Mary Randolph, The Virginia House-Wife

fresh beans

French Beans
Cut off the stalk end first, and then turn to the point and strip off the strings ; if not quite fresh, have a bowl of spring water, with a little salt dissolved in it, standing before you, as the beans are cleansed and trimmed, throw them in ; when all are done, put them on the fire in boiling water with some salt in it ; when they have boiled fifteen or twenty minutes, take one out and taste it ; as soon as they are tender, take them up, and throw them into a colander to drain. To send up the beans whole, when they are young, is much the best method, and their delicate flavor and colour is much better preserved. When a little more grown, they must be cut across, in two, after stringing ; and for common tables, they are split, and divided across ; but those who are nice, do not use them at such a growth as to require splitting.

French beans cooked and ready to serve

Note:
In this recipe Randolph seems to be much more concerned about the age and size of the beans than the final dressing of the finished dish as she makes no mention of butter or any other seasoning. However she makes a clear distinction between the young beans that the ‘nice’ housemistress would chose versus more mature beans only appropriate for the ‘common table.”
I am unclear why she specifically calls for spring water to refresh her “not quite fresh beans.” But certainly she expects beans to have strings whatever their maturity. Today with the exception of heirloom or Italian or Romano-type beans most green beans have had the string bred out of them.

I can’t resist including the etymology of the word ‘nice’ as it has evolved from MR’s time to ours.
OED: NICE
Etymology: < Anglo-Norman nice, nis, nise and Old French nice (c1160; c1250 as niche; now French regional) < classical Latin nescius (see nescious adj.). Compare Old Occitan nesci (c1150; also attested as neci, nesi, nessi; Occitan neci), Spanish necio (1220–50), Catalan neci, nici (both 14th cent.), Portuguese necio (14th cent.; 15th cent. as néscio), Italian nescio (1321), all in sense ‘foolish, simple, ignorant’.
The semantic development of this word from ‘foolish, silly’ to ‘pleasing’ is unparalleled in Latin or in the Romance languages. The precise sense development in English is unclear. N.E.D. (1906 ) s.v. notes that ‘in many examples from the 16th and 17th cent. it is difficult to say in what particular sense the writer intended it to be taken’.
3 b. Fastidious, fussy, difficult to please, esp. with regard to food or cleanliness; of refined or dainty tastes.
c1400 (1380) Cleanness (Nero) 824 Þis vnfavere [read vnsavere] hyne Lovez no salt in her sauce, ȝet hit no skyl were Þat oþer burne be boute, þaȝ boþe be nyse.
a1425 St. Anthony 15 in Anglia (1881) 4 116 He wold neuer desyre oþer dayntys þan hys moder sett befor hym, os oþer nyse chylder done.
c1530 A. Barclay Egloges ii. sig. Ki, Make hunger thy sawse, be thou neuer so nyse For there shalt thou fynde none other sawse ne spyce.
1551 R. Robinson tr. T. More Vtopia sig. Iiii, Anothere ys of so nyce and soo delycate a mynde that he settethe nothynge by yt.
1570 T. Tusser Hundreth Good Pointes Husbandry (new ed.) f. 40, The slouen and the carelesse man, the roynish nothing nice.
1600 T. Dekker Old Fortunatus sig. A2v, Your nice soules, cloyd with dilicious sounds, Will loath her lowly notes.
a1656 Bp. J. Hall Shaking of Olive-tree (1660) ii. 3 Nice ears are all for variety of Doctrines, as palates of meats.
1702 W. Penn More Fruits of Solitude §136. 50 ‘Tis a Happiness to be delivered from a Curious Mind, as well as from a Dainty Palate. For it is not only a Troublesome but Slavish Thing to be Nice.
1707 E. Ward Wooden World Dissected (1708) 99 He is not so nice as his Superiors, whom nothing will go down with, under right Nantz or Rum.
1751 Johnson Rambler No. 104. ⁋9 The mind‥becomes‥nice and fastidious, and like a vitiated palate.
1789 Shepherd’s Wedding 10 Nae doubt ye wad be owr nice for to spin.
1808 Specimens Yorks. Dial. 18 She’s seea nice, She weant heeat puddin’ meead o’ rice.
1836 C. Shaw Let. 15 June in Personal Mem. & Corr. (1837) II. 593, I can eat anything, and am not very nice about the cleanliness.
1856 N. Hawthorne Eng. Note-bks. (1879) II. 318 Neither is it [sc. ivy] at all nice as to what it clutches, in its necessity for support.
1947 R. Pitter On Cats 15 To eat rats and such he was too nice.
1952 M. Kennedy Troy Chimneys 60 Nobody, seeing her then, could have been so nice as to complain of such blemishes.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nice American Heritage Dictionary
nice
1. pleasing; agreeable; delightful: a nice visit.
2. amiably pleasant; kind: They are always nice to strangers.
3. characterized by, showing, or requiring great accuracy, precision, skill, tact, care, or delicacy: nice workmanship; a nice shot; a nice handling of a crisis.
4. showing or indicating very small differences; minutely accurate, as instruments: a job that requires nice measurements.
5. minute, fine, or subtle: a nice distinction.
6. having or showing delicate, accurate perception: a nice sense of color.
7. refined in manners, language, etc.: Nice people wouldn’t do such things.
8. virtuous; respectable; decorous: a nice girl.
9. suitable or proper: That was not a nice remark.
10. carefully neat in dress, habits, etc.
11. (especially of food) dainty or delicate.
12. having fastidious, finicky, or fussy tastes: They’re much too nice in their dining habits to enjoy an outdoor barbecue.
13. Obsolete . coy, shy, or reluctant.
14. Obsolete . unimportant; trivial.
15. Obsolete . wanton.
—Idioms
16. make nice, to behave in a friendly, ingratiating, or conciliatory manner.
17. nice and, sufficiently: It’s nice and warm in here.
Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English: foolish, stupid < Old French: silly, simple < Latin nescius ignorant, incapable, equivalent to ne- negative prefix + sci- (stem of scīre to know; see science) + -us adj. suffix

—Usage note
The semantic history of NICE is quite varied, as the etymology and the obsolete senses attest, and any attempt to insist on only one of its present senses as correct will not be in keeping with the facts of actual usage. If any criticism is valid, it might be that the word is used too often and has become a cliché lacking the qualities of precision and intensity that are embodied in many of its synonyms.

Sooooooo, did I mention CHOCOLATE? Creating, savoring, eating chocolate? Our day will be spent exploring all things chocolate. The Aztec rulers drank their chocolate dark and bitter and used cocoa beans as money; after 1530 the Spanish added sugar and spices creating a drink for the European aristocracy. The students in this class will start by making a basic chocolate paste using authentic New World ingredients and the same lava-stone tools as the Aztecs; metate and mano. We will enjoy an Aztec-inspired mole sauced lunch. Heading back to the metate we will add European inspired spices and sugar to create that modern sweet essence we all love to drink and nibble. Everyone will take home a sample of our class chocolate production. Classes will be scheduled May through October as students sign up.

Soooooooo, again, did I mention Chocolate? As you swoon contemplate the following historical medicinal diagnosis: The Florentine Codex (compiled by priest Bernardino de Sahagún in 1590) warned that “[Green cacao] makes one drunk, takes effect on one, makes one dizzy, confuses one, makes one sick, deranges one. When an ordinary amount is drunk, it gladdens one, refreshes one, consoles one, invigorates one. Thus it is said: I take cacao. I wet my lips. I refresh myself.”

Classes have a 5 student minimum – view full class listings at The View from Indigo House www.indigohousehistory.com
Put together a group. Give as a gift. Email me re scheduling and price.

Mary Randolph, The Virginia House-Wife

Peas
To have them in perfection, they must be quite young, gathered early in the morning, kept in a cool place , and not shelled until they are to be dressed; put salt in the water, and when it boils, put in the peas; boil them quick twenty or thirty minutes, according to their age; just before they are taken up, add a little mint chopped very fine, drain all the water from the peas, put in a bit of butter, and serve them up quite hot.

shelling peas

You’ll notice that MR doesn’t usually deal with quantities or servings. I believe that is because she knew that her readers, and their enslaved cooks, were well accustomed to 10-15-20 people sitting down for the dinner meal and the hostess had to vary amounts accordingly. Imagine being the woman or child shelling those many, many pounds of peas, probably beginning as soon as the peas came in from the garden so as to be ready to cook in time for dinner. In the Monticello kitchen, ruled over by head chef Edith Fossett, all the steps that had to be in place for the afternoon’s dinner moved like clockwork. Peas being a particular favorite of the Jefferson household meant careful preparation for even so seemingly simple a dish.

With the odd spring we in Central Virginia are having I got caught short with no soil open to sow my peas – no potatoes in the ground either! My solution will be to sow snow peas and leave the ‘English’ peas for another year. That’s the wonderful thing about gardening; there is always another season.

For lots of information on planting peas search ‘sowing peas garden’ and you will come up with information from all over the pea-eating world! It’s so wonderful to see so many shared gardening experiences available online.

Copper double-boiler

Forty-six years ago I received this lovely Bazar Français double boiler as a gift.  Over the years it has taken pride of place in my many and various kitchens (a stunning twelve moves over the years since 1966 now that I add it up – yikes!).

To keep the copper shiny I’ve tried every commercial copper cleaner I could find.  None work with the efficiency of the solution given me by Casey Anderson Amdahl, my sister-in-law’s mother-in-law.  When I met Casey she was already old – she was born in the 1890s.  The day she first visited us on our farm place in northeastern South Dakota I was struggling with trying to shine up my big copper canner kettle – this was in the autumn of 1975.  She told me of the method her mother had taught her; lemon juice or white vinegar with salt, rubbed on the tarnish.  That day she also suggested I just bake the whole pumpkin and cut it up after; a bit of advice I have followed ever since.

So throw away the tarnish removers with their chemicals and fumes; white vinegar, salt and a rag (and I do use rubber gloves) and a bit of elbow grease will do the job just fine.  And it leaves just enough patina to keep the character of a well-used and well-loved utensil.

cleaning copper

For all the years I’ve owned this double boiler it is for the Easter Day feast that it is regularly trotted out.  It’s the essential utensil for making Hollandaise Sauce to go on the Eggs Benedict that is the centerpiece of our annual Julia Child Memorial Easter brunch.  This meal is so named for the recipes for English muffins, poached eggs, and hollandaise I first learned in her 1979 book Julia Child & Company.  It’s been a long fun 30+ years!  Dare I say it: “Bon appétit!”

Mary Randolph, The Virginia House-Wife

Asparagus

Set a stew pan with plenty of water on the fire, sprinkle a handful of salt in it, let it boil and skim it; then put the asparagus prepared thus: scrape all the stalks till they are perfectly clean, throw them in a pan of cold water as you scrape them; when they are all done, tie them in little bundles, of a quarter of a hundred each, with bass, if you can get it, or tape; cut off the stalks at the bottom that they may be all of a length; when they are tender at the stalk, which will be in from twenty to thirty minutes, they are done enough. Great care must be taken to watch the exact time of their becoming tender; take them just at that instant, and they will have their true flavour and colour; a minute or two more boiling destroys both. While the asparagus is boiling, toast a round of a loaf of bread, about half an inch thick, brown it delicately on both sides; dip it lightly in the liquor the asparagus was boiled in, and lay it in the middle of a dish; pour some melted butter on the toast, and lay the asparagus upon it; let it project beyond the asparagus, that the company may see there is a toast. Do not pour butter over them, but send some in a boat.
Just about all I do to prepare asparagus is a quick rinsing, a steaming and a buttering. But really my version is just a short hand version of MR’s. I trim them and steam them all at the same time. The asparagus that is usually available locally is far too skinny to ‘scrape’ or peel.
MR assumed the cook was preparing a great deal of asparagus at one time so the bundle method would help keep the stalks from becoming twisted like pasta during the cooking in all that water. Bundles of twenty-five are impressive! She wanted to make sure the larger and perhaps tougher stalks were clean and scraped to help make sure that all the stalks got tender at the same time. The more mature the asparagus plants the larger the stalks. Asparagus stalks harvested from well established beds are fairly uniformly large and with proper care an asparagus bed might produce for well over twenty years.
My take is that with such a large batch she chose to ‘boil’ the bundles in a large pot of water so there was plenty of room. The bundles could be pulled out by the tie and checked for doneness. And I think the twenty minute cooking time might be what was needed to cook the tied bundles. It takes all of 15 minutes for my steamed version to be ‘just right.’ Her emphasis on watching carefully is the best clue to what she expected her cooks to be expert in – timing and experience.
MR’s presentation of the finished dish is interesting. Come early spring in the Piedmont and the Tidewater, menus in gentry houses would all begin to feature asparagus. Dishes such as MR describes would often be paired within the table setting, set opposite each other at angles, and even at the four corners of the table, for best effect. So when she says the company should be able to see the toast she has a definite visual effect in mind; the bright green asparagus – freed from its tie and laid carefully across the large buttered toast platform.
Also she has envisioned that the kitchen ordinarily contained round bread that could be sliced in such a way to create that delicately browned and buttered stage set. Whether such round loaves were usual throughout the year at least in the spring during asparagus season the cook needed to make sure that among the other baked goods there were round loaves.

Skimming salted water: salt used to contain many more impurities than we have come to be used to today. When boiled the impurities would rise to the top of the water as a grayish scum which could be skimmed off with a spoon.
Bass: a type of African raffia used for tying (as we might use twine) and for brooms. It could be bought by the roll or bundle.
Tape: thin woven cordage (if tied with a bow it could be used over and over in the kitchen)

Growing asparagus:
I’ve had several asparagus beds over the years – some more productive than others. The last asparagus bed is now a cold frame. For now I will be depending on local sources since we only eat asparagus in season in any case with Easter Sunday the highpoint. Only rarely when I want to make a very special stir-fry will I buy a small bunch of asparagus out of season.

Virginia cooperative Extension http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/426/426-401/426-401.html

iVillage Garden Web http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cornucop/msg011430144113.html

Mary Randolph, The Virginia House-Wife, pg 123

Cauliflower.

Choose those that are close and white, and of a middle size, trim off the outside leaves, cut off the stalk flat at the bottom, let them lie in salt and water an hour before you boil them. Put them in boiling water with a handful of salt in it, skim it well, and let it boil slowly till done, which a small one will be in fifteen minutes, a large one in twenty, and take it up the moment it is enough; a few minutes longer boiling will spoil it.

This is a recipe that makes clear that for the most part good cooks of the late 18th and early 19th centuries did not cook vegetables to death as seems to have become the style later in the 19th century.
Randolph requires a soaking in salt water for the whole cauliflowers as she is going to serve the heads whole. She wanted to be very sure there were no cabbage worms lurking in the creases of the florets. Even today that is a good idea especially for homegrown cauliflower (and broccoli too).
When it is ‘enough’ as she so simply phrases it the whole cauliflower is drained well in a colander being careful to keep the whole head together and served hot. She does not list seasonings but I suggest the following possibilities;
Butter (or a drizzle of good olive oil) with a generous grinding of black pepper
Buttered and toasted bread crumbs
Parmesan Cheese
A dusting of Paprika
All the above!

This late winter I was able to buy cauliflower for $1 a head so I took advantage of the deal and put them in the freezer.

1 – Cut heads into florets, removing the green leaves and thick stem

2 – Rinse well
3 – Blanch the florets in boiling salted water

4 – Chill blanched florets in ice cubes and water

5 – Package in single meal portions

6 – Package single packages in larger bag – it really helps prevent freezer burn

7 – My Buff Orpington hens loved the trimmings on a cold winter day

I hope you readers enjoy this bit of autobio from the days before online dating! .

Over the next while I am going to continue to explore my fascination with the Mary Randolph’s cookbook.  When we read her recipes we get a glimpse into the skills and daily cooking styles practiced by African American cooks/chefs in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  Mary expected her cooks, many, if not all, enslaved, to know and understand the workings of an elite household kitchen.  Given the reputation of Randolph’s table it is a certainty that she could serve her guests with the confidence that the cooks had done a fine job.

The Virginia House-Wife, Mary Randolph, 1838
Cabbage A-La-Creme

Take two good heads of cabbage, cut out the stalks, boil it tender with a little salt in the water, have ready one large spoonful of butter and a small one of flour rubbed into it, half a pint of milk, with pepper and salt, make it hot, put the cabbage in after pressing out the water, and stew it till quite tender.

The milk Randolph calls for would have been much more like our modern half and half. The flour and butter mixture was the basis for making a thickened sauce. The result is a meltingly delicious cabbage dish.

Randolph’s book has four recipes for cabbage and I have chosen the simplest cabbage dish here. For a really fancy presentation Randolph tells how to prepare a Cabbage Pudding which is a whole cabbage, boiled till the leaves are loose allowing a stuffing of seasoned chopped meat to be packed into the cored-out interior, the leaves wrapped round again. It was called a pudding because the whole stuffed cabbage was tied tightly into a cloth, lowered into simmering water and cooked till done. When drained and plattered the whole cabbage kept its shape and was served in beautiful slices!

Cabbage has always been a vegetable that could be harvested and stored for winter use and must have been a favorite at plantation tables throughout Virginia. Certainly one would have seen cabbage growing in gardens in slave quarters, the homes of poor whites and middling families. After harvesting heads through late spring and the summer the remaining plants reach full maturity in the fall. The large heads could be pulled, root and all, and stored upside down in a pile under straw or even dirt to last through much of the winter. Because it is a bi-annual many a garden must have had shabby cabbages hunkering down in a corner waiting to send up flowers and seed the next summer. See below for saving your own cabbage seed.

Cabbage Family – Brassica oleracea: www.seedsave.org Includes broccoli, brussels sprout, cauliflower, cabbage and kale.
PLANT: All vegetables and varieties in this large species will cross with each other. Separate different varieties at least 1000 feet for satisfactory results or at least 1 mile for purity. Caging with introduced pollinators or alternate day caging is also recommended in small gardens. Plants to be left for seed production should be mulched in the fall or carefully dug, trimmed and stored for the winter in humid area with temperatures between 35-40° F. Flowering plants can reach 4′ in height and need at least 2′ spacing for good seed production.
FLOWER: Members of the B. oleracea species, with the exception of a few early -season broccolis and cauliflowers, require vernalization (cold, winter-like temperatures for several weeks) before flowering occurs. Flowers are perfect, most of which cannot be self-pollinated. Necessary cross-pollination is performed by bees. The stigma becomes receptive before the flower opens, and pollen is shed hours after the flower opens.
INBREEDING DEPRESSION: Plant at least 6 different plants to protect vigor and ensure a reasonable amount of genetic diversity.
SELECTION TRAITS: Plant characteristics: t all, D; side buds, D. Plant color: purple, green, magenta. Leaf shape: wide, entire, smooth, hairy.
HARVEST: Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and kohlrabi heads grown for seed should not be trimmed for consumption. Brussels sprouts, collards and kale can be lightly trimmed for eating without affecting quality seed production. If small amounts of seeds are wanted, allow individual pods to dry to a light brown color before picking and opening by hand. Lower pods dry first followed by those progressively higher on the plant. For larger amounts of seeds pull entire plant after a majority of pods have dried. Green pods rarely produce viable seeds even if allowed to dry after the plant is pulled.
PROCESS: Smash unopened pods in cloth bag with mallet or by walking on them. Chaff can be winnowed.

The dream of the summer to come

Come the middle of January each year my mailbox sags as the glorious and seductive seed catalogues come rolling in.  The pictures are so beautiful; the descriptions of each veggie and flower so tempting I could spend hundreds of dollars and end up with far, far more seeds than any city full of gardeners could possibly have space to plant.

So I luxuriate in pouring over the catalogues while sprawled on the couch under a blanket in the depths of winter.  I joyfully mark them up with my pen and sticky notes.  However I pretty much end up sticking to sorting all last year’s leftover seeds, making a planting plan from them, and only buying seeds I really need!  Ho Hum.

This year I thought I’d share the list of the catalogues that come to me so you too can send for them and endure the same torture I go through every year.  They are in no particular order of preference just the way the stack ended up next to my chair.

Seeds of Change www.seedsofchange.com

K. Van Bourgondien & Sons (Dutch bulbs and perennials) www.kvbwholesale.com

Abundant Life Seeds www.abundantlifeseeds.com

The Cook’s Garden www.cooksgarden.com

Tomato Growers Supply Company www.tomatogrowers.com

Totally Tomatoes www.totallytomato.com

Johnny’s Seeds (An employee-owned company)  www.johnnyseeds.com

Harris Seeds www.harrisseeds.com

Burpee www.burpee.com

Henry Fields www.henryfields.com

High Country Gardens www.highcountrygardens.com

Fungi Perfecti (Mushroom products) www.fungi.com

Pinetree Garden Seeds www.superseeds.com

White Flower Farm www.whiteflowerfarm.com

Jung Seeds & Plants www.jungseed.com

John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds www.kitchengardenseeds.com

Select Seeds www.selectseeds.com

Vermont Bean Seed Company www.vermontbean.com

Territorial Seed Company www.territorialseed.com

Gurney’s Seed & Nursery Co. www.gurneys.com

Farmer Seed and Nursery www.farmerseed.com

Burgess Seed & Plant Co.  www.eburgess.com

R. H. Shumway’s Illustrated Garden Guide www.rhshumway.com

My response to the deeply flawed conclusions of Newt Gingrich about ‘poor kids’ is this: Kids cleaning classrooms is wrong if it’s only poor kids doing the cleaning. What follows, for what it’s worth, is a concept I began thinking about almost a decade and a half ago.

Original 1997 Introduction to In-School Service -

It is true, as President Clinton said in his 1992 inauguration address, that “Millions of poor children cannot even imagine the lives we are calling them to lead.” And not just poor children are so deprived. Our nation needs the service of its young citizens long before they reach the age of eighteen, and those young citizens must learn the benefits of service before age eighteen. Where better to learn to serve our nation than in the place where the law requires that millions of our youth must be five days a week, 36 weeks a year: the school building?

I propose a program of universal in-school service that students participate in throughout their elementary and secondary education. Such a cycle of service, which I call ISS (In-School Service), would begin in the third grade and continue at three year intervals in the sixth grade, the ninth grade and the twelfth grade. Each ISS year a student reached would act as a mini-sabbatical, an in depth opportunity for the student to be part of structured and varied programs of service to school, community, region and state.

I believe the development of a National Service Corps is an important goal for our nation. It is an idea that is long overdue. I wish to argue in this paper that for National Service to succeed in attracting the attention and dedication of American youth and their families there must be preparation for personal service built into the twelve years of formal education that will precede such service.

I contend that by seventeen or eighteen years old it is mostly too late to introduce the values and benefits of volunteerism and service in our young people. We must start when our children are still optimistic about the world and their future in it. It must be a service that has clear and apparent results for kids that live in a world of instant gratification. It must be a service that unifies the children in their volunteer efforts and goals. It must be a service that has value for parents and community so they can provide the wonderful feedback for a job well done. My proposal addresses those concerns.  Click here to read more…..