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Bill of Fare
for the April 1966 Celebration of the Esther B. Aresty Collection
of Rare Books in the Culinary Arts at the University of Pennsylvania Library:
Mixed Green Sallet with Cooked Egg Dressing
American Cookery, or the Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry and Vegetables
Amelia Simmons, 1808
Grilled Minced Mutton with Pistachios, Currants and Cinnamon
The Thorough Good Cook
George Augustus Sala, 1896
Cherry Tartlettes
The Larder Invaded
William Woys Weaver
adapted from: National Cook Book
Hannah Bouvier Peterson
Philadelphia: Child and Peterson, 1855
Baked Mincemeat Kebob
Mince three or four pounds of a leg of mutton, or any other part of raw mutton; then put three chopped onions into a stew-pan with some fresh butter, and partly fry them; add the minced mutton, with half a handful of skinned pistachios, the same of currants, a little salt, pepper, and cinnamon; stir round with a spoon until the minced meat also is partly fried; divide the mincemeat among pastry shells; lay them on a baking tin; place it in a hot oven till nicely browned; dish up tastefully and serve.
Cherry Pie
"...it was common practice to leave the cherry pits in the cherries,
both to enhance the flavor (much of the flavor is in the pits) and to hold
the shape of the fruit. Street urchins. . .simply spit out the pits; in
genteel circles, there was a "proper" ritual for removing the
pits from the lips and depositing them with a fork at the side of one's
plate. It has been said that in Philadelphia the litmus test for good breeding
was not so much one's ability to make a salad but the way one handled those
pits. In any case, while we much prefer the pits removed, here is how to
reconstruct the tartlets in an "archeologically correct" manner." - The Larder Invaded.
Original Recipe: Stew your cherries with sugar, in the proportion
of a pound of cherries to half a pound of sugar, and stir in a little flour
to thicken the syrup. Make a paste, as rich as you like, line your pie
plates, fill with the fruit, and cover with a lid of the paste.
Adaptation: 2 lb. sweet cherries, unpitted; 1/3 cup red currant jelly;
2/3 cup granulated sugar; 2 T. raw cherry juice or water; 2 T. flour. Wash
the fruit and remove the stems. Dissove the jelly and sugar in the water
or raw cherry juice. Bring this to a hard boil, and continue to boil until
it forms a syrup. Add 1 pound of fruit, stir, cover, and simmer 10 minutes.
Strain out the fruit and set aside to cool. Reheat the syrup, and repeat
the process with the remaining 1 pound of cherries. Line 14 - 16 tartlet
pans (tin patty pans) with short pie crust. The pans should measure approximately
31/2 inches in diameter and 1 inch deep. Prick the bottoms, crimp the edges
and bake at 350 degrees for roughly 15 to 20 minutes, or until crisp. Remove
the tartlet shells from the pans and cool on racks. Reduce the syrup in
which the cherries were stewed with two tablespoons of flour and cook until
thick, or add 2/3 cup of currant jelly and reduce to a glaze. Fit the cherries
into the tartlet shells and add a few tablespoons of syrup or glaze to
each. Let this cool, then pipe a decorative border of meringue around the
outside edge of each tartlet. Make the meringue in the following manner:
2 egg whites; 2 T superfine sugar; 1 T Maraschino de Zara. Beat the white
until stiff; then fold in the sugar and liqueur. After piping the meringue
on the tartlets, brown it a bit in the oven (5 minutes at 350 degrees)
or with a very hot salamander, a circular iron plate which is heated and placed over a pudding or other dish to brown it (the old method).
