When harvesting nettles, I use great care to avoid being stung. My lower arm is wrapped in linen and I am using scissors. Nettles should be harvested early in the spring before they are a foot tall and tough and fibrous.
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Posted in culinary history, food, food history, nettles | Tags: culinary history, food, food history, foodways
Stinging Nettles
Nettles are covered with tiny stinging hairs that produce an intense, stinging pain and as Nicholas Culpepper (a 17th century English physician) states: Nettles are so well known, that they need no description; they may be found on the darkest night by feeling. Nevertheless, they are superb cooked.
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Posted in 17th century foodways, culinary history, food, food history, nettles | Tags: culinary history, food, food history, foodways, Nettles
Cowslip Pudding
The ingredients for the Cowslip Pudding were poured into a buttered dish and baked. It is a golden, puffy spring delight to remove from the bake kettle. The next step is to sift fine sugar over, and serve it up hot.
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Posted in 18th century foodways, bake kettle, Cowslips, culinary history, Edible flowers, food, food history, Puddings, receipts, recipes | Tags: culinary history, food, food history, foodways, puddings
Beat-up the eggs
To beat-up eggs, I used a birch twig whisk and added a little rose-water sweetened. This was added to the boiled cream with grated Naples Biscuits and mixed well together. The cowslips to garnish the Cowslip pudding are in the pewter porringer to the upper left of the picture.
Visit my website at: www.hearttohearthcookery.com
Posted in 18th century foodways, Birch twig whisks, Cowslips, culinary history, food, food history, Puddings, receipts, recipes | Tags: culinary history, food, food history, foodways, puddings
Naples Biscuit boiling in Cream
The grated Naples Biscuits and cream are boiled together a little in my original brass posnet for the next step in the preparation of the Cowslip pudding.
My next hearth cooking class is May 19th, 2012 and more information may be found on my website at: www.hearttohearthcookery.com
Grated Naples Biscuits
To prepare a Cowslip Pudding, after gathering the cowslips, Naples Biscuits are grated and mixed with cream. The cream is in the brass posnet. My next hearth cooking class is May 19th, 2012.
Visit my website for more information and to view the hearth cooking class video at: www.hearttohearthcookery.com
Cowslips
Cowslips are known best for their medicinal properties but I have found several cookery receipts (recipes) for them. Nicholas Culpepper, a 17th century English astrologer and physician, wrote in his herbal: The flowers are held to be more effectual than the leaves, and the roots of little use. An ointment being made with them, takes away spots and wrinkles of the skin, sun-burning, and freckles, and adds beauty exceedingly…. The cowslip flowers pictured in the rye straw basket, I picked for a Cowslip pudding.
My next hearth cooking class is May 19th, 2012. Visit my website for more information and view a video of a class at: www.hearttohearthcookery.com
Stuffing the shad
My cast iron herb grinder has never looked so green as it did when I completed grinding enough sorrel to stuff the shad. I stuffed the shad with as much sorrel as the belly would hold.
My next hearth cooking class is May 19th, 2012. Visit my website for more information at: www.hearttohearthcookery.com
Posted in culinary history, food, food history, Hearth cooking classes, herb grinder, shad, sorrell | Tags: culinary history, food, food history, foodways, shad
Sorrell
There is a long association between shad and sorrell. Shad is a harginger of spring and sorrell is a spring herb noted for a sourness from its oxalic acid content. In the picture, I am using my “go-devil” or herb grinder to bring out the juices of the sorrell.
My next hearth cooking class is May 19th, 2012. Visit my website for more information at: www.hearttohearthcookery.com
Posted in culinary history, Fish, food, food history, food history equipment, Hearth cooking classes, shad, sorrell | Tags: culinary history, fish, food, food history, foodways, Hearth cooking classes, shad
Scaling a Shad
The shad in the picture was sold to me as a buck shad (male) but I have learned to always clean a shad carefully as one can be fooled. The hen shad is usually larger than the buck, somewhat swollen in the belly and are red around the vent hole. This shad showed none of those characteristics but when I started cleaning SHE had two large sacs of roe.
My next hearth cooking class is May 19th, 2012. For more information, visit my website at www.hearttohearthcookery.com.
Posted in culinary history, food, food history, Hearth cooking classes, shad | Tags: culinary history, food, food history, foodways, Hearth cooking classes, shad
Heart to Hearth Cookery 