Alesandro Filippini

by Alessandro Filippini, head chef of the famous Delmonico’s in New York, 1889

Nearly every family of means is in the habit of giving a few dinners to its friends during the year. As a matter of course, the members of the family are, in return, invited to “dine out.”

If you invite your friends to a dinner, you should not wish them to go away dissatisfied. After a varied experience of many years, both in this country and in Europe, the author feels that no apologies are necessary if he endeavors to enlighten our epicures and dinner-givers as to how to arrange and serve a fine dinner, from commencement to close, after the manner of the French.

It should not be forgotten that much depends upon the appearance of the table, and the manner of serving the courses. In fact, more success can be attained by studied attention to the room, the table, and the serving of the courses, than in the preparation of costly viands.

On entering a dining-room, the first object which strikes the eye is the table. If the table is void of flowers, and other side decorations, including olives, radishes, and celery, tastefully arranged napkins and wineglasses, an impression is given of a boarding-house table. On the contrary, when you see a beautifully decorated and artistically arranged table, the heart is immediately gladdened.

A proper regard should be given to the comfort of the guests as regards temperature. Have the room neither too cold nor too warm; the temperature should never exceed sixty degrees. The dining-room should be well aired before dinner commences. Great care should be taken that the dinner be served very hot. Noises with plates and glasses should be avoided.

There is as much system in serving a fine dinner as there is in running a railroad, or in any other business. French dinners are generally served in three main courses, vix., Relevés, Entrées, and Rotis; all the rest are considered side courses. It depends entirely on the taste of the host as to how many main courses he desires served. The author would suggest to relevés, three entrées, and one or two rotis; this could be made an elaborate dinner.

Naturally, what you shall serve will depend entirely on what there is in market at the season. For instance, you cannot serve brook-trout in January, or canvas-back  duck during the months of June, July, August, or September. However, the very best in the market should invariably be selected.

Care should be taken to have the wines at the right temperature. Sherry, Sauterne, Chablis, and Rhine wines should always be served cold. Champagne should be served very cold, almost at the freezing-point. Bordeaux and Burgundy should be kept twelve hours before dinner in a room at a temperature of seventy degrees. Servants should be instructed not to fill the glasses more than three-fourths full; for guests are in danger of soiling their dresses, and again, it is not considered good form.

From the December 1898 issue of The People’s Home Journal

Peanut Candy

One cupful molasses, two cupfuls sugar, one tablespoonful vinegar, one tablespoonful butter, and one teaspoonful vanilla. Boil ten minutes, or longer, if necessary, then pour over one cupful peanuts.

Peppermint

Two cupfuls granulated sugar, six tablespoonfuls boiling water. Boil three minutes, take off and stir in one tablespoonful pulverized sugar and eight drops of the oil (not essence) of peppermint. Beat until they become milky in appearance, then drop on a firm white paper as quickly as possible.

Maple Caramels

Two pounds of maple sugar, one-half cupful of ordinary sugar and one tablespoonful of water. When it comes to a boil, put in one pint of thick cream. Stir as little as possible. Let it boil until it will harden in water sufficient to be rolled into a soft ball. Take off and let stand three minutes, then beat until just thick enough to spread smoothly on a platter. When cool mark off with a knife. It is improved by adding nuts.

Chocolate Caramels

Two cupfuls of granulated sugar, one cupful of milk, butter the size of an egg, one teaspoonful of vanilla and one-quarter cake of chocolate. Put sugar, milk and butter together, add the chocolate after it has been melted. Cook until when dropped into water it can be formed into a soft ball, then remove from the stove, put in the vanilla, beat until it is a thick, smooth cream and turn out on a buttered platter. When partially cooled mark into squares.

Molasses Taffy

Two cupfuls of New Orleans molasses, two cupfuls of brown sugar and two tablespoonfuls of butter. Boil twenty minutes without stirring, or until it hardens when dropped into cold water. Just before removing from the stove, stir in a half teaspoonful of soda. Pour on buttered plates to cool, then make white by pulling.

This taffy rule can be used as a foundation for various compounds. Omit the butter, and stir in two cupfuls of black walnut, butternut and hickory-nut meats mixed, and you have a delicious nut candy. To make peanut candy, spread shelled and quartered peanuts on a buttered platter and pour the taffy over them. For popcorn balls, stir in gently as much popped corn as you can, then mould into form.

Eating Taffy

Now is the joyous season of the year when, if you are only acquainted with the precious secret of their preparation, you can make for yourself, with ten minutes’ work, candies more delicious than were purchased at the most expensive confectioners’. The latter never have this particular sort of candies for sale, because they will not keep. But, fresh cooked, they are morsels for the gods, and this is the way to make them:

Take some big strawberries, ripe but firm, and hull them. Then mix two cupfuls of granulated sugar with a little less than one cupful of cold water. Put the mixture on a hot fire and let it boil hard, without stirring, until a spoonful dropped into cold water crystallizes to the brittle point immediately. Now take it off the fire and pour it into cups, previously warmed in the oven. Dip the strawberries one by one into this hot solution as quickly as possible, fishing them out with forks and laying them on greased tin pans.

The briefest sort of immersion will be sufficient to give each berry the desired coating of sugar candy. Finally, set the pans on the ice in the refrigerator, and as soon as the fruit is cold it will be ready to eat.  Perhaps “gobble” would be a more appropriate word, considering the eagerness with which such strawberries are usually consumed. In very truth, they are not rivaled by any other kind of sugar plums, as you will yourself confess if you try them. Malaga grapes and nuts as well may be treated in the same way.

From the same 19^th Century Almanac, a column from the same time period, newspaper unknown.

Sweets for the Sweet

Butter Scotch: One cup of molasses, one cup sugar, one-half cup butter; boil until it snaps in water.

Molasses Candy: One-half pound sugar, one-quarter pound butter, one quart molasses. Boil until it cracks in water. Pull until nearly white.

Taffy: Melt in stew pan, three ounces butter, and one pound moist sugar; stir well over slow fire. Boil one-quarter hour. Pour out in buttered dish and mark in squares.

Almond Candy: Proceed in the same way as for coconut candy. Let the almonds be perfectly dry, and do not throw them into the sugar until it approaches the candying point.

Maple Candy: Four cups of maple sirup, boil until it cracks in water, and just before taking from the fire put in a piece of butter the size of an egg. If preferred waxy do not let it cook so long.

Chocolate Caramels: One-half pound grated chocolate, two teacups sugar, one-half cup milk and water, large lump butter. Boil without stirring until done. Then pour into pans, and, when nearly cold mark out into squares.

Sugared Pop-Corn: One cup sugar, one-half cup water, one tablespoonful vinegar. Let boil until a drop hardens in water. Pile the pop-corn up in a meat-dish, pour syrup over and the corn will stick together. If the syrup is too thick, thin it with hot water.

Venice Seed Cake

by C. H. K., from The Cottage Hearth, June 1877

The accompanying illustration shows a very effective style of icing or frosting combining richness of color and contrast, yet free from any deleterious ingredient in the matter of color. Proceed as follows:

Bake a pound, sponge, or any other cake, in a large shallow tin; when baked and cold, turn it bottom up, brush off the crumbs, have ready (prepared according to the instructions for making frosting), enough frosting to thinly cover it.

Divide the frosting into two parts, let one remain plain white, color the other any desired color of pink you choose, with cochineal, or prepared vegetable pink color, place it in two separate paper cones, same as you use for ornamenting purposes.

Now take a tablespoonful of chocolate, warm it in a teacup and thin it a little with white of eggs, place this in another cone; cut off the points of each cone sufficient to admit of the sugar, &c., being pushed out the size you require it, then force it out across the cake in straight lines, chocolate, white, red, alternately; when the bottom is covered in this manner, take a knife and draw it from Fig. 1 to 2 in illustration, then 3 to 4, and so on till complete. It will then show as in illustration.

Then with the plain white sugar cone, run a fancy border round the edge as in Fig. II and it is complete. Set it by to dry, then place a dish with fancy paper under, and serve to table. The dark lines, medium and white, in the illustration, represent dark for chocolate, medium for pink sugar, and white for white sugar.