Part 1

_“COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD” SERIES._

THE

DINNER YEAR-BOOK

BY MARION HARLAND, AUTHOR OF “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD,” “BREAKFAST, LUNCHEON AND TEA,” ETC.

NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 1883.

COPYRIGHT BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.

1878.

TROW’S PRINTING & BOOKBINDING CO., _205-213 East 12th St._, NEW YORK.

Familiar Talk with the Reader.

“Do not laugh when I tell you that one of the most serious perplexities of my every-day life is the daily recurring question, ‘What shall we have for dinner?’” writes a correspondent.

I do not smile at the naïve confession. I feel more like sighing as I recollect the years during the summers and winters of which the same query advanced with me into the dignity of a problem. There were several important ends to be compassed in the successful settlement of the question. To accomplish an agreeable variety in the family bill of fare; to accommodate appetites and individual preferences to the season and state of the local market; to avoid incongruous associations of meats, vegetables, sauces, _entrées_ and desserts; to build fragments into a structure about which should linger no flavor of staleness or sameness; so to manage a long succession of meals that yesterday’s repast and the more frugal one of to-day should not suggest the alternation of fat and lean in the Hibernian’s pork, or the dutiful following of penance upon indulgence; to shun, with equal care, the rock of parsimony and the whirlpool of extravagance;—but why extend the list of dilemmas? Are they not written in the mental chronicles of every housewife whose conscience—be her purse shallow or deep—will not excuse her from a continual struggle with the left-overs? Such uncompromising bits of facts do these same “left-overs” appear in the next day’s survey of ways, means, and capabilities, that timid mistresses are the less to blame for often winking at the Alexandrine audacity with which the cook has disposed of the knotty subject by emptying platters and tureens into the swill-pail,—which should stand for the armorial bearings of her tribe wherever found,—or satisfied indolence, and what goes with her for humanity, by tossing crusts, bones, and “cold scraps” into the yawning basket of the beggar at the basement door.

One of these days I mean to write an article, scientific and practical, upon the genus, “basket-beggar.” For the present, take the word of one who has studied the species in all its varieties,—who has suffered long, and certainly not been _un_kind in the acquisition of experience upon this head,—and prohibit their visits entirely, and at all seasons. “Cold cuts” and the “heels” of loaves belong to you as certainly as do hot joints and unmutilated pies. Issue your declaration of independence to the effect that you choose to dispense charity in your own way, and that, as an intelligent Christian woman, you can better judge by what methods to relieve want and aid the really worthy poor, than can the ignorant, irresponsible creature who lavishes what costs her nothing upon every chance speculator whose lying whine excites her pity. Sympathy which, by the way, would generally lie dormant, were the listener to the piteous tale obliged to satisfy the petitioner from her own purse or wardrobe.

Returning from what is not, although it may seem to be a digression, let us talk together more briefly than is our wont in these familiar conferences, of the considerations that have moved and sustained me in the preparation of this volume, and which will, I hope, make it a welcome and useful counsellor to you. First, then, the suggestion and interrogation of sincere seekers for helpful advice pertaining to that most important of the triad of daily meals—“THE FAMILY DINNER,” superadded to my own observation and experience of the difficulties that beset the subject. Secondly, the discovery, that so far as I have been able to push my investigations—and my searching has been keen and extensive—no directory upon this particular branch of culinary endeavor has been published, at least none in the English language. We have had books, some of them admirable helps to skilful, no less than to inexperienced housekeepers, upon dinner-giving, and company dinners, and “little dinner” parties, not to refer to the mighty mountain of manuals upon cookery in general; but, up to the time of the present writing, I have found nothing that, to my appreciation, meets the case stated by the friend whose plaint heads this chapter.

My aim has been to write out, for seven days of four weeks in each month, a _menu_ adapted, in all things, to the average American market; giving meats, fish, vegetables, and fruits in their season, and, so far as I could do so upon paper, rendering a satisfactory account of every pound of meat, etc., brought, by my advice, into the kitchen. I have taken the liberty accorded me by virtue of our long and intimate acquaintanceship, of inspecting not only the contents of your market-basket, but each morning the treasures of larder and refrigerator; of offering counsel concerning crumbs, bones, and such odds-and-ends as are held in contempt by many otherwise thrifty managers—to wit, other cold vegetables than potatoes, and dry crusts of bread and cake, while of gravy and dripping I have made specialties. I have tried, moreover, to inspire such respect for made-over dinners, as we feel for the pretty rugs made of the ravellings of Axminster carpets. We do not attempt to impose them upon ourselves or our friends as “pure Persian.” But neither do we blush for them because Mrs. Million Aire across the way would scorn to give them house-room. Let “CONSISTENCY” be stamped upon every appointment of your household, and even the _parvenue_ opposite cannot despise you. Once learn the truth that moderate, or even scanty means do not make meanness or homeliness a necessity, and act upon the lesson, and you can set criticism at defiance. Apropos to this point of consistency, let me say, in explanation, not apology, for the small space devoted to company-dinners, that I have dealt with them upon the principle that ten times one makes ten. Having, in emulation of the Eastern beauty, carried the calf with ease for four weeks, you will hardly appreciate the difference in the weight of the cow you lift upon the fifth. In plainer phrase, give John and the children good dinners, well-cooked, and daintily served, every day, and the entertainment of half-a-dozen friends in addition to the family party will cease to be a stupendous undertaking. They have a saying in the Southern States that aptly expresses the labor and excitement attendant upon such an event in too many families; the straining after Mrs. Million Aire’s _diners à la Russe_, which presuppose the despotism of a _chef_ in the kitchen, and the solemn pomp of a Chief Butler in the _salle à manger_. The Southern description of the frantic endeavor is—“Trying to put the big pot into the little one,” and it is invariably used with reference to preparations for company. Be content, my dear sister, to put into your little pot only so much as it will decently hold, and be thankful that you have in it a sure gauge of responsibility.

I have spoken of dinners for four weeks in each month. I have written receipts for this number, not in forgetfulness of the fact that there is but one February per annum, but because the need of adapting the bills of fare to the days of the week, instead of the month, was absolute, and if I wished the Dinner Year-Book to be a perpetual calendar, I must say nothing of the broken week that sometimes ends and sometimes begins the month. The difficulty of disposing satisfactorily of the two or three odd days brought to my mind, while blocking out my work, the summary manner in which one of my baby-girls once dismissed a somewhat analogous difficulty.

“My dear,” I said to her one night as she concluded her prayer at my knee, “you have forgotten to pray for your little cousins. How did that happen? Don’t you want our Heavenly Father to take care of them?”

She made a motion of again bending her knees, yawned sleepily, and tumbled into bed.

“Can’t help it, mamma! Baby is too tired! Horace and Eddie _must scuffle for themselves_ just this one night!”

I have given you twenty-eight—nay, counting your possible company-meal—twenty-nine dinners in succession to little purpose if you cannot collate from previous receipts one or two for yourself, and be the better for the practice. I need hardly say that I do not anticipate or desire slavish adherence to the plan sketched for your day or week. I _have_ sketched—that is all—not worked out a sum in which addition or subtraction would materially affect the sum-total. The framework is, I would fain hope, symmetrical. I expect you to build thereupon as convenience or discretion may dictate.

Touching Saucepans.

WHILE it is true that the finest tools will not impart skill to the untrained workman, it is equally a matter of fact that the best artisan is he who cares most jealously for the quality and condition of his instruments as well as for the finish of his workmanship.

A visitor once asked permission to witness the operation of cooking a beefsteak in my kitchen, saying that her husband had spoken in terms of commendation of those he had eaten at my table. Like the good wife she was, she desired to “catch the trick,” whatever it might be, of preparing them to his liking. I willingly acceded to her request, and upon her return to the parlor her husband inquired eagerly: “Did you learn the secret?”

“Yes,” was the smiling answer. “You must buy me a gridiron!”

Up to that time, she then explained, fried steaks had been the rule in her house, and gridirons a thing unheard or unthought of.

A fried beefsteak being, as I have elsewhere stated, a culinary solecism, I have, perhaps, selected an extreme case as the test of my discourse upon the necessity of a supply of fitting utensils for the proper prosecution of home-cookery. Mrs. Whitney’s idea of the “art-kitchen,” so charmingly set forth in “We Girls,” may not be so chimerical (with limitations) as most practical housewives—practised in nothing more than in the exercise of patience—are apt to suppose. They tell us the tale—known already too sadly well to each of us—of the impossibility of inducing “girls” who are tractable and respectful in most things, to accept labor-saving machines, and the thousand-and-one ingenious contrivances for making cooking easier and even graceful; of the hard usage to which expensive implements are subjected in rude hands, the motive-power of which is the untilled brain, unrestrained by the conscienceless will; of how innovations are openly flouted, or secretly sneered at, “until,” say they, “we find it easier to let the cook have her own way down-stairs, and reconcile ourselves, as best we may, to obstinate stupidity and unmerciful breakages. As to art-kitchens”—a shrug and a groan,—“we are thankful if our tenderest care can keep the upper stories free from the vandalism that rages below.”

Nevertheless, acknowledging, as I have, personally, reasons for doing—the truth of all these things—I make answer, “Have an art-kitchen for yourself!” First, give your cook, or maid-of-all-work, a fair trial. It is a duty you owe to humanity and to her to prove, conclusively, whether her careless or destructive habits be ingrain and wilful, or merely the result of ignorance and bad training. There are bad mistresses, let us remember,—and more still who are indifferent or incompetent. If “our girl” has a heart or a conscience, let us find it. Make her understand the value and usefulness of the appliances you have furnished for her work, where and how they are to be kept, and set her the example of always looking for and putting them in their proper places. If they are misused, show your regret decidedly, but still kindly. Should all means of civilizing her taste up to your standard fail, make, as I have advised, an art-kitchen for your own use. Appropriate one corner of the room, where cooking is done, for your operations, and arrange there your pet tools. Have your scoop flour-sifter; your patent pie-lifter and oyster-broiler; your star-toaster; your pie-crimper, vegetable and nutmeg graters; gravy-strainer, colander, biscuit-cutter, skimmers, larding needles, wire, and perforated, and slit and fluted spoons; your weights and measures, and the tidy, serviceable tinned and enamelled saucepans, Scotch kettles, frying-pans, etc., that will retain tidiness and serviceable qualities so long in your care, and so soon come to grief in boorish clutches. Set all these, and as many others as you like and can afford to buy—always including the Dover egg-beater and its “Baby” (made for whipping one egg to more purpose than one egg, or anything else as small was ever whipped before)—in array upon walls and shelves,[A] and let the logic of daily events prove how far they will deprive work of the wearing vexations attendant upon long searches for the right article, and its wrong condition when found. Make your helpers—one and all—comprehend that these are your especial property, to be used—_and kept clean_—by no one else. Let them be looked down upon as the toys of a would-be-busy woman by the superior intellects about you, should they see fit thus to do, and provide such tools as are suited to coarser fingers for them to use. The chances are many to one that your dexterous manipulation of your instruments; the excellence of the products achieved by yourself and them; even the attractive neatness of the display and your corner, will win skeptics, first, to indulgence, then, admiration, then, to imitation. If you can afford the great luxury of a pastry or mixing-room, adjoining the kitchen, so much the better for you and your pious undertaking. But without regard to what may be the effect upon others, have your saucepans, of whatever designs and in whatever quantities you like—taking “saucepan” as a generic term for every description of mute helpers in the task of elevating cookery into a fine art, or, at the least, in redeeming it from the stigma of coarseness and vulgarity.

Have, also, as an indispensable adjunct of saucepans, appliances for cleansing them. There is nothing inherently degrading in dish-washing. Provide plenty of towels and hot water; a mop with a handle and a loop by which to hang it up when it has been squeezed and shaken after use; a soap-shaker—a neat wire cup, enclosing the soap, and furnished with a handle of tinned wire, and a dish-pan, with a partition running across the middle, that the soiled articles may be rinsed from grease in one of the compartments before they are purified thoroughly in the other. Have, also, at hand a can or box of washing soda, and a bottle of ammonia for taking off the grease more effectually; a cake of Indexical silver soap in a cup, with a brush, for restoring lustre to tins, Britannia or plated, or silver ware. Thus armed, the cleansing of your implements will be a matter of brief moment, and your work in the kitchen be, in no sense, a hindrance to the stated duties of the day, while your methods and occasional presence cannot fail to be a refining influence upon all except the very common and spiritually unclean. Ladyhood, _if thorough_, will assert itself, even behind a scullion’s apron.

JANUARY.

First Week. Sunday. —— Beef Soup. Chicken smothered with Oysters. Celery Salad. Mashed Potatoes. Cauliflower au gratin. Stewed Tomatoes. —— Blanc Mange and Cream. Sponge Cake. Cocoa. ——

BEEF SOUP.

3 lbs. of lean beef, with a marrow-bone. ½ lb. lean ham (or a ham-bone, if you have it). 1 turnip. 1 onion. 1 carrot. ¼ of a cabbage. 3 stalks of celery. 3 quarts of water—cold, of course. Salt and pepper to taste.

Cut the meat very fine, and crack the bones well. Put these on in a pot with a close top; cover with a quart of water, and set where they will come _very slowly_ to a boil. If they do not reach this point in less than an hour, so much the better. When the contents of the pot begin to bubble, add the remaining two quarts of cold water, and let all boil slowly for three hours: for two hours with the top closed, during the last with it slightly lifted. Wash and peel the turnip, carrot, and onion, scrape the celery, and wash with the cabbage. Cut all into dice and lay in cold water, a little salted, for half an hour. Put the carrot on to stew in a small vessel by itself; the others all together, with enough water to cover them. Some think the carrot keeps color and shape better if hot, instead of cold water be used for it. Let it stew until tender, then drain off the water and set it aside to cool. The other vegetables should be boiled to pieces. Half an hour before the soup is to be taken up, strain the water from the cabbage, etc., pressing them to a pulp to extract all the strength. Return this to the saucepan, throw in a little salt, let it boil up once to clear it; skim and add to the soup. Put in pepper, and salt—unless the ham has salted it sufficiently—and boil, covered, twenty minutes. Strain into an earthenware basin; let it get cool enough for the fat to arise to the surface, when take off all that will come away. Return to the pot, which should have been previously rinsed with hot water, boil briskly for one minute, and throw in the carrot. Skim and serve.

This is a good, clear soup. If you like it thicker, dissolve a tablespoonful of gelatine in enough cold water to cover it well—this may be done by an hour’s soaking—and add to the soup after the latter is strained and cleared of the fat.

When practicable, make Sunday’s soup on Saturday, so far as to prepare the “stock,” or meat base. Set it away in an earthenware crock, adding a little salt. This not only lessens Sunday’s work, but the unstrained soup gathers the whole strength of the meat, and the fat can be removed in a solid cake of excellent dripping. Indeed, it is a good rule _always to prepare soup stock at least twenty-four hours before it is to be used for the table_.

Try, likewise, to make enough soup for Sunday to last over Monday as well. A little forethought on Saturday will lessen the labors and increase the comfort of what has been somewhat profanely named “Job’s birthday,” the anniversary which was to be accursed for evermore.

CHICKEN SMOTHERED WITH OYSTERS.

1 full-grown, tender chicken. 1 pint of oysters. 2 tablespoonfuls of butter. 3 “ “ cream. 1 tablespoonful of corn-starch. Yolks of three hard-boiled eggs. 1 scant cup bread-crumbs. Pepper, salt, and chopped parsley.

Prepare the chicken as for roasting. Stuff with a dressing of the oysters chopped pretty fine, and mixed with the bread-crumbs, seasoned to taste with pepper and salt. Tie up the neck securely. (This can be done on Saturday, if the fowl be afterwards kept in a very cold place.)

Put the chicken thus stuffed and trussed, with legs and wings tied close to the body with soft tape, into a tin pail with a _tight_ top. Cover closely and set, with a weight on the top, in a pot of cold water. Bring gradually to a boil, that the fowl may be heated evenly and thoroughly. Stew steadily, never fast, for an hour and a half after the water in the outer kettle begins to boil. Then open the pail and test with a fork to see if the chicken be tender. If not, re-cover _at once_, and stew for half or three-quarters of an hour longer. When the chicken is tender throughout, take it out and lay upon a hot dish, covering immediately. Turn the juices left in the pail into a saucepan, thicken with the corn-starch, which should first be wet up with a little cold milk, then the chopped parsley, butter, pepper and salt, and the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs chopped fine. Boil up once, stir in the cream, and take from the fire before it can boil again. Pour a few spoonfuls over the chicken, and serve the rest in a sauce-tureen.

CELERY SALAD.

2 bunches of celery. 1 tablespoonful of salad oil. 4 tablespoonfuls of vinegar. 1 small teaspoonful fine sugar. Pepper and salt to taste.

Wash and scrape the celery, lay in ice-cold water until dinner-time, when cut into inch-lengths, season, tossing all well up together, and serve in a salad bowl.

CAULIFLOWER _au gratin_.

1 large cauliflower. 4 tablespoonfuls grated cheese. 1 cup drawn butter. Pepper and salt. A pinch of nutmeg.

Boil the cauliflower until tender (about twenty minutes), having first tied it up in a bag of coarse lace or tarlatan. Have ready a cup of good drawn butter, and pour over the cauliflower, when you have drained and dished the latter. Sift the cheese thickly over the top, and brown by holding a red-hot shovel so close to the cheese that it singes and blazes. Blow out the fire on the instant, and send to the table.

MASHED POTATOES.

Pare the potatoes very thin, lay in cold water for an hour, and cover well with boiling water. (“Peach-blows” are better put down in _cold_ water.) Boil quickly, and when done, drain off every drop of water; throw in a little salt; set back on the range for two or three minutes. Mash soft with a potato-beetle, or whip to a cream with a fork, adding a little butter and enough milk to make a soft paste. Heap in a smooth mound upon a vegetable dish.

STEWED TOMATOES.

Open a can of tomatoes an hour before cooking them. Leave out the cores and unripe parts. Cook always in tin or porcelain saucepans. Iron injures color and flavor. Stew gently for half an hour; season to taste with salt, pepper, a little sugar, and a tablespoonful of butter. Cook gently, uncovered, ten minutes longer, and turn into a deep dish.

BLANC MANGE.

1 liberal quart of milk. 1 oz. Cooper’s gelatine. ¾ of a cup of white sugar. 2 teaspoonfuls vanilla.

Soak the gelatine for two hours in a breakfast-cup of cold water. Heat the milk to boiling in a farina-kettle, or in a tin pail set in a pot of hot water. Add the soaked gelatine and sugar, stir for ten minutes over the fire, and strain through a thin muslin bag into a mould wet with cold water. Flavor and set in a cold place to form. To loosen it, dip the mould for one instant in hot water, detach the surface from the sides by a light pressure of the fingers, and reverse over a glass or china dish. Serve with powdered sugar and cream.

By all means have Sunday desserts prepared upon the preceding day. To this end, I have endeavored to give such receipts for the blessed day as can be easily made ready on Saturday.

COCOA.

6 tablespoonfuls of cocoa to each pint of water. As much milk as you have water. Sugar to taste.

Rub the cocoa smooth in a little cold water. Have ready on the fire the pint of boiling water. Stir in the grated cocoa-paste. Boil twenty minutes; add the milk and boil five minutes more, stirring often.

Sweeten in the cups to suit different tastes.

There is a preparation of cocoa, already powdered, called “cocoatina,” which needs no boiling. It is very good, and saves the trouble of grating and cooking. I regret that, although I have used it frequently and with great satisfaction, I have forgotten the name of the manufacturer. It is put up in round boxes, like mustard, and is quite as economical for family use as the cakes of cocoa.

SPONGE CAKE.

6 eggs. The weight of the eggs in sugar. Half their weight in flour. 1 lemon, juice and rind.

Beat yolks and whites very light, separately of course, the powdered sugar into the yolks when they are smooth and thick; next, the juice and grated peel of the lemon; then the whites with a few swift strokes; at last, the flour, in great, loose handfuls. Stir in lightly, but thoroughly. Too much beating after the flour goes in makes sponge cake tough. Bake in round tin moulds, buttered. Your oven should be steady. When the cakes begin to color on top, cover with paper to prevent burning.