Textiles.



Ambrose Heath wrote over 70 books between 1932 and 1968. Many of them were cookery books. In Good Food on the Aga, Heath lays out the advantages of the Aga and basic cooking techniques. Remember, it is 1933, so the Aga he is describing is coal-burning type. Occasionally, an old wood or coal burning Aga come up for sale.

This book is divided into months of the year. Each month begins with a listing of what foods one can expect to be fresh and available during that month. Then he gives you a list of the recipes to correspond. Each recipe is listed on the side of the page. Underneath the recipe is a list of ingredients. A list is all. Vague amounts are listed within the recipes. It is very old-fashioned. Cooking with this book is a bit of an adventure, so it is more important than ever to read the recipe fully.

In August, Heath recommends the following:

Iced Polish Soup

Beetroot
Cucumber
Egg
Parsley
Chervil

I read somewhere the other day of an iced vegetable soup from Poland which sounded appropriate for August evenings. A beetroot cut in very small pieces was cooked in salt water, while this was being done half a cucumber cut in thin slices was sprinkled with salt so that the water was exuded. The beetroot, cucumber, cucumber water, and the water in which the beetroot had been cooked were mixed together when cold, and to this were added slices of hard boiled eggs, chopped parsley and chervil, pepper and one well-beaten egg. It must be kept well iced, and at the very last moment pieces of ice were put into the individual cups in which the soup was served. I have not tried it yet, but I certainly shall do so.

I love the convoluted way the recipe is written and even more so that he included it in a cookbook with out ever trying it. Well, we haven’t tried it either. If Ambrose Heath hasn’t tried it, neither are we. Some brave soul out there needs to make it and let us know how it tastes

Madame Prunier’s Fish Cookery Book

C’est la sauce qui fait manger le poisson.
Old French Saying

The Pruniers were consummate restaurateurs, opening their first restaurant in 1872. Around the world, people sought out their restaurant to eat their innovative preparations of fish. Emile Prunier decided to collect the many recipes he cooked into an expansive fish cookery book. He discussed his plans with his daughter and his partner, Michel Bouzy. Shortly after preparing an outline for his book, Prunier died. Within two years, Bouzy published a book on fish cookery, essentially, Emile Prunier’s recipes.

Not to be outdone, Madame Pruiner published her own book. She credits her cookbook in part to her clients, one who repeated a common theme, “Oh, Madame Pruiner, you give us fishes which we wouldn’t dream of eating anywhere; you call them by a funny French name, and we all adore them!”

After opening a restaurant in London in 1935, London bon vivant and gourmand, Ambrose Heath, took on the job of translating the recipes and Madame Prunier’s Fish Cookery Book became a trusted source for cooking anything that came from the water.

In keeping with the old French saying, Madame Pruiner lists approximately 80 sauces for the cooking of fish. Here are a few.

Beurre d’ail (Garlic Butter) –Blanched garlic well pounded and mixed with an equal quantity of butter. Pass through a fine sieve.

Beurre de Raifort (Horseradish Butter) –- Add a dessertspoonful of finely grated horseradish to five ounces of softened butter.

Sauce Crème (Cream Sauce) –- to a little over half a pint of Béchamel Sauce add four tablespoonfuls of double cream.

Sauce Andalouse – to just over half a pint of Mayonnaise Sauce add four tablespoonfuls of thick very red tomato purée, and two small sweet peppers cut in julienne strips.

And sole named for Pruiner…

Sole Pruiner ---

Poach the filets with white wine and mushroom cooking liquor. Dish them, and surround them with poached and bearded oysters. Place over them peeled mushrooms and slices of truffle, and cover with a White wine sauce.

In later years, Madame Prunier wrote a history of her of the family business: La Maison: The History of Prunier's.