Shakespeare's Kitchen

We believe that a cookbook is not just a bunch of recipes, but a cultural document. American popular culture is ripe with references to the work of Shakespeare, in fact, about every 20 years, there is some sort of remake of Romeo and Juliet with the era's leading heartthrob.

 

As much as we know of Shakespeare and his work, the references to food and drink in his work are often lost as many of the recipes of the Elizabethan era are lost to most readers. Francine Segan's Shakespeare 's Kitchen gives the reader of Shakespeare and cookbooks a chance to delve into the foods that would have been common to the Elizabethan audience. Now they are common to today's viewer.

 

Segan draws upon texts from the late 1500's and 1600's, wading through the creative spellings and unusual customs to present recipes that transcend history. This recipe is a favorite of King James, famous for his Bible. The original recipe comes from Mistress Sarah Longe. Longe collected her recipes into a personal collection around 1610. The book now resides in the Folger Shakespeare Library.

King James Biscuits

7 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons rose water
1 cup sugar
5 cups pastry flour
4 large egg whites
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon aniseeds

1. Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the egg yolks, rose water,and sugar for 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of flour and mix for 2 minutes. Add another cup of flour and mix for 1 minute. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add another cup of flour, and mix for 2 minutes. In a seep rate bowl, whip the egg Whitestone soft peaks. Add another cup of flour, the caraway, aniseed, and the egg whites to the batter and mix for 2 minutes. Add the remaining cup of flour and mix till smooth and elastic. (If the dough is too thick for your mixer, knead in the last addition of flour.)

2. Preheat the oven th 350. Drop the dough, 2 tablespoons at a time, onto greased cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes, or until light golden brown

Of course, the "electric" mixer of Shakespeare's day was some kitchen help with a big wooden spoon!

Along with recipes, there are other Shakespearean tidbits. From The Merry Wives of Windsor:

Go fetch me a quart of sacke,

Put a toast in 't.

 

To soften the blow of bitter drinks, a piece of toast was added to mellow the flavor. This is the origin of the tradition of making a toast. So here is a toast to Shakespeare's Kitchen.

 

 

Callie's Biscuits and Southern Traditions

I am heading off to Charleston in a few weeks, so I have been pawing through a few Charleston cookbooks. In the last few years, Callie's Biscuits have become a Charleston staple, and can now be found winging their way from coast to coast. Biscuit founder, Carrie Morey, put together biscuits and many other Southern recipes into Callie's Biscuits and Southern Traditions.

 

Carrie is Callie's daughter. Both are "Caroline" in a line of family Carolines. Being the seventh "Lucinda" I can relate. I can also relate to those people who don't want to make biscuits, but love having a tasty biscuit tucked into the freezer for future snacks. But if you want to make Callie's, you can give them a try.

 

This cookbook is filled with family and tradition. Flip through the pages and not only will you find Callie's biscuits, you will find Alex's Chocolate Chess Pie, John's Puffy Pancakes, Ms. Em's Bread, and recipes from Mama, Grandmama, and Mom and Dad. There is a section on entertaining to get your party organized. The book is familiar and you do feel like you are family.

 

 

Several months ago, I was thinking about how my mother often made ham salad. I hadn't thought of it in years, but I immediately wanted some. Here is Callie's.

 

Ham Salad

1 pound ham (left over or purchase thick slab), trimmed and diced

1/2 cup chopped onion3 stalks celery, chopped

2 dill "sandwich-sliced" pickles, chopped

2/3 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1tablespoon light brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons pickle juice

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Put the ham, onion, and celery in a food processor. Pulse 20 to 25 times to mince. remove to a bowl and mix in the remaining ingredients. chill. taste and adjust the salt and pepper before serving.

2. Serve on sandwiches, crackers, or cheese biscuits or mix into the yolk mixture of deviled eggs.

This year may be the year of ham salad! Enjoy it. Enjoy this cookbook. Check your grocery freezer, you may find a bag of Callie's Biscuits to tuck in the freezer.

 

Great Baking Begins With White Lily Flour

About 10 years ago, I was heading back to DC from Alabama and I got stopped for speeding.  This would not be that unusual.  There would, however, be one thing to take into consideration.  I never came back from Alabama without a food-laden car.  It was as if there were no grocery stores in DC.  The policeman, simply didn't understand why I had 10 bags of White Lily Flour in my car.  He assumed the worst.  But after digging through the corn meal and the grits and cases of Tab, he sent me on my way with a mere warning.

A week or so later, a chef friend was in my kitchen surveying the bags of White Lily and asked, nonchalantly, if I might be opening a bakery.  Well, if I was to open a bakery, I would use nothing but White Lily Flour.  Of course, nowadays, White Lily Flour is produced in some Yankee wasteland.  I recently found an authentic bag of White Lily, milled in Knoxville.  It was about 6 years old, so I am not sure its Southern mojo was still intact, but I couldn't bear to toss out that bag.

Over the years, White Lily has put out several cookbooks.  Great Baking Begins With White Lily Flour is my favorite.  white Lily gets its prized baking characteristics from a soft, red wheat.   The flour is milled from only 100% pure winter wheat.  This soft winter wheat has a lower level of protein as well as a lower gluten content.  To accentuate the baking quality, White Lily uses a finer grind than most flours.  White Lily was always east to spot because the bags were a pinch larger due to the fine grind which made the flour weigh lass, so more was needed to make a full five pounds.

For White Lily, great baking requires specific attention to detail.  Here is the White Lily recipe for biscuits, with all the notations one would have learned at Mama's knee, spelled out.

Famous White Lily Biscuits

2 cups White Lily Self-Rising Flour
1/4 cup shortening
2/3 to 3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Place Flour in mixing bowl; ad shortening.  With a pastry blender or blending fork, cut shortening into flour until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Mixing by hand tends to soften the shortening making a sticky, difficult-to-handle dough.  Blending the fat completely with the flour or using a liquid shortening produces a mealy biscuit rather than a flaky, tender one.  Gently push the flour mixture to the edges of the bowl, making a well int he center.  Blend in the milk with a fork till dough leaves sides of bowl.  Too much milk makes the dough too sticky to handle: not enough milk makes the biscuits dry.  Do not overmix.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead gently 10 to 12 strokes.  A short period of kneading develops biscuit structure and evenly distributes the moisture to make the biscuits more flaky.  On lightly floured surface pat or roll dough to slightly more than 1/2-inch thickness.  Cut with a 2- or 2 1/2 biscuit cutter, dipping cutter into flour between cuts.  Press the cutter straight down to get straight sided evenly shaped biscuits.  Be especially careful not to twist the cutter of flatten the cut edges.  Transfer cut biscuits to an ungreased baking sheet.  For crusty-sided biscuits place about 1 inch apart.  For soft-sided biscuits place biscuits with sides just touching.  Reroll scraps of dough and cut into biscuit shapes.  Bake in 500 oven for 6 to 8 minutes, or until golden.  (If sides touch, bake biscuits for 8 minutes; bake 6 to 7 minutes if sides f don't touch.)

That is how you bake biscuits.  Now go forth and get those biscuits in the oven.

Gridiron Cookery

Are you ready for some football? I am sorry we are no longer allowed to use that phrase due to some some dumbass who should have known better. Oh well, every state has one, or two. However, the answer is... we are.

This evening Alabama is playing Vanderbilt for Homecoming because Agnes Scott doesn't have a football team.

In Alabama, Paul "Bear" Bryant is still the driving force in football. Hundreds of students, who weren't even born when Bear was alive, will file into the stadium wearing his famous houndstooth hat.




I will admit to being alive when "Bear" coached and to give you some idea of just how powerful Coach Bryant's influence was and is in Alabama, I can tell you that every time I hear about an event "marking 9/11, " I always ask myself, "Why are they celebrating "Bear" Bryant's birthday?"

In 1960, Frances Daugherty and Aileen Brothers published a collection of recipes from the wives of football coaches around the county. Gridiron Cookery boasts that these resourceful hostesses are:

"skilled at taming (and feeding) victory-mad mobs -- or reviving a few low-spirited losers."

One such hostess was Mrs. Paul Bryant. Here is a recipe she picked up when "Bear" was the coach at Texas A & M.

Cheese Biscuits

1/2 pound of butter
4 cups grated cheese (half New York and half American)
2 1/2 -2 2/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
stuffed olives, cut in half

Cream butter and cheese; add flour and cayenne pepper. Press through cooky press in long strips. Place cut olives on the strips and roll like a jelly roll into small biscuits. Place on a cooky sheet, and bake at 300F until slightly browned.

There is time to make up a big batch of these before kick off. (Provided you own a "cooky" press.)

I know if was 1960 but it is now 2011. Mrs. Paul Bryant was Mary Harmon Black Bryant.