Are you now or have you ever been...

A vegetarian? If you are you may "lose their liking for preparation possessing much flavour and seasoning and usually prefer simple fare." You are in danger of becoming insipid and flavourless. Such a diet is "apt to be monotonous, but not necessarily so." Your diet will only be tasty and "nourishing, palatable and varied, if they will avail themselves of the many food-stuffs which nature has generously placed at their disposal."

So, on the whole, Mrs Beeton and her publishers do not come down on the side of vegetarianism.

Why am I posting this inflammatory post? To cover up the mess that was my dessert: COFFEE CUSTARD.

Whilst it was tasty, it looked appalling and I'm going to hold off posting the recipe until I work the kinks out of it... Let's just say that my custard needs work...a lot of it. Baked custard just doesn't seem to be my thing... yet.

So here it is, with a slice of Panaforte made by one of my brownies as a Christmas present

Lights, camera, action

electricity, ain't it grand!

It's a mockery

well, a mock goose... Actually it's a Vegetable Goose, despite the lack of any real vegetables (onion is not really a vegetable).


But before we get there, let's have a look at what Mrs Beeton has to say about the origins of vegetarianism.


"From the earliest ages the doctrines and practice of vegetarinism have been observed, from necessity, as a religious duty or on grounds of health. In England the question has come to the front on the ground of dietetic reform, and a number of persons known as "Vegetarians" abstain from animal foods altogether, or take it only in such forms as milk, cheese, butter or eggs."


Interestingly, the concept of vegetarianism was so novel in 1923 that it didn't need delineations like vegan, or pescatarian, or pesca-pollo-tarian, or fruitarian. You either ate meat, or you didn't. And coming from a book that has 12 chapters exclusively about meat and only one on vegetarian cooking, I imagine that most people ate meat.


And now, VEGETABLE GOOSE (I served mine with roasted vegetables...Mrs Beeton left no serving suggestions)



INGREDIENTS - 1/2 lb of bread soaked in cold water
1 onion
1 tp chopped sage
30g vegetable butter
pepper and salt
60g chopped walnuts


METHOD - Squeeze the bread nearlydry, and mash it, mix in the other ingredients, chopped small. Grease a Yorkshire pudding-dish, put in the mixture, and bake in a good oven for about 3/4 of an hour.


TIME - About 1 1/2 hours. SUFFICIENT for 3 persons (actually about 5, depending on how much you like mushed bread)
My recommnedations: Actually quite tasty for a fauxst (faux roast), basically just a pile of stuffing. Needed a bit more salt. Maybe not a gold medal winner but certainly tasty...and a good way to use up any leftover stale bread.

I had the left over goose and potatoes for breakfast today, sort of fried into a fritter thing... it was also good.

When Mrs Beeton was a little girl

Mrs Beeton vs. the Vegetarian

Last night I had my sisters over for dinner...and because of my new obsession, I wanted to cook something from Mrs Beeton. Trouble is, my sister is a vegetarian.

Now from a cookbook that recommend Calf's Feet Stew for invalids or Bullock's Heart stuffed with Veal forcemeat I thought my chances of devising a suitable menu may be slim. However, I should not have been so hasty. While I believe the original Mrs Beeton was probably not in favour of vegetarian ( I think somewhere she wrote that it would be quite bad to omit one entire food group, and meat at that!), my new and updated version desiring to "give useful information to all housekeepers" has a whole chapter(!12 pages!) added "for the benefit of those who do not eat animal food, or prefer an alternative diet."

And now with out any further ado, may I present MOCK HARE SOUP

INGREDIENTS - 1 litre Vegetable Stock
1 carrot (diced)
1 onion (diced)
1 stick of celery (diced)
1 tomato (diced)
2 cloves
1 bay leaf
1 tsp of chopped parsley
1 tbsp of flour
30 g of vegetable butter
salt
pepper

METHOD - Melt the butter in a casserole, cut up the vegetables into neat pieces, and cook them slowly in the butter for about 15 mins - with the lid on. Stir in the flour and brown it a little, then add the stock, cloves, bay leaf and seasoning, stir until it simmers; then cook gently for about 20 mins. Meanwhile make forcemeat balls about the size of a cherry, and fry them. Put them into the soup tureen, pour the soup on, scatter the chopped parsley over, and serve immediately. Hand the red currant jelly separately. When in season a few mushrooms added to the vegetables are an improvement.

TIME - About 45 minutes. SUFFICIENT for about 6 or 7 persons

My recommendations: Not much - this is a pretty good vegetable soup. BTW - these recipes have been converted to metric measurements.

FORCEMEAT BALLS (For serving in Soups, etc.)

INGREDIENTS - 120 g fresh bread crumbs
1 tbsp flour
1 tbsp chopped pine kernels
1 tbsp chopped vegetable butter
1/2 tsp chopped parsley
1/2 tsp mixed herbs
1/2 tsp lemon peel
1 medium egg
pepper and salt
fat for frying

METHOD - Mix all the ingredients well together - using the egg to form a stiff paste. Roll into balls, fry a golden brown in either deep or shallow fat and serve as required.

TIME - About 15 minutes. SUFFICIENT for about 1 dozen balls.

My recommendations: Well, I had to add some extra water (actually quite a bit of extra water) to get the balls to stick. My paste was just too dry... although this may have been because I used dried breadcrumbs not fresh ones. And I made my balls too big, next time they'll be smaller.

Over all, I found the entree to be quite tasty, and everyone agreed that this is one you could make again...

Tomorrow...the main - Mock Goose

saucy!

well, I'm converted

or trying at least.

Mrs Beeton wrote her first book at the height of British Imperialism and smack bang in the middle of the Victorian era as well. Therefore it stands to reason that all her measurement are in the Imperial system. Not only Imperial, but quaint as well. Have you ever measured a teacupful of something? What about a breakfastcupful? (For future reference, a breakfast cup is about 1/2 a pint, and therefore about 1 metric cup)

And then, the next thing you have to remember is that a British pint (or quart or ounce) is different from the American. So, when I converted some things on Friday online, they're almost assuredly converted from American sizes, and therefore different from what is required.

I was discussing this problem with my parents when I went to visit them and help put up the Christmas tree. This sparked a geat hunt through every single recipe book in their house for conversion tables, which my father photocopied with great glee. Of particular help were the cookbooks printed in the 60s and 70s, which is when Australia converted from the Imperial to the Metric system.

So I now have the conversion table from the Nursing Mother's Cookbook, from the Dutch Cookbook, and one from Margaret Fulton's Cookbook, who was the Woman's Day Food Editor of the day, all carefully photocopied and stored in my cookbook cupboard. Therefore when I go to cook from Mrs Beeton, as I will be doing tonight, I will know exactly how much of everything I should cook.


Provided I can get my maths right... fingers crossed