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By Elizabeth Urbach
The Vocabulary of 19th
Century
Although the mainstream of Americans acknowledged the cultural debt to England since 1776, the Americanization of English and other ideas was a widespread practice. Over the years, some American cookbook authors also created – or renamed older recipes – in honor of America’s political and national independence from England. Amelia Simmons, one of the earliest American cookbook authors, includes a recipe for what she called Independence Cake in her 1814 cookery book. Perhaps this cake was intended to be served at a large Independence Day celebration, as it contained 20 pounds of flour, and the recipe instructed the baker to ice the cake and decorate it with boxwood and gold leaf before serving! Another recipe which could have been created for specific patriotic celebrations is Federal Cake. In 1866, just after the American Civil War, a man named Dr. A. W. Chase wrote a general information book that included a section on baking and cooking; he included a recipe for a Federal Cake, about which he comments: “I cannot see why they are called ‘Federal,’ for really, they are good enough for any ‘Whig.’” With the middle of the 19th century came a greater interest in the sciences, and the science and art of cookery received a great deal of focus and comment from both men and women in England and the United States. The English author Isabella Beeton became a prominent authority – if not the most prominent one – in England; others in America joined her in addressing the subject of cookery and housekeeping, as a vitally important cornerstone to healthy, civilized, life.
Catherine Beecher and Harriet
Beecher Stowe,
Mrs. Beeton, through her Book of Household Management from 1861, advised those English house-keepers to make “the cup that cheers but not inebriates” with these words: “There is very little art in making good tea; if the water is boiling, and there is no sparing of the fragrant leaf, the beverage will almost invariably be good. The old-fashioned plan of allowing a teaspoonful to each person, and one over, is still practised. Warm the teapot with boiling water; let it remain for two or three minutes for the vessel to become thoroughly hot, then pour it away. Put in the tea, pour in from 1/2 to 3/4 pint of boiling water, close the lid, and let it stand for the tea to draw from 5 to 10 minutes; then fill up the pot with water.”
Despite the close
connection between English and American cookery, with the passing of
time, American cooks and diners developed their own distinctly
non-English recipes and food terminology, so that at present it is
possible to become confused while discussing a meal with someone
from England, while both of you are technically speaking the same
language! The following list reflects many of the foods which have
found their way onto both the English and American tea table, and
the terms by which they were known to all English speakers during
the 19th century, most of which are still used in the
United Kingdom today. All of these foods can be termed “more-ish”
in English slang; in other words, after the first taste, you want
more! Terms: Biscuits – cookies or crackers. Caster sugar -- granulated white sugar, stored and served in a caster, or container with a perforated lid, a “shaker” in American terminology. Clotted cream – extra thick, rich, clumpy sweet cream; often partially condensed/evaporated to obtain its texture. Crumpets – a kind of light bread resembling a muffin, often toasted. Similar to what are called “English muffins” in America. Custard – what Americans know as pudding. Double cream – whipping or heavy cream. Fairy cakes – delicate sponge cakes, or cupcakes, which are small and “light as a fairy.” Fancies or Dainties – any delicate pastry served with tea. Gateau – a rich layer cake, especially with cream or fruit. Jam – jelly, usually made from fruit, to be spread on toast. Jelly – sweet or savory gelatin dessert, often poured in a mould to set. Pickle – any kind of thick, vinegary condiment containing fruit or vegetables and spices. To be spread on bread for sandwiches or eaten with other dishes. Plain chocolate – dark chocolate. Pudding – a sweet or savory baked or boiled dish, like bread pudding, or certain kinds of sausage, like black pudding and white pudding, or a general term for all desserts. Single cream – cream to pour in your coffee, like half-and-half. Spotted dick – a sweet boiled pudding with currants and raisins inside (the “spots”). Sultanas – golden raisins. Treacle – what Americans know as molasses.
Recipes:
Independence Cake: -- from American Cookery by Amelia Simmons, 1814. Rare Books Exhibit from the Richard L. D. & Marjorie J. Morse Dept. of Special Collections, Kansas State University Libraries.
Go to
www.verybestbaking.com
Federal Cake: Grind down the ammonia, and rub it with the sugar. Rub the butter into the flour; now make a bowl of the flour (unless you choose to work it up in a dish,) and put in the eggs, milk, sugar, &c., and mix well, and roll out to about a quarter of an inch in thickness; then cut out with a round cutter, and place on tins so they touch each other and instead of rising up thicker, in baking, the fill up the space between, and make a square-looking cake, all attached together. While they are yet warm, drench over with white coarsly-pulverized sugar. If they are to be kept in a show-case, by bakers, you can have a board as large as the tin on which you bake them, and lay a dozen or more tins-ful on top of each other, as you sprinkle on the sugar. -- from Chase, A.W., M.D. Dr. Chase’s Recipes or Information for Everybody, Ann Arbor, MI, 1866. Reprinted by the Cookbook Collector’s Library, Louisville, KY, 1970.
Works Consulted: Beecher, Catherine and Harriet Beecher Stowe, American Woman’s Home, or Principles of Domestic Science, J.B. Ford & Co., New York, 1869. Reprinted by the Stowe-Day Foundation, 1975. Beeton, Isabella. The Book of Household Management, London, 1859-1861. EBook version published by eBooks@Adelaide, 2006. http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/beeton/isabella/household/
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Ever
since the first British colonists set foot on American soil around
1620, English food traditions and methods have had a major influence
on American cooking. Until about the 1940s, the mainstream of
Americans followed English food and cooking customs closer than
those of almost any other nation, second only, perhaps, to France.
During the reign of Queen Victoria, English influence was very
strong indeed; the American authors Catherine Beecher and Harriet
Beecher Stowe wrote that “the recipes of our [i.e. American]
cookery-books are most of them of English origin, coming down from
the times of our phlegmatic ancestors, when the solid, burly, beefy
growth of the foggy island required the heat of fiery condiments,
and could digest heavy sweets”. Like other authorities, however,
they advocated a lighter, blander diet for everyday, as a health
measure, and advocated the practice of adapting English and French
recipes for American use, rather than recreating them exactly.
in
their book American Woman’s Home, from 1869, discussed their
philosophy of healthful and proper cooking of foods for the American
table, and referred to the English style of cookery for their
recommendations for improving the way food was generally prepared in
America. They stated that “the American table, taken as a whole, is
inferior to that of England or France. It presents a fine abundance
of material, carelessly and poorly treated.” The basics of good
everyday eating, they said, rest on the quality of the bread,
butter, meat, vegetables, and tea, all of which seemed to them to be
prepared better in England than in America. Miss Beecher and Mrs.
Stowe looked to England for “the perfection of tea,” of course,
commenting that “when one wants to know exactly how tea should be
made, one has only to ask how a fine old English house-keeper makes
it.”