Historical Food Fortnightly starts now!
Jun. 3rd, 2014 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizabeth_mnThe first challenge is Literary, so I thought something out of Laura Ingalls’ Little House in the Big Woods would be a no-brainer. I love that series and I grew up with it, and a lot of it is just about food. But I couldn't find ONE dish I most wanted to make – “Literary” is so open-ended, I could have chosen anything! And I’d already earmarked a couple Little House recipes for other challenges.
So I went back to the bookshelf. Eventually I spotted The Road To Wellville. Perfect!! Not only did I love the book (and the movie – hilarious) but it's also very much about food.
More specifically, it's about the early vegetarian movement in America. Since I am an on-and-off vegetarian (mostly on) this is ideal for me. I went to a page in an early chapter of the book where the character of Mr. Lightbody first enters the dining room and is utterly confused by the menu. Protose, Nuttolene, and Kaffir Tea are among the weirder items.
I found a couple books on google books for reference:The New Cookery: A Book of Recipes, Most of Which are in Use at the Battle Creek Sanitarium from 1913, and Hygienic Cook Book from 1914. There are lots of recipes with protose as an ingredient, but not how to make it. So I looked up Protose and Nuttolene and it turns out they were both canned products that one bought rather than made. However, here is a post with recipes to make your own, and another one here. Ingredients from the 1990s-era canned version are in this blog post. I want to try this! Since home cooks did not make it in the period, it feels not quite authentic to do so, but whatevs.
With it, the plan is stewed tomatoes, orange kumyss, and bran and graham biscuits, all of which are mentioned in The Road To Wellville and recipes for which can be found in the above books.
So I went back to the bookshelf. Eventually I spotted The Road To Wellville. Perfect!! Not only did I love the book (and the movie – hilarious) but it's also very much about food.
More specifically, it's about the early vegetarian movement in America. Since I am an on-and-off vegetarian (mostly on) this is ideal for me. I went to a page in an early chapter of the book where the character of Mr. Lightbody first enters the dining room and is utterly confused by the menu. Protose, Nuttolene, and Kaffir Tea are among the weirder items.
I found a couple books on google books for reference:The New Cookery: A Book of Recipes, Most of Which are in Use at the Battle Creek Sanitarium from 1913, and Hygienic Cook Book from 1914. There are lots of recipes with protose as an ingredient, but not how to make it. So I looked up Protose and Nuttolene and it turns out they were both canned products that one bought rather than made. However, here is a post with recipes to make your own, and another one here. Ingredients from the 1990s-era canned version are in this blog post. I want to try this! Since home cooks did not make it in the period, it feels not quite authentic to do so, but whatevs.
With it, the plan is stewed tomatoes, orange kumyss, and bran and graham biscuits, all of which are mentioned in The Road To Wellville and recipes for which can be found in the above books.
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Date: 2014-06-06 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-06 07:07 pm (UTC)