MM, thanks as always for again some delicious historical dishes.

What one learns here each day on this board. But nevertheless I had to seek for today for instance about:
"bloater paste"   
https://www.cooksinfo.com/bloater-paste

"greek synthesis cloth"...is that such one?


 
"chthonic"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic

You said:
"I'm tempted to give both of these a go and so I'll say no more for now, other than to proclaim, Io Saturnalia!"

I thought and tempted to buy a "christmass meal" with all it around, as it means not too much work. But with the dangerous Covid 19 around I will have to stay in a long queu and there I am afraid of.

And as I am not able to create the cullinary "highstands?" (masterpieces?) as you, I decided instead to do it myself with some nevertheless delicious stuff (along the opinion of the partner and me) as smoked salmon and all...and from the freezer a choice of meat...will buy some extraordinary ice cream that I know (also to put in the freezer) to prepare with fresh fruit as dessert and some toasts that you can buy nowadays nearly everywhere to start with...

Kind regards, Paul.

21 January 1937 - The whole TV celebrity chef phenomena started on this day when the French restaurateur Marcel Boulestin demonstrated how to make an omelette on the BBC television programme 'Cook’s Night Out'.

The BBC had been formed on 8 October 1922 with radio broadcasts from London starting on 14 November 1922. As more powerful transmitters and relay stations came into use, the service rapidly expanded to cover the whole British Isles and thence during the 1930s to reach Europe and the most of the Empire. However the first regular high-definition television service only started on 2 November 1936, broadcasting from Alexandra Palace in North London and officially with a range of just 40 miles (although in practice it could often be picked up much further away). By the start of WW2 the television service was reaching an estimated 25,000–40,000 households, before all TV services were suspended on 1 September 1939.

Food and cooking advice had featured in radio programmes throughout the 30s and in particular Marcel Boulestin himself had broadcast a radio series with the same theme as his later TV broadcasts, but the 1937 TV series 'Cook's Night Out' was the first TV programme to demonstrate cooking live on air. The series consisted of five episodes, with Boulestin demonstrating how to make a different dish in each episode. The five dishes could be served separately or form a five-course dinner together. 'Cook's Night Out' was presumably deemed a success as Boulestin followed it up later in 1937 with the TV series 'Dish of the Month' and then with 'Foundations of Cookery' in 1939.

Here's the listing in 'Radio Times' No.694, Television Supplement, National Programmes, for Wednesday 20 and Thursday 21 January 1937:



Xavier Marcel Boulestin (1878-1943) was a man of many and varied talents. His obituary in 'The Times' described him as "music critic, novelist, both in French and English, actor, caricaturist, designer and decorator, broadcaster and restaurateur", whose cookery lessons by television "were greatly helped by the expressiveness of his face and of his gestures." He also wrote for Vogue magazine, taught cookery at Fortnum and Mason, and wrote three books: 'Simple French Cooking for English Homes', 'What Shall We Have Today', and 'The Conduct of the Kitchen'. He also found time to run his own restaurants: he opened the 'Restaurant Français' in Leicester Square in 1925 and two years later he opened the 'Restaurant Boulestin' in Covent Garden.

No footage remains of the TV series as it aired live and methods to record live television did not exist until late 1947 and were used very rarely by the BBC until the mid-1950s. However as I said above he had broadcast a radio programme also called 'How to make an omelette' in 1932 and this was subsequently released as a record, hence in the following the instruction half-way through "now if you turn over the record and follow my instructions, we can make an omelette together":



I wonder why Boulestin chose an omelette to cook for his first show? Because it is so simple anyone can do it, or because it is so tricky to get it just right? But he certainly chose a classic, with no international boundaries and a long history. Being essentially just a fried egg-batter, omelettes have been cooked from ancient times and throughout the world. The French word omelette came into use during the mid-16th century, but the versions alumelle and alumete were employed by the author of the 'Ménagier de Paris' written in about 1393; Rabelais in 'Pantagruel' (1532) mentions an homelaicte d'oeufs; while François Pierre La Varenne's 'Le cuisinier françois' of 1651 has aumelette. In English, omelette is first recorded in 'A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues' (1611), by Randle Cotgrave: "Aumelette d’œufs. An Omelet; or pancake made of eggs." The word would appear to derive from the French lemele "a blade" (of a knife or sword) which is probably a misdivision of la lemelle (mistaken as l'alemelle), from Latin lamella "thin, small plate," ie a diminutive of lamina "plate, layer" (as in laminate etc), with the food being so-called from its thin flat shape.

As well as Marcel Boulestin's excellent advice for making an omelette, I also like that given by the redoubtable Dorothy Hartely in 'Food in England' (1954):
"An omelette is a friendly dish - the friends must be seated and have wine or coffee served to them, so that they await cheerfully. Never cook an omelette till you have seen the recipient seated, with his napkin tucked down, ready to begin. No omelette should take longer than 5 minutes, and 3 ½ minutes is usually enough."

Thanks MM for your recipe and it is one of the few recipes in which I am an expert. Although the partner always says that I let it bake too long so that it is "brown?" on the bottom.
And I do it the same way as the French cook said, while the partner is waiting at the table...

Yes about all those etymologies, we have in our dialect also "lamel (len))". Especially using it about "louver drape?"...
And we have also , I think according to French:
"lemmet"



as the "lemmet" from a sword...

Looking to the recipe, I remembered that my mother had also a quick dish with eggs, a bit of flour, a bit of milk and baken nearly the same way as an omelette. The partner said that the mother made it too, but now we seem have to have forgotten both how...If I recall it well she called it an "eierkoek" (an eggs' cake?) but when I look on the web it is completely other wise as I recall it. In my opinion it was like an omelette but a bit more rigid? by the floor and the milk?
As I know you as "the" expert of our team overhere...

Kind regards, Paul.

OOPS and I forgot to mention our proverb:
"men kan geen omelet maken zonder eieren te breken"
https://context.reverso.net/translation/dutch-english/zonder+eieren+te+breken
And it seems to be the same in English:
"'you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs'."?

Exactly the same proverb, which in French is usually said as, on ne peut pas faire d’omelette sans casser des œufs, was recorded in the 1721 'Dictionnaire universel françois et latin contenant la signification et la définition tant des mots de l’une & de l’autre langue, avec leurs différens usages, que des termes propres de chaque état & de chaque profession', usually known simply as the 'Dictionnaire de Trévoux' (and note again the alternative old French spelling of aumelette):

Aumelette, d’autres écrivent omelette. […] On dit proverbialement, on ne fait point d’aumelette sans casser des œufs, pour marquer qu’il y a certaines chôses absolument nécessaires pour l’éxécution des affaires.

Aumelette, others write omelette. […] It is proverbially said, one does not make an omelette without breaking eggs, to indicate that there are certain things absolutely necessary for the execution of affairs.

The first known occurrence of the proverb in English is as a translation of the French and occurs in 'The Monthly Magazine, or British Register' for April 1796:

Deaths Abroad.
On the 9th of March, at Nantes, the celebrated general Charette, soul of the civil war in France. Having been taken on the 7th instant, by the adjutant-general Travot, he was instantly conducted to Angers. […] They said to him, you have made us lose a great many men. "Ah! One cannot make pancakes without breaking eggs."

François de Charette (1763-96) was a French Royalist soldier and politician who was one of the leaders of the war in Vendée against the revolutionary regime. It is presumed that this is a translation (but rendering the French omelette as pancake) of de Charette's actual words ie. he was just quoting the old French proverb.

PaulRyckier wrote:

MM,
Looking to the recipe, I remembered that my mother had also a quick dish with eggs, a bit of flour, a bit of milk and baken nearly the same way as an omelette. The partner said that the mother made it too, but now we seem have to have forgotten both how...If I recall it well she called it an "eierkoek" (an eggs' cake?) but when I look on the web it is completely other wise as I recall it. In my opinion it was like an omelette but a bit more rigid? by the floor and the milk?
As I know you as "the" expert of our team overhere...

 
MM, thanks  a lot for having put my proverb into the English and French historical perspective:
"Ah! One cannot make pancakes without breaking eggs."

But if you would expose your very well known cookery expertise in relation with my question about the recipe of both my mother and stepmother that I mentioned and described here above...
I would give it a go next evening as an experiment and see if I can make the two mothers' one equivalent...

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

the first regular high-definition television service only started on 2 November 1936, broadcasting from Alexandra Palace in North London and officially with a range of just 40 miles (although in practice it could often be picked up much further away).

Boulestin's native France had begun television broadcasts via Radiovision Postes, télégraphes et téléphones atop the Eiffel Tower in April 1935. This was only a month after Germany's Deutscher Fernseh-Rundfunk had begun broadcasting from the Berliner Funkturm in March. What is interesting about the early years of television is that, although several countries had demonstrated various experimental and exhibition broadcasts mainly using mechanical systems since the 1920s, regular scheduled television broadcasting in America did not begin until 1941.

P.S. I don't want to distract from Meles' excellent post and this great thread. The history of television probably deserves its own thread on the Technology and human invention board.

Paul, since you say your mother's recipe contained flour (which of course an omelete does not) but is not the same as normal Dutch eierkoeken (sweet, soft, round, flat but slightly-domed cakes baked on a tray or flat stone, and made from a sweet egg/flour batter, raised using baking powder) I can only assume they were some Belgian variation of drop-scone, scottish pancake, griddle-cake, crumpet or pikelet etc. (all of which would usually be made without any added sugar)


Dutch eierkoken


American-style pancakes - English pancakes are thinner like French crêpes


Drop scones/scottish pancakes


Griddle cakes/bannocks


Crumpet/pikelet (a pikelet is usually a bit thinner)


Russian buckwheat pancakes - blini or oladyi

..... etc.

MM, thanks for the trouble you have done to solve my enigma.

Of course I was right with my flour and milk and eggs, but after further searching on the web, especially on Dutch language sites I found out that a lot of difference gives the separation of the "eiwit" (egg white?) and beaten (?) it till stiff. That makes the omelette more "fluffy"? (Boy, what are those technical terms difficult in cookery )

And yes no baking powder as some suggest...
The best what came in the neighbourhood is in my opinion this farmers' omelette
https://wessalicious.com/boerenomelet/



or this one:
https://www.24kitchen.nl/recepten/tomatenomelet



But as I remember it was only the eggs, a bit of flour and a bit of milk which were "beaten?" with the fork (we say "ferchette" in our Flemish dialect from the French "fourchette") and then baken as an omelette and the tomatoes and all other stuff we ate together with the omelette but not included...if I recal it well...I will ask my sister Sunday about it...

Kind regards, Paul.

Ah ha! So despite the flour, it was still more eggy than bready, no? So might what you're describing be a bit closer to, say, a Spanish omelette, although made with whatever stuff you chose, rather than just the traditional potato slices?

Frankly I think it might well have been just like my own mother's regular 'French-style' omelettes (!), which she made, rather clumsily and inexpertly, but of necessity often in haste, using small chunks of veg' and maybe bits of ham or left-over meat from the Sunday roast ... rather than with Mr Boulestin's très fines herbes. As a simple, fried (in lard), eggy-batter-cake-with-things-in-it, it was solid tasty fare for us kids ... but I wouldn't have graced it with the name 'omelette'.

MM, as said I will try to clear the matter Sunday with my sister, but in my humble opinion "ours" was still an "omelette". Say it now yourself, how can a little bit of milk (perhaps 50 ml?) and some spoon of flour beaten together with some four-five eggs make the difference in an omelette just with four-five beaten eggs? Hein ?

Kind regards from Paul.

MM, I have done the check with my sister this morning. And indeed she confirms, exactly as I said. And she remembers, even our grandmother (born second half of the 19th century) were we "resided" until our twelfe, did it for us. And our mother too also for her grandchild, who liked it very much...

Will give it a go tomorrow evening. But no milk available yet, as we don't use it neither in the coffee, nor in the kitchen.
As we don't prepare anything with flour, only buying prepared food with flour, I have only years old flour in house (perhaps better to buy a new quantity)...
PS. And the black coffee we drink with a lot of water, a bit as the Germans their wine (Schorlemorle)
https://www.dwds.de/wb/Schorlemorle

Kind regards, Paul.

24 January 1848 - The start of the Californian Gold Rush.

On this day in 1848, James Marshall, a foreman working for Californian pioneer John Sutter, found shiny metal in the tailrace of a lumber mill he was building for Sutter on the American River. Marshall brought what he had found to John Sutter and the two privately tested the metal. After their tests indicated that it was very likely gold, Sutter expressed dismay: he wanted to keep the news quiet because he feared what would happen to his plans for an agricultural business empire if there were a mass search for gold in the area. But inevitably the story leaked and rumors of the discovery were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan. Brannan hurriedly set up a store to sell gold prospecting supplies and walked through the streets of San Francisco, holding aloft a vial of gold, shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!" On 19 August 1848 the New York Herald was the first major newspaper on the East Coast to report the discovery of gold and on 5 December 1848 the US President James K. Polk officially confirmed the discovery of gold in an address to Congress. The news brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad, and the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood by the Compromise of 1850, meanwhile the influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy.

But as Sutter had feared his business plans were ruined after his workers left in search of gold and then squatters took over his land and stole his crops and cattle. His land rights had been held from Spain but when California gained statehood and joined the United States, Congress steadfastly refused to compensate him for his losses. It was his eldest son, John Augustus Sutter, who seized the business opportunities the discovery of gold offered, by founding City of Sacramento, now the capital city of the State of California.


Stutter's Mill where the first gold was found, photographed in 1850.

Hangtown Fry could possibly be called the first California cuisine: a simple one-pan meal for hungry miners who struck it rich and had plenty of gold to spend. It consists of fried breaded oysters, eggs, and fried bacon, cooked together like an omelet. It originated in the township of Hangtown - now called Placerville - close to Sutter's Mill where the first gold was found. The town, originally at a place called simply Dry Diggings, gained its notorious name in 1849 after a French miner claimed two Mexicans had robbed him of his gold, while others accused the same men of being horse thieves. A mob lynched the accused men from an oak tree in the center of the settlement, which then acquired the name Hangtown. By about 1850 the temperance league and a few local churches had begun to request that a more friendly name be bestowed upon the rapidly growing town and in 1854 it was officially changed to Placerville, but the colourful name stuck, not the least with its eponymous dish.

According to most accounts the Hangtown Fry was invented when a gold prospector, who had just struck it rich, headed to the El Dorado Hotel and Saloon next to the infamous hanging tree (now known as the Cary House Hotel), and demanded the most expensive dish that the kitchen could provide. The most expensive ingredients available were eggs, which were delicate and had to be carefully brought to the mining town; bacon, which was shipped all the way from the East Coast; and oysters, which had to be brought on ice from the coast at San Francisco over 100 miles away. Such a meal cost approximately $6.00, a fortune in those days, and ordering a Hangtown Fry subsequently became a mark of prosperity for gold-rich miners.

So much for the stories. While meals of oysters and eggs were indeed popular, expensive and readily available to people with money in California at that time, as attested to by hotel restaurant menus and grocery store adverts, the earliest references specifically to 'Hangtown Fry', at least that I can find, date to around the 1920s. For example:

[1919] Hotel St. Francis Cook Book, Victor Hirtzler (Hotel Monthly Press:Chicago, 1919);
Hangtown fry. Mix plain scrambled eggs with one dozen small fried California oysters.

[1922] Oakland Tribune (CA), April 30, 1922;
The ‘Hangtown Fry’s' as equally popular with the gold miners, the principal ingredient being oysters.

[1928] "Practical Recipes," Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1928;
"Drain the liquor from one cupful of Califonia oysters, dry them in flour, and cook a light brown in hot butter on both sides Beat six eggs with three tablespoons of milk and seasoning of salt and pepper. Melt two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saute pan; add the eggs and stir over the fire until a soft scramble. Add the cooked California oysters, mix and serve on squares of toast.

[1935] 'Requested Recipes', Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1935;
Hangtown Fry - Drain and pat dry one cup of oysters season with salt and pepper, roll in flour and cook a delicate brown in hot butter. Have ready four to six eggs beaten with three tablespoons of butter in a saute pan add the eggs and stir until a soft scramble add the cooked oysters blend the two and serve. In other words, a 'Hangtown Fry' really is scrambled eggs and oysters.

As so often I suspect the stories and legends have grown over time. Nowadays Hangtown Fry is still a popular Californian dish, but often embellished and modified with the addition of parsely, spring onions or other garnishes, and so slightly removed from the original simple one-pan dish for successful gold miners to show off that they'd finally "struck it lucky".

Yes MM, those oysters are still expensive overhere, and thanks BTW for again a new interesting culinary (hi)story.
Especially the "Zeeuwse" flat oysters are more expensive against the "holle?" oysters of France.



As kids, our parents were fish merchants, we, my sister and I, could taste them as much as we liked (the flat ones of the picture, in those times, at least with us, there were not yet French oysters).
And the father pushed us to taste it, as it had to be, with a bit of pepper and lemon on it. But I have still a horror of those fresh ones. For me it has to be always grilled ones in "gratin?)

And to come back to your "Hangtown Fry"...As the oysters are baken I think it would pass my delicate  taste (in fact I like all fish and seafood most if it is baken, fried, in gratin and all. I hope nobody of the culinary boys will take offence at my lower level  taste)

But why can one not take "baken mussels" instead of those expensive oysters?
Did some rapid search (half an hour) and it seems not to exist? Only cooked mussels are used in an eggs omelette?

I only found this:
https://www.gastropedia.nl/artikel/omelette-aux-moules-omelet-mosselen/
and this:


Omelet with eggs in pan on dark background. Fried clams crispy with omelet.


Kind regards, Paul.

Just along the Mediterranean coast from me, 30kms north of Perpignan at Leucate, there are a couple of big saltwater étangs/lagoons where they grow huge quantities of oysters and mussels. Most of these oysters though are Pacific oysters, Crassostrea gigas, rather than the smaller flat oysters, O. edulis, such as you get from Brittany (also from Colchester and Helford in England). I agree with you that the smaller flat oysters have a sweeter taste, but the Pacific ones are more robust and easier to cultivate, and they're still not that bad when they are very fresh. At Leucate thay can be bought relatively inexpensively direct from the producers (along with locally caught crab and langouste etc) and you can generally eat them, freshly opened, very cheaply at the small outside bars next to the boat sheds - they usually also allow you to bring your own bread, wine and tapas etc.

I quite like raw oysters with just a dash of lemon juice, but like you I prefer them simply grilled, either on their own or with a little bit of foie gras or bacon. The same producers of oysters also produce plenty of mussels and these are also readily available in local restaurants, whether raw in fruits de mer platters, cooked as classic moules marinières with frites, in paella, as grilled gratinées or à la plancha. One restaurant run by a Belgian/Catalan couple I know from when I lived on the coast, do grilled mussels gratinées, with a blob of Banyuls sauce put in each opened shell before grilling (that's like a classic mouseline sauce but made using Banyuls, which is a local, naturally-strong, port-like dessert wine). They're very nice: tastier than oysters and cheaper as well. They also do the same thing with common razor shells, couteaux arqués in French (I think they're grote zwaardschede in Dutch, no?) which are also very good too.

Thanks again for your extensive respons, MM.

Yes grilled mussels. You don't believe it, as son of fish merchants I was already starting the Forties when I ate for the first time in my life: grilled mussels (moules gratinées?). I had already been in the best restaurants of the region thanks to our suppliers in the factory and as we had to look for the quality of the supply of certain items, we had some discussions (tussen pot en pint (between pot and pint?)) in the factory hours but also after...And for some unknown reason (perhaps too common taste), I never saw "moules gratinées"...

As said starting the Forties I ate it together with the partner (paying myself) for the first time in a restaurant on the market place of Lille (North of France) and never since, when I could choose and it fitted in the menu, I always went as entree for you guess it...

And for the first time in Lille it was a bit like here:

  on a "plateau" like this: 


Kind regards, Paul.

Nothing as interesting as MM's contributions but a query which I didn't think merited its own thread.  I had a fry-up this morning including some mushrooms and got to thinking about when I stayed with some friends pre-Covid (very, very, very much pre-Covid) and I mucked in with vegetable preparation.  We were preparing mushrooms and my friend was surprised that I peeled the skin off the mushrooms, having always rinsed them down, wiped them over but leaving the skin on.  Is this a regional thing does anyone know or is it a case where neither way is right or wrong, it's just what you are used to?

I suspect it's a matter of changing supply, changing fashion and what one has always done, rather than any regional differences. My mother always peeled mushrooms: I never do, unless they are particularly big, old field-mushrooms where the skin of the cap has dried and might be a bit tough. Nowadays most supermarket mushrooms sold in sealed punnets are small, young, closed-cup 'button' mushrooms and are very clean - whereas fifty-odd years ago when you bought your mushrooms from the local green-grocer, they were more likely to be older, big, open, flat types, and often with bits of compost still attached, so peeling made some sense in terms of tidying them up. Mushrooms readily absorb water so they don't want to get wet and they really only need a quick wipe, or better a brush over, to remove any bits of compost. 

As I say my mother always insisted on peeling mushrooms, even when they were quite small and peeling wasn't at all easy, but that's just they way she, and propably her mother too, had always prepared them. Mushrooms have been grown commercially since the 19th century, but they are quite a perishable crop and so I wonder just how easy and cheap it was to get mushrooms in small towns before WW2. I know that in the 1920s and '30s my grandmother treated them as something of a seasonal treat, picking them in the fields at the same time they were scouring the hedgerows for Autumn blackberries and sloes, or during summer holidays spent on her brother's farm on the Isle of Wight. Apparently there was a particulalry good field next to the single track railway line across the Island where, if you were quick, you could hop off and pick mushrooms, while the train was stopped waiting to pass the train coming in the other direction, or so my mum wistfully remembered.

30 January 1853 - The marriage of Napoléon III to Eugénie de Montijo.

Having declared himself Emperor of the new (second and final) French Empire on 2 December 1852, Napoléon III quickly set about finding himself a suitable bride to provide him with an heir or several. After being rejected by a couple of European royal princesses whose families had no wish to ally themselves with the pretentious upstart, he chose Eugenie de Montijo, a beautiful woman with aristocratic Spanish blood. The marriage was formally announced on 22 January 1853 and they were wed just a week later in a private civil ceremony at the Tuileries Palace, followed by a grander religious ceremony at the cathedral of Notre Dame on the 30th.

Napoléon's final choice of Eugénie was opposed in many quarters as she was considered of too little social standing and bringing too little in the way of diplomatic advantage. In the United Kingdom however, where the press characteristically voiced anti-French and specifically anti-Napoleonic sentiments, it was she who was considered to be from the much nobler background (the original Buonapartes were a very minor noble family from Tuscany that had emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century and then largely 'gone native' by marrying into similar families of the Corsican petty-nobility). The Times newspaper, for example, emphasized that the parvenu Bonapartes were marrying into Grandees and one of the most important established houses in the peerage of Spain: "We learn with some amusement that this romantic event in the annals of the French Empire has called forth the strongest opposition, and provoked the utmost irritation. The Imperial family, the Council of Ministers, and even the lower coteries of the palace or its purlieus, all affect to regard this marriage as an amazing humiliation".


Napoléon III and Eugénie in 1861.

Their Imperial majesties reigned for eighteen years but in 1871, following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian war, Napoléon was ousted from power and the couple, with their only child Louis-Napoléon, went into exile in England settling at Camden Place in Chislehurst, Kent. Napoléon III died in 1873 and his son died in 1879 while fighting in the British Army during the Zulu Wars. Eugénie however was accepted into British high society. She became a close friend of Queen Victoria and was godmother of Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (the daughter of Queen Victoria's youngest child, Princess Beatrice) who later became queen consort of Alfonso XIII of Spain. She was also close to Empress Consort Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia. On the outbreak of World War I Eugénie funded a military hospital at Farnborough Hill as well as making large donations to French hospitals. She died in July 1920, aged 94, during a visit to her relative the 17th duke of Alba, at the Liria Palace in Madrid in her native Spain, but her tomb is at St Michael's Abbey in Farnborough, England.

The culinary connection for today is that this is the Empress for whom dishes styled à l’impératrice are named. There are dishes such as volailles à l'impératrice and sole à l'impératirice, but usually the term denotes a dessert based on rice cooked in milk, such as the classic riz à l'impératrice. This is a rich dessert made from short-grain rice cooked in milk, which when near the setting point has stiffly beaten egg whites and whipped cream (a crème Bavarois mixture) folded in. This is poured into a mould with a layer of set red fruit jelly on the bottom, chilled and then when set the whole is turned out onto a plate. It's classic French haut cuisine: this is no boarding-school or nursery rice pudding.

Who first created and named the dish in the empress's honour is uncertain - possibly it was Urbain Dubois who described a very similar dish in 1864 - but the Imperial couple's own chef, Jules Gouffé, who doubtless prepared it a number of times, certainly includes a recipe in his own cookbook, 'Le Livre de Cuisine' (page 751) which was published posthumously in 1884:



Or for an English version there's the one included in Auguste Escoffier's 'Guide to the art of modern cookery' (1903):

2739- Rice a l'Imperatrice
Make a vanilla-flavoured preparation of rice for entremets, using the quantities of milk and sugar already prescribed. When the rice is cooked, and somewhat cold, add to it four oz. of a salpicon of candied fruit and four tablespoonfuls of apricot jam, per one-half lb. of raw rice. Then combine with it an equal quantity of Kirsch-flavoured Bavarois preparation, or one pint of thick English custard and one pint of whipped cream.
Let a layer of red-currant jelly set upon the bottom of a Bavarois mould; then pour the above preparation into the latter and let the whole set, either in the cool or surrounded by ice.
When about to serve, turn out on a napkin.



Interestingly the very English 'Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery' first published in London in 1883, includes a recipe for a similar cold rice dish called 'Empress Pudding':
 
Empress Pudding.
Put enough fresh milk in a well-lined saucepan to pulp half a pound of rice. Let the rice soften over a very slow fire, and, when quite done, add two ounces of butter and stir till it is dissolved. Set the rice by to cook: when it has cooled, stir in three well-beaten eggs. Put a layer of rice into a dish lined with puff paste, place a layer of any kind of jam over it, and fill up the dish alternately with rice and jam. This pudding may be eaten cold, in which case it should be served with boiled custard poured over it. Bake in a moderate oven for three-quarters of an hour.

I've always assumed this was named in honour of Victoria, Empress of India, but I now wonder if it wasn't rather named after the 'other' Empress - Eugénie, l'Impératrice des Français?

Meles meles wrote:

30 January 1853 - The marriage of Napoléon III to Eugénie de Montijo.

Having declared himself Emperor of the new (second and final) French Empire on 2 December 1852, Napoléon III quickly set about finding himself a suitable bride to provide him with an heir or several. After being rejected by a couple of European royal princesses whose families had no wish to ally themselves with the pretentious upstart, he chose Eugenie de Montijo, a beautiful woman with aristocratic Spanish blood. The marriage was formally announced on 22 January 1853 and they were wed just a week later in a private civil ceremony at the Tuileries Palace, followed by a grander religious ceremony at the cathedral of Notre Dame on the 30th.

Napoléon's final choice of Eugénie was opposed in many quarters as she was considered of too little social standing and bringing too little in the way of diplomatic advantage. In the United Kingdom however, where the press characteristically voiced anti-French and specifically anti-Napoleonic sentiments, it was she who was considered to be from the much nobler background (the original Buonapartes were a very minor noble family from Tuscany that had emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century and then largely 'gone native' by marrying into similar families of the Corsican petty-nobility). The Times newspaper, for example, emphasized that the parvenu Bonapartes were marrying into Grandees and one of the most important established houses in the peerage of Spain: "We learn with some amusement that this romantic event in the annals of the French Empire has called forth the strongest opposition, and provoked the utmost irritation. The Imperial family, the Council of Ministers, and even the lower coteries of the palace or its purlieus, all affect to regard this marriage as an amazing humiliation".

Their Imperial majesties reigned for eighteen years but in 1871, following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian war, Napoléon was ousted from power and the couple, with their only child Louis-Napoléon, went into exile in England settling at Camden Place in Chislehurst, Kent. Napoléon III died in 1873 and his son died in 1879 while fighting in the British Army during the Zulu Wars. Eugénie however was accepted into British high society. She became a close friend of Queen Victoria and was godmother of Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (the daughter of Queen Victoria's youngest child, Princess Beatrice) who later became queen consort of Alfonso XIII of Spain. She was also close to Empress Consort Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia. On the outbreak of World War I Eugénie funded a military hospital at Farnborough Hill as well as making large donations to French hospitals. She died in July 1920, aged 94, during a visit to her relative the 17th duke of Alba, at the Liria Palace in Madrid in her native Spain, but her tomb is at St Michael's Abbey in Farnborough, England.

MM, thanks as always for this piece of history and a related dish.

This marriage and the bride Eugénie let me think about
the second marriage of Francis Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis,_Duke_of_Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
with
countess Augusta  Reuss of Eberdorfs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countess_Augusta_Reuss_of_Ebersdorf

The comparaison is perhaps not fully adequate as Napoléon III was certainly not a Francis Duke of Saxe-Coburg on the contrary as I will try to prove, but my parallels lay more between Eugénie and countess Augusta.
They both were able to link so many acquintances to them, that they could use for their own goals.

The couple Francis- Augusta had ten children. 7 survived after birth.
As I read this and it was repeated in many other sites:
https://www.rct.uk/collection/421648/francis-duke-of-saxe-coburg-saalfeld-1750-1806
"Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and his family, at Schloss Callenburg, Coburg. An oil copy was painted by Herbert Luther Smith in 1844 for Queen Victoria (406214), but Essex's copy clearly pre-dates this. Almost sixty years after his death, the Duke's fourth son, Leopold I, King of the Belgians, wrote to Queen Victoria: 'My poor father comparatively early in life suffering from poor health was the most amiable and humane character, benevolence itself … His great love and knowledge of everything connected with the fine arts, was inherited by Albert, no one else in the family possessed it to the same degree'
.
Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, eldest son of Ernest Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Sophie, daughter of Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, married, in 1777, as his second wife, Augusta, daughter of Henry XXIV, Count Reuss-Ebersdorff. The seven children he had by her included Victoria, Duchess of Kent, and Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, through whom he was grandfather to Queen Victoria and to Prince Albert. Through his shrewd matchmaking, his children made marriages that secured the alliance of the Saxe-Coburg ducal family to many of the ruling houses of Europe in the mid-nineteenth century."

"through his shrewd matchmaking, his children made marriages that secured the alliance of Saxe-Coburg to many of the ruling houses of Europe..."
Indeed to Britain, Belgium, Bulgaria...even Russia...

But no, no it was not Francis who did the "work", it was obviously his spouse Augusta, who did "it"

Up to my reading about our Belgian Leopold I, confirmed in other links Francis was more busy with art and music, while Augusta with her connections all over Europe made the necessary first steps for the intended marriages into the great nobility houses of Europe.

But on the mighty internet this evening I found nothing to support my case...is it still that "male first" that rules on the sites of the internet ...and yes as I said on Priscilla's thread about history or history in statu nascendi it is difficult to find the "true record"...

Some sites to support my statements about Francis:
https://www.codart.nl/guide/museums/kunstsammlungen-der-veste-coburg/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schloss_Rosenau,_Coburg

Kind regards, Paul.

Something for MM as I learn always about his historical related dishes.

Not so much about "European" dishes, but more about "exotic?" ones as here about the "original?" Mexican kitchen. As I read the article for me it is rather a "creole" kitchen?: Spanish-Mexican I presume.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20210131-does-authentic-mexican-food-exist?ocid=global_travel_rss

To trace this evolution, I logged on to the Mexican Cookbook Collection at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Among its 2,000 volumes is a digitised set of handwritten recipe books that were passed down through Mexican families as far back as 1789. The frayed pages reveal thousands of recipes calligraphically recorded by household matriarchs.

"231 year old recipes" aren't in my humble opinion not that original from the Montezuma time and already 
a mestizo (literally “mixed blood”) cuisine?

An interesting collection Paul, although unfortunately my Spanish isn't that good. However I think you were being wildly over-optimistic if you thought there might be some original pre-hispanic recipes in the collection. I don't think any Aztec cookbooks exist: if there were any (and there might well have been some) they were all destroyed by the Catholic church very shortly after the conquest. The only documents that do still exist are the written observations made by the Spanish themselves, as well as a very few 'Aztec' codices which were written by indigenous informants but under the direction of Spanish priests. While some of these accounts describe the foods eaten, and the methods of preparing and cooking them, none of these authors were really concerned about writing down specific recipes.

Strictly of course the political entity of Mexico, that is to say the Vice-Royalty of New Spain, only dates from 1521 with the capture of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan and the immediate founding of the Spanish capital of Mexico City on its ruins. New Spain was created from the remnants of the Aztec empire but culturally was entirely Spanish with the two pillars of the colonial rule being the State and the Roman Catholic Church, both under the authority of the Spanish crown. When they invaded the Aztec Empire in the early 16th Century the Spanish conquistadores had been impressed by the variety of produce eaten which also included foods that were new to them, such as maize, yucca, chillis, sweet potatoes and chocolate. Inevitably some of these indigenous foods became absorbed into Mexican cuisine but at least initially the Spanish colonists resisted adopting too much of the local diet, lest they become "Indians" too: maize-flour tortillas was especially disparaged as being "pagan" when compared to good honest "Christian" wheaten bread. But over the centuries foods the Spaniards brought over on their ships from Europe – cows, pigs, wheat, olive oil, wine, spices – coalesced with native ingredients and techniques to form the mestizo cuisine that was further enhanced by enslaved Africans and immigrants from Asia and Central Europe. The University of Texas 'Mexican Cookbook Collection' might only go back as far as 1789, but just because it doesn't have any original 16th century Aztec recipes doesn't mean that it doesn't document the development of Mexican cuisine. Remember also that even in Europe, published cookbooks only started to become common from around the mid-18th century.

PS :

Paul, if you're interested in the history of Mexican food you might like these two youtubes from 'Tasting History' by Max Miller. As a non(english speaker you should just be aware that he does tend to speak quite fast, although thanlfully with only a very mild Californian accent, as well as often throwing in a few English languange puns or verbal jokes. At the same time, though, he is exceptionally good at pronouncing words in languages other than American-English. However, more importantly, he does always have very good subtitles written in both English and Spanish, and moreover these are not automatically-generated by AI, but rather proper translations done by his English/Spanish-speaking boyfriend/fiancé.





There are a whole load of 'Tasting History' youtubes if you're interested in food history. I think they're all very good. He often covers much the same ground as this 'Dish of the Day' thread although obviously coming from a slightly different premise.

Quick response...

thank you so much for giving this detailed reply answering all my questions.

And perhaps because that Max Miller is articulating very well and perhaps because American English is not so much "affected?" (I have no other word for the moment, but I suppose that you know what I mean) as that of the Queen's English, it doesn't matter if he speaks quite fast (at least for me).

I have further comments, MM, but for that see you tomorrow...Kind regards, Paul.

MM, in fact I am open to all kind of dishes, especially Spanish related ones and as hot as my stomach endures. As 11PM patatas bravas in a kind of a "friture" in Barcelona...
I have to say I prefer the family kitchen restaurant, but we haven't not that much Mexicans overhere...rather more Turks...
And the Chi-Chi Mexican restaurants are rather chain restaurants
http://www.chichis.be/historiek/?lang=en
OOPS and forgot popcorn...I am not such a lover of it, but it is available now in many "cafés"
And it seems also to have originated there among the Mayas and Aztecs, or was it even earlier...



I said all kind of dishes...there are limits...
For instance the grandchildren tried to introduce us to an "insect" restaurant near Bruges...
I saw the insect eating for the first time already in the Italian film of 1962: "Mondo Cane" (dog's world?)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057318/?ref_=ttnw_hd 
I ate a croquette of "meelwormen" (they translate by "flourworms" but also by "mealworms"), but if it had to have been "locusts" I think I could have tasted any difference...all to say that a lot is in our brain (overhere the say: "between the ears")
At least it wasn't that "visible" as in the "Mondo Cane" film...
And thinking about it it could have solved the problem for the locust plagues already known in Biblical times?
"grilled locusts" or for those afraid: locust powder in an omelette...
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200806-the-biblical-east-african-locust-plagues-of-2020

Kind regards, Paul.

In light of your comment about eating grubs and insects, another original ingredient well known to the Aztecs that has since become a delicacy of Mexican cuisine, is the maguey worm, which is one of two species of edible butterfly catapillars that infest the heart and leaves of agave (maguey) plants. The grubs may be eaten raw but are usually deep fried or braised, seasoned with salt, lime and a spicy sauce, and served in tortillas.



Together with another species of insect (the lavae of the agave weevil or mezcal worm), maguey worms are also traditionally added to bottles of mezcal (distilled from agave sap), a firey drink that comes from the Mexican state of Oaxaca. The agave was one of the most sacred plants in pre-Spanish Mexico closely bound up in myths and religion, and as well as eating the fleshy leaves as a cooked starchy vegetable, the juice was fermented to make an alcoholic drink. It is not certain whether the native people of Mexico ever managed the manufacture distilled liquors but soon after the Spanish had encountered this fermented drink, they set about trying to turn it into a distilled liquor to substitute for their familiar brandy. The result was mezcal from the Nahuatl word, mexcalli meaning "oven-cooked agave" (baking the agave hearts, the piñas or 'pineapples', is still the first step in breaking the plants down to a fermentable mash). Another alcoholic liquor that is distilled from agave, although without the addition of mezcal/maguey worms, is of course tequila (named after the Mexican city where it was first produced).

Thank you MM for your extension about insect food of the Aztec cuisine.
And what about those "insects of the sea" the shrimps? I started to doubt. And see after some quarter of a minute search I found that they are closely related:
https://cockroachfacts.com/are-shrimp-cockroaches-related/

Kind of "shrimps" in the Aztec cuisine as there were Aztecs residing near the sea?
From the "wiki"



PS: And I was there in Albuquerque with a female guide, who did for us, my father and I, a personal tour to an Indian village as compensation for the Santa Fe tour abolished by the management.
PPS: And we invited her at the end for a drink. And of course tequila. But contrary to us after some glass she got drunk. We thought that that was not normal, guessing that she had taken some other "stuff" as Americans sometimes do (I have to add perhaps the same as overhere (it had to be end of the Seventies)).
PPPS. Before I further derail your thread (as I many times do with posters ) I will do my narration about the shrimps of the Belgian coast in the "Tumbleweed" café.

Kind regards, Paul.

12 February 1771 - Adolf Fredrik, King of Sweden, died in the royal palace of Stockholm.

In 1771, February 12th was observed as Shrove Tuesday or Fettisdagen in Swedish (Fat Tuesday). Accordingly that evening the King marked the day with a special dinner before the privations of Lent. He dined, so it is said, on oysters, lobster, pickled herring, caviar, turnips and sauerkraut, all washed down with a couple of bottles of champagne. (I am a bit suspicious about these reported dishes as all online sources tell the story exactly the same: often with the dishes listed the same and in the exactly the same order - but I can neither verify this (or otherwise) from any reputable source. Quite frankly - and with its mix of rich seafood, pickled herrings and turnips - it almost sounds like deliberate parody, playing to what one might expect a gluttonous Swedish king to eat: in reality I expect that the Swedish royal cuisine of the time closely followed the style of the French royal court). But whatever he did actually feast on, he then topped it all off with one of his favourite sweet desserts: hetvägg, or semla pastry cooked in milk ... then he had another, and another, and another  ... apparently finally polishing off 14 servings of the creamy desserts.

A short while later, perhaps not unsurprisingly, he collapsed and died.

And that is really all that he is remembered for. During his 20-year reign he was little more than a figurehead, the real power being with the parliament (the Riksdag of the Estates) itself often riven and distracted by party strife.  He made a few, rather feeble attempts to assert himself, but was generally regarded as a weak leader, lacking any political talents and entirely dependent on others. However he was aknowledged as a good, loving husband to his wife, Princess Louisa Ulrika of Prussia; as a caring father to their four children; and as a easy-going and undemanding master to his servants. His favourite pastime was making ornate snuffboxes, which he allegedly was very good at and spent a great deal of time doing. He seems  to have generally been an agreeable, friendly and hospitable chap, and he was deeply mourned by many ordinary Swedes at his death.



The fateful moreish dessert was the traditional Swedish cream cake, semla, still very popular at Christmas, Fettisdagen and Easter, and which in similar forms is also found in Finland, Estonia, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The name semla (plural, semlor) is a loan word from German semmel, originally deriving from the Latin simila, meaning 'flour', which was the name used for the finest quality wheat flour (it's also the origin of the English word simnel as in the traditional Easter simnel cake). In the southernmost part of Sweden and by the Swedish-speaking population in Finland, they are known as fastlagsbulle. In Denmark and Norway they are known as fastelavnsbolle (fastlagen and fastelavn being the equivalent of Shrove Tuesday). In Finnish they are known as laskiaispulla, in Latvian as vēja kūkas, and in Estonian as vastlakukkel. Today, the usual Swedish-Finnish semla consists of a cardamom-spiced wheat bun which has its top cut off, is then filled with almond paste and topped with whipped cream. The cut-off top serves as a lid and is dusted with powdered sugar.



However the little sweet bun and the way it is served has evolved a lot from when it was implcated in regicide. Although they date back further, the earliest printed recipe for Swedish semlor is that given in the 1737 cookbook by Susanna Egerin, 'En nödig och nyttig hus-hålds och kok-bok'. In this the top of the bread roll is removed and fried in butter. Flour is added to melted butter and allowed to brown, before adding cream, currants, sugar, cinnamon and this mix is used to fill the hollowed out bun before putting the lid on top. It's a rich, sweet, filled-bun but modern Swedes probably wouldn't recognise this as a semla on account of the currants and raisins.

Cajsa Warg’s cookbook, 'Hjelpreda i hushållningen för unga' - 'Guide to housekeeping for young ladies', from 1755 is one of the most well-known historical cookbooks in Sweden and in this, perhaps surprisingly, the semla recipe is listed in the section covering soups. You stuff the bun with its crumbs mixed with cream, grated almond and sugar, then place the lid back, tie a string around it and let it simmer in warm milk for half an hour. For serving it is accompanied by a "soup" of milk mixed with egg yolk. Flavour-wise it isn't particularly special but this does seem to be akin to what king Adolf Fredrik ate just before his untimely demise. It is not surprising if this sort of semla sneakily contributed to his death as it sounds like a very rich and heavy dish, to say the least.



By the mid-19th century semlor had evolved a distinctly modern feel, such as those in Gustafwa Björklund’s 'Kokbok' from 1847. Here the bun is filled with a mix of its own crumbs, cream, and almond paste, before the lid is added and the whole gently heated in the oven before serving. Whipped cream however only arrives in the 20th century and only seems to have become really common after the second world war. A modern-style whipped-cream semla, and moreover one with a suitably royal connection, is the one given in the 'Prinsessornas kokbok' - Princesses' Cookbook, from 1934 written by Jenny Åkerström. Here the bun’s crumbs are mixed with cream, almond paste made of 50% almonds and 50% sugar, and bitter almonds. The filled bun then has whipped cream added on top, the lid put on and the top dusted with icing sugar. The only real difference to a thoroughly modern semla is the absence of a dose of cardamon.

Of late there has been a trend to try and improve on the basic form by adding chocolate, nutella and other monstrosities, but the classic light and airy bun - with a filling of almond paste and crumbs, flavored with cardamon and bitter almond, and on top whipped cream, the lid and a dash of icing sugar - really cannot get much better.



Other than his infamous death by cake, Adolf Frederik is rarely remembered and left little mark, although that might be because his reign coincided with a period of peace and prosperity for Sweden. He was succeeded on the throne by his eldest son, Gustav III, who had all the political resolve that his father had lacked but little of the humanity. He created a dictatorship, clamped down on all political opposition, severely restricted the freedom of the press and then started a costly war with Russia, that ended, as so often, with humiliating defeat. Instead of happily stuffing himself to death with delicious pastries as his father had done, Gustav III died by an assassin’s bullet.

MM wrote:

...apparently finally polishing off 14 servings of the creamy desserts.

Fourteen!!! On top of all that seafood? Good grief.
A "Great Binges of History" thread is called for - or "Gluttony Through the Ages"...
Adolf's pre-Lent binge that you describe so vividly reminded me of some of the menus offered to our Edward VII - huge quantities of food, washed down with quantities of wine, champagne and brandy (not to mention the post-prandial cigars).
It's a wonder these people lived as long as they actually did - if I remember correctly, Edward was nearly 70 when he finally went to meet his Maker.

Fascinating stuff, MM.

Don't forget Henry I's death by "a surfeit of lampreys", if one believes the Victorians' moralistic rewriting of history. There is also king John's supposed demise after greedily stuffing himself on peaches, although actually it was more likely to have been dysentry that carried him off.

And we have been led to believe that the Romans made bingeing perfectly respectable - with their famed - or infamous - gluttony and special rooms for purging. But apparently the idea of the "vomitorium" is a complete myth:

 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/purging-the-myth-of-the-vomitorium/

MM, thank you for the way you described different variations of fastelavnsboller, I have enjoyed them since I was very young, starting with those made by my mother, excepting those where she used prune or plum jam as filling. 
At this time of the year they are good, and I recently had some from a very good local bakery - though gluttonly me never enjoyed more than two at a setting.

Nielsen wrote:

MM, thank you for the way you described different variations of fastelavnsboller, I have enjoyed them since I was very young, starting with those made by my mother, excepting those where she used prune or plum jam as filling. 
At this time of the year they are good, and I recently had some from a very good local bakery - though gluttonly me never enjoyed more than two at a setting.

 
Yes Niels, "fastelavnboller" as described by MM and indeed also from the Dutch word "Vastenavond" and desribed by MM as "Shrove Tuesday"
https://forvo.com/word/fastelavnsboller/
and as I hear it pronounced exactly the same way as the Dutch "vastenavondbollen" (between the deaf "l" and the deaf "n" I dont hear any difference. Only the "r" and the "n" of "bollen").

On the first sight I don't see an equivalent in the Low Countries, but I do further research...

Kind regards, Paul.

Temperance wrote:

And we have been led to believe that the Romans made bingeing perfectly respectable - with their famed - or infamous -  gluttony and special rooms for purging. But apparently the idea of the "vomitorium" is a complete myth:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/purging-the-myth-of-the-vomitorium/

Temperance, "vomitorium" perhaps a myth, but I can easely imagine what Seneca wrote (from your article):

"One source was Seneca, the Stoic who lived from 4 B.C. to A.D. 65 and who gave the impression that Romans were an emetic bunch. In one passage, he wrote of slaves cleaning up the vomit of drunks at banquets, ..."

Sorry Temp, and with my dirty mind    I can even imagine more...

As always kind regards to you from Paul and so glad to see you once back at the board.

MM, I join Nielsen with an eulogy about again a recipe and it's history. I had some difficulties to see it all before me, because on the first sight I didn't know it overhere. The more that I didn't understand all the "technical" terms...

You don't believe it, even with the word "bun" as I saw now that it had to be something we call "broodje"



Even "moreish" (meer-achtig?)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moreish

"currants" I thought it were "krenten" and indeed it were...
"crumb" I thought it were "kruimels, kruimeling" and indeed it was...

And "cardamon" That's normal as I even the Dutch "kardamon" didn't know...
But reading now the wiki...no, no cardamom for me...Yes those Dutch neighbours from the North do also "sugar" in their "mayonaise" Dirk? (Marinus)...

But as I said  on the first sight I don't see anything overhere, but at the end I found this:
http://www.bakkerijwiki.nl/index.php?t=4&h=30&s=319
But Helmond in The Netherlands is near Germany...
And yes on Shrove Tuesday...

Beschuitbollen

In Helmond hoorden beschuitbollen thuis op Vastenavond. Deze moesten volgens de traditie warm worden gegeten. De bakker blies dus op zijn bakkershoorn om potentiële klanten te laten weten dat de bollen gaar en heet waren.Eenzelfde gewoonte kende men in Vlaanderen waar men sprak van ‘hetebrood trompen'.Ook Eindhoven heeft zijn warme bollen op Vastenavond.


And then further on "beschuitbollen" MM..it becomes more and more difficult...and in English that seems to be "crumpets"

https://www.daringgourmet.com/traditional-english-crumpets/




And here are "beschuitbollen"

https://www.mijnhollandsekeuken.nl/beschuitbollen/



And these "beschuitbollen", were cutted horizontal in two halves and baken again, and then they are "beschuiten" (bisquits, rusks) and as such they were the standard provisions (proviand) for seamen. Even from Roman times: "biscotum".
"In feite zijn beschuiten doormidden gesneden beschuitbollen. Deze helften werden opnieuw gebakken. Hun droog-en hardheid gaf ze het voordeel dat ze lang bewaard konden worden. Ze behoorden daardoor tot het vaste proviand van scheepslui."

And then MM, further hesitations about names as "wentelteefjes"
https://www.wentelteefjesmaken.eu/rare-naam-wentelteefjes-en-vertaling-wentelteefje-in-engels-en-frans-en-duits/
And here I learn for the first time that it is your in France "pain perdu"



But up to me, as I ate it once in a Belgian class restaurant under the name "wentelteefjes" in their dessert. And it were, and I still remember that it was with orange jam between...the pancake flap...(small pancakes fold in two with the marmelade between it...???

Kind regards, Paul.

Meles has a marvellous knack of making you crave something which you've probably never tasted before or even heard of. Now I can't rest until I've tried a Swedish cream bun both in its classic form and also cooked in custard. (I'll pass on the chocolate version though - why do some people feel the need to stick chocolate on everything?) But right now I think I could easily manage one of the cream buns followed by two in custard - no problem. Three buns, however, is still 11 short of Adolph Frederick's record.

If we're looking for famous bingers and gluttons then King Farouk of Egypt would be right up there. He died from a heart attack aged only 45 after a life spent demolishing huge quantities of roast chicken, lamb, beef, game and lobster etc prepared by some of the finest cooks in Egypt and Italy and all washed down with dozens of bottles of Coca-Cola. I seem to recall one of London's posher hotels - Brown's or The Connaught of some such - claiming that he'd eaten the largest breakfast which they'd ever had requested. I've never been able to find out exactly what was ordered that morning though or even when it was. Does anyone know?

P.S. Paul didn't Seneca make an appearance in Asterix chez les Stoïques in which Asterix 'n Seneca teamed up with Jules Pfizer to confront the villains Covidius Cépaderefus and Gracchus Coronavirus who had taken Obélix hostage.

Vizzer wrote:

Meles has a marvellous knack of making you crave something which you've probably never tasted before or even heard of. Now I can't rest until I've tried a Swedish cream bun both in its classic form and also cooked in custard. (I'll pass on the chocolate version though - why do some people feel the need to stick chocolate on everything?) But right now I think I could easily manage one of the cream buns followed by two in custard - no problem. Three buns, however, is still 11 short of Adolph Frederick's record.

If we're looking for famous bingers and gluttons then King Farouk of Egypt would be right up there. He died from a heart attack aged only 45 after a life spent demolishing huge quantities of roast chicken, lamb, beef, game and lobster etc prepared by some of the finest cooks in Egypt and Italy and all washed down with dozens of bottles of Coca-Cola. I seem to recall one of London's posher hotels - Brown's or The Connaught of some such - claiming that he'd eaten the largest breakfast which they'd ever had requested. I've never been able to find out exactly what was ordered that morning though or even when it was. Does anyone know?

Vizzer,

then have you not heard about Otto von Bismarck...I have once seen a documentary on the French-German Arte about the "essen" of Otto...
I didn't find it on the internet, but coincidentally found this...something for Meles...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QORGUbKob4I

And at the end found this:
https://kinder.wdr.de/tv/kaiserkoenigkarl/epochen/preussen/preussen-bismarckzwoelfeier100.html

Translation from "translate"
"A real glutton
But Bismarck's daily breakfast table already indicated a certain excess: cutlets, smoked fish, goose brest, sausage, butter and eggs-12 of them DAILY!!! "I cannot make a proper peace if I am not given proper food and drink" he is supposed to have said. He drunk also excesivelly (my!translation)...five bottles of beer, two bottles of wine and a few "schnapps". despite this gluttony he was 83 years old and outlived his wife and all competitors.
(my comment: only that Kaiser Wilhelm... ...

And then you had the "Bismarckhering"



KInd regards, Paul.

Further to my post of 12 February, if anyone wants to make their own 18th century style hetvägg or modern style semlor, then yesterday's youtube post on 'Tasting History' gives a good demonstration (and some history) 'Semlor: the dessert that killed a king'.

Oh, MM, you should be up there with that chap. Your stuff here is just as informative - and just as lively and interesting.

Time for your receipts book - with lots of beautiful illustrations and photos!

5 March - Today is the feast day of St Piran, or Pyran, or Peran in Cornish, who was a 5th-century Cornish abbot and saint, of Irish origin. He is the patron saint of tin-miners and is also generally regarded as the patron saint of Cornwall, although Saint Michael and Saint Petroc also have some claim to this title. St Peran's Day is celebrated as the national day of Cornwall whose emponymous dish is of course the Cornish Pasty (also sometimes known as an Oggy, from 'Hoggan' the Cornish word for it).

The word 'pasty', meaning a meat pie cooked without a container, is extremely ancient. In England they are known at least since 1296 with a reference in the 'Warwickshire Feet of Fines' to one Simon the Pasteymaker, there's a reference in 'The lay of Havelok the Dane' from 1300, and then they are repeatedly mentioned in diverse documents thereafter. In 1660 (6 January) Samuel Pepys complains of being supplied with a venison pasty which was "palpably beef" and the term occurs in the plays of both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. However these all seem to be references to the old type of all-meat pasty. Indeed the first known pasty recipe from Cornwall, in a letter from Jane Barriball of Launceston to John Tremayne of Heligan, St Ewe, dated 9th April 1746, is precisely for such a grand meat-joint pasty. However what marks-out the Cornish variety as distinctive is its construction from morsels of inexpensive meat among vegetables, suited to persons of modest means. The traditional recipe for the pasty filling is beef with potato, onion and swede/turnip, which when cooked together forms a rich gravy, all sealed in its own packet. As meat was expensive its presence was probably scarce and so 18th- or 19th-century pasties would usually have contained much more vegetable than is common today. However the presence of carrot in the filling, although common now, was said to be the mark of an inferior pasty (perhaps because old carrot varieties tended to be quite scrawny and tough).

The first clear description of a modern Cornish Pasty under that name seems to date from only 1861, although pasties were certainly being made by the wives of Cornish tin miners long before that, but such people do not generally write cookbooks or record in detail their common everyday fare. The 1861 author, writing in the Leeds Times, clearly doesn't assume his readers will know what a 'Cornish Pasty' is: "The standing dish of the country, however, is the " Cornish Pasty," the normal ingredients of which, our author informs us, are " small pieces of beef, highly peppered, enclosed in a wrapper of paste, adding, however, by way of caution to hungry and unwary tourists, that they are eatable enough when quite hot, but detestable otherwise, excepting to those who like cold potato."


Leeds Times - Saturday 21 December 1861.

There is frequent anecdotal reference to 'two course' pasties, with meat and vegetables at one end, and fruit at the other. It is known that these have been occasionally made as novelties, but there is no historical evidence for them as everyday dishes and they cannot generally be made to work well. The essential feature of the Cornish Pasty is that the filling materials are cooked together inside a well-sealed pastry so that the flavours are retained and meld. This means that a 'double-ender' inevitably ends up with unappealingly jam-flavoured meat and vegetables, and gravy-tainted fruit. Equally common is the suggestion that the thickly-rolled edge of a Cornish pasty was used as a handle by the dirty hands of tin miners who then discarded the soiled part as a meal for the 'Knockers', the capricious sprites of the mine, though it seems to me unlikely that hungry and poorly-paid miners would throw away such a treat.