In 1847, the Christmas dinner table let a roasted turkey of uncommon size occupy the middle or center of the table. On the other end of the dinner table, one could find a cold boiled ham and either fricasseed chicken or a roast pork. With the turkey, mashed potatoes and turnips were served, boiled onions and dressed celery along with a salad and apple sauce nearby for the ham with fried or mashed potatoes and pickles.
Large pitchers of sweet cider were placed diagonally opposite each other on two corners of the table. For dessert, there were two very large and ornamental mince pies with one at either of the two corners both being sufficiently large enough that everyone on their end of the table might be served from it. Ice creams and jellies and jams and ripe fruits and nuts, with sweet cider and syrup water of different sorts, or wines, completed the dessert.
~ American System of Cookery, Mrs. T. J. Crowen [T.J. Crowen:New York] 1847 (p. 404-5)
In 1880, the Christmas dinner served included: clam soup, baked fish, Hollandaise sauce, roast turkey with oyster dressing and celery or oyster sauce, roast duck with onion sauce, broiled quail, chicken pie along with plum and crab-apple jelly, baked potatoes, sweet potatoes, baked squash, turnips, southern cabbage, stewed carrots, canned corn, canned peas, and stewed tomatoes.
There were Graham breads and rolls, salmon salad or herring salad, Chili sauce, gooseberry catsup, mangoes, pickled cabbage, French or Spanish pickles, spiced nutmeg-melon and sweet-pickled grapes, and beets.
That is quite a list and it continues on in the desert menu: Christmas plum-pudding with sauce, charlotte-russe, cocoa-nut, mince, and peach pies, citron, pound, French loaf, white Mountain and Neapolitan cakes, lady's fingers, centennial drops, almond or hickory-nut macaroons, cocoa-nut caramels, chocolate drops and orange or pine apple ice cream, coffee, tea and Vienna chocolate."
~Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, revised and enlarged [Buckeye Publishing].
Merry Christmas and May All God's Blessings Be Upon You!
No comments:
Post a Comment