Good Things in England - A Practical Cookery Book for Everyday Use, Containing Traditional and Regional Recipes Suited to Modern Tastes. Florence White
the jug. The muslin will catch up every grain, and the coffee will be deliciously clear and hot if the directions have been carefully followed.
This makes the best coffee in the world, and one of its merits is that no special apparatus of any kind is required except a supply of butter muslin, which may be washed in clean water and will serve again if neither soda nor soap be used in the process. It is therefore ‘top-hole’ for campers, hikers and backwooders.
THE CONA COFFEE POT
This coffee pot makes extremely good coffee, it has been tested in the Experiment Kitchen of the English Folk Cookery Association.
How to make Good Toast
I
1. Cut the bread (which must be at least a day old) in level slices, about 1/4 inch thick.
2. Dry each side before allowing it to brown.
3. Then brown each side.
4. Put each slice as it is done into a toast rack.
N.B.—It is worth noting that very good toast can be made on a Scotch girdle over a gas ring, or a wood fire, or an oil stove, or any other suitable heat.
II
Dry Toast
Sir Henry Thompson
1. Cut stale bread in slices 3/8 of an inch thick.
2. Toast them patiently at some little distance from a clear fire till slightly coloured on both sides.
3. Pass a sharp knife horizontally through the soft centre part, making two pieces of each slice.
4. Now toast the inner sides as before.
N.B.—‘This toast is crisp, not scorched outside and flabby inside, as toast is when put close to the fire according to the general custom. The bread for toast ought to be two days old.’
Oatmeal Porridge — Scotch Method
INGREDIENTS: Medium Oatmeal 2 oz.; water 1 pint, salt 1 teaspoonful.
TIME: 30-45 minutes.
METHOD
1.Boil the water.
2.Add the salt.
3.Sprinkle in the oatmeal whilst the water is bubbling.
4.Stir all the time with a porridge stick or spurtle (failing this use a large fork).
5.Go on stirring till the porridge is quite thick or it will get lumpy.
6.Then let it simmer either at the side of the fire or on an asbestos mat placed over a gas burner with the flame of gas turned down low.
7.Stir occasionally, and if it gets too thick add more water or milk.
8.Pour boiling hot into plates and serve with top milk or cream, whole milk or skim milk.
N.B.—More salt can be added if required, but it is not the same as when put in the water before cooking.
Frumenty
North of England Method
From an ancient manuscript in the British Museum Frumenty appears to have been used formerly as an accompaniment to animal food, as ‘venison with frumenty,’ and ‘porpoise with frumenty’ formed part of the second course served at the Royal banquet given to Henry IV at Winchester on his marriage with Joan of Navarre; and again at the Coronation feast of Henry VII and the heiress of the House of York we meet with ‘venison and frumenty;’ but at the present day it is usually boiled with new milk and sugar, to which some add spices, currants, yolks of eggs, etc., and is occasionally eaten cold as a dinner sweet at various times of the year — as Mid-Lent, Easter, and Christmas; but in the North it is considered to form part of the Christmas fare alone, and is eaten hot without any other addition than new milk, sugar, nutmeg, with a little flour mixed with the milk to thicken it and then prepared (see p. 27). If the wheat be sufficiently boiled and prepared as follows it forms a cheap, pleasant and wholesome breakfast food usually much relished by children.
INGREDIENTS: Hulled or pearled wheat 1 quart (that is to say wheat with the first husk removed, it can sometimes be bought at a corn shop, and is stocked by the Army and Navy Stores, 105 Victoria Street, London, S.W.1.), water 5 pints; milk; sugar; nutmeg; and a little flour.
I
TIME: To cree the wheat soak 12 hours; and to boil 2 hours.
METHOD
1.Put the wheat covered with cold water for 12 hours or more in a warm oven; it is wise to put it in after the cooking for the day is done and leave it all night; or it can be put in a pot into a Poore’s fireless cooker between heated stones; or it can be boiled up and put into a hay-box cooker.
2.It is then taken out, put on the stove, and boiled up till it is swollen and soft, taking care by stirring it often (as it thickens in boiling) that it does not burn; then pour it into a deep dish to cool and it will turn out a stiff glutinous mass which is called ‘cree’d’ or stewed wheat, from which frumenty, properly so-called, is made.
II
To Make Frumenty
1. Take as much frumenty wheat, or cree’d wheat, prepared as above, and boil it with double its quantity of milk until thick and creamy.
2. If required take a little flour and mix it with a little milk and stir it in to thicken it.
3. It can then be eaten as a breakfast porridge or cereal. In America this is known as ‘cracked wheat.’
N.B.—It is one of the best remedies in the world for intestinal stasis for those who can take it, but the grains of wheat embedded in it might sometimes cause irritation. Another of its merits is that it is rich in vitamins A and B.
For further information and recipes see Local and National Specialities, pages 341, 348, 349, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, and Index.
Bacon for Breakfast
1. Do not fry it in a frying-pan (except when hiking), if you can avoid it For one thing the fat splashes the stove.
2. If by any chance you have a game oven you can hook a rasher on each hook and toast it in front of the fire.
3. You can put it in a double grid that hangs on the bars of a fire if you have bars.
4. You can toast it on a toasting fork.
5. You can grill it under an electric or gas grill. As a matter of fact it cooks extremely well under an electric grill because there are no gas fumes.
6. You can roll up your slices of bacon and put them in a tin in a moderate oven and bake them for about half an hour, turning them at the end of fifteen minutes. The time depends on the heat of the oven.
N.B.—The rind and rusty bits should be cut off the bacon. For this purpose there is nothing better than scissors.
Baked Rashers